Ze Qi (Euphorbia)

Chinese Herb Actions

Chinese Herb Dosage

• What is the typical dosage of Ze Qi?

  Our record gives 5–10 g in decoction, and notes that Bensky and Chen agree on that range. That it has a conventional reference range at all is the point worth noticing: this is the one Euphorbia in our materia medica used at ordinary herbal doses, unlike Gan Sui and Jing Da Ji, which are toxic harsh expellants given in fractions of a gram of processed material under professional supervision.

  • Decoction: 5–10 g, per both cited reference works as recorded here.
  • Still a slightly toxic herb. The classification in our own record is “slightly toxic,” and the reference range should be read with the caution and overdose information on this page, not separately from it.
  • Reference, not prescription. This documents what the standard references state. Selecting and dosing a slightly toxic phlegm herb for an individual is a practitioner’s decision.

  Source: our own herb record (Bensky and Chen ranges as recorded); cross-referenced against published materia medica consensus and multiple online sources. Reference only — not a prescription.

Chinese Herb Contraindications & Cautions

• Are there cautions for Ze Qi? Is it safe?

  Ze Qi is classified slightly toxic in our own record, and the two cautions it carries are pregnancy and cold-deficiency of the Spleen and Stomach. It is a milder herb than the two toxic Euphorbia roots, but it is not a casual one, and the latex of every plant in this genus is an established contact irritant.

  • Pregnancy — our record states: use with caution during pregnancy.
  • Cold and deficiency of the Spleen and Stomach — our record states: use with caution. The herb is cool and draining, and the documented picture of overdose begins with epigastric discomfort and pain, so a weak or cold digestion is the constitution most exposed to its downside.
  • Skin and mucous-membrane contact — handling the fresh plant is a documented cause of irritant contact dermatitis, including blistering. Our own record separately notes that topical application can produce inflammation, oedema, pain and skin ulceration.
  • Eye contact — for the genus as a whole, latex splashed into the eye is a recognised ocular emergency (see toxicity). Nothing about a plant being a medicinal herb makes its sap safe to get in an eye.
  • Practitioner supervision — a slightly toxic herb with a documented overdose picture belongs in a prescription, not in self-selection.

  Sources: our own herb record (cautions, slightly-toxic classification, topical adverse effects); PMID 25580860, DOI 10.1111/cod.12338 (Contact Dermatitis, 2015 — acute irritant bullous contact dermatitis caused by Euphorbia helioscopia); PMID 27857991, PMC 5103056, DOI 10.1016/j.tjem.2016.09.001 (Turkish Journal of Emergency Medicine, 2016 — three cases of contact dermatitis). Cross-referenced against multiple online sources. Neutral safety reference, not a safety guarantee.

Chinese Herb Toxicity & Overdose

• Is Ze Qi (sun spurge) toxic?

  Yes — classified slightly toxic, with a documented overdose picture on ingestion and well-established contact irritancy from the latex. The important distinction is that the contact irritancy is documented for this species specifically, not merely inferred from the genus.

  What is documented for Euphorbia helioscopia itself:

  • The irritant principle has been isolated and measured. A 1980 study in Contact Dermatitis isolated four esters of 12-deoxyphorbol from the fresh aerial parts of E. helioscopia and determined their irritant doses in mice. 12-Deoxyphorbol-13-phenylacetate-20-acetate was both the major component of the toxic fraction and the most irritant substance isolated, and was concluded to be responsible for the major part of the plant’s toxicity. The same paper records that the plant has caused poisoning of livestock, with severe inflammation particularly of the mucous membranes and the eyes.
  • Human contact cases are on record. Acute irritant bullous contact dermatitis caused by E. helioscopia was reported in Contact Dermatitis in 2015; a 2016 emergency-medicine report described three further contact-dermatitis patients; a 2005 German dermatology report documented toxic phytodermatitis from the species; and a 2019 prospective phytodermatitis study from Turkey lists it among the plants producing irritant contact dermatitis in its case series.
  • Overdose on ingestion (our own record). Initial symptoms are epigastric discomfort and pain; severe cases include severe abdominal pain, diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, headache, restlessness, dehydration and shock. Topical application is recorded as capable of causing inflammation, oedema, pain and skin ulceration.

  What is documented at genus level rather than for this species: latex from Euphorbia species is a recognised cause of ocular chemical injury. Published cases include keratouveitis from Euphorbia plant sap, keratouveitis from E. myrsinites, and alkaline chemical eye injury from E. lathyris latex. Those reports concern other species in the genus; we cite them as the genus-level context for handling any spurge, and we do not present them as case reports of E. helioscopia.

  Conflict worth stating plainly. A 2016 acute oral toxicity study in mice, run to an OECD test guideline, gave methanol extracts of E. helioscopia leaves and latex at 2000 mg/kg, found an LD50 above that dose, saw no macroscopic or microscopic lesions in liver, heart or kidney after fourteen days, and concluded that the extracts were “devoid of toxic effects.” That sits against the isolated-irritant chemistry, the human contact cases and the traditional slightly-toxic classification. The most defensible reading is that the two literatures measure different things — single-dose systemic oral toxicity of a solvent extract in one case, direct contact irritancy of the fresh plant and its latex in the other — and that a negative acute oral LD50 does not license handling the fresh plant carelessly. We report both and resolve neither.

  Sources: our own herb record (overdose and topical adverse effects); PMID 7389328, DOI 10.1111/j.1600-0536.1980.tb05599.x (Contact Dermatitis, 1980 — skin irritants of the sun spurge); PMID 25580860, DOI 10.1111/cod.12338; PMID 27857991, PMC 5103056, DOI 10.1016/j.tjem.2016.09.001; PMID 15662536 (Der Hautarzt, 2005 — toxic phytodermatitis caused by Euphorbia helioscopia L.); PMID 30585511, DOI 10.1080/15569527.2018.1561711 (Cutaneous and Ocular Toxicology, 2019 — prospective phytodermatitis study); PMID 26453021, DOI 10.3109/01480545.2015.1092040 (Drug and Chemical Toxicology, 2016 — acute oral toxicity study); genus-level ocular injury from PMID 19574703 (Indian Journal of Ophthalmology, 2009 — keratouveitis caused by Euphorbia plant sap), PMID 18454396 (2008 — E. myrsinites) and PMID 19946593 (Journal of Medical Case Reports, 2009 — E. lathyris latex alkaline injury). Reference safety information, not usage guidance.

• This herb is considered slightly toxic.
  (while some Chinese herbs are toxic, it must be noted that many come prepared, or are combined, to mitigate their toxicity)

Herb-Drug Interactions

• No controlled clinical herb–drug interaction studies exist for Ze Qi, and our own record holds none. We do not have a demonstrated interaction to report, and we do not invent one.

  Two areas of theoretical caution follow from the pharmacology rather than from clinical reports. First, the herb is described in our record as promoting urination and moving water strongly, so concurrent use with diuretics is a reasonable point for a practitioner to consider. Second, laboratory studies have reported lipid-lowering activity for diterpenoids isolated from the plant, and separate studies report diterpenoids from the species acting as chemotherapy-sensitising and multidrug-resistance-modulating agents in cell models — findings about isolated compounds in vitro, which are a reason for a practitioner to check rather than a demonstrated clinical interaction. (Precautionary reference context flagged for practitioner confirmation, not an interaction list.)

  Sources: our own herb record; PMID 40840678 (Fitoterapia, 2025 — lathyrane and jatrophane diterpenoids as potential lipid-lowering agents from Euphorbia helioscopia L.); PMID 33440297, DOI 10.1016/j.phytochem.2020.112649 (multidrug-resistance modulation among the plant’s reported activities). Reference context, not clinical advice.

Western / Biomedical Research

Chinese Herb Clinical Studies & Research

Provided as research context — a summary of published biomedical study, not a therapeutic or medical claim.

• Is there modern research on Ze Qi (Euphorbia helioscopia)?

  Yes, and there is more of it than most readers expect — a large phytochemical literature centred on diterpenoids, an active preclinical oncology thread concentrated on lung cancer, and essentially no human clinical evidence. The 2021 Phytochemistry overview counts 173 terpenoids isolated from the plant, identifies diterpenoids and flavonoids as the most important bioactive constituents, and notes explicitly that most of the pharmacological work has been done in vitro, with in-depth in-vivo, toxicological and human studies still very limited.

  • The traditional cough indication was investigated early. Chinese pharmaceutical research on the active principles of Ze Qi “as a drug used for chronic bronchitis” was published in 1979 — a direct line from the classical indication our record gives for this herb to the modern chemistry.
  • Lung cancer (preclinical) — the most developed current thread. A 2025 study in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology reported that E. helioscopia inhibited lung tumorigenesis in a model system by relieving T-cell exhaustion induced by chronic inflammation; a 2024 Chinese study reported inhibition of proliferation, invasion and migration with promotion of apoptosis in non-small-cell lung cancer cells; and 2026 work examined an aqueous extract’s effect on the immune environment and pulmonary tumour nodule formation. Animal and cell models only.
  • Other preclinical oncology — reported effects on hepatitis-B-related hepatocellular carcinoma via a kinase and caspase-3 pathway, and on haemangioendothelioma and melanoma through angiogenesis inhibition. Laboratory findings.
  • Isolated diterpenoids — a steady stream of new structures, screened for anti-psoriasis activity, anti-inflammatory activity, anti-Zika-virus activity, lipid-lowering activity and chemotherapy sensitisation. These are chemistry papers about single compounds, not studies of the herb as used.
  • Antimicrobial — in-vitro activity against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus was reported in 2024.
  • Toxicology — the isolated irritant esters and the human contact-dermatitis reports described in the toxicity section are the most clinically meaningful safety literature on this plant.

  Overall: rich chemistry, a genuinely active preclinical oncology literature, well-documented contact irritancy, and no clinical trials. This is research context, not evidence of therapeutic benefit.

  Sources: PMID 33440297, DOI 10.1016/j.phytochem.2020.112649; PMID 506714 (Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica, 1979 — active principles of Ze-Qi, a drug used for chronic bronchitis); PMID 39537116, DOI 10.1016/j.jep.2024.119097; PMID 39523092 (Journal of Southern Medical University, 2024 — non-small-cell lung cancer cells); PMID 42020321 (2026 — aqueous extract, immune environment and pulmonary tumour nodules); PMID 39356361 (Journal of Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology, 2024 — hepatitis-B-related hepatocellular carcinoma); PMID 38678953, DOI 10.1016/j.phymed.2024.155666 (Phytomedicine, 2024 — haemangioendothelioma and melanoma, angiogenesis inhibition); PMID 39274957, PMC 11397010, DOI 10.3390/molecules29174104 (Molecules, 2024 — anti-psoriasis diterpenoids); PMID 39461493 (Phytochemistry, 2025 — ent-abietane lactones with anti-inflammatory activity); PMID 41101260 (Bioorganic Chemistry, 2025 — terpenoids with anti-Zika virus activity); PMID 40840678 (Fitoterapia, 2025 — lipid-lowering diterpenoids); PMID 39435254 (Cureus, 2024 — antimicrobial activity against MRSA in vitro); PMID 7389328, DOI 10.1111/j.1600-0536.1980.tb05599.x. Research context, not a therapeutic claim.

Chinese Herb Notes

• How is Ze Qi different from Gan Sui and Jing Da Ji?

  All three are Euphorbia species, but only Ze Qi is an ordinary herb. The distinction is category, not just strength — and reading these three pages side by side is the fastest way to see it.

  • Ze Qi (E. helioscopia) — the aerial parts. Slightly toxic, cool, filed with the phlegm-heat herbs. Directed at cough, wheezing, nodules and oedema, at a conventional dose range.
  • Gan Sui (E. kansui) — the root. Toxic, cold, a harsh expellant. A drastic water-draining purgative for severe fluid accumulation; incompatible with Gan Cao.
  • Jing Da Ji (E. pekinensis) — the root. Toxic, cold, a harsh expellant. The classical “Da Ji” of the formula literature, likewise incompatible with Gan Cao.

  Two structural differences follow from that. First, only the two roots are members of the classical Eighteen Incompatibilities list with Gan Cao — our own incompatibility records hold Gan Sui and Jing Da Ji there, and do not hold Ze Qi. Second, the two roots appear only inside severe water-expelling formulas such as Shi Zao Tang; Ze Qi is not a member of that group.

  What they do share is the latex. Every member of the genus Euphorbia exudes a milky latex, and the irritant diterpene esters in that latex are the common thread linking a cough herb, two drastic purgatives and the ornamental spurges that turn up in poison-centre and eye-clinic case reports. See the toxicity section for what is documented at genus level and what is documented for this species specifically.

  Record flag (identity field left unchanged, raised for owner review): our record writes the Chinese name with the character 择 (“to select”). The standard written form of Ze Qi is 泽漆, with 泽 meaning marsh or lustre — which is what our own English translation field, “Marsh Lacquer,” is rendering. The two characters are homophones in pinyin, and this looks like a character substitution rather than a variant. We have not altered the field.

  Sources: our own herb records for Ze Qi, Gan Sui and Jing Da Ji, and our own incompatibility and formula records; PMID 33440297, DOI 10.1016/j.phytochem.2020.112649. Cross-referenced against multiple online sources. Reference documentation, not usage guidance.

This herb is considered toxic