Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
Track Kino (Samgh Bisa) with reminders and record whether it helped, in the app.
Kino, called Samgh Bisa in Unani texts, is the dried red gum that oozes from cuts in the bark of the Indian kino tree (Pterocarpus marsupium). It hardens into brittle, dark ruby-coloured lumps with a strongly puckering, astringent taste. It has been used mainly as a binding remedy for loose stools, for bleeding gums and sore throats, and in later centuries for high blood sugar.
The heartwood of the same tree, sold as vijayasar or bijasar, is often used in place of the gum, especially for blood sugar. The two are related but not identical, and most modern research has looked at the wood, not the gum.
Evidence verdict: traditional standing is strong and old, but human trial evidence is thin and mostly limited to one uncontrolled study of the heartwood in type 2 diabetes. Long traditional use is not the same thing as proof of effect, and nothing below should be read that way.
Kino is very rich in tannins, plant compounds that bind to proteins and make tissue contract and tighten. That is the likely reason it firms up loose stools and eases bleeding gums when used as a mouth rinse: it acts on the surface it touches rather than through the bloodstream.
For blood sugar, the proposed actors are epicatechin and pterostilbene from the heartwood. Laboratory and animal work suggests they may help cells take up glucose (sugar) and may protect insulin-producing cells. This mechanism is plausible but not confirmed in good human trials.
How much of any of this survives digestion in a person is not well established.
Kino appears in several forms, and they are not interchangeable:
Raw gum lumps or coarse powder, used in Unani compounding.
A water decoction or infusion of the powder, used as a drink or as a gargle and mouth rinse.
Tincture of kino, an old pharmacy preparation in alcohol.
Heartwood chips or blocks (vijayasar, bijasar), soaked overnight in water to make the water-glass drink used for blood sugar.
Standardised heartwood capsules and extracts sold as supplements.
Kino entered Persian and Unani practice through trade from the Malabar coast of India, which is why it is also called Malabar kino. Unani physicians classed it as cold and dry and used it as a qabid, a binding or astringent drug.
It travelled into British pharmacy through the East India trade and was listed for many decades as an official astringent in Western pharmacopoeias. Ayurvedic medicine uses the same tree's heartwood as vijayasar for prameha, a group of urinary and sugar-related complaints.
So it carries a classical record in more than one tradition, which is unusual for a gum-resin.
See a doctor if diarrhoea lasts more than two days, if there is blood or black colour in the stool, or if you have a fever with it. Get urgent help for signs of dehydration such as very little urine, dizziness on standing, or drowsiness.
If you have diabetes, seek help straight away for shakiness, sweating, confusion, blurred vision or fainting, which can mean your blood sugar has dropped too low.
Also see a doctor or dentist for gums that keep bleeding, mouth ulcers lasting more than two weeks, or a sore throat lasting more than a week. Stop and get advice if you develop a rash, swelling or breathing trouble after taking it.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
One email with the summary. We'll also send a short weekly evidence update — unsubscribe any time.
