We often hear people say: “All diseases start from cold.”
In winter, just dealing with the word "cold" is already very troublesome.
However, all kinds of pathogens and external evils nowadays like this "cold" very much. They use the "cold air" to quietly penetrate into people's bodies and "burn, kill, and loot" inside. This is called arrogance. Domineering, do whatever you want.
And we have to guard against mycoplasma, influenza, COVID-19, and bacteria. At the same time, we have to guard against colds caused by catching colds. We are in a hurry but at a loss as to what to do. How can we be so "burned out"? It can be described.
Sometimes I even think about how I wish a "Sun Wukong" could come out and draw a circle for us. As long as we are inside the circle, no external evil can come in. That would be so cool.
Unfortunately, there is no Sun Wukong in real life.
Fortunately, there is a "border" woven by Chinese herbal medicine in the real world to protect us.
Sometimes, this "enchantment" doesn't even need the "Sun Wukong" with "powerful skills" to weave it. As long as we know something about the ingredients around us, we can weave a "enchantment" to protect ourselves and our families.
For example, in the face of the cold and cold weather in winter, and in the face of external evils surrounding us, there are common condiments in the kitchen, which are the best "raw materials" for this "enchantment".
There it is: pepper.
Many people admire the seasoning ability of pepper, but as everyone knows, pepper's ability to "protect" the body when we face cold evil is also quite remarkable.
Today, let’s talk about this pepper in depth.
Cold and cold
In winter, if you find "signs" of a cold or cold, the sooner you get treatment, the better.
If it can be contained before it happens, many subsequent problems can be avoided.
After all, people are relatively weak when they have a cold. Too many pathogens will "sneak in" and "take advantage of" when the body is weak.
In this way, maybe you just caught a cold at first, then it turned into a cold, then you were infected with a certain bacteria, then you were infected with a certain virus, then you were infected with mycoplasma... and then the test sheet turned red. , the doctor looked big-headed.
And the "source" of all this is just "catch a cold".
Of course, if you don’t want all of this to happen, you should protect yourself from the cold and avoid catching cold at the root.
But in winter, it’s really not easy to keep up with “not catching a cold” at all.
Especially for people who are already cold, a "slow breeze" to others can make them feel a "biting cold wind", not to mention the howling north wind and falling snowflakes.
It is precisely because of this that it is very important to warm up the body.
Adding some pepper to your diet is a "little trick" that can help us "warm" our body.
From the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine, pepper can replenish fire and yang, helping to prevent and regulate symptoms related to colds and colds.
This ability of pepper has been confirmed by modern science.
Anti-inflammatory, regulate immunity
In the face of respiratory infections, especially complex respiratory infections, "inflammation" is a topic that is difficult to avoid.
After all, many of the uncomfortable symptoms we feel are external manifestations of "inflammation."
To a certain extent, pepper can help us improve inflammation-related symptoms and make the body more comfortable.
Studies have shown that pepper extract has a good effect on improving the airway inflammation caused by certain substances in asthma. It can adjust the balance of the proportion of lymphocytes such as certain helper T cells and regulatory T cells, and regulate the total immune cells in the serum. Levels of protein E, anti-ovalbumin IgE, and anti-ovalbumin IgG1 regulate histamine release in serum.
Immunohistochemistry results showed that fibrosis and infiltration of inflammatory cells were improved after administration of pepper extract.
Antibacterial
When the body's defense line is weak, when the body is surrounded by "wolves", it would be great if there could be a torch next to it, so that the "wolves" would be frightened when they saw it, and would stay away and not be able to get close.
Assuming that various pathogens are the wolves that are "eager to try", then pepper is the torch that can help us.
Research shows that the alkaloids and volatile oils in pepper have strong antibacterial activity and can help us resist the invasion of various bacteria.
The hydrolyzate of black pepper has shown strong antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Salmonella typhi, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and other bacteria.
Some scholars have studied the antibacterial mechanism of pepper extract. The results show that some bacteria treated with pepper extract have increased extracellular pyruvate content and enhanced transaminase activity. It is speculated that this may affect the normal physiological metabolic process of the strain. The medium energy supply and the synthesis of key substances lead to the decline of bacterial cells, thereby inhibiting bacterial growth.
Antipyretic
Having a cold and fever is a very torturous thing.
If you can make good use of this little pepper, this "antipyretic" will probably be much easier.
As an ingredient with "warmth" as its "specialty", many people will be curious about how it can "antipyretic".
Not only are we curious, but so are doctors and academics.
After verifying the pharmacological ability of heat-clearing drugs and making relevant conclusions about heat-clearing itself, some scholars used the principle of evidence by contradiction to conduct antipyretic research with warm-living drugs, and found that warm-living drugs are sometimes more "heat-clearing" than heat-clearing drugs. Good at”.
This point, whether from the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine theory or modern theory, is worthy of discussion and research.
So they did relevant research and found that pepper, which is good at warming, has a scientific basis for its ability to relieve heat.
Scholars used pepper extract and piperine as test materials and used a variety of substances to conduct antipyretic observations. The results show that both pepper extract and piperine have good antipyretic properties.
Studies have found that pepper extract and piperine, at certain doses, can lower the body temperature of people with fever, indicating that antipyretic is one of the main abilities of pepper.
In experiments, certain piperine and pepper extracts in various dosage groups have antipyretic effects on the body temperature caused by endotoxin. They can lower the temperature half an hour after use and can continuously control the temperature. Some dose groups were also able to adjust their temperature better the next day.
Warming, dispersing cold and relieving pain
People with weak yang energy sometimes feel "cold" in winter.
This feeling is very "mysterious" and is a little different from the ordinary "chills". People who have experienced it may feel it more deeply.
For example, when you are cold, you will feel "numbness" all over your body, especially your back, a cold numbness, and you will feel a "shock" when someone touches it lightly, and your stomach will also feel cold.
When facing this kind of coldness, a bowl of warm pepper soup will make you feel much better.
I believe everyone has watched martial arts dramas. When a person with "profound skills" is "healing" or "exerting poison" on another person, there are often some "special effects" on the TV screen, such as being beaten. People who are "poisonous" have "gas" coming out of their bodies, as if "smoke" is coming out.
People who feel cold may have such a "wonderful" experience after drinking a bowl of pepper soup.
The warm pepper soup enters the body little by little, and the body sweats slightly. As the heat "wanders" in the body, we can even feel the cold air being gradually "forced" out of the body, "diverging" from the back little by little. ".
Traditional Chinese medicine believes that pepper has a pungent taste and is hot in nature. It can warm the body, dispel cold, lower qi and relieve pain.
It is precisely because of this ability of pepper that it is often used to treat cold epigastric pain, rheumatoid arthritis and many "cold coagulation" pains.
This ability of pepper has been confirmed by modern science from various angles and its mechanism has been studied.
Regulate gastrointestinal inflammation
Researchers conducted a series of experiments on pepper extract, and the results showed that pepper extract inhibited allergic reactions by degranulating and inactivating peritoneal mast cells.
Some scholars used lipopolysaccharide-induced human colon cancer cell lines to simulate inflammation caused by bacterial infection in the human intestine to explore the ability of piperine to resist enteritis. The results show that piperine can inhibit the increase in the content of the inflammatory factor interleukin-8 secreted by SW480 and HT-29 cells caused by LPS stimulation, induce the expression of antimicrobial peptide defensins in intestinal epithelial cells by antagonizing pathogens, and then exert its anti-enteritis ability.
This ability may be related to the inhibition of p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase and c-Jun N-terminal kinase signaling pathway activation.
analgesia
Some scholars have discovered that there is a component in pepper that can inhibit the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines in endotoxemia, provide acute analgesia, and suppress pain.
The piperine in pepper also acts as a bioavailability enhancer.
At this time, pepper is doing a kind of "auxiliary" "job".
Without it, other substances can also provide anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects, but its presence can make the anti-inflammatory and analgesic power even greater.
Research shows that in the body, piperine increases the bioavailability of specific substances by increasing the gastrointestinal absorption of certain substances and inhibiting the activity of liver microsomal drug metabolizing enzymes, thus exerting its anti-inflammatory and analgesic abilities.
The related mechanism may be to form a non-polar mixture with certain substances, thereby increasing the permeability of certain substances and thereby providing better anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects.
When treating cold stomach pain, you can stew pepper pork belly soup and drink it.
Pepper stewed pork belly:
Stew 10g of pepper and 1 pork belly together, drink the soup and eat the belly.
Treat vomiting and diarrhea
Rain and snow in winter may be mixed with cold and dampness.
People with relatively weak bodies are easily "tangled" and "entangled" by external evil spirits when facing such weather.
There is a relatively simple prevention method. When facing this kind of weather, once you feel some faint signs of discomfort in your spleen and stomach, or you feel stuffy and have no appetite, or you even feel nauseous or have symptoms. If you have diarrhea, when cooking or making soup, you can add some seasonings such as pepper to stimulate the spleen and stomach and remove cold and dampness.
In order to study the relevant impact mechanisms of pepper on the gastrointestinal tract, scholars have established a series of models.
In a variety of experimental gastric injuries, such as gastric ulcer models induced by stress, chemical substances, specific substances, and pyloric ligation, pepper extract and isolated piperine have shown relatively good conditioning capabilities and are helpful. It can inhibit the ulcer area and regulate the activity of gastric acid and pepsin A.
In terms of regulating diarrhea, piperine can combat diarrhea caused by a variety of laxatives, which proves that piperine has a scientific basis for traditionally regulating diarrhea such as cold diarrhea.
Scholars have found that piperine can reduce small intestinal secretion fluid retention to a certain extent. This effect can be blocked by capsaicin, but not by capsaicin receptor antagonists. Pre-administration of capsaicin receptor antagonists cannot weaken the effect of pepper. alkaline effects, which means that it is likely that piperine's ability to reduce intestinal secretion is related to capsaicin-sensitive neurons and not to capsaicin receptors.
When treating nausea and vomiting, you can make some pepper and ginger soup to drink.
Pepper Ginger Soup:
3g pepper and 30g ginger, decoction and take.
When treating cold diarrhea, you can boil some pepper porridge to drink.
Pepper porridge:
3g pepper and 50g japonica rice for cooking porridge.
Black pepper & white pepper
The difference between black pepper and white pepper is not a difference in natural "hair color" like "black cat" or "white cat", but depends on how they are harvested.
If the fruit is still green and relatively tender when harvested, and the peel is not removed, after drying, the peel will shrink and adhere to the surface of the shell, which is called black pepper.
If the fruit is more mature when picked, pick it when the fruit turns red, and then after harvesting, remove the outer peel (pulp) on the surface and dry it in the sun. The skin will be gray-white, and it is called white pepper.
So white pepper and black pepper are the same variety, but the harvesting time is slightly different in the morning and evening.
In terms of "performance", white pepper has a stronger pungency, while black pepper has a slightly weaker one.
It should be noted that patients with yin deficiency, fire, eye diseases, and hemorrhoids should use pepper with caution.
For us, pepper always seems to exist in a kind of remote and mysterious sense.
Travelers returning home with the cold wind, even if they are exhausted, only need a bowl of spicy soup to warm them up from the inside out.
Even a serious person can come alive with this bowl of soup.
Or so is life.
In life, how can everything go as planned and every step go smoothly?
The "secret" that can make life steamy and make life full of excitement and joy lies in this little "spice".
The flowers are half blooming and the wine is slightly drunk.
Common people's food, Coca-Cola for life.
