Xiebai (Allium Chinense) Has Good Efficacy for Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Diseases

Doctor zhou
When I was a child, I often ate a food called jiaotou—we called it lao jiaotou in my hometown. It can be stir-fried directly or pickled with chopped chili as a pickled vegetable. I had not eaten it for many years; one year, at a breakfast shop by West Lake in Hangzhou, I unexpectedly ate pickled lao jiaotou, and in that moment I felt delighted.
The leaves of jiaotou resemble wild scallions; what is eaten mainly is its bulb, which grows in the soil. Jiaotou is a Chinese medicinal herb; the medicinal form of jiaotou is called Xiebai, and Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica also calls it jiaozi. But the crude Xiebai sold in the medicinal market is not limited to jiaotou; the Xiebai sold on the market is usually the bulb of four Liliaceae plants: Allium macrostemon, Allium chinense, Allium longistylum, and Allium caeruleum.
These four plants are close relatives, and the components and effects of their bulbs are very similar, so they can be used interchangeably. TCM holds that Xiebai has the effects of regulating qi and broadening the chest, and unblocking yang and dispersing nodules; it mainly treats chest impediment, pain radiating from the chest to the back, chest and epigastric stuffiness, cough with abundant phlegm, epigastric and abdominal pain, tenesmus in diarrhea, leukorrhea, and sores and boils.
The dietary-therapy formulas recorded in Qianjin Fang (Essential Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Gold) mention Xiebai, saying: "It is suitable to eat for heart pain; it can generate muscle and benefit women in childbirth. If a fish bone lodges in the throat and cannot be swallowed, eating it removes it." The "heart pain" here is actually a symptom of coronary heart disease. Xiebai is a specific TCM drug for cardiovascular disease; it has an anti-atherosclerotic effect.
Shiliao Bencao (Materia Medica of Dietetic Therapy) mentions Xiebai: "It unblocks the spirit, pacifies the hun and po, boosts qi, and renews tendon strength." Described in modern medical terms, this means it can improve myocardial hypoxia and enhance physical strength. Animal experiments show that Xiebai can prolong the survival time under hypoxic conditions of normal mice and of mice given isoproterenol with specific myocardial hypoxia; it also counteracts the contraction of isolated rat aorta caused by norepinephrine and potassium chloride, can lower blood pressure, and prevent stroke.
Animal experiments have also confirmed that Allium longistylum has the effect of lowering blood lipids and inhibiting the formation of arterial lipid plaques in rabbits with experimental hyperlipidemia and atherosclerosis. The daily dose of Xiebai extract fed was equivalent to 18g of fresh crude drug, and the whole experiment lasted 16 weeks. The blood lipid levels of the treated rabbits were all significantly lower than those of the control group, and the percentage of the aortic lipid plaque area relative to the total arterial area was also significantly lower in the treated group.
Xiebai also has an anti-platelet-aggregation effect. In vitro platelet aggregation experiments showed that Xiebai injection has a marked inhibitory effect on ADP-induced rabbit platelet aggregation, and the ethanol extract of Xiebai also has a very strong inhibitory effect on human platelet aggregation. N-trans-feruloyltyramine in Xiebai, at a concentration of 1/10000 mol/L, has an anti-platelet-aggregation effect 4–5 times stronger than aspirin. Multiple components in Xiebai strongly inhibit platelet aggregation. Xiebai also markedly interferes with platelet arachidonic acid metabolism, inhibiting its cyclooxygenase pathway and the synthesis of thromboxane B2, thereby inhibiting platelet aggregation.
In China's Yangtze River basin and the southern provinces, jiaotou is cultivated in many places. I remember that when I was a child, every household in our village grew jiaotou, and we often ate fresh or pickled jiaotou. Country people who have eaten too much rich food usually like to eat some jiaotou to "cut the grease"; this ordinary bit of life wisdom is indeed very scientific.
When I was in junior high I was a boarder, and every week I brought some food from home to school; pickled lao jiaotou was one of the pickles I brought most often. Eating jiaotou can significantly lower the incidence of coronary heart disease and can also prevent stroke. But the old rural habit of pickling jiaotou is not good; pickled vegetables contain nitrite, a carcinogen, so it is best to eat fresh jiaotou stir-fried.
Xiebai also has an antibacterial effect; the water decoction of Xiebai inhibits Shigella, Staphylococcus aureus, and Streptococcus pneumoniae. Traditional TCM holds that Xiebai can treat both "lung qi panting with urgency" (Qianjin Fang) and "shaoyin disease with reversed flow and diarrhea" (Compendium of Materia Medica). Rihuazi Bencao summarizes Xiebai's effects fairly comprehensively, saying it "lightens the body and enables it to withstand cold, regulates the center and supplements deficiency; taken, it can stop chronic dysentery and cold diarrhea and make the person robust."
In Zhang Zhongjing's Jingui Yaolue (Essential Prescriptions from the Golden Cabinet), three formulas are composed mainly of Xiebai. One is Gualou Xiebai Baijiu Tang, another is Gualou Xiebai Banxia Tang, and the third is Zhishi Xiebai Guizhi Tang; all three treat chest impediment (i.e., coronary heart disease).
Gualou Xiebai Baijiu Tang uses one Trichosanthes fruit, half a sheng of Xiebai, and seven sheng of white wine, decocted together down to two sheng and taken warm, to treat "chest impediment disease with panting, cough and spitting, chest and back pain, and shortness of breath, with the cun-kou pulse deep and slow and the guan pulse slightly wiry and rapid." What Zhang Zhongjing described are precisely the main symptoms of cor pulmonale.
Gualou Xiebai Banxia Tang uses one Trichosanthes fruit, three liang of Xiebai, half a sheng of Banxia (Pinellia), and one dou of white wine, decocted together down to four sheng; take one sheng warm each time, three times a day. This formula treats chest impediment with inability to lie down and heart pain radiating to the back, which are the main symptoms of coronary heart disease.
Zhishi Xiebai Guizhi Tang consists of four Zhishi (immature bitter orange), four liang of Houpo (Magnolia bark), half a sheng of Xiebai, one liang of Guizhi (cinnamon twig), and one Gualou (Trichosanthes). This formula has the effect of dispersing wind-cold and releasing the muscles and sinews; it treats "chest impediment with oppression in the heart, retained qi binding in the chest, chest fullness, and reversed flow from below the ribs thrusting upward to the heart," commonly seen when coronary heart disease attacks in the severe cold season.
The ancients also had an emergency method of pounding Xiebai into juice and drinking it directly. For example, in Zhouhou Beiji Fang (A Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergencies), treating "bent-r qi pain" uses Xiebai pounded into juice and drunk; this "bent-r pig qi pain" is actually a symptom of acute heart attack. In Weisheng Jianyi Fang, treating lung-qi panting urgency likewise "uses Xiebai ground into juice and drunk"; here the lung-qi panting urgency is what we now call respiratory distress.
Xiebai can also be applied externally to treat sores, sore throat, traumatic injuries, headache, and toothache. Lingnan Caiyao Lu records a formula of Xiebai pounded together with raw salt and applied to the affected area to treat skin sores; Sheng Hui Fang records a method of treating sore, swollen throat: "Xiebai root pounded with vinegar and applied to the swelling; change it when it cools"; Fujian Yaowu Zhi includes methods of pounding Xiebai with distiller's grains and applying them for traumatic injuries, and of pounding equal parts Xiebai and brown sugar and applying to the center of the sole to treat headache and toothache.
Xiebai can be used directly as a drug, decocted in a Tang; the usual dose is 5–10g of the dried product or 30–60g of the fresh product. Xiebai can also be eaten directly as a dietary-therapy vegetable; dietary therapy is the method I more recommend for using Xiebai to treat and prevent cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. For dietary therapy, eat 30–100g of jiaotou daily; jiaotou has a certain effect on improving constipation. But Xiebai is acrid and warm in nature, so those with yin deficiency and internal heat should not take it.
Vegetable markets in the north generally do not sell jiaotou. I myself am currently eating fresh jiaotou to improve some symptoms of my COVID aftereffects (the novel coronavirus mainly damages the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular systems, so jiaotou dietary therapy is well suited); my jiaotou is ordered online.

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