What are the effects and benefits of honeysuckle?
Honeysuckle blooms every year in March, and when it opens it has a faint fragrance. Now let's learn about the benefits and effects of honeysuckle together!
Honeysuckle is a traditional Chinese herbal medicine and belongs to medicinal flowers. It is also known as "twin flower" because it is the flower bud of Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica), a perennial semi-evergreen twining shrub of the Caprifoliaceae family, and is also called Japanese honeysuckle flower. When it first opens it is pure white, and after one or two days it turns yellow. Honeysuckle has many benefits, effects and edible methods, and different edible methods produce different benefits and effects.
Honeysuckle is a heat-clearing and detoxifying medicine. Its nature and flavor are sweet and cold, and it enters the lung, stomach and heart meridians. It is mainly used for heat-toxin sores and carbuncles, and has the effects of detoxifying and dispersing carbuncles, clearing heat and cooling blood. It can also reduce swelling and improve vision, and dispel wind and cold. For example, "Yinqiao Pill" is a preparation made with honeysuckle as the main medicine, and it is a good medicine for treating colds, pharyngitis, stomatitis and certain skin diseases.
Modern pharmacological research has found that honeysuckle contains various biochemical components such as inositol, cyclohexanehexol, luteolin, saponins and tannic acid, and also contains a large amount of reducing groups. It has a strong inhibitory effect on toxins secreted by Staphylococcus, hemolytic Streptococcus, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Salmonella typhi, Pneumococcus and others. Therefore, honeysuckle has been listed as an antibacterial drug and belongs to the antibiotic series. Clinically it is also used to treat appendicitis, bacillary dysentery and other conditions, with very good therapeutic results. Soaking and distilling honeysuckle in water produces "honeysuckle distillate", which can treat symptoms such as thirst due to summer-heat, heat-toxin sores and swelling, heat boils in young children, and prickly heat. It can also be made into a beverage to drink instead of tea in summer, and has the effects of dispelling summer-heat and clearing heat, promoting appetite and restoring the middle, and dispelling wind and improving vision.
The effects and benefits of drinking honeysuckle soaked in water:
Honeysuckle is one of the commonly used precious Chinese medicinal materials. It has effects such as clearing heat and detoxifying, promoting meridians and activating collaterals, broad-spectrum antibacterial and antiviral effects. More than 70% of over-the-counter Chinese patent medicines for colds and anti-inflammatory use contain honeysuckle, and it is known as "Chinese herbal antibiotic" and "green antibiotic". Besides medicinal use, honeysuckle's effects on beauty, weight loss, and health preservation are even more remarkable, and its huge protective and repairing effects on the body are very significant.
The benefits of honeysuckle include relieving summer-heat, sobering up after drinking, clearing the head, quenching thirst, removing toxic substances from the body, lowering blood lipids, reducing weight, beautifying and cleansing the skin, preventing aging, and prolonging life. Honeysuckle can lower blood pressure, reduce serum cholesterol, increase coronary blood flow, prevent coronary heart disease and angina pectoris; inhibit the formation of cerebral thrombosis; improve the human body's resistance to hypoxia and free radicals, enhance memory, and delay aging; improve microcirculation, remove lipid peroxide deposits, promote metabolism, and moisturize the skin and remove spots.
Honeysuckle has the effect of dispelling heat and dispersing pathogenic factors, and has a certain effect on externally contracted wind-heat or the early stage of warm disease, with symptoms such as body heat and headache, restlessness and little sleep, mental confusion and crimson tongue, and dry throat and mouth; it also has the effect of cooling blood and stopping dysentery, and has the effect of detoxifying, stopping dysentery, cooling blood and soothing the throat for heat-toxin dysentery, dysentery with pus and blood, damp-warmth obstructing the throat, and sore swollen throat.
Clinical applications of honeysuckle:
I. Raw medicine:
1. Early stage of warm disease: often used together with Forsythia suspensa, mint, light fermented soybean and others. It has the effects of clearing heat and detoxifying, and dispelling wind and releasing the exterior. It can be used for the early stage of warm disease, with slight aversion to cold and wind-cold, and slight thirst, such as Yinqiao Powder.
2. Carbuncles, abscesses and boils: often used together with dandelion, Viola philippica, wild chrysanthemum and others. It can enhance the heat-clearing and detoxifying effect, and can be used for carbuncles, abscesses and boils with redness, swelling and pain, such as Wuwei Xiaodu Drink.
II. Fried medicine:
Middle stage of warm disease: often used together with Scutellaria baicalensis, Gardenia jasminoides, gypsum, bamboo shavings, reed root and others. It has the effects of clearing heat and detoxifying, expelling pathogenic factors outward, and harmonizing the stomach and stopping vomiting. It can be used for obstruction of pathogenic heat, disharmony of stomach qi, fever and restlessness, chest and diaphragm stuffiness, thirst and dry retching, red tongue with dry coating, and slippery rapid pulse.
III. Charred medicine
1. Red dysentery: often used together with Coptis chinensis, red peony root, costus root, purslane and others. It has the effects of clearing heat and regulating the intestines, resolving stagnation and harmonizing blood. It can be used for damp-heat obstructing the middle, damaging the intestinal collaterals and fat membrane, dysentery with pus and blood, with more blood than pus, abdominal pain, and tenesmus.
2. Epidemic dysentery: often used together with raw rehmannia, red peony root, moutan bark, Coptis chinensis, Phellodendron amurense, Pulsatilla chinensis and others. It has the effects of clearing heat and detoxifying, and cooling blood and stopping dysentery. It can be used for epidemic toxin invading the stomach and intestines, struggling with qi and blood, dysentery with fresh purple pus and blood, high fever and thirst, restlessness, and even mental confusion and delirious speech.
The above is the full content of the effects and benefits of honeysuckle that I have summarized for everyone. I hope this article can help everyone. Please also continue to follow us.