Bitter gourd is a good medicine. Bitter gourd has roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits and seeds used as medicine. It is cold in nature and bitter in taste. Entering the spleen and stomach meridian, clearing away heat and relieving summer heat, improving eyesight and detoxifying. According to the "Resting Diet Spectrum", bitter gourd "has bitter taste, cold and heat, clear eyes and clear heart, nourish blood and soften liver when ripe, strengthen spleen and tonify kidney". "Life" records that bitter gourd can "clear away heat and relieve summer heat, eliminate fatigue, clear heart and improve eyesight, and invigorate qi and strengthen yang". "Compendium of Materia Medica" records bitter gourd's "clearing heart and improving eyesight, benefiting qi and reducing fever".
Bitter gourd has the functions of lowering blood sugar and preventing and treating cancer. Bitter gourd is a kind of bitter and cold product, which contains momordicoside, momordicoside and so on. According to modern pharmacological experiments, bitter gourd has the function of lowering blood sugar, which is thought to be because bitter gourd contains an insulin-like substance, which is stronger than the existing hypoglycemic drug "metsulfuron-methyl", so bitter gourd is an ideal health food for diabetic patients. Bitter gourd has broad prospects in the prevention and treatment of cancer. In foreign countries, scientists injected lipoproteins in bitter gourd into mice with lymphoma, and the survival time of mice was prolonged, indicating that lipoproteins in bitter gourd can improve cellular immune function. Therefore, scientists predict that bitter gourd may become a new drug to treat cancer.
Bitter gourd is rich in nutrition, and the ascorbic acid content in melons is outstanding, which is 14 times that of cucumber, 5 times that of wax gourd and 7 times that of tomato. According to the data of nutritional analysis, every100g of the edible part of bitter gourd contains 84g of water, 0.9g of protein, 0.2g of fat, 3.2g of carbohydrate, 0.6g of inorganic salt, 1. 1 g of crude fiber, 75.3kJ calorie and 0.08mg of vitamins A and B/kloc-. Momordica charantia fruit contains momordicoside, as well as glutamic acid, alanine, phenylalanine, proline and citrulline. The seeds and leaves of Momordica charantia contain a lot of momordicoside.
Bitter gourd is named because of its special bitter taste. There are many different names in different places, such as melon, golden litchi, grape, frog, red girl, cold melon, gentleman's dish and so on. The "gall" in these names means that there are many irregular tumor-like protrusions on the surface of bitter gourd, and the fruit shape is mostly rotary fruit and oblong cone or short cone. The tender fruit is dark green or light green. Calling bitter gourd a "red girl" may mean that with the increase of physiological maturity, the epidermis turns from green to white and gradually turns yellow to red. When the fruit is ripe and red, the top is easy to crack, revealing blood-red pulp, which is wrapped with seeds, generally 20-50 per melon. Judging from the main function of bitter gourd is to clear away heat and detoxify, it seems more appropriate to call it "cold melon".
Bitter gourd originated in eastern India and was introduced to southern China in Ming Dynasty. Bitter gourd belongs to the genus Momordica in Cucurbitaceae. Its stems, leaves, flowers and fruits are all very strange and can be cultivated as ornamental plants. In recent years, bitter gourd has become a three-dimensional cultivated variety to beautify the courtyard, which embodies the value of combining ornamental and edible.
The types of bitter gourd are divided according to the color of melon skin, including green bitter gourd and white bitter gourd; According to the shape of the fruit, there are short cones, long cones and long cylinders; According to the size of the fruit, there are big bitter gourd and small bitter gourd. At present, most of the bitter gourd cultivated in various parts of China belong to the big bitter gourd, which is cylindrical and slightly pointed at both ends, with a length of 16-49 cm and a transverse diameter of 5-7 cm. The seeds are in the lower part of the fruit, and the seeds are easy to crack after the fruit matures. The nodules on the surface of the fruit are delicate and beautiful, the color of the peel changes with the development degree, and the young fruit is dark green. Commodities turn green, greenish white or white when they are ripe, and all are red and yellow when they are ripe.
Bitter gourd is widely cultivated in China, and it has been cultivated in all provinces and cities south of the Yangtze River and suburbs of big cities in the north, and has formed its own local varieties. Such as Guangdong's Slippery Bitter Melon, Long Bitter Melon, Big Top Bitter Melon, Xia Feng Bitter Melon, Xia Lei Bitter Melon and Suixin No.1, Hunan's Dabai Bitter Melon and Lanshan Dabai Bitter Melon, Sichuan's Ya 'an Dabai Bitter Melon, Beijing White Bitter Melon, Guizhou's Dushan White Bitter Melon, Shaanxi's Hanzhong White Bitter Melon and Shaanxi's Little Bitter Melon.
Bitter gourd has wide adaptability, and likes temperature, heat, humidity, rain, waterlogging, fat and barren. When these conditions are right, it can blossom and bear fruit continuously and harvest one after another. The harvesting period is 12- 15 days after flowering, which is a suitable harvesting period and should be harvested in time.
Fitness function of bitter gourd
According to statistics, there are 13 large pharmaceutical factories in Ohio, USA, and 3-6 million people in the United States recover their charming slim figure every day, and their effects on blood lipid, blood pressure, blood sugar and arteriosclerosis have also attracted widespread attention. If you go to Japan, you can buy a bottle of FDA-certified "Kugua Su" produced by Ling Wei Biotechnology Company in the United States for 30,000 yen. In Hongkong, China, "Kuguasu" is becoming a hot topic for ladies and gentlemen.
Bitter gourd seed (RPA), a special ingredient called "fat killer", can reduce the intake of fat and polysaccharide by about 40%-60%. Lose weight with bitter gourd, no toxic side effects.
Small data
Bitter gourd source: the fruit of bitter gourd in cucurbitaceae. Nature and taste: bitter and cold.
Ingredients: It mainly contains momordica charantia protein, protein-like active substances (α-momordica charantia protein, β-momordica charantia protein, MAP30), insulin-like active substances (polypeptide -P) and various amino acids.
Function: clear away heat and relieve summer heat, improve eyesight and detoxify. Treat fever, heatstroke, dysentery, red eye pain, swelling and pain, erysipelas and malignant sores.
Bitter gourd is a vegetable that we often eat. It belongs to Momordica charantia of Cucurbitaceae. Its nature is bitter and cold, and it has the effects of cooling, relieving fever, nourishing and strengthening. At present, scientists have purified and confirmed the components of bitter gourd lectin, momordicin, ribosome inactivating protein, cucurbitacin glycoside, carrot, sterol, MAP 30 protein, P protein and so on. The health functions of bitter gourd in lowering blood sugar, anti-tumor and anti-virus were briefly introduced.
First, the hypoglycemic effect
It is found that bitter gourd can not only significantly reduce the blood sugar level after fasting, but also significantly reduce the levels of cholesterol and triglycerides in the liver. Further research shows that the hypoglycemic effects of extracts from different parts of Momordica charantia L. are different, and the hypoglycemic effects on insulin-dependent and non-insulin-dependent diabetes are also different. Among them, bitter gourd peel extract has more obvious hypoglycemic effect, which can reduce postprandial blood sugar by 36%. The saponin extracts from seeds, whole fruits and whole fruits of Momordica charantia have no obvious effects on fasting and postprandial blood glucose levels in insulin-dependent diabetic rats, but Momordica charantia juice can significantly reduce fasting and postprandial blood glucose levels by 50%, indicating that Momordica charantia juice has obvious hypoglycemic effect. The study also showed that after oral administration of acetone extract of Momordica charantia L. 15 ~ 30 days, both blood sugar and serum cholesterol could be reduced to normal levels, and even after stopping taking acetone extract of Momordica charantia L. 15 days, the blood sugar level did not increase, indicating that the hypoglycemic effect of Momordica charantia L. extract was relatively stable and lasting.
The results of comparative experiments between bitter gourd fruit extract and commonly used hypoglycemic drugs showed that 500 mg bitter gourd fruit extract per kg body weight of drug-induced diabetic rats reduced the blood sperm level after meals by 1 hour 10% ~ 15%, which was equivalent to 25% ~ 30% of the hypoglycemic effect of the same drug, or equivalent to 654,330% per g body weight. Compared with metformin, it was found that metformin reduced the blood sugar level of diabetic model rats after meal 1 hour, 2 hours and 3.5 hours by 40% ~ 50%. Although the hypoglycemic effect of Momordica charantia extract was lower than that of metformin, it also significantly reduced the blood sugar 3.5 hours after meals by 26%. In addition, population studies show that Pugua juice can improve the glucose tolerance of 73% diabetic patients. It can be seen that bitter gourd, as a natural food, has a good hypoglycemic effect.
Second, the anti-tumor effect
As early as 1982, scientists found that the crude extract of Momordica charantia has the functions of enhancing immunity and enhancing anti-tumor. Both bitter gourd juice and bitter gourd extract can significantly enhance the level of serum hemagglutination antibody, serum lysozyme content and leukocyte phagocytosis in mice, and enhance the immune function of the body. This may be one of the reasons for the anti-tumor effect of bitter gourd crude extract.
When many people eat bitter gourd, it is unscientific to eat it for skin purification. When scientists compared the anti-tumor effect of local treatment with the extracts of bitter gourd peel, pulp, seeds and whole fruit, they found that bitter gourd peel had the best effect, followed by whole fruit, seeds and pulp.
Third, antiviral effect.
Bitter gourd fruit also has anti-leukemia and anti-virus effects. A protein factor purified from bitter gourd has long-term or short-term killing activity on various tumor cells.
In addition, scientists have purified a new protein MAP30 from the fruits and seeds of Momordica charantia, which has the function of resisting human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Researchers cultured human lung fibroblasts in a culture medium containing MAP30. After 24-48 hours of inoculation with herpes simplex virus, they detected the virus antigen. It was found that MAP30 only needs 0. 1-0.2 μ mol/L to effectively inhibit the virus, while acyclovir (Changchuan anti-herpes simplex virus drug) needs 0.2 μ mol/L and 650 to effectively inhibit different types of herpes simplex virus. In addition, bitter gourd extract can also inhibit the surface activity of HIV and selectively kill lymphocytes and macrophages infected with HIV. Compared with acyclovir and other anti-HIV drugs, MAP30 has the greatest advantage that it is effective against a variety of viruses and tumor cells, but it is not toxic to uninfected normal cells such as T cells, macrophages and monocytes, as well as kidney cells, liver cells, nerve cells, skin cells and human embryonic cells.
Scientists have also obtained a kind of protein from ripe bitter gourd fruits and seeds, which is similar in structure to MAP30 and named MRK29. MRK29 also has the function of regulating immune cells, which can triple the activity of tumor necrosis factor.
It can be seen that bitter gourd can not only lower blood sugar, but also resist tumor and virus. It is a kind of vegetable with high nutritional and health care value, and its medicine and food are homologous. Long-term consumption has a good health care effect on diabetic patients, tumor patients and the weak. I suggest you eat this vegetable often.