In the U.S. (and across the West, more generally), we are understandably suspicious of medical hoaxes and scams, given the damage they can cause. Our media and pundits try to weed out medical assertions that are unsupported by science. The Internet, in particular, abounds with dubious products whose untested, often wildly oversold effects can easily persuade the unthinking and the credulous to part with their cash.
Yet as someone who follows and comments on developments in especially psychiatry, I frequently am struck by the faith we place in products that come with FDA approval, but a litany of unpleasant, sometimes risky side effects. When, for example, millions of men across America are willing to "double their risk of hearing loss" and jeopardize their eyesight for an erection, as recent studies warn about those routinely taking Viagra, you know that potency is something we take very seriously as a people and culture. Seriously enough to tune out such warnings and opt unthinkingly for a blue pill, rather than a wealth of natural aphrodisiacs whose effect is basically identical—minus, of course, the nasty health risks.
When our knowledge of natural products is also limited, even impoverished, by cultural biases that skew toward pharmaceuticals, our information-base shrinks accordingly. We ignore the well-known medicinal properties of vast amounts of natural products and end up placing enormous faith in pills whose very advertisements are forced to devote significant amounts of time and space to a laundry list of side effects. (The U.S. shares with New Zealand the dubious distinction of being the only Western countries to allow direct-to-consumer advertising of psychotropic pharmaceuticals.)
Because I also spend large amounts of time in South America, in particular Perú, from where I'm blogging this summer, cultural differences in medicine and public health can be especially striking. From here, over the last few weeks, I've been able to follow with intense interest the arguments both for and against naturally existing cancer-fighting agents, such as the leaves of the guanabana tree (hereafter known as "graviola"). From all that I've been able to investigate, from PubMed to the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health, my sense is that the leaves of this remarkably promising fruit should be getting more rather than less attention from the scientific community. Yet though in Perú graviola is routinely part of a cancer-fighting arsenal, along with chemotherapy, in the States the latter prevails, eclipsing more or less all other options.
First, some key background. About three years ago, word spread rapidly on the web about the cancer-fighting properties of "graviola," the leaves of the guanabana tree (Annona muricata), also known as "soursop," "cherimoya," "custard apple," and "Brazilian paw paw." The tree grows in Perú, Colombia, and Brazil, as well as countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia with similarly temperate climates. In all of these countries, the fruit is eaten widely; it is often put in shakes and fruit salads, because it is so delicious. Additionally, the leaves and fruit are frequently used to treat viruses, infections, and depression. There is also, apparently, limited production of the fruit in southern Florida.
As millions of people suffer from all kinds of cancers, for which we have treatments such as radiation and chemotherapy (generally, with terrible side effects) but no cure, interest in and demand for graviola, in particular, skyrocketed around 2008 when reports of its efficacy started to rise. At the same time, some small businesses and a few hucksters, generally selling graviola with a host of other products (essiac tea, burdock root, sheep sorrel, blue-green algae, and so on), overstated their medicinal effects, whose accuracy had also been exaggerated in all the hubbub and excitement. Very quickly, a treatment known to kill some cancer cells and tumors (see below) morphed inaccurately into assurance about cancer's cure.
As rapidly as excitement had skyrocketed, skeptics rushed to denounce the "cancer cure" as a fraud and scam afflicting the needy, the desperate, and the gullible. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) swooped in to fine and close various businesses that had unwisely reported an ability to cure cancer. And in September 2008, Medical News Today publicized the FTC's actions, quoting its director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, Lydia Parkes, as saying: "There is no credible scientific evidence that any of the products marketed by these companies can prevent, cure, or treat cancer of any kind" (my emphases).
The only problem with Parkes's blanket dismissal of all these elements is that, in the case of graviola at least, her claim wasn't in fact true.
In 1976, as Richard D. McCarthy, MD, reports on the encyclopedic cancer website U.S. Cancer Centers: Cancer Center Information and Research, "The NCI or the National Cancer Institute did some research on the guanabana cancer cure [sic] and came up with some interesting results. The study . . . showed that the leaves and stems of the plant were incredibly efficient at destroying certain cancerous cells in the body."
"Inexplicably," another site notes, "the results [of the NCI research] were published in an internal report and never released to the public. Since 1976, guanabana has proven to be an immensely potent cancer killer in 20 independent laboratory tests, but as of now, no double-blind clinical trials. [However], 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 guanabana was found to selectively kill colon cancer cells at '10,000 times the potency of (the commonly used chemotherapy drug) Adriamycin. '... The most significant part of the Catholic University of South Korea report is that guanabana was shown to selectively target the cancer cells, leaving healthy cells untouched."
Adds the same site, "A study at Purdue University, Indiana, recently found that leaves from the guanabana tree killed cancer cells among six human cell lines and were especially effective against prostate, pancreatic and lung cancers." The article, "Paw Paw and Cancer: Annonaceous Acetogenins from Discovery to Commercial Products," appearing in Journal of Natural Products 71.7 in 2008, was authored by Dr. Jerry L. McLaughlin of Purdue's Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology. The journal is published by the American Chemical Society and American Society of Pharmacognosy (copyright restrictions prevent me from circulating the article in question).
In response to the predictably enormous rise in public interest in graviola,
Cancer Research UK also
released a statement about the alleged cancer "cure" that included these sentences:
"In laboratory studies, graviola extracts can kill some types of liver and breast cancer cells that are resistant to particular chemotherapy drugs. But there haven't been any large-scale studies in humans. So we don't know yet whether it can work as a cancer treatment or not. Overall, there is no evidence to show that graviola works as a cure for cancer."
On the basis of the laboratory studies quoted here, with Cancer Research UK acknowledging that "graviola extracts can kill some types of liver and breast cancer cells," you might think that such preliminary but hopeful results would at least warrant further investigation. As the site states, "we don't know yet," implying a desire for further research, but also essentially acknowledging ignorance because of the rather astonishing absence of "large-scale studies in humans."
