Sambong | Blumea balsamifera DC, a medicinal herb, is widely distributed in Eastern and Southeastern Asia. It has been used in folk medicine for its many health benefits that include the treatment of septic wounds, respiratory infections, stomach pains and kidney stones.
Also knows as:
Alibum,Lakad-bulan, Alimon, Lalakdan. Sambong (Tag.), Dalapot, Sob-sob, Gabuen. Subusub, Blumea camphor (Engl.), Kambibon, Ngai camphor (Engl.).
Sambong is used as herbal medicine and is a shrub that grows wild in the tropical climate countries such as Philippines, India, Africa and found even in eastern Himalayas. Sambong is widely used in the Philippines as herbal medicine. Sambong leaves are known for its ngai or Blumea camphor that is used as herbal medicine to treat kidney stones, wounds and cuts, rheumatism, anti-diarrhea, anti spasms, colds and coughs and hypertension. The Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (PCHRD) has develop the technology for a sambong herbal medicine tablet.
Sambong is an aromatic shrub, that grows from 1 to 4 meters in height. It is considered as a weed in some countries and is difficult to eradicate. Sambong has yellow flowering heads that is 6 mm long. Sambong leaves are green obloid that spreads in a pyramidial pattern. Sambong bears fruits that are ribbed and hairy on top. Sambong fruit has 1 seed.
Sambong as diuretic for hypertension and fluid retention. Sambong herbal tea is used as a diuretic for fluid retention and hypertension conditions. Sambong herbal tea incites the body to urinate thereby removing excess body fluids and sodium. Clinical studies have shown that high levels of sodium in the blood is a major cause of hypertension.
Sambong delay or averts renal failure . The Philippine National Kidney and Transplant Institute recommends taking sambong herbal medicine for patients with renal problems. Favorable results were noted that sambong may help to delay or avert dialysis or even kidney transplant.
Sambong for the Dissolution of Kidney Stones. The Philippine Department of Health (DOH) has been promoting Sambong herbal tea and tablets as a diuretic and for the dissolution of kidney stones. Sambong has been recently registered in the Bureau of Foods and Drugs as medicine.
Sambong as Anticancer: Sambong contains methanolic extract that has been found to have therapeutic activity against hepatocellular carcinoma cells. A study of sambong (balsamifera) extract inhibits the activity in rat and human hepatocellular carcinoma cells without cytotoxicity. This study suggest a possible therapeutic effect of sambong extracts (balsamifera) in the treatment of hepatoma cancer patients.
Sambong as Antibacterial and Antifungi: A Phytochemical study indicates that sambong leaves contains the chemicals icthyothereol acetate, cyptomeridiol, lutein and ß-carotene that has been found to have positive activity against microbes such as A niger, T mentagrophytes and C albicans. Results also showed activity against P aeruginosa, S aureus, B subtilis and E coli.
Powdered Sambong leaves are available in 250 mg tablets at the DOH's Philippine Institute of Traditional and Alternative Health Care (PITAHC) Tel # (632)727-6199.
Sambong is also available online in Amozon as listed : Sambong Leaf Urisam 100tabs Just check the label for recommended dose and usage.
The Chinese Materia Medica. 1st ed. Shanghai Science and Technology Press; Shanghai, China: 1999. The State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine Editorial Board of Chinese Herb Medicine; pp. 466–467.
Sakee U., Maneerat S., Cushnie T.P., De-Eknamkul W. Antimicrobial activity of Blumea balsamifera (Lin.) DC. extracts and essential oil. Nat. Prod. Res. 2011;25:1849–1856. [PubMed]
Lin H., Zhao J.W., Chen Q.S., Zhou F., Sun L. Discrimination of Radix Pseudostellariae according to geographical origins using NIR spectroscopy and support vector data description. Spectrochim. Acta A. 2011;79:1381–1385. [PubMed]
Hahn D.W., Omenetto N. Laser-Induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), Part I: Review of basic diagnostics and plasma-particle interactions: Still-Challenging issues within the analytical plasma community. Appl. Spectrosc. 2010;64:335–366. [PubMed]
PubMed®
A service of the National Library of Medicine (NLM), PubMed® contains publication information and (in most cases) brief summaries of articles from scientific and medical journals. CAM on PubMed®, developed jointly by NCCAM and NLM, is a subset of the PubMed® system and focuses on the topic of CAM.
Web site: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez
CAM on PubMed® : nccam.nih.gov/research/camonpubmed/
Article last reviewed: 10.05.2016