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

You Gui Wan

Restore the Right (Kidney) Pill

Evidence grade 2 of 5, Thin. 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

The classic version contains processed aconite (Fu Zi), carrying the same aconitine cardiotoxicity caveats as other kidney-yang formulas; some commercial versions reduce or omit it. It is warming and cloying, potentially unsuitable in yin-deficiency/heat patterns or GI weakness. Deer-antler-containing versions raise sourcing and adulteration questions. Product quality and heavy-metal content are not standardized across importers.

This is something to take to a clinician. The Atlas can tell you what is known about you gui 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.

You Gui Wan (Restore the Right Pill) is a Kidney-Yang tonic formulated by the Ming physician Zhang Jingyue (Zhang Jiebin) in his Jing Yue Quan Shu (1624). Zhang's insight was that yang cannot be warmed in isolation without a yin/essence substrate to anchor it, so the formula pairs warming yang tonics (aconite, cinnamon, eucommia, cuscuta, deer antler gelatin in the classic version) with heavy yin and blood tonics (prepared rehmannia, cornus, dioscorea, lycium, dang gui). It is traditionally prescribed for deep Kidney-Yang deficiency presenting as impotence, spermatorrhea, cold limbs, low back weakness and infertility. Modern study is mostly in osteoporosis models; human sexual-function data are minimal.

Ming-dynasty upgrade of the kidney-yang pill built on 'seeking yang within yin'.

What people take it for

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

  • Kidney-Yang deficiency (TCM)
  • Impotence and spermatorrhea (traditional)
  • Infertility (traditional)
  • Cold limbs, sore/weak lower back
  • Studied in osteoporosis models

How it is supposed to work

The formula is designed to warm and secure Kidney-Yang while replenishing essence (jing) and blood, so that the warming effect is sustained rather than transient. Pharmacokinetic work (e.g., multi-component plasma studies in kidney-deficiency osteoporosis rats) has profiled marker compounds, but no validated human mechanism links the formula to improved erectile function or spermatogenesis.

What people get wrong

  • Often saidRestores male potency

    ActuallyTraditional texts use it for impotence, but there is no robust human trial evidence that You Gui Wan restores erectile function or fertility.

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

Zhang Jingyue created the paired formulas You Gui Wan (restore the right/yang) and Zuo Gui Wan (restore the left/yin) as a deliberate rethinking of the classical Shen Qi Wan, emphasizing that yang and yin tonification are interdependent. The 'left/right kidney' framing reflects the classical TCM idea of the right kidney (ming men, life-gate fire) as the seat of yang.

  1. 1624Published in Jing Yue Quan Shu by Zhang Jingyue
  2. 20th c.Standardized as patent teapills
  3. 2020sPharmacokinetic marker studies in rodent kidney-deficiency models

At a glance

Author
Zhang Jingyue
Text
Jing Yue Quan Shu, 1624
Herbs
~10
Key principle
Seeking yang within yin

What this entry does not yet cover

What follows is unfinished work on our side, not a finding about You Gui Wan. A short entry is not a safe entry.

  • 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

  • Twelve-component pharmacokinetic study of You Gui Wan in osteoporosis rats2023

    Profiled plasma marker compounds under kidney-yin vs kidney-yang deficiency; preclinical