LU-05 (Chi Ze) Cubit Marsh

What does LU-05 Chi Ze do?

Chi Ze LU-05 is the He-Sea and Water point of the Lung channel, and the tradition's principal point for clearing heat from the Lungs and sending Lung qi downward. Sacred Lotus sources & references record that classification and summarise the point's use in three words: excess and heat in the Lungs. Two things follow from the classification at once. He-Sea points are the deepest of the five-shu set, where the channel's qi is said to enter inward like a river reaching the sea, and they are classically indicated for disorders of their organ and for rebellious qi. And because the Lung is a yin Metal channel, its Water point is the child of Metal — which makes LU-05 the Lung channel's five-element sedation (child) point. A point that both clears heat and drains excess is the reason this is the first choice whenever a Lung presentation is hot, full and loud rather than weak and quiet.

• Clears heat from the Lungs — the defining action. Recorded for cough with thick yellow phlegm, for a hot dry cough, for coughing blood, and for the afternoon fever the tradition attributes to heat from deficiency.
• Descends rebellious Lung qi — for cough and wheezing in which the breath will not settle downward, and for fullness and oppression of the chest.
• Drains excess from the channel — the sedation-point action, and the reason LU-05 is chosen over the tonifying Lung points when the pattern is one of too much rather than too little.
• Regulates the water passages — the Lungs are described in classical theory as the "upper source of water", and LU-05 is the Lung point used for oedema, particularly of the face and upper body, and for difficult urination.
• Relaxes the sinews and alleviates pain — the local action at the elbow, for spasmodic pain and restricted movement of the elbow and arm.
• Activates the channel — for pain along the course of the Lung channel down the front of the arm.
• Benefits the throat — recorded for sore, swollen throat, following the heat-clearing action upward.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (existing action and use records; He-Sea and Water classification queried directly); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 80); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 136); Nan Jing, on the five-shu indications and the mother-child rule; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

What is LU-05 Chi Ze used for?

Chi Ze LU-05 is used above all for cough, wheezing and heat in the Lungs, and locally for pain at the elbow. The indications carried in Sacred Lotus sources & references are cough, coughing blood, afternoon fever, asthma, sore throat, fullness in the chest, infantile convulsions, spasmodic pain of the elbow and arm, and mastitis; the standard reference literature sets them out as follows. They describe traditional use, not proven treatment.

• Cough, including cough with thick or blood-streaked phlegm
• Coughing or spitting blood (haemoptysis)
• Asthma and wheezing
• Fullness and oppression of the chest
• Shortness of breath
• Afternoon or tidal fever
• Sore, swollen and painful throat
• Dry mouth and thirst
• Spasmodic pain of the elbow and arm; inability to raise the arm
• Pain and contraction along the front of the forearm
• Infantile convulsions
• Acute vomiting and diarrhoea
• Oedema, particularly of the face and upper body
• Difficult urination and retention of urine
• Mastitis

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (existing indication record); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 80); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 136).

Where is LU-05 Chi Ze, and how is it used in practice?

Chi Ze lies in the crease of the elbow, in the hollow on the thumb side of the big tendon of biceps. Sacred Lotus sources & references place it on the cubital crease in the depression at the radial side of the biceps tendon, located with the elbow slightly flexed — flexing the elbow against resistance makes the tendon stand out and the hollow beside it easy to feel. That the point is on the radial side of the tendon matters: the brachial artery and the median nerve lie on the other side, medially, which is what keeps this point straightforward.

In practice LU-05 is the Lung channel's point for excess. Where LU-09 Tai Yuan is reached for to supplement a depleted Lung and LU-07 Lie Que to release an exterior invasion, LU-05 is reached for when there is heat and fullness to be drained — a barking productive cough, an acute wheeze, a hot chest. It is also the Lung point most associated with bleeding: pricking the point to release a few drops of blood is a documented classical technique for acute conditions, described below under needling.

Which points is LU-05 combined with?

• With Fei Shu BL-13 — the Lung's Back-Shu point. Distal point on the arm with the organ's own point on the back is the standard structure for treating the Lungs, and it is the pairing named most often for a hot, productive cough.
• With Kong Zui LU-06 — the Xi-Cleft point of the Lung channel, two points above LU-05 on the forearm. Xi-Cleft points are the classical choice in acute conditions and in bleeding, and the pair is the standard Lung-channel combination for coughing blood.
• With Shao Shang LU-11 — the Jing-Well point at the thumb, likewise bled for acute heat. LU-05 and LU-11 are the two Lung points classically pricked to bleed, at opposite ends of the channel.
• With He Gu LI-04 and Qu Chi LI-11 — the Large Intestine channel is the Lung's paired yang channel, and LI-11 is its own He-Sea point at the other side of the same elbow crease. The two He-Sea points of a paired channel pair are the usual combination for heat with a sore throat.
• With Shan Zhong REN-17 and Tian Tu REN-22 — the front-of-chest points, added for wheezing and chest oppression.
• With Wei Zhong BL-40 — the point on the leg most parallel to it. Both sit in a flexion crease, both are He-Sea points, and both are classically bled; the pairing appears in the classical treatment of acute vomiting and diarrhoea, and the two were directly compared in a modern trial described below.
• Method note. Sacred Lotus sources & references record needling at this point without recording moxibustion for it — consistent with its use for heat rather than cold, and worth noticing, because most points in our records carry moxibustion as applicable.

Where does LU-05 sit among the Lung channel's five-shu points?

The five-shu points are the set of five on each channel between the fingertips or toes and the elbow or knee, described in the Ling Shu as the stages of a river: the qi wells up, glides, pours, flows and finally enters inward. Sacred Lotus sources & references hold the complete Lung set, and it is worth seeing whole because the element assignments are what the mother-child rule works on:

• Jing-Well — Shao Shang LU-11, at the thumb. Wood.
• Ying-Spring — Yu Ji LU-10, on the palm at the thenar eminence. Fire.
• Shu-Stream — Tai Yuan LU-09, at the wrist. Earth — and also the Yuan-Source point of the channel and the Hui-Meeting point of the vessels.
• Jing-River — Jing Qu LU-08, on the forearm. Metal — Metal on a Metal channel, the horary or self point.
• He-Sea — Chi Ze LU-05, at the elbow. Water. This page.

On yin channels the five-shu points run Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water from the extremity inward; on yang channels they run Metal, Water, Wood, Fire, Earth — which is why ST-44 Nei Ting, held here, is a Water point on the Earth channel of the Stomach while LU-10 on this yin channel is Fire. The Lung's own element is Metal, so its horary point is LU-08.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (location, He-Sea and Water classification, and the complete Lung five-shu set queried directly); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 80); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 136); Ling Shu, on the five-shu points; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is LU-05 located?

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 80): On the cubital crease of the elbow, in the depression at the radial side of the tendon of biceps brachii.
• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 136): On the cubital crease, in the depression of the radial side of the tendon of m. biceps brachii. This point is located with the elbow slightly flexed.

How is LU-05 Chi Ze needled?

Reference fact, and it should be said plainly: LU-05 is a low-hazard point. It lies in the crease of the elbow on the radial side of the biceps tendon, and the structures that make the cubital fossa a cautious region — the brachial artery and the median nerve — lie medial to that tendon, on the other side of it. There is no organ, no pleura and no great vessel beneath this point. Everything below is recorded as neutral reference data describing what the textbooks state. It is not instruction, and this page does not teach technique. Needling is carried out only by a qualified, licensed practitioner.

The angle and depth the texts record

• Sacred Lotus sources & references record perpendicular insertion of 0.5 to 1 inch. No moxibustion is recorded in our own entry for this point — a notable omission in a library where most points carry it, and consistent with a point used for heat.
• Deadman & Al-Khafaji (p. 80) and Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 136) record a comparable perpendicular range, with oblique insertion directed distally along the channel also recorded, and neither attaches an organ-injury caution — because there is none to attach.
• Bleeding the point. Pricking LU-05 with a three-edged needle to release a few drops of blood is a documented classical technique, recorded for acute conditions: sunstroke, acute vomiting and diarrhoea, high fever, and acute painful obstruction of the throat. It is recorded here as a technique the standard literature describes, not as guidance. The reference texts record LU-05 and Shao Shang LU-11 as the two Lung-channel points to which this method is classically applied.
• Sensation. The reference literature records that needling here may produce a sensation travelling down the forearm toward the thumb along the channel; that is a description of what is documented, not an aim.

What the general safety literature says, and why little of it applies here

The serious adverse events documented for acupuncture cluster over the trunk — pneumothorax above all, then injury to abdominal and retroperitoneal organs. A systematic review of the Chinese case-report literature from 1956 to 2010 identified 1,038 adverse-event cases across 167 articles, of which 307 were pneumothorax; the authors attributed the events chiefly to improper technique (He W et al., J Altern Complement Med 2012;18(10):892–901, PMID 22967282). None of that hazard profile attaches to a point at the elbow crease. The events recorded for limb points in the general literature are the minor and common ones — small bruises, brief bleeding at withdrawal, transient pain, and occasional faintness — and a meta-analysis of prospective clinical studies estimated serious adverse events overall at approximately 1 per 10,000 patients and around 8 per million treatments (Bäumler P et al., BMJ Open 2021;11:e045961, PMID 34489268).

One footnote worth having. Some of the older Chinese literature at this point used it for point injection rather than needling — a report describes injection of vitamin K3 into Chize in 258 inpatients with haemoptysis between 1980 and 1992 (J Tradit Chin Med 2004;24(3):177–9, PMID 15510792). Point injection is a different procedure from acupuncture, carries the risks of any injection, and is recorded here only so that readers encountering the study do not mistake it for a needling depth.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (existing needling record); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 80); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 136); PMID 22967282; PMID 34489268; PMID 15510792 — each verified resolvable and checked for retraction status before citation.

What does the name Chi Ze mean?

Chi Ze means "Cubit Marsh" — chi, the cubit, a traditional unit measured along the forearm; and ze, a marsh, a shallow pool or low wet ground. Sacred Lotus sources & references translate it exactly that way. Both halves are literal. The chi is the stretch of forearm from the wrist crease to the elbow crease — the same word used for the "cubit" position in Chinese pulse diagnosis — so chi names where the point is. And ze names what it is: the He-Sea point, the place where the channel's qi is described as broadening and pooling before entering the interior. A marsh is shallow, wide and standing water rather than the narrow rushing stream higher up the channel, and the five-shu names read in order — well, spring, stream, river, sea — are a single sustained image of water gathering as it descends the limb. The name is also given as "Foot Marsh" in some renderings, from a variant reading of chi; our translation follows the cubit reading.

Why is LU-05 called the Lung's sedation point?

Because on a yin Metal channel, the Water point is the child. The reasoning has two layers, and separating them is what makes it stick.

The first layer is the five-shu position. LU-05 is the He-Sea point, the last of the five and the deepest, where the channel's qi is said to enter inward. The Ling Shu and Nan Jing assign He-Sea points to disorders of the organ itself and to rebellious qi — which is precisely the recorded indication list at LU-05: cough, wheezing, chest fullness, breath that will not descend.

The second layer is the element. On yin channels the He-Sea point is a Water point; on yang channels it is an Earth point — which is why LI-11 Qu Chi and ST-36 Zu San Li, both held here, are He-Sea and Earth points while LU-05 on this yin channel is He-Sea and Water. The Lung is a yin Metal channel, and in the generating cycle Metal produces Water — so Water is the child of Metal. Under the mother-child rule one drains a channel through its child point and supplements it through its mother point. So on the Lung channel:

• Sedation (child) point — LU-05 Chi Ze, the Water point. The classical choice for draining Lung excess and heat.
• Tonification (mother) point — LU-09 Tai Yuan, the Shu-Stream and Earth point, Earth being the mother of Metal. Held in this library, where it also carries the Yuan-Source and Hui-Meeting-of-the-vessels classifications.

A distinction students commonly get wrong. Being the He-Sea point does not by itself make a point the sedation point — it depends entirely on the channel's own element. On the Lung, a Metal channel, the Water point is the child and so is the sedation point. On the Liver, a Wood channel, the He-Sea and Water point LIV-08 Qu Quan is the mother and therefore the tonification point, while the sedation point is LIV-02 Xing Jian, the Fire point. On the Heart, a Fire channel, the Ying-Spring and Fire point HT-08 Shao Fu is Fire on Fire — the horary point, not the sedation point. Our LIV-02 and HT-08 records make the same correction from their own sides. The rule to carry away is that the five-shu position tells you the classical indication, while the element's relationship to the channel tells you the tonification-sedation role, and the two coincide only by arithmetic.

Is there research on LU-05 Chi Ze?

LU-05 has more point-specific research than most points on the arm, and unusually, several studies use it as a comparison point in tests of whether acupuncture points differ from one another — which has produced findings in both directions.

• A randomised trial that used LU-05 as the specificity control — and reported a negative result for it. One hundred and forty healthy adults were randomised in a 2 × 2 design to acupuncture at Weizhong BL-40, acupuncture at Chize LU-05, moxibustion at BL-40, or moxibustion at LU-05, each for thirty minutes, with infrared thermal imaging of the lumbar region as the outcome. Acupuncture at BL-40 raised mean lumbar temperature significantly more than acupuncture at LU-05 (difference 0.29 °C, 95% CI 0.17 to 0.41) and more than moxibustion at BL-40 (Zheng SY et al., J Integr Med 2025;23(2):145–151, PMID 39863500, registered NCT05665426; protocol at PLoS One 2023, PMID 37903112). The finding should be stated in both directions, as our GB-39 record does for its own negative: it supports the idea that points differ from one another, and it is evidence that LU-05 is not a point for the lower back — which is exactly what the traditional indications say. A 140-participant randomised trial is also a larger and better-conducted study than most in this literature.
• The point changes measurably in lung disease. A prospective, controlled, assessor-blinded trial compared 40 people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease against 40 age-matched healthy controls, measuring skin blood perfusion by laser Doppler flowmetry, temperature by infrared thermography and regional oxygen saturation by near-infrared spectroscopy at four sites: Taiyuan LU-09 and Chize LU-05 on the Lung channel, and Shenmen HT-07 and Shaohai HT-03 on the Heart channel. Perfusion and temperature at the two Lung-channel sites were significantly increased in the COPD group (P < 0.05) while the Heart-channel sites did not change, and oxygen saturation fell at the Lung sites (P < 0.01). The authors concluded that this supports relative specificity of the body-surface-to-organ relationship in disease (Jiang Y et al., Front Physiol 2023;14:1051190, PMID 37153229, PMC10159081). This is one of the better-designed pieces of point-specificity work in the literature and LU-05 is one of only two points it found positive.
• The point becomes tender in asthma. Seventy patients with bronchial asthma and 70 healthy subjects were examined for pressure-sensitive points on the body surface. Sensitive points were found in 91.4 per cent of the asthma group against 15.7 per cent of controls, and the four most frequent were Feishu BL-13, Xinshu BL-15, Chize LU-05 and Jueyinshu BL-14, distributed over the C4, C6 and T1–T6 nerve segments (Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2020;40(2):169–72, PMID 32100503). An observational study, but a direct one, and it locates LU-05 among the very small number of points that reliably become tender in a Lung disorder.
• Small clinical reports at the point alone. Published single-point reports describe acupuncture at Chize for 23 cases of intractable hiccup (Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2015;35(10):1060, PMID 26790225), opposing (contralateral) needling at Chize for osteochondritis of the tibial tubercle (Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2014;34(7):700, PMID 25233664), and a through-needling method from Chize to a tender point for tennis elbow (J Tradit Chin Med 1990;10(2):122–3, PMID 2391994). All are brief uncontrolled reports; they document how the point is used rather than what it achieves.
• Animal work at this point. Electroacupuncture at Chize LU-05 with Shangjuxu ST-37 has been studied in a rat model of chronic obstructive lung disease, measuring mesenteric microcirculation and vasoactive intestinal peptide in lung, colon and hypothalamus (Zhen Ci Yan Jiu 2012;37(5), PMID 23342775), and electroacupuncture at Zusanli ST-36 and Chize LU-05 in mother rats exposed to nicotine has been examined for effects on lung development in their offspring (Zhen Ci Yan Jiu 2019;44(2), PMID 30945482). Two-point animal protocols, noted for completeness rather than cited as evidence about the point in humans.

What is missing should be said plainly: there is no large randomised trial of LU-05 alone for cough, asthma or any other of its central indications. The good studies that name it were designed to test point specificity, not clinical effect, and the clinical reports that isolate the point are small and uncontrolled.

How does LU-05 compare with the points around it?

Kong Zui LU-06 lies below it on the forearm and is the Lung channel's Xi-Cleft point — the acute-condition and bleeding point; the two are the Lung channel's pair for coughing blood. Lie Que LU-07 at the wrist is the Luo-Connecting point and the Confluent point of the Conception Vessel, and is the Lung point for exterior invasions and for the head and neck rather than for internal heat. Tai Yuan LU-09 is LU-05's exact counterpart in the other direction: the Earth point, the mother, the tonification point, chosen where the Lung is depleted rather than full. Yu Ji LU-10 on the palm is the Ying-Spring and Fire point and the other Lung heat point, but reached for in a hot painful throat and in Lung heat with dryness, where LU-05 suits heat with phlegm and fullness. Shao Shang LU-11 at the thumb is the Jing-Well point, bled for acute sore throat and loss of consciousness. Off the channel, Qu Chi LI-11 sits at the other side of the same elbow crease and is the He-Sea point of the Lung's paired yang channel; and Wei Zhong BL-40 behind the knee is LU-05's structural parallel on the leg — a He-Sea point in a flexion crease, classically bled — and the point against which LU-05 was directly tested in the trial described above.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (name, translation, He-Sea and Water classification, the complete Lung five-shu set, and the LIV-02, HT-08, ST-44, LI-11 and BL-40 records queried directly); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 80); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 136); Ling Shu, on the five-shu points; Nan Jing, on the mother-child rule; PMID 39863500; PMID 37903112; PMID 37153229 (PMC10159081); PMID 32100503; PMID 26790225; PMID 25233664; PMID 2391994; PMID 23342775; PMID 30945482 — each verified resolvable and checked for retraction status before citation; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.