Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
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Lakh is a hard red-brown resin made by a tiny insect, Laccifer lacca. The insect feeds on certain trees in India and South-East Asia and coats the twigs with the resin. It is a single drug in Persian and Unani practice, and "Lak Maghsul" simply means washed lac, the cleaned form used in medicine.
You may know the same material as shellac, the glaze on shiny sweets and on some tablets. Unani and Ayurvedic healers have used it by mouth for the liver, for the heart, for broken bones, and for heavy or painful periods.
The traditional record is long and consistent across more than one system of medicine. That standing is not the same thing as proof, and this point is made once here rather than repeated in every section below. No published human trial tests Lakh for any health use, so the evidence grade is insufficient.
Nobody has shown how Lakh works in the human body. What follows is how tradition and laboratory work describe it, not a proven mechanism.
Unani texts class it as cooling, drying and astringent (tightening). On that basis it was given to "bind" loose tissue, slow bleeding and clear the liver.
Laboratory and animal studies point to two possible actions. The resin is not digested and passes through the gut, where it may bind some fats and bile. The red lac pigments also behave as antioxidants in test-tube work, meaning they mop up reactive molecules in a dish.
Neither of these findings has been followed up in people, so treat both as unconfirmed ideas rather than a working explanation.
Lakh reaches you in a few different forms.
Raw sticklac is the crude resin still on the twig, with insect bodies and bark mixed in; it is not the medicinal grade. Washed lac (Lak Maghsul) is sticklac that has been cleaned and rinsed, then dried and ground to a powder. This is the form Unani texts call for.
Seedlac and shellac flakes are further refined grades used in food glazes and tablet coatings. Compound Unani preparations such as electuaries (thick medicated pastes) and pills also include Lakh alongside other herbs.
Buy only from a supplier who names the grade and the source insect.
Lac has been collected in India for over two thousand years, first as a dye and a varnish. Ayurvedic texts name it Laksha and use it for broken bones and for bleeding.
Persian and Unani writers took it up under the name Lakh and gave it to strengthen the liver and the heart. It remains a listed single drug in Unani pharmacopoeias today, and the same resin is still used worldwide as a food glaze and tablet coating.
See a doctor before you start if you are on any regular prescription, and especially if you take a blood thinner.
Stop and get medical help straight away if you get a rash, swelling of the lips, face or throat, or any trouble breathing.
See a doctor promptly if your skin or eyes turn yellow, if your stools turn black or bloody, if your periods get heavier rather than lighter, or if pain in the belly lasts more than a few days. Also see a doctor if your symptoms have not improved after four weeks.
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 Lakh (Lak Maghsul) 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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