Originally Posted by
trailrider38
Wild Mexican Yam as a Source of Natural and Synthetic Progesterone
In 1936, Japanese researchers realized that diosgenin extracted from the yam was remarkably similar to some of the adrenal hormones and to the precursor molecule, cholesterol. The key breakthrough came in 1943 when Professor Russell Marker of the University of Pennsylvania traveled to Mexico. He knew that certain plant substances were used by "medicine men" throughout Central and South America and China and that certain yams were being used for birth control and to treat female problems, so he theorized that there were some hormonal properties in a specific local species of wild yam.
The Mexican Barbasco Yam has vine-like leaves and black ‘potato’ tubers which grow underground. They were grown wild in mountainous regions. Marker learned how the locals prepared and used the yams and the turning point came when he presented a bag of a powdered white substance to one of the leading pharmaceutical companies and claimed it contained progesterone which he had extracted from the Barbasco yam. He valued that initial sample at just $800.
At that time, progesterone and estrogen were derived only through expensive chemical extraction methods from animal urine at a cost of approximately $3,000 a kilo. Marker’s product was tested and found to be pure progesterone. Following Marker’s discovery, yams created a booming steroid industry in Mexico. By 1951 Fortune Magazine claimed that the steroid industry had created "the biggest technological boom ever heard south of the border".
Over the next 20 to 30 years, the value of the Barbasco Yam increased dramatically and the steroid hormone business exploded as the yams provided an easier, much less expensive way to manufacture hormones for birth control and hormone therapies for menopausal women and those who have undergone hysterectomies.
Progesterone derived from the wild Mexican yam was never patented and, like diosgenin itself, is freely available. Without the protection of patents that safeguard the profit potential of synthesized hormones developed from plant sources, the pharmaceutical industry has never had much interest in the basic natural building blocks. Quite the opposite, they regard ‘natural’ products as a threat and there is a concerted effort to block their availability to the general public.
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