When chewed, coca leaves acts as a mild stimulant and suppresses hunger, thirst, pain, and fatigue. It helps overcome altitude sickness and helps ease stomach pains. Coca chewing and drinking of coca tea is carried out daily by millions of people in the Andes without problems, and is considered sacred within indigenous cultures.
Coca tea is widely used, even outside the Andean Amazon region. Coca has an established use spread among all social classes and now there is an increasing use of coca flour as a food supplement.
