Sophora Flavescens (Kushen): It Treats Insomnia, and Also Fights Cancer and Raises White Blood Cells

The Chinese clinician Zhang Baoheng and colleagues once used a 50% Sophora-flavescens syrup, at a dose of 20 ml for adults and 5–15 ml for children, given orally or by nasogastric tube in a single dose as a substitute for sedative-hypnotics. Observing 101 treatment sessions, the effective rate reached 95%.

Among these, rapid onset (falling asleep within 15 minutes of dosing) occurred in 51 cases (50.9%); marked effect (falling asleep within 30 minutes) in 31 cases (30.7%); moderate effect (falling asleep within 60 minutes) in 14 cases (13.8%); and no effect (falling asleep after more than 60 minutes, or not falling asleep) in 5 cases (5.0%). The fastest onset was 3 minutes, and sleep lasted 3–12 hours. Sophora syrup was especially effective as a hypnotic in patients with infection, and no obvious side effects were seen. This study was published in Acta Universitatis Medicinae Beijingensis, 1988, 20(6): 419.

Kushen (Sophora flavescens root) is a commonly used Chinese herb; it was already included in the Shennong Bencao Jing (Divine Farmer's Classic of Materia Medica), China's earliest pharmacopoeia. Traditional TCM holds that kushen is bitter and cold in nature, enters the heart, lung, kidney, and large-intestine meridians, and clears heat and dries dampness, dispels wind and kills parasites. It is indicated for heat-damp diarrhea and dysentery, intestinal wind with bloody stool, jaundice, difficult urination, edema, leukorrhea, genital itching, scabies and tinea, leprosy, skin pruritus, and damp-toxin sores. The Shennong Bencao Jing states that kushen "governs binding qi in the heart and abdomen, concretions and accumulations, jaundice, and dribbling urination; it drives out water, dispels welling-abscess swelling, supplements the center, brightens the eyes, and stops tearing."

However, ancient materia-medica works do not record kushen as having a spirit-settling, sleep-aiding effect. The Ishimpo (Yi Xin Fang, the Japanese Formulary of the Foundations of Medicine) does record a formula using kushen to treat somnolence: "Kushen 3 liang, Atractylis 2 liang, rhubarb 1 liang. Pound to powder, make into honey pills the size of a Wu-tung seed; take thirty pills after each meal." That kushen can treat insomnia is a new discovery of contemporary medicine. In light of this Ishimpo record, kushen may have a bidirectional regulatory effect on sleep disorders: in the somnolent it may improve drowsiness, while in the insomniac it may improve sleeplessness. This conjecture, based on the literature, has not been experimentally verified; I hope interested researchers will investigate it in the future.

Modern pharmacological research has found that matrine (from kushen) inhibits spontaneous motor activity in mice, antagonizes the central-nervous effects of amphetamine and caffeine, and enhances the central depressant action of sodium pentobarbital and chloral hydrate. Matrine and oxymatrine have a central-nervous depressant action similar to diazepam; this effect is related to raising brain levels of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and glycine, and shows a clear dose–effect relationship. These are the mechanisms behind kushen's sleep-inducing effect.

Using kushen as a spirit-calming, sleep-aiding herb has a double benefit for cancer patients, because modern pharmacological research shows kushen also has broad-spectrum anti-cancer action. It inhibits a variety of malignant tumors including gastric, hepatic, intestinal, and lung cancer and leukemia. At the same time, kushen can raise the white-blood-cell count in cancer patients after radiotherapy and chemotherapy, and can also suppress ascites, improving patients' quality of life and prolonging survival.

Sophora syrup is not sold as a ready-made patent medicine. To use it, decoct an appropriate amount of kushen by the usual method, strain, concentrate, and add honey to make the syrup. Alternatively, the patent medicine Kushen tablets may replace the syrup, or kushen powder may be filled into empty capsules and taken directly. The decoction is very bitter, and many patients cannot tolerate the taste. If the bitterness is tolerated, patients may also steep kushen pieces from a pharmacy as a tea in place of the syrup. I once treated a late-stage gastric-cancer patient in the Penglai region of Shandong who maintained a survival of five and a half years on a diet of kushen tea; before death, the gastric tumor had disappeared, though the liver metastases could not be controlled.