Useful and medicinal properties of apricot

Tree is 5-7 m high.

is cultivated in the south of the European part of Russia, in the Caucasus, in Central Asia.

Medicinal raw materials are the bones from which the oil is obtained. In medical practice, fruits, seeds and gum are used.

Fruit pulp contains 4.7 to 27% of sugars( in mature fruit sucrose predominates), a small amount of dexytrine, inulin and starch, malic, citric acids, traces of tartaric and salicylic acids, pectin substances. Fruits contain a lot of provitamin A, which gives them an orange color, nicotinic acid, vitamins B15 and C. Apricots are rich in potassium salts. Fresh fruits contain 305 mg of potassium, in dried 1717 mg%.

Seeds contain 35 to 60% of a non-drying fatty oil, which is chemically close to a peach oil, has a low acidity and a low viscosity. Seeds also contain glycoside amygdalin, enzymes emulsin, lactose and hydrocyanic acid.

Due to the rich content of potassium salts in the pulp, it is recommended to use apricots for diseases of the cardiovascular system, for example, to include dried apricots in the food ration of unloading days. When appointing mercury diuretics shown to contain patients on a diet rich in potassium salts, patients are prescribed per day a glass of dried apricots.

Apricots can also be used as a source of provitamin A, PP vitamins and B15.However, it is not necessary to take apricots for the treatment and prevention of vitamin deficiency and vitamin A hypovitaminosis for liver diseases and for lowering the thyroid function, since the content of pro-vitamin A( carotene), which is stored in apricots, is not digested in the apricots, and therefore it is better to prescribe pure vitamin A.

The use of apricots because of the high sugar content in them should be limited to people with diabetes mellitus.

Pharmacopoeias are allowed to use apricot seeds instead of bitter almond seeds for the preparation of bitter almond water due to the content in them, as in the seeds of bitter almonds, amygdalin glycoside and emulsion enzyme. The glycoside amygdalin and the enzyme emulsion that cleaves it are separately. With good chewing, their interaction occurs, resulting in the formation of hydrocyanic acid, which is a strong poison for the body. There are cases of poisoning when eating a large number of apricot seeds.

In Chinese national medicine, seeds are used as a sedative for coughing, hiccough. In China, it is recommended to take them in combination with other medicinal plants for bronchitis, tracheitis, laryngitis, pertussis, nephritis. The seeds should be used in the form of an emulsion, which is prepared from 20-30 g of seeds.

Speakers from the natural cracks of apricot trees flow into the air, forming the so-called apricot gum. Powdered( white or yellow) gum is used in medicine as a full-fledged substitute for imported gum arabic. Due to the emulsifying ability, the stability of the oil emulsions prepared on it and the viscosity, it exceeds the gum arabic. Use apricot gum to make oil emulsions and sometimes as a wrapping.