Misai Kuching is Functional Food

What is Functional Food?

Functional food refers to food products that are modified with additives to enhance health, growth or other beneficial effects. The most common examples are the milk products promoted as “vitamin enriched”, “with cholesterol reducing phytosterols“, “fortified with Calcium”, “with Omega 3”, “with DHA” and so on.

In nature, just as there are numerous varieties of food that provide us the nutrients and the source of energy, there are also many natural functional foods. In fact the cholesterol reducing phytosterols mentioned above is present in many vegetables, which if naturally cultivated, could be present in sufficient amounts to be functional i.e. reduce the intake of cholesterol.

For centuries, the people of South East Asia consumed a tea for its delicate, pleasant taste and its functional values. Known in Malaysia as Misai Kuching (and in the West as Java Tea), it is interpreted today as a traditional treatment for urinary problems, high blood pressure, diabetes, gout, kidney stones, etc.

Traditionally,
Misai Kuching was used to treat

High Blood Pressure,
Urinary Problems,
Kidney Stones,
Gout,
Diabetes,
and other ailments.

Today, scientific research is validating much of this traditional knowledge.

How Misai Kuching functions.

Plants produce a range of complex chemicals called phytochemicals. Some plants produce phytochemicals which are of little or no benefit, some are of great benefit while some may do more harm than good to human and animal health. Misai Kuching is a plant with a wide range of beneficial phytochemicals that have shown to improve various functions of the human body.

Some body functions may diminish in effectiveness with age or due to lifestyle, stress or genetic factors. Diminishing circulatory functions may result in inefficient delivery of nutrients and oxygen to various parts of the body and the disposal of waste products from the body. This may then lead to –

• Increase in blood pressure or hypertension.
• Particles crystallizing in the kidneys or in the gallbladder forming stones.
• Uric acid depositing in the lower limbs leading to the condition called gout.
• Water retention in the legs leading to oedema or to other water retention problems.
• And a variety of other problems.

The phytochemicals in Misai Kuching cause the dilation (relaxation) of the muscles of the walls of organs and vessels thus improving circulatory functions. The common traditional application of Misai Kuching in treating hypertension (high blood pressure) can now be scientifically explained as resulting from the relaxing of the muscles of the blood vessels to absorb the pressure. The same explanation also applies to urination problems where the relaxing of muscles of the ureters from the kidneys to the bladder facilitates easier flow of urine, and even particles that become stones.

It may be no coincidence that the most common responses in a survey carried out on the sampling of Misai Kuching in UK was “relaxing” and “soothing”.

Misai Kuching has been and is being extensively studied and more and more validation of the traditional uses are emerging.