Name: Euonymus
Latin Name: Euonymus alatus (Thunb.) Sieb.
Pin Yin: Gui Jian Yu
Location: North and Central America, Europe, Asia, Madagascar, and Australia

Overview: Euonymus can lower blood sugar level and urine sugar level, increase the proliferation of pancreas B cells, and causes the atrophy of the pancreas A cells at the same time, improve the secretion of insulin and adjust the abnormal metabolism process.

Euonymus can also be used to treat amenia, postpartum stasis tormina by removing the stagnation of blood and clearing the channels of the body.

Safety: Not recommended for pregnant women.

Supporting Research:

• Dihydroagarofuran sesquiterpenes, which were isolated from Tripterygium wilfordii Hook fil. var. regelii Makino and Euonymus sieboldianus Blume, showed inhibitory effects on Epstein-Barr virus early antigen (EBV-EA) activation induced by 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA). Triptogelin A-1, one of the active dihydroagarofuran sesquiterpenes, exhibited remarkable inhibitory effects on mouse skin tumor promotion in an in vivo two-stage carcinogenesis test. Interestingly, triptogelin A-1 was more effective when applied after TPA-treatment (post-treatment) than before TPA-treatment (pretreatment). The findings indicate that these dihydroagarofuran sesquiterpenes might be valuable antitumor promoters.¹
• In an experiment with normal mice and Alloxan induced diabetic mice, Euonymus Alatus showed hypoglycemic effects. The fasting serum glucose level in diabetic mice was reduced significantly, but similar effect on fasting serum glucose level was not produced in normal mice.²
• Five major glycoproteins with anti-B agglutinin activity were isolated from seeds of Euonymus Sieboldiana by a procedure based on precipitation with ammonium sulphate, Sepharose 4B gel filtration, CM- and DEAE-Sepharose chromatography and Sephacryl S-200 gel filtration. The purified glycoproteins each gave a single symmetrical peak on Sephacryl S-200 gel filtration with elution volumes corresponding to molecular weights of approximately 15,000 to 130,000, each forming a single precipitin line on gel diffusion plates with anti-E. Sieboldiana antibody. These anti-B glycoproteins were rich in acidic amino acids without cysteine and methionine and contained about 8--36% carbohydrate, of which galactose, arabinose and glucose were the predominant sugars, with small amounts of glucosamine, rhamnose, fucose, xylose, mannose and ribose. The most anti-B active lectin agglutinated human B red blood cells at a concentration of 2 micrograms/ml and was strongly inhibited by melibiose. The three other lectins with anti-B agglutinin activity, however, were not inhibited by any galactose-containing glycosides.³

¹Ujita K, Takaishi Y, Tokuda H, Nishino H, Iwashima A, Fujita T, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Kyoto University, Japan, [Inhibitory effects of triptogelin A-1 on 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13- acetate-induced skin tumor promotion.], Cancer Lett. 1993 Feb;68(2-3):129-33.

²Lang SM, Zhu DN, Yu BY, Zhao JL, Wang QJ, Hypoglycemic Effects of Extracts and Constituents from Euonymus Alatus. Journal of China Pharmaceutical University, 2003, 34(2): 128-131.

³Yamamoto S, Sakai I., [Composition and immunochemical properties of glycoproteins with anti-B agglutinin activity isolated from Euonymus sieboldiana seeds.], J Immunogenet. 1981 Aug;8(4):271-9.