6 Reasons Cat's Claw Earned Its Place in Peruvian Homes

May 28, 2026

Walk into a household in the Peruvian highlands and you might spot a jar of dried bark tucked next to the cooking oil. That's uña de gato, cat's claw, and in much of Peru it's more of a pantry staple than a specialty supplement. The vine grows wild in the Amazon basin, its hooked thorns shaped like a feline's claw, and people there have been steeping the inner bark for generations. Long before any of it showed up in capsule form in the United States, Asháninka and Shipibo communities were brewing it for joint aches, gut trouble, and that run-down feeling that comes with a hard rainy season.

We sell quite a bit of it. So we figured it was worth writing down, plainly, why this particular herb has stuck around for so long. None of this is a medical claim. We're just telling you what people use it for, what the research has actually looked at, and where it gets murky.

1. The tradition runs deep, and it isn't marketing fluff

Indigenous use of Uncaria tomentosa goes back at least two thousand years. The Asháninka people, who live along the Tambo and Ene rivers, traditionally prepared the inner bark as a strong decoction for what they describe as life-force imbalances, which, depending on the situation, included everything from inflammatory pain to recovery after illness. In the 1970s an Austrian researcher named Klaus Keplinger spent time in those communities studying the plant, and his work helped push it into wider scientific view. It's one of the few Amazonian botanicals that has both a long traditional record and a decent paper trail in peer-reviewed journals.

2. Researchers keep coming back to the inflammation angle

If you scan PubMed for cat's claw studies, the most common thread is inflammation. A 2002 trial in the Journal of Rheumatology looked at people with rheumatoid arthritis taking a freeze-dried cat's claw extract alongside their regular medication. After 24 weeks, the cat's claw group reported fewer painful joints than the placebo group. The sample was small, only 40 people, and the effect was modest, but it's been cited often because the design was reasonably tight.

Other studies on osteoarthritis of the knee have shown similar small wins on pain scores. The science isn't settled. But the inflammation story is the most consistent one across the literature, and it lines up with what Peruvians have said about the plant for centuries.

3. It has a long history with immune support, with caveats

Cat's claw contains a class of compounds called pentacyclic oxindole alkaloids, sometimes shortened to POAs. In lab settings, these have shown immunomodulating effects, meaning they seem to nudge immune cells in different directions depending on what the body needs. That's interesting in theory. In practice, the human evidence is thinner. A few small studies on people getting chemotherapy or dealing with viral infections have suggested possible benefit, but the trials are too small and too varied to draw firm conclusions.

Here's the honest version: the test-tube data is genuinely intriguing. The human data is preliminary. We'd rather tell you that than oversell it. If you're curious about the broader category, our Immune Support collection includes a few other Peruvian classics worth a look.

4. People drink the tea for digestive complaints

In Lima markets you'll see vendors selling little bundles of bark for "estómago," meaning stomach problems. The bitter compounds in the bark are thought to support the gut lining, and folk use includes ulcers, gastritis, and that general post-meal heaviness that comes from eating too much of your grandmother's cooking. The clinical data here is mostly limited to animal models, but it's another area where traditional use and lab findings point in roughly the same direction.

If you don't want capsules, the Cat's Claw Tea is probably the closer match to how people actually consume it in Peru. The tea is milder. The capsules are stronger and more standardized. Pick based on what your routine looks like.

5. Athletes and weekend warriors keep it in rotation for joint recovery

Plenty of our repeat customers are people in their 40s, 50s, and beyond who picked up cat's claw after a knee surgery or a shoulder flare-up. The pattern we hear is something like: "I tried it for three months, and the morning stiffness got better." We can't promise that's the herb doing it. Could be the herb. Could be the routine of taking something every morning. Could be both. But the anecdotal volume on joint recovery is large enough that we think it's worth mentioning.

This also lines up with the rheumatology research mentioned earlier. Our capsules deliver 2,400 mg of pure cat's claw bark per serving, so the dose is real, not a token amount tucked behind a proprietary blend.

6. It's sustainably wild-harvested when you buy the real thing

Most of the cat's claw on the market comes from wild vines in Peru's Amazon. The good harvesters cut the secondary stems and leave the main vine intact so the plant regenerates. Our supplier works directly with communities in the Ucayali region, which keeps the supply chain shorter and lets the harvesters get paid a fair share. It matters more than it sounds. Cat's claw that's been improperly stripped from a vine kills the plant and damages the surrounding forest.

A few cautions before you start

Cat's claw isn't for everyone. Skip it if you're pregnant or breastfeeding. The plant has historical use as a contraceptive, and we'd rather you not risk it. People on blood thinners, immune-suppressants (including after organ transplants), or blood-pressure medication should talk to a doctor before adding it, since the plant can interact with these. If you have an autoimmune condition, the immunomodulating effect cuts both ways and is worth a conversation with a clinician.

It's also not a quick fix. Most people who report benefits were taking it consistently for six to eight weeks before noticing much. If you try it for a week and feel nothing, that's actually normal.