Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
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Dang Gui Liu Huang Tang is a Chinese herb formula. Its English name is Chinese Angelica and Six-Yellow Decoction. It is treated as a single drug (a TCM formula), not as seven separate herbs: the parts are cooked and taken as one mix.
It is used most often for night sweats. That means sweating that soaks your bedclothes while you sleep. It is also given for hot flushes and for feeling hot, dry and restless at night.
Here is the short verdict. The formula has a long record in Chinese medicine, but we could not find solid human trials of it. Long traditional use is not proof that a remedy works, and that point is not repeated later in this page.
No one has shown how this formula works in the body. What follows is the traditional idea, plus a few lab hints.
In Chinese medicine, night sweats are seen as "heat from within" that comes out when the body is low on yin (a word for the cool, moist side of the body). Three "yellow" herbs are used to cool that heat. Dang gui and two forms of rehmannia are used to build the body back up.
Huang qi (astragalus) is added to hold the surface closed, so less sweat escapes. That is a traditional idea, not a tested one.
Lab work on the single herbs shows some effects on swelling, blood sugar and gut bacteria. None of that tells you what the whole formula does in a person. Treat the mechanism as unproven.
You will meet it in a few forms.
The classic form is a decoction (a strong herb tea made by boiling the raw herbs in water). Many clinics now use granules, which are dried herb extracts that you stir into hot water. Some brands sell ready-made pills or capsules.
Quality control is uneven. Some imported herb products have been found to hold heavy metals or hidden drugs. Buy only from a seller who tests each batch and will show you the test results.
The formula comes from a book by Li Dong-yuan, a famous Chinese doctor of the Jin-Yuan era. It appears in Lan Shi Mi Cang, written around 1249.
It has stayed in use ever since. Chinese medicine schools still teach it today, and it appears in standard formula textbooks. That gives it a firm place in one tradition, though not in others.
Stop taking it and see a doctor straight away if your skin or eyes turn yellow, your urine goes dark, or you get pain under your right ribs. These can be signs of liver harm.
Get urgent help for bleeding that will not stop, black or bloody stools, a fast or uneven heartbeat, or a rash with swelling of the face or throat.
Book a normal appointment if your night sweats come with fever, weight loss, a cough or lumps in the neck or armpit. Those need a proper check. Also see your doctor if the sweating has not eased after two weeks on the formula.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
Reviewed by the HealisticMD editorial team How we grade evidence →
The published evidence for Dang Gui Liu Huang Tang is weak or absent. That usually means no controlled trial has tested it, not that a trial found it ineffective — the two are different, and we grade only what has been published.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
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