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Zuo Jin Wan has been shown to fight colon cancer. In Chinese medicine, it is a small, wonderful herbal formula. It clears and drains liver fire, downbears counterflow and checks vomiting. ‘Liver fire’ is a Chinese medical diagnosis that has does not have an exact bio-medical correlate, but as it happens, manifests symptoms seen in many kinds of cancer. Not surprisingly, the underlying biochemical mechanism of ZJW has been shown to the reverse the effect of multidrug resistance on colorectal cancer in vitro and in vivo.
Zuo Jin Wan treats liver fire invading the stomach. There may be pain in the rib-sides, “clamoring stomach” (like pain but not pain, like hunger but not hunger), acid swallowing (upflow of acid that is immediately swallowed), vomiting, bitter taste in the mouth, a red tongue with yellow fur, and a wiry rapid pulse, all Chinese medicine signs of specific pathologies.
When liver depression forms fire and counterflows transversely to invade the stomach, causing liver-stomach disharmony, this formula may be indicated. Inhibited qi in the liver channel causes distention and pain of the rib-sides, while liver fire invading the stomach produces the loss of the stomach’s harmonious downbearing, resulting in clamoring stomach, acid swallowing, vomiting, and belching. Internal exuberance of liver fire causes the tongue and pulse presentation.
In the section on the 19 pathomechanisms, the Nèi Jīng, a Chinese medical classic, states that “all counterflow upsurging is ascribed to fire,” and also states that “all sour retching and vomiting…is ascribed to heat.” This is the underlying theory within this formula, but the special relationship of Huang Lian (Coptidis Rhizoma) and Wu Zhu Yu (Evodiae Fructus) is its most unique feature.
Huang Lian, the chief medicinal herb in Zuo Jin Wan, enters the heart, liver, and stomach channels, and it directly clears liver fire. When liver fire is cleared, it no longer invades the stomach. It also drains stomach fire; when stomach fire is cleared, the stomach qi downbears on its own. Additionally, Huang Lian drains heart fire, which corresponds to the principle of “treating repletion by draining the child.”
If only bitter-cold medicinals are used to treat fire depressed in the liver channel, there is a fear that the coolness will cause obstruction and make the condition difficult to resolve. Therefore, a small amount of Wu Zhu Yu (evodia) is used to resolve liver depression and reverse stomach counterflow. Wu Zhu Yu helps Huang Lian to harmonize the stomach and check vomiting while also preventing damage to the stomach from the large quantity of bitter-cold Huang Lian. Wu Zhu Yu also helps guide Huang Lian to the liver channel, so some texts consider it to be a courier in addition to being a paradoxical assistant.
The combination of one cold and one hot medicinal in Zuo Jin Wan is very notable, and the formula has been studied extensively for many different clinical indications. Additionally, research has been done to evaluate the effects of decocting these two medicinals together, and it appears that the dosage of the two medicinals in relationship to each other affects the yield of suspected active chemical constituents.
According to oncological research:
“Zuo Jin Wan (ZJW), a typical traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) formula, has been identified to have anticancer activity in recent studies. In this study, we determined the underlying mechanism of ZJW in the reversal effect of multidrug resistance on colorectal cancer in vitro and in vivo. Our results showed that ZJW significantly enhanced the sensitivity of chemotherapeutic drugs in HCT116/L-OHP, SGC7901/DDP, and Bel/Fu MDR cells. Moreover, combination of chemotherapy with ZJW could reverse the drug resistance of HCT116/L-OHP cells, increase the sensitivity of HCT116/L-OHP cells to L-OHP, DDP, 5-Fu, and MMC in vitro, and inhibit the tumor growth in the colorectal MDR cancer xenograft model. ICP-MS results showed that ZJW could increase the concentration of chemotherapeutic drugs in HCT116/L-OHP cells in a dose-dependent manner. Furthermore, we showed that ZJW could reverse drug resistance of colorectal cancer cells by decreasing P-gp level in vitro and in vivo, which has been represented as one of the major mechanisms that contribute to the MDR phenotype. Our study has provided the first direct evidence that ZJW plays an important role in reversing multidrug resistance of human colorectal cancer and may be considered as a useful target for cancer therapy.” (PubMed)