Bitter glycosides are a class of compounds that plays an important role in the digestive process. Bitter drugs and bitter constituents are used since a very early period as stomachics, febrifuges, and bitter tonics and in digestive disturbances.
BITTER AND MISCELLANEOUS GLYCOSIDES
Bitter glycosides are a class of compounds that plays an
important role in the digestive process. Bitter drugs and bitter constituents
are used since a very early period as stomachics, febrifuges, and bitter tonics
and in digestive disturbances.
The bitterness of food on the tongue plays a very important
role as the taste of bitter foods stimulates the appetite and triggers the
secretion of digestive juices in the stomach, which in turn improves the break
down of food. Bitters begin by stimulating the taste buds. This triggers off a
reflex nerve action which increases the flow of saliva and stomach enzymes. At
the same time, the hormone gastrin is secreted by the walls of the stomach.
This improves the digestive process, by improving the passage of food from the
stomach to the intestines. The sum total of this is an improvement in the
digestive function of the stomach and small intestines. Bitters can also be
very useful to improve immune disorders resulting from food intolerance or
dietary antigen leakage, protect gut tissue (by increasing the tone of the
gastro-esophageal sphincter thereby preventing reflux of corrosive stomach
contents into the esophagus in ‘heart burn’, hiatus hernia, or esophageal
inflammation), promote bile flow (thereby providing for increased ability of
the liver to remove a toxic load from incomplete digestion and also provide for
better digestion in the duodenum and small intestine), and enhance pancreatic
function (normalizing hormone secretions to moderate excessive swings in
blood–sugar levels).
Examples of bitter digestives are Blessed Thistle, Barberry
bark, Goldenseal, Dandelion, Hops flowers, Yellow dock, and Gentian root.
Bitter drugs preparations should be taken before or during meals otherwise they
cause digestive disturbances like diarrhoea, and pain in the stomach.
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