What are the antifungal Chinese medicines?

In our lives, there are various diseases caused by fungi, and the most obvious ones are skin diseases. Therefore, some antifungal drugs must be used during treatment. The antibacterial drugs we often come into contact with are garlic, onions, ginger, etc. However, eating food alone cannot eliminate some stubborn fungi, so medication is still needed. So what are the antifungal Chinese medicines?

You may know that garlic has antifungal effects, but you may not know all the other Chinese medicines that can do the same. In recent years, experimental studies have found that many Chinese medicines have antifungal effects, which are introduced here as follows:

1. Tangerine peel: The in vitro antibacterial experiment found that 25% and 50% concentrations of tangerine peel liquid had inhibitory effects on common superficial fungi, but had no inhibitory effect on Candida albicans; 12.5% ​​tangerine peel liquid had inhibitory effects on Trichophyton rubrum, Microsporum monotrichum, and Epidermophyton floccosum.

2. Turmeric: Experiments have confirmed that turmeric volatile oil has a strong antifungal effect. It was also found that turmeric isomers have a strong antifungal effect, while curcumin has only a weak antifungal effect. The active ingredients of turmeric are made into solutions, which are effective for various types of tinea pedis and have antibacterial effects to varying degrees.

3. Konjac: The experiment observed the antifungal effect of kelp extracts of different concentrations. The results showed that kelp extracts had a certain antibacterial effect on 5 common dermatophytes.

4. Cinnamon sticking: Cinnamaldehyde, a component of cinnamon, is an active antifungal substance. Some people have studied the antifungal effects of cinnamaldehyde on 22 kinds of conditionally pathogenic fungi. The results showed that cinnamaldehyde has antibacterial effects on all the tested fungi.

5. Cloves: The active ingredient in cloves, syringic acid, has antifungal properties. The researchers used the solid agar method and salicylic acid as a control to determine the antifungal activity of syringic acid and found that it had inhibitory and killing effects on the 10 dermatophytes, 5 deep fungi, and 3 yeast-like fungi tested, and was significantly stronger than the control drug. Scanning and transmission electron microscopy also confirmed that the drug has a strong destructive effect on Trichophyton gypseum and Candida albicans, and changes in the appearance of the fungi can be seen.

6. Coconut shell: Some people use coconut shell alcohol extract to fight 11 common skin fungi. The results show that the fat-soluble components of Hainan high-quality coconut shell alcohol extract have different degrees of antifungal effects, showing a significant dose-effect relationship. When the concentration of the alcohol extract increases, its antibacterial effect is similar to that of nitrate.

7. Scorpion: Experimental studies have shown that the ethanol extract of scorpion has inhibitory effects on 8 superficial pathogenic fungi in vitro, especially on Chromothrix persicae, Sporothrix kluyveri, Trichophyton gypseum, and Epidermophyton floccosum. Its antifungal effect is better than that of garlic extract. It was also found that scorpion toxin had no effect against epidermal skin fungi under these experimental conditions.

8. Borneol: Researchers observed under a transmission electron microscope and found that normal Aspergillus niger hyphae are relatively smooth, with thin cell walls, and the spores are round, oval, or spiral and arranged in parallel. After the action of borneol, the cell wall thickened, blurred, and vacuolated, and the cytoplasm showed bacterial particles and dark-stained cytoplasm agglutination; a large number of lipid droplets had high electron density, mitochondria denatured, dark arrangement was disordered or disappeared, organelles were destroyed, a large number of electron blank areas appeared, and some cells were distorted and lost their original structure. This shows that borneol has antifungal effects.

9. Natural copper: In vitro experiments have found that natural copper has an inhibitory effect on a variety of pathogenic fungi, especially on filamentous fungi such as Trichophyton gypseum and Aspergillus terreus. External application of natural copper decoction also has a certain therapeutic effect on the guinea pig dorsal tinea model infected with Trichophyton gypseum.