Common Name: Safed Kaddu, Kumhra
English Name: Pumpkin, Marrow
Botanical Name: Cucurbita pepo Linn.
Family: Cucurbitaceae
Description: It is an annual plant. It has a flexible, climbing stem, and large, dark-green leaves. Leaves are heart-shaped, with well marked nerves, slightly hairy. Flowers are orange and trumpet-shaped. Fruits are oval to spherical, green, yellow or orange in color.
Chemical Composition: Pumpkin seeds contain fatty acids with linoleic acid being the main component, but also contains various plant sterols and sterol glycosides, a cyclic non-protein amino acid, cucurbitine, as well as tocopherols. Pumpkin seeds are a very good source of the minerals phosphorus, magnesium and manganese. They are also a good source of other minerals including zinc, iron and copper. In addition, pumpkin seeds are a good source of protein and vitamin K.
Properties: It is used as an anthelmintic, as a diuretic, to treat bed-wetting in children and facilitate the passage of urine, while soothing an irritated bladder. They contain L-tryptophan, a compound naturally effective against depression. Pumpkin seeds effectively reduce inflammation without the side effects of anti-inflammatory drugs.Pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo) seeds appear to reduce levels of substances that promote stone formation in the urine and increase levels of substances that inhibit stone formation. The active constituents of pumpkin seeds improved symptoms in patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia.
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