🌿 Health Balance: Herbal Medicine and Sugar Are Incompatible
Most herbal decoctions are bitter, and many people cannot tolerate the bitterness, so they add sugar to make them drinkable. However, doing so may produce the opposite effect.
1. Herbal medicines contain complex chemical components. Sugar, especially brown sugar, contains abundant iron, calcium, and other elements. When these interact with proteins and tannins in herbs, chemical reactions occur.
2. Some herbs rely on their bitter taste to stimulate digestive gland secretion to exert therapeutic effects. Adding sugar eliminates this function.
3. Sugar can interfere with the absorption of trace elements and vitamins, inhibit the efficacy of certain fever-reducing drugs, and degrade the active components of some medications.