PAU D'ARCO / LAPACHO (Tabebuia impeteginosa)

Available either as a dried herb or herbal tincture.

Please note this is a nutritional, functional horse food supplement and not veterinary medicine. See Dr Kellon's Horse Sense - 'Nutrition is not 'Alternative' Therapy.

Tincture

Our human-grade, certified organic tinctures give you a ready-to-absorb potent source of phytonutrients at the highest-strength available, for immediate absorption straight into the bloodstream and to the body’s cells.

100% certified organic pure tincture: Hydroanthas impeteginosa (Pau D'Arco/Lapacho Tree) Inner Bark, Decocted 1:3 35% , Wild Harvested

Feed Guide

• Horse - 30-40ml / Pony - 15-20ml, daily in feed.
• Always shake the bottle to disperse any sediment.
• 3-year shelf-life.

Dried Herb

Produced to ecological standards and free from agro-chemicals.

Wild Harvested dried bark: Hydroanthas impeteginosa (Pau D'Arco/Lapacho Tree) Inner Bark, Origin Brazil (Not certified organic)

Feed Guide

• 5g/100kg bodyweight per day, thus for an average 500kg horse add 25g daily to feed.
• 1-year shelf-life.

Functional Nutritional Value

Constituents: Naphthoquinones such as lapachol, lapachone and xyloidone ; phenolic acids such as veratric acid ; tannins; coumarins; flavonoids; catechins; calcium oxalate, iridoids, carnosol.

NB. Our range of botanicals are all grown, harvested and dried without the use of agri-chemicals, non-irradiated and GMO free. Laboratory tested for identification and compliance to the British and European Pharmacopoeia standards, and human grade.

Please be aware that if you're purchasing our dried botanicals for human use, our dried range is cut to appropriate sizes for feeding to horses.

More ...

There are many different species of the South American tree known as Pau D’Arco (also known as Lapacho) and these are used similarly in herbalism. The most common generally associated are Tabebuia , Handroanthus , and Tecoma , with Tabebuia impetiginosa being the species that we use. It’s an incredibly striking tree, known commonly as the Pink Trumpet tree, and if you’re interested to see it in the flesh, you’ll find a proud example at Kew Gardens.

Pau d’arco is loved not only for its beauty, but also for its practical uses. The term pau d’arco means ‘bow stick’ in Portuguese – no prizes for correctly guessing that the wood has been used by archers to make hunting bows. The flowers provide food for hummingbirds and bees and the trees are so important in Paraguay and Venezuela that they have adopted Tabebuia spp. trees as national symbols.

The trees are often seen on streets and boulevards in South America, and the large trumpet-shaped flowers are so striking that President Theodore Roosevelt requested seeds to grow in the United States after seeing them while on a visit to Argentina. Pau d’arco’s namesake lake in the northern Brazilian state of Piauí was named after the Kayapó indigenous tribe native to the region, which is where the nickname ‘Kapacho’ comes from.

Since pau d’arco is sold under the name “ipê” for its wood and “pau d’arco” for its bark, many loggers aren’t aware of the tree’s herbal value. Depending on the region and tree type, generally a poultice of pau d’arco bark is used for skin conditions such as eczema, psoriasis, fungal infections, and skin cancer. It’s particularly well known for yeast conditions such as candida.

In the Amazon, the Guarani and Tupi indigenous peoples use the bark as an overall tonic to support strength and vigour. A traditional preparation of the bark’s antifungal properties is used as a douche for yeast infections, and throughout South America, its regularly used as an astrigentt, an anti-inflammatory, and an antibacterial. An in vitro study comparing extracts of the inner bark and common antibiotics on normal intestinal flora v. harmful bacteria showed that pau d’arco extracts inhibited E. coli without affecting beneficial gut biota. It’s also indicated in cases of intestinal and joint inflammation, dysentery, fever, sore throat, wounds, snakebites, as well as circulatory and degenerative disorders.

A quick summary of other South American countries’ use for it:

• Argentina - diarrhea and infections of the respiratory and urinary tract systems.
• Mexico - uterine cancer, malaise, pain, and headache, decrease fevers, anaemia.
• Costa Rica - headaches, colds, fever, constipation, snakebites, boils, dysentery, wounds, pharyngitis, and as a fungicide.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) screened plants in the tropics in order to isolate potential cancer-fighting compounds, and one of these naphthoquinone compounds was lapachol (Cragg & Newman, 2005; Gomez-Castellanos et al., 2009 ). The study was discontinued due to the side effects of nausea and vomiting (Taylor, 2005), but lapachol’s beneficial value has continued to be researched over the years.

Generally pau d’arco acts as an immune stimulant, anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and has shown antifungal action against Candida albicans and other fungal infections. Because of its cytotoxic action, it has been shown to compliment inhibition of certain tumours and has a long history of being used traditionally with some types of cancer. In one small, uncontrolled study involving nine human participants with a range of cancers, lapachol shrank tumours and reduced pain levels (Santana et al., 1980).

Although the majority of the active component research has concentrated on lapachol , other naphthoquinones and their derivatives are thought to contribute significantly to its herbal activity.

We blend Pau D'Arco into many of our blends due to its potent antibacterial properties, specifically our BioCARE, BiomeTonic, EyeTonic, LKLCARE, LymeCARE, MetaTonic, and OptimaCARE.

Safety

• Pau D'Arco should not be used during pregnancy, as its use is associated with substantial risk of malformation or irreversible damage in the foetus.
• It is considered compatible with nursing, but caution is advised. No evidence has been found that the long-term use of pau d’arco is unsafe.
• Since the herbal effects of pau d’arco are likely to be mild, it should not be used as a solitary support for infections or cancer.