What are the research advances in modern applications of cassia seeds?

Pharmacopoeia records
Source: This product is the dried mature seeds of Cassia obtusifolia L. or Cassia tora L. of the legume family. Mature fruits are harvested in the fall, dried in the sun, and the seeds are beaten down and impurities are removed.
Properties: Cassia: slightly rhombic square or short cylindrical, both ends parallel inclined, 3-7mm long, 2-4mm wide. green-brown or dark brown surface, smooth and shiny. One end is relatively flat, the other end is obliquely pointed, the dorsal and ventral surfaces each have a raised rib, and each side of the rib has a diagonally symmetrical and lighter-colored linear concave lines. Texture hard, not easily broken. Seed coat thin, cotyledons 2, yellow, “S” shape folding and overlapping. Slightly bitter flavor.
Small cassia: short cylindrical, small, 3-5mm long, 2-3mm wide, the surface of the rib line on each side of a wide light yellow-brown band.
Taste and Meridian: sweet, bitter, salty, slightly cold. Attributed to the liver and large intestine meridians
Functions and Indications: Clearing heat and brightening the eyes, moistening the intestines and relaxing the bowels. It is used for eye redness and astringency, shyness and excessive tears, headache and dizziness, darkness and uncertainty of the eyes, constipation.
Modern Pharmacological Actions
1.Hypolipidemic effect of cassia seeds hypolipidemic effective site is n-butanol site. Compared with the hyperlipidemic rat model group, total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels in serum of cassia seed dose group were significantly increased.
In the liver, the levels of TC and TG were significantly reduced, and the total superoxide dismutase (T-SOD) was significantly elevated, indicating that cassia seeds have a certain hypolipidemic function.
2. The study of blood pressure lowering effect shows that cassia seed anthraquinone glycoside can significantly reduce the two kidneys and a clip hypertensive rats tail artery systolic blood pressure, and has a protective effect on the kidneys of hypertensive rats. Cassia seed protein, oligosaccharides and anthraquinone glycosides can significantly reduce the blood pressure of experimental hypertensive rats.
3.Laxative effectTraditional applications have shown that cassia seeds have laxative and laxative effects, and the active ingredient may be the anthraquinones it contains.
Anthraquinones have the effect of promoting peristalsis of the intestinal wall, reducing the absorption of steroids and thus enhancing intestinal diarrhea, and the abundant polysaccharides and cellulose in cassia seeds have obvious synergistic effects with anthraquinones.2.4 Eye-opening effectCassia seeds are named for their prominent eye-opening effect, and cassia seeds n-hexane part has a significant anti-photo-oxidative effect, and is able to inhibit the formation of a kind of pyridine-type retinoids formed by the light-induced retinol ( A2E) deposition in the retinal pigment epithelium, which is expected to improve macular degeneration in the elderly.
2.5 Hepatoprotective effect: The ethanol extract of cassia seed has antioxidant effect, which can inhibit the CCl4-induced reduction of cytochrome P4502E1 activity, reduce the level of hepatic and mitochondrial malondialdehyde, increase the level of hepatic and mitochondrial glutathione, and restore the activity of superoxide dismutase, glutathione reductase, and glutathione S-transferase, which has hepatoprotective effect.
Modern Applications
Through the query of Pharmaceutical Intelligence data, there are 464 domestic health food products, 26 imported health food products and 74 enterprise standards related to cassia seed.
According to the results of cassia seed domestic health food efficacy query, weight loss effect 153 articles, auxiliary lowering of blood lipids, regulating blood lipids 133 articles, laxative 118 articles, relieve visual fatigue 28 articles, auxiliary lowering of blood pressure, regulating blood pressure 24 articles, and chemical liver injury has auxiliary protective function 15 articles.
In recent years, due to the domestic food purchase price increase and other factors lead to domestic cassia seed production, but part of our cassia seed from foreign imports, so there has not yet been a gap between supply and demand. But in fact, the domestic cassia seed quality is more excellent, and its production is difficult to meet market demand.
Cassia seeds are medicinal and food items, its distribution is widespread, abundant and easy to obtain, processing and concocting method is simple, has a long history of application in folklore, has a clear heat and clear eyesight, laxative function, and thus part of the current research on the cassia seeds with the status of research is summarized (see Table 1).