ABSTRACT
Liquorice is frequently a component of the recipes used in traditional Chinese herbal medicine. It was also used in Western medicine long before it was used to make confectionery. There has been much research in recent years on the pharmacological properties of liquorice, and an examination of the data suggests it might act in more than one of the roles assigned to the components of a Chinese herbal potion. Its sweetness could make it an antidote to the unpleasant flavour often found with herbs, while its range of pharmacological properties may explain its curative action. However, its most valuable attribute may be its amphiphilic nature as this leads, in an aqueous environment, to the formation of micelle-like structures. Thus, liquorice could act as a drug delivery system in blood plasma. Formation of a drug delivery system may explain why Chinese physicians found that the addition of liquorice led to the enhancement of herbal potions used in the treatment of a number of disparate diseases.
