Tonifies deficiency and nourishes weakness - Niu Ru is treated in food-medicine tradition as a gentle restorative for fatigue, emaciation, and convalescence when fluids and nutritive substance are depleted.
Benefits the Lung and Stomach while generating fluids - it is used for dry cough, thirst, regurgitation, and wasting patterns when dryness or lack of fluids affects the upper and middle burner.
Moistens the intestines and relieves dryness-related constipation - the lubricating quality of milk makes it especially useful when constipation comes from depletion or lack of fluids rather than heat excess.
Supports Blood and softens deficiency-type irritability - older dietetic traditions treat milk as a nutritive substance that can supplement the weak without requiring a strong herbal formula.
Secondary Actions
Niu Ru belongs more to food therapy than to ordinary decoction-style materia medica, so preparation and tolerance matter as much as abstract properties.
Its slightly cold, moistening nature helps dryness and wasting but can burden patients whose main problem is cold-damp, weak digestion, or heavy phlegm accumulation.
Classical References
Traditional herb and dietetic references describe Niu Ru as sweet and slightly cold, entering the Heart, Lung, and Stomach to tonify deficiency, generate fluids, moisten the intestines, and benefit the weak.
Food-therapy literature especially values milk for dry constipation, consumptive thirst, and convalescent weakness rather than for aggressive disease-transforming work.
Its long-standing use as nourishment explains why Niu Ru is treated more like a medicinal food with pattern cautions than like a strongly directional crude drug.
Modern Research
Active Compounds
Bovine milk oligosaccharides - prebiotic carbohydrates relevant to gut and immune research
Lactoferrin - an iron-binding glycoprotein associated with antimicrobial and immunomodulatory activity
Casein and whey proteins - the major nutritive protein fractions of cow's milk
Milk phospholipids and bioactive lipids - membrane-related constituents studied for gut and immune effects
Studied Effects
Bovine milk oligosaccharides modulated gut microbiota composition and short-chain-fatty-acid production in a neonatal preclinical model, which fits the traditional idea that Niu Ru can nourish and support the intestines when weakness and dryness are present (PMID 33919138).
A review of lactoferrin described broad antimicrobial, immunomodulatory, and anti-inflammatory activity, reinforcing why milk remains pharmacologically interesting beyond simple caloric nutrition (PMID 33401580).
A randomized controlled trial found that infant formula supplemented with milk-derived oligosaccharides shifted the gut microbiota closer to the pattern seen in breastfed infants and improved markers of intestinal immune defense, providing modern support for the gut-supportive potential of selected milk fractions (PMID 34617558).