Dengue fever and papaya juice

A chain letter about juice from papaya leaves as a miracle cure for dengue fever seems to be circulating in India, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore and other countries.

Here is a version I received recently:

Subject: Dengue fever remedy
Date: Wednesday, 15 July, 2009, 3:53 PM


PASS THIS INFORMATION TO AS MANY AS YOU CAN, IT MAY SAVE
LIVES.
Dengue Fever Remedy

I would like to share this interesting discovery from a
classmate's son who has just recovered from dengue fever.
Apparently, his son was in the critical stage at the ICU
when his blood platelet count drops to 15 after 15 liters of
blood transfusion.
His father was so worried that he seeks another friend's
recommendation and his son was saved. He confessed to me
that he gave his son raw juice of the papaya leaves. From a
platelet count of 45 after 20 liters of blood transfusion,
and after drinking the raw papaya leaf juice, his platelet
count jumps instantly to 135. Even the doctors and nurses
were surprised. After the second day he was discharged. So
he asked me to pass this good news around.
Accordingly it is raw papaya leaves, 2pcs just cleaned and
pound and squeeze with filter cloth. You will only get one
tablespoon per leaf. So two tablespoon per serving once a
day. Do not boil or cook or rinse with hot water, it will
loose its strength. Only the leafy part and no stem or sap.
It is very bitter and you have to swallow it like "Won Low
Kat". But it works.
*Papaya Juice - Cure for Dengue*

You may have heard this elsewhere but if not I am glad to
inform you that papaya juice is a natural cure for dengue
fever. As dengue fever is rampant now, I think it's good to
share this with all.

A friend of mine had dengue last year. It was a very
serious situation for her as her platelet count had dropped
to 28,000 after 3 days in hospital and water has started to
fill up her lung. She had difficulty in breathing. She was
only 32-year old. Doctor says there's no cure for dengue. We
just have to wait for her body immune system to build up
resistance against dengue and fight its own battle. She
already had 2 blood transfusion and all of us were praying
very hard as her platelet continued to drop since the first
day she was admitted.

Fortunately her mother-in-law heard that papaya juice would
help to reduce the fever and got some papaya leaves, pounded
them and squeeze the juice out for her. The next day, her
platelet count started to increase, her fever subside. We
continued to feed her with papaya juice and she recovered
after 3 days!!!

Amazing but it's true. It's believed one's body would be
overheated when one is down with dengue and that also caused
the patient to have fever papaya juice has cooling effect.
Thus, it helps to reduce the level of heat in one's body,
thus the fever will go away. I found that it's also good
when one is having sore throat or suffering from heat.

Please spread the news about this as lately there are many
dengue cases. It's great if such natural cure could help to
ease the sufferings of dengue patients.

Furthermore it's so easily available.
Blend them,squeeze the juice, drink immediately! It's
simple and miraculously effective!!

I have not found any medical sources that back up this claim, only dozens and dozens of forwarded emails with no clearly traceable origin, so I'd be extremely skeptical about it.

[AnglRdr]

Yeah, me too. If papaya leave juice was so successful in treating the hemorrhagic symptoms of dengue, I would imagine such news would be shouted from rooftops.

I've done more research. The core of that email started as a thread posting on a forum in January 2005, which matches it word by word ("You may have heard this elsewhere but if not I am glad to inform you that ...", "It's simple and miraculously effective!!"), except it was making the claims for a completely different plant:

Pegaga Juice - Cure for Dengue

You may have heard this elsewhere but if not I am glad to inform you that pegaga juice is a natural cure for dengue fever. As dengue fever is rampant now, I think it's good to share this with all.

A friend of mine had dengue last year. It was a very serious situation for her as her platelet count had dropped to 28,000 after 3 days in hospital and water has started to fill up her lung. She had difficulty in breathing. She was only 32-year old. Doctor says there's no cure for dengue. We just have to wait for her body immune system to build up resistance against dengue and fight its own battle. She already had 2 blood transfusion and all of us were praying very hard as her platelet continued to drop since the first day she was admitted.

Fortunately her mother-in-law heard that pegaga juice would help to reduce the fever and got some pegaga leaves, pounded them and squeeze the juice out for her. The next day, her platelet count started to increase, her fever subside. We continued to feed her with pegaga juice and she recovered after 3 days!!! Amazing but it's true. It's believed one's body would be overheated when one is down with dengue and that also caused the patient to have fever.

Pegaga juice has cooling effect. Thus, it helps to reduce the heatiness in one's body, thus the fever will go away. I found that its also good when one is having sore throat or suffering from heatiness.

Those of us staying in Subang Jaya are lucky as we can get Pegaga juice easily from the Penang Cendol stall in Giant! One cup is only RM1. Tomorrow I will buy a cup for a patient in Assunta and urge him to try it.


Please spread the news about this as lately there are many dengue cases. It's great if such natural cure could help to ease the sufferings of dengue patients. Furthermore it's so easily available. Just go to market and ask the makcik who sells ulam and they usually have pegaga. Blend them and squeeze the juice! It's simple and miraculously effective!!

http://www.usj.com.my/bulletin/uploa...ead.php?t=6754
(21-01-2005, 11:53 PM -- by RolyPoly)

Pegaga is the Malaysian term for Centella asiatica. The botanical name for Papaya is Carica papaya. They are neither the same plant nor are they related.

As has been pointed out in the quoted thread, the symptoms of dengue fever tend to last 5-6 days. The person whose case was discussed above had already been in hospital for three days and presumably had been ill before hospitalization. Therefore the juice "treatment" would have occurred at the tail end of the illness, right before nature takes its course and the symptoms would have subsided naturally because of the immune system fighting back, just as explained by the doctor in the story.

I would warn anyone against considering Pegaga or Papaya as an alternative to seeking professional medical treatment in case of dengue fever, as this could be life-threatening.