Letters | How Hong Kong can apply traditional Chinese medicine in fight against chronic disease
- The Health Department strategy focuses on specific risk factors, rather than holistic health management
- TCM practitioners are able to customise health recommendations to individual constitutions and needs
In 2018, the Department of Health formulated a strategy for preventing chronic diseases through the promotion of healthy diet and exercise in Hong Kong. Separately, the department’s Chinese Medicine Regulatory Office offers a range of health information from the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). We believe the two initiatives should be integrated, as TCM theories – including the classification of the nine body constitutions – could help members of the public, especially the elderly, take a more holistic approach to managing their health and reducing the risk of chronic diseases.
Informed by epidemiological findings, the Health Department’s action plan for disease prevention focuses on specific health risk factors and pays less attention to health management as a whole.
While its efforts to discourage alcohol, salt and tobacco consumption could reduce premature mortality from non-communicative diseases including diabetes and obesity, the action plan does not treat the human body as an organic and integral unit when informing the public about healthy lifestyles.
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Taking an integral approach to health management, TCM practitioners recognise the differences among individual patients in physical characteristics and health needs through an assessment framework of the nine body constitutions: balanced, qi-deficient, yang-deficient, yin-deficient, phlegm-dampness, dampness-heat, stagnant blood, stagnant qi, and inherited special.
Based on the body constitution of an individual patient and the TCM knowledge about associated health risks, customised recommendations can then be made with regard to the most suitable preventive medicine, diet and physical exercise.
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In a research project funded by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, Baptist University researchers developed a TCM body constitution questionnaire targeting the Cantonese-speaking elderly population in Hong Kong.
Among 264 elderly study participants, 70 individuals were found to have a yang-deficiency constitution, the most prominent of the deficient body types. Such people are more vulnerable to diseases such as osteoporosis and should avoid consuming chilled and uncooked food. Tai chi has proved to be an effective exercise in improving the health of yang-deficient people.
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We therefore urge the Department of Health to integrate Chinese medical theory into its strategy for preventing chronic diseases among Hongkongers.
Yiu Lin Wong and Simon Wang, Kowloon Tong
