The world of infusions based on plant extracts it is in full swing. In fact, the scientific community approves of its consumption and offers medical advantages in it.
The origins of the infusions are based, mostly, on traditional Chinese medicine. Nowadays, people drink tea or other infusions for various reasons, whether it’s for the taste, for theine to stay awake and attentive, for the relaxing effects or the health benefits, etc.
A not so popular drink but full of benefits is the nettle infusion, made with the leaves of the plant whose scientific name is Urtica dioica.
Yes, we refer to this plant that when touching it with our hands or when it rubs our legs we suffer a hives that gets to bother us a lot.
These chemical substances, treated in infusion, can benefit our body, and we will demonstrate this with assessments refuted by the scientific community.
Nettle has been considered for many years as a medicinal plant, rather than as a weed.
Table of Contents
Benefits of nettle infusion
It is healthy for our urinary tract
One of the first medicinal properties that we are going to comment on the infusion of nettle is the bacteriostatic activity of its components. Taken in drink, it favors the elimination of bacteria that cause infection in the urinary tract, and improves the symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia (HPB).
These data have been refuted by the trial of the Dr Norman Zambrano and others, and published in medical journals, with a reduction of clinical symptomatology against this disease.
In general, good results have been obtained for any negative incidence in the urinary tract, related to infections and inflammations.
Remedy against arthritic pain
Proposed and refuted by the Arthritis Foundation, it is suggested that the infusion of nettles reduces the sensation of muscle pain located in joints, thus reducing the symptoms of arthritic pain, osteoarthritis and the derived inflammation processes.
Blood sugar regulation
Controlling blood sugar levels and finding new drugs without side effects to improve quality of life in patients with diabetes is one of the main tasks of the medical community.
In this case, nettle infusion has been shown to have positive effects on the regulation of glucose levels in blood. In turn, it regulates the production of insulin in the pancreas to be produced.
The Department of Pharmacology and Applied Medicine of Iran presented a study where the consumption of capsules of 500 mg every 8 hours for 3 months, reduced blood levels of fasting glucose, 2 hours of postprandial glucose and HbA1c significantly (p <0.001, p = 0.009 and p = 0.006, respectively) without any significant effect on the other parameters (p> 0.05) compared to placebo.
Antioxidant capacity
Many plants are characterized by harboring a number of substances, known as polyphenols, who have great power for their antioxidant activity.
This also occurs in the plant Urtica dioica, offering immunity by interfering with immune cell regulation, pro-inflammatory cytokine synthesis, and gene expression.
Basically, the phenolic compounds they offer the ability to reduce the symptomatology of chronic diseases (diabetes, cancer, heart disease, inflammation, etc.).
How to prepare nettle infusion
Additional recommendations
Nettle infusion contains different active substances that can cause allergic problems. If you have never tried the infusion of this plant, it is advisable to consult with a medical specialist, who will guide you in the process and analyze the risks of its consumption.
