7 Healthy Papaya Fruit Benefits For Your Health
How true is it that: “a papaya fruit a day keeps the doctor in the distance”?
This tropical fruit not only has a delicious and sweet flavor, its nutritional characteristics have highlighted it worldwide. Especially for the enzyme called papain.
How does papain help?
During the digestion process, the food is broken up and mixed with saliva in order to create a food bolus. This bolus is transported to the stomach to be stored.
When this happens, pepsin, an enzyme in the gastric juices, is responsible for fragmenting the proteins so that the small intestine can absorb them.
Then follows the turn of papain, which is responsible for breaking down the proteins in food and neutralizing gastric acids. This is the way the stomach can digest faster than usual.
Properties of papain
- It is a powerful digestive and anti-inflammatory
- It has analgesic abilities
- It works as an antiseptic
- It has detoxifying, diuretic and depurative characteristics
- Cleans digestive mucous membranes
- Destroy intestinal amoebas
- Rich in potassium and low in sodium, which is ideal for people with hypertension or cardiovascular problems.
Papaya Nutrients
- Papain: Very similar to pepsin, helps digest proteins, is a digestive and anti-inflammatory stimulant.
- Carpaine: It is an alkaloid that acts in the bile liquid, facilitating particularly the digestion of very heavy meats and foods. In addition, it reduces heart failure and reduces tachycardia attacks.
Types of papaya
There are around 50 different types of papaya in the world, however, they are generally classified as:
- Golden: it is a small presentation that weighs between 400 and 600 grams.
- Hawaiian: it has a light bulb shape and its flavor is sweeter than the rest.
- Papayón: its size varies from 1 to 5 kilos, is characterized by reddish pulp and its shape is cylindrical.
Benefits of consuming papaya
Papaya fruit is not only rich in papain, it also has a large amount of vitamins A, B, C and E. It is rich in magnesium and potassium, which makes it an essential fruit for health.
Next, we will see its benefits in a more specific way:
1. Control the weight
Both papain and chymopapain contribute to the breakdown of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. Even papain is more efficient than pepsin, an enzyme found in the stomach.
2. Ideal for diabetics
Papaya juice helps reduce blood glucose levels, as it accelerates the regeneration of beta cells and, in addition, increases the synthesis of insulin (especially the green papaya).
3. Improves digestion
Similarly, papain, chymopapain, phytonutrients and other enzymes improve the digestive process.
These allow the body to eliminate excess toxins.
4. Combat constipation
In addition to all the properties we have mentioned, papaya fruit is rich in fiber, which is responsible for absorbing water and improving the consistency of feces.
That is, it cleans the stomach and, therefore, it is easier to eliminate the residues that adhere to the colon and intestines.
5. Accelerates healing
As for the skin, one of the enzymes that stand out is the protease. This helps the wounds heal faster. In addition, it provides nutrients and vitamins that improve the condition of the skin and reduce inflammation.
6. Improves breastfeeding of mothers
Papain is responsible for improving the function of the endocrine system, which increases milk production in women who are breastfeeding.
7. Decreases menstrual colic
When consuming papaya fruit, oxytocin and prostaglandin levels increase in women. Therefore, there are slight contractions in the uterus that are responsible for reducing pain.
Recommendations
- Preferably the papaya fruit must be ripe to take advantage of the qualities of papain.
- Papaya fruit tastes better when served cold.
- When consuming it with other fruits it is important that they are also sweet, like the banana, because when combined with citrus the stomach does not achieve the appropriate acidity.
- You can drink papaya fruit in juice or fresh water.
