Persimmon benefits: the cholesterol trial used fibre extracted from unripe fruit, not persimmon

Key benefits

1. 01Early research

   Total cholesterol fell — but on fibre from unripe fruit, not on persimmon

   2013, Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism. A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

   The design:

   • 40 participants with plasma total cholesterol of 180–259 mg/dL
   • Three groups — placebo 0 g (14), low dose 3 g (13), high dose 5 g (13)
   • Cookie bars containing tannin-rich fibre, three times a day before meals, for 12 weeks
   • So the actual daily doses were 0 g / 9 g / 15 g

   The results:

   • Total cholesterol — significantly down at 12 weeks in the low-dose group (p<0.005), and at 6 weeks (p<0.05) and 12 weeks (p<0.001) in the high-dose group
   • LDL cholesterol — down only in the high-dose group, at 6 weeks (p<0.05) and 12 weeks (p<0.001)
   • HDL and triglycerides did not change

   The proposed mechanism is bile-acid binding. If tannin fibre traps bile acids in the gut and carries them out, the liver has to spend cholesterol making more. Drugs such as cholestyramine work on the same principle, and oat beta-glucan and psyllium are explained the same way.

   Four things have to be kept straight.

   First, what was fed was not persimmon. It was a fibre fraction extracted from unripe fruit, whose composition differs from the ripe sweet persimmon you eat. The soluble tannins responsible for astringency turn insoluble as the fruit ripens, which is why ripe fruit is not astringent.

   Second, the dose is different. Nine to fifteen grams a day of a purified fibre fraction. A 100 g persimmon holds 3.6 g of total dietary fibre, so matching 15 g would take over 400 g of fruit — and even then its fibre is not the same material as the extract.

   Third, persimmon brings sugar with it. 400 g means 50 g of sugar. The cookie bars in the trial did not.

   Fourth, 40 people over 12 weeks. A small trial, and no larger confirmatory trial was identified.

   So this site's conclusion: there is one human trial behind the idea that persimmon fibre binds bile acids. But turning that into "eating persimmons lowers cholesterol" goes past what the evidence says.

   [1]
2. 02Nutrition data

   3.6 g of fibre and 253 µg of beta-carotene — and 12.5 g of sugar

   Per 100 g of raw sweet persimmon:

   • 70 kcal, protein 0.58 g, fat 0.19 g
   • Of 18.6 g of carbohydrate, 3.6 g is fibre, 12.5 g is sugar
   • Vitamin A 81 µg RAE, beta-carotene 253 µg
   • Manganese 0.355 mg — 15% of the requirement
   • Vitamin C 7.5 mg, potassium 161 mg, copper 0.113 mg, vitamin E 0.73 mg

   The 3.6 g of fibre is this fruit's strength — more than apple (2.4 g), pear (3.1 g) or grape (0.9 g). One persimmon, around 170 g of flesh, gives 6.1 g, close to a quarter of the 25 g daily target.

   The 253 µg of beta-carotene makes the orange. It is fat-soluble, so absorption improves alongside some fat.

   But the 12.5 g of sugar belongs in the same view.

   	100 g	One fruit (170 g)
   Energy	70 kcal	119 kcal
   Sugar	12.5 g	21.3 g
   Fibre	3.6 g	6.1 g

   21 g of sugar in one persimmon is not low for a fruit. An apple of 200 g is around 20 g, so it is comparable — and a persimmon looks smaller, which makes it easier to eat more.

   Dried persimmon is a different food entirely. Drying removes water, so sugar per unit weight is far higher. A dried persimmon looks smaller than a fresh one but carries more sugar. With diabetes, dried persimmon deserves particular care.

   Sweet and astringent persimmons differ.

   • Sweet varieties lose their soluble tannins as they grow and are not astringent. They are eaten firm
   • Astringent varieties keep soluble tannins. Ripened soft or dried, the tannins turn insoluble and the astringency disappears

   Astringency vanishes not because the tannin is gone but because it changes into a form that no longer binds the proteins in your mouth. That distinction connects to the caution below.

3. 03Not established

   Astringent persimmon on an empty stomach — on diospyrobezoar

   This entry has to be clear about what kind of evidence it rests on.

   "Do not eat persimmon on an empty stomach" is an old saying. It does have support in the medical literature — but as case reports.

   Diospyrobezoar, the persimmon bezoar, is an established term, and cases causing intestinal or duodenal obstruction have been reported across journals — BMC Surgery in 2017, Cureus in 2022, 2024 and 2025, among others.

   The mechanism runs like this. Persimmon's soluble tannins, meeting stomach acid (pH 1.5–3.5), congeal with fibre and protein into a mass. Grown large enough, it cannot leave the stomach, and rarely it passes down and obstructs the bowel.

   Certain conditions raise the risk:

   • Eating astringent persimmon, which still holds soluble tannins
   • Eating it on an empty stomach, when acid is concentrated
   • Previous gastric surgery (gastrectomy, sleeve gastrectomy) or diabetic gastroparesis, which slow gastric emptying
   • Eating a lot at once

   But this needs balancing.

   First, these are case reports. A case report says "this happened" — it does not tell you what percentage of people eating persimmon it happens to. Bezoars are rare.

   Second, nothing happens to most people who eat persimmon. Korea consumes enormous quantities every autumn, and bezoar is not a common diagnosis.

   Third, the at-risk group is nonetheless real. For someone who has had gastric surgery or whose stomach empties slowly, this is not a theoretical risk. They are better off avoiding astringent persimmon and not eating much of the sweet kind on an empty stomach either.

   There is also a saying about not eating persimmon with crab. That belongs to traditional food-pairing lore, and this site did not identify human evidence for it. It appears to be an inference from the fact that tannins bind protein.

How to eat it well

What to watch out for