Rubiaceae
Morinda citrifolia
Noni · Indian mulberry · Cheese fruit
- Part used
- fruitleafroot
- Native range
- Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific; spread by Polynesian voyagers across the Pacific
- Morphology
- A small evergreen tree to six metres with large glossy leaves and a lumpy white-green compound fruit that smells strongly of rancid cheese when ripe, which is what names it in English.
What is in it
Evidence
Heavily marketed with very broad claims and essentially no supporting clinical evidence. The trials that exist are small and do not support the marketing.
Safety
Case reports of hepatotoxicity, some involving young people, prompted a European Food Safety Authority review — which concluded noni juice was safe at normal consumption levels while noting the case reports. Very high potassium content is a genuine hazard in kidney impairment, and hyperkalaemia has been reported.
Interactions: Potassium content dangerous with potassium-sparing diuretics and ACE inhibitors in renal impairment; Possible additive with anticoagulants through vitamin K content
Regulatory: Approved as a novel food in the EU after safety review. Permitted in Australia.
Historical use
One of the canoe plants carried deliberately by Polynesian voyagers, and used across the Pacific and Southeast Asia as a famine food, a dye source and a medicine for a wide range of complaints.
Recorded as history and attributed where possible. Long use establishes that a plant was widely used, not that it worked, and not that it was safe.
Worth knowing
Noni is the best example here of a genuine Pacific canoe plant repackaged as a multi-level marketing product.
It was carried deliberately across the Pacific by Polynesian voyagers alongside taro, breadfruit and kava — a plant important enough to take on an ocean crossing. Its traditional uses are real, various and unremarkable.
From the mid-1990s it became the basis of a large network-marketing industry selling juice at extraordinary prices on claims that no evidence supports. The EFSA reviewed it after liver injury case reports and concluded ordinary consumption was safe, which is a narrower finding than the industry quotes it as.
The potassium content is the practical hazard almost nobody mentions: high enough that in someone with reduced kidney function it can produce dangerous hyperkalaemia, and that has been reported.
Nomenclature verified against GBIF backbone taxonomy.