Guava (Psidium guajava L.): a glorious plant with cancer preventive and therapeutic potential

Abstract

Guava (Psidium guajava L.) tree (Myrtaceae family) bears fruit rich in vitamins, fiber, and other nutrients. While native to Latin America, guava is grown in many tropical and subtropical regions across the globe where it has long been used in traditional medicine to treat a myriad of ailments. Guava has been shown to exhibit a number of biological and pharmacological activities, such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, antimicrobial, antidiabetic, and anticancer properties. Several parts of the plant, including the leaves, fruits, seeds, peels, pulp, bark, and oil, produce phytochemicals with medicinal properties. Emerging research has found that guava bioactive phytochemicals exert antitumorigenic effects against various human malignancies through multiple mechanisms. While there are numerous individual studies that document the anticancer effects of guava constituents, an up-to-date, comprehensive, and critical review of available research data has not been performed. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to present a complete analysis of the cancer preventive and anticancer therapeutic potential of guava-derived products and guava constituents, with a focus on the cellular and molecular mechanisms of action. The bioavailability, pharmacokinetics, and toxicity of guava as well as limitations, challenges, and future directions of research have also been discussed.

Keywords:

• apoptosis
• cancer
• guava
• molecular mechanisms
• phytochemicals
• prevention
• proliferation
• Psidium guajava
• risk reduction

Acknowledgements

The authors of this review express their sincere thanks to various researchers whose work has been cited in this review. The authors also regret for not being able to cite every relevant article due to space limitation. The authors thank Devaki G. Bhattacharyya for providing several photographs of guava plant.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.