☯ TCM Properties
Clears Summerheat, improves eyesight and Removes toxicity
Traditional Chinese Uses
Ku Gua is the fruit of Momordica charantia, bitter melon. Bitter and cold, entering the Heart, Spleen and Stomach channels, it clears Summerheat, brightens the eyes and resolves toxicity. It is used for Summerheat patterns and heatstroke with irritability and thirst, febrile thirst, Damp-Heat dysentery, red swollen painful eyes, and Fire-toxin sores, boils and erysipelas; it also has widespread folk use as a food and remedy for wasting-thirst (xiao ke, diabetes). It is eaten as a vegetable, decocted (about 6–15 g), or charred and powdered.
Being markedly cold and bitter, it is avoided in Spleen-Stomach cold-deficiency. The seeds are more toxic than the flesh, and use is cautioned in pregnancy.
Western Herbalism Properties
Botanical Description
Ku Gua is the fruit of Momordica charantia L. (Cucurbitaceae), bitter melon or bitter gourd, an annual climbing or trailing vine native to tropical Asia and widely cultivated across China, India, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and Africa. The slender, ridged stems bear simple tendrils and alternate, deeply 5–7-lobed, palmately veined leaves 4–12 cm wide. Plants are monoecious with solitary, pale-yellow, five-petaled flowers on long peduncles. The fruit is an oblong to fusiform pepo 8–25 cm long, conspicuously warty and ribbed, green when immature and turning orange-yellow at maturity, splitting into three valves to expose a crimson aril surrounding flat, sculpted seeds. Immature fruits are intensely bitter from cucurbitacins and the steroidal glycoside charantin; harvested fresh or sliced and dried. Used to clear summer-heat in TCM, as a hypoglycemic in Ayurveda (karela), and widely investigated in modern phytomedicine for blood-glucose effects.
Dosage
| Form | Amount | Frequency | Duration | Population | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| decoction | 6-15g | Daily | — | — | — |
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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