Pawpaw, also known as Indiana banana, Hoosier banana and poor man's banana, is a tropical tree native to regions of North America. The fruit of this tree is reputed to have anti-cancer properties. One Purdue University professor, Dr. Jerry L. McLaughlin, spent two decades studying this fruit and its chemical constituents, acetogenins. His research and the subsequent research of others that followed, have validated the pawpaw fruit's use as a safe and effective herbal anti-cancer therapy. That said, no herbal therapy should be used in place of proper medical care, nor should it be used without a doctor's knowledge and supervision.
Pawpaw Tree
A tree indigenous to various parts of North America, the pawpaw is a member of the Custard Apple family that produces a nutritious edible tropical fruit about the size of adult fist. Growing to heights of about 25 feet, around eight different pawpaw species exist, but only one species, Asimina triloba, possesses the active chemical components, annonaceous acetogenins, reported to have anti-cancer effects.
Anti-cancer Potential
In the 1970s, under funding form the National Cancer Institute, McLaughlin, a professor of pharmacognosy at Purdue University, started studying the anti-cancer potential of botanical substances from over 3,500 plant species. In his studies, he discovered a type of long-chain fatty acid called acetogenins contained in the pawpaw fruit that he found to possess the greatest anti-cancer potential of all the compounds he'd examined. McLaughlin spent the next 20 years studying the therapeutic potentials of these pawpaw acetogenins.
How it Works
The acetogenins from the pawpaw tree, or annonaceous acetogenins, starve cancer cells of the energy they need to survive and reproduce. All cells take in glucose from the blood supply and turn it into energy, called adenosine tryphosphate, or ATP. According to McLaughlin's research, cancer cells require around 10 to 17 times more ATP than normal healthy cells and therefore tend to hog the glucose entering the bloodstream to produce all the ATP it needs to thrive. Annonaceous acetogenins is distributed in the blood supply with the glucose throughout the body. Like the glucose, most of the acetogenins wind up in the cancer cells where they impair ATP production. The resulting decrease in ATP also serves to reduce the effect known as multiple drug resistance in which cancer cells develop the ability to identify and reject chemicals anathema to it, like chemotherapy.
Research
According to a 2008 report McLaughlin published in the "Journal of Natural Products", the annonaceous acetogenins in paw paw have cytotoxic properties against cancer tumor cells. His report affirms that an encapsulated extract of these acetogenins has been used successfully by cancer patients as a supplementary therapy. A 2009 report in the "Journal of Agriculture, Food and Chemistry" backs up McLaughlin's research, verifying the anti-tumor activity of pawpaw's annonaceous acetogenins.
References
- "Journal Of Natural Products"; Paw Paw And Cancer: Annonaceous Acetogenins From Discovery To Commercial Products; Jerry L. McLaughlin; Jul 2008
- "Journal Of Agriculture, Food And Chemistry"; Identification Of Annonaceous Acetogenins In The Ripe Fruit Of The North American PawPaw (Asimina Triloba); K.W. Pomper, et al.; Sep 2009
- Purdue University Department Of Horticulture; "New Crop FactSheet: Pawpaw"; Desmond R. Layne; Feb 1998
- University Of Kentucky: "Pawpaw"
Member Comments