Deglycyrrhizinated Licorice For Acid Reflux

Deglycyrrhizinated licorice for acid reflux can dull heartburn for some people over a few weeks. It cannot repair the valve that lets acid climb into your esophagus. The distance between feeling better and being better is the entire story here, and most articles on this subject skip right past it.

I’m a board-certified surgeon. Patients walk into Tampa Bay Reflux Institute having chewed licorice tablets for two years before anyone confirmed they had reflux disease at all.

Some felt fine the whole time. Their tissue said otherwise.

Deglycyrrhizinated licorice, or DGL, is licorice root with most of the glycyrrhizin taken out. Glycyrrhizin is the compound that raises blood pressure and pushes potassium down. Removing it makes daily use safer. DGL is sold mainly as chewable tablets and is thought to work by thickening the mucus layer coating the stomach and esophagus.

I’m skipping licorice’s history in traditional medicine and what it may do for sore throats or hepatitis. You didn’t search for that.

Does deglycyrrhizinated licorice for acid reflux actually work?

Short version: a little, for certain symptoms, over a short window. It doesn’t heal erosive damage, and no gastroenterology society recommends it.

What the 2025 trial measured

I used to tell patients there was no real trial data on DGL. Actually, that framing isn’t right anymore, and I changed my answer last year.

A 2025 placebo-controlled trial published in Complementary Medicine Research enrolled 200 adults with reflux symptoms and ran 28 days. The low-glycyrrhizin licorice group reported better quality-of-life scores than placebo. Regurgitation improved by day seven. Heartburn improved by day 14.

That’s a real result. It’s also 200 people, one center, four weeks, and no endoscopy. Nobody checked whether the esophagus healed. Symptom scores and mucosal healing are two different questions, and only one of them got answered. Nobody in that trial was screened for a hiatal hernia either, which happens to be the most common reason a valve stops closing in the first place.

Symptom scores also miss the patients whose reflux arrives as hoarseness and throat clearing instead of burning. That’s silent reflux, and a chewable aimed at heartburn doesn’t touch it.

The study everyone quotes wrong

One line gets repeated across supplement blogs: a 2018 study found DGL beat acid-suppressing drugs. Trace it back. It’s an observational report on 58 people taking a multi-herb blend, compared against antacids. Not head-to-head. Not against a PPI. Not blinded.

Roughly 54% of people on daily PPIs still get breakthrough symptoms, per a national survey of nearly 72,000 adults published in Gastroenterology. That’s a real opening for something better. It isn’t proof that licorice fills it.

What are the real risks of DGL?

DGL is safer than whole licorice. That’s a low bar, not a clean record. The label says deglycyrrhizinated. It doesn’t say how much glycyrrhizin is left.

Supplement safety reviewers at the National Institutes of Health put the sensible ceiling at roughly four months of continuous use. Past that, nobody has data.

For scale on what the removed compound does: FDA warns that two ounces of black licorice a day for two weeks can put someone over 40 in the hospital with an irregular heartbeat, because glycyrrhizin drags potassium down.

Who should skip it completely

Anyone on diuretics, corticosteroids, or blood pressure medication. People with heart disease, kidney disease, or high blood pressure. Anyone pregnant, since heavy licorice intake has been tied to early delivery.

If you’re in one of those groups, this isn’t a maybe.

How does DGL compare to standard reflux treatment in 2026?

DGL sits at the bottom of the evidence stack, and it doesn’t pretend otherwise once you read the studies instead of the marketing. Everything else on this list has more behind it.

The trade-off is specific. For a 44-year-old who eats late three nights a week and burns twice a month, four weeks of chewables before meals is low-risk and reasonable. For someone with part of the stomach pushed up into the chest, it falls apart, because no tablet changes where an organ sits. Between those two extremes sit incisionless repair done through the mouth, and magnetic sphincter augmentation for a valve that needs reinforcement.

The part nobody prints on the label

Supplement makers don’t have to verify residual glycyrrhizin content. Two bottles on the same shelf can differ. I’ve had patients bring in three brands, and not one listed a number.

Where supplements end and anatomy begins

Before you spend three months testing chewables, do this in order:

1. Track symptom frequency for two weeks. Write it down.
2. Get an endoscopy if symptoms have run past eight weeks.
3. Ask about pH testing when the scope looks clean but you still burn.
4. Get manometry before anyone brings up surgery.

Reflux starts when the valve weakens. Deglycyrrhizinated licorice for acid reflux is a coating agent, not a repair, and coating a mechanical failure only buys time. When that valve has truly given out, a fundoplication fixes the defect itself. Chewables never will.

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