Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
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Keihito is a Japanese Kampo herb mix. It is used for loose, watery stools that keep coming back, and for a weak stomach that does not handle food well. Kampo doctors use it most often in children.
It counts as one single Kampo formula, even though it holds several herbs. Its name is often put into English as 'Spleen-Opening Decoction'. In Kampo, the word spleen means the body's power to break down food, not just the organ of that name.
The evidence here is thin. Keihito has a long record of use in Kampo, but we could not find human trials that test it. Long use is not proof that something works, and that gap applies to every claim on this page.
No one has shown how Keihito works in the body. What follows is the idea behind its use, not a proven action.
In Kampo thinking, long-term loose stools come from a weak digestion that cannot dry and hold food waste. The herbs in Keihito are grouped to warm and support that process, soak up extra fluid, and settle a churning gut.
Some single herbs in the mix have been studied on their own in labs and in animals. That work does not tell you what the whole mix does in a child with diarrhoea.
You will mostly meet Keihito as dried extract granules in single-dose sachets. This is the standard hospital and pharmacy form in Japan.
Other forms:
Fine powder, tablets or capsules made from the same extract. A traditional decoction, where the raw herbs are simmered in water and the liquid is drunk.
The decoction is rare outside a Kampo practice. Granules are easier to dose for children and taste sweeter.
Keihito comes from a Chinese medical book, Wanbing Huichun, written by Gong Tingxian and printed in 1587.
Japanese doctors took it up and it became a settled part of Kampo practice for children with long-running loose stools and poor appetite. It is still listed as a covered Kampo formula in Japan today.
That gives it a solid place in one tradition, over roughly four centuries.
See a doctor if diarrhoea lasts more than a few days, or if it comes back again and again.
Get medical help the same day if you or your child shows signs of water loss: dry mouth, no tears, little or no urine, sunken eyes, or a baby who is floppy and hard to wake.
Also get checked for blood or black colour in the stool, fever, weight loss, or a child who is not growing.
Stop the herb and seek care straight away for yellow skin or eyes, dark urine and deep tiredness; for swelling, headache, muscle cramps or sudden weakness; or for a dry cough with fever and breathlessness.
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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