The efficacy and function of snow lotus, the king of herbs

Snow Lotus

Snow lotus is also known as large-bract snow lotus and snow lotus. It is called "Tagi Yilis" in the local Uyghur language. It is a rare and precious Chinese herbal medicine unique to Xinjiang. It grows on the steep cliffs and in the icy cracks of the rocks in the Tianshan Mountains at an altitude of about 4,000 meters. The climate there is extremely cold and the snow never melts all year round, so ordinary plants cannot survive at all. However, snow lotus can brave the frost and snow and grow tenaciously in the severe cold of dozens of degrees below zero and the thin air and oxygen-deficient environment.

Tibetan people divide snow lotus into two types: male and female. It is said that the female can be eaten raw and has a sweet taste, while the male tastes bitter. In plant taxonomy, snow lotus is divided into the two major categories of Snow Lotus subgenus and Snow Rabbit subgenus. There are 13 species of the subgenus Saussurea and 17 species of the subgenus Saussurea produced in Tibet, totaling 30 species.

The efficacy and function of snow lotus

In folk medicine, the whole plant of snow lotus is generally used as medicine to treat snow blindness, toothache, rheumatoid arthritis, impotence, irregular menstruation, menorrhagia, leucorrhea and other diseases. Indian people also use snow lotus to treat many chronic diseases. Such as gastric ulcer, hemorrhoids, bronchitis, heart disease, nose bleeding and snake bites. Snow lotus has a long history as a medicine in Tibetan medicine. It is recorded in the Tibetan medical literature "Yuewang Yaozhen" and "Four Medical Classics".

Snow lotus has physiologically active ingredients. Among them, umbelliferone has obvious antibacterial, antihypertensive sedative and antispasmodic effects; scopolamine has wind-dispelling, anti-inflammatory, analgesic, expectorant and anti-tumor effects. The clinical efficacy of Chinese medicine in treating acute and chronic bronchitis is 96.6%; apigenin has smooth muscle spasmolytic and anti-gastric ulcer effects; and ankylosing phenanthene has obvious choleretic effects. Snow lotus contains colchicine, which is a typical representative of cell mitosis. It can inhibit the growth of cancer cells and is used clinically to treat cancer, especially breast cancer. It also has certain effects on skin cancer, leukemia and Hodgkin's disease.

In addition, snow lotus has estrogen-like activity, which can prolong the estrus and metestrus of rats, and shorten the diestrus and proestrus. However, colchicine is highly toxic and can cause nausea, loss of appetite, abdominal distension, and in severe cases, side effects such as intestinal paralysis, constipation, and sore limbs. Because snow lotus contains colchicine, which is effective but highly toxic, people are advised not to take too much snow lotus when making wine to treat rheumatoid arthritis and gynecological diseases.