Other Names: Job's Tears, Coixseed, adlay, adlai
Job's Tears or as commonly known in America, Chinese Pearl Barley is a tall grain-bearing tropical plant of
the family Poaceae (grass family) native to East Asia and Malaya but elsewhere cultivated in gardens as an annual. It
has been naturalized in the southern United States and the New World tropics.
The mature grains are enveloped by very hard, pearly white, oval structures which are used as beads for making
rosaries, necklaces, and other objects. Some varieties are harvested as cereal crops and are used medicinally in
parts of Asia.
In China, Job's Tears is one the most popular food herbs used in the diet therapy of painful and stiff joints, either
singly or in soup mixes. From all traditional accounts, it seems to work.
Many of the traditional uses of Job's tear may now have a scientific basis. During the past few decades, based on
experimental animal studies, Japanese scientists have isolated numerous active chemical components from Job's tear
which include coixol (anti-inflammatory, antihistaminic, muscle relaxant, fever reducing, etc.) and coixans
(peptide-containing polysaccharides that have sugar-lowering properties). In addition, Job's tear also contains the
more common nutrients that have more subtle effects that cannot be meaningfully measured by animal experiments. These
nutrients include lipids (glycolipids, phospholipids, sterols, etc.), amino acids, adenosine, thiamine, and others.
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