Drinking Herbal Medicine vs Swallowing An Herbal Capsule

Ever heard of a decoction? Does it conjure up images of a witches brew?

Decoction literally means to boil to dissolve chemicals. This is exactly the method of extraction used to release the chemicals stored in herbal or plant materials for medicinal purposes.

In fact, this was the way I was first introduced to Chinese herbal medicine. I visited a Licensed Acupuncturist, referred to me by my OB/GYN. Yes, it's true! I had a really great OB/GYN who understood just enough about herbs to refer me to a professional when I was 9 1/2 months pregnant. All right maybe I only felt 9 1/2 months pregnant, regardless the baby was overdue and there were no signs of labor. I wanted some herbs to help get labor started. Rather than experimenting with a bottle of capsules my doctor insisted I see a Chinese doctor of Oriental Medicine for the right herbal prescription.

The next day I had my bag of roots, barks and berries boiling in my kitchen. I did as instructed, decocted them and drank them for three days and on the third day I went into labor. Ok, the baby was due anyway but this was my introduction into Chinese herbal medicine. It's been 20 years since that introduction to decoction.


Herb decoction methods have been used throughout the ages. Before the industrialized revolution built factories to produce herbal medicine into capsules and pills, people boiled herbs. Often today we still have many traditional cultures which use herbal medicine the "old fashioned way", they boil a pot of roots, bark and berries and then they drink the water left behind.

The question remains, is drinking a pot of herbal medicine better, faster more effective than swallowing a handful of pills?

The answer is without a doubt YES! The average size of pil! ls and c apsules are very small and can hold only about 1/2 a gram of herbal extract.

Even if the herbal extract is at a very high concentration, 1/2 gram per capsule (about 1/4 tsp) is a very small amount to get a desired effect from the herbal medicinal. Most encapsulated bottled products recommend taking 2-3 capsules once or twice daily. This equates to an extremely small dosage of raw herbs, or decocted herbs. Practically speaking pills and capsules are fairly easy to take, that is, until you have to take 20 or so pills a day.

Drinking your herbal medicine not only allows the chemical components from the plants to be more readily bio-available, it is also the way your body understands receiving nourishment. Research has been conducted on the dissolution of herbs in our body. Dissolving herb granules in hot water or decocting them allows the solvents to release their effect immediately thereby working more quickly in the body. Whereas, herbal medicine combined with fillers such as dextrin in capsules or pills, (also used to prevent clumping), needs very hot, near boiling water to dissolve. This high dissolution temperature of dextrin inhibits the fast absorption.

With so much information available on the use of decoctions, it''s hard for me to choose a pill or capsule over granule mediciinal herbal extracts. Besides, who would want all those fillers in capsules and tablets anyway.


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