Ulog #022 : Aratiles, Mansanita, Jamaican cherry or Muntingia Calabura : a Cure for CANCER?

Compared to just a single tree in our neighbourhood where I grep up in Northern Philippines, Bayawan City have hundreths around town. According to #TatayDagsa, this fruit have a lot of benefits, most importantly, it can cure CANCER.

Has anyone heard of this before?

This fruit is known with different names in Spain, and worldwide, different countries call as Jamaican cherry, Singapore cherry, Sabah cherry, Panama berry, talok, bolanian among others. This is a tropical fruit where it is very common in the roadside, where i've never seen it sold anywhere in the Philippines. The fruits are so tiny, where special handling is needed if one cares to sell them. Also fragile, more often they are eaten straight from the tree. That's the way they are eaten as far as I can remember.

In the Philippines, it is known as Aratiles, mansanita or sarisa.

Its' scientific name, Muntingia Calabura.

So, what are the benefits?

An article listed a lot of benefits here, but first, let's try to find out what's in this tiny fruit that's making it a miracle fruit among them all.

In another article in 2017 here, it listed the benefits as ANTI-INFLAMMATORY and ANTI-BACTERIAL, and have FLAVONONES, this stimulates cognitive functions. For these reasons, its' consumption is pretty much encouraged. It also have CYTOTOXIC FLAVONOIDS. This is what we are looking for as this is what can cure CANCER by preventing the growth of cancer cells.

A cure for CANCER?

Let's dig this further.

An abstract came out in 2013 from the Journal of Ethnopharmacology by Adila Sufian et al, entitled Isolation and identification of antibacterial and cytotoxic compounds from the leaves of Muntingia calabura L. confirmed positive findings. Although access is needed to see the full publication, this was extracted on the same site:

source

With this result, we need to see the full article for possible limitations and other issues to get such results, if there's any. For our part, perhaps we need to do more research to fully inform ourselves of the benefits.

This fruit can punch!

Although we've never use any part of this tree as a herbal medicine in Northern Philippines, I am not aware anywhere else in the country. Seeing so many in Bayawan City and hearing of this curative benefits from there, no wonder BAYAWAN have the title of being THE HEALTHY CITY in the Philippines. Although in some parts of Asia, they do use this tree in herbal medicine.

@flabbergast-art knows how to have some fun in Bayawan!

Personally, with or without benefits, Aratiles or Mansanitas taste good. They remind me of those times we were having fun in climbing the only mansanita tree in our neighbourhood. Those branches aren't sturdy.

Do you know of this fruit? Or has anyone used this as a herbal medicine before? On what symptoms?

All images are mine, taken with my Samsung Galaxy S7.

References:

• aratiles
• jamaican cherry-its time to shine today
• amazing benefits of muntingia fruit for your health
• Isolation and identification of antibacterial and cytotoxic compounds from the leaves of Muntingia calabura L.

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