Anti-Cancer Properties of Rain Forest Fruit

Mounting scientific evidence suggests that antioxidant-rich fruits confer cancer preventative effects.  Sapodilla (sapota) fruit, which hails from the rain forests of central America, is now grown and consumed across numerous tropical climate countries.   A number of important phytochemicals have been indentified in Sapodilla fruit, including saponins and triterpenoids, as well as flavonoids, polyphenols, , quercitin, , catechin, epicatechin, gallocatechin and gallic acid.  Scientists from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore (India) conducted experiments using different human cancer cell lines and mice induced to develop breast cancer to test and verify the efficacy of the sapota fruit extract in inhibiting cancer cell proliferation.   In the case of human cells, the anti-tumor potency was pronounced in the case of leukemia. Of the two different human leukaemia cancer cell lines studied, the effect was pronounced in one of them (NALM6), with the viability significantly affected after 48 hours of treatment at extract concentrations of 1 mg/ml onwards.  As well, the researchers observed an approximate three-fold increase in lifespan in in the tumor bearing mice that were treated with Sapota extracts.  Observing that: “methanolic extracts of Sapota fruit induces cytotoxicity in a dose-dependent manner in cancer cell lines,” the study authors write that: “treatment leads to activation of mitochondrial pathway of apoptosis … [and] … treatment leads to significant inhibition of tumor growth and a 3-fold increase in the life span of tumor bearing animals.”