Does papaya enzyme help with blood pressure? What the research does and doesn't show

The evidence doesn't support papain, papaya leaf extract or any papaya-derived supplement as a way to change blood pressure in people. What exists is one animal study on whole papaya fruit, one review that repeats a traditional belief without new data, and a patient survey showing papaya is a common home habit without evidence that it changes an outcome.

What the evidence doesn't support

It doesn't support papain — the enzyme sold as "papaya enzyme" — or papaya leaf extract as a treatment for high blood pressure; no controlled human trial giving either to people with high blood pressure was found. It also doesn't support the traditional idea, repeated in some review literature, that papaya reliably affects blood pressure through a diuretic effect — that claim hasn't been tested against a placebo in a clinical trial.

What the trials found

The one blood-pressure-specific study is a 2023 animal experiment in spontaneously hypertensive rats. Rats were fed whole pawpaw (papaya) fruit at 10 g per kg of body weight for 12 weeks, alongside an untreated group. By the end of the study, blood pressure was measurably different between the two groups, gut bacteria composition had shifted, and inflammatory markers in the treated rats' blood were down. The researchers' proposed mechanism involves short-chain fatty acids made by gut bacteria acting on a receptor thought to be involved in blood pressure regulation — a real, measured result in this animal model, but one using whole fruit fed at a research dose scaled to rat body weight, not papain, leaf extract, or any human-equivalent supplement dose. None of it has been tested in people.

A 2026 mini-review of papaya's cardiovascular research notes that in traditional medicine, papaya fruit "is used to normalize blood pressure due to its possible diuretic activity" — but this is a description of traditional use collected from the wider literature, not a new clinical finding, and the review doesn't cite a controlled trial that tested it in people.

A 2021 cross-sectional survey of 294 patients with high blood pressure in Malaysia asked about their use of crude herbs alongside prescribed medication. Papaya (locally called "betik") was one of the three herbs named most often by the roughly one-third of patients who reported using any herb at all. Quality-of-life scores, measured on a standard health questionnaire, showed no significant difference between the patients who used herbs and the ones who didn't. The study's own authors state plainly that this kind of self-management practice's actual effects "have not been properly investigated." What it shows is that papaya is a common household habit tied to this search question, not that it does anything measurable.

Questions people ask

Does papaya enzyme lower blood pressure?

No controlled human trial testing papain or papaya leaf extract in people with high blood pressure was found. The one blood-pressure finding comes from rats fed whole fruit, not a papain or leaf-extract supplement, so it doesn't answer this question for a capsule or tablet.

Is papaya good for high blood pressure?

An animal study found a measurable blood-pressure difference in hypertensive rats fed whole papaya fruit over 12 weeks, and papaya is a household habit for at least some people already diagnosed with high blood pressure in one surveyed population — but neither is a controlled trial showing a benefit in people, and the surveyed patients who used papaya and other herbs showed no measurable difference in quality of life compared with those who didn't.

Should I combine papaya enzyme with blood pressure medication?

None of the research above tested papain, leaf extract or any papaya product taken alongside a prescribed blood pressure treatment plan. Ask your doctor or pharmacist before combining any supplement with a prescribed medication, and don't change or stop a prescribed medication on the basis of anything on this page.

When to talk to a doctor

High blood pressure is a diagnosis that needs regular monitoring and, for many people, an ongoing prescribed treatment plan — it's not something to self-manage with a supplement search alone, especially given how thin the direct evidence is here. If you have high blood pressure, or are curious about adding papaya, papain or leaf extract to what you're already doing, that's a conversation for your doctor, particularly if you're on a prescribed treatment or a blood thinner — see papaya enzyme and medications: what to check.

Related reading: papaya enzyme: what the research does and doesn't show, does papaya enzyme help with inflammation?, and who should not take papaya enzyme.