July 5, 2022

How does TCM understand and treat diabetes(type 2). This is an important question. It is unfortunate but most understand diabetes as a sugar/pancreas/insulin problem. They fail to see that it is a whole body problem. In TCM, actually, it is first a kidney system problem. Then evolve to a spleen and then a lung problem. Other sources list the order as backwards. Regardless, it is a problem of at least 3 major organ systems in TCM. But modern science might as well disregard this notion as garbage! So what else is unfortunate??? The fact that people have the wishful thinking that if "I stop eating sugars and carbs then the problem will never affect me." Clinically speaking I've observed that it is true regarding the adage "you are what you eat". The people who shun carbs/sugar essentially equate carbs to sugar when it is not the cases, metabolically speaking. They essentially adopt any combo/variation of the Atkins, paleo and keto diets. After some time, body fat become low, and the natural padding of the body is lost. Surface body texture becomes "tendon-y". These people literally look like "meat". But the preferred term is "lean" or "cut"! Blood sugar may be normal now, and the problem is considered "cured" or "controlled". Not to mention the unbelievable amount of body weight lost. Does it get any better than this? At what cost though?

Western science has not evaluated the long term consequences of this other than the potential risk of low blood sugar dangers or long term damage to the body from chronic ketosis. These are just scraping the surface in my opinion. From clinical observation I can already tell this likely doesn't lead to anything good because quite frankly there are no 100 year olds who look like this anywhere in the world, nor do they eat like this, and many even look "fat". But "fat" is "bad". Lo and behold if you don't treat the spleen kidney and lung but instead use this unnatural eating method as a long term "fix", it wouldn't be a surprise if something bad happens down the road. It wouldn't even matter if you feel "great"("wired" perhaps?) While a few may thrive under this, the same cannot be said about the masses.

Without getting too deep into the science of this, it is important to note that 'carbs' is not 'sugar'. Eating carbs is not the same as eating sugar. If anything is the problem, it is sugar. The patient I mentioned about in the last column, he at ethe same as he did before. He only cut down his carbs, but didn't eliminate it. I'm sure some other doctors would have told him to do that, but I didn't.I also told him to stop eating sugar if possible. He also ate less per meal, especially dinner. Just by doing this his empty stomach morning blood glucose started to drop but it wouldn't seem to drop further until we started treatment with acupunture and herbs to rectify the function of his three systems. After a few months of treatment, his glucose levels went below 6 into the 4s. Very good numbers, all within normal range. I then told him, "we stop treatment, you maintain your current regimen and see if things hold on their own." And they did, for many months later, while slightly higher eventually(recently) in the 5s, but has been quite steady around there. Not too shabby for not taking any medications.

This is comparison to some other patients who prefer to decline treatment for their diabetes despite already taking diabetes pills and switching pills frequently, and tacking on more pills(3+ just for diabetes) and their blood sugar often going out of range, feeling under the weather often and never able to gain weight("tendon-y"). Off the side here but while many mysteries shroud the death of Bruce Lee but I think perhaps there is some possible connection to his low body fat. Case in point, where is the 100 year old who look like Bruce Lee?