Medicinal uses
''Costi amari radix'' or costus root was an important item of Roman trade with India, and is believed to have been the dried root of ''Saussurea lappa''. ''Saussurea lappa'' is used as an anti-inflammatory drug, and a component of the traditional Tibetan medicine Padma 28, and has been shown to inhibit the mRNA expression of iNOS by lipopolysaccharide stimulated macrophages, thus reducing nitric oxide production. In rats, 50-200 milligrams per kilogram of crude ethanolic extract reduced observed inflammation in standard laboratory tests, and 25-100 milligrams per kilogram of the sesquiterpene fraction of the extract reduced several molecular markers of inflammation.''Saussurea involucrata'' flowers and stems have long been used in traditional Chinese medicine for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, cough with cold, stomachache, dysmenorrhea, and altitude sickness, and has been found to have antiinflammatory, cardiotonic, abortifacient, anticancer, and antifatigue actions. Ethanol extracts were shown to have analgesic and antiinflammatory effects at doses of 75-300 milligrams per kilogram. As the slow-growing wild plant is endangered by collections, a substitute grown in tissue culture has been suggested, which is mostly equivalent. Generally the analgesic and antiinflammatory effects of the plant are much inferior to those of 10 milligrams of indomethacin.
Literature and Culture
In most Chinese martial arts literature, the snow Lotus was classified a rare herb as precious as lingzhi mushroom, and old ginseng.Adapted from the Wikipedia article Saussurea, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
