Chicory

Chicory:

Chicory is a Mediterranean plant and the different colors of its leaves show its great morphological diversity and are used as the most important food and infectious and digestive diseases.

Botany:

The chicory family grows naturally in different regions of Iran and is tolerant of dry and semi-dry conditions of the country. It is a herbaceous plant 30 to 120 cm high with conical roots with a diameter as large as the diameter of a finger and half a meter long and with brown skin and white pith. It has lobed leaves covered with hair, the lower leaves are larger than the upper ones. Its flowers are usually light blue and sometimes pink or white. The root is spindle-shaped and conical, and a sap is secreted from it in a longitudinal cut. The dried roots and aerial parts of this plant are used as medicinal resources. The main distribution of this plant is in Europe and Asia; and in Iran it is also growing in mountainous areas, Khorasan, Gilan, Mazandaran, Zanjan, Tehran, Isfahan, and many other areas.

Chemical compounds:

Chocolate contains compounds such as alkaloids, inulin, lactones, sesquiterpenes, coumarins, flavonoids, chicoric acid and vitamins, and is also a rich source of potassium, calcium and phosphorus. The main compound found in the essential oil of the aerial parts of chicory is the flavonoid kaempferol.
In chicory leaves, in addition to mineral salts such as sodium sulfate and phosphate, magnesium, potassium and potassium nitrate, there is a glucoside called chicorin.
The root of this plant also contains a substance called inulin, which has anti-hepatic and blood lipid-lowering properties.
Flavonoids have different medicinal properties and are used to combat viruses and cancer cells.

Medicinal properties:

In traditional medicine, many studies have been conducted on the medicinal plant chicory, and in recent decades, this plant has gained special importance due to the replacement of herbal medicinal compounds with chemical drugs. This plant relieves digestive, liver and gallbladder problems. It also has properties such as appetite stimulant, treatment of indigestion and diuretic, stomach tonic, blood purifier, laxative, bile and fever reducer, treatment of hepatic colic, jaundice, chronic skin diseases, urinary tract infections, anemia.
Chicory and its juice are traditionally used as diuretics, analgesics, diaphoretics and fever reducers. Chicory is used to remove urinary sediment, urinary tract infections, anemia, and also in gout and rheumatism. Chicory root increases bile secretion, stimulates gastric juice, and is an appetite stimulant. Chicory root decoction is recommended for liver diseases, removing gallstones or kidney stones, and relieving urinary tract swelling, and it also controls diabetes.