This 16-year-old high school student from Iloilo went viral after discovering the properties of Aratiles fruit or Sarisa that can possibly cure diabetes.

The young Filipina scientist was identified as Maria Isabel Layson, was one of the winners of the 2019 National Science and Technology Fair (NSTF), that was held last February 2019.

She was also one of the 12 candidates sent to the International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix, Arizona USA to represent the Philippines in one of the biggest pre-college science research competition in the world and was the first in her batch to receive Gokongwei Brothers Foundation Young Scientist Award.







Layson’s individual study entitled “Bioactive Component, Antioxidant Activity, and Antidiabetic Properties of Muntingia calabura Linn. An In Vitro Study” is where she discovered ‘Sarisa’ as a possible cure for type 2 diabetes.

Through her study, she presented a cure for diabetes with the use of Aratiles, a fruit that grows naturally anywhere in the country.







According to her that eating Aratiles is not only the cheapest solution to cure diabetes as you can also use the branches, leaves, and flowers of the Aratiles tree that also contains antioxidants, which could help because of its anti-diabetic properties.

Diabetes mellitus (DM), commonly known as diabetes is a health condition that impairs the body’s ability to process blood glucose, otherwise known as blood sugar.

The Aratiles fruit is known in other countries as Jamaican cherry, Panama berry, Singapore cherry, bolaina yamanaza and many more, while in certain areas of the Philippines, these little red fruits are also called datiles, kerson, manzanitas (“small apples”), also spelled mansanitas or manchanita, and ‘Sarisa’ by the Ilonggos of the Visayas region.