Dietary taboos while taking traditional Chinese medicine

The only undifferentiated taboos are to avoid alcohol and strong tea. The rest of the taboos need to be comprehensively judged based on the properties of the medicine, disease syndrome, and personal constitution. There is no universal "taboo list" circulated on the Internet.

Let’s start with two hard taboos that are recognized by all schools of Chinese medicine and leave little room for negotiation. No matter what you drink is a cold-relieving medicine, a tonic medicine to regulate qi and blood, or a medicine to relieve constipation, do not touch any alcoholic beverages, including liquor, beer, fruit wine, and even homemade rice wine. Alcohol is a typical inducer of liver drug enzymes. It will directly interfere with the liver's metabolism of drug ingredients. At least it will reduce the efficacy of the drug. In more serious cases, it will add toxicity to medicinal materials containing toxic alkaloids such as Aconitum and Tripterygium wilfordii, which will increase the burden on the liver and kidneys. Last year when I was working as an assistant at a traditional Chinese medical clinic, I met an old man who drank aconite-containing prescriptions to treat rheumatism and drank two ounces of white wine every now and then. Within half a month, his transaminase spiked to three times the normal value, and it took him a week to stay in the hospital to bring it down. It was really not a mistake. As for strong tea, the main reason is that the tannic acid in it will combine with the alkaloids and glycosides in the medicinal materials to form a water-insoluble precipitate, which cannot be absorbed even if you drink it, which means drinking the medicine in vain. If you really like tea, you can drink some light black tea or light green tea every two hours. There is no need to completely stop your tea drinking habit.

As for the various "universal taboos" that are so popular on the Internet, such as not eating mung beans, not eating radishes, not eating raw and cold foods, in fact, most of them depend on the situation, and there is a lot of controversy. Take the mung bean that people ask about most. Traditionally, mung bean is said to be "the antidote to hundreds of medicines." Many old Chinese medicine doctors will directly tell patients not to touch it while taking the medicine. However, many doctors with febrile diseases now recommend that patients who drink heat-clearing and anti-fire medicine should use some warm mung bean soup to help the medicine take effect faster. In summer, drinking a Huoxiang Zhengqi type medicine with mung bean soup can reduce heat and relieve vomiting much better than drinking medicine alone. But if you are taking prescriptions such as aconite, dried ginger, and cinnamon to warm the spleen and kidneys, and drink iced mung bean soup every day, it is equivalent to pouring cold water on the fire and the medicine is in vain. Radish is even more controversial. The old saying is that "ginseng is afraid of radish seeds". Radish will dissipate the qi replenished by ginseng, so you should not eat radish when taking tonics. However, many traditional Chinese medicine doctors in the gastroenterology department will specifically advise patients who are not replenished and have stomach bloating when eating ginseng. When taking medicine, you can add some stir-fried white radish, which can help transport the tonic and prevent the tonic ingredients from being blocked in the spleen and stomach and causing anger, so they can be absorbed better.

There are also many people who think that taboos are for Chinese medicine. In fact, most of the time, taboos are for your diseases. For example, if you have dysmenorrhea due to a cold uterus and are prescribed medicine to warm the menstruation and activate blood circulation, you must put away things that usually cause stomachaches such as iced milk tea and iced watermelon. Otherwise, you can take medicine to warm the uterus while stuffing ice cubes into your stomach. No matter how good the medicine is, it will be useless. If you are prescribing heat-clearing and detoxifying medicine for acne on your face and sores on your mouth and tongue, you should avoid eating foods that cause internal heat, such as fried skewers, durian, and spicy hot pot. Otherwise, while taking medicine to clear the heat, you will continue to add heat to your body. If the acne cannot be eliminated, you really cannot blame the medicine for not working. Last time, a young girl born in the 2000s came for a review and said that after half a month of taking medicine to treat acne, it had no effect at all. When I asked her, I found out that she drinks full-sugar milk tea every day and eats a piece of cream cake before going to bed. No matter how much the medicine clears the stomach, it can't stop her from giving it to herself every day.

When we talk about this, we have to mention the issue of "Fa Wu" that everyone is most concerned about. Many people have a really deep misunderstanding of Fa Wu. It seems that all fishy, ​​fragrant and fresh things are Fa Wu. I have even seen some people taking medicine to regulate the spleen and stomach, and even dare not eat eggs. It is really unnecessary. The essence of "fat food" in the traditional concept is "foods that will aggravate your condition." For example, if you have urticaria and itchiness after eating seafood, then seafood is your hair food. If you usually eat seafood and nothing will happen, even if you drink medicine to treat skin diseases, there is no need to specifically avoid it. Some people say that you can’t eat fruits while drinking traditional Chinese medicine, which is even more nonsense. As long as they are not iced fruits that have just been taken out of the refrigerator, you don’t feel uncomfortable eating them. You can eat them normally. If you take in enough vitamins, it will help your body recover.

In fact, there is really no need to think too scary about the taboos when drinking traditional Chinese medicine, let alone compare them one by one with the general list on the Internet, and end up not knowing what to eat at the end of the meal. If you are really not sure whether something can be eaten, just ask the doctor who prescribes it when taking medicine. He knows your constitution, your disease symptoms, and the compatibility of medicines best. The suggestions he can give you are more reliable than the list of ten marketing accounts you search.