Tiger Bone
Hǔ Gǔ 虎骨 (tiger bone / 'bone wine')
No proven benefit; banned to protect endangered tigers.
Evidence tier
No Evidence
Research weight
Not supported
Citations
16 verified / 16
Classification
Banned & Harmful
⊘
What the evidence says. No credible human evidence supports the marketed claims — widely considered ineffective.
⚠
Health warning. Tiger bone has no proven medicinal benefit and its trade is banned under CITES. Demand fuels poaching and tiger farming and pushes wild tigers toward extinction.
What is Tiger Bone?
Tiger Bone (Hǔ Gǔ 虎骨 (tiger bone / 'bone wine')) is a banned or harmful substance marketed for rheumatism & arthritis relief. NutriDex grades the human evidence as No Evidence. Tiger bone, often steeped into 'bone wine', was traditionally used for joint and rheumatic complaints. No controlled trials show benefit, and analyses find nothing beyond ordinary collagen and calcium. China removed tiger bone from its official pharmacopoeia in 1993 and trade is banned under CITES — yet demand still drives poaching and large-scale tiger farming, threatening wild tigers with extinction.
Marketed Claims (unproven)
✕(Claimed) rheumatism & arthritis relief
✕(Claimed) strength & 'Yang' tonic
Dosing & Compounds
Use & Legality
No legitimate use — illegal and without proven benefit.
Active Compounds
Safety & Cautions
⚠ No proven benefit and illegal. Buying tiger products is a wildlife crime driving an endangered species toward extinction. Educational only — always check with your doctor or pharmacist before combining Tiger Bone with any medicine.
Evidence & Risk Findings ★ 16 studies
Systematic review
BMC Musculoskelet Disord 2025
✓ Source
Meta-analysis of 21 articles (2,916 participants) reported Jintiange (artificial tiger bone) capsules significantly reduced pain in primary osteoporosis (WMD -2.51; 95% CI -3.30 to -1.71; p<0.05).
Meta-analysis
Li 2025 (Jintiange pain in primary osteoporosis)
✓ PubMed
Systematic review/meta-analysis of 21 articles (2,916 patients): Jintiange relieved pain (WMD VAS -2.51; 95% CI -3.30 to -1.71), improved femoral neck (WMD 0.83) and lumbar (WMD 1.14) BMD, improved ODI (-1.79) and Timed Up and Go (-2.61), and reduced fracture incidence (OR 0.37; 95% CI 0.15-0.93).
Meta-analysis
Evid Based Complement Alternat Med 2021
✓ Full text
Meta-analysis of randomized trials concluded Jintiange (artificial tiger bone) capsule may have a positive effect on pain relief and functional activity in knee osteoarthritis patients.
Systematic review and meta-analysis
Artificial substitute efficacy
✓ PubMed
Meta-analysis of 16 RCTs (1,642 patients) of Jintiange capsules (bionic/artificial tiger-bone powder) for postoperative osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures reported increased bone mineral density and reduced pain versus control, supporting non-tiger synthetic substitutes.
Systematic review/meta-analysis
Artificial substitute (osteoporosis meta-analysis)
✓ PubMed
Systematic review/meta-analysis of 18 studies (21 trials, 2,580 patients) of Jintiange (artificial/bionic tiger-bone powder) for osteoporosis found significantly increased bone mineral density at lumbar spine, femoral neck, greater trochanter and Ward's triangle and reduced pain (VAS) versus control, with no excess adverse events, supporting non-tiger synthetic substitutes.
RCT
Liang 2022 (Jintiange + alfacalcidol RCT)
✓ PubMed
Randomized, double-blind, double-dummy, multicenter trial (400 primary osteoporosis/osteopenia patients, 52 wk): Jintiange plus alfacalcidol improved lower-extremity muscle strength and balance more than control - superior Timed Up and Go and Chair Rising Test results, and lower high-fall-risk proportions (TUG 3.25% vs 9.55%, p=0.023; CRT 20.78% vs 33.76%, p=0.01).
RCT
Shu 2021 (Artificial tiger bone powder OVCF RCT)
✓ PubMed
Double-blind randomized controlled trial (106 osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture patients, 3 mo): Jintiange capsule raised total effective rate (90.6% vs 67.9%), significantly improved vertebral height and BMD (p<0.034), lowered Cobb's angle (p<0.047), and reduced VAS pain and Oswestry disability scores at 1 and 3 months (p<0.05) vs conventional treatment.
Guideline
China 1993 ban / CITES
✓ Source
Tiger bone removed from official pharmacopoeia; international trade banned.
Randomized controlled trial
Artificial substitute (knee osteoarthritis RCT)
✓ PubMed
Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled multicenter trial of bionic (artificial) tiger bone powder (Jintiange) in 248 early-stage knee osteoarthritis patients over 48 weeks found a significantly greater reduction in the Lequesne index from week 12 and higher effective rate versus placebo, with comparable safety, supporting non-tiger synthetic substitutes.
Wildlife trade report / quantitative analysis
Seizure trends (TRAFFIC 2025)
✓ Source
25-year analysis of 2,551 incidents (~3,808 tigers) across Tiger Range Countries finds trafficking persists at ~9 tigers/month in 2020-2025; tiger 'parts' fell from 90% of seizures in the 2000s to ~60% from 2020 as whole-animal trafficking rose.
Study
Clinical evidence
✓ Full text
No RCTs show benefit for arthritis/rheumatism; no unique bioactives identified.
Study
Conservation
✓ Source
Demand fuels poaching and tiger farms; wild tigers endangered.
Expert-elicitation study (PLoS ONE)
Trade decline (Korea)
✓ PubMed
Expert-opinion study finds big cat (incl. tiger bone) trade linked to South Korea declined substantially after its 1993 CITES accession and 1994 trade ban, though small-scale illegal online sales persist.
Choice-experiment study (J. Nature Conservation)
Farmed-trade demand (Vietnam)
✓ Full text
Choice experiment with 228 Vietnamese tiger-bone-glue consumers found buyers prefer and pay more for WILD over farmed tiger glue, and ~one-third would still buy wild-poached glue regardless of legality, indicating legal farmed trade is unlikely to displace wild-tiger demand.
Survey study
Consumer demand / attitudes (China)
✓ PubMed
Survey of 1,880 respondents across six Chinese cities found 43% had used an alleged tiger product (mainly tiger-bone plaster 38%, tiger-bone wine 6.4%) while 93% supported the trade ban; among consumers most preferred wild over farmed tiger, indicating large residual demand that could resurge if the ban were lifted.
Expert correspondence/commentary
Conservation spillover to lions (Nature)
✓ PubMed
Nature correspondence (Williams et al.) warns that legal CITES-permitted export of captive-bred lion bones from South Africa since 2008 to supply the Asian 'tiger bone' substitute market may perpetuate or expand demand for big-cat bones and put wild lions elsewhere in Africa at risk.