- This topic has 8 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 6 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
I’ve seen an interesting reference to papaya for uric acid and gout on Facebook today at https://www.facebook.com/GoutPal/posts/10152380813060785
The poster claimed it to be an alternative to colchicine, allopurinol, and Uloric (febuxostat), so I had to check it out. I found an interesting abstract on Pubmed
RESULT: Supplementation of 6g FPP?/day for a period of 14 weeks could improve the general health status of several organs targeted by oxidative stress during diabetes. When comparing experimental to control groups with independent samples t-test, C-reactive protein levels significantly decreased (P=0.018), LDL/HDL ratio was considerably changed (P=0.042), and uric acid levels were significantly improved (P=0.001). ANOVA results also validated the same findings with significant differences in C-reactive protein, LDL/HDL ratio, uric acid and in serum ferritin levels.
CONCLUSION:
FPP? may present a novel, economically feasible nutraceutical supplement for the management of diabetes and for those at risk for cardiovascular disease, neurological disease and other conditions worsened by overt inflammation and oxidative stress.At first sight, I was excited to see that it looked as if the claims for papaya might be true, but then I looked closer, and I have many reservations:
- It is a diabetes study, not a gout study
- It relates to a fermented preparation of papaya, not a tea as described on Facebook (and several other websites)
- Though the abstract specifically says that C-reactive protein is decreased, other important results are only described as “considerably changed,” “significantly improved,” or having “significant differences”
I found the full study at http://ori.heteml.jp/ori/researchdata/download/clinical2012-1.pdf but I’m no nearer understanding the problem.
The changes in uric acid do not look like an improvement to me, as they appear to increase with papaya supplementation. Similarly, iron appears to increase, which is not good for gout sufferers.
We know from other studies that gout patients can react differently to many herbal treatments. Significantly, it depends on whether you are trying to measure the affects on short term gout flares or long term uric acid levels. To have any faith in papaya as a gout cure, I would need to see experiments with real gout patients, and clearly defined study end-points.
Without that, we are left with self experimentation. That is down to you, so if you have tried papaya for your gout, please share your experiences here.
And just to emphasize how complicated it is to use herbal medicines for gout, take a look at http://www.ifrj.upm.edu.my/Article%20in%20Press/IFRJ-2010-271%20Parveen.pdf
This is a series of lab tests to see how various plant extracts inhibit xanthine oxidase. Again, it does not measure effects on gout patients. It only measures the potential for replacing allopurinol and Uloric with natural products. There can be many differences between what happens in a laboratory, and what happens in your body. However, this might serve as a guide if you want to try papaya for your gout.
The essence of this report, which compares various different parts of 5 different plants. Of these 5 plants, papaya was most effective, and the most effective extracts were derived from the leaves or unripe fruit peels.
I am a patient of Uric Acid (Gout). My age is now 47+ years. I had problem of big pain at my heel of left leg. I start to take fresh slices of Green Papaya boiled in water with general tea leafs and add little sugar. I mean to make red tea with fresh slices of green papaya. Really this gave me instant relief in big pain. About 15 days ago I was not able to walk properly but now I can walk smoothly. I am still taking once everyday at evening time this papaya tea because I still have little pain of Gout at my left heel. Its not finished almost but I hope it will be finish very soon.
Thank you!
Krishna Mohan Mishra.
Cell no. 0091-9936441689.
Varanasi. INDIAKeith,
That’s some great stuff. Thank you for posting.
It would be pretty easy for me to find some leaf extract, which seems to be widely available on the web, and then start testing my own uric acid. Sounds like a better strategy than the one my doc has given me. He prescribed me 300 mg allopurinol to start (but I haven’t taken any yet). Unless I try to split pills, it seems like it would be a lot easy to modulate the dose more finely with the papaya extract. On the other hand, the papaya extract might have all kinds of other undesired effects. From amazon.com’s reviews, it appears as if many chemo patients take it to boost their platelet count.
To Krishna Mohan Mishra: I’m glad papaya is helping you. Instant relief sounds great. Please keep calling back here to share your gout stories.
To @moises 300mg allopurinol is not the best way to start. Can you get 100mg pills first to check for side effects? If you are OK after 2 weeks, you can increase to 200 or 300.
I’m also worried about side effects of many herbal medicines. These never get safety tested, so the golden rule is to start with small doses, then increase slowly. I’d certainly want regular blood tests to make sure basic body functions are not compromised.
It’s always tough to determine cause and effect, expecially when n=1.
But here is my experience so far:
I bought an alcohol-based papaya leaf extract (PLE) that was well-reviewed on amazon.com.I started taking 10 drops in a cup of water before bed, on Tuesday night. This is much lower than the typical dose. In hindsight, I am very glad that I started so conservatively.
Soon I noticed more digestive problems than usually experience: digestive cramping, disturbed sleep, and more frequent bowel movements. On Sunday, after 5 nights of taking the PLE, I decided to stop.
Now I will see if my gut problems resolve.
It’s always possible that the PLE was killing pathological microbes and that is why I was in digestive discomfort.
I still have my opened bottle of allopurinol. I have no idea if it will produce digestive side effects. I am hoping not.
I agree that cause and effect is hard to determine. It is very easy to associate the wrong cause and effect. All you can really do is to keep repeating experiments to get more certainty.
With gout, it is very important to separate pain and uric acid levels. Pain is very short term, i.e. if something is going to increase gout pain, it will do it within an hour or so. Pain never happens unless uric acid crystals are there, but the crystals do not always result in gout pain. You can get pain when crystals are dissolving, so gout pain is not a good judge of whether you are doing the right things or not.
I have gout since I was 22. I have had many attacks and now I have another one. I tried Papaya four years ago and it really did work for me. I had to change my entire diet. Back then, I changed my diet completely from one day to another and my UA levels increased unfortunately. But that’s normal. So, my diet was papaya in the morning. At lunch, was fish with one vegetable or two. At dinner, more papaya. I was supposed to of this for three months. I just did it for 2 months. I loss losed weight and my pain was gone. The best part came after that. Before my diet, I used to play soccer once a week. When we were done playing I had to take indomethacin for pain. Next day I was ok. After my diet, I played soccer and no pain at all. Not even headaches. It worked wonders for me. I was free of gout for three years. Now I’m in pain because I did not take it not even close as I used to and start eating pretty much everything. That’s the result of that. So I started again and I’m going to try the tea that I did not do it before. Papaya, for me, is the best fruit ever besides that it is delicious. I will recommend it. Give it a try!
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.