Chinese System of Food Cures Health Article

Definition

The Chinese system of food cures regards dietary regulation as preventive medicine as well as a corrective measure to be undertaken once someone falls ill. Diet is one of four major treatment modalities in traditional Chinese medicine, the other three being acupuncture/moxibustion, herbal medicine, and massage, plus remedial physical exercise.

Origins

The selection of foods in the diet as part of a lifelong program of health maintenance and treatment of illness has been a part of Chinese medicine from its beginnings. The first extensive written Chinese medical treatises (as the West understands the term) date from the Han dynasty (206 B.C.–A.D. 220), but the use of food as preventive medicine probably goes several thousand years further back. Legends says that tribal shamans and holy men who lived as hermits in the mountains of China as early as 3500 B.C. practiced what was called the "Way of Long Life." This regimen included a diet based on herbs and other plants, qigong exercises, and special breathing techniques that were thought to improve vitality and life expectancy.

After the Han dynasty, the next great age of Chinese medicine was under the Tang emperors, who ruled from A.D. 608 to A.D. 906. The first Tang emperor established China's first medical school in A.D. 629. This period produced China's earliest expert on dietary therapy, Sun Simiao. He specialized in the treatment of diseases caused by malnutrition and wrote several works on diet and health. Sun Simaio's principle of using diet and lifestyle changes as the first line of treatment for illness has governed traditional Chinese practice ever since. According to Sun Simaio, only when dietary treatment is not enough to cure the patient should the doctor turn to acupuncture and herbal medicines.

Benefits

The benefits of traditional Chinese dietary treatment are many years of vigorous good health. According to the Nei Jing, China's oldest medical classic, the metaphor is that human beings are constituted to live for a hundred years, barring accidents or violence. Diet and good digestion are considered the most important ways to maintain physical strength and vitality.

Description

Chinese food cures are based on the philosophical principles of Taoism and its teachers' observations about nature. Some of its concepts are difficult for Westerners to understand because they rely on symbols and images rather than scientific measurements and theories. In general, Chinese medicine regards the human organism as an integrated entity within itself and as linked to the family, society, and the natural order by a pattern of symbolic connections.

The cosmic and natural order

In early Chinese philosophy, the Tao, or universal first principle, generated a duality of opposing principles that underlie all the patterns of nature. These principles, yin and yang, are mutually dependent as well as polar opposites. Yin represents everything that is cold, moist, dim, responsive, slow, heavy, and moving downward or inward; while yang represents heat, dryness, brightness, activity, rapidity, lightness, and upward or outward motion. The dynamic interaction of these two principles is reflected in the cycles of the seasons, the human life cycle, and other natural phenomena.

In addition to yin and yang, Taoist teachers also believed that the Tao produced a third force, primordial energy or chi (also spelled qi or ki, the Japanese term). The interplay between yin, yang, and chi gave rise to the Five Elements of water, wood, fire, earth, and metal. These entities are all reflected in the structure and functioning of the human body.

The human being

Traditional Chinese physicians did not learn about the structures of the human body from dissection (although they did perform some animal studies) because they thought that cutting open a body insulted the person's ancestors. Instead they built up an understanding of the location and functions of the major organs over centuries of observation, and then correlated them with the principles of yin, yang, chi, and the Five Elements. Thus wood is related to the liver (yin) and the gall bladder (yang); fire to the heart (yin) and the small intestine (yang); earth to the spleen (yin) and the stomach (yang); metal to the lungs (yin) and the large intestine (yang); and water to the kidneys (yin) and the bladder (yang). The Chinese also believed that the body contains Five Essential Substances, which include blood, spirit, vital essence (a principle of growth and development produced by the body from chi and blood), fluids (all body fluids other than blood, such as saliva, spinal fluid, sweat, etc.), and chi.

A unique feature of traditional Chinese medicine is the meridian system. Chinese doctors viewed the body as regulated by a network of energy pathways called meridians that link and balance the various organs. The meridians have four functions: to connect the internal organs with the exterior of the body, and connect the person to the environment and the universe; to harmonize the yin and yang principles within the body's organs and Five Substances; to distribute chi within the body; and to protect the body against external imbalances related to weather (wind, summer heat, dampness, dryness, cold, and fire).