Anacardium occidentale L. (Anacardiaceae)

Abstract

This nutritious nut tree is pantropic in distribution, but is commonly grown in India, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Brazil, and Nigeria. Cashew nuts are rich in monounsaturated fatty acids. In Unani medicine, the fruit is regarded fattening, cardiac and brain tonic, refrigerant, kidney tonic, aphrodisiac, and improves memory and intelligence. In Iran, the fruit extract is used for the management of pain, and in the Philippines, oil of the pericarp is used as a powerful cathartic, and as anesthetic in leprosy and psoriasis, and in the treatment of warts, corns and ulcers. In the coastal lowlands of Guinea-Conakry (the Republic of Guinea), stem bark decoction is used for the management of diabetes. Fruit, bark and leaves are also used for their antifungal activity, for sores and rashes, or as antipyretic, and antidiarrheal. In northern Europe, traditional healers use it for the treatment of diabetes mellitus, and in popular Brazilian medicine it is used to treat ulcers, hypertension, and diarrhea; and leaves are used for eczema, psoriasis, scrofula, dyspepsia, genital problems, and venereal diseases, as well as for impotence, bronchitis, cough, intestinal colic, leishmaniasis, and syphilis-related skin disorders. From cashew nuts, phenolic lipids, methyl salicylate, cardols, anacardic acid and cardanols have been isolated. Aqueous fruit extract protected rats from STZ-diabetes, and methanol leaf extract lowered blood glucose of moderately diabetic rats, comparable to tolbutamide. Cashew nut extract and anacardic acid increase plasma membrane glucose transporters, resulting in elevated glucose uptake by myoblasts (myotubes), and rat liver mitochondria, by activating AMPK.