Many people on Lactnet have touted the efficacy of Grapefruit Seed Extract on yeast infection. Most of the reports seem to be either anecdotal or claims made by people selling the GSE. A year or two ago I had heard that GSE was not effective, it was chemicals added to the GSE that actually worked and unadulterated GSE itself had no effect. While looking further into it for a client, I came across the article below on PubMed. Does anyone have anything published in a peer reviewed journal that would refute the conclusion that natural GSE without additives have any antifungal effect. Linda L Pohl, IBCLC, on a quest for evidence-based practice.... Phoenix AZ Pharmazie. 1999 Jun;54(6):452-6. Aspects of the antimicrobial efficacy of grapefruit seed extract and its relation to preservative substances contained. von Woedtke T, Schluter B, Pflegel P, Lindequist U, Julich WD. Institute of Pharmacy, Ernst Moritz Arndt University, Greifswald, Germany. The antimicrobial efficacy as well as the content of preservative agents of six commercially available grapefruit seed extracts were examined. Five of the six extracts showed a high growth inhibiting activity against the test germs Bacillus subtilis SBUG 14, Micrococcus flavus SBUG 16, Staphylococcus aureus SBUG 11, Serratia marcescens SBUG 9, Escherichia coli SBUG 17, Proteus mirabilis SBUG 47, and Candida maltosa SBUG 700. In all of the antimicrobial active grapefruit seed extracts, the preservative benzethonium chloride was detected by thin layer chromatography. Additionally, three extracts contained the preserving substances triclosan and methyl parabene. In only one of the grapefruit seed extracts tested no preservative agent was found. However, with this extract as well as with several self-made extracts from seed and juiceless pulp of grapefruits (Citrus paradisi) no antimicrobial activity could be detected (standard serial broth dilution assay, agar diffusion test). Thus, it is concluded that the potent as well as nearly universal antimicrobial activity being attributed to grapefruit seed extract is merely due to the synthetic preservative agents contained within. Natural products with antimicrobial activity do not appear to be present. PMID: 10399191 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html