While fennel is best understood for its cooking properties, it’s also used all over the world to treat a number of medical conditions. Fennel is readily available in capsule type and as a dried herb. However, the most popular part of the plant for medical use is the seeds, which are crushed and made into a tea. Remember that fennel hasn’t been thoroughly studied, so these uses are mostly anecdotal. Constantly talk to your doctor prior to using any alternative treatments, specifically if you have a continuous medical condition.
The seeds of the fennel plant have an aniselike scent and typically function in Indian and Middle Eastern cooking. Fennel is used to improve digestion, alleviate flatulence, treat hypertension, increase milk production in breast-feeding moms, and treat respiratory and food poisonings. To make fennel tea, lightly squash a teaspoonful of fennel seeds with a mortar and pestle then high the seeds in boiling water.
Benefits of Fennel Tea
Fennel is a fragrant and flavorful herb that has numerous cooking along with medical uses. In addition to its popular use as a breath freshener, it helps ease a number of disorders and helps with better health due to its stomachic, carminative, antispasmodic, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, expectorant, diuretic, emmenagogue, depurative, anticarcinogenic and antioxidant properties.
It contains vitamin C, potassium, manganese, iron, folate, and fiber. It is likewise rich in phytonutrients and has a high concentration of volatile oils.
You can take pleasure in the health advantages of this licorice-tasting herb by sprinkling it on breads or cakes before baking, adding it in fruit salads, adding fresh fennel roots in sautéed vegetables, or merely chewing fennel seeds after meals.
What is fennel tea good for: breathing problems, intestinal issues, women’s health, digestive health, lower blood pressure, relaxing colic, increased milk supply and other health benefits.
Breathing Problems
Fennel tea is typically suggested to treat breathing concerns from basic colds to asthma. It can likewise help with upper breathing tract infections due to the fact that of its antimicrobial properties. Fennel can likewise be used to treat problems such as angina and high blood pressure.
Intestinal Issues
Among the most typical applications of fennel is to treat heartburn. Consuming a single cup of tea when you start feeling the symptoms of indigestion can reduce the pain and burning. Chewing fennel seeds also works. Fennel is frequently promoted as an antispasmodic, so it can help unwind the digestive tract and ease cramps and gas and to treat irritable bowel syndrome.
Women’s Health
Fennel’s unstable oils have mild estrogen-like qualities, so they are used extensively in Chinese medication to treat hormone problems. Fennel is also used to improve sex drive and to stimulate the production and circulation of milk in lactating women. It is sometimes used to treat amenhorrea.
Lots of aspects, including stress and bad diet, can disrupt a woman’s regular menstruation. Fennel seeds have emmenagogue properties that promote and control menstrual circulation. The herb likewise has phytoestrogens that assist with issues like premenstrual syndrome and menopausal disorders.
Digestive Health
In a 2012 evaluation in the “International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition,” author Marco Valussi reported that intake of fennel increased spontaneous gastric motility and gastric acid secretions in animal models. Valussi likewise reported that an herbal mix consisting of fennel removed digestive tract pain in 95 percent of patients who had chronic, nonspecific colitis.
Lower Blood Pressure
Scientific research studies on the use of fennel as a diuretic for hypertension have produced combined results. A study published in 2001 in “Clinical and Experimental Hypertension” took a look at the effects of a fennel extract on blood pressure and urinary volume in rats. In one group of rats, blood pressure considerably decreased after two days of treatment, and urinary volume increased by 100 percent.
Nevertheless, in another group of rats, blood pressure went back to placebo worths after a preliminary reduction and no diuretic impact was observed. More studies are had to identify which parts of the fennel plant are responsible for its diuretic impacts and to elaborate on existing studies.
Relaxing Colic
Parents of colicky babies have typically used fennel to help soothe their crying children. Several studies have revealed favorable results in assessing the effectiveness of fennel for reducing colic symptoms. In a research study published in 2003 in “Alternative Therapies,” scientists reported that use of fennel extract got rid of colic in 65 percent of babies, considerably more than in infants given a placebo. Consult with your pediatrician before providing fennel tea to your baby.
Increased Milk Supply
Fennel is common in commercially produced herbal tea blends for nursing moms. However, scientific research on the effectiveness of fennel and other herbs promoted as lactation aids is lacking. More research has to be carried out to identify whether drinking fennel tea will help promote your milk production.
Bad Breath
Chewing on a few fennel seeds will sweeten and revitalize your breath after a meal and particularly eliminate bad breath after an odorous meal.
Its antimicrobial properties battle the germs that cause bad breath. Its anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties also relieve sore gums. In addition to chewing on a fennel seeds, you can swish lukewarm fennel tea in your mouth and swish with it to reduce bad breath.
Relieves Water Retention
Consuming fennel tea regularly helps eliminate excess fluids from the body as it works as a diuretic. You can also reduce puffy eyes caused by fluid retention by using strong fennel tea under your eyes.
In addition to preventing and relieving water retention, fennel helps eliminate contaminants and reduces the risk of urinary tract problems. It also has diaphoretic properties that will stimulate perspiration.
Reduces Obesity
Fennel is outstanding for combating weight problems as it suppresses the hunger and creates a feeling of fullness. Fresh fennel works as a natural fat buster by enhancing the metabolic process and breaking down fats. Plus, being a diuretic, fennel helps reduce water retention, which is a common cause of temporary weight gain.
One easy method to help with weight loss with this herb is to dry roast, grind and sieve fennel seeds and consume one-half teaspoon of the powder with warm water two times daily.
Cancer
Fennel bulb can help reduce the risk of developing colon cancer due to the fact that it helps eliminate carcinogenic toxins from the colon.
Furthermore, the herb has an anti-inflammatory phytonutrient called anethole that has anti-cancer effects. A 2012 research study at the University of Texas discovered that this phytonutrient can stop breast cancer cells from growing. Other phytonutrients like quercetin and limonene present in this herb likewise have anticarcinogenic impacts.
Avoids Heart Problems
Fennel can reduce the risk of having a heart attack or stroke. It is an excellent source of potassium that helps lower hypertension as well as folate that is needed for converting possibly dangerous homocysteine particles into a benign type.
Likewise, raw fennel root is abundant in dietary fiber that helps control cholesterol accumulation. It likewise contains vitamin C, which acts as an antioxidant and prevents heart disease by hindering totally free radical activity.
Promotes Eye Health
Researchers at the Delhi Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences & Research have found that fennel may help in reducing eye pressure and promote the dilation of capillary. Thus, it might help avoid or treat glaucoma, a vision-impairing disease. Nevertheless, more research and evaluation is required in this regard.
Additionally, an Indian research study led by researchers from the Department of Biochemistry at the Shivaji University suggests that fennel seeds contain a compound (trans-anethole) that may prevent retinopathy associated with vision loss in diabetics.
You can obtain these benefits by consuming fennel tea daily. Likewise, you can prepare an infusion of half teaspoon of fennel seeds boiled in one cup of water up until half the water vaporizes. Strain and cool the service then use it as eye drops to relieve eye strain and inflammation.
Enhances Memory and Brain Function
Fennel works as a basic brain booster. Scientists have found that fennel seeds help enhance cognitive performance. Fennel bulbs and seeds likewise have high levels of potassium, which motivates increased electrical conduction throughout the body, adding to healthy brain working and cognitive capabilities.
Additionally, fennel juice serves as a vasodilator and increases oxygen supply to the brain. It is likewise handy in relieving depression and postponing the start of dementia.
Other Health Benefits
Fennel is a conventional household remedy for treatment of symptoms of the respiratory tract consisting of bronchitis and chronic coughs, kidney stones, dysmenorrhea, vomiting, diarrhea and defection of sperm. Fennel also might be practical in the management of bacterial and fungal infections. In a study released in 2008 in the “Indian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology,” scientists reported promising lead to using fennel eyedrops for treating glaucoma in rabbits. More studies are had to figure out whether fennel works in treating all of these conditions.
Fennel tea may help eliminate colic in a baby, along with reduce pain and fever in both children and adults. Rinsing with fennel tea can relieve a sore throat and it may relive coughing and chest pain due to a cold.
Good luck! Have a nice weekend.
