Persimmon has many abilities to make our life richer.
It makes our diet healthy, prevents hangovers and helps us to live a Zero Waste life.
These abilities are very helpful for our lifestyle.
But, persimmon also has another function which makes our life more healthy.
That is persimmon’s antiviral properties.
I’ll explain to you how persimmons are useful for our health in this article.
Tannins in persimmons
At first, I should explain about a tannin of a persimmon.
Persimmons have tannins in their fruits. In Japan, it is called that “kaki tannin” (カキタンニン) which means “persimmon’s tannin” in English, and it is separated from other tannins, such as tea’s one, berries, wine, and so on. Because the amount of tannin in persimmons is more than the others.
Kaki tannin is certainly a tannin, having said that, it is not usually used for tanning an animal’s hide unlike some other tannins in Japan.
Because it contains many sugars. This substance prevents it from soaking into an animal’s skin.
So, kaki tannin is not suitable to use for tanning an animal’s hide at all. But it is helpful to maintain good health. The details are as follows.
Antiviral effects for the flu and the norovirus
Kaki tannin has antiviral effects for some viruses such as the flu, norovirus, and so on.
It was revealed by a study which was conducted by researchers at Hiroshima University in Japan. In the study, Takemasa Sakaguchi, Graduate School of Biomedical and Health Sciences in Hiroshima University, and co-workers compared antiviral effects for viruses of kaki tannins with antiviral effects of other some plant-derived tannins such as tannins from acacia, coffee beans, green tea, etc. And they found that there is a big difference between the two. Kaki tannins were able to inactivate all viruses out of 12 viruses, but other tannins were able to inactivate some of them but not all. Tannins from acacia and green tea were able to inactivate at least 8 or 9 out of 12 viruses, but tannins from coffee beans couldn’t inactivate the viruses at all.
From this result, we can easily understand how kaki tannins are different than other tannins and more effective against some viruses such as the flu [H3N2 and H5N3], norovirus [feline calicivirus and mouse norovirus as surrogates for human norovirus] and so on than the others.
If you want to know more details about these things, you might check this site (PLOS ONE) out. This thesis will give more professional information to you!
If this results are practical, we could prevent some viruses from spreading around the world and maintain our health by using kaki tannins well.
Antiviral effects for COVID-19 ?
Another side of kaki tannin is the ability to detoxify the coronavirus. It is said that kaki tannin has antiviral effects for COVID-19 in Japan since last year. This information came from the research was conducted by researchers at Nara Medical University (Kashihara City, Nara) in 2020. The experiment proved kaki tannin can detoxify the virus. They mixed fermented tannin juice from unripe persimmon, this liquid is known as Kakishibu in Japan, saliva and coronavirus in test tubes and after over 10 minutes, most of the virus had been detoxified.
But, you don’t jump to conclusions yet. Because this experiment was conducted by using a test tube only. It wasn’t conducted by using human oral cavity at all. So it is difficult to conclude from the results that kaki tannin can detoxify the coronavirus in the real world, not in laboratory.
And one more thing, I have to explain about it. Simply eating the fruit is NOT effective against the virus at all. And drinking the tannin juice (Kakishibu) is also the same. So, you don’t have to rush to buy persimmons and Kakishibu at all. In 2020, a certain Facebook user posted a misleading information that sounds as if the poster insists a persimmon itself can detoxify the coronavirus, not Kaki tannin. But of course, this is not true. Kaki tannin can detoxify the virus, but persimmon itself can’t detoxify the virus. So, please be careful with that kind of fake news or information without any source.
In addition, a cough drop which made from Kakishibu powder and some other ingredients produced by Nara Medical University and UHA Mikakuto in Japan. But this item hasn’t been proved that it can detoxify the virus in real-life situations yet. But, whether it is effective or not, at least it has a placebo effect. So we should use this item as just a placebo, not in a serious way.
Anyway, we might have no choice but to receive a vaccination or take care of our health everyday for now.
Conclusion
Persimmon has antiviral properties.
It is effective against the flu and the norovirus. And it seems that it is able to detoxify COVID-19.
If we can take full advantage of these persimmon abilities, we might become more healthy than now.
Persimmon will probably be a solution to our problems.
References
ja (jst.go.jp), accessed May 18, 2021.
Inactivation of Pathogenic Viruses by Plant-Derived Tannins: Strong Effects of Extracts from Persimmon (Diospyros kaki) on a Broad Range of Viruses (plos.org), accessed May 18, 2021.
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13736334, accessed May 27, 2021.
https://www.asiaone.com/lifestyle/persimmon-tannin-juice-found-detoxify-coronavirus-according-japanese-study, accessed May 27, 2021.
https://japantoday.com/category/national/japanese-study-shows-that-persimmon-tannin-juice-may-render-coronavirus-harmless?, accessed May 27, 2021.
濵崎貞弘. 2016. 『柿づくし』東京：農山漁村文化協会.
