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Not medical advice. The Atlas is not a substitute for a clinician who can examine you.

Wu Zi Yan Zong Wan

Five-Seed Formula (Five Seeds to Multiply Progeny)

Evidence grade 3 of 5, Mixed. Read how the Atlas grades evidence.

The written rationale for this grade is still being prepared.

FDA
Not FDA approved; sold as a dietary supplement / patent medicine

Reference only. Not medical advice.

What can go wrong

Generally well tolerated in reported trials, with mild GI effects most common. The main caution is evidential rather than toxicological: trials are largely single-center, Chinese, often unblinded, with publication-bias risk, so effect sizes may be inflated. As a botanical product it carries the usual category risks of batch variability, adulteration and heavy-metal contamination in poorly controlled supply chains, and it should not replace evaluation of treatable male-infertility causes (varicocele, endocrine, obstructive).

This is something to take to a clinician. The Atlas can tell you what is known about wu zi yan zong wan in general. It cannot tell you what is happening in your body, and the difference matters most for exactly the symptoms that bring people to this page.

Wu Zi Yan Zong Wan (roughly 'Five Seeds to Multiply the Lineage') is the archetypal Chinese male-fertility formula, built from five seed drugs: Gou Qi Zi (lycium/goji), Tu Si Zi (cuscuta/dodder, the chief herb), Fu Pen Zi (rubus/Chinese raspberry), Wu Wei Zi (schisandra) and Che Qian Zi (plantago). It is traditionally used to tonify the kidneys and secure essence (jing) for impotence, spermatorrhea and infertility. Among traditional formulas it has comparatively more clinical study: a 2025 meta-analysis of 11 RCTs (951 men) reported that adding the formula to conventional care was associated with improved sperm parameters and partner pregnancy rates, though the underlying trials were mostly Chinese, of modest quality and heterogeneous.

The classic five-seed sperm formula, and one of the better-studied traditional male-fertility remedies.

What people take it for

These are the reasons people give for taking it. They are not effects it has been shown to have.

  • Male infertility / oligoasthenospermia (traditional and studied)
  • Impotence and spermatorrhea (traditional)
  • Kidney essence deficiency (TCM)
  • Adjunct to conventional fertility care

How it is supposed to work

In TCM the seeds concentrate reproductive essence: cuscuta and rubus warm and secure kidney-yang, lycium and schisandra nourish yin and astringe essence, and plantago clears any heat generated by tonification. Proposed pharmacology includes antioxidant effects on sperm and modulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, but human mechanistic data are limited and the active constituents responsible are not established.

What people get wrong

  • Often saidIt boosts fertility as well as IVF

    ActuallyThe meta-analytic signal is for improved sperm parameters and pregnancy as an adjuvant to conventional care, not as a replacement for evidence-based fertility treatment. Trial quality is a real limitation.

  • Often saidHerbal so it cannot fail

    ActuallyTraditional fertility formulas do not address structural or endocrine causes of infertility and can delay effective treatment if used alone.

Who profits, and who pushes back

Nobody is named here yet, because we have not done that work on this entry. Read that as unfinished. Somebody almost certainly sells this, and somebody almost certainly disputes it. Assume both until we have checked.

How we got here

The formula appears in classical Chinese materia medica as a lineage/fertility prescription (its name literally invokes propagating descendants) and has been used for centuries as a first-line kidney-essence tonic for men trying to conceive. It remains one of the most commonly prescribed TCM fertility formulas in modern China.

What we do not know

  • Would a rigorous multi-center blinded RCT confirm the meta-analytic sperm/pregnancy signal?
  • Which seed constituents drive any antioxidant effect on sperm?

At a glance

Five seeds
Lycium, Cuscuta, Rubus, Schisandra, Plantago
Chief herb
Tu Si Zi (cuscuta)
Meta-analysis
11 RCTs, 951 men (2025)
Framing
Tonify kidney, secure jing

What this entry does not yet cover

What follows is unfinished work on our side, not a finding about Wu Zi Yan Zong Wan. A short entry is not a safe entry.

  • Timeline. We have not built the dated record of research and regulatory events.
  • Cost and market. We have not documented what it sells for or who sells it.
  • Supply chain. We have not mapped where it is made.
  • Who uses it. We have not documented the user groups.
  • What could change. No forward-looking summary yet.
  • How it compares. We have not set it against the alternatives.
  • Children and teenagers. We have not checked what is known about younger people.

Sources

The studies below are named and described, but not linked. You cannot open them from here and check our reading against them, which means this page is our summary of the literature rather than a document you can verify. Weigh it accordingly until the links exist.

The studies that matter

  • Meta-analysis of Wu-Zi-Yan-Zong formula as adjuvant for abnormal sperm parameters2025

    Pooled 11 RCTs (951 men); adjuvant use associated with improved sperm parameters and higher partner pregnancy rate, but trials of modest quality