Can Licorice Help Critically Ill COVID Patients?

This new double-blind study explored whether the herb licorice could shorten stays in the ICU for critically ill COVID patients.

Better known as a candy, licorice is actually a powerful and versatile herb. It is anti-inflammatory and antiviral, which makes it an interesting candidate for COVID.

Licorice modulates the release of inflammatory cytokines and prevents the virus that causes COVID from entering your cells (Phytomed Plus. 2021 Aug;1(3):100043). Previous studies have shown that licorice can improve cure rates in COVID (Chin J Virol. 2020; 1:160–4).

This new double-blind study is intriguing because it included people in intensive care units who were critically ill with COVID. All of them received standard care, while half were also given a placebo, and half were also given 380mg of licorice root extract standardized to 3% glycyrrhizin twice a day for 5 days.

There was no improvement in secondary outcomes, including oxygen saturation, duration of ventilation or mortality rate. But what the researchers really wanted to find out, the primary outcome, was whether licorice could reduce the length of stay in the ICU.

And it did. The people given licorice had significantly shorter stays in the ICU. While the standard treatment plus placebo group averaged 25 days in ICU, the standard care plus licorice group averaged only 13.1 days. They also had shorter hospital stays (23.7 days versus 35.1), though that trend did not quite reach statistical significance.

J Res Pharm Pract. 2023 Oct-Dec;12(4):141–147.