Traditionally used for
- Pain & joints
Cautions & contraindications
- Allergy risk
☯ TCM Properties
Dispels Wind-(Dampness), controls pain and strengthens the sinews and bones; Disperses Wind-Cold
Traditional Chinese Uses
Hu Gu, tiger bone from Panthera tigris, is a pungent, salty, warm substance of the Liver and Kidney channels recorded in classical materia medica to dispel Wind-Dampness, strongly strengthen the sinews and bones, and stop pain — used historically for chronic Wind-Damp bi syndrome, weak or aching lower back and knees, and joint pain with underlying Kidney and Liver deficiency, as in the classic formula Hu Qian Wan.
This is presented for historical and educational reference only. The tiger is a CITES Appendix I species and its trade is banned internationally; China prohibited domestic tiger-bone trade in 1993. Sourcing or using tiger bone is illegal and drives poaching of a critically endangered animal. Modern practice substitutes cultivated botanicals for the same actions, and this substance must not be sought or used.
Relationships
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Botanical Description
Hu Gu is the bone of the tiger, principally derived from Panthera tigris L. (Felidae), the largest cat species, with the leg and shin bones traditionally preferred. The bones are dense, heavy, and yellow-white to greyish, with characteristic medullary cavities; classical sources describe them as sweet, acrid, and warm, with the function of expelling wind, alleviating pain, strengthening sinews and bones, and calming fright. Hu Gu was a principal ingredient in classical formulas such as Hu Gu Jiu (tiger-bone liquor) and Hu Qian Wan, used for chronic wind-damp obstruction, atrophy, weakness, and tremor. All tiger subspecies are listed on CITES Appendix I, and the People's Republic of China prohibited domestic trade in tiger bone for medicinal use in 1993. Contemporary TCM substitutes Gou Gu (dog bone), Niu Gu (cattle bone), or specifically formulated synthetic and herbal substitutes; genuine Hu Gu is illegal in virtually all jurisdictions and its use is incompatible with modern conservation ethics.
Active Constituents
Type I collagen
Fibrillar structural proteinConcentration: Roughly 20 to 25 percent of dry bone mass and about 90 percent of the organic fraction, as in the bone of any mammal
The organic scaffold of bone. It is chemically indistinguishable between tiger, pig, cattle, deer and human bone at the level of routine analysis, which is precisely why forensic species identification of seized bone requires DNA or peptide mass fingerprinting rather than chemistry.
No collagen or collagen-derived peptide unique to Panthera tigris has been characterised, and no tiger-specific constituent has ever been shown to account for any claimed activity.
Hydroxyapatite
Calcium phosphate mineralConcentration: Roughly 60 to 70 percent of dry bone mass, as in the bone of any mammal
The mineral phase of bone, a substituted calcium phosphate. Together with collagen it accounts for essentially the whole substance of the drug.
The composition assay published for the licensed artificial replacement gives approximately 18 percent calcium and 8 percent phosphorus, figures matched deliberately to natural tiger bone, which is a direct statement that the material has no chemistry beyond ordinary bone.
Bone-derived peptides
Oligopeptides released from bone collagen and non-collagenous bone proteinConcentration: Minor fraction; individual peptides characterised only in the artificial replacement, not in tiger bone
Peptidomic work on the licensed artificial tiger bone powder identified five signature peptides, all of which traced to the deer bone component of that preparation rather than to anything tiger-derived. Four of these were tested in cell culture: GPQGIAGQRGVV and AFAQLSELH promoted proliferation and mineralisation of MC3T3-E1 osteoblastic cells, and VDVVGAEALGR and FAVEGPKLVA reduced inflammatory readouts in lipopolysaccharide-stimulated RAW 264.7 macrophages.
This is preclinical work on a substitute product. It is included because it is the only characterisation of bone peptide activity relevant to this record, and because it demonstrates that whatever activity bone powder has is obtainable from livestock and farmed deer bone.
⚠ Drug Interactions
Prohibited substance: CITES Appendix I listing and Chinese State Council circular Guofa 1993 No. 39
All tiger subspecies have been listed in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora since 1975, with the exception of the Amur tiger, Panthera tigris altaica, which was added in 1987. All international commercial trade in tigers, their parts, products and derivatives has therefore been prohibited for half a century.
China's State Council circular of 29 May 1993, Guofa 1993 No. 39, banned the trade of rhinoceros horn and tiger bone domestically, prohibited manufacture of medicines containing them with immediate effect, required all domestic trade in such medicines to cease within six months, and struck both drugs from the pharmacopoeia and from the medical curriculum. Tiger bone has not been a lawful medicinal in China since.
On 29 October 2018 the State Council issued a further notice that would have permitted tiger bone and rhinoceros horn from captive-bred animals to be used by designated hospitals and practitioners for medicine, research and cultural exchange. After international objection, State Council deputy secretary-general Ding Xuedong announced on 12 November 2018 that implementation had been postponed after study. The postponement has not been rescinded; the 1993 prohibition remains the operative position, but it was reopened once and could be reopened again.
The United Kingdom, the European Union and the United States each prohibit commercial dealing in tiger parts under their own implementing law in addition to the CITES obligation.
Clinical note: This substance must not be prescribed, dispensed, stocked or recommended. Possessing or supplying it is a criminal offence in most jurisdictions, and there is no exemption for practitioner use. If a patient presents with a product they believe contains tiger bone, do not authenticate it and do not advise disposal that would destroy evidence; the appropriate route is the national CITES management authority or wildlife crime unit. Prescribe the licensed artificial substitute or a conventional bone agent instead.
Panthera leo (lion bone supplied as a tiger bone analogue)
Suppression of the tiger bone supply did not extinguish demand for bone tonic, and the trade turned to analogue species. Williams and colleagues documented the legal export of lion skeletons from South Africa to East and Southeast Asia, quantifying a trade that grew specifically as a tiger bone replacement. Lion and tiger bone are not distinguishable by eye once processed, and the IUCN assessment records that continued demand for tiger bone drove sourcing of lion, jaguar, leopard and clouded leopard as analogues.
Preference research in China and Vietnam by Coals and colleagues found that consumers state a preference for wild tiger over farmed tiger and over lion, but will use whatever is available, so the analogue trade supplements rather than displaces pressure on wild tigers.
Clinical note: Any bone tonic or bone wine of unstated species origin should be treated as a wildlife product of unknown and probably protected provenance. Do not recommend it, and do not accept a supplier's assurance that the material is lion, and therefore acceptable; lion is CITES Appendix II with an Appendix I listing for the Indian population, and the bone trade in it is itself a conservation problem.
Panthera pardus (leopard bone, Bao Gu)
Leopard bone was the substitute most directly adopted inside China after 1993, being the closest available drug in the traditional classification. China restricted new leopard bone in March 2006, permitting manufacture only from stocks held before that date under an official labelling scheme, but the volume and origin of those pre-2006 stocks have never been publicly declared, and non-governmental investigations have repeatedly reported continued purchase of new leopard bone by licensed manufacturers.
The evidence here is investigative and governmental rather than peer-reviewed, which is why it is graded Probable rather than Established, but the IUCN tiger assessment independently names leopard among the analogue species drawn into the trade.
Clinical note: Treat Bao Gu products with the same refusal as tiger bone. A pre-2006 stock label is not a warrant of legality outside China and does not establish that the contents are what the label says.
Unauthenticated bone powder, bone glue and bone wine products
Products sold as tiger bone are routinely something else. Because processed bone cannot be identified morphologically, forensic laboratories have had to develop molecular assays for the purpose: Henger and colleagues published a multiplex quantitative PCR assay in 2023 specifically to detect and differentiate big cat species in seized wildlife trade material, on the stated ground that visual identification of these products is not possible.
The practical consequence is that a purchaser of tiger bone tonic has no idea what species, what tissue, or what else is in the preparation. Bone glue and bone wine preparations are unregulated, undeclared as to animal species, and outside any pharmacopoeial quality standard. Absence of an assay is not evidence of absence, and none of these products carry one.
Clinical note: Advise patients who have obtained such a product not to consume it. There is no way to counsel on dose, contamination or allergen content for a preparation of unknown species composition, and purchase sustains a criminal supply chain irrespective of what the bottle actually contains.
Artificial tiger bone powder (Jintiange capsule, CFDA registration Z20030080)
This is the licensed replacement adopted in China after the ban, approved as a Class I new drug in 2003. It is not a tiger product and contains no tiger material. It is manufactured from the bone of domesticated food animals, specifically Sus scrofa domestica, Capra hircus and Cervus nippon, formulated to approximate natural tiger bone in calcium content of about 18 percent, phosphorus of about 8 percent, nitrogen content, dynamic viscosity and optical rotation.
Because the preparation contains porcine bone, it is unacceptable to patients observing halal or kosher dietary law, and to patients avoiding pork on other grounds. Peptidomic quality control work traces its signature peptides to the deer bone component.
Clinical note: Where a bone-strengthening agent of this class is wanted, this is the lawful option and it has actual trial evidence behind it, unlike the drug it replaces. Disclose the porcine content before prescribing. It is not a substitute for bisphosphonate or denosumab therapy where those are indicated, and the trial evidence is largely add-on to conventional treatment rather than head-to-head against it.
Evidence Tier
Strong evidence · 7 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
3
3 verified · 0 unverified
Show 3 studies
- Efficacy and safety of Jintiange in the treatment of osteoporosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis
- The effect of Jintiange capsules on pain in patients with primary osteoporosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis
- Efficacy of the Chinese herbal medicine Jintiange capsules in the postoperative treatment of osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Randomized controlled trial
2
1 verified · 1 unverified
Show 2 studies
- Jintiange combined with alfacalcidol improves muscle strength and balance in primary osteoporosis: A randomized, double-blind, double-dummy, positive-controlled, multicenter clinical trial
- Effect of Artificial Tiger Bone Powder (Jintiange Capsule®) on Vertebral Height Ratio, Cobb's Angle, Bone Mineral Density, and Visual Analog Score
Other clinical trial
0
Observational / case report
0
In vitro / animal
2
2 verified · 0 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
Efficacy and safety of Jintiange in the treatment of osteoporosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis
This studied the artificial substitute, not tiger bone. Eighteen studies covering 21 trials and 2,580 patients were pooled. Jintiange, whose active component is artificial tiger bone powder made from pig, goat and sika deer bone, improved bone mineral density at the lumbar spine, femoral neck, greater trochanter and Ward's triangle, and reduced visual analogue pain scores, with no significant difference from controls in adverse events or fracture incidence. Bone Gla protein rose; serum calcium, phosphorus and type I collagen carboxy-terminal peptide did not differ.
It is included here to make the point that the evidence base in this area belongs entirely to the replacement product. There is no comparable body of evidence, and no controlled trial at all, for tiger bone itself.
Jintiange combined with alfacalcidol improves muscle strength and balance in primary osteoporosis: A randomized, double-blind, double-dummy, positive-controlled, multicenter clinical trial
Again the substitute, not tiger bone. Four hundred patients with primary osteoporosis or osteopenia were randomised to Jintiange 1.2 g three times daily or to calcium carbonate, both groups also receiving alfacalcidol, for 52 weeks. Timed up and go and chair rising times improved more in the Jintiange arm, and the proportion at high fall risk was lower; the tandem gait test did not separate the groups.
This is the strongest single trial of the replacement preparation, and the comparator was calcium rather than an antiresorptive.
The effect of Jintiange capsules on pain in patients with primary osteoporosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Twenty-one articles and 2,916 participants. The substitute preparation, alone or added to conventional anti-osteoporosis drugs, reduced visual analogue pain scores, improved femoral neck and lumbar bone mineral density and Oswestry disability index, shortened the timed up and go test, and was associated with lower fracture incidence.
Most included trials are Chinese-language and the comparator is usually conventional therapy alone, so the effect estimates should be read as add-on benefit with the usual caveats about publication bias in this literature.
Effect of Artificial Tiger Bone Powder (Jintiange Capsule®) on Vertebral Height Ratio, Cobb's Angle, Bone Mineral Density, and Visual Analog Score
Double-blind randomised controlled trial in 106 patients with osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture, comparing three months of the artificial bone powder preparation against conventional postoperative care alone. Vertebral height ratio, Cobb's angle, bone mineral density and pain scores were the endpoints.
A single-centre trial of the substitute product. It says nothing about tiger bone.
Efficacy of the Chinese herbal medicine Jintiange capsules in the postoperative treatment of osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Meta-analysis of randomised trials in 1,642 patients after surgery for osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture. Bone mineral density improved at lumbar spine, femoral neck and whole body. The authors state plainly that the active ingredients and proteins of the preparation are derived from other animal bones with chemical profiles similar to natural tiger bone.
That statement is the substantive scientific point of this whole record: the profile can be reproduced from livestock bone because there was never anything chemically distinctive about the tiger.
The Quality Control Markers Study of Artificial Tiger Bone Powder Based on Peptidomic by NanoLC-HRMS and UHPLC-QQQ-MS
Peptidomic characterisation of the artificial preparation and of the four individual bone extracts that go into it. Five signature peptides were identified and confirmed against synthetic standards; all five came from the deer bone extract. Two promoted MC3T3-E1 osteoblast proliferation and mineralisation and two were anti-inflammatory in lipopolysaccharide-stimulated RAW 264.7 cells.
Analytical and cell-culture work. It establishes what the licensed replacement is made of and gives it quality markers, which tiger bone never had.
A new multiplex qPCR assay to detect and differentiate big cat species in the illegal wildlife trade
Development and validation of a multiplex quantitative PCR assay able to detect and distinguish tiger, lion, leopard, jaguar and snow leopard in trade material. The premise of the work is that processed products such as bone powder, glue and wine cannot be identified to species by inspection.
Wildlife forensic method development, cited here as the direct evidence that species substitution in this trade is routine enough to require a laboratory assay.
⚠ Safety & Contraindications
- Allergy risk
Safety Warnings
- Tiger bone: illegal to trade or dispense. Historic substitutes include Gou Gu (dog bone) or artificial preparations.
Regulatory Status
- CITES Appendix I — international trade prohibited; tiger bone banned in China (1993).
Historical Texts
Ben Cao Gang Mu (Compendium of Materia Medica), Li Shizhen
Ming dynasty, completed 1578, printed 1596Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China
Included in editions up to 1990; removed following the State Council circular of 29 May 1993Notice of the State Council on strictly controlling the operation and use of rhinoceros and tiger products
Issued 29 October 2018; implementation postponed 12 November 2018References
- IUCN. Panthera tigris: Goodrich, J., Wibisono, H., Miquelle, D., Lynam, A.J., Sanderson, E., Chapman, S., Gray, T.N.E., Chanchani, P. & Harihar, A. . The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2022: e.T15955A214862019 (2022) [DOI]
- Williams VL, Loveridge AJ, Newton DJ, Macdonald DW. A roaring trade? The legal trade in Panthera leo bones from Africa to East-Southeast Asia . PLOS ONE (2017) [DOI]
- Coals P, Moorhouse TP, D'Cruze NC, Macdonald DW, Loveridge AJ. Preferences for lion and tiger bone wines amongst the urban public in China and Vietnam . Journal for Nature Conservation (2020) [DOI]
- Cheung H, Wang Y, Biggs D. China's reopened rhino horn trade . Science (2018) [DOI]
- Nittu G, Shameer TT, Nishanthini NK, Sanil R. The tide of tiger poaching in India is rising! An investigation of the intertwined facts with a focus on conservation . GeoJournal (2022) [DOI]
- Elves-Powell J, Lee H, Axmacher JC, Durant SM. Turning the tide on big cat trade: Expert opinion on trends and conservation lessons from the Republic of Korea . PLOS ONE (2024) [DOI]
- Wang W, Yang L, Wronski T, Chen S, Hu Y, Huang S. Captive breeding of wildlife resources—China's revised supply-side approach to conservation . Wildlife Society Bulletin (2019) [DOI]
- Rock KI, MacMillan DC. Can Substitutes Reduce Future Demand for Wildlife Products: A Case Study of China's Millennial Generation . Human Ecology (2022) [DOI]
- Coals P, Burnham D, Loveridge A, Macdonald DW, Sas-Rolfes M, Williams VL, Vucetich JA. The Ethics of Human–Animal Relationships and Public Discourse: A Case Study of Lions Bred for Their Bones . Animals (2019) [DOI]
- State Council of the People's Republic of China. Circular of the State Council on Banning the Trade of Rhinoceros Horn and Tiger Bone . Guofa 1993 No. 39, issued 29 May 1993 (1993)
- Jarosz KR. Zootherapy in Asia through the Lens of Museums of Traditional Medicine . The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine (2025) [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
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