What Does Evening Primrose Do?

Evening primrose is very ornamental and can be used in food, animal feed, wine, machinery oil, edible oil, fiber, medicine, health products, beauty, anti-aging and scientific research materials. Since the 1950s, dozens of medicines have been developed at home and abroad, such as essential oils and emulsions of evening primrose oil as raw materials, and high-purity gamma-linolenic acid (GLA). It is clinically used for the treatment of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, arthritis, hepatitis and cancer, etc.

Seed Composition

Ripe dry evening primrose seeds are extremely small (about 2800 μg).

Evening primrose seeds are high in crude fiber (husk) and ash. It has an unbalanced amino acid content, higher in tryptophan and sulfur-containing amino acids, and lower in threonine, valine, leucine, isoleucine, tyrosine, and phenylalanine . Mineral salts such as calcium, magnesium, potassium, and phosphorus are abundant.

Main components of evening primrose oil

From the correlation analysis results, it can be seen that the oil content of evening primrose oil seeds is 23%-30%.

The content of linoleic acid in evening primrose seed oil is very high, about 70%; the content of γ-linolenic acid is about 8%, which is the main active ingredient of evening primrose oil. Almost all γ-linolenic acid and linoleic acid in evening primrose oil coexist.

Pharmacological action and clinical application

The γ-linolenic acid in evening primrose oil is the precursor of prostaglandin (PGS), which is metabolized in the human body into two homo-γ-linolenic acid and prostaglandin E1 (PGE1). Clinical studies have shown that γ-linolenic acid in evening primrose oil can inhibit or reduce diseases caused by the lack of certain essential fatty acids, such as eczema, rheumatoid arthritis, high serum cholesterol, thrombotic breast disease, and premenstrual syndrome. Evening primrose oil also has physiological activities such as lowering blood lipids, losing weight, and anti-inflammatory.