Du Zhong Ye
StarEucommia ulmoides Oliv.
Traditionally used for
- Pain & joints
- Blood pressure
- Energy & fatigue
☯ TCM Properties
Nourishes Liver and Kidney Yin; Strengthens the Sinews and Bones; Lowers Blood Pressure
Traditional Chinese Uses
Du Zhong Ye (eucommia leaf) shares many tonic properties with the bark (Du Zhong) but in a lighter, more accessible form. It tonifies the Liver and Kidney, strengthens the sinew and bones, and lowers blood pressure. Used for lower back and knee weakness, joint pain, fatigue from Liver-Kidney deficiency, and hypertension with Liver Yang rising, it provides a gentle alternative to the bark in formulas where a milder tonic action is needed or where the leaf is being used as a daily health supplement tea.
Western Herbalism Properties
Relationships
Full-screen graph →Click a node for details · double-click to expand it · Ctrl/⌘ + scroll or two fingers to zoom and pan.
Botanical Description
Eucommia ulmoides (Eucommiaceae) is a small to medium deciduous tree 10-20 m tall, the sole surviving species of an ancient monotypic family endemic to central China. The trunk has greyish, longitudinally fissured bark, and broken twigs, leaves, and bark exude characteristic silvery latex threads (gutta-percha rubber) that connect the broken halves. Leaves are alternate, elliptic to ovate, 6-16 cm long, with serrate margins and pinnate venation, turning yellow before autumn drop. The species is dioecious; small apetalous flowers appear before the leaves, followed by flattened, winged, single-seeded samaras 3-4 cm long. The leaves (Du Zhong Ye), distinguished from the more famous bark (Du Zhong), are harvested in summer and dried. (Sources: POWO; Wikipedia; PFAF)
Active Constituents
Chlorogenic acid
Phenylpropanoid (caffeoylquinic acid)Concentration: the dominant phenolic of the leaf, reported at around 2.5% of dried leaf; a seven-cultivar survey found 11.4-120.0 mg/g in leaf against 2.7-37.5 mg/g in the bark of the same trees
The principal active constituent of Eucommiae Folium and the reason the leaf is used as a tea and functional food rather than only as a decoction herb. It carries the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and mild vasorelaxant activity attributed to the leaf, and enrichment in the leaf relative to the bark is the clearest chemical reason the two drugs are dispensed separately.
Geniposidic acid
Iridoid glucosideConcentration: around 1.5% of dried leaf, against up to about 6.7% in branch bark; a seven-cultivar survey found 40.6-117.9 mg/g in leaf
An iridoid retained at substantial levels in the leaf and used as the standardisation marker for leaf-extract products; the tablet used in the 2025 clinical trial delivered 85 mg of geniposidic acid per daily dose. Part of the blood-pressure-lowering effect of Eucommia in spontaneously hypertensive rats has been attributed to it, together with improved renal blood flow.
Aucubin
Iridoid glucosideConcentration: 36.7-143.5 mg/g of dried leaf in a seven-cultivar survey
Shared with the bark and the main anti-inflammatory iridoid of the leaf, also active on osteoblast and osteoclast balance in preclinical bone models. It is readily hydrolysed, so it degrades in poorly dried or long-stored leaf and in prolonged boiling.
Rutin, hyperoside and astragalin
Flavonol glycosidesConcentration: detected only in the leaf and not in the bark; leaf flavonoid content peaks with April to May harvest
These three flavonol glycosides are leaf-specific markers and can be used to prove that a sample is Du Zhong Ye rather than bark. They contribute antioxidant activity, and quercetin released from them enhances nitric oxide signalling through the NO/sGC/cGMP pathway, one of the mechanisms proposed for the leaf's antihypertensive effect.
Pinoresinol di-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside (pinoresinol diglucoside)
Lignan diglucosideConcentration: not detected in the leaf; a bark-specific lignan present at about 0.5% of dried bark
Listed here as an explicit absence. The one controlled human trial of Eucommia bark used an extract standardised to 8% pinoresinol diglucoside, so that trial's result cannot be transferred to the leaf, which does not contain the compound. Leaf-extract products standardise instead on chlorogenic acid or geniposidic acid.
Eucommia gum (gutta-percha, trans-1,4-polyisoprene)
PolyterpeneConcentration: about 2-3% of the leaf, against 10-12% of the bark
Present at a fraction of the bark level, which is why leaf material does not show the white elastic threads used to grade Du Zhong bark. The polymer is water-insoluble and inert, and its low level makes the leaf far easier to process into teas, granules and tablets.
⚠ Drug Interactions
Antihypertensive drugs
A 2025 single-arm trial of a leaf-extract tablet in 17 adults found systolic pressure fell from 130.7 to 121.2 mmHg in the nine participants with chronic kidney disease (P less than 0.01) with no significant change in the eight without, alongside a fall in d-ROMs oxidative stress and a small rise in atrial natriuretic peptide. Preclinical work attributes leaf antihypertensive activity to downregulation of the RhoA/ROCK pathway, quercetin-mediated NO/sGC/cGMP signalling, inhibition of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system and potassium channel activation. The trial had no control group and 17 participants, so the effect size is not reliable, but the direction is consistent across the preclinical literature.
Clinical note: Recheck blood pressure two to four weeks after adding Du Zhong Ye for a patient on antihypertensives, and especially in chronic kidney disease where the observed effect was largest. Do not extrapolate the bark trial's beta-blocking mechanism to the leaf, which lacks pinoresinol diglucoside.
Eucommia leaf tea taken as a beverage (Tochu-cha, Du Zhong cha)
Eucommia leaf is drunk as an everyday tea in Japan and China and sold as a food rather than a medicine, so a patient may be taking substantial daily quantities of the same drug without regarding it as one. Because the leaf is the part used in that beverage, this overlaps directly with a prescription of Du Zhong Ye in a way it does not with a prescription of the bark.
Clinical note: Ask specifically about Eucommia or tochu tea when prescribing the leaf or when investigating unexpected hypotension, and count the tea toward total daily exposure.
Nephrotoxic drugs (e.g. NSAIDs, aminoglycosides)
A 13-week rodent study of Eucommia ulmoides extract showed dose-dependent nephrotoxicity indices and renal histological change, reversible five weeks after stopping 11.2 g/kg raw-plant equivalent but persistent at 56 g/kg, with no genotoxicity and a maximum tolerated dose of at least 168 g/kg. The publication does not specify which plant part the extract was made from, so it cannot be attributed to the leaf specifically; the caution is carried here because leaf extracts are the concentrated Eucommia products most likely to be taken daily for long periods as a supplement.
Clinical note: Not a concern at food-level tea intake or ordinary decoction doses. For long-term concentrated leaf extract use, particularly in chronic kidney disease, monitor renal function rather than assuming a food-grade product carries no renal exposure.
Dosage
| Form | Amount | Frequency | Duration | Population | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| decoction | 10–15 g | Daily | — | — | 中国药典 2020 【用法与用量】10～15g。 【性味与归经】微辛，温。归肝、肾经。 — Chinese Pharmacopoeia 2020, quoted verbatim; route and cautions preserved. Replaces a cleared category-filler value. |
Evidence Tier
Limited evidence · 2 studiesRecorded studies by study design, strongest design at the top. This is a study-design tier only, not a GRADE rating: it does not weigh risk of bias, consistency or precision.
Systematic review / meta-analysis
0
Randomized controlled trial
0
Other clinical trial
0
Observational / case report
1
0 verified · 1 unverified
In vitro / animal
1
0 verified · 1 unverified
Other / unclassified
0
Verified: design read from PubMed for a DOI that resolves to the cited paper Unverified: taken from the study's recorded description
Clinical Studies
An Exploratory Single‐Arm Clinical Trial on Eucommia Ulmoides Leaf Extract Effects on Blood Pressure, Oxidative Stress, and Atrial Natriuretic Peptide (ANP) in Individuals With and Without Chronic Kidney Disease
Single-arm exploratory trial in 17 adults (mean age 59.3, 82% male), nine with chronic kidney disease (eGFR 60.5) and eight without (eGFR 75.5), taking a nine-tablet daily dose of Eucommia leaf extract (1416.7 mg extract, 85 mg geniposidic acid) for a median 33 days. Systolic pressure fell from 130.7 to 121.2 mmHg in the chronic kidney disease subgroup (P less than 0.01) with no significant change in those without; d-ROMs oxidative stress fell from 300.2 to 285.9 U.CARR across all participants (P less than 0.05) and median atrial natriuretic peptide rose from 8.1 to 8.8 pg/mL (P less than 0.05). Proteinuria and eGFR were unchanged and no serious adverse events occurred. There was no control group and the sample was very small, so this is hypothesis-generating only, but it is the only human trial of the leaf as distinct from the bark.
Metabolite Profiles, Bioactivity, and HPLC Fingerprint of Different Varieties of Eucommia ulmoides Oliv.: Towards the Utilization of Medicinal and Commercial Chinese Endemic Tree
Paired HPLC analysis of leaf and bark from seven Eucommia ulmoides varieties. Rutin, hyperoside and astragalin were detected only in leaf and pinoresinol diglucoside only in bark, so the two official drugs are chemically separable rather than interchangeable. Chlorogenic acid was several-fold higher in leaf (11.4-120.0 mg/g) than bark (2.7-37.5 mg/g). The authors recommend different cultivars depending on whether leaf or bark is the intended product.
⚠ Safety & Contraindications
Contraindications
Its use is cautious in patients with vigorous fire due to yin deficiency.
Source: Xi S, Gong Y. Essentials of Chinese Materia Medica and Medical Formulas. Academic Press/Elsevier, 2017, pp. 357–359.
References
- Mengyuan Li, Yanchao Zheng, Sha Deng, Tian Yu, Yucong Ma, Jiaming Ge, Jiarong Li, Xiankuan Li, Lin Ma. Potential therapeutic effects and applications of Eucommiae Folium in secondary hypertension . Journal of Pharmaceutical Analysis (2022) [DOI]
- Yun Li, Xiangyang Kang. Advances in research on the bioactive compounds and genetic improvement of Eucommia ulmoides . Medicinal Plant Biology (2024) [DOI]
- Ying Yan, Hui Zhao, Cuihua Chen, Lisi Zou, Xunhong Liu, Chuan Chai, Chengcheng Wang, Jingjing Shi, Shuyu Chen. Comparison of Multiple Bioactive Constituents in Different Parts of Eucommia ulmoides Based on UFLC-QTRAP-MS/MS Combined with PCA . Molecules (2018) [DOI]
- Lichuang Huang, Qiang Lyu, Wanying Zheng, Qiao Yang, Gang Cao. Traditional application and modern pharmacological research of Eucommia ulmoides Oliv. . Chinese Medicine (2021) [DOI]
This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before using any herbal remedy, especially if you are pregnant, nursing, or taking medications.
📝 Notes
Public notes from the community and your own private notes on Du Zhong Ye.
No notes yet.