Botanical Name: Trigonella Foenum Graecum
English/Common Name: Fenugreek
Ayurvedic Name: Methi
Parts used : Dried seeds
Habitat and Botany: Lequminosae. This all-season herb is found in wild and extensively cultivated in India. It has triplets or oval leaflets. It blooms yellow white flowers in the summer and has aromatic seeds. Used through the ages by Indians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans for medicinal and culinary purposes.
Principal Constituents: The scented seeds contain Vitamin A, B1, C, Iron and Minerals.
Aromatic, carminative and aphrodisiac, in Dyspepsia with loss of appetite. Cooling in rheumatism. Good for general debility, anorexia of convalescence, emmengogue, anti-diabetes. Treatment of boils, cellulitis diabetic-TB, gastrointestinal problems, lowers serum cholesterol and sugar levels in blood. It is warming to the digestive tract. It absorbs toxins, relieves menstrual pains. The seeds contain hormone precursors that increase breast-milk, restores hair growth and libido in men. This herb delays the glucose absorption by the intestine thereby reducing the after-meals glucose peak level.
Side Effects: No significant side effects information is available so far.
According to Ayurveda, herbs are taken in combination with other herbs to neutralize the toxicity of one herb with the opposing effect of the other or to enhance the particular effect of one herb with the help of other.
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