Schisandraceae

Schisandra chinensis

Wu wei zi · Five-flavour berry · Magnolia vine

Untested Caution

Part used: fruit
Native range: Northeastern China, Korea, Japan and far eastern Russia
Morphology: A deciduous woody climber to about eight metres with fragrant cream flowers and drooping spikes of bright red berries.

What is in it

lignans schisandrin, gomisin A, deoxyschisandrin

volatile oil

Evidence

Very little controlled human evidence in the Western literature. The Soviet adaptogen research is substantial in volume and mostly unavailable in a form that meets modern standards.

Safety

Generally well tolerated. Induces drug-metabolising enzymes and transporters, so interactions are plausible and under-characterised. Reports of heartburn and appetite loss.

Interactions: Alters levels of drugs metabolised by CYP3A4; May affect tacrolimus levels

Regulatory: Permitted as a listed medicine ingredient in Australia.

How the traditions classify it

Chinese The Chinese name means five-flavour berry, because it is held to carry all five tastes — sour and sweet in the flesh, pungent and bitter in the seed, salty overall. Warm; entering the lung, heart and kidney channels. Used to astringe and to quieten the spirit.

Three systems, rating the same plant. Where they disagree, none of them is correcting the others — they are separate frameworks that arrived at their categories independently.

Historical use

In the Shennong Bencao Jing. Studied extensively in the Soviet Union from the 1940s as an adaptogen, alongside Eleutherococcus, in work aimed at pilots and athletes.

Recorded as history and attributed where possible. Long use establishes that a plant was widely used, not that it worked, and not that it was safe.

Worth knowing

The word adaptogen was coined in 1947 by Nikolai Lazarev, a Soviet pharmacologist, and it is worth knowing that it is a Cold War term rather than a traditional one. Schisandra and Eleutherococcus were the plants it was coined for, in research aimed at improving the performance of pilots, soldiers and athletes.

The concept — a substance that non-specifically increases resistance to stress — has never been given a definition that can be tested, which is why it appears on every supplement label and in no pharmacopoeia. Anyone selling you an adaptogen is using a term with a specific and rather strange history and no agreed meaning.

Nomenclature verified against GBIF backbone taxonomy.