Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
Breadfruit is the large, starchy fruit of the tree Artocarpus altilis. It is a staple food across the Caribbean and the Pacific. In Haiti it is called lam veritab; in the Dominican Republic, pana.
Cooked breadfruit is eaten much like a potato. It is boiled, roasted, fried, or dried and ground into flour. The leaves, bark and milky sap have separate uses in folk medicine.
As a food, breadfruit is well understood, filling and safe for most people. As a medicine, it has barely been tested in humans. Long traditional use is not proof that it works, and not proof that it is safe.
No one has shown how breadfruit affects blood pressure or blood sugar in people. Almost all the claims come from test tubes and animals.
In test-tube work, leaf extracts slow an enzyme called ACE. That enzyme helps control blood pressure, and several drugs act on it. Whether a cup of leaf tea does the same thing in a person is unknown.
In rats, leaf extracts have lowered blood sugar in some studies. Rats are not people. No human trial has repeated the finding.
As a food, the effect is simple and real. Breadfruit is rich in starch, fibre and potassium. A cooked portion is filling, which may help you eat less at that meal.
Most breadfruit you will meet is simply food.
The food forms are:
- Whole fresh fruit, sold green and cooked before eating. - Breadfruit flour, used in bread, porridge and baked goods. - Chips, fries and canned or frozen pieces.
The leaf and sap forms are:
- Dried leaves, sold loose or in tea bags. - Leaf extract capsules and tinctures, sold mainly online. - Fresh sap and crushed leaves, used on skin in home practice.
The food forms are the best understood. Leaf teas and capsules vary a lot in strength. Few carry useful labelling.
Pacific islanders grew breadfruit for thousands of years. British ships carried it to the Caribbean in the late 1700s. The aim was cheap bulk food for enslaved people on sugar estates.
It took hold and became an island staple. Haitian and Dominican households treated the fruit as everyday food. Healers kept separate roles for the leaves and the sap.
Caribbean folk practice used dried leaf tea for high blood pressure (hypertension) and for diabetes. The milky sap was dabbed on skin complaints and on the edges of sores. Crushed leaves were also burned or rubbed on skin to keep mosquitoes off.
These customs were written down by travellers, botanists and later by ethnobotanists. They record what people did. They do not record whether it helped.
Stop and get urgent help if your lips, tongue or throat swell, or if you struggle to breathe. That can be an allergic reaction.
Seek same-day care for a fast or pounding heartbeat, fainting, or confusion with sweating and shaking. The last of these can mean low blood sugar.
Call your doctor if a skin rash from the sap spreads or weeps. Also call if you are treating blood pressure or diabetes and your home readings swing after starting leaf tea.
Breadfruit is an ordinary food. In the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom, the fruit and flour are sold as food with no special controls.
Leaf teas and extracts are sold as dietary supplements in the United States and as food supplements in the UK and EU. No medicine regulator has approved breadfruit to treat any condition.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
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