SAMBONG LEAVES

HEALTH BENEFITS

Dissolve kidney stone

Diarrhea and other stomach problems

Detoxify the body

Treatment for fever, cough & colds

Sore througt
Liver desease
Antibacterial and antifungal

PROPERTIES

Anti-diarrheal
Anti-spasmodic
Anthelmentic
Antigastralgic
Astringent
Carminative
Emmenagogue
Expectorant
Stomachic
Vulnerary

STEP BY STEP GUIDES ON HOW TO MAKE SAMBONG TEA

Step 1: Take 10 pieces of sambong leaves

Step 2: Wash the sambong leaves thoroughly with clean water

Step 3: Put the sambong leaves in a boiling pot and pour 1.1 liter of water

Step 4: Boil the sambong leaves for 10 to 15 minutes

Step 5: After boiling, immediately remove the sambong leaves or immediately pour the made tea into a container

Step 6: Let it cool the made tea before drinking and enjoy the health benefits to our body.

Sambong is a half woody, strongly aromatic shrub, densely and softly hairy, 1 to 4 meters high. Stems grow up to 2.5 centimeters in diameter. Leaves are simple, alternate, elliptic- to oblong-lanceolate, 7 to 20 centimeters long, toothed at the margins, pointed or blunt at the tip, narrowing to a short petiole which are often auricled or appendaged. Flowering heads are stalked, yellow and numerous, 6 to 7 millimeters long, and borne on branches of a terminal, spreading or pyramidal leafy panicle. Discoid flowers are of two types: peripheral ones tiny, more numerous, with tubular corolla; central flowers few, large with campanulate corolla. Involucral bracts are green, narrow and hairy. Anther cells tailed at base. Fruits are achenes, dry, 1-seeded, 10-ribbed, hairy at top.

Long before the introduction of modern medicine in the rural areas, the leaves of the sambong shrub is prepared and drank as tea and thus was discovered to have expectorant as well as antispasmodic and anti diarrheal properties. The leaves were also often used as antiseptic for minor cuts and wounds. Today, together with the advances in modern medicine the sambong shrub is an alternative medicine in treating hypertension and rheumatism, colds and fever, dysentery, stomach pains and sore throat. Sambong also has diuretic properties as such it is also a cheap medicine that can help treat kidney disorders. This mighty shrub also helps in eliminating the body of excess water and salt.

Because of its many benefits, it is one of the ten herbal medicines that is approved and promoted by the Philippine Department of Health or DOH as an alternative medicine. The National Kidney Institute of the Philippines also promotes sambong in order to delay the need of dialysis or kidney transplant.