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This morning I received a comment about my blog on gynostemma from yesterday… my friend mentioned that he had only heard of gynostemma from a particular vendor who specialized in “adaptogens” and was known for the sale of ants. Yes, ants. The little insects that shape our earth are indeed soaked into liquor and consumed as a tonic.

My friend was intrigued, and when he heard about the multimillion dollar capers of ant farming pyramid schemes he demanded a blog at once. What are the TCM properties of ants? Does it really make man strong like tiger? And how did thousands of investors meet their downfall over these innocuous little insects?

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Ants did not appear in any ancient formulas, and they appeared for the first time in the literature in a text called the Sichuan Zhong Yao Zhi (Sichuan Chinese Medicinal Journal). Their popularity has soared in recent decades, and no visit to a proper Chinese herb wholesale market is complete without seeing a few huge bags full of dried ants. Several types and sizes can be seen, but I am not sure if there is any medicinal significance to the different varieties. Usually the ants are soaked in liquor, which is consumed in small shots.

Ants are considered to be balanced, salty, and toxic, and they were originally indicated for snake bites and swollen clove sores. These are the only properties listed in the Zhong Yao Da Ci Dian (Great Encyclopedia of Chinese Medicinals) and the Sichuan Zhong Yao Zhi (Sichuan Chinese Medicinal Journal).

Supplementing actions were ascribed more recently, and the voluminous Zhong Hua Ben Cao (Chinese Materia Medica) provides the following information: Salty, balanced, sour; enters the liver and kidney channels. Supplements the kidney and boosts essence, frees the channels and quickens the network vessels, resolves toxin and disperses swelling. It is indicated for dizziness and tinnitus due to kidney vacuity, insomnia and profuse dreaming, impotence and seminal emission, wind-damp impediment (bi) pain, wind-stroke with hemiplegia, numbness of the extremities, lupus, scleroderma, dermatitis, swelling of welling-abscesses and clove sores, and poisonous snake bites. It can be taken as a powder at a dose of 2-5 grams, and can also be made into pills or steeped in liquor. It can also be crushed and applied topically.

Sounds good, right? Unfortunately, things didn’t turn out well for investors who jumped on the ant-farming bandwagon. Between 2002 and June of 2005, the health supplement company Yilishan attracted over 10,000 investors with the lure of high profits and quick returns on ant farming. Investors paid about $1300 for ant-raising kits that were estimated to cost $25, and they were promised lucrative returns after they raised the ants for sale back to Yilishan (about a 30% return after 14 months). Unfortunately, the whole thing turned out to be a pyramid scheme, and the leader Wang Zhendong ended up getting executed for bilking thousands of farmers out of their life savings.

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