Thank goodness for the conscience of a scientist working for one of America’s billion-dollar pharmaceutical giants.
The drug corporation spent seven years trying to synthesize two of the powerful anti-cancer ingredients found in a small South American tree so they could patent the chemicals and reap huge profits.
But they couldn’t replicate the compounds found in the plant, so they threw in the towel and buried their findings to keep them from rivals. . .
Believing this concealment to be immoral, the scientist secretly informed a nutritional products company of their research. Now you or someone you love can reap the benefits. . .
Continued below. . .
Special Message from Lee Euler
New Hip? New Knee?
The plant revealed by the scientist, together with its array of cancer-fighting properties, became available to the public as a supplement at the beginning of the millennium, many years earlier than it would have been without his intervention.
It’s called graviola.
Wide-ranging health properties
Graviola (annona muricata), which also goes by many other names including soursop, custard apple and guanabana, grows to about 18 feet and is native to the area around the Amazon basin.
The tree produces a fruit which is spiny and green on the outside, but has a tangy sweet flesh on the inside. In Central and South American cuisine it is incorporated into ice cream, candy and beverages.
It’s a good source of potassium, calcium, magnesium, folic acid, vitamins B1, B2, C and fiber, and contains a wide range of plant chemicals with known health benefits.
Traditional healers have used the roots, leaves, seeds, bark, flowers and fruit to treat arthritis, hypertension, inflammation, digestive disorders, bacterial and fungal infections, fevers and more.
In studies of cells cultured in the lab, scientists have found extracts of graviola possess antiviral, antibacterial, anti-parasitic, and antioxidant properties.
Animal studies have shown that graviola protects against ulcers, lowers inflammation, acts against viruses and reduces pain. It was also shown to have lipid-lowering, antioxidant, and protective effects on pancreatic β-cells in diabetic rats, improving glucose metabolism.
The first scientific research on graviola was conducted by the National Cancer Institute in 1976. Although they found it effective in killing cancer cells, their results remained within an internal report and were never publicly released.
It wasn’t until over two decades later that researchers started looking seriously into the plant’s anticancer properties.
Fights breast cancer
Thanks to a grant from the National Cancer Institute, in 1997 a research team from Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana studied 14 members of a family of structures found in graviola called Annonaceous acetogenins.
They tested these substances on multidrug-resistant breast cancer cell lines. They found that some of the acetogenins possessed “as much as 250 times the potency” of the chemotherapy drug, adriamycin.1
In 2000 a group from South Korea also found two of graviola’s active compounds “showed selective cytotoxicity comparable with adriamycin” in breast as well as colon cancer cell lines.2
A research group from Virginia Tech demonstrated that graviola fruit extract as a juice successfully inhibited the growth of breast cancer cells on the skin of human patients without any damaging effects on healthy breast tissue.
In addition, mice given the extract in their diet for five weeks saw significant reduction in protein expression in breast tumors. Overall the treatment reduced tumor growth by almost a third.3
Researchers from Kenya and Egypt also found that leaf extracts were toxic to breast cancer cells. They described graviola as “a promising new antioxidant and anticancer agent.”4
Effective against many other cancers
Liver: In 2002 extracts from the leaves and seeds were shown to exhibit significant activity against two types of human liver cells.5
Lung: A research group from Malaysia found that leaf extracts were toxic to lung cancer cell lines, “leading to cell cycle arrest and programmed cell death.”6
Pancreas: In 2012 scientists from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Omaha, Nebraska conducted experiments on pancreatic cancer cells in both culture and mice.
They found that graviola was able to kill cancer by impeding cellular metabolism. It inhibited a number of signaling pathways that determine how cancer cells grow, how long they live, and how they metastasize within the host.
Altering these parameters restricted growth and spread of the disease.
They described their findings as “promising.”7
Colon: Researchers from North Carolina published findings which showed that graviola dramatically outperformed adriamycin in their laboratory tests of colon cancer cells. In fact, they found that one of the compounds in graviola called cis-annonacin had “10,000 times the potency” of the drug.8
A study published in the Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition earlier this year divided colorectal cancer patients into two groups of 14. One group ingested graviola leaf extract for eight weeks while the other took a placebo.
Human colorectal cell lines were then treated with serum taken from the patients’ blood. The findings were that 97% of the serum from the graviola group inhibited the cells’ growth compared to only 58.3% of the placebo group. Normal cells were unaffected.9
Prostate: Since 2014 there have been four published reports into the benefits of graviola in prostate cancer. All of them found it to be effective in inhibiting cell proliferation. These reports confirm earlier findings from other labs.
According to researchers writing in Scientific Reports last year, graviola pulp extract “possesses strong efficacy against PCa [prostate cancer]. Since Graviola pulp is widely consumed by humans and is non-toxic, it could be readily developed for chemoprevention use in normal/high risk individuals as well as for intervention in PCa patients.”10
Other lab studies have found graviola successfully acts against ovarian, skin, and stomach cancer as well as lymphoma. In all, It’s been found effective in killing malignant cells in a dozen different types of cancer.
How does graviola fight cancer?
By 2015, 133 acetogenins had been identified as having anti-cancer activity. Not all of these compounds are found in graviola, but many are.
They appear to be particularly attracted to certain enzymes found in the cell wall of tumors. Once they arrive, they inhibit ATP which creates the energy the cell needs to survive and prosper.
In the 1990s, Purdue University published nine studies and tested 14 different acetogenins, some of which are found in graviola. They demonstrated powerful ATP-blocking properties.
Graviola was also found to inhibit NADPH oxidases (NOX). These proteins are important regulators of cell differentiation, growth and proliferation, and can be overexpressed in cancer.
The NOX system is known to play an important role in prostate cancer growth and proliferation.
In the prostate paper cited above, the researchers wrote that their study showed for the first time that graviola pulp extract “is a novel NOX inhibitor…” in this disease.
The nutrition company the compassionate drug corporation scientist approached with the lowdown on his employer’s research is no longer around, but there are a number of other companies that now offer graviola either as a supplement or tea.