Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
Haebaek is the small dried bulb of a wild onion plant, Allium macrostemon (the related Allium chinense is also sold under this name). It is also called Chinese chive or long-stamen onion bulb. In Korean herbal medicine it is used for a tight, heavy feeling in the chest and for chest pain that comes with cold hands and feet.
It is nearly always used inside a formula with other herbs, not on its own. Cooks also eat the same bulb pickled, where it is known as rakkyo.
The honest verdict on evidence: Haebaek has a long and well-recorded place in East Asian medicine, but human trials on the single herb are lacking. A long history of use is not proof that something works, and that gap applies to everything on this page.
Nobody has shown clearly how Haebaek works in people. Lab and animal work is the main source of ideas about it.
In those studies, extracts of the bulb have relaxed blood vessels, slowed the clumping of blood cells, and lowered markers of swelling. Some work also suggests an effect on blood fats.
These are test-tube and animal findings. They may not carry over to a person drinking a herbal tea, and you should treat any mechanism talk as a hint, not a fact.
Common forms include:
Dried whole or sliced bulbs, simmered in water as a decoction (a strong boiled tea).
Granules or powdered extracts, usually as part of a multi-herb formula.
Pills and capsules from herbal makers.
Pickled bulbs eaten as a side dish. This food form is much milder than a medicinal dose.
Haebaek (known as xiebai in Chinese) appears in Han dynasty texts over 1,800 years old, most famously in a formula for chest tightness that pairs it with trichosanthes fruit. Korean medicine took up the same use and kept it.
Its classic role is to open the chest and move what practitioners called stuck qi in the upper body. It has stayed in Korean, Chinese and Japanese herbal practice ever since.
Get emergency help now if you have chest pain that spreads to the arm, neck or jaw, or comes with sweating, sickness or breathlessness. That may be a heart attack.
See a doctor the same day for unusual bruising, a nosebleed that will not stop, black or bloody stools, or a rash with swelling of the lips or throat.
Book a normal appointment if your chest tightness, cough or bloating lasts more than three weeks, or keeps coming back.
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.
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