Carp

Traditional Use

Primary Actions

• Promotes urination and reduces swelling - Li Yu is a classic food-medicine for edema, ascites, puffy limbs, and damp water retention, especially when prepared as therapeutic soups rather than dried decoction material.
• Directs Qi downward and relieves cough or wheezing - traditional texts extend its use to cough with rebellious Qi and fullness from retained fluids, particularly when damp obstruction burdens the chest and middle burner.
• Promotes lactation - widely used postpartum or in dietary therapy when breast milk is insufficient and the patient also shows weakness, fluid imbalance, or poor appetite.
• Supports chronic deficiency-water patterns - later dietetic traditions value carp for nephropathy, chronic edema, jaundice, and convalescent weakness because it supplies nourishment while also helping fluid metabolism.

Secondary Actions

• Li Yu sits at the border of materia medica and diet therapy, so it often appears as soups and food formulas with adzuki bean, ginger, citrus peel, or Huang Qi rather than as a standard powdered pharmacy herb.
• Classical external use also includes charring the fish and applying the powder topically, showing that the medicinal tradition extends beyond simple food use.

Classic Formulas

• Li Yu Chi Xiao Dou Tang (鲤鱼赤小豆汤) - classical carp and adzuki-bean soup for edema, ascites, water retention, and nephropathy-related swelling, with later dietetic variants adding Bai Mao Gen, Sang Bai Pi, and Huang Qi.
• Cyprinus carpio decoction - the well-known food-medicine preparation discussed in both classical and modern Chinese nephropathy literature for proteinuria, edema, and chronic water retention.
• Carp with red bean and Chen Pi or Sheng Jiang - common therapeutic soup lineage for postpartum swelling, poor lactation, obesity with damp accumulation, and chronic puffy-fluid patterns.
• Charred Li Yu powder - traditional external preparation mentioned for local application after stir-baking and powdering the fish.

Classical References

• TCM Wiki summarizes Li Yu as sweet and neutral, entering the Spleen and Kidney channels, with actions of promoting urination, reducing swelling, directing Qi downward, and promoting lactation.
• The Cyprinus carpio decoction nephropathy paper cites Compendium of Materia Medica and related classical traditions describing carp as sweet and gentle, able to alleviate water retention, strengthen the Spleen, and eliminate dampness.
• Dietetic tradition preserves the older saying that boiled carp treats edema, promotes urination, relieves wheezing, and supports milk production, which explains why Li Yu remains more common in therapeutic soups than in raw-herb cabinets.