What are the effects of dodder?

Cuscuta, also known as silk seed, is a parasitic plant that usually relies on absorbing nutrients from other plants to survive. The value of Cuscuta is not just that it is a cheap parasitic plant. It is a Chinese herbal medicine with high medicinal value. Maybe you don’t know much about its effects. Let’s learn about the effects of Cuscuta.

Cuscuta australis tastes pungent and sweet, is neutral in nature, and enters the liver and kidney meridians. It has the effects of nourishing the kidney and essence, nourishing the liver and improving eyesight, and calming the fetus. It can be used for symptoms such as low back and knee pain, impotence, premature ejaculation, spermatorrhea, enuresis, frequent urination, tinnitus, dizziness, decreased vision, threatened abortion, and leucorrhea.

1. Aphrodisiac effect: Experiments have shown that Cuscuta has the effect of improving the sexual vitality of fruit flies, significantly increasing their mating rate, and the strength of its effect is positively correlated with the dosage concentration. For the "yang deficiency" model of mice caused by hydrocortisone, the use of Cuscuta australis can have a certain recovery effect on the symptoms of yang deficiency, but it cannot restore the animals to the level of the normal control group. Experiments show that oral administration of a decoction of Cuscuta australis to "yang-deficiency" mice can significantly increase their body weight, kidney weight, thymus weight, white blood cell count, red blood cell count, hemoglobin and superoxide dismutase activity; oral administration of a decoction of Cuscuta australis to male mice can significantly prolong their swimming time and survival time under hypoxic conditions, and also enhance the nonspecific resistance of mice.

2. Effects on endocrine system: It has been reported that oral administration of Cuscuta australis aqueous extract to female rats can increase the weight of the anterior pituitary, ovaries and uterus, but has no effect on the level of luteinizing hormone (LH) in plasma; it increases the number of HCG/LH receptors in the rat ovaries, while the Ka value is lower than that of the control group. Oral administration of Cuscuta australis aqueous extract to ovariectomized rats can enhance the LH secretion response of the pituitary gland to the injection of luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LRH) in ovariectomized anesthetized rats. The plasma LH level reached the highest level at 90 minutes after injection, which can be increased by 241.58%. Therefore, the reporter believes that dodder can increase the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian luteinizing function. This effect is not due to their direct stimulation of the secretion of pituitary luteinizing hormone, but due to increased pituitary responsiveness to LRH and ovarian responsiveness to LH.

3. Effects on heart rate and blood pressure: Cuscuta soy sauce (made from Cuscuta and bean cake), infusion, and tincture can enhance the contractility of the isolated toad heart. The former can increase the heart rate, while the latter two can reduce it. The infusion, when injected intravenously into anesthetized dogs, has the effect of lowering blood pressure.

4. Effect of delaying cataract formation: Studies have shown that oral administration of Cuscuta australis water extract to rats has a delayed effect on cataract formation induced by galactose in rats, with the percentage of transparent lenses being 33.3%. Its mechanism of action is that Cuscuta can reduce the activity of aldose reductase in rats with cataract caused by galactose, enhance the activities of polyol dehydrogenase, hexokinase and 6-phosphate glucose dehydrogenase, and inhibit and correct the abnormal changes of enzymes in the lens of rats with cataract.

What are the effects of Cuscuta? We have already introduced this issue to you. Although Cuscuta can effectively treat threatened abortion, it is not recommended for pregnant women with this symptom to take the medicine at will. After all, medicine is three-part poison. For the sake of health, you must take it under the advice of a doctor. I hope everyone can pay attention to this issue.