Can drinking tea made from papaya leaves cure cancer? No, that's not true: There is no evidence that papaya leaf tea can cure cancer in humans.
The claim originates from a video (archived here) published on the account of Dr.benz_masterpiece (archived here) on TikTok on December 30, 2023, under the title: "The secret formula for papaya leaf tea suggested by Somsak Thepsuthin."
It opened:
This is not the time for lemons to cure cancer, but for AI and papaya leaves.
(All translations from Thai into English by Lead Stories staff).
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Sun Jan 7 20:25:27 2024 UTC)
The spread of the false claim began when Somsak Thepsuthin, the Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand, was interviewed on the "NBT รวมใจ channel (archived here) on December 24, 2023. During the interview, he suggested that papaya leaf tea could cure cancer, referring to 11 cancer patients who had allegedly been treated with the tea, giving their names and telephone numbers.
There have been studies conducted by researchers at the University of Florida (archived here) on dried papaya leaf extracts showing anticancer potential in lab-grown tumor cells. The effect was stronger when cells received larger doses of the tea. There have been no updates on this experiment from the University of Florida's College of Medicine since 2010, though.
On December 16, 2021, the National Cancer Institute Thailand (archived here) warned that drinking papaya flower and leaf tea cannot cure cancer. Furthermore, there are no scientific studies or clinical evidence yet to support the claim that such a tea cures cancer in humans.
The Thai online news agency Hfocus เจาะลึกระบบสุขภาพ (archived here) published an article titled "Chao Phraya Abhaibhubejhr Hospital Cautioned the Thai Population: Do Not Believe that Papaya Leaf Tea Can Cure Cancer" on December 29, 2023 (archived here). Dr. Pakakrong Kwankao, deputy head of the Department of Traditional Thai and Herbal Medicine at Chao Phraya Abhaibhubejhr Hospital, mentioned that she had tried to contact the 11 cancer patients whose phone numbers were provided, to get more information about the papaya leaf tea treatment. However, they were not willing to give additional information to the hospital. She also warned against believing that papaya leaf tea can cure cancer in humans and emphasized that there is only limited evidence from laboratory research. Cancer patients should, therefore, not forego clinical treatment.
There is some recent research on Carica papaya leaf extract published on PubMed Central (archived here), but it is limited to laboratory experiments conducted on cells (in vitro) and animals (in vivo). The extracts have never been tested on humans, there has been no clinical research (archived here), and the FDA has not approved such a treatment.
