Table of contents:
- Benefits of cilantro for health
- 1. Reducing the risk of heart disease
- 2. Lowering blood sugar
- 3. Relieves pain and migraines
- 4. Helps fight bacterial and fungal infections
- 5. Reducing the risk of cancer
Coriander seeds may have often been used as a spice in cooking. You can find it in soups, fried chicken, to foreign foods such as curries and salads. However, have you ever processed or consumed the leaves? Investigate, coriander leaves have a number of health benefits.
Coriander leaves are one of the healthiest cooking spices with the most diverse nutritional content. The leaves, which are still related to celery, can provide your body with a small amount of carbohydrates, minerals, and active compounds with various uses. Then, what are the benefits that can be obtained from coriander leaves?
Benefits of cilantro for health
Source: Flickr
Many studies have been conducted to determine the benefits of coriander leaves for the body. Most of these studies have only been done in the laboratory and applied to animals. However, the results are promising for humans.
Here are the benefits that you might get from this one spice.
1. Reducing the risk of heart disease
The risk of heart disease can increase if there are blood clots in your blood vessels. The good news, a study in a journal Current Cardiology Reviews mentioned that cilantro might reduce this risk.
When observed in the laboratory, coriander leaf extract was able to inhibit the formation of blood clots in test tubes. If the vessels are clear of blood clots, blood flow will also be smooth so that the risk of heart disease decreases.
The benefits of cilantro are even greater when combined with the seeds. The reason is, coriander seed extract can lower blood pressure. This herb also triggers the excretion of water and salt through urine so that blood pressure becomes normal.
2. Lowering blood sugar
Coriander leaves and seeds are also beneficial for those who need to control blood sugar well. This is because the active substances in coriander leaves and seeds increase the activity of the enzymes glycogen synthase, glycogen phosphorylase, and gluconeogenic enzymes.
These enzymes function to stimulate the release of excess sugar from the bloodstream. Sugar is then stored in liver cells and muscle tissue as energy reserves. As a result, blood sugar drops to a more controllable level.
In animal studies, the use of coriander leaf extract to lower blood sugar was no less effective than the effect of diabetes drugs. However, its potential for humans still needs to be studied further.
3. Relieves pain and migraines
Coriander leaves have long been used as a natural remedy for headaches, allergy symptoms and burns. Apparently, this is because coriander leaves are able to relieve pain and inflammation in the body.
This is what a deep study is trying to prove International Journal of Biomedical Science in 2015. In that study, an injection of coriander leaf extract in certain doses was proven to be effective in relieving pain in mice.
Other researchers then tried to see the benefits of coriander leaves for relieving migraines. They asked participants to drink 15 mL of coriander juice combined with migraine medicine for a month. As a result, the frequency, severity, and duration of migraines tended to decrease.
4. Helps fight bacterial and fungal infections
Another benefit of cilantro is that it fights bacterial and fungal infections. One of the previous studies showed that the active substances from coriander leaves can kill bacteria Salmonella enterica. These bacteria are what make you upset your stomach when you get food poisoning.
When combined with coriander seed extract, coriander leaves can even fight bacteria S. typhi causes typhoid fever and bacteria that trigger urinary tract infections. When processed into essential oils, cilantro has also been shown to prevent fungal infections Candida albicans.
However, most of these studies have only been carried out in laboratories with test tubes. Further research on humans still needs to be done to prove its benefits.
5. Reducing the risk of cancer
Several researchers in Turkey in 2019 then examined the benefits of coriander leaves to inhibit the development of prostate cancer. As a result, the active compounds in coriander leaves can reduce the activity of certain genes on cancer cells.
Giving cilantro extract makes prostate cancer cells less aggressive. This means that these cells no longer spread rapidly and show no signs of accumulating into a large tumor tissue.
Other test-tube studies have also found that coriander root, stem, and leaf extracts can inhibit the growth of breast cancer cells. This spice extract prevents cancer by protecting cells from free radical damage.
Not only does it make dishes taste more delicious, cilantro also provides health benefits. You can even get these benefits easily, simply by adding coriander leaves when processing daily dishes.
However, keep in mind that cilantro can cause allergies in some people. Don't overuse the cilantro and stop using it if your mouth and tongue feel uncomfortable.
