Before talking about graviola as an alternative cancer treatment, it is important to talk a little about this plant that some people dare to call “Natural Miracle remedy for cancer”. Graviola, also known as soursop, guanabana, Brazilian pawpaw,is a delicious fruit consumed in many parts of the world. In addition to the fruit, the leaves and roots are also used for medicinal purposes. The tree has large green leaves and yellow-green edible fruits, andgrows mostly in the Caribbean, Amazon rainforest, and other places where the climate is convenient for its development, but mainly in warm tropical regions. The plant is also found in certain US states (Florida for instance) in the backyard of Haitians and Jamaicans.
Nutritional values of Graviola
Graviola is rich in minerals: Iron, potassium, calcium, copper, magnesium, manganese, sodium, phosphorus, sulfur, selenium, zinc; vitamins: Vitamin A, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, vitamin B3, vitamin C; as well as dietary fiber, tannins (commonly referred to as tannic acid), proteins, and lipids.
Medicinal Uses of Graviola
According to many studies, extracts from Brazilian pawpawcan fight against cancer without causing adverse effects (nausea, weight loss, hair loss, organ damage…) as it is the case in the conventional treatment (chemotherapy, radiation therapy). In fact, graviola makes cancer patients have more energy and improves their vision, strengthens and protects their immune system to help the body fight against deadly infections which tend to occur during cancer. In addition, it is reported that people feel stronger and healthier throughout the treatment when taking soursop.
All over the world, people use graviola to treat many illnesses: insomnia, nervousness, depression, bronchitis, breathing difficulties, cough, diabetes, fever, liver disorders, rheumatism, hypertension, inflammation, slow digestion, heart disease, spasms, digestive disorders, parasites, worms, tumor and the list goes on. Clearly soursop works; otherwise different culture would not use it like this.
The question is ‘Does Graviola Effectively Treat (or cure) Cancer?’
For decades soursophas been on the news and all over the internet as an alternative cancer treatment. It is not difficult to find this claim when Google it: “graviola is 10,000 times morepowerful than chemotherapy”.
All these discoveries began with a small study decades ago during which the researchers were able to identify the specific active ingredients of graviola called annonaceous acetogenins, antitumor and pesticidal agents that are found only in the plants of Annonaceae Family. The encouraging results observed in a short period of time, and encouraged the researchers to do experiment, which has led to over 600 studies with excellent results.
Although there were previous studies, its 1976 that graviola has been shown to be a potentcancer killer after 20 independent laboratory tests. A study published in the Journal of Natural Products, which was also confirmed by a similar study conducted by the Catholic University of South Korea, showed that graviola may selectively kill colon cancer cells with a capacity 10,000times greater than chemotherapy medications commonly used, Adriamycin (Doxorubicin) for instance.
The study provided vivid details on the beneficial effects of soursop as an alternative cancer treatment. According to the information provided by the researchers of the Catholic University of South Korea, Graviola selectively targets cancer cells, leaving healthy cells intact, unlikechemotherapy which indiscriminately targets all actively reproducing cells, and thus causing devastating side effects: hair loss, nausea, anemia, damage to the vital organs (kidney, liver, heart…).
A recent study conducted by Purdue University (West Lafayette, Indiana) has found that leaves from the Graviola tree killed cancer cells and were especially effective against prostate, pancreatic and lung cancers. Other studies have shown the effectiveness of the plant in killing malignant cells in 12 types of cancer, including the top killers: colorectal cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer and pancreatic cancer; and is up to 10,000 times stronger inslowing the growth of cancer cells comparatively to chemotherapy.
A major US pharmaceutical company then invested nearly seven years trying to synthesize two of the Graviola anti-cancer ingredients. But it has not been successful to synthesize the active ingredients of the plant. In short, the synthetic cannot work as the natural. They finally abandoned the project. The National Cancer Institute performed the first scientific research in 1976. The results showed that the leaves and stems of Graviola have proven effective to attack and destroy malignant cells.
More Recent Studies Confirm graviola as an Alternative cancer Treatment
In 1997, a small group of scientists has discovered that Graviola also contains alkaloids that have anti-depressive effect. In the same year, Purdue Universitypublished an interesting discovery confirming more healing properties of Graviola. Their clinical studies have confirmedthat the “acetonine Annonacae” in Graviola are so effective that they not only kill normal cancer cells, but cancer cells that are resistant to chemotherapy, a phenomina in which cancer cells thathave survived chemotherapy have developed resistance against many other types of chemo drugs (Multi-Drug-Resistant).