Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
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African peach is a small tree of West and Central Africa. People use its root bark, stem bark, leaves and fruit as folk medicine. Botanists now call it Sarcocephalus latifolius; older papers call it Nauclea latifolia.
In Hausa it is tafashiya. The round, knobbly fruit is eaten as a wild snack. The bitter root bark is the part most often boiled into a drink for fever, pain or gut trouble.
Here is the honest verdict. Nearly all the research sits in test tubes and rodents. Long traditional use is not proof that it works, and it is not proof that it is safe.
This page covers what the tradition claimed, what the lab and animal work shows, and who should stay away from it.
No one has shown how this plant acts in the human body. Everything below comes from lab dishes or animals.
The root bark is rich in bitter indole alkaloids. In test tubes, some of these slow the growth of Plasmodium falciparum, the main malaria parasite. Whether that happens in a person who drinks the bark is not known.
In test tubes, bark and leaf extracts also slow some bacteria and fungi. Lab activity is a long way from treating an infection in a body.
In rats and mice, extracts have lowered blood sugar, eased pain signals, calmed the gut and reduced fits. Rodents are not people, and the doses used were often far higher than a home drink.
The tannins in the bark bind to proteins and tighten tissue. That may explain the firm, drying taste and the old use for loose stools. It has not been tested as a treatment in people.
One 2013 report claimed the roots contained tramadol, a strong painkiller. Later work found the tramadol came from local contamination, not from the plant itself. The plant does not make it.
Most use is of the raw plant, not a packaged product.
Common forms:
- Dried root bark, sold in pieces or ground to powder - Stem bark chips - Dried or fresh leaves - Twigs used as chewing sticks for teeth - The ripe fruit, eaten fresh as food - Mixed herbal drinks sold in West African markets, often with several other plants
Some capsules and bottled tonics are sold online and in local shops. These rarely state how much plant material they hold.
Mixed market preparations carry an extra risk. You cannot tell what else is in them, and some have been found adulterated with drugs.
African peach has a long, well-recorded place in West African folk medicine. Healers in Nigeria, Niger, Ghana, Mali, Senegal and Guinea used it for generations.
The root bark was boiled for fever and for what people called malaria. Because of this, traders sometimes called the bark African quinine. The name reflected the bitter taste and the use, not a proven match to quinine.
Other recorded traditional uses:
- Loose stools, dysentery and stomach pain - Toothache and gum care, using twigs as chewing sticks - Wounds, sores and skin problems - Worms and other gut parasites - Fits and convulsions, in some communities - General tonic drinks after illness
The fruit has also been plain food. Children and farm workers eat it from the tree.
This page records that history. It does not suggest you copy it at home.
Stop taking it and see a doctor if you feel unwell on it, or if your symptoms are not settling.
Get urgent medical help the same day for:
- Fever that lasts more than 24 hours, or any fever after travel to a malaria area - Yellow eyes or yellow skin (jaundice, a sign of liver trouble) - Dark urine, or passing much less urine than usual - Severe vomiting, or being unable to keep fluids down - Confusion, extreme drowsiness or a fit - Blood in the stool, or diarrhoea lasting more than two days - A swollen face or lips, or trouble breathing
Fever with confusion or a fit is an emergency. Call emergency services.
It is not approved as a medicine in the United States, the United Kingdom or the European Union, and it holds no UK traditional herbal registration. In West Africa the fruit is an ordinary food, and bark preparations are sold freely in markets, with rules and checks varying by country.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
Reviewed by the HealisticMD editorial team How we grade evidence →
The published evidence for African peach / pin cushion tree is weak or absent. That usually means no controlled trial has tested it, not that a trial found it ineffective — the two are different, and we grade only what has been published.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
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