Chinese herbs consist of plants, animals and minerals. Shen Nong’s Herbal Classic (Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing), written around the 1st or 2nd Century AD is the oldest known book on Materia Medica that has survived. It recorded 365 herbs and their uses and has exerted significant influence on the subsequent development of Chinese herbs.

Herbs are most often used in combination as this way the herbs can enhance and harmonise each other’s effectiveness.

The practitioner will form a prescription after a detailed consultation which can be tweaked in quantity or changed after every follow up consultation. The complexity of the plant materials and with the guidance of ancient “tried and tested” formulas means that the herbs balance each other and are less likely to cause side effects compared to isolated active ingredients of Pharmaceutical drugs please see RCHM for further information.

In the UK, Chinese medicine practitioners may only prescribe herbs of plant origin for internal use. At XinSheng we source our herbs from suppliers of the “Approved Suppliers Scheme” which are audited by trained pharmaceutical auditors. They ensure the herbs are free of harmful substances (such as heavy metals for example) and come from a reputable source. Please refer to ATCM for a more comprehensive list of conditions that herbal medicine can treat.