Ancient legend says that the bodyguards of Gengis Khan, threatened with beheading if they fell asleep on duty, used this tea to stay awake.  Conversely, Zen monks used ma huang in a different dosage to promote calm concentration during meditation.  It is the proper dosage and use of the whole plant that determines ma huang's effect and benefit.  Ironically, a lower dosage creates the stimulating effect on the central nervous system, and a higher dose produces the sedative effect.  It's the higher doses that are creating the adverse publicity.

In recent years, modern pharmaceutical manufacturers have begun marketing ma huang as a weight loss aid and energy stimulant.  They are formulating over the counter (OTC) products with large doses of the active constituent—the alkaloid, ephedrine.  Alkaloids are easy to isolate from the mother plant, are quickly absorbed from the digestive tract, exert their effects through the central nervous system, and are excreted fairly quickly.  These doses are much larger than the amount of ephedrine present if the whole herb were used.

In natural therapies, herbs are intended to be used in their entirety, and frequently contain more than one active ingredient, which may help buffer or counteract possible negative effects.  Pharmaceutical manufacturing isolates chemical compounds, concentrates them, and then markets them as a drug.  The results, sometimes tragic, have resulted from implementing a substance out of its context.  Ancient herbal formulas require that the herb be used in its entirety in a specific dosage to be effective.  The presences of other chemical compounds in the herb mitigate the potential danger of ephedrine.  One of these is pseudoephedrine, which is the main ingredient in such pharmaceutically generated products as Sudafed®, Actifed®, Contac®, and Sinutab®, among others.

Ma Huang
Ephedra Controversy
Governmental Intervention
Effective Uses of Ma Huang
Personal Notes on Ma Huang