All Posts tagged disease causes

During the development course of illness, pathological products will be formed. They can in turn act directly or indirectly on tissues or organs, and cause new pathological conditions. Retained fluid, phlegm and blood stasis are special pathological products, some new health problems can be resulted.

From a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) aspect, while the main causes of body disharmony are external like the six evils or internal like the seven emotions, there are additional factors that need to be taken into consideration in disease development. They are constitutional factors, lifestyle factors and others.

As responses to external stimuli, our emotions not only affect how we are psychologically feeling, but also affect our physiological functions and can play a role in disease development. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) regards them as manifestations of physiological functions in the organs, which mainly involve the heart, liver, spleen,…

Fire and heat evils are referred to the same pathogenic influence but in different intensity. Heat evil is often originated from external, while fire evil is often originated from internal.

Dryness has a drying and puckering nature, and tends to impair the body fluids, leading to typical signs like throat and mouth dryness, thirst, dry or cracked skin, withered hair, scanty urine and constipation.

Dampness evil belongs to a yin evil, and it tends to disturb the qi (vital energy) activities and block the meridian flow, leading to chest stuffiness and abdominal distention. The spleen and stomach are the major organs for body fluid metabolism, where dampness evil usually attacks them first, and cause…

Summer-heat belongs to a yang evil, which is hot in nature with typical signs like a feverish body, irritability, a red face and thirst; it can consume qi (vital energy) and impair body fluid. Summer-heat damages usually present breath shortness, fatigue, limb weakness, thirst and scanty urine.

Being a yin-evil, cold tends to impair yang-qi, leading to cold signs; it is the nature of cold to congeal and stagnate the circulation of blood and qi, leading to pain; coldness also tends to contract and shrink the affected body region, e.g. closure of skin pores, blood vessel contraction…

Wind evil is the leading evil for exogenous diseases, it often leads other external evils to attack the body; it possesses a penetrating ability, which tends to open up the skin and subcutaneous tissues, leading to symptoms like sweating, headaches and aversion to coldness.

TCM physicians generalized the six climatic factors as the external influences for disease development. They were wind, cold, summer-heat, dampness, dryness, and fire or heat, which are commonly referred to as evils in Chinese medicine literature.

TCM attributes the various causes of diseases to external and internal origins. These factors conform and act according to the principles of yin yang and five elements, in which both stress balance and inter-relationship.