Baicalin and the Chinese Skullcap Research

Table of Contents

1. Huang Qin: The Herb Behind the Research
2. Baicalin, Baicalein and Wogonin
3. The Scale of the Literature, and Why It Misleads
4. Inflammatory Signalling: The Best-Developed Thread
5. Other Preclinical Threads
6. The Pharmacokinetic Bottleneck
7. What Human Evidence Exists
8. Used in Formulas, Not as an Isolate
9. Why This Is Not Established as the Anxiety Herb
10. Quality, Standardisation and Labels
11. Safety: Liver Signal, Interactions, Pregnancy
12. How to Read a Baicalin Headline
13. Key Research Papers
14. Connections
15. Featured Videos

Huang Qin: The Herb Behind the Research

Evidence tier: botany and traditional use.

Scutellaria baicalensis is a perennial of dry, stony grassland across northeast China, Mongolia, Korea, Japan and eastern Siberia — the species epithet points to Lake Baikal. It has narrow, nearly stalkless leaves and dense one-sided spikes of violet-blue flowers, but the part that matters is underground: a thick taproot whose interior is a vivid yellow. That colour is flavone pigment, and it gives the herb its Chinese name, huang qin — roughly “yellow herb.” Roots are usually lifted from plants at least three years old, cleaned, sometimes peeled, sliced and dried; traditional processing may additionally stir-fry them or treat them with wine, which Chinese medicine regards as modifying the herb's action.

In classical terms huang qin is bitter and cold, and it belongs to the heat-clearing, damp-drying category — the part of the traditional map that covers inflammatory, feverish and infectious presentations. It is a formula herb rather than a solo remedy, appearing alongside ingredients such as huang lian (Coptis, a berberine-rich root) and huang bai, and in a long list of named combinations for the gut, the chest and other systems. A 2016 review by Zhao and colleagues lists the conditions the root has been applied to as diarrhea, dysentery, hypertension, hemorrhaging, insomnia, inflammation and respiratory infections. Anxiety and nervous tension are not on that list.

Why the plant makes so much flavone at all is itself an interesting question, addressed in Scutellaria baicalensis, the golden herb from the garden of Chinese medicinal plants (Science Bulletin, 2016; PubMed PMID: 27730005), which describes a biosynthetic route to these unusual 4′-deoxyflavones that is specific to the root and distinct from the ordinary flavonoid pathway found in leaves.

Baicalin, Baicalein and Wogonin

Evidence tier: analytical chemistry.

Four related molecules account for most of the interest, and the relationship between them matters for interpreting any study:

• Baicalin — the glucuronide, meaning baicalein with a sugar-acid group attached. This is the dominant form in the root and the compound pharmacopoeial standards are written around; good-quality huang qin commonly assays at several percent baicalin by dry weight, which is a remarkable concentration for a single plant secondary metabolite.
• Baicalein — the aglycone, the sugar removed. It is more lipophilic than baicalin and is generally the more active form in cell assays. Crucially, it is also largely what the body sees, because gut bacteria strip the sugar from baicalin before absorption.
• Wogonoside and wogonin — a second glycoside/aglycone pair, with wogonin featuring heavily in the oncology-model literature.

The glycoside/aglycone distinction is the reason a great deal of published work is hard to compare. A paper that applies baicalein directly to cultured cells at a defined micromolar concentration is testing something quite different from a study that feeds an animal baicalin, or from a person swallowing a root extract in which baicalin is bound up with dozens of other constituents. Studies are not interchangeable simply because the same plant name appears in the title.

The Scale of the Literature, and Why It Misleads

A search for these compounds in PubMed returns a volume of results that is genuinely difficult to summarise (PubMed search). Baicalin alone has been the subject of many hundreds of papers, and there are review articles whose sole purpose is to survey the reviews. It would be easy to mistake that volume for evidence of therapeutic effect. It is not, for several reasons worth being explicit about:

1. Almost all of it is preclinical. Cell lines and rodent models dominate. In-vitro results are cheap to produce, publishable, and famously poor predictors of human outcomes.
2. Flavonoids are promiscuous in laboratory assays. Polyphenols interact with a great many proteins and interfere with a number of common assay readouts, so a compound of this class will generate positive hits against almost any target it is screened against. A long list of “activities” is partly a property of the chemical class, not a discovery about the plant.
3. Concentrations used in cells often exceed anything achievable in a person. Micromolar exposure in a dish is routine; the corresponding plasma concentrations after an oral dose are typically far lower, and the aglycone that acts in the dish is rapidly conjugated in the body.
4. Publication bias runs one way. A study showing that a famous herbal compound did nothing is much harder to publish than one showing it did something.
5. Reviews recycle rather than test. A finding cited in twenty reviews is still one experiment.

None of this means the research is worthless. It means the correct label for nearly all of it is preliminary, and that the interesting question is which threads have progressed toward humans rather than which sound most impressive.

Inflammatory Signalling: The Best-Developed Thread

Evidence tier: preliminary — in-vitro and animal models.

The most coherent body of work concerns inflammation, which also happens to be the closest modern analogue to the traditional heat-clearing indication. The recurring findings across many independent laboratories include:

• Suppression of pro-inflammatory transcription. Baicalin and baicalein have repeatedly been reported to dampen NF-κB-driven signalling in stimulated cells, with downstream reductions in cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-1β and interleukin-6.
• Inhibition of lipoxygenase pathways. Baicalein is one of the better-characterised plant inhibitors of 12-lipoxygenase, an enzyme in the arachidonic-acid cascade that generates inflammatory lipid mediators. This is a relatively specific and well-replicated biochemical property rather than a vague antioxidant claim.
• Antioxidant and metal-chelating behaviour. Expected of a polyphenol, easy to demonstrate in a test tube, and the least informative of the three — nearly every dietary polyphenol does this, including those with no therapeutic use.

The reviews that survey this material are numerous; the therapeutic potential of baicalin and baicalein specifically in inflammatory disorders has been reviewed in the medicinal-chemistry literature (PubMed search), and the genus-wide pharmacology is covered in The genus Scutellaria: an ethnopharmacological and phytochemical review (Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 2010; PubMed PMID: 20064593).

What is missing is the step that matters: adequately powered randomized trials in humans with an inflammatory disease, using a defined extract, reporting clinical rather than biochemical endpoints. Until those exist, “Chinese skullcap is anti-inflammatory” is a statement about cell cultures.

Other Preclinical Threads

Evidence tier: preliminary throughout. None of the following is an established human use.

• Oncology models. The largest single sub-literature. Wogonin, baicalein and baicalin have been reported to induce apoptosis, arrest the cell cycle and inhibit growth across many cancer cell lines and some xenograft models. This was surveyed in New therapeutic aspects of flavones: the anticancer properties of Scutellaria and its main active constituents wogonin, baicalein and baicalin (Cancer Treatment Reviews, 2009; PubMed PMID: 19004559). Plainly: killing cancer cells in a dish is an extremely weak predictor of clinical benefit, and this literature does not support using the herb to treat cancer. Some botanicals interfere with cancer treatment.
• Neuroprotection. Baicalein has been studied in animal models of ischaemic stroke, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's pathology, generally with reductions in markers of oxidative damage and neuroinflammation (PubMed search). Interesting, unresolved, and animal work only.
• Metabolic models. Reports of improved insulin sensitivity, reduced hepatic fat and altered lipid handling in rodents fed high-fat diets (PubMed search). Rodent metabolic models have a poor translation record.
• Antimicrobial and antiviral activity in vitro. Baicalin and baicalein show activity against a range of bacteria and viruses in culture, and have been examined as adjuvants that restore antibiotic activity against resistant strains (PubMed search). In-vitro antimicrobial activity is common among plant polyphenols and rarely survives the journey into a patient.
• Hepatoprotection in models. A genuine irony of this literature: baicalin has been reported to protect rodent livers against various chemical insults, while baicalin-containing products appear in human liver-injury reports. Both can be true — model systems and real-world exposures differ — and the discrepancy is a good illustration of why animal protection data do not establish human safety. See the liver safety page.

The Pharmacokinetic Bottleneck

Evidence tier: human and animal pharmacokinetics — the best-established part of the baicalin story.

If you want one reason the laboratory findings have not become treatments, it is absorption. Baicalin's pharmacokinetics were reviewed in Baicalin, an emerging multi-therapeutic agent: pharmacodynamics, pharmacokinetics, and considerations from drug development perspectives (Xenobiotica, 2010; PubMed PMID: 20230189), and the picture is awkward at every stage:

1. Baicalin itself is poorly absorbed. As a glucuronide it is large and polar, and it is not efficiently taken up across the intestinal wall in that form.
2. Gut bacteria have to unlock it. Intestinal microbial β-glucuronidases hydrolyse baicalin to baicalein, which is absorbable. Absorption therefore depends on the person's microbiome — which varies enormously between individuals and is disturbed by antibiotics. This is a genuinely uncomfortable source of variability for anything hoping to be a medicine.
3. The body immediately re-conjugates it. Absorbed baicalein is rapidly glucuronidated and sulfated in the gut wall and liver, so much of what circulates is conjugate again, not the free aglycone that was active in the dish.
4. Enterohepatic recycling complicates the curve. Conjugates excreted in bile can be de-conjugated again by gut bacteria and reabsorbed, producing multiple plasma peaks and making dose–exposure relationships untidy.
5. Resulting plasma concentrations are low. Free aglycone exposure after realistic oral doses generally sits well below the concentrations at which the striking cell-culture effects were observed.

This is not a fatal objection — plenty of useful drugs have inconvenient pharmacokinetics — but it does mean that extrapolating from a micromolar cell experiment to a capsule is unjustified, and it explains why so much effort has gone into novel formulations rather than into clinical trials of the plain extract.

What Human Evidence Exists

Evidence tier: limited clinical data; nothing that establishes a therapeutic use.

Four strands of human work are worth knowing about, and none of them establishes a general use:

• Combination products with defined ingredients. The best-documented human experience with a baicalin-containing preparation is, unfortunately, a safety one: the flavocoxid product that combined S. baicalensis baicalin with catechins from another plant, marketed for osteoarthritis, was the subject of a liver-injury case series in Annals of Internal Medicine in 2012. Of 877 patients in the Drug-Induced Liver Injury Network study, 4 had liver injury suspected to come from flavocoxid: all women aged 57 to 68, with symptoms 1 to 3 months after starting and a mean peak bilirubin of 9.4 mg/dL. Liver values returned to normal within 3 to 12 weeks of stopping and all four recovered. Causality was judged highly likely in 3 and possible in 1, and the authors could not assess how often this happens (PubMed PMID: 22711078). That it reached the clinic at all shows the compound was taken seriously; what it produced was a hepatotoxicity signal.
• Traditional multi-herb formulas in trials. Some clinical research has tested classical formulas containing huang qin rather than the isolated herb — for example, work on a four-herb decoction studied as an adjunct to chemotherapy to reduce gastrointestinal toxicity (PubMed search; PubMed PMID: 20720216; a phase II trial of the formula with capecitabine in 25 people with advanced pancreatic cancer: PubMed PMID: 24297682). Such trials test the formula, and cannot attribute any effect to huang qin alone.
• Pharmacokinetic and interaction studies in volunteers. Human studies have examined how baicalin affects the handling of co-administered drugs, including work on baicalin with a statin, where transporter-mediated changes in drug exposure were reported: in 18 healthy volunteers, 50 mg of baicalin three times a day for 14 days lowered blood levels of rosuvastatin by up to 47%, depending on the person's version of the transporter gene OATP1B1 (PubMed PMID: 17851565). These studies are small but they establish something practically important: the compound does reach the circulation in amounts sufficient to interact with drug transport.
• Small recent trials of S. baicalensis products. A randomized crossover trial gave people with type 2 diabetes already on metformin 3.52 g a day of S. baicalensis or placebo for 8 weeks each; the authors report improved glucose tolerance, and also that some people had high liver enzymes on the herb, which fits the liver signal on this page (PubMed PMID: 31770016). A 6-week randomized placebo-controlled trial in 180 people with mild-to-moderate depressive symptoms, split across four groups, reported a positive effect on mood from a scutellaria extract alone and a greater improvement in depressive and anxious symptoms when combined with saffron (PubMed PMID: 40077679). A 15-day crossover trial of a mixed product (S. baicalensis, hawthorn, magnesium and chromium; 35 people analyzed) reported lower trait anxiety and no serious side effects (PubMed PMID: 41194549). A 4-week trial of a stem-extract blend in 85 healthy adults found no difference from placebo on cognition (PubMed PMID: 39701593).

What does not exist, as far as the published record shows, is a large randomized placebo-controlled trial of a standardised S. baicalensis root extract with a clinical endpoint in a defined patient population. A claim otherwise would need a citation to such a trial. ClinicalTrials.gov lists registered trials, which shows whether that has changed.

Used in Formulas, Not as an Isolate

An underappreciated mismatch runs through this whole field. Traditional practice uses huang qin as one ingredient among several, chosen for a pattern diagnosis, often processed in a specific way, and adjusted over the course of treatment. Modern research overwhelmingly studies a single purified molecule at a fixed concentration in a homogeneous system. These are not the same object of study, and results from one do not validate the other.

That cuts in both directions. It means the traditional record cannot be taken as evidence that baicalin works, since the tradition never used baicalin. And it means the molecular literature cannot be taken as vindication of the tradition, since the tradition never used anything resembling those doses of a purified flavone. Both claims get made, and both are unearned. Other TCM formula herbs on this site — Astragalus, Chen Pi, Chrysanthemum, Licorice — face the same interpretive problem.

Why This Is Not Established as the Anxiety Herb

To close the loop with the rest of this section, the reasons Chinese skullcap and American skullcap are kept apart when the goal is feeling calmer:

1. Little traditional basis. Huang qin's classical indications are chiefly inflammatory and infectious, and calming the mind is not their theme, although the 2016 Zhao review does list insomnia among the conditions the root has been applied to.
2. A thin human trial basis. The small randomized anxiety studies of skullcap on its own were conducted with S. lateriflora aerial parts, not S. baicalensis root, and their results cannot be transferred. Small mood and stress trials of S. baicalensis products have now appeared (see What Human Evidence Exists), with anxiety improvements reported for a saffron combination and a mixed product; none of them shows the root easing anxiety on its own.
3. Different chemistry at different doses. Although both plants contain baicalin, the American herb's activity has been attributed to a broader profile including scutellarein-type flavonoids, and its trials used aerial-part extracts, not concentrated root flavones.
4. Different, and worse, safety questions. Concentrated baicalin products carry their own liver-injury signal and clearer interaction potential.
5. It tastes and behaves like what it is. A bitter cold root extract is not a bedtime tea, and treating it as one is a category error rather than a subtle mistake.

The calming herb of Western tradition is covered in Skullcap for Anxiety and Sleep; a product of that herb names Scutellaria lateriflora and “aerial parts” on the label.

Quality, Standardisation and Labels

Chinese skullcap is, in one respect, easier to buy sensibly than the American species: because pharmacopoeial standards for huang qin are written around baicalin content, a stated baicalin percentage is a meaningful specification, and the root's yellow interior is a visible identity check on whole sliced material. What a label and testing can show:

• The binomial Scutellaria baicalensis and the word “root” on the label, which name the species and the plant part.
• A stated baicalin content if it is an extract, with the extract ratio.
• Heavy-metal and pesticide testing. Root crops accumulate soil contaminants more readily than leaves, which makes this more than a formality for any root herb.
• Third-party quality certification such as verification by a pharmacopeial standards body or an independent testing organisation — a statement about manufacturing quality, not about efficacy.
• “Proprietary blends.” When the amount of each herb is undisclosed, neither the dose nor the interactions can be assessed.

Note the asymmetry with the American species: for S. lateriflora the dominant worry is that the material is not the plant it claims to be, whereas for S. baicalensis the dominant worry is contamination and undisclosed dose. Both are supply-chain problems; they are not the same problem.

Safety: Liver Signal, Interactions, Pregnancy

• Liver injury has been reported with baicalin-containing products. The flavocoxid case series is the clearest example, and some people in the 2020 type 2 diabetes trial had high liver enzymes on the herb. The broader herbal and dietary supplement hepatotoxicity literature is reviewed in Liver injury from herbal and dietary supplements (Hepatology, 2017; PubMed PMID: 27677775), which does not single out Scutellaria: it names anabolic steroids, green tea extract and multi-ingredient supplements as the major agents, and says the responsible component of a multi-ingredient product is usually unknown. Unlike the germander story on the American side, the flavocoxid signal points at the ingredient mixture itself, not an impostor. The herb is very widely consumed, and the concern is greater for concentrated single-compound products than for a formula-level dose.
• Drug interactions are a live concern, not a theoretical one. In healthy volunteers, baicalin lowered blood levels of the statin rosuvastatin by up to 47%, through the transporter OATP1B1, and a 2010 review lists CYP2B6 induction and CYP2E1 inhibition among baicalin's drug-development challenges. The research raises a concern for people on anticoagulants, statins, antiepileptics, immunosuppressants, chemotherapy or any narrow-therapeutic-index drug, where a small change in blood level matters.
• Pregnancy and breastfeeding. Huang qin has traditional obstetric uses inside formulas, which is not modern safety data, so safety in pregnancy and breastfeeding is not established.
• Existing liver disease. The liver-injury reports raise a particular concern for people with liver disease; see Liver Disease and Liver Function Tests.
• Bleeding risk. Lipoxygenase inhibition and effects on platelet function are plausible on mechanistic grounds, which raises a concern for people on antiplatelet or anticoagulant therapy and around surgery.
• “Skullcap” on a label may be either species. Someone intending to take the calming herb can end up taking this one, and vice versa.

How to Read a Baicalin Headline

A short checklist that defuses most overclaiming:

1. Cells, animals, or people? If the answer is cells or animals, the correct verb is “may,” and the correct next sentence is that this has not been tested in humans.
2. Which molecule? Baicalein applied to cells is not baicalin swallowed by a person.
3. What concentration, and is it achievable? Compare against the low plasma exposures reported in pharmacokinetic studies.
4. Whole extract or isolate? Neither result transfers cleanly to the other.
5. Which species and part? The perennial skullcap question. Root of baicalensis, or aerial parts of lateriflora?
6. Who is selling something? Baicalin research is a favourite of marketing copy precisely because the abstracts sound dramatic.

Key Research Papers

Where a specific paper is identified, the entry closes with its PubMed record; where a broad literature is described, it closes with a topic search. Each entry carries an explicit evidence tier.

1. Zhao Q, Chen XY, Martin C. Scutellaria baicalensis, the golden herb from the garden of Chinese medicinal plants. Science Bulletin, 2016;61(18):1391-1398. Why the root accumulates baicalin and wogonin, via a root-specific biosynthetic route. Plant biochemistry review. PubMed PMID: 27730005
2. Shang X, He X, He X, Li M, Zhang R, Fan P, Zhang Q, Jia Z. The genus Scutellaria an ethnopharmacological and phytochemical review. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 2010;128(2):279-313. Genus-wide chemistry, traditional uses and pharmacology; establishes how far species differ. Review. PubMed PMID: 20064593
3. Srinivas NR. Baicalin, an emerging multi-therapeutic agent: pharmacodynamics, pharmacokinetics, and considerations from drug development perspectives. Xenobiotica, 2010;40(5):357-67. The absorption, microbial hydrolysis, re-conjugation and recycling problem. Pharmacokinetic review. PubMed PMID: 20230189
4. Li-Weber M. New therapeutic aspects of flavones: the anticancer properties of Scutellaria and its main active constituents Wogonin, Baicalein and Baicalin. Cancer Treatment Reviews, 2009;35(1):57-68. The scale of the oncology-model literature. Preclinical review. PubMed PMID: 19004559
5. Reviews of baicalin and baicalein in inflammatory disorders — NF-κB suppression, cytokine reduction and lipoxygenase inhibition across cell and animal models. Preclinical review literature. PubMed search
6. Baicalein as an inhibitor of 12-lipoxygenase and related arachidonic-acid pathway enzymes — one of the compound's better-defined biochemical properties. In-vitro biochemistry. PubMed search
7. Chalasani N, Vuppalanchi R, Navarro V, Fontana R, Bonkovsky H, Barnhart H, Kleiner DE, Hoofnagle JH. Acute liver injury due to flavocoxid ([brand name omitted]), a medical food for osteoarthritis: a case series. Annals of Internal Medicine, 2012;156(12):857-60. Hepatotoxicity with a baicalin-containing combination product. Clinical case series. PubMed PMID: 22711078
8. Navarro VJ, Khan I, Björnsson E, Seeff LB, Serrano J, Hoofnagle JH. Liver injury from herbal and dietary supplements. Hepatology, 2017;65(1):363-373. The wider supplement hepatotoxicity picture; it does not single out Scutellaria. Clinical review. PubMed PMID: 27677775
9. Fan L, Zhang W, Guo D, Tan ZR, Xu P, Li Q, Liu YZ, Zhang L, He TY, Hu DL, Wang D, Zhou HH. The effect of herbal medicine baicalin on pharmacokinetics of rosuvastatin, substrate of organic anion-transporting polypeptide 1B1. Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 2008;83(3):471-6. Evidence that oral baicalin reaches concentrations capable of affecting drug handling. Small human pharmacokinetic study. PubMed PMID: 17851565
10. Clinical research on classical huang qin-containing decoctions as adjuncts in cancer chemotherapy — formula-level trials that cannot attribute effects to the single herb. Early-phase clinical. PubMed search
11. Lam W, Bussom S, Guan F, Jiang Z, Zhang W, Gullen EA, Liu SH, Cheng YC. The four-herb Chinese medicine PHY906 reduces chemotherapy-induced gastrointestinal toxicity. Science Translational Medicine, 2010;2(45):45ra59. Mouse work, citing an earlier phase I/II clinical study. Animal. PubMed PMID: 20720216
12. Saif MW, Li J, Lamb L, Kaley K, Elligers K, Jiang Z, Bussom S, Liu SH, Cheng YC. First-in-human phase II trial of the botanical formulation PHY906 with capecitabine as second-line therapy in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer. Cancer Chemotherapy and Pharmacology, 2014;73(2):373-80. Early-phase clinical. PubMed PMID: 24297682
13. Shin NR, Gu N, Choi HS, Kim H. Combined effects of Scutellaria baicalensis with metformin on glucose tolerance of patients with type 2 diabetes via gut microbiota modulation. American Journal of Physiology. Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2020;318(1):E52-E61. Randomized crossover trial. PubMed PMID: 31770016
14. Dormal V, Suchareau M, Copine S, Simar L, Deldicque L. The Effects of Combined Scutellaria and Saffron Supplementation on Mood Regulation in Participants with Mild-to-Moderate Depressive Symptoms: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study. Nutrients, 2025;17(5). Randomized trial. PubMed PMID: 40077679
15. Dodd F, Weishaupt R, Katumba PKM, Elcoate R, Wightman E. Effects of a Scutellaria baicalensis/Crataegus laevigata, magnesium and chromium supplement on stressed individuals: A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover trial. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 2025;39(12):1420-1436. Randomized crossover trial of a mixture. PubMed PMID: 41194549
16. Krieger JM, Hagele AM, Mumford PW, De Gregorio D, Gaige CJ, Hoffman ER, Gross KN, Holley KF, Allen LE, Kerksick CM. Effects of Acacia catechu and Scutellaria baicalensis extract on cognitive function in a healthy adult population: a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. Nutritional Neuroscience, 2025;28(8):975-986. Randomized trial of a mixture. PubMed PMID: 39701593
17. Baicalein in animal models of neurodegeneration and ischaemic injury. Preliminary, animal. PubMed search
18. Baicalin in rodent models of insulin resistance and hepatic fat accumulation. Preliminary, animal. PubMed search
19. In-vitro antibacterial and antiviral activity of Scutellaria baicalensis flavones, including antibiotic-adjuvant work. In-vitro. PubMed search
20. The broad literature on baicalin, baicalein and wogonin from S. baicalensis — useful mainly for appreciating its volume relative to its clinical content. Mixed, overwhelmingly preclinical. PubMed search

External Resources

1. NIH National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health — herb summaries and safety notes.
2. NIH Office of Dietary Supplements — supplement fact sheets.
3. PubMed — search Scutellaria baicalensis with the compound name.
4. ClinicalTrials.gov — whether any adequately sized human trial exists.
5. NCBI Bookshelf — hosts LiverTox, the NIH reference on drug and herbal liver injury.
6. Pharmacopeial standards body — supplement quality verification.
7. Botanical education association — botanical identity and adulterants programmes.

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Connections

• All Herbs
• Skullcap (main article)
• Skullcap Benefits Hub
• American vs Chinese Skullcap
• Skullcap for Anxiety and Sleep
• Germander Adulteration and Liver Injury
• Berberine
• Barberry
• Astragalus
• Chen Pi
• Chrysanthemum
• Licorice
• Goldenseal
• Milk Thistle
• Luteolin
• Apigenin
• Quercetin
• Curcumin
• Liver Disease
• Nephrology and Hepatology
• Liver Function Tests

Safety and disclaimer. This page is educational and is not medical advice. Chinese skullcap root (Scutellaria baicalensis) and its flavones baicalin, baicalein and wogonin are not established treatments for any disease in humans; virtually the entire supporting literature is cell-culture and animal work, and it is labelled as such above. The research does not establish it as a treatment for cancer, liver disease, infection or any other serious condition, and some botanicals interfere with chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Baicalin-containing products have appeared in liver-injury reports, a particular concern for people with liver disease; unusual fatigue, nausea, abdominal pain, dark urine, pale stools, and yellowing of the skin or eyes are signs of liver injury that hospitals treat as urgent. Flavone-rich extracts can affect drug-metabolising enzymes and transporters, which raises a concern for prescription medicines and around surgery. Safety in pregnancy and breastfeeding is not established. A product labelled only “skullcap” may be this species or the unrelated American nervine.

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