Medicinal Value of Eggplant, Eggplant Leaves, Flowers, Roots, and Calyxes

Eggplant is a vegetable familiar to every one of us; it tastes delicious and is deeply loved by people. I myself love eggplant and eat it almost every day when it is in season. Many people already know that eggplant is one of the anticancer foods. Pharmacological experiments also confirm that the water-soluble dialysate of eggplant can inhibit the carcinogenicity of substances such as benzo[a]pyrene; intravenous pre-injection of eggplant juice can promote the production of tumor necrosis factor in mice. So eggplant's anticancer effect is no empty rumor; cancer patients should eat more eggplant.

TCM holds that eggplant is sweet in taste and cool in nature, entering the Spleen, Stomach, and Large Intestine meridians; it has the effects of clearing heat, invigorating blood, and reducing swelling. It is mainly used for intestinal wind bleeding, bruises and sprains, heat-toxin sores and carbuncles, breast abscess, and skin ulcers. Dried eggplant burned to ash and taken with rice water treats intestinal wind bleeding and hemorrhoidal bleeding; fresh eggplant sliced and applied externally reduces swelling and pain, treating bruises, heat-toxin sores, centipede bites, and bee stings, and can also treat common warts and flat warts. Frost-bitten old eggplant boiled in water with added honey treats chronic cough.

Not only eggplant itself has medicinal value; our ancestors also found that the whole eggplant plant is a treasure—eggplant leaves, flowers, roots, and calyxes all have disease-treating effects.

Eggplant leaves and stems can disperse blood and reduce swelling, mainly treating bloody stranguria, bloody dysentery, intestinal wind bleeding, abscesses and swelling, and frostbite. Eggplant flowers treat toothache and excessive vaginal discharge in women. Eggplant root dispels wind and dampness, stops bleeding and dissipates stasis, and can treat dysentery, blood in stool, hemorrhoids, rheumatic arthralgia, beriberi, genital itching in women (vaginitis), skin itching, and chilblains, and also has anticancer effects. Eggplant calyxes treat mouth ulcers, opposing-mouth sores, toothache, and intestinal wind bleeding.

Here I must mention in particular that Li Shizhen's Bencao Gangmu notes eggplant root and leaves can treat “oral mushroom,” a disease that is today's oral lichen planus, which the WHO has already listed as a malignant condition because it is a precancerous lesion of oral cancer. The Bencao Gangmu (quoting the Zhaiyuan Fang) records: “For oral mushroom growing in the mouth, rinse with vinegar; take equal parts of eggplant mother (note: eggplant mother means eggplant root) burned to ash and flying salt, grind into powder, mix thin with vinegar, and rub on from time to time.”

Eggplant roots and calyxes were often used to treat dental and oral diseases, but modern people no longer use them much. Besides treating oral lichen planus, eggplant roots and calyxes can also treat carious tooth pain; the Haishang Mingfang records using eggplant root pounded for juice and frequently applied, and using aged eggplant root burned to ash for external application, both to treat carious tooth pain. The Rencuntang Jingyan Fang records eggplant calyxes burned to ash, mixed with equal parts of Xixin (asarum) powder, used daily, to treat wind-carious toothache.

So from these records we can see that the ancients often used eggplant roots and calyxes to treat oral diseases. Both oral mucosal lesions and dental problems can be treated with these simple, easy methods, and eggplant roots and calyxes can also be used to prevent oral lichen planus from turning cancerous.

Eggplant root, stem, leaf, calyx, and fruit all have anti-inflammatory, hemostatic, detumescent, and ulcer-repairing effects. The Zhongyao Da Cidian also records a single-subject recipe using eggplant leaves to treat ulcerating breast cancer: dry fresh eggplant leaves, grind fine, and make into a medicinal powder. Before each use, first clean the ulcer surface, sprinkle eggplant leaf powder on the area with the most necrotic tissue (do not sprinkle on fresh tissue or normal skin), then cover with 2 layers of sterilized gauze. Use 1–2 times daily. Stop when the foul odor is gone, exudation has ceased, and necrotic tissue has detached or been cleaned.

Eggplant roots, stems, and leaves can also be used to treat uterine prolapse and prolapsed hemorrhoids. The Bencao Gangmu records a formula for treating female vaginal prolapse (i.e., uterine prolapse): burn eggplant root to its ashed nature, grind into powder, mix with oil and place on paper, roll into a tube, and insert into the vagina to treat uterine prolapse. The Shiwu Zhongyao Yu Bianfang records using eggplant root 60 g, Kushen (sophora) 15 g, decocted in water for fumigation and washing, to treat rectal prolapse caused by hemorrhoids.

In addition, eggplant, eggplant roots, and eggplant leaves are also often used to treat dysentery, persistent diarrhea, chronic bronchitis, and chronic rheumatoid arthritis, and can even be used to treat edema.

So the medicinal value of eggplant, eggplant leaves, flowers, roots, and calyxes is quite great; they are truly “effective, convenient, and cheap” medicinal materials, just not valued because they are too ordinary.

Specifically for antitumor effects, among the various parts of eggplant, eggplant root has the strongest anticancer effect. The trigonelline in eggplant root has obvious inhibitory effects on liver cancer cells and P388 lymphocytic leukemia cells. The diosgenin in eggplant root can also inhibit the proliferation and growth of liver cancer cells CBRH7919, gastric cancer SGC-7901 cells, human colon cancer C26 cells, non-small cell lung cancer A549 cells, and human osteosarcoma U-20S cells, and can induce their apoptosis.

So eggplant and eggplant root have an adjuvant anticancer effect. In addition, eggplant roots, stems, leaves, and fruit all have a certain analgesic effect. The common method for eggplant root is decoction taken internally, up to 60 g per adult dose.