 Botany
Letsugas is an erect, usually simple, annual, smooth, very leafy herb reaching a height of 1 meter when in flower. Leaves are stalkless, obovate to oblong-obovate, 6 to 20 cm long, entire or lobed, toothed, thin, and numerous at the base. Heads are numerous, about 1 cm long, and borne in open panicles; the branches, often much reduced, bear bractlike leaves. Flowers are yellow. Involucral bracts are ovate, the inner ones linear. Achenes are brown, with a very slender beak about as long as the body.
Distribution
Common garden cultivation for food.
Nowhere established.
Constituents
- Leaves yield a bitter principle (lactucin),mannite, mallic acid, asparagin, and oxalic acid.
- The whole plant yields a volatile oil, vitamin A, and a trace of hyoscyamine.
- Latex contains d- and B-lectucerol, inosite, reducing sugar, and a bitter principle.
- Lacturacium or lettuce opium, mentioned in the old pharmacopoeias, is the milky juice of the plant.
- Phytochemical study of a methanol extract have yielded triterpenoids, saponins, and simple phenols.
- Yields antioxidants like quercetin, caffeic acid and vitamin C.
Properties
Considered mildly soporific and hypnotic.
Cooling and refreshing.
The ancients considered it an aphrodisiac.
Fresh plant extract considered a milk sedative.
Anodyne, purgative, diuretic diaphoretic, antispasmodic.
Seeds are aromatic and bitter.
Parts used
Juice, leaves, seeds.
Uses
Culinary / Nutrition
- Excellent source of vitamins A and C; a good source of vitamin B.
- Early leaves, eaten as salad, are easily digested, but yields a poor amount of nutritive matter.
Folkloric
- Flowering plant produces, in feeble degree, the effects of lacturacium.
- Juice used as subtitute for opium.
- Extract from fresh plant is a mild sedative; also, useful in the treatment of coughs in phthisis, bronchitis, asthma, and pertusis.
- Lettuce poultice used as soothing application to painful and irritable ulcers.
- Infusion of seeds given in fevers, especially typhoid.
- Seeds also given for excessive thirst and to provide a sensation of heat in the stomach.
- Decoction of seeds used as demulcent; also as sedative and for treatment of insomnia.
- Believed to relax the genitalia and diminish spermatic secretion.
- Seeds, boiled or made into confection, useful for chronic bronchitis.
- In Iran, seeds are use for relieving inflammation and osteodynia.
Studies
• Analgesic / Anti-Inflammatory: Study of crude methanol/petroleum ether extract of seeds showed time- and dose-dependent analgesic effect in formalin test and a dose-dependent anti-inflammatory activity in a carrageenan model of inflammation.
• Antioxidant: Study showed L. sativa protected neurons from accumulation of lipofuscin granules, proving itself an effective antioxidant. (Lipofuscin or age pigment is a yellowish-brown autofluorescent, protein and lipid containing pigment that accumulates in the lysosomes of a variety of post mitotic cells including neurons and cardiac myocytes during ageing.) Results showed L. sativa protects against D galactose-induced oxidative stress and reduces accumulation of lipofuscin granules,.
• Anti-Inflammatory: Study isolated bioactive anti-inflammatory compounds: 3,14-Dihydroxy-
11,13-dihydrocostunolide and 8-Tigloyl-15-Deoxyl-actucin. Both showed substantial lipooxygenase inhibitory activity and significant in-vivo anti-inflammatory activity on a carrageenan-induced paw edema model.
• Polyphenols / Greenhouse vs Open-air: Study of lettuce extracts showed higher flavonol contents in open-air samples than the greenhouse ones.
• Antinociceptive / Opioid Pathway: Study showed a remarkable nociceptive effect. An opioid pathway is a possible mechanism.
Availability
Wild-crafted.
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