What is the significance and function of diet regimen? How to keep healthy by diet?

Dietary taboos, commonly known as "taboos", generally refer to certain foods that are not eaten during illness. If you eat these things, it will be harmful to the recovery of the disease and health. In the synopsis of the golden chamber, Zhang Zhongjing emphasized that diet should be taboo, saying: "The taste you eat is suitable for your illness and harmful to yourself. Appropriate is suitable for the body, harmful is sick, and dangerous is cited. " In addition to the traditional dietary taboos such as "hair oil" circulated by the people, dietary taboos based on modern medical theory have gradually been accepted by Chinese people, and some of them have become familiar dietary requirements, such as avoiding sugar for diabetes, avoiding too much salt for kidney disease, avoiding greasy and hyperlipidemia, strictly restricting high-cholesterol and high-fat foods for coronary heart disease, and avoiding salt-free diets for ascites due to cirrhosis. Taboos are not limited to patients, but also have very important significance in the health care of healthy people.

Dietary taboos in disease state

"On the Nine Treasures of Lingshu" said: "The disease is in the tendons and there is no acid; Disease is in qi, no spicy food; Disease in the bone, no salty food; Disease is in the blood, and no food is bitter; Sick of meat, no food. " It is pointed out that there are five dietary taboos when qi, blood, bones and muscles are sick, and their theoretical basis is the theory of five elements, in which the muscle and acid belong to wood, the qi and pungent belong to gold, the bone and salty belong to water, the blood bitterness belongs to fire, and the meat is sweet to earth. Under normal circumstances, sour taste into the liver can replenish liver qi, which is beneficial to the liver's nourishment of tendons, but in the case of liver disease, it is not conducive to the function of tendons, so "gluten disease does not eat acid; Qi disease without spicy food; Bone diseases are not salty; Blood diseases have no bitterness; Meat disease is not sweet. "

Tendons in traditional Chinese medicine are similar to those in modern medicine. They are in charge of limb movements, and the expansion and contraction of tendons can complete various actions. Its pathological changes are manifested as poor limb movement, unfavorable expansion and contraction, cramps or tremors. These limb dyskinesia are very similar to hypocalcemia in modern medicine. Eating too much acidic food will increase the loss of calcium ions, which will aggravate the phenomenon of hypocalcemia, and the pathological changes of tendons may be more obvious.

Traditional Chinese medicine believes that qi is the motive force of life activities and has the function of promoting viscera to complete their respective physiological functions. Therefore, the anger must be kept secret and cannot be dispersed. The spicy food has the effects of promoting blood circulation, promoting qi circulation and resolving hard mass, and can dissipate qi in human body. "Don't eat spicy food when you are sick of qi" and "Don't eat spicy food when you are sick of qi" mean that people with qi deficiency should eat less spicy food to avoid excessive divergence of vital qi and damage it.

The concept of blood in traditional Chinese medicine is different from that in western medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that qi and blood are the basic substances to maintain human life activities, and their main components are nourishing qi and body fluid. Bitter food will dry up and damage the body fluids in the blood, thus hurting the blood. Therefore, Neijing put forward the dietary taboo of "disease in blood, food is not bitter".

"Kidney governs bone" and "salty entering kidney" are one of the basic theories of traditional Chinese medicine, that is, kidney can affect the growth of bones, and bone diseases are often caused by kidney; Salty food first acts on the kidney, and eating too much salt will damage the function of the kidney, so "the disease lies in the bone, and there is no salty food." Modern medicine believes that long-term high-salt diet can form water and sodium retention and increase the burden on the kidney.

Lingshu Wuwei said: "Five prohibitions: bitter liver disease, salty heart disease, sour spleen disease, sweet kidney disease and bitter lung disease." Its theoretical basis is also the theory of five elements. The five elements of liver belong to wood, and the five elements of pungent taste belong to gold. According to the theory of five elements, gold can restrain wood. Therefore, patients with liver disease should fast spicy food to prevent liver injury, that is to say, eating spicy food can help the lungs nourish gold and qi, and then inhibit the liver. Other visceral diseases and so on.

If we compare the dietary taboos in this article with those mentioned in Ling Shu Jiu Zhen Lun and Su Wenxuan Wu Mingqi, we can find that the dietary taboos are different, which shows that there are different levels of dietary taboos in Chinese medicine. Moreover, although liver and tendons belong to wood, liver disease is called "pungent", while tendon disease is "acid-free", which shows that pungent and sour taste will have adverse effects on liver disease; Both lung and qi belong to gold, but lung disease "forbids bitterness" and qi disease "has no pungent taste", which shows that pungent taste hurts both qi and liver.

Su Wen Re Lun said: "Why do you want to ban fever? Qi Bo said, "Less fever will heal, and eating more will suffer. This is forbidden. "Among them," recurrence "refers to recurrence, and" legacy "refers to legacy, indicating that the diet should be light, eat less meat, and not be full, otherwise the fever will recur, or the low-grade fever will persist. Dietary taboos in traditional Chinese medicine are not absolute, especially not extreme, so we should master them flexibly according to the situation.

There are usually two standards for dietary taboos after illness. First, if patients don't want to eat certain foods, they should be banned; Second, we should also control the amount of food we are willing to eat and not eat too much. Unwilling to eat is usually a reaction of human self-protection, which will increase the burden of gastrointestinal tract; Willing to eat shows that the function of digestive system has begun to recover, and eating too much may lead to new diseases.

Dietary taboos in four seasons

Traditional Chinese medicine believes that human viscera and animal viscera are "harmonious but different", so there is a saying that "viscera should be supplemented by viscera" Folk remedies for treating heart disease with animal heart and kidney disease with animal kidney are also recorded in Chinese medicine literature. Because of the corresponding relationship between the five internal organs and the four seasons, Zhang Zhongjing made specific requirements for the internal organs of fasting animals in different seasons in synopsis of the golden chamber, saying that "liver is not eaten in spring, heart is not eaten in summer, lung is not eaten in autumn, kidney is not eaten in winter and spleen is not eaten in four seasons". It is based on the fact that spring belongs to the liver, eating liver in spring leads to vigorous liver qi, summer to the heart, summer to the heart, autumn to the lungs, autumn to the lungs, winter to the kidneys, and winter to the kidneys, all of which will cause dysfunction of viscera and lead to diseases. In addition to the internal organs of animals, according to the corresponding relationship between the five internal organs of animals, some meat should also be fasted in special seasons. For example, don't eat mutton and dog meat in summer, otherwise it will aggravate internal heat and destroy the balance of yin and yang in the body.

Drugs and diet should be avoided.

Under normal circumstances, people who eat Chinese medicine should avoid cold and greasy food. The main reason is that cold and greasy food will affect the transportation and transformation of the spleen and stomach, which is not conducive to the absorption of drugs, and even cause diarrhea, which makes it impossible to determine whether diarrhea is caused by drugs or food, thus interfering with doctors' accurate judgment on the effects of drugs. If the medicine itself has a purgative effect, cold and greasy things will aggravate diarrhea. During taking medicine, it is also necessary to prohibit the strong taste of wine and spicy products that get angry, so as not to cause excessive internal heat. The heat of food can offset the heat-clearing effect of drugs or aggravate the warming effect of drugs.

Diet during special physiological periods should be avoided.

Women in menstrual period, pregnancy, postpartum and other special physiological periods, diet also has taboos. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that the operation of human blood is similar to that of natural water, which condenses when it is cold and does work when it is warm. Eating cold drinks during menstruation will cause cold pathogens to enter the blood sea (that is, uterus), leading to blocked blood coagulation, dysmenorrhea and even amenorrhea. Therefore, you should abstain from cold drinks and food during menstruation.

During pregnancy, because of the strong fetal qi, cremation is a fire, and there is a folk saying that "a pot of fire before labor". Pregnant women's diet should give consideration to both mother and baby, that is, to strengthen nutrition to meet the needs of fetal development, and to avoid overeating fat meat and sweet and spicy fire products, otherwise the heat poison of the mother can be transmitted to the fetus.

And "postpartum deficiency", the spleen and stomach transport and transformation function is weak, and the diet should be mainly warm and tonic, avoiding cold and cold. You should also eat less and eat more meals, avoid overeating and avoid frying hard and indigestible products.

In short, proper taboos in a healthy state are of positive significance for strengthening physical fitness and preventing diseases; Paying attention to dietary taboos in a disease state can also promote the recovery of the disease. Therefore, as an important part of health preservation, dietary taboos are of great significance.