Banlangen is a traditional Chinese medicine that has the functions of clearing heat, detoxifying, cooling blood, and relieving sore throat. It is also delicious and affordable. Therefore, many people drink Banlangen whenever they have a cold. However, is Banlangen suitable for all types of colds?
【Not all colds are suitable for Banlangen】
Banlangen, as a commonly used medicine for clearing heat and detoxification, is not a universal medicine suitable for every type of cold. It is only suitable for the treatment of hot diseases such as wind-heat cold and influenza, and it is not suitable for wind-cold cold and weak body cold.
Banlangen is ineffective against upper respiratory infections caused by Mycoplasma pneumoniae, Chlamydia pneumoniae, and Legionella pneumophila. Even for wind-heat colds, there are individual differences such as dampness and internal heat among different patients. Banlangen is more suitable for wind-heat colds with internal heat, and is less suitable for patients with wind-heat and dampness cold.
For wind-heat colds suitable for Banlangen, patients should also pay attention to differentiation: the symptoms of wind-heat cold are high fever, mild aversion to cold, not much sweating, headache, body aches, red and swollen throat, dry mouth and desire to drink, red tongue, and yellow tongue coating. The symptoms of influenza are similar to those of wind-heat cold, but the onset is fast, the condition is severe, with high fever, chills, body aches, fatigue, etc.
Or follow the doctor's advice
【The functions of Banlangen】
1. Antibacterial and anti-inflammatory effects
Experiments have shown that Banlangen has inhibitory effects on both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. Banlangen water extract has inhibitory effects on Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Bacillus subtilis, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhi, Streptococcus pyogenes, Streptococcus pneumoniae, influenza bacillus, and meningococci. The effective antibacterial components of Banlangen are indole derivatives such as serotonin, and the content of these antibacterial active ingredients cannot be determined by effective physicochemical analysis methods at present. However, microbial determination methods can be used for convenient overall evaluation of their antibacterial bioactivity, with good repeatability. The experiment showed that the biopotency of Banlangen was equivalent to 22.284μg of chloramphenicol per gram of herbal medicine according to a certain antibacterial efficacy method.
2. Effects on endotoxins
The anti-endotoxin effect of Banlangen was reported as early as 1982. Recently, Liu Yunhai et al. extracted and isolated the F022 part as the active part against endotoxins, and confirmed that the F022 part has inhibitory effects on the induction of inflammatory mediators (TNF-α, IL-6) by endotoxins. The study of Banlangen injection using the hirudin test and rabbit pyrogen test showed that it has an inhibitory effect on Escherichia coli D?B4 endotoxins. The agglutination reaction between the reagent and the endotoxin can be inhibited by Banlangen injection, confirming the presence of anti-endotoxin active substances. There are significant differences in the anti-toxin effects of Banlangen injections produced by different manufacturers, some of which have an anti-endotoxin effect of 400U/ml, while others have a lower effect of only 1U/ml. Electron microscopy observations of endotoxin structures also demonstrate the anti-endotoxin effect of Banlangen. Irradiating the original herbal medicine with a dose of less than 10kGy of gamma rays does not affect the anti-endotoxin effect.
3. Effects on the immune system
It has been proven that Banlangen polysaccharides (HP) have certain promoting effects on specific, non-specific, humoral, and cellular immunities. Intraperitoneal injection of HP 50mg/kg can significantly promote immune function in mice, as follows: significantly increase the spleen weight of normal mice, and restore the spleen weight reduced by hydrocortisone to normal levels, increase the number of peripheral blood leukocytes and lymphocytes in mice. HP can significantly enhance the delayed-type hypersensitivity reaction of normal mice and immunosuppressed mice to dinitrochlorobenzene, induce lymphocyte transformation in vivo, enhance natural killer cell (NK) activity in spleen cells, increase the percentage of ANAE-positive lymphocytes in peripheral blood of normal mice, and significantly counteract hydrogenation.
