[DIYbio] Re: A beginners question about a medicinal plant

Hi,
First of all I would collect as many information as possible regarding the plant. It is likely that someone else undertook this type of research in the past. One important point is to pin down in which cases this treatment was adviced: when this plant was started being used in the past, there was no idea of immune system. Therefore, its usage must have been associated with some kind of symptom or illness. Was it used to treat just "general weakness" or some certain type of infection?

Once you have those information, you should find a way to measure the effect. I would suspect that if there is an effect, then it works by killing bacteria rather than boosting the white blood cells: it is more plausible that the plant produces an antibiotics for ist own usage, rather than a molecule that by sheer chance works on our immune system.
Checking is the juice slows bacteria growth is a pretty easy experiment, a starting point would be to test it on safe bacteria. However, given that the juice has antibiotic activity, its "spectrum" might restricted to the microbes involved in the specific illness it is used to treat. In this case you would have to use a pathogenic strain and that is not DIYable. Involving a biology lab would be necessary.

A small "clinical study" is also out of reach, primarily because of the ethical problems involved.

Best
-ukitel