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Trigonella foenum-graecum L. (Fabaceae/Leguminosae)

(Syns.: T. graeca St.-Lag.; T. tibetana (Alef.) Vassilcz.)

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Handbook of 200 Medicinal Plants

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Abstract

An annual herb grown in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal , Iran, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, Spain, southern China, North Africa and southern Europe. It is one of the most commonly used plants since ancient times. Medical Papyri from Egypt mentioned its use as antipyretic and food, and in compounds used as incense for fumigation and embalming. Dioscorides recommended seed powder in the form of a poultice for inflammatory affections. Arab Muslim writers described the plant and seeds as suppurative, aperient, diuretic, emmenagogue, useful in dropsy, enlargements of spleen and liver, and chronic cough. A poultice of the leaves is used for external and internal swellings, and to prevent hair loss. According to Rhazes, it is beneficial in phlegmatic diseases, relieves cough and asthma, and is aphrodisiac; as a vegetable, it is beneficial for backache, oliguria, and uterine pain. In Ayurveda, seeds are considered demulcent, tonic and carminative, and used in dyspepsia with loss of appetite, flatulence, rheumatism, diabetes and to puerperal women during confinement; in leucorrhea, the pessaries of its powder are used. It is also identified as one of the most effective antidiabetic plants, used by traditional healers of northern Europe to treat diabetes, as stimulant and carminative, and in renal disorders. In Danish folk medicine, it is used to treat depression and anxiety. The seeds are used as condiment and carminative, for rheumatism, wound dressing, stomachache, and leprosy, and have shown uterine stimulant activity. Fenugreek seeds contain 45.4% dietary fiber that blunts glucose and cholesterol absorption after a meal and regulate cholesterol production in liver. Seeds contain alkaloids, trypsine and chymotrypsine inhibitors, flavonoids, spirostanol saponins, anti-inflammatory steroidal saponin glycosides, furostanol steroidal saponins, flavone C-glycosides, and seventeen amino acids, seven of them being essential amino acids. Aqueous seed extract significantly lowered blood glucose, TGs, TC of diabetic animals and in normal mice, and improved antioxidant status. Addition of 15 g powdered fenugreek seeds soaked in water to diet significantly reduced postprandial glucose levels in Israeli patients with NIDDM.

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Akbar, S. (2020). Trigonella foenum-graecum L. (Fabaceae/Leguminosae). In: Handbook of 200 Medicinal Plants. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16807-0_189

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