Passionfruit extract a promising alternative

An extract from the skins
   of the purple passion fruit
   has been found to have
   beneficial effects on asthma
   and hypertension.

In a randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial the flavonoid-rich extract from the skins of the purple passion fruit has been found to significantly reduce the severity of wheezing and coughing among asthma patients. In a parallel study, the passion fruit treatment also significantly decreased blood pressure in the trial subjects.

The trials were directed by Ronald Watson from the University of Arizona and Southwest Scientific Editing and Consulting, after FRST^[?]-funded research by IRL natural products chemist, Yeap Foo had established the bioactive properties of passionfruit several years earlier.

The findings, published this year in Nutrition Research, have caused a stir in the international medical and scientific communities.

“In the US there are a lot of dietary supplements and natural products that are sold without much, or any, evidence of efficacy,” Ronald Watson says.

“The advantage of something like passionfruit is that we now have two scientific publications indicating passion fruit has a beneficial effect on two very common but different human diseases, hypertension and asthma – and that’s exciting.”

The collaboration began when the two scientists happened to be seated next to each other at lunch during an international conference in France in 1999.

“It was serendipitous that an international collaboration like this can eventuate from a lunch and a chance meeting,” Ronald Watson says.

“The partnership where Yeap made the material and we tested it has resulted in significant interest within the nutraceutical industry, and has now gone far beyond the pipe dream it once was.”

Yeap Foo says that although the research has taken several years to progress to this stage, he always felt there was great potential in the passionfruit extract.

“We knew that the extract had a beneficial effect, but it consisted of many different compounds and no study had been done to identify which particular component was actually responsible for the bioactivity.

“It could have been a result of a particular compound or maybe several key compounds working synergistically – we just didn’t know. However, we were able to identify a host of compounds including a novel compound, an unusual small molecule in the extract, which Professor Watson then was able to progress further along the path towards commercialisation.”

Asthma is a very common disease, affecting almost 5% of the population of the United States, with incidence increasing rapidly. Although asthma is primarily a disease of the airways, virtually all aspects of pulmonary function are compromised during an acute attack so it can be very debilitating for sufferers.

Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is responsible for 40,000 deaths in the United States every year, and affects about one in four adults, or almost 50 million people in the US alone.

The passionfruit extract, which has also shown promising indications in the reduction of the severity of osteoarthritis, is now under license to an established US nutraceutical company.

Ronald Watson says that a lot of Americans are not keen on pharmaceutical drugs because they often have unpleasant side effects.

“Many natural products like fruit and vegetables are known to have anti-hypertensive properties and have been shown to work just as well as pharmaceuticals – and that is very appealing to many people.”