Self-Help "Dietary Therapy" Should Not Be Arbitrary
Self-Help "Dietary Therapy" Should Not Be Arbitrary
Like medicine, food also exhibits certain properties. From the perspective of food nature alone, they vary in cold, hot, warm, and cool qualities, and must be selected according to different diseases and constitutions.
"Dietary therapy" is short for "dietary treatment"—a method of using food instead of medicine to treat illness. There is also using food to regulate constitution and strengthen health, known as "dietary nourishment." This is common in China and widely recognized by the public. Many families routinely prepare special diets for nourishment or therapy. For example, in summer, people often consume lily-bamboo-cool soup or mung bean-coix porridge to clear summer heat; in winter, they enjoy making Eight Treasures Porridge with red dates, goji berries, peanuts, longan, white hyacinth beans, and adzuki beans for warming tonification. In clinical practice, we recommend suitable dietary therapies to aid disease recovery. For instance, patients with cold stomach and no greasy tongue coating may be advised to drink ginger-red date soup; women suffering from lower abdominal cold pain and loose stools may benefit from five-spice mutton soup, often achieving satisfactory results. For those with early-morning diarrhea (waking up with abdominal pain and loose stools), regularly consuming rock sugar five-fruit porridge (first boil red dates, longan, and goji berries with rock sugar for ten minutes, then add chopped peeled pears and peeled bananas, thicken with starch before eating) can improve spleen-kidney yang deficiency and gradually alleviate the condition. However, choosing the right dietary therapy for each patient is not simple—misuse may backfire and hinder recovery. Therefore, dietary therapy must be approached with caution, preferably under medical guidance. If self-trialing based on books, start with small doses and closely monitor for adverse reactions—stop immediately if any occur.
Currently, many health supplements are popular choices for self-help dietary therapy. Some contain herbal ingredients and claim diverse health benefits such as immune regulation, lipid adjustment, weight loss, longevity enhancement, etc. Some advertisements exaggerate these claims, stretching them into enticing therapeutic effects, confusing consumers who then rush to buy and consume large quantities—only to find the results fall far short of expectations, and some even suffer side effects. Following advertisements blindly for dietary therapy is unwise.
We must recognize that food, like medicine, has inherent properties (such as four natures, five flavors, ascending-descending-floating-sinking, toxicity, etc.). From food nature alone, there are differences in cold, hot, warm, and cool qualities. Selection must consider various factors including disease type and individual constitution. For example, someone with hypertension may read a section on hypertension in a popular science article or dietary therapy book and randomly pick a remedy—yet it may not work. Why? Because they focus only on the disease, ignoring individual differences. Even with the same condition, different constitutions lead to vastly different clinical presentations—some are hot, others cold, stagnant, or phlegmy. Hot constitutions require cooling foods like celery, malva, and chrysanthemum; cold constitutions need warming foods like garlic and magnolia flowers. Carelessness is dangerous.
Especially important in self-help dietary therapy: understand your own constitution and identify foods to avoid for your condition—strictly follow dietary restrictions. While some Western doctors dismiss dietary taboos, centuries of accumulated experience show that such guidelines hold practical significance. Not only allergy-prone individuals need to avoid certain foods, but different constitutions and diseases also have specific foods to limit or avoid—these should be taken seriously. (Author’s institution: Department of Integrated Traditional and Western Medicine, Shanghai Zhongshan Hospital)