Rehmannia Six Formula Liuwei Dihuang Wan
Rehmannia Six Formula is comprised of three pairs of herbs, each pair incorporating an herb that gently tonifies and an herb that gently drains or disperses (these actions often referred to as “purging”).
Aside from the formula’s balancing of tonification and dispersing actions on the organs, the dispersing herbs are seen as preventing adverse effects of the tonic herbs: alisma and hoelen prevent the greasy quality of rehmannia from causing indigestion; moutan prevents excessive warming of the liver by cornus (2, 14). Further, one can depict a nutritive scheme encompassing these ingredients:
- Dioscorea and hoelen improve the function of the spleen, thereby enhancing the extraction of nutrients from food and nourishing the blood, which improves the liver function.
- Cornus and moutan, in combination with enriched blood, improve the liver function, which provides a moistening action to the kidney.
- Rehmannia and alisma, along with the moist essence from the liver and spleen, restore the kidney yin and essence and normalize the kidney functions.
Thus, the ultimate aim of the formula is to replenish the kidney, and this is accomplished by addressing each requisite step involved in the normal process of gaining “postnatal” kidney essence.
