What are the medicinal properties of peppermint?

Many plants have been considered healing since ancient times. Among them is peppermint. The healing properties of this herb became the reason for its cultivation. Several centuries ago it was customary in folk medicine to use all varieties of this plant, but today wild cultures do not apply.

Peppermint: general characteristics of a plant

Today, peppermint is cultivated in suburban areas and in special farms. This is a natural hybrid of two crossed varieties of mint: water and spike. A bush perennial plant about a meter in height has an upright stem and a powerful root system. Leaves oval, pointed at the ends, darker nearer to the tip. Flowers are light purple, collected in spicate inflorescences in the sinuses of the apical leaves.

In the people, the medicinal properties of peppermint are very much appreciated. There are white and black varieties, their main difference in color. In contrast to white mint leaves and black stem have a dark purple hue. Both species smell almost the same, only the smell of black mint is sharper.

Simplicity in the care and medicinal properties of peppermint promotes its wide distribution. For the successful growth of this plant, any soil is suitable. It grows quite rapidly, multiplies vegetatively with the help of layers and division of rhizomes.

Peppermint: composition and useful properties

Collect the grass in summer, at the very beginning of its flowering, dried outdoors, in places inaccessible to direct sunlight. For medicinal purposes, leaves, flowers and stem are used. Mint contains essential oils, menthol, tannins, microelements, carotene, organic acids, flavonoids, tannins, betaine, terpenoids.

The main component, thanks to which the medicinal properties of peppermint are of special value, is menthol. This substance has bactericidal and anesthetic properties, and also affects surface blood vessels.

The medicinal properties of peppermint mint caused the production on its basis of various drugs that are used to treat angina and neuroses. Among them, you can allocate funds "Corvalol", "Validol" and "Drops Zelenin ." A tincture of peppermint has anti-inflammatory, choleretic and analgesic properties, improves digestion, relieves of attacks of nausea. Decoctions are prescribed for colitis, gastritis, liver or gallbladder disease. Another extract of the plant is included in the rinsers, toothpastes and fresheners for the oral cavity.

Contraindications

In addition to useful properties, there are some contraindications for the use of drugs and infusions based on mint: low blood pressure, weak pulse, varicose veins, increased acidity of gastric juice, children less than 3 years of age, pregnancy. Also, men are not recommended excessive use of mint and drugs on its basis, since there is a theory about the harmful effect of grass on male libido.