Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
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Zhi Gan Cao Tang is a Chinese herbal formula. The name means Honey-Fried Licorice Decoction. It is also known as Restore the Pulse Decoction.
It is sold as one product, but it holds many herbs. The lead herb is honey-fried licorice root. In Chinese medicine it is given for a weak, skipping or racing pulse, a pounding heart, tiredness and dry mouth.
Here is the short verdict. It is a well-known staple of Chinese medicine, but good human trial evidence is thin. Long use in a tradition is not proof that a remedy works, and that gap applies to every use listed on this page.
No one has shown how this formula works in the body. The ideas below come from tradition and from lab work, not from proof in people.
In Chinese medicine, the formula is said to feed the blood and the body's fluids and to steady the heart beat. That is a traditional way of speaking. It is not a test result.
The one effect that is well proven belongs to licorice, and it is a risk rather than a help. Licorice holds a sweet compound called glycyrrhizin. In large or long doses it makes the body hold on to salt and water, raises blood pressure and drives potassium down.
Low potassium can itself upset the heart beat. So the same herb that the formula is named after can cause the very problem the formula is used for.
You may find it in these forms:
Raw dried herbs, sold as a pack to boil at home into a decoction (a strong tea made by boiling).
Granules or powder that you stir into hot water.
Pills, tablets or capsules made from a dried extract.
Ready-made liquid extracts.
Strength varies widely between makers, so the dose on one box does not match another.
The formula comes from the Shang Han Lun, a Chinese medical text. Zhang Zhongjing wrote it around 200 CE.
It has been in steady use in China, Japan and Korea ever since. In Japan it is known as a Kampo formula. Its long record sits in one tradition, Chinese medicine, rather than across many.
Some reactions to Zhi Gan Cao Tang need urgent care. Call your local emergency number or go to an emergency department straight away — do not wait to see whether it passes.
Get emergency help now if you have chest pain, faint or nearly faint, cannot catch your breath, or your heart races and will not settle.
See a doctor quickly if your ankles or face swell, you gain several pounds in a few days, you get bad muscle weakness or cramps, or you feel your heartbeat skipping.
Stop the formula and speak to a doctor if your blood pressure readings go up, you get a headache that will not shift, or you pass much less urine than normal.
If you plan to take this for more than a few weeks, ask your doctor to check your blood pressure and to test your potassium level.
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 Zhi Gan Cao 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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