Carica papaya: Potential Implications in Human Health

Abstract

Background: Carica papaya, a tree-like herb, is cultivated in more than 50 tropical and subtropical countries worldwide. The parts [leaves, fruit (ripe and unripe), seeds and latex] are used as food as well as traditional medicine in several ways for a number of diseases. Papaya, with a variety of phytochemicals like carotenoids, polyphenols, benzyl isothiocynates, benzyl glucosinates, prunasin (cyanogenic substrate), papain and chymopapain, alkaloids, phenolic compounds, flavonoids, vitamins (A, C, E), carotenoids, cyanogenicglucosides, cystatin, and glucosinolates exhibits significant health benefits ranging from digestive to immune modulation. These compounds have antioxidant, chemoprotective, anti-diabetic, anti-bacterial, anti-plasmodial and anti-fungal activities. Papaya aqueous leaf extract was evaluated for immunomodulatory and anti-tumor activities through cytokine modulation with Th1 type shift in human immune system through molecular studies. The platelet augmenting potential of aqueous leaf extract has been reported in numerous clinical studies and deserves special mention. Objective: The scientific knowledge of carica papaya in the post-genomic era including molecular studies and clinical trials is discussed in the review. Methods: The published literature on botany, chemical composition, ethnopharmacology, and uses of papaya in food and medical industry was searched through databases like Pub- Med, Scopus, and Google scholar to comprehend the benefits of Carica papaya for human use with around more than 600 published peer- reviewed papers. Results: Many traditional and novel uses of Carica papaya for the human benefit are detailed in the review that significantly adds to the scientific knowledge of curious readers. Conclusion: Each component of the papaya plant is rich in phytochemicals and is economically important. Most of the phytochemicals are linked to biological functions and influence a variety of cellular processes; hence they have implications in refining human health.

Effect of Ultrasound-Assisted Extraction of Carotenoids from Papaya (Carica papaya L. cv. Sweet Mary) Using Vegetable Oils

“…Traditionally, papaya fruits have had different usages depending on the need, e.g., papaya root juice has been used to treat boils, burns, and warts [6]; papaya fruits and leaves contain protein-digesting enzymes such as papain and chymopapain, which have proven their effect on injured skin tissue, removing damaged tissues from wounds and limiting infections [7][8][9]. A recent study reported by Logozzi et al [10], showed that fermented papaya preparations (specifically the commercialized product FPP ® ) induced increase in telomeres length in bone marrow and ovary, together with an increase in the plasmatic levels of telomerase activity and antioxidant levels, with an efficient decrease in radical oxygen species (ROS).…”

Phytochemicals properties of Carica papaya Linn seeds essential oil and their antifungal and antibacterial activities

“…The inhibition activity was more important for fungi (16.5 to 60 mm) than bacteria (10 to 20 mm). Antimicrobial activities of papaya seeds essential oils was also previously proved (Tapsoba and Deschamps, 2006;Singh and Ali, 2011;Muhamad et al, 2017;Zhang and Chen, 2017;Seshamamba et al, 2018;Heena and Sunil, 2019;Chai et al, 2020;Dotto and Abihudi, 2021;Li et al, 2021;Yi et al, 2022). The inhibition diameter for all Candida strains is higher than those of all commercial antibiotics and also higher than those found by He et al (2017) which was less than 34 mm.…”

Carica Papaya Leaf Extracts: A Novel Herbal Drug in Cancer Treatment

“…Due to associated side effects and high cost of treatment with the present treatment modalities, and stable increase in the incidence of new cancer cases and cancer mortality, the quest to search for cheaper and effective alternatives began leading to an increased interest in traditional herbal therapeutics using plants and their derivatives. Papaya leaves have been used for the treatment of malaria (Krishna et al, 2008), asthma (Gammulle et al, 2012), dengue fever (Ahmad et al, 2011;Subenthiran et al, 2013), vitamin B1 de iciency (Vien and Thuy, 2012), including cancer in many parts of the world (Heena and Sunil, 2019;Soubra et al, 2016). It also has shown antiproliferative and cytotoxic activities against colorectal (Lohsoonthorn and Danvivat, 1995) and gall bladder cancers (Pandey and Shukla, 2002), prostate cancers Shahar et al (2011), cervical cancer (Siegel et al, 2010) and breast cancers (Zhang et al, 2009;García-Solís et al, 2009) , while its extracts from seeds and the fruit show activity against MCF-7, HepG2, HL-60 cancer cells (breast, liver, leukemia, respectively) (Jayakumar and Kanthimathi, 2011).…”