Costus pictus D.Don हिंदी नाम: रक्त केऊकन्द English Name: Painted Spiral Ginger, Insulin Plant Family (वानस्पतिक कुल): Costaceae (केऊकन्द कुल) Costus pictus or Insulin Plant is native to Mexico and is recently introduced in India as ornamental plant. Due to the hypoglycemic properties of its leaves the plant became popular as Insulin Plant. It is a perennial, upright, spreading plant reaching about two feet tall, with spirally arranged leaves and attractive flowers. In southern India, it is usually grown as ornamental plant and its leaves are used as a dietary supplement in the treatment of diabetes mellitus. It is now used to control diabetes, and is believed to lower blood glucose level of diabetic people if one leaf is eaten daily. Some people also advertised it as A leaf a day keeps Diabetes away. This plant is distributed along the coast from Mexico to Costa Rica and is locally known as cana agria or cana de jabali in Mexico. In Mexican folk medicine, the aerial part of it is used to treat diseases of the kidney. It is reported to have effects on renal functions and its anti-inflammatory and hypoglycemic actions. The practitioners in Mexico used an infusion of this plant in the treatment of renal disorders; the plant also possesses diuretic activity. The plant was reported to contain flavonoids, saponins, reduced sugars and tannins. Interested people are advised to go through the following references prior to its use: pharmscidirect/Docs/IJPBR-2013-02-146.pdf natureherbsorg.blogspot.in/2013/02/insulin-plant-costus-pictus.html ijod.uaeu.ac.ae/iss_1603/d.pdf ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3931203/ ijpsi.org/Papers/Vol2(5)/version-1/B251118.pdf biomedcentral/content/pdf/1471-2164-13-663.pdf
Posted on: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 17:21:25 +0000