Written by Erin Yeh
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines long Covid as persistent symptoms of Covid-19 that occur three months after initial infection. Symptoms last for at least two months and cannot be explained by other diagnoses. Currently, there are no specific Western medicine treatments for long Covid, and care generally focuses on symptom relief and lifestyle interventions, but what about traditional Chinese medicine (TCM)?
The National Health Commission of China has issued the Diagnosis and Treatment Protocol for Novel Coronavirus Infection, which provides the distinction between TCM syndrome and recommended prescriptions for recovery from COVID-19. Published in Future integrative medicine (DOI: 10.14218/FIM.2026.00001), the research team investigated the effectiveness of traditional Chinese medicine on long-term coronavirus and explored whether it could relieve symptoms and aid recovery.
Evaluation of traditional Chinese medicine for long coronavirus
The research team divided participants into a treatment group that received traditional Chinese medicine treatments with Western symptomatic treatment and lifestyle intervention and a control group that received Western symptomatic treatments only. Participants were assigned to their group based on clinical treatment preferences and consultation with their physicians.
Patients in the TCM treatment group were classified into three differentiation-based types of TCM syndrome—lung and spleen qi deficiency, yin qi deficiency, and lung cold fluid stasis—and received a standardized combination of medicinal herbs recommended for each subgroup. They were classified based on different symptoms.
All three subgroups had symptoms associated with their specific diseases. Lung-Spleen Qi deficiency is manifested by shortness of breath, fatigue, poor appetite with nausea and vomiting, bloating, and enlarged pale tongue with a white, greasy coating; Qi Yin deficiency also manifests itself in shortness of breath, fatigue, poor appetite, as well as dry mouth, thirst, excessive sweating, palpitations, weak pulse, red tongue with less fluid; Stagnation of cold fluids in the lung, manifested by coughing attacks, irritable cough, nocturnal cough, white phlegm that is difficult to expel, and shortness of pulse.
Initially, the researchers enrolled 434 participants. After excluding patients with severe propensity scores, loss to follow-up, or incomplete clinical data, the team matched 94 pairs of patients using propensity score matching to balance differences between groups. Treatments were administered over a period of seven days.
Symptom improvements after traditional Chinese medicine
The response rate of the TCM treatment group was 30.85%, compared to 17.02% in the control group. All three TCM subgroups experienced significant improvement in symptoms, suggesting that TCM may be beneficial to patients across different TCM symptom patterns, with lung and spleen Qi deficiency ranked highest with a 32.14% improvement. Improvements are also closely linked to clinical effectiveness.
Adults 65 and older, women, and patients with high blood pressure did not reach statistical significance. The researchers also noted that few studies have looked at how TCM performs in different demographic groups, such as age and gender, among people with long Covid. As such, the results of the current study are an important addition to the available evidence.
Considerations and more research needed
Since there is only a seven-day follow-up, there is no information about TCM treatment for medium to long-term effectiveness and recurrence of symptoms. The research team also noted that the TCM symptom scale was developed specifically for this study and has not been externally validated, which may limit the accuracy of symptom scores. There were also no objective data on lung function measured during the study, making it difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of TCM treatment on respiratory health.
TCM treatment, especially when combined with Western medicine treatment, is effective in relieving long COVID symptoms and recovering, even after just one week of treatment. Future studies are encouraged to recruit a larger group of participants and have longer follow-up to verify the effectiveness of TCM treatment in the medium to long term. Lung function should also be measured, and researchers also recommend a double-blind, placebo-controlled design for future trials.
