Historical Records of Pharmacological Action of Pu’er Tea
In ancient times, many works have recorded the pharmacological effects of Pu ‘er tea. In the Pu ‘er tea-growing area of Yunnan Province, there is a legend that Zhuge Liang used Pu ‘er tea to treat eye diseases for soldiers. Fang Yizhi of the Qing Dynasty compiled “A Brief Understanding of Physics”, in which his sons Zhongtong and Zhonglu, among others, stated: “When Pu ‘er tea is steamed into a ball and sold in the Western regions, it is the most capable of decomposition.” Zhang Hong of the Qing Dynasty’s “New Sayings of Southern Yunnan” states: “Yunnan tea, with a taste close to bitterness and an extremely cold nature, can relieve heat and diseases.” In the Compendium of Materia Medica Supplement by Zhao Xuemin of the Qing Dynasty, it is stated: “Pu ‘er tea paste, as black as lacquer, is best for sobering up, and green is even better. It AIDS digestion, eliminates phlegm, clears the stomach and promotes the production of body fluids.” Pu ‘er tea, when steamed to form a ball and then sold in the west, is the most effective in melting. Pu ‘er tea has a bitter taste and a pungent nature. It can relieve greasiness, toxins from cattle and sheep, and is bitter and astringent. It can eliminate phlegm, relieve qi stagnation, and promote intestinal peristalsis and defecation. In its sixth volume, “The Wood Section”, it is further stated: “Pu ‘er tea paste can cure all diseases.” If you have bloating or catch a cold, you can use ginger soup to relieve it. Sweating will cure it. If the mouth is broken and the throat is painful due to heat, it will be cured by holding the mouth for five parts overnight. The Qing Dynasty’s “Daily Record of Yunnan Journey” states: “Pu ‘er tea has a deep and profound flavor and can cure diseases.” Wu Daxun of the Qing Dynasty’s “Record of Observations in Southern Yunnan” states: “Tuan tea can aid digestion, regulate qi, eliminate stagnation, and dispel wind and cold. It is the most beneficial thing.” In the “Record of Pu ‘er Tea” by Ruan Fu of the Qing Dynasty, it is stated: “It AIDS digestion, dispels cold and detoxifies.” Song Shixiong of the Qing Dynasty’s “Su Xi Ju Yin Shi Pu” states: “Tea is slightly bitter and sweet with a cool nature. It can calm the mind and refresh sleep, relieve irritability, cool the liver and gallbladder, clear heat and eliminate phlegm, soothe the lungs and stomach, and improve eyesight and quench thirst.” The tea produced in Pu ‘er has a strong and mellow taste. It is good at expelling wind-phlegm and aiding in the digestion of meat. For the initial stage of symptoms such as abdominal pain caused by heatstroke, foul odors, and qi, as well as cholera and dysentery, drinking it can easily cure them. The “Simao Interview” states: “It helps digestion, dispels cold and has detoxification effects.” The “Mirror of a Hundred Herbs” states: “There are three types of depression: First, the wind is closed;” Ershi Bi Shut down the three fires. Only when the wind is closed is the most dangerous. No matter where it is closed, pick the stems of the eggplant under the moonlight, dry them in the air, burn them in the room, and take the second line of Pu ‘er tea as a decoction. After a short period of time, it is all taken out. Fei Rong Zhai Zi suffered from this disease and died in darkness. He found this prescription to test its effect. It can be seen that the unique medicinal effects of Pu ‘er tea, such as aiding digestion and detoxifying, regulating qi and relieving distension, clearing heat and resolving phlegm to treat dysentery, have long been discovered by our ancestors throughout history. In the history of Chinese tea, the general descriptions and records of the medicinal effects and functions of tea often refer to “tea” in a general sense, and rarely specifically mention a certain type of tea. Even if someone sometimes specifically mentions a certain type of tea, they only provide individual descriptions and records, making it difficult to reach a consensus. However, Pu ‘er tea is an exception, which indicates that Pu ‘er tea is unique. It has very prominent medicinal effects in some aspects.
Modern Study on Pharmacological Action of Pu-erh Tea
(1) Lowering Blood Lipid: Professor Lu Tong, the director of the Laboratory of Nutritional Physiology at the University of Paris, conducted an experiment at the Orsay Laboratory of Nutritional Physiology using two groups of white mice: one group was fed with normal food, and the other group was fed with cholesterol-rich substances. Both groups were simultaneously added with Yunnan tuocha tea juice. The experimental results show that the fat in the first group decreased by 10%, and that in the second group decreased by 30%. Therefore, he believes: “There is one or several unknown substances in Yunnan tuocha. After dissolving in water, they have remarkable effects of promoting metabolism, balancing and controlling cholesterol.” Japanese scholars have also conducted animal experiments using Pu ‘er tea produced in Yunnan, China and Japanese green tea to observe their effects on serum lipid metabolism. The results showed that after feeding tea extract for 6 to 8 weeks, plasma cholesterol lipids significantly decreased, and continuous feeding of Pu ‘er tea could promote the decomposition of triglycerides in adipose tissue. Researchers from the Department of Teaching and Research at Taipei Veterans General Hospital and the Institute of Food Science and Technology at National Taiwan University used water extracts of Pu ‘er tea as experimental materials to explore the effect of lowering blood lipids. They found that Pu ‘er tea can inhibit cholesterol synthesis and reduce cholesterol, triphosphate triglycerides and free fatty acids in the blood, as well as increase the excretion of cholesterol in feces. Wang Xuhua et al. believe that the decoction of Yunnan tuocha (40%) can reduce the serum blood lipid of animals. The experimental results conducted by He Guofan and Lin Yuechan using isolated intestinal segments of rats show that Pu ‘er tea has the effects of aiding digestion, stimulating appetite, removing greasiness and losing weight. They also studied the lipid-lowering effect of tea and believe that Pu ‘er tea can reduce cholesterol, triglycerides and total protein lipid content in high-fat model rabbits. A clinical trial conducted by a hospital in France has demonstrated that drinking Yunnan Pu ‘er tea has a significant effect on fat metabolism, with blood lipid levels dropping by 13%(drinking three bowls a day for a month). Yunnan Pu ‘er tea cakes can also accelerate the reduction of alcohol content in the blood. Dr. Emile Caroubi, the clinical teaching director of the Saint-Antoine Medical School in Paris, has experimentally proved that Pu ‘er tea has an unexpectedly good effect on fat metabolism. More than 40% of the cases who drank Yunnan Pu ‘er tea experienced varying degrees of weight loss, and the effect was more significant in cases aged between 40 and 50. It has a good effect on reducing lipid compounds in the human body, accounting for 34%, and a medium effect accounts for 33%. It has varying degrees of effects on reducing triglycerides, cholesterol, blood uric acid and other substances contained in the human body, and 30% of people have reduced their cholesterol. Clinical trials conducted by the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research since the 1980s have shown that Pu ‘er tea cakes can lower blood lipids. Within two months, the blood lipids of 20 patients with very high blood lipid levels decreased by 22%. Professor Bernard Giacotto of Henri Rendo Hospital in Paris gave 20 patients with excessive blood fat three bowls of Yunnan tuocha a day at Modol Hospital in Cretey. After one month, he found that the fat in the patients’ blood had decreased by almost a quarter. Kunming Medical University conducted a clinical observation on the therapeutic effect of Yunnan Pu ‘er tea tuocha in treating 55 cases of hyperlipidemia and compared it with 31 cases treated with the lipid-lowering drug Antuoming, which had a better therapeutic effect. The therapeutic effect of Yunnan Pu ‘er tea was even higher than that of Antuoming, and its cholesterol-lowering effect was similar to that of Antuoming. Moreover, there were no side effects from long-term consumption.
(2) Research and clinical experiments in the field of dental health and tooth protection have proved that Yunnan Pu ‘er tea has antibacterial effects. Cao Jin, the director of the Tea and Health Laboratory of the Department of Stomatology at Hunan Medical University, conducted an in vitro experimental observation and research on the inhibitory effect of Pu ‘er Dental tea on the adhesion ability of Streptococcus mutans. The results showed that Pu ‘er dental tea has an antibacterial effect on plaque formation, and its effective concentration is between 0.125% and 1%, with the best effect at a concentration of 1%. The antibacterial effect of Pu ‘er dental health tea on plaque formation is mainly manifested in the inhibition of extracellular glucan production by suppressing the activity of GTF(glucosyltransferase). Zhao Yan and others from the Tea and Health Laboratory of the Department of Stomatology, Hunan Medical University, conducted a preliminary exploration of the caries prevention effect of Pu ‘er tea through dynamic observation of its fluoride and tea polyphenol contents. The results showed that the water-soluble fluoride of Pu ‘er tea was between 180.72 and 229.83mg/kg, and the tea polyphenol content was between 87.42 and 99.16mg/kg. Drinking 4g of Pu ‘er tea, brewing a tea soup with a concentration of 0.5%, and after 50 minutes, the intake of fluoride will reach a safe and effective dose for preventing tooth decay.
After more than ten years of research, Professors Liang Mingda and Hu Meiying from the Kunming Institute of Natural Medicines have found that Pu ‘er tea has the strongest effect in killing cancer cells. Even a concentration of 1% of what ordinary people drink has a significant effect. After the effect of Pu ‘er tea, cancer cells change from polygonal concentration to roundness, pseudopods shorten, their quantity decreases, they lose the ability to adhere and migrate, and may even fall off, float up and be lost. The remaining ones also become smaller, rounder and concentrated, with nuclear condensation, chromatin condensation or disappearance, vacuoles appear in the nucleus and aggregate, nucleolus condensation or disintegration and disappearance, chromosome contractions or mutual condensation, ribosomes decrease, mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum expand The reduction in DNA synthesis and the cessation of nuclear division all prove that cancer cells, under the effect of tea, tend to die from degeneration. They also used cyclophosphamide to induce cell mutations in C57 mice and at the same time administered tea water to their stomachs. They found that Pu ‘er tea has an anti-mutation effect, that is, it has the function of preventing cancer. After testing, it was found that Pu ‘er tea contains a variety of rich anti-cancer vitamins and several extremely important anti-cancer trace elements. (4) Prevention and Treatment of Cardiovascular Diseases: A study by Southwest Agricultural University suggests that during the piling process of tea, the majority of flavonoids exist in the form of flavonoid glycosides. Flavonoid glycosides have a vitamin P-like effect and can prevent the hardening of human blood vessels. For Pu ‘er tea, “piling” is precisely an important process that forms its unique flavor. Therefore, Pu ‘er tea has a very good therapeutic effect on cardiovascular hardening. In addition, He Guofan and Lin Yuechan observed the effects of Pu ‘er tea on cerebral blood flow graphs, blood pressure and heart rate in clinical practice. The results showed that drinking Pu ‘er tea could cause physiological effects such as vasodilation in the human body, temporary decrease in blood pressure, slowed heart rate and reduced blood flow to the brain, suggesting that Pu ‘er tea can prevent and treat cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. Therefore, drinking Pu ‘er tea has a good effect on the elderly and patients with hypertension and arteriosclerosis.
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