Trigger checker for mangosteen

What to know about mangosteen

Mangosteen is two different products sharing one name, and separating them answers most of what people search for. The fruit is the soft white segmented flesh inside a thick purple rind: it grades A for nickel, gluten, lactose, dairy protein, free glutamates, sulfites, nitrites, nightshades and caffeine, with mild B grades for histamine, salicylates and oxalates, and unrated FODMAP columns. That is an easy going row. The supplement is something else. The xanthones that all the mangosteen marketing rests on, alpha mangostin and its relatives, are concentrated in the bitter purple pericarp, the part nobody eats. Bottled mangosteen juice is made by pureeing the whole fruit including that rind, which is why it tastes tannic and why it carries the antioxidant claims. Those products were sold hard through multi level marketing with sweeping health claims, and regulators have issued warning letters over disease claims made for them. There is also a published case report of severe lactic acidosis in a man who drank mangosteen juice daily for about a year. One case report is not a general risk, but it is a reason to treat a concentrated daily rind extract as a supplement decision rather than a fruit decision.