Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
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Zhu Ye is the dried leaf of bamboo. It is a single herb used in Chinese medicine as a cooling remedy. It is given for fever with thirst, a hot and restless feeling, mouth sores, and dark or scanty urine.
It is almost always mixed with other herbs rather than taken alone. The best known blend is Zhu Ye Shi Gao Tang, an old formula for fever with strong thirst.
The evidence here is weak. Zhu Ye has a long, well recorded place in Chinese medicine, but no human trials of the leaf on its own have been published. Long use is not proof that a herb works.
No one has shown how Zhu Ye acts in the body. In Chinese medicine it is said to clear heat from the heart and stomach, and to carry that heat out through the urine. That is a traditional idea, not a lab finding.
Lab tests show the leaf holds plant chemicals that can mop up free radicals (unstable particles that can harm cells). Some tests hint it may slow the growth of certain bacteria.
These tests were done in dishes and in animals. They do not tell us what the herb does in a person.
You will most often find Zhu Ye as dried loose leaf. It is used to make a decoction (a strong tea made by simmering herbs in water). It also comes as granules that melt in hot water, and as ready made pills and liquid extracts.
Two different plants are sold under close names. Zhu Ye is the leaf of black bamboo. Dan Zhu Ye comes from a grass called Lophatherum gracile and is used for much the same thing.
Ask your supplier which plant you have. A trained practitioner usually picks the form and blends it with other herbs.
Bamboo leaf shows up in Chinese medical writing about two thousand years ago. It is named in the Shang Han Lun, an early book of fever formulas. It has stayed a common cooling herb in China, Japan and Korea ever since.
See a doctor if a fever goes above 39C (102F), lasts more than two days, or comes back after it settled. Get urgent help for fever with a stiff neck, a rash that does not fade when pressed, confusion, or trouble breathing. Also see a doctor if burning urine comes with back pain, blood in the urine, or shivering, or if a mouth sore lasts more than two weeks. Stop the herb and seek care straight away if you get a rash, swelling of the lips or face, or breathlessness.
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 Zhu Ye 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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