土茯苓 （8oz）

Glabrous Greenbrier Rhizome / Tu Fu Ling  (8oz)

Tu Fu Ling is also known as Rhizoma Smilacis Glabrae or Glabrous Greenbrier Rhizome and is the rhizome of Smilax glabra, which is a perennial evergreen climbing shrub belonging to the Lily family. It is a relatively practical and common Chinese herbal medicine, which first appeared in Compendium of Materia Medica in 1,578 AD.

Tu Fu Ling contains succinic acid, palmitic acid, ferulic acid, shikimic acid, oleic acid, linoleic acid, isoengelitin, astilbin, neoastilbin, isoastiblin, neoisoastilbin, quercetin, epicatechin, dioscin, glucopyranoside, β-sitosterol, daucosterol, hexose, starch, and volatile oil.

Health benefits of Tu Fu Ling (according to research)

• Relieving gossypol poisoning and chronic lead poisoning.
• Reducing the damage of thioethylamine to the liver and protecting the liver.
• Inhibiting animal transplanted tumors, and liver cancer caused by aflatoxin.
• Blocking β receptors and preventing arrhythmia caused by intravenous adrenaline injection.
• Preventing cerebral ischemia, myocardial ischemia, cardiac ischemia-reperfusion, and relieving angina.
• Inhibiting platelet aggregation and preventing atherosclerosis and thrombosis.
• Reducing lipid peroxidation of gastric mucosa, promoting gastric juice secretion, increasing gastric juice PH, and preventing gastric ulcers.
• Draining dampness and promoting urination, treating turbid urine and leukorrheal diseases.
• Relieving genital itching and skin itching caused by damp-heat, and treating eczema.
• Removing heat toxins, relieving skin redness and swelling, treating carbuncles, sores, and scrofula.
• Treating syphilis and limb spasms caused by the side effects of mercury which is traditionally used to treat syphilis.
• Inhibiting Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus haemolyticus, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Typhoid bacillus, Shigella flexneri, Diphtheria bacillus, and Anthrax bacillus.
• The study found that its water extract can selectively inhibit the inflammatory process after the release of lymphokines by sensitized T lymphocytes. (selectively inhibiting cellular immune response)

Precautions of Tu Fu Ling

• The dosage of Tu Fu Ling should be controlled at 15-60g.
• It can be made into decoction, pill, or ground into powder for external use.
• It is not recommended to use iron utensils to boil it.
• It is not recommended to drink tea while taking this medicine.
• People with yin deficiency in the liver and kidney should not take it.
• People without damp-heat syndrome should not take it.
• People with gastrointestinal diseases should not take it.
• Pregnant women and children should not take it.

From the manufacturer: 

The taste is sweet, light, and flat. It enters the Liver and Stomach meridians. Effects: It is used for detoxification, dehumidification, and as a tonic for joints. 

Indications: Aching limbs due to syphilis and mercury poisoning, muscles and bones pain; damp heat, turbidity, carbuncle, scrofula, mange