The food and medicinal uses of soursop plant extracts by different widely separated peoples of the world are many and varied. Various regions of the world use soursop fruit ; leaf; young shoot ; seed ; root and bark extracts as food, as a desert, as a refreshing drink, as a herbal/traditional medicine and as a source of making economic gains. The similarity of the uses to which people in different continents put similar parts of Annona muricata attests to the “selectivity” of drug action1 of such soursop plant extracts. Similarity of the various medicinal and health promotion uses of soursop plant extracts in various parts of the world suggests that soursop fruit pulp, fruit juice, shoot extract, stem back extract, root extract, leaf extract and seed extract produce their effects through similar mechanisms of action. This paper suggests that the similar mechanism of action that underlies all these apparently different medicinal and food uses of the soursop plant (Annona muricata) is inhibition of energy metabolism of the affected tissue or organ. Inhibition of oxidative phosphorylation and inhibition of rapid utilization of ATP in the affected tissues are thus identified as the mechanisms of medicinal and physiological effects of soursop plant extracts.
Loading....