The Ancient Throat Remedy That Anesthesiologists Actually Use

Long before it was a candy flavor, licorice root was the go-to fix for a raw, scratchy throat, and modern operating rooms have quietly put that old habit to the test.

Licorice root sounds like the kind of folk remedy that belongs in a grandmother's tea tin, not a hospital anesthesia protocol. Yet that's exactly where some of the best evidence for it comes from. Researchers studying patients who wake up with a raw, burning throat after surgery have run a surprising number of trials on plain licorice gargles and lozenges, and the results line up with what herbalists have claimed for centuries.

What it is and how it works

Licorice comes from the root of Glycyrrhiza glabra, a plant containing compounds with documented anti-inflammatory activity¹. One of its main active constituents, liquiritin, has been shown in lab and animal research to calm inflammatory signaling by suppressing a stress-response pathway called JNK/Nur77/c-Jun, which lowers levels of inflammatory messengers like IL-6 and TNF-alpha in lung tissue². In plainer terms: licorice seems to dial down the inflammatory chain reaction that makes throat tissue swollen, irritated, and painful. It also has a long history as a demulcent, meaning it coats and soothes irritated mucous membranes, and as an expectorant that helps loosen mucus, according to a phytochemical profile compiled by the USDA's Dr. Duke database.

What the research shows

The strongest evidence here concerns postoperative sore throat, the ache people get after a breathing tube is placed for surgery. A 2019 systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials found that topical licorice, gargled or held in the mouth before anesthesia, reduced the incidence and severity of sore throat after intubation compared to controls¹. Individual trials back this up. In 236 patients having thoracic surgery with large double-lumen breathing tubes, gargling a licorice solution before anesthesia cut both postoperative sore throat and post-tube coughing compared to a sugar-water gargle³. In smokers, generally more prone to airway irritation, licorice lozenges before surgery reduced cough, sore throat, and hoarseness compared to sugar candy in a trial of 100 patients⁴. A smaller study of 40 adults undergoing spinal surgery found licorice gargle lowered both the incidence and severity of sore throat at rest and on swallowing, tracked over 24 hours after surgery⁵. A 2022 trial comparing licorice gargle, green tea gargle, and a control group in 102 surgical patients found licorice measurably eased sore throat, cough, and hoarseness after the breathing tube came out⁶. Separately, a licorice mouthwash improved dry mouth and saliva flow in hemodialysis patients, a related but distinct throat and mouth comfort issue⁷.

Traditional perspective

Gummies, lozenges, tea: which form actually carries a dose?

This is where most of the practical confusion sits, and it has a measured answer. A 1990 analysis ran 42 British licorice products through standard HPLC and found the glycyrrhizin content spread across a range wide enough to make the word "licorice" almost useless on its own¹⁵:

| Product | Glycyrrhizin | |---|---| | Confectionery (sweets, gummies) | 0.26 – 7.9 mg/g | | Health products | 0.30 – 47.1 mg/g | | Raw root | 22.2 – 32.3 mg/g | | Licorice block | 44 – 98 mg/g | | Extract powder | 79 – 113 mg/g |

Two things in that table matter more than the rest. Sweets vary about thirtyfold among themselves, so one bag of licorice gummies can carry thirty times the active compound of another with the same name on the front. And the single highest reading in the health-products row came from throat pearls — meaning a product aimed at exactly this problem can outrank raw root, while a sweet aimed at pleasure sits near zero.

That gap has a clinical shadow. The trials above used roughly 0.5 g of licorice extract in 30 mL of water; a gummy is not delivering that. Yet the other end of the range is documented too: a woman who ate about a bag and a half of black licorice bites containing 2% natural licorice over three weeks developed rhabdomyolysis, low potassium and high blood pressure¹⁶, and a separate case traced oedema and hypertension to licorice candy cigars¹⁷.

So the honest answer to "do licorice gummies soothe a throat" is that you cannot know what you are taking. If you want the effect the trials found, use a gargle or a lozenge that states its extract content. If you want a sweet, have the sweet — just don't count it as either a dose or a harmless one.

What biohacking says

Practical takeaway

The clinical trials used simple preparations: a licorice gargle made from about 0.5 g of licorice extract dissolved in 30 mL of water, held in the mouth for 30 seconds to a minute, typically 5 minutes before anesthesia^3,5, or a medicated licorice lozenge sucked before the procedure⁴. For an everyday sore throat, this translates loosely to gargling a licorice solution or licorice root tea, or using a licorice lozenges, though most of the direct evidence here comes from surgical patients rather than colds.

Licorice isn't risk-free for regular or high-dose use. Documented interactions include effects with hydrocortisone, antihypertensive drugs, and spironolactone, among others. Talk to your doctor before using licorice regularly if you have high blood pressure, kidney disease, or take blood pressure or steroid medications. If you're pairing it with other throat-soothing herbs, green tea was tested alongside licorice gargle in one trial with comparable benefit⁶, and traditional formulas often combine licorice with Platycodon root for extra effect.

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