Burdock Root
Arctium lappa
Burdock root is a traditional bitter root, eaten as a vegetable in Japan and used in Western herbalism as a mild diuretic, and in AlphaCleanse it is a supporting botanical at 27.5 mg per serving.
AlphaCleanse, 2-capsule serving
- Milk Thistle165 mg
- Spirulina110 mg
- Ginger110 mg
- Turmeric110 mg
- Dandelion Root55 mg
- Reishi MushroomReishi55 mg
- Beetroot55 mg
- Burdock Root27.5 mg
- Rhubarb Root27.5 mg
- Schisandra BerrySchisandra27.5 mg
- Nettle Leaf27.5 mg
- BioPerine2.75 mg
Every amount is printed on the label. No proprietary blend.
Burdock (Arctium lappa) belongs to the daisy family, alongside milk thistle and dandelion.
The root is a rich source of inulin, a prebiotic fibre, and carries polyphenols including chlorogenic acid, luteolin and quercetin.
In Japan it is a common vegetable called gobo. In European and North American herbal practice it has been a bitter root taken for skin and digestion for several centuries.
Human research on it is thin, so the useful question about the 27.5 mg here is not what burdock does alone, but what it adds to a formula anchored on milk thistle at 165 mg, with every amount printed.
How much is in AlphaCleanse
In short: AlphaCleanse contains 27.5 mg of burdock root per 2-capsule serving, 1 of the 4 smallest amounts on its 12-ingredient panel.
27.5 mg of burdock root per 2-capsule serving.
That makes it one of the 4 smallest botanicals on the panel, tied with rhubarb root, schisandra berry and nettle leaf. Only BioPerine at 2.75 mg is smaller.
For scale, milk thistle sits at 165 mg and spirulina, ginger and turmeric at 110 mg each.
AlphaCleanse is made with organic ingredients and carries no proprietary blend, so all 12 amounts are printed individually.
What the evidence shows
In short: the human evidence for burdock is thin, and the 1 single-herb trial used 6 g of dried root a day.
The evidence for burdock root in humans is thin, and for the liver specifically it is mostly preclinical.
One controlled human trial tested burdock root on its own.
Maghsoumi-Norouzabad et al. (International Journal of Rheumatic Diseases, 2016, PMID 25350500) randomised 36 adults aged 50 to 70 with knee osteoarthritis to 42 days of burdock root tea or hot water, on top of the same acetaminophen and glucosamine in both arms.
The tea group drank 3 cups a day, each made from 2 g of root in 150 mL of boiling water, so 6 g of dried root daily. What moved:
- Serum IL-6, high-sensitivity CRP and malondialdehyde fell.
- Total antioxidant capacity and superoxide dismutase activity rose.
Read those with 3 limits attached. They are laboratory markers of inflammation and oxidative stress rather than symptoms or liver values, the control arm was hot water rather than a matched placebo, and 36 people is a small trial.
A second trial (Yen et al., Helicobacter, 2018, PMID 29520881) gave 36 people with H. pylori an 8-week course of a burdock complex.
That product also contained angelica, gromwell and sesame oil, so nothing in the result can be assigned to burdock.
The work linking burdock to liver fat is in cell culture and animals, not people.
Our 27.5 mg is under 0.5% of the 6 g of dried root used in the one single-herb trial.
We print that 27.5 mg rather than bury it, which is the only reason the ratio can be worked out at all. Try the same sum on a label that lists burdock inside a proprietary blend and you will find you cannot.
Why this dose
In short: 27.5 mg is a supporting amount, because no human trial has set a clinical burdock dose for the liver.
No human trial has set a clinical dose of burdock root for the liver, so 27.5 mg is not a scaled-down research dose.
It is a supporting amount, which is a description of how this formula is built rather than an excuse for the number.
AlphaCleanse runs on an anchor-and-support design.
Milk thistle at 165 mg is the anchor and carries the clinical weight. The other 11 ingredients, burdock among them, are there for breadth of plant material at amounts anyone can read straight off the panel.
Burdock sits beside dandelion and milk thistle the way it has sat in traditional bitter-root formulas for centuries.
Measuring it against a solo trial dose measures it against a product we never sold you.
The measurement that counts is against the liver formulas that put the same bitter roots into a blend and print one combined number for the lot.
Safety and interactions
In short: an Asteraceae allergy is the real burdock caution, and there is a published case of anaphylaxis to burdock.
Burdock root is a common food in Japan and is generally well tolerated.
The NIH LiverTox database has no entry for burdock at all. That is not the same as a clean bill of health: it means no attributed cases have been catalogued there, which is weaker information than a scored entry either way.
Allergy is the real caution. Burdock is in the Asteraceae family, so people who react to ragweed, chamomile, marigold, echinacea or chrysanthemum can cross-react.
Sasaki et al. (International Journal of Dermatology, 2003, PMID 12786879) published a case of anaphylaxis due to burdock.
Milk thistle and dandelion root, also in AlphaCleanse, are in the same plant family, so an Asteraceae allergy is a reason to avoid the whole product rather than to worry about one ingredient.
The 12-week AlphaCleanse study (NCT07738744) excluded anyone with an allergy to any ingredient, which is corroboration for that caution and not evidence that a reaction occurred.
A contamination case worth knowing about. Bryson et al. published a burdock root tea poisoning in JAMA in 1978 (PMID 642161).
The case was traced to a commercial preparation contaminated with atropine-type alkaloids, and the indexed effects were hallucinations and vision disturbance.
It was a sourcing and manufacturing failure rather than a property of burdock, and it is a fair reason to ask any supplement company where its raw material comes from and how it is tested.
Drugs. No human drug-interaction study exists for burdock, at any dose.
Burdock is a mild diuretic in traditional use, so if you take a diuretic, a potassium-sparing drug or lithium, tell your doctor before starting.
Animal work has reported glucose-lowering activity for burdock extracts, with nothing in humans.
If you take glucose-lowering medication, bring the AlphaCleanse label to your next appointment and show your doctor the whole panel rather than this one ingredient.
Common questions
In short: burdock does not purify blood, and an Asteraceae allergy is a reason to skip AlphaCleanse entirely.
I am allergic to ragweed or daisies. Can I take AlphaCleanse?
Probably not, and this is a whole-product question rather than a burdock question.
Burdock root, milk thistle and dandelion root are all in the Asteraceae family, the same family as ragweed, chamomile, marigold and chrysanthemum, and cross-reactivity between them is well described.
There is a published case of anaphylaxis to burdock (PMID 12786879).
If you have a known reaction to any of those plants, skip AlphaCleanse or ask an allergist before trying it.
The formula contains 3 Asteraceae botanicals, so avoiding one of them is not an option.
Is 27.5 mg of burdock root too low to do anything?
It is a supporting amount, and we say so rather than claiming otherwise.
The single human trial on burdock alone used 6 g of dried root a day as tea, and 27.5 mg is a small fraction of that.
The larger amounts on the AlphaCleanse panel are milk thistle at 165 mg and spirulina, ginger and turmeric at 110 mg each; the 4 botanicals at 27.5 mg are there for breadth around that anchor.
Every amount is printed on the label precisely so you can make this judgement yourself instead of taking our framing for it, and it is the same test we would put to any liver supplement you are weighing against ours.
I take blood pressure medication or a diuretic. Is burdock a problem?
Tell your doctor before you start, then most likely yes you can.
Burdock root, nettle leaf and dandelion root all have mild diuretic activity in traditional use, and AlphaCleanse contains all 3, at 27.5 mg, 27.5 mg and 55 mg.
At those amounts the effect should be small, but no interaction study covers this formula with any blood pressure drug, so we will not tell you it is fine.
If you take a potassium-sparing diuretic or lithium, that conversation matters more, because both are sensitive to fluid and electrolyte shifts.
Does burdock root purify the blood or flush toxins?
No, and neither does anything else in a capsule.
Your liver and kidneys do that work, and nothing we sell replaces them.
Burdock earned the old "blood purifier" label in a herbal tradition that predates any understanding of hepatic metabolism, and we are not going to recycle the phrase.
What we can say about burdock is narrow. It is a food-grade root supplying inulin and polyphenols.
One small human trial found lower inflammatory markers after 6 g a day for 42 days, and AlphaCleanse contains 27.5 mg of it as one of 12 printed amounts.
If a brand answers this question with the word purify instead of a number, ask them for the number.
The other 11 ingredients
AlphaCleanse contains burdock root at 27.5 mg per serving.
See AlphaCleanse60-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked, no restocking fee.
Citations on this page: PMID 25350500, PMID 29520881, PMID 12786879, PMID 642161
Last reviewed: 2026-09-17