Mexican Yam Health Article

Description

Mexican yam is one of some 850 species of yam in the Dioscoreaceae family. It is a perennial plant with twisting, climbing vines that grows in warm tropical climates. There are also some twists and turns related to this plant's identity and its use as a herbal remedy.

The wild yam (Dioscorea villosa) is a climbing plant that is native to the southeast United States and Canada. Such wild yam species as Dioscorea floribunda as well as Dioscorea villosa are native to Mexico. These plants are used for the herbal preparations known as Mexican yam and Mexican wild yam. Mexican wild yam also grows in the southeastern United States and Appalachia.

An extract of this plant is used as a herbal remedy called Mexican yam, wild yam, and Mexican wild yam. It is sold as a "natural hormone" cream and oral remedy. Mexican wild yam is also known as colic root, China root, rheumatism root, devil's bones, and yuma.

There is another twist to this plant's identity. Although the Mexican yam has fleshy edible roots, this is not the yam that people associate with Thanksgiving dinner. That yam is actually the sweet potato, a vegetable that is the root of a trailing plant. It is a member of the morning glory family.

The identification of the sweet potato as a yam is can be traced to the pre-Civil War era of slavery in the United States. The sweet potato reminded slaves from sub-Saharan Africa of the yam plants in their homeland.

General use

Mexican yam has long had a reputation as a woman's herb. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, wild yam was used to treat menstrual pain and conditions related to childbirth. Pregnant women used wild yam to combat nausea, ease aching muscles, and prevent miscarriages.

Wild yam was also used as a colic remedy. Furthermore, the plant's anti-inflammatory properties were thought to be effective in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.

Most of those uses were forgotten after Japanese researchers in 1936 discovered that wild yam contained diosgenin, a chemical that scientist Russell Marker used in the 1940s to create synthetic progesterone and the hormone DHEA.