Song Zi Ren
StarPinus koraiensis Siebold & Zucc.
Traditionally used for
- Cough & breathing
- Digestion
- Bowel health
- Energy & fatigue
Cautions & contraindications
- Allergy risk
☯ TCM Properties
Moistens the Intestines and Unblocks the Bowels; Moistens the Lungs and Stops Cough; Moistens Dryness; Tonifies Deficiency and Strengthens the Body
Traditional Chinese Uses
Song Zi Ren (pine nut kernel) is a mild, oily, slightly warm herb used to moisten the Intestines and relieve dry constipation, as well as to nourish Lung Yin and stop dry coughs. Its rich fatty content gently lubricates the digestive and respiratory passages without harsh laxative effects, making it appropriate for the elderly, those who are constitutionally dry, and anyone recovering from illness. It is commonly eaten in congee or taken as a simple daily supplement.
Western Herbalism Properties
Relationships
Full-screen graph →Click a node for details · double-click to expand it · Ctrl/⌘ + scroll or two fingers to zoom and pan.
Botanical Description
Pinus koraiensis (Korean pine) is a large evergreen coniferous tree in the Pinaceae family, native to northeastern China, the Korean peninsula, the Russian Far East, and central Japan, reaching 30-40 m tall with a straight trunk to 1.5 m in diameter and a dense, dome-shaped crown. The bark is grey-brown, scaly, becoming fissured with age. The needle-like leaves are borne in fascicles of five, slender, 6-12 cm long, dark green with white stomatal bands on their inner faces. The seed cones are large, ovoid-cylindric, 9-15 cm long, ripening from green to red-brown over two years, with thick woody scales that do not open at maturity. Each cone holds 100-160 large wingless seeds (pine nuts) about 14-16 mm long with a hard shell and oily edible kernel (POWO; Wikipedia).
Active Constituents
Pinolenic acid (all-cis-5,9,12-octadecatrienoic acid)
Delta-5 non-methylene-interrupted polyunsaturated fatty acidConcentration: roughly 13-19% of the kernel oil, reported as approximately 18% in the Korean pine seed oil used in the classic rat feeding study
The characteristic fatty acid of Korean pine and the constituent most of the pharmacology rests on. It triggers cholecystokinin and GLP-1 release from enteroendocrine cells, which underlies the satiety effect seen in human crossover trials. In rats its cholesterol-lowering effect was intermediate between alpha-linolenic and linoleic acid, and unlike alpha-linolenic acid it did not interfere with desaturation of linoleic acid to arachidonic acid.
Linoleic acid
Omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acidConcentration: roughly 45-49% of the kernel oil, the predominant fatty acid
The dominant fatty acid of the kernel. It accounts for most of the oil's polyunsaturated character and, with the mucilage-free bulk oil, for the traditional moistening and bowel-loosening action of the drug.
Oleic acid
Omega-9 monounsaturated fatty acidConcentration: roughly 24-28% of the kernel oil
The principal monounsaturated fatty acid of the kernel, contributing to the oil's oxidative stability and to its lubricating, stool-softening effect in the gut.
Palmitic acid
Saturated fatty acidConcentration: roughly 4-5% of the kernel oil
The main saturated fatty acid of the kernel. Korean pine nut oil is unusually low in saturated fat, at roughly 10 percent of total fatty acids.
Fixed kernel oil
Triacylglycerol fixed oilConcentration: approximately 65-75% of the kernel
The kernel is largely oil, which is the material basis of the classical actions of moistening the intestines to free the stool and moistening the Lung for dry cough. In high-fat-fed mice, substituting Korean pine nut oil for soybean oil lowered body fat and hepatic triacylglycerol.
⚠ Drug Interactions
Pinus armandii nuts sold or blended as edible pine nuts (adulteration of Song Zi Ren)
Gas-liquid chromatography of the fatty acid profile of sixteen pine nut samples from consumers reporting dysgeusia identified Pinus armandii in every one, either pure or blended with P. koraiensis nuts. P. armandii is not listed by the FAO as an edible pine nut species. Because P. armandii and P. koraiensis nuts are hard to separate visually, blending is common and the practitioner cannot exclude it by inspection.
Clinical note: Source Song Zi Ren from suppliers who specify Pinus koraiensis and can document botanical origin. If a patient develops metallic dysgeusia one to three days after starting the herb, suspect P. armandii contamination rather than a reaction to the prescription; the condition is self-limiting and needs no treatment beyond stopping the material.
Anticoagulant and antiplatelet drugs (warfarin, aspirin, clopidogrel)
In rats fed Korean pine seed oil, pinolenic acid increased aortic prostacyclin production and tended to reduce ADP-induced platelet aggregation relative to linoleic acid. The effect was modest and measured in animals at dietary fat loads far above a normal culinary or herbal dose, and there is no human or case-report evidence of a bleeding interaction.
Clinical note: No routine precaution is needed at food or standard herbal doses. If a patient on warfarin is taking concentrated pine nut oil supplements rather than the whole kernel, check INR at the next scheduled review.
Tree nut and pine nut allergy
Song Zi Ren is a food nut prescribed as a herb. Pine nut allergy is a recognised, sometimes severe, seed-storage-protein allergy, and a patient who avoids pine nuts as a food may not recognise the pinyin name on a prescription as the same material.
Clinical note: Always name the herb as pine nut, not only as Song Zi Ren or Semen Pini Koraiensis, when taking an allergy history and when labelling a dispensed formula.
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
2
2 verified · 0 unverified
Other clinical trial
0
Observational / case report
0
In vitro / animal
3
2 verified · 1 unverified
Show 3 studies
- Influence of Korean pine (Pinus koraiensis)-seed oil containing cis-5,cis-9,cis-12-octadecatrienoic acid on polyunsaturated fatty acid metabolism, eicosanoid production and blood pressure of rats
- Korean Pine Nut Oil Attenuated Hepatic Triacylglycerol Accumulation in High-Fat Diet-Induced Obese Mice
- Dietary supplementation with Korean pine nut oil decreases body fat accumulation and dysregulation of the appetite-suppressing pathway in the hypothalamus of high-fat diet-induced obese mice
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
The effect of Korean pine nut oil on in vitro CCK release, on appetite sensations and on gut hormones in post-menopausal overweight women
In STC-1 cells, Korean pine nut free fatty acids at 50 µM released far more CCK-8 (493 pg/ml) than oleic, linoleic, alpha-linolenic or Italian stone pine acids, or control (46 pg/ml). In a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial in 18 overweight post-menopausal women, 3 g of Pinus koraiensis nut free fatty acids raised CCK-8 at 30 minutes and GLP-1 at 60 minutes versus olive oil placebo; four-hour total CCK-8 was 60 percent higher and GLP-1 25 percent higher, and prospective food intake fell 36 percent. Ghrelin and PYY were unchanged.
The effect of Korean pine nut oil (PinnoThin™) on food intake, feeding behaviour and appetite: A double-blind placebo-controlled trial
A double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomised counterbalanced crossover trial in 42 overweight women tested Korean pine nut oil at 2, 4 and 6 g as triglyceride and 2 g as free fatty acid. Only the 2 g free fatty acid form, given 30 minutes before an ad libitum buffet lunch, reduced food intake, and by a modest 9 percent by weight versus olive oil control. No significant effect on macronutrient intake or subjective appetite ratings was found, and the triglyceride form showed no effect at any dose in this dosing schedule.
Influence of Korean pine (Pinus koraiensis)-seed oil containing cis-5,cis-9,cis-12-octadecatrienoic acid on polyunsaturated fatty acid metabolism, eicosanoid production and blood pressure of rats
Korean pine seed oil containing about 18 percent pinolenic acid was compared with flaxseed, safflower and evening primrose oils in rats. Pinolenic acid was hypocholesterolaemic to a degree intermediate between alpha-linolenic and linoleic acid, and unlike alpha-linolenic acid it did not interfere with desaturation of linoleic acid to arachidonic acid in liver phosphatidylcholine. In spontaneously hypertensive rats it increased prostacyclin production, tended to reduce platelet aggregation and attenuated the rise in blood pressure after five weeks of feeding.
Korean Pine Nut Oil Attenuated Hepatic Triacylglycerol Accumulation in High-Fat Diet-Induced Obese Mice
C57BL mice were fed control or 45 percent-fat diets in which the non-lard fat was either Korean pine nut oil or soybean oil for 12 weeks. Pine nut oil substitution gave 10 percent lower body weight gain and 18 percent less white adipose tissue than soybean oil, and 26 percent lower hepatic triacylglycerol. Hepatic ACADL mRNA was upregulated and sirtuin 3 protein in white adipose tissue was restored toward lean-control levels, a pattern the authors describe as a calorie-restriction-mimetic response.
Dietary supplementation with Korean pine nut oil decreases body fat accumulation and dysregulation of the appetite-suppressing pathway in the hypothalamus of high-fat diet-induced obese mice
In high-fat-diet-induced obese mice, replacing part of the dietary fat with Korean pine nut oil reduced body fat accumulation and lessened the disruption of hypothalamic appetite-suppressing signalling seen on the high-fat diet. The work extends the human satiety-hormone findings to a central mechanism, but remains a rodent study.
Historical Texts
Hai Yao Ben Cao
Five Dynasties, tenth centuryKai Bao Ben Cao
Northern Song dynasty, 973-974Ben Cao Gang Mu
Ming dynasty, 1596Yu Qiu Yao Jie
Qing dynasty, 1754References
- Destaillats F, Cruz-Hernandez C, Giuffrida F, Dionisi F, Mostin M, Verstegen G. Identification of the Botanical Origin of Commercial Pine Nuts Responsible for Dysgeusia by Gas-Liquid Chromatography Analysis of Fatty Acid Profile . Journal of Toxicology (2011) [DOI]
- Ballin NZ, Mikkelsen K. Polymerase chain reaction and chemometrics detected several Pinus species including Pinus armandii involved in pine nut syndrome . Food Control (2016) [DOI]
- Xie K, Miles EA, Calder PC. A review of the potential health benefits of pine nut oil and its characteristic fatty acid pinolenic acid . Journal of Functional Foods (2016) [DOI]
- Baker EJ, Miles EA, Calder PC. A review of the functional effects of pine nut oil, pinolenic acid and its derivative eicosatrienoic acid and their potential health benefits . Progress in Lipid Research (2021) [DOI]
- Incegul Y, Aksu M, Kiralan SS, Kiralan M, Ozkan G. Cold pressed pine (Pinus koraiensis) nut oil . Cold Pressed Oils (2020) [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.
📝 Notes
Public notes from the community and your own private notes on Song Zi Ren.
No notes yet.