Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
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Wu Zhu Yu is the dried unripe fruit of a tree called Evodia rutaecarpa. The plant is also named Tetradium ruticarpum. The fruit is sold as Evodia fruit too.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine it is used mainly for cold-type stomach pain, for vomiting, and for some headaches. It is a single herb, not a blend. It is almost always used inside a formula, not on its own.
In TCM terms it is warm, bitter, pungent and "slightly toxic". That last word matters. Chinese sources flag it as a herb for small doses and short spells, not as a daily supplement.
Here is the honest evidence position. Wu Zhu Yu has a long, well-noted record in Chinese medicine. But good human trials of the herb on its own are more or less absent.
Long use tells you what people have done for centuries. It does not prove the herb works. That point is made once here, not again in every section below.
No one has shown in humans just how Wu Zhu Yu acts. What follows is lab reasoning, not proof.
In cell and animal work, its two best-studied compounds relax smooth muscle in the gut. They ease gut spasm. They also act on nerve endings that sense pain and heat.
That is a plausible fit with its long use for cramping stomach pain and vomiting. But a good fit is not proof of benefit.
One lab finding matters for safety, not benefit. Rutaecarpine is a compound in the fruit. It strongly switches on a liver enzyme called CYP1A2 (one of the main enzymes that clear drugs from the body).
Speeding that enzyme up can drop some prescription medicines to levels that no longer work.
You will meet Wu Zhu Yu in these forms.
Dried whole fruit for decoction (simmering in water). This is the traditional form. It is the one used most often.
Processed or "prepared" fruit. It is soaked or cooked with licorice, which Chinese pharmacy tradition uses to blunt its harshness. Raw and processed forms cannot be swapped for each other.
Granules or strong powders. These are mostly sold as part of classic formulas, such as Wu Zhu Yu Tang.
Capsules and standardised extracts sold online. They are often marketed for weight loss on animal data alone. They are the least well controlled form, and the easiest to overdose.
Wu Zhu Yu is an old herb. It appears in the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing. That is China's earliest herbal classic, roughly two thousand years old.
It became a fixed part of the record when Zhang Zhongjing built the formula Wu Zhu Yu Tang around it. He did so in the Shang Han Lun, about 200 CE. The formula was for vomiting and head pain with cold signs.
The same texts carried the herb into Japanese Kampo medicine. It is still a listed herb in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia today. The listing comes with dose limits.
Stop taking it and see a doctor the same day if your skin or the whites of your eyes turn yellow, your urine goes dark, you feel pain under your right ribs, or you become unusually tired and sick. These can be signs of liver damage.
Get urgent care if you have chest pain, a racing or irregular heartbeat, severe vomiting you cannot keep fluids down through, or trouble breathing.
Tell your doctor or pharmacist that you are taking Evodia fruit before starting any new prescription, and before surgery. Also check in if you are taking it for stomach pain, headache or diarrhoea that has lasted more than a couple of weeks, because those need a proper diagnosis rather than a herb.
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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