Dong Gua
StarBenincasa hispida (Thunb.) Cogn.
Traditionally used for
- Cough & breathing
- Urinary & fluids
- Mood & calm
Cautions & contraindications
- Toxic — professional use only
☯ TCM Properties
Promotes Urination and Reduces Edema; Clears Heat; Resolves Phlegm; Generates Fluids and Relieves Thirst; Resolves Toxicity
Traditional Chinese Uses
Dong Gua (winter melon, wax gourd) is a cool, sweet food-herb widely used in Chinese medicine to clear Heat, promote urination, and reduce edema. It benefits conditions of excess water retention, summer-heat-related thirst and irritability, and urinary difficulty. Low in calories and sodium, it is considered especially suitable for those who tend toward heat, excessive thirst, or fluid retention, and its culinary use as a cooling vegetable reflects its therapeutic properties.
Western Herbalism Properties
Relationships
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Botanical Description
Benincasa hispida, the wax gourd or winter melon, is a vigorous annual climbing or trailing vine in the family Cucurbitaceae, believed native to southern and southeastern Asia and widely cultivated throughout tropical Asia, southern China, India, and the Caribbean for its very large edible fruit. The plant produces stout, ribbed, hispid stems several meters long bearing branched tendrils, and ascends fences and trellises or sprawls across the ground. The alternate leaves are large, palmately five- to seven-lobed, 10-25 cm across, with cordate bases and softly hairy surfaces. The plant is monoecious, bearing large solitary, bright yellow, five-lobed bell-shaped flowers 6-12 cm across, the male and female flowers on the same plant. The fruit is a massive oblong to spherical pepo 30-60 cm long, weighing up to 15-30 kg, with smooth green skin that becomes covered in a thick whitish waxy bloom at maturity, snow-white sweet flesh, and many flat, pale brown ovate seeds embedded centrally.
Active Constituents
Isomultiflorenol and isomultiflorenyl acetate
Multiflorane-type pentacyclic triterpeneIsomultiflorenol acetate is the major component of the waxy bloom on the rind of the wax gourd, which is where the plant gets its English name. It was isolated from the fruits along with new triterpenoids in a 2013 phytochemical study of the drug.
Multiflorenol
Multiflorane-type pentacyclic triterpeneIsolated from the fruits of Benincasa hispida. Multiflorenol and alnusenol have been reported among the triterpenes of this fruit that inhibit histamine release, which is the phytochemical basis usually cited for the traditional use in phlegm and allergic-type presentations.
Alnusenol
Pentacyclic triterpeneA fruit triterpene reported, with multiflorenol, to inhibit histamine release in vitro.
Stigmasterol and stigmasteryl beta-glucoside
Phytosterol and phytosterol glycosidePhytochemical analysis of ash gourd pulp identified stigmasterol, stigmasteryl beta-glucoside and 6'-O-palmitoyl stigmasteryl beta-glucoside as the characteristic sterols of the flesh. Sterol glycosides of this kind reduce intestinal cholesterol absorption and are the likely basis of the lipid effects seen in fed-animal studies.
Cucurbitacin B, cucurbitacin E and cucurbitacin I
Cucurbitane-type triterpeneConcentration: detected qualitatively by UHPLC-Q-Orbitrap HRMS in a hydroalcoholic fruit extract; not quantified
Cucurbitacins are the intensely bitter and cytotoxic principles of the gourd family, and their detection in a concentrated hydroalcoholic extract of this fruit is worth knowing even though culinary wax gourd is bland and well tolerated. Bitterness in a cucurbit fruit signals high cucurbitacin content and the fruit should be rejected rather than dosed.
Isovitexin
C-glycosyl flavoneThe characteristic C-glycosyl flavone reported from the fruit, alongside catechin, naringenin, kaempferol, quercetin and myricetin identified by LC-HRMS in a hydroalcoholic extract.
Arbutin
Hydroquinone glucosideIsolated from the fruits of Benincasa hispida among twelve known compounds accompanying three new triterpenoids. Arbutin is hydrolysed in vivo to hydroquinone, which is the reason arbutin-containing herbs are generally not given in high dose for long periods.
⚠ Drug Interactions
Insulin, sulfonylureas, metformin and other glucose-lowering drugs
Lyophilised ash gourd juice given to rats made prediabetic by 16 weeks of a high-fat diet significantly reduced fasting blood sugar, glucose intolerance and insulin resistance and reversed fatty liver change. A hydroalcoholic fruit extract restored glucose, triglycerides, urea and cholesterol towards normal in mice made diabetic by high-fat diet plus low-dose streptozotocin, and reduced renal fibrosis and podocyte loss. All of this is rodent data; no human glycaemic trial of the fruit has been published.
Clinical note: Ordinary culinary amounts of winter melon are unlikely to matter. If a patient is taking concentrated juice or an extract daily as therapy, treat it as a glucose-lowering agent and monitor accordingly.
Loop and thiazide diuretics
The classical indication for Dong Gua is promoting urination and reducing oedema, and diuretic activity is repeatedly claimed in the pharmacological review literature for this species. I could not verify a controlled diuretic study of the fruit against a comparator, so this remains an extrapolation from traditional use rather than a measured interaction.
Clinical note: In a patient already on a diuretic for oedema or heart failure, watch weight and, where relevant, potassium rather than assuming the herb adds nothing.
Bitter cucurbit fruit (Cucurbita or Lagenaria) mistaken for or substituted for wax gourd
Cucurbitacins B, E and I were detected by LC-HRMS in a hydroalcoholic Benincasa hispida fruit extract. Wax gourd itself is not a recognised cause of cucurbitacin poisoning, but the family it belongs to is, and bitter bottle gourd and bitter ornamental squash have caused severe vomiting and diarrhoea. The risk here is one of identification and taste, not of the authentic drug.
Clinical note: Reject any wax gourd, juice or decoction that tastes bitter, and do not press on with a preparation a patient reports as unpalatably bitter.
Evidence Tier
Moderate evidence · 5 studiesRecorded studies by study design, strongest design at the top. This is a study-design tier only, not a GRADE rating: it does not weigh risk of bias, consistency or precision.
Systematic review / meta-analysis
0
Randomized controlled trial
0
Other clinical trial
0
Observational / case report
0
In vitro / animal
5
3 verified · 2 unverified
Show 5 studies
- Lyophilized ash gourd (Benincasa hispida (Thunb.) Cogn.) juice alleviates diet-induced prediabetes in a rat model
- Hydroalcoholic extract of Benincasa hispida (Thunb.) Cogn. reinstates renal structural and functional dynamics compromised in diabetic mice: molecular insights through integration of transcriptomics and proteomics
- Acute and sub-chronic toxicity studies of Benincasa hispida (Thunb.) cogniaux fruit extract in rodents
- Gastroprotective effect of Benincasa hispida fruit extract
- Benincasa hispida alleviates amyloid pathology by inhibition of Keap1/Nrf2-axis: Emphasis on oxidative and inflammatory stress involved in Alzheimer's disease model
Other / unclassified
0
Verified: design read from PubMed for a DOI that resolves to the cited paper Unverified: taken from the study's recorded description
Clinical Studies
Lyophilized ash gourd (Benincasa hispida (Thunb.) Cogn.) juice alleviates diet-induced prediabetes in a rat model
Sprague-Dawley rats were made prediabetic with 16 weeks of a high-fat diet, showing reduced pancreatic function, insulin resistance, hyperglycaemia, dyslipidaemia and macro- and microvesicular hepatic fat. Lyophilised ash gourd juice powder then significantly reduced fasting blood sugar, glucose intolerance and insulin resistance and returned liver histology towards normal architecture. Phytochemical analysis of the pulp identified stigmasterol, stigmasteryl beta-glucoside and 6'-O-palmitoyl stigmasteryl beta-glucoside.
Hydroalcoholic extract of Benincasa hispida (Thunb.) Cogn. reinstates renal structural and functional dynamics compromised in diabetic mice: molecular insights through integration of transcriptomics and proteomics
In mice made type 2 diabetic by high-fat diet plus low-dose streptozotocin, a hydroalcoholic fruit extract restored serum glucose, triglycerides, urea and cholesterol towards normal, repaired markers of DNA damage and epigenetic disturbance in the kidney, limited podocyte loss and reduced renal inflammation and fibrosis via CD200, TGF-beta and BCl3. LC-HRMS identified 28 constituents including catechin, naringenin, kaempferol, quercetin, myricetin and cucurbitacins E, I and dihydrocucurbitacin B.
Acute and sub-chronic toxicity studies of Benincasa hispida (Thunb.) cogniaux fruit extract in rodents
A standardised 70 percent ethanolic extract of the fruit pulp produced no mortality and no behavioural signs of toxicity at the OECD limit-test dose of 2000 mg/kg in mice. In Wistar rats given 40, 200 or 1000 mg/kg daily for 90 days there were no significant changes in food and water intake, body or relative organ weights, haematology, serum biochemistry, urinalysis or the histopathology of vital organs. The authors concluded the extract is non-toxic up to 1000 mg/kg for prolonged oral use.
Gastroprotective effect of Benincasa hispida fruit extract
Petroleum ether and methanol extracts of the fruit at 300 mg/kg orally were tested in three rodent ulcer models. In ethanol-induced gastric damage both reduced the ulcer index and vascular permeability, the methanol extract giving about 67 percent protection against 49 percent for the petroleum ether extract, compared with omeprazole 20 mg/kg. In pylorus ligation both reduced the ulcer index, with the methanol extract lowering acid output and pepsin and raising mucin markers, and in cold restraint stress both reduced ulcer index and malondialdehyde while raising catalase.
Benincasa hispida alleviates amyloid pathology by inhibition of Keap1/Nrf2-axis: Emphasis on oxidative and inflammatory stress involved in Alzheimer's disease model
Fruit extract at 250 and 500 mg/kg daily for 16 weeks was given to rats with aluminium chloride-induced Alzheimer-type pathology. Treated animals performed better in the Morris water maze, Y-maze and rota-rod, had restored acetylcholine, dopamine and serotonin levels, higher SOD, catalase and glutathione with lower malondialdehyde, lower TNF-alpha and IL-1beta, upregulated Keap1/Nrf2/HO-1 transcripts and less hippocampal CA3 damage. This is an Ayurvedic rather than a TCM indication for the drug and has no human support.
Historical Texts
Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing
Han dynastyJin Gui Yao Lue
Han dynastyBei Ji Qian Jin Yao Fang
Tang dynastyBen Cao Gang Mu
Ming dynastyReferences
- Han X-n, Liu C-y, Liu Y-l, Xu Q-m, Li X-r, Yang S-l. New Triterpenoids and Other Constituents from the Fruits of Benincasa hispida (Thunb.) Cogn. . Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (2013) [DOI]
This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before using any herbal remedy, especially if you are pregnant, nursing, or taking medications.
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