The Antitumor Effects of Cotton Seeds and Cotton Root

Cotton is an indispensable necessity of daily life: many of the clothes we wear, the hats on our heads, the bags on our shoulders, the shoes on our feet, and the bedding we sleep on are made of cotton. The cotton we commonly use comes from the cotton fibers on the seeds of Malvaceae plants—Gossypium herbaceum, G. hirsutum, G. barbadense, and G. arboreum. These plants not only provide us with warm cotton but also have medicinal value and can treat many diseases, including malignant tumors.

Cotton seeds and cotton roots are rich in gossypol, a substance with antitumor activity. In vitro, gossypol inhibits the proliferation of many tumor cell lines derived from lymphoid and granulocytic cells, adrenal gland, breast, cervix, rectum, and central nervous system. Gossypol given by gavage inhibits bladder cancer T24 cells and induces their apoptosis. Gossypol by gavage can also prevent and treat diethylnitrosamine-induced premalignant lesions of experimental liver cancer in rats.

Besides this, gossypol has antifertility, hemostatic, and anti-HIV effects. Gossypol affects reproductive function in both men and women: it inhibits the acrosomal enzyme activity of male sperm, lowering sperm energy levels and motility. Gossypol acetate inhibits basal progesterone secretion by luteal cells, exerting a contraceptive effect in women. Gossypol is a natural substance with a pronounced inhibitory effect on sex hormone secretion; it inhibits the growth and DNA synthesis of fibroblasts in the enlarged prostate of men, and also inhibits the growth and development of endometriotic lesions in women.

Therefore cotton seeds and cotton root can both be used to treat women's metrorrhagia (functional uterine bleeding caused by endometriosis). The "Duan Yuan San" recorded in the Gu Jin Yi Jian uses only cotton seeds, stir-fried in a copper vessel until the smoke is gone, then ground to a fine powder; two qian are taken on an empty stomach each time to treat "bleeding like a spring that will not stop." Endometriosis usually causes persistent vaginal bleeding in women and raises CA125.

Cotton seeds can treat not only women's metrorrhagia but also bleeding caused by hematochezia, blood stranguria, leukorrhea, and hemorrhoids. The Hui Zhi Tang Jing Yan Fang records a folk remedy for hemorrhoidal bleeding: cotton seeds stir-fried to a yellow-black, shelled, ground to a fine powder, mixed with old rice paste and sugar into pills; three qian are taken daily on an empty stomach, and after taking up to three jin the condition is cured at the root. The Ji Xiao Fang records a single-substance remedy for persistent hemoptysis: cotton seeds soaked overnight in child's urine, stir-fried dry and ground to powder; one qian each time is washed down with a decoction of Cebaiye (Platycladus Leaf).

Cotton seeds can also treat night sweats. The Gangmu Shiyi records a folk remedy for persistent night sweats: 3–4 qian of cotton seeds decocted daily into one bowl, taken on an empty stomach for three or four days, to stop sweating.

Cotton seeds can be pressed into cottonseed oil, which can be used as cooking oil; in my hometown some people stir-fry with cottonseed oil. The Bencao Gangmu records that cottonseed oil applied externally to the affected area can "treat malignant sores, scabies, and tinea."

TCM holds that cotton seeds are pungent, hot, and toxic, with the effects of warming the kidney and strengthening yang, promoting lactation, and activating blood and stopping bleeding. They are mainly used for impotence, cold pain of the lower back and knees, excessive leukorrhea, enuresis, night sweats, cold stomach pain, blocked lactation, metrorrhagia, and hemorrhoidal bleeding—but their toxicity is also specifically noted.

Symptoms of cotton seed poisoning include dizziness and headache, burning in the stomach, nausea and vomiting, abdominal distension and pain, listlessness, lower limb paralysis, and lower back pain; severe cases may present with coma, convulsions, dilated pupils, and falling blood pressure, and a few patients may die from respiratory and circulatory failure. In gossypol clinical trials, gossypol was found to induce hypokalemia, possibly causing renal potassium wasting and then hypokalemia; gossypol may also cause irreversible azoospermia and genotoxicity.

Although cotton root also contains gossypol, its effects differ from those of cotton seeds. TCM holds that cotton root is sweet and warm, entering the Lung meridian; it stops cough and calms wheezing, and unblocks the channels and stops pain, mainly treating cough, asthma, menstrual irregularity, and metrorrhagia. Animal experiments confirm that cotton root decoction and extracts have expectorant effects, as well as antioxidant and anti-aging effects. Cotton root extracts increase the weight of the mouse adrenal gland and enhance or improve adrenal cortical function, but they can also cause thymus atrophy in mice and lower immunity.

Cotton seeds and cotton root can both be decocted for oral use; the usual dose of cotton seed in decoction is 6–10 g, and of cotton root 15–30 g. In addition, cotton bolls can also treat disease; their main effect is to counteract upward rebellion and resolve phlegm, stop cough, and are a specific remedy for hiccups, at a usual dose of 10–15 g.