Licorice not only has the effect of benefiting the qi and tonifying the middle, easing the pain (relieving more urgent pain symptoms), but also has the effect of clearing heat and detoxifying the toxin (removing heat and toxicity from the body), moistening the lungs and relieving cough, and harmonizing the medicinal properties. It has the effect of treating spleen deficiency and tiredness, cough and asthma, and contracture and pain in the limbs.
Glycyrrhiza glabra is the dried root and rhizome of Glycyrrhiza glabra, family Leguminosae, which is sweet in taste and flat in nature, and is mainly attributed to the heart, lung, spleen and stomach meridians. Its effect is to benefit the qi and tonify the middle, moisturize the lungs and stop coughing, and it also has the effect of clearing heat and detoxification, easing the pain and harmonizing the medicinal properties.
Clinically, it is mainly used for the treatment of spleen deficiency and tiredness, heart deficiency and palpitation, cough and asthma, and also used for the treatment of carbuncle gangrene (a kind of poisonous sores, occurring on the surface of the body, limbs, internal organs of the acute suppurative disease) laryngeal paralysis (pharyngeal redness, swelling and pain, or dryness, a sense of foreign body, or pharyngeal itching discomfort and difficulty in swallowing), medicine and food poisoning, epigastric (abdomen), limb contraction pain, and so on.
Adverse reactions to licorice may cause swelling, hypertension, weakness of the limbs, spasmodic numbness, etc. when taken in large quantities or in small quantities over a long period of time. Contraindications are that it cannot be used with seaweed, Morinda citrifolia, Glycyrrhiza glabra and Coriandrum sativum; precautions are that it should not be taken by those who have chest and abdominal distension due to the prevalence of dampness and those who have vomited. Caution should be exercised in patients with edema, renal disease and hypertension.
If there is a need for medication, need to be used under the guidance of a doctor to identify the evidence, not blindly use their own medication to avoid adverse consequences.