Fresh Tibetan Berry
This product, described commercially as Voizee fruity lozenge made from Tibetan berry, is using the fresh fruit of mature fructus phyllantis, a kind of euphorbia plant. The fruit tastes sweet, sour and astringent with cold nature. It can relieve heat and cool blood in the body, relieve indigestion and improve appetite, promote saliva secretion and prevent coughing. Thus, it can be used for therapy of hot blood and blood gore, liver disease, poor digestion, bellyache, coughing, sore throat and dry mouth.
Chemical Constitution
This fruit contains abundant Vitamin C (1.0%-1.8% in fruit), tannins, fructose, amylase, flavone, lactone, coumarin, phytosterol, terpene and naphtha et al.(1). The tannins was found to have glucogallin, gallic acid, ellagic acid, corilagin, terchebin, chebulagic acid chebulinic acid, 3,6-digalloylglucose. Its leaves also contain mucic acid (2).
Pharmacological Functions of the Fruit
1. Anti-bacteria function The water extract of this fruit has strong anti-bacteria function against golden-yellow staphylococcus, epidermis staphylococcus and sarcina of which its anti-bacteria concentrations are 1/1280, 1/2560 and 1/640, respectively. It also has anti-bacteria function against other coccus but has little effect on pneumococcus, α-haemolytic streptococcus and β-haemolytic streptococcus. It has no anti-bacteria function on the epiphyte. The anti-bacteria activity of the dry and fresh fruit has some discrepancy, which may be related to the different content of the anti-bacteria constitution in the dry and fresh fruit (1).
2. Anti-hepatitis function The same category plants of this fruit such as P. amorus, P. gardiner, P. niruri can fight against HBV and wood chuck hepatitis virus, increase hexobarbital sleeping time observed from the liver toxicity model of the effect of CCl4 on the big and small mouse, and reduce activity of the serum aminotransferase and so on (3). The phyllanethin and hypophyllanthin, which are separatd from the hexane extract from P. niruri L. plant, can alleviate the toxicity damnification of the big mouse liver cells caused by CCl4 and Reduced Glutathione (RG) in culture cuvette (4).
3. Anti-tumor function The fresh juice of this fruit can block the synthesis of carcinogen N-nitroso compounds with blockage rate higher than 90% under the simulated gastric juice condition (5). The anticancer constitutions, phyllanthostation 2, 3 and 6 and phyllanthoside, separated from the same category plant such as P. acuminatus Vabl, can inhibit the growth of P388 lymphocyte leucocythemia (6,7). The phyllanthostation and phyllanthoside also can inhibit the growth of the melanin tumor B16 (6). The oversea research groups are carrying out synthesis investigation and before-clinical experiments on phyllanthoside.
4. Others The crude extract of this fruit has obvious dose-dependent inhibition effect on the photochemical reduction of Nitro Blue Tetrazolium Chloride (NBT), which also can inhibit the self-oxidation of pyrogallol and adrenalin, suggesting that this product contains SOD. One gram fresh fruit contains 482.14 unit of SOD (5). Lavaging the big and small mouse with the product juice can enhance the SOD activity and reduce the LPO content (8), meaning that this product can influence the radical reactions in the animal body. The same category plant P. niruri can inhibit the activity of HIV virus-Reverse Transcriptase (HIV-RT). The ID50 in its water extract is 26 mg/ml while the ID50 in compounds is 0.15 mg/ml. It was authenticated to be hydrolysis Tannins, the same compound as repardusinic acid A, which has competition on the templates and primers (9).
5. Toxicity Lavaging the small while mouse with water extract from fresh and dry fruit, the LD50 is 10070±378.5 and 9809±355.7 mg/kg, respectively.
Clinical Application
1. Beverage This fruit contains abundant nutrient constitutions, which can be made to canned food such as Yu Kan Zi syrup.
2. Anti-hepatitis 75 cases of Hepatitis B were treated by the soluble powder of this fruit with cured rate of 46.6% and total efficiency of 89.9%. 37 cases of HBV carriers were treated by the medicinal made from the same category plant P. amarus. Within 15 to 20 days after a treatment period of 30 days, 22 cases of HBsAg transformed to negative (about 59%), while in the comparative group only 1 case among 23 cases transformed to negative (about 4%). No case recrudesces within 9 month after recovery, suggesting that this plant has anti-hepatitis B function. But, it was also reported that no case among 59 cases under observation treatment in Thailand transformed to negative. While, Thyagarajan had treated 28 cases of non-symptom chronic HBV carriers with increased dose for 3 month. HBsAg cleanliness rate reached 20%. This is probably related to the different plantation area of the plant and different dose of the medicine. The cases reported in domestic on the treatment of Hepatitis B patients with P. amarus were similar to those in overseas. Although the investigation results from different place were not consistent, this product was believed to have good curative effect.
3. Delaying consenescence After 15 elders drank the juice of this fruit for 2 month, their SOD activity of the blood red cell was improved significantly, and 100% testers had positive response. Although the blood lipid peroxidation (LPO) of 75% of the testers was reduced, the reduction was not obvious. All of above indicated that this fruit has function of delaying consenescence.
4. Others This product can be used to cure biliary duct lumbricoides colic. Among the 47 cases treated, 42 cases can stop pain within 1 to 2 minutes with efficiency of 89.36% and total efficiency of 93.54%. This fruit also can be used to cure high blood, atherosclerotics and chronic faucitis and has good fat reduction effect on diabetes and high blood cholesterol. After taking juice of this fruit, the TG and TC of 20 patients averagely reduced 1.15 mmol/L and 3.07 mmol/L, respectively and the HDL averagely increased 0.84 mmol/L. Its curative effect is better than Vitamin E.
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