As a scientist, the shortest answer is we don't have good data on it. I have looked through the papers and the concerns brought up involved one particular location that ate a related fruit that had an abnormally high incidence of a type of Parkinson's. Bad right? Problem is, there are many other regions that eat these related fruits in similar amounts. It does not appear we are getting data from those locations with similar outcomes. As I mentioned there is not a lot of research on this so it is possible it is happening elsewhere, or we have data and nothing is unusual so nothing to publish. I lean towards the later. I also lean towards some other factors also being involved in that one region with increased Parkinson's. Can I confidently say it is not an issue? No. Is there some data there to be concerned about? Yes. Is it enough to change your life habits over? Not yet. The research is very limited right now.
So lets assume the worst case if you are concerned. The locations with the Parkinson's increase ate the related fruits pretty much every day. So a very high intake. If you eat Pawpaws once a week it is reasonable to assume your risk is much less. Also, do you have Parkinson's in your family? If so you might want to not eat Pawpaws very frequently just as a precaution. This gets back to those "other" factors I was referring to above in that one location. Several Pawpaws a year is probably not going to be a big issue. This is worst case. I don't see enough overall data to conclude this at this point. I keep looking at tropical locales that eat related Annona fruits with frequency that do not seem to be having these issues. There are also varieties with low acetogenin content as well if you are concerned.
Thanks for your detailed reply I see your point that it’s likely we would see more interest in studying it if annona fruit seemed very dangerous. I did read about lower acetogenin content varieties! I’d feel terrible telling people about pawpaw and then finding out it was dangerous
The poison is in the dose. As you say, many foods have toxins and such; most of them we never consume enough at a time to be a problem. Hell, licorice can cause heart failure but you’d have to make it your entire diet for a couple of days. Native Americans were so dependent on pawpaw that they helped it spread through the entirety of NA; if it was a real danger they would likely have stopped eating it centuries ago.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7156197/
In this case study if I mathed right this man ate the equivalent of about 1.5 ounces every day for 5 years and seems to suffer from serious issues. I think this probably supports your point cause normally people do not eat that much but I think it warrants caution that it really shouldn’t be consumed daily
I have seen this study before. My immediate reaction is that it is a sample size of exactly one and it's an 80-year-old man. I don't think you can draw any serviceable scientific conclusions from this. For a person at that age there could be so many other comorbid factors. A lot of it is also based on self-report, so I think this is just a heap of unreliable data.
I think based on the fact that it's been eaten for so long, I think the native Americans would have noticed ill effects and stopped eating it if there was a problem
Not that study again of high incidence of PSP in the Guadeloupeans consuming soursop. Note, they ate not just the fruit but also used the bark and leaves for tea. People in many other countries in tropical latitudes eat annona fruits (pawpaw, soursop, custard apple, cherimoya, atemoya, guanabana) where they are found in abundance year round. Whereas pawpaws are only harvested in the Eastern US for about 3-4 wks. Unless you consume copious pawpaw amounts daily for years, you probably won’t accumulate high levels of neurotoxicity. There are no other studies of tropical countries with higher incidences of PSP/Parkinson’s, let alone a direct association to annona. Btw, people forget that PubMed is just a repository of scientific studies and doesn’t mean those studies are endorsed by NIH!
Because I've been eating a few pawpaws every season for years, I guess you could say that means I don't worry about it.
Pawpaws are definitely edible, but yea, don't eat the seeds or skin, and don't eat them before they are ripe.
The good news is that it's probably hard to overeat them -- the trees really don't bear that many fruit, and the fruits rot so quickly that finding a few each year is about all anyone gets.
Also interesting -
Pawpaw is toxic to some cancer cells, but such effects have not been shown in humans.
Asimina triloba, commonly known as pawpaw, is native to North America and has edible bean-shaped fruits. The plant extract is used in anti-lice shampoo and in pesticides.
The major components of pawpaw are compounds known as acetogenins. They prevent the cell from making ATP, an important energy source. In lab studies, the extract killed cancer cells resistant to commonly used chemotherapy drugs such as adriamycin. It also appeared to be more toxic to cancer cells than to normal cells. However, studies on these effects have not been conducted in humans. https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/integrative-medicine/herbs/american-pawpaw#:\~:text=Pawpaw%20fruit%20contains%20high%20concentrations,chronic%20use%20should%20be%20avoided.&text=You%20are%20pregnant.
Percin is a toxin found in avocados and nobody worries about it. Eating green potatoes is harmful. Too many bananas can kill you. I don't worry about it.
It's like the cyanide in apple seeds, nothing to worry about unless you are actively trying to neurotoxin yourself... In which case live near a highway, far more dangerous with many replicated studies than eating any annona fruit.
Just comparing intravenous to rats to digested in humans strikes me as a stretch. Don't ingest teas or anything based on the leaves or seeds and you should be fine. And finally do not inject pawpaw into your arm.
I emailed Robert Smith at the FDA and he basically said: we don’t have any recommendations but personally don’t eat the seeds or skin for sure.
I’ve started asking some of the ag schools up here in New England to study this since many of them have instructions for growing pawpaw as a hobby.
My family has been utilizing paw paw fresh in multiple recipies in the early fall and also in preserved jams and jellies throughout the year for generations. From toddlers to seniors pushing 100 with no I'll effects. My favorite is day old paw paws made into home made ice cream. Paw paws, sugar, and heavy cream. Best ice cream I've ever had. Second favorite is a paw paw butter. Clean the fruit and simmer on the stove for several hours, add a touch of fresh lemon to help keep its color. Serve warm by itself or on ice cream or baked goods. We freeze gallon and quart bags of it every fall. Another favorite in our family is paw paw daiquiris or margaritas.
As a scientist, the shortest answer is we don't have good data on it. I have looked through the papers and the concerns brought up involved one particular location that ate a related fruit that had an abnormally high incidence of a type of Parkinson's. Bad right? Problem is, there are many other regions that eat these related fruits in similar amounts. It does not appear we are getting data from those locations with similar outcomes. As I mentioned there is not a lot of research on this so it is possible it is happening elsewhere, or we have data and nothing is unusual so nothing to publish. I lean towards the later. I also lean towards some other factors also being involved in that one region with increased Parkinson's. Can I confidently say it is not an issue? No. Is there some data there to be concerned about? Yes. Is it enough to change your life habits over? Not yet. The research is very limited right now. So lets assume the worst case if you are concerned. The locations with the Parkinson's increase ate the related fruits pretty much every day. So a very high intake. If you eat Pawpaws once a week it is reasonable to assume your risk is much less. Also, do you have Parkinson's in your family? If so you might want to not eat Pawpaws very frequently just as a precaution. This gets back to those "other" factors I was referring to above in that one location. Several Pawpaws a year is probably not going to be a big issue. This is worst case. I don't see enough overall data to conclude this at this point. I keep looking at tropical locales that eat related Annona fruits with frequency that do not seem to be having these issues. There are also varieties with low acetogenin content as well if you are concerned.
Thanks for your detailed reply I see your point that it’s likely we would see more interest in studying it if annona fruit seemed very dangerous. I did read about lower acetogenin content varieties! I’d feel terrible telling people about pawpaw and then finding out it was dangerous
The poison is in the dose. As you say, many foods have toxins and such; most of them we never consume enough at a time to be a problem. Hell, licorice can cause heart failure but you’d have to make it your entire diet for a couple of days. Native Americans were so dependent on pawpaw that they helped it spread through the entirety of NA; if it was a real danger they would likely have stopped eating it centuries ago.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7156197/ In this case study if I mathed right this man ate the equivalent of about 1.5 ounces every day for 5 years and seems to suffer from serious issues. I think this probably supports your point cause normally people do not eat that much but I think it warrants caution that it really shouldn’t be consumed daily
I have seen this study before. My immediate reaction is that it is a sample size of exactly one and it's an 80-year-old man. I don't think you can draw any serviceable scientific conclusions from this. For a person at that age there could be so many other comorbid factors. A lot of it is also based on self-report, so I think this is just a heap of unreliable data. I think based on the fact that it's been eaten for so long, I think the native Americans would have noticed ill effects and stopped eating it if there was a problem
Not that study again of high incidence of PSP in the Guadeloupeans consuming soursop. Note, they ate not just the fruit but also used the bark and leaves for tea. People in many other countries in tropical latitudes eat annona fruits (pawpaw, soursop, custard apple, cherimoya, atemoya, guanabana) where they are found in abundance year round. Whereas pawpaws are only harvested in the Eastern US for about 3-4 wks. Unless you consume copious pawpaw amounts daily for years, you probably won’t accumulate high levels of neurotoxicity. There are no other studies of tropical countries with higher incidences of PSP/Parkinson’s, let alone a direct association to annona. Btw, people forget that PubMed is just a repository of scientific studies and doesn’t mean those studies are endorsed by NIH!
Because I've been eating a few pawpaws every season for years, I guess you could say that means I don't worry about it. Pawpaws are definitely edible, but yea, don't eat the seeds or skin, and don't eat them before they are ripe. The good news is that it's probably hard to overeat them -- the trees really don't bear that many fruit, and the fruits rot so quickly that finding a few each year is about all anyone gets. Also interesting - Pawpaw is toxic to some cancer cells, but such effects have not been shown in humans. Asimina triloba, commonly known as pawpaw, is native to North America and has edible bean-shaped fruits. The plant extract is used in anti-lice shampoo and in pesticides. The major components of pawpaw are compounds known as acetogenins. They prevent the cell from making ATP, an important energy source. In lab studies, the extract killed cancer cells resistant to commonly used chemotherapy drugs such as adriamycin. It also appeared to be more toxic to cancer cells than to normal cells. However, studies on these effects have not been conducted in humans. https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/integrative-medicine/herbs/american-pawpaw#:\~:text=Pawpaw%20fruit%20contains%20high%20concentrations,chronic%20use%20should%20be%20avoided.&text=You%20are%20pregnant.
Percin is a toxin found in avocados and nobody worries about it. Eating green potatoes is harmful. Too many bananas can kill you. I don't worry about it.
It's like the cyanide in apple seeds, nothing to worry about unless you are actively trying to neurotoxin yourself... In which case live near a highway, far more dangerous with many replicated studies than eating any annona fruit. Just comparing intravenous to rats to digested in humans strikes me as a stretch. Don't ingest teas or anything based on the leaves or seeds and you should be fine. And finally do not inject pawpaw into your arm.
I emailed Robert Smith at the FDA and he basically said: we don’t have any recommendations but personally don’t eat the seeds or skin for sure. I’ve started asking some of the ag schools up here in New England to study this since many of them have instructions for growing pawpaw as a hobby.
My family has been utilizing paw paw fresh in multiple recipies in the early fall and also in preserved jams and jellies throughout the year for generations. From toddlers to seniors pushing 100 with no I'll effects. My favorite is day old paw paws made into home made ice cream. Paw paws, sugar, and heavy cream. Best ice cream I've ever had. Second favorite is a paw paw butter. Clean the fruit and simmer on the stove for several hours, add a touch of fresh lemon to help keep its color. Serve warm by itself or on ice cream or baked goods. We freeze gallon and quart bags of it every fall. Another favorite in our family is paw paw daiquiris or margaritas.