Can guyabano cure cancer?

I remember receiving an e-mail that soursop or guyabano is tens of thousands more potent than chemotherapy. Having just lost a friend this year due to cancer, I looked at the title and trashed the copy dismissing it as another one of those incredulous claims.

Then I met a biochemist from a reputable university who claims three personal encounters with the efficacy of the plant. She excitedly recounted to me — in between rounds of freshly roasted Bataan coffee from her plantation — that the latest case involved the local barangay captain who was diagnosed with cancer. My husband knows him. His family was advised to prepare for the worse as he was thought to have only six months to live. Waiting for the prospect of a costly surgery, the patient got depressed and was resigned that he will not survive this. Gina boosted his morale and gave the friendly advice of taking tea from the soursop bark and leaves.

Apparently, the barangay captain did just that. He drank the soursop tea as his water for three months. He felt better and better and when he had another scan not a single tumor was seen. He was declared cancer-free!

That, of course, became a celebrated miracle in this sleepy Bataan town. I am sure they are planting guyabano obsessively as more and more harvest the fruits, leaves and bark.

Gina mentioned that the barangay captain decided to give it a try when she mentioned that her mother was diagnosed with cysts in the liver. Instead of letting her undergo surgery at her mid-60s she decided to just take the soursop tea and papaya fruit everyday instead. She claims to be healed.

Another was the case of the nanny of her boss who was diagnosed with breast cancer. Not having the funds for the surgery and treatment, she decided to go back to the province. Gina and her peers told her to take soursop tea. Six years had passed, and she is still alive and well.

If this is so true, why can’t more people benefit from it? Why don’t people know about it? According to Gina, a large pharmaceutical company in the US spent a lot of money for research on the soursop. They confirmed that it is a potent cancer cure and commissioned a group to formulate a drug that can clone the active ingredient of the soursop. She said this failed so the company — not having any means to patent their discovery — just shelved everything.

Local views

The Philippine Herbal Medicine Organization shared some views on their website: “Studies are underway by leading medical institutes, universities and pharmaceutical companies of the healing properties of guyabano against cancers. Initial findings show that certain compounds and chemicals extracted from guyabano leaves, seeds, fruit and bark appear to kill cancer cells while leaving normal cells remain unaffected.”

The information they shared should be enough for anyone to consider loving the fruit even if they are not cancer-stricken. The flesh of the fruit is high in carbohydrates and has considerable amounts of vitamins C, B1, B2, potassium and dietary fiber. We know the fruit as guyabano, but it is called graviola in Brazil and guanabana in Spain.

The organization outlined several medicinal uses for its poultice (warmed paste from pounding the leaves) and decoction (leaves boiled in water) such as to kill bedbugs and head lice, to reduce fever, to heal skin abrasions, to alleviate rheumatism and other skin infections, to prevent scarring of wounds, and as a wet compress for swollen feet and other inflammations. 

They also noted that pulverizing the seeds mixed with soap and water is an effective spray against caterpillars, armyworms and leafhoppers. In the Netherlands, leaves of the soursop are placed inside pillows or on the mattress to induce sleep due to its sedative and tranquilizing properties.

Guyabano.com

Iam not sure if this is the original source of the e-mails I got, but one was forwarded to me from this website. They claim that “the soursop or guyabano is the fruit from the graviola tree that is a miraculous natural cancer cell killer 10,000 times stronger than chemo.” They have a disclaimer that says none of the claims have been approved and that the website merely presents information, pertinent aspects of which I lifted are here:

“Research shows that with extracts from this miraculous tree it now may be possible to attack cancer safely and effectively with an all-natural therapy that does not cause extreme nausea, weight loss and hair loss. Protect your immune system and avoid deadly infections. Feel stronger and healthier throughout the course of the treatment. Boost your energy and improve your outlook on life.

“Extracts from the tree were shown to: Effectively target and kill malignant cells in 12 types of cancer, including colon, breast, prostate, lung and pancreatic cancer. The tree compounds proved to be up to 10,000 times stronger in slowing the growth of cancer cells than a commonly used chemotherapeutic drug.

“The compound extracted from the graviola tree selectively hunts down and kills only cancer cells. It does not harm healthy cells. Various parts of the graviola tree — including the bark, leaves, roots, fruit and fruit-seeds — have been used for centuries by medicine men and native Indians in South America to treat heart disease, asthma, liver problems and arthritis.

“It turns out the drug company (that) invested nearly seven years trying to synthesize two of the graviola tree’s most powerful anti-cancer ingredients. If they could isolate and produce man-made clones of what makes the graviola so potent, they’d be able to patent it and make their money back. Alas, they hit a brick wall. The original simply could not be replicated. There was no way the company could protect its profits — or even make back the millions it poured into research.

“The National Cancer Institute performed the first scientific research in 1976. The results showed that graviola’s “leaves and stems were found effective in attacking and destroying malignant cells. Inexplicably, the results were published in an internal report and never released to the public.

“Since 1976, graviola has proven to be an immensely potent cancer killer in 20 independent laboratory tests, yet no double-blind clinical trials — the typical benchmark mainstream doctors and journals used to judge a treatment’s value — were ever initiated.

“A study published in the Journal of Natural Products, following a recent study conducted at Catholic University of South Korea stated that one chemical in graviola was found to selectively kill colon cancer cells at 10,000 times the potency of the commonly used chemotherapy drug. The most significant part of the Catholic University of South Korea report is that graviola was shown to selectively target the cancer cells, leaving healthy cells untouched.

“A study at Purdue University recently found that leaves from the graviola tree killed cancer cells among six human cell lines and were especially effective against prostate, pancreatic and lung cancers.”

Of course, I discovered out soon that this website sells guyabano supplements. But I guess, here in the Philippines where the blessed fruit abounds, you can just eat the fruit, drink the juice or make a tea from boiling the leaves and bark if you believe any of the claims.

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