Rhubarb Root

It is also the ingredient on this panel with the strictest safety rules, so this page is longer on caution than on benefit.

Rhubarb root here means the dried underground parts of Rheum palmatum or Rheum officinale, not the pink stalks in a crumble and not the leaves, which are not edible.

Its active constituents are hydroxyanthracene derivatives, a group of anthraquinones that includes rhein, emodin, aloe-emodin, chrysophanol and physcion, plus dianthrone glycosides of the sennoside type.

These compounds pass unabsorbed to the large intestine, where gut bacteria convert them into the anthrones that stimulate the bowel.

In the European Union, rhubarb root is regulated as a herbal medicine for short-term constipation, which tells you how the regulators class it.

How much is in AlphaCleanse

In short: AlphaCleanse contains 27.5 mg of rhubarb root per 2-capsule serving, a small fraction of a single laxative dose.

27.5 mg of rhubarb root per 2-capsule serving.

That ties it with burdock root, schisandra berry and nettle leaf as one of the 4 smallest botanicals among the 12 ingredients. Milk thistle sits at 165 mg for comparison.

AlphaCleanse is made with organic ingredients and there is no proprietary blend, so every amount is printed.

That number is worth converting. The arithmetic, in 4 steps:

• The European Pharmacopoeia requires rhubarb root to contain at least 2.2% hydroxyanthracene derivatives calculated as rhein.
• The EMA assessment report on Rhei radix puts the usual content at 3% to 12% depending on the assay.
• Applied to 27.5 mg of dried root, a serving would deliver somewhere around 0.8 mg to 3.3 mg of hydroxyanthracene derivatives.
• The EMA monograph defines a single laxative dose as a preparation equivalent to 20 mg to 30 mg of hydroxyanthracene derivatives calculated as rhein.

So one AlphaCleanse serving carries a small fraction of one laxative dose.

That estimate assumes whole dried root, which is how our label describes the ingredient.

What the evidence shows

In short: rhubarb's human evidence is about bowel function rather than the liver, and our serving sits under the trial dose.

The best human evidence for rhubarb root taken by mouth is about bowel function, not the liver.

Neyrinck et al. (International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 2022, PMID 36499011) ran a double-blind randomised placebo-controlled trial at UCLouvain in middle-aged volunteers, 95% of them women, average age 58.

Participants took rhubarb extract dosed by its rhein content, at 12.5 mg or 25 mg of rhein a day, or maltodextrin placebo, for 30 days. What it found:

• Both active groups improved on stool frequency, stool consistency, perceived transit problems, transit speed and difficulty evacuating, compared with placebo.
• Faecal short-chain fatty acids rose in both active groups and fell on placebo.
• The authors reported the supplementation as safe over 30 days, including at the higher dose.

A larger trial (Wei et al., Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 2021, PMID 32693116) randomised 374 patients with chronic constipation to rhubarb powder or placebo applied to the navel for 8 days and found better Cleveland Constipation Scores in the rhubarb arm.

It is a topical route, so it says little about a capsule.

There is no human trial of rhubarb root for liver outcomes. The liver work is preclinical.

Our serving delivers an estimated 0.8 mg to 3.3 mg of total hydroxyanthracene derivatives, of which rhein is one of several.

That sits below the 12.5 mg of rhein a day in the lowest arm of the Belgian trial, and below it deliberately.

European regulators cap stimulant laxative use at 1 week, and AlphaCleanse is a daily product taken over months, so being well under a bowel-moving amount is what a buyer should want from the rhubarb line on this label.

Check whether the product next to ours prints its rhubarb amount at all.

Why this dose

In short: 27.5 mg is deliberately below a laxative dose, because AlphaCleanse is a daily product taken over months.

Here the small number is the safer design rather than a compromise, and it is the clearest case on this panel of a dose set against the ingredient's own reputation.

A laxative dose inside a daily long-term supplement would be the wrong product.

The EMA caps rhubarb root at 1 week of use and warns that longer stimulant laxative use can impair bowel function and lead to dependence, while AlphaCleanse is taken every day for months.

Some customers still report looser stools in the first week.

Sensitivity varies, the 0.8 mg to 3.3 mg above is an estimated range rather than a promise about your gut, and it usually settles.

The formula around it is an anchor with support.

Milk thistle at 165 mg carries the clinical weight, and the other 11 ingredients, rhubarb root among them, sit at supporting amounts printed one by one on the panel.

Rhubarb is on the digestive side of that arrangement at a traditional level, well under a laxative dose on purpose, and you can confirm it from a single line of the Supplement Facts instead of taking our word for it.

Safety and interactions