BACKGROUND: Constipation commonly coexists with heart failure (HF) and can increase blood pressure because of straining during defecation and accompanying mental stress. Daikenchuto, a Japanese herbal medicine to ameliorate gastrointestinal motility, may be effective as a complement to laxatives in improving outcomes in patients with HF and constipation. METHODS AND RESULTS: We used the Diagnosis Procedure Combination database to identify patients aged ≥65 years who were admitted for HF, had constipation, and were discharged alive between April 2016 and March 2022. We divided the 115,544 eligible patients into 2 groups according to the prescription of Daikenchuto in addition to laxatives at discharge and compared the incidence of 1-year HF readmission using 1 : 4 propensity score matching. Daikenchuto was prescribed at discharge in 3,315 (2.9%) patients. In the unmatched cohort, patients treated with Daikenchuto were more often male and had a higher prevalence of malignancy than those treated without Daikenchuto. In the 1 : 4 propensity score-matched cohort (3,311 and 13,243 patients with and without Daikenchuto, respectively), no significant difference was noted in 1-year HF readmission between the groups (22.2% vs. 21.9%
hazard ratio=1.02, 95% confidence interval=0.94-1.11). This result was consistent across clinically relevant subgroups except for renal disease. CONCLUSIONS: Complementary use of Daikenchuto in combination with laxatives was not associated with a lower incidence of HF readmission in patients with HF and constipation.