The traditional Chinese medicine diagnosis of Cold and Hot Syndromes based on tongue-coating appearance successfully detects signals in the tongue-coating microbiomes that are indicators of the entire body's status.
Gut Microbiota Microbiome Tongue Diagnosis
In summary, by studying the tongue-coating microbiomes of chronic atrophic gastritis patients and healthy controls using next-generation sequencing and bioinformatics analysis, we revealed the possible mechanism underlying the traditional tongue diagnosis and highlighted the potential for using tongue coating microbiome features as biomarkers to reflect the holistic status of the human body, especially in gastrointestinal diseases. The current sample size of this study is still small and further investigations with more samples and complete metagenome sequencing are needed for a comprehensive understanding of the system. The observations described here might provide a new direction for understanding the biological basis of TCM tongue diagnosis and the link between the “geographic tongue” and the human body's health status observed in modern Western medicine.
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These facts lend credibility to the Chinese custom of discarding the first preparation of the Pu-erh tea and using the damp tea for subsequent brewing.
—Jinnan C 10 Jan 2024