Herb library · Herb · Annona muricata

Soursop (graviola)

A tropical fruit tree whose fruit, juice and leaf tea are common across the Caribbean, and whose leaf is sold online as graviola, often with cancer claims. There are no clinical trials showing it helps people with cancer, and regular use has been linked to a rare brain disease in Guadeloupe.

Serious warning

Regular soursop use has been linked to an atypical parkinsonism in Guadeloupe. Researchers publishing in Movement Disorders and Brain found patients ate far more soursop than controls, and annonacin from the fruit and leaves reproduced the brain lesions in rats.

Traditional use

Eaten as a fruit and drunk as juice throughout the Caribbean. In Trinidad the leaves are made into a tea for high blood pressure and as a "cooling" drink, and a 2017 survey of cancer patients in Kingston, Jamaica, found soursop the plant most often used by women with breast cancer. Sold today as graviola leaf capsules and teas. Barham, writing in Jamaica in the early 1700s, described it as a very common tree whose fruit was juicy and pleasant to eat.

Traditional energetics

Caribbean folk tradition
Counted as cooling. Hortus Jamaicensis (1814), vol. 2, p. 180 (opens in a new tab)

What studies show

Insufficient
Cancer: extracts kill cancer cells in the lab and slow tumors in animals, but no trial has shown a benefit in people. Reviews call for clinical studies, and in 2008 the FTC acted against a company that claimed a soursop extract could stop melanoma, saying there was no credible scientific evidence for such products.
Insufficient
Blood sugar, blood pressure, fever and infections: these traditional uses have lab and animal studies behind them, but no reliable human trials.

Be careful of

NoteIn Guadeloupe, people with an unusual atypical parkinsonism (stiffness, falls, eye-movement problems and dementia that do not respond to Parkinson's medicines) had eaten much more soursop than people without it. Researchers identified annonacin, a nerve toxin in the fruit and leaves, as the likely cause.
AmountOne study estimated an average fruit contains about 15 mg of annonacin, a can of commercial nectar about 36 mg and a cup of leaf tea about 0.14 mg. A fruit or a can a day for a year adds up to the amount that caused brain damage in rats.
ConditionPeople with Parkinson's disease or another movement disorder have the most reason to avoid regular use.
NoteIn Jamaica most cancer patients who used plant remedies were also taking prescription medicine, and few told their cancer doctor. Tell yours about any soursop or graviola product.
PregnancyNo safety information for pregnancy or breastfeeding was found in the sources used here. Talk with your clinician first.
Ask a clinicianTalk with a clinician or pharmacist before using this if you take prescription medicines, are pregnant or breastfeeding, or are giving it to a child.

From the old books

What herbals and dispensaries of the past printed. History, in their words.

“This is a very common tree in Jamaica, bearing fruit, in shape and bigness of a bullock's heart, which is very juicy and pleasant to eat.”

Henry Barham, Hortus Americanus (1794), p. 177. See the page · Read the full passage

“This fruit is considered of a cooling and agreeable nature, but is the less esteemed on account of its being so common.”

John Lunan, Hortus Jamaicensis (1814), vol. 2, p. 180. See the page · Read the full passage

“The leaves are commonly thrown into fowl-houses for the purpose of destroying fowl-lice.”