🌿 Folk Prescriptions

Lao Wei, suffering from dermatological disease, has avoided seafood, mutton, and similar foods for years. Recently diagnosed with nephritis, he heard that nephritis patients should avoid high-protein diets and thus began avoiding meat, eggs, and dairy. Months later, he felt weak and dizzy, visited the hospital, and was diagnosed with nutritional anemia. Doctors warned him that blind dietary restriction drastically reduced food variety, which, for elderly people with poor digestive absorption, not only hinders treatment of the original illness but further deteriorates health.
Having dietary restrictions is normal. From a TCM perspective, syndrome differentiation and treatment focus on disease etiology, while dietary restrictions target factors affecting disease progression or drug efficacy. Failure to restrict certain foods during illness may delay recovery, reduce drug effectiveness, or even worsen the condition. However, restrictions should not mean total abstinence or continued consumption of unsuitable foods. Diet aims to obtain nutrition, while restrictions serve therapeutic purposes—decisions must be based on actual circumstances. There are three main situations:
1. Restriction due to illness: Some conditions require dietary restrictions even outside medication periods. For example, hepatitis patients must abstain from alcohol; nephritis patients with edema should limit salt intake; diabetics must control staple food and avoid high-sugar foods; hypertensive patients should avoid excessive alcohol, reduce salt, and avoid spicy, greasy, and fatty foods; those with allergies or asthma must strictly avoid seafood like fish and shrimp; those with constipation should avoid spicy, greasy, and fatty foods; gallstone and cholecystitis patients should avoid excessive animal fats and organ meats; insomniacs should avoid strong tea and coffee in the afternoon and evening, and limit spicy, heat-inducing foods.
2. Restriction due to medication: When taking tonics or detoxifying herbs for health maintenance or disease prevention, proper dietary restrictions are necessary to maximize drug efficacy. For example, when consuming tonics like ginseng, deer antler velvet, sea horse, Cordyceps, or bird’s nest, one should avoid greasy foods (e.g., fatty meats, fried foods, certain dairy products), blood-activating and stasis-breaking herbs (e.g., Salvia miltiorrhiza, Leonurus artemisia), and qi-dispersing, energy-depleting foods (e.g., white radish), to prevent interference with absorption and effectiveness.
3. Preventive restriction: Proactively avoiding foods that may trigger disease to prevent illness. Recently, the National Health Department listed ten foods that should not be consumed excessively: century eggs, stinky tofu, monosodium glutamate, instant noodles, sunflower seeds, spinach, pork liver, grilled lamb, pickled vegetables, and fried dough sticks. Some diseases arise from habitual lack of dietary restraint. Conditions like hypertension, obesity, diabetes, and fatty liver are often linked to habitual alcohol consumption and preference for greasy, sweet, and rich foods. Proper dietary restraint can prevent such diseases.