The Ivy Gourd (C. grandis L. Voigt; Family: Curcurbitaceae) – is a tropical climbing vine that has been used for many years in both Africa and Asia. The claims are that the roots, stems, leaves and whole plant are used to treat a range of conditions such as burns, jaundice, insect bites, fever, nausea, syphilis, gonorrhoea and other conditions (Kirthikar and Basu, 1987; Wasantwisut and Viriyapanich, 2003).
The gourd goes by many other names: parwal, kundru, tondli in Marathi, Toroda, kunduri (Oriya), kovai, kundri or even kovakkai in Malayalam and kovakka in Tamil, Dondakaya in Telugu. More common names include baby gourd, baby gherkin etc.
The Properties Of The Ivy Gourd Leaves
The leaves have been used in Ayurvedic medicine as an anti-diabetic treatment (Venkateswaran and Pari, 2003) whereby an aqueous – methanolic extract can inhibit xanthine oxidase (Umamaheswari et al., 2007). More pertinently, the leaves are used to treat diabetes and there is a cholesterol lowering (hypocholesterolaemic effect) in a dyslipidemic hamster model (Singh et al., 2007).
References
Kirthikar, K.R. and Basu, B.D. (1987). Indian Medicinal Plants, 2nd ed. International Book Distributors, Dehradun, pp. 1151-1154.
Singh, G., P. Gupta, P. Rawat, A. Puri, G. Bhatia and R. Maurya, 2007. Antidyslipidemic activity of polyprenol from Coccinia grandis in high-fat diet-fed hamster model. Phytomedicine, 14 pp.792-798.
Umamaheswari, M., Asokkumar, K., Somasundaram, A., Sivashanmugam, T., Subhadradevi, V. and Ravi, T.K. (2007). Xanthine oxidase inhibitory activity of some Indian medical plants. J. Ethnopharmacol., 109 pp. 547-551.
Venkateswaran, S. and Pari, L., 2003. Effect of Coccinia indica leaves on antioxidant status in streptazotocin induced diabetic rats. J. Ethnopharmacol., 84(2-3) pp.163-168.
Wasantwisut, E. and Viriyapanich, T. (2003). Ivy gourd (Coccinia grandis Voigt, Coccinia cardifolia, Coccinia indica) in human nutrition and traditional applications. In: Simopoulous, A.P., Gopalan, C., eds. Plants in Human Health and Nutrition Policy: World Reviews of Nutrition and Dietics. Karger, Basel, pp. 60-66
I have heard so many good things about this vegetable but I really struggle to get it in Bristol. Gloucester is a good place to find these types of veg. Pointed gourd was one veg. I located recently along with methi and Tinda. If you find places, would you put them on the website.