What caused diabetes？

As for human body, Wood represents liver, Fire represents heart, Earth represents stomach, Metal represents lung and Water represents kidney. The organs I mentioned are generalized: liver include the liver, metabolic system and nerve; heart means the whole blood circulation; stomach indicates digestive organs; lung includes all windpipes and even nose, and kidney represents the entire urinary system.

In Chinese medicine theory, all herbs and food has elemental properties. The taste of Wood is sour and the color is green, therefore herbs and food that has been classified to having Wood property are usually sour or green. In another word, green vegetable and sour fruits can expel toxins from your body thus good for your liver.

The taste of Fire is bitter and the color is red, bitter herbs such as aloe, bitter melon, rysanthemum tea, green tea and lotus nuts are used to reduce inflammation and relief blood and heart conditions such as hypertension, hyperglycemia and hyperlipidemia.

The taste of Earth is sweet and the color of Earth is yellow, sweet herbs or food as rice, flour and corns are most efficient in energy supply and making people feel full.

The taste of Metal is hot and color is white, therefore white, refreshing and diaphoretic herb and food usually can help you breath better or good for your lungs.

The taste of Water is salty and color is black, salty and black food or herds are usually good for your kidney and urinary system.

For example: in Chinese medicine, green beans are used to detoxicate and relief the liver, red beans are used to enrich the blood, yellow beans are used to strengthen the spleen, white beans and white fungus are used to nourish the lungs, black beans are used to invigorate kidney and acts as a diuretic.

Just like the five elements are interactive, the five systems in human body are connected. For example: Hoelen, large-headed atractylodes rhizome and Codonopsis pilosula are classified as Earth enhancement herbs, for they would help digesting and increasing appetite. However, the prescription can also be used to treat cough and phlegm, because Earth would grow Metal. Salt is classified under Water enhancement food, it indeed would go through the kidney and stimulate the urinary system, but having too much salt would cause high blood pressure and heart attack, for Water overcomes Fire.

The color or tastes cannot be used as a principle to judge the medical property of food because there are lots of exceptions. For example: chili peppers are hot but they are not white; the green beans that can detoxicate human body are mug beans, peas are also green beans (and yellow beans when dry), but they don’t have the medical effect. Moreover, it is not rare for some herbs to have more than one property: liquorice root has all five properties, thus it is used as the universal coordinator in the Chinese medicine.

Since each element represents a system of human body, in the fortune telling level, the causes of illnesses are really simple. Heart, blood and eye problems are related to Fire; liver, nerve or gallbladder diseases for Wood being attacked or foe; lung diseases such as difficult breathing or asthma are for Metal not in good condition; stomach diseases are related to Earth; and kidney diseases are the problems of Water. However, if you read the notes, you will see lots of different reasons can cause diabetes. Why? Let me show you.

In the perspective of fortune telling, diabetes can be caused by lots of different reasons, but there are two main categories:

The first one is having strong Water and Wood, result in Earth being attacked. This type of diabetic patient would also have swelled eyes or feet. This kind of diabetes is triggered by Wood years.

The other situation is having strong Fire and weak Water, result in Metal, Wood or Earth being too dry. This kind of diabetes often comes along with high blood pressure or blood stasis. When Metal is too dry, it would also bring skin infection; when Wood is too dry, it also would bring reduction of vision. This kind of diabetes is triggered by Fire years.

In fact, the concept of blood sugar does not exist in traditional Chinese medicine. The diagnosis of diabetes is: eat a lot, drink a lot and keep losing weight. So diabetes in the definition of traditional Chinese medicine is wider than diabetes in the true sense.

First, let’s find out why Earth being attack would lead to diabetes. People would lose weight after getting diabetes, but they have lots of sugars in blood. That means they don’t have the energy to transport blood sugars into body cells. Which system is responsible for that? The answer is Earth, spleen to be specific. In traditional Chinese medicine, spleen is in charge for moving and merging energy. We know that Wood and Water are the natural enemies of Earth; Earth would lose the function if Earth is being attacked too hard.

The other cause of diabetes is Earth being too dry, Wood being too dry or Metal being too dry, along with Water being attack or too weak. That means stomach, liver or lung is too dry, and kidney is weak; the consequence is thick blood, lack of water and hot internal environmental. It would make people feeling thirsty all the time, lead to the symptom of diabetes in the definition of traditional Chinese medicine.

We now know that small intestine is the organ that digests food. But according to Chinese medicine, spleen is the digestive organ; this is because small intestine needs the digestive juice produced by spleen to digest food. On the other hand, spleen also receives and allocates nutrition produced by the small intestine to other parts of body.

If the nutrition back to the spleen is more than people would need, spleen will produce oil and fat. To response that, the heart will reduce the blood supply to small intestine and increase the blood supply to pancreas, so pancreas can remove the excessive body fat. According to modern Western medicine, diabetes is a disease of pancreas. In Chinese medicine, pancreas is triple warmer organ, triple warmer system is the fat layer under human skin, it is not included in the five systems, but the interconnected channel of the five systems; growing or overcoming between systems are all performed though the triple warmer system.

Reducing the blood supply of small intestine and increase the blood supply of pancreas is conducted by kidney. Kidney would cool the small intestine down by increasing water in the small intestine, and blood will be forced to go into pancreas. So in the perspective of Chinese medicine, diabetes is not a disease of pancreas, but caused by lack of coordination between organs. Lots of factors, such as lack of body fluid, lungs are too hot to grow Water, spleen being attacked and not able to move energy, kidney is too weak and not able to cool intestine are all etiologies of diabetes.

Let’s see some real life cases:

Male: 1(11), 7(7), 8(12), 8(4) found diabetes in 3(3) year (1986), died in 4(4) year (1987);

Female: 9(1), 3(7), 8(10), 1(1) died for diabetes in 3(1) year (1996);

Male: 1(3), 7(7), 3(7), 1(7) died for diabetes in 4(6) year (1977);

Male: 1(11), 7(7), 8(12), 2(8) died for diabetes in 3(3) year (1986);

Male: 10(4), 4(6), 5(7), 4(6) found diabetes in 3(1) year (1996);

Male: 2(8), 8(6), 3(7), 1(7) found diabetes in 1(11) year (1994);

Male: 8(4), 9(5), 3(1), 5(11) found diabetes in 1(11) year (1994);

Male: 8(4), 9(5), 3(1), 1(7) found diabetes in 1(11) year (1994); this guy born in the same day as the previous guy.

Female: 9(7), 1(5), 6(6), 1(11) found diabetes in 1(11) year (1994);

Female: 3(5), 6(6), 6(6), 7(7) found diabetes in the 6(6) year (1989);

Female: 6(2), 8(8), 5(7), 9(11) found diabetes in the 1(11) year (1994);

Male: 8(4), 3(7), 4(10), 7(11) found diabetes in the 1(11) year (1994);

Male: 9(3), 6(10), 5(7), 4(6) found diabetes in the 3(1) year (1996);

Female: 4(8), 6(10), 8(6), 5(11) found diabetes in the 1(11) year (1994);

Female: 8(6), 5(11), 1(7), 4(4) found diabetes in the 1(11) year (1994);

Female: 7(5), 4(12), 8(10), 1(7) found diabetes in the 1(11) year (1994);

Male: 3(1), 6(12), 10(4), 9(11) found diabetes in the 3(1) year (1996);

Male: 4(12), 10(2), 1(7), 1(11) found diabetes in the 1(11) year (1994);

Female: 9(5), 6(10), 9(7), 2(6) found diabetes in the 3(1) year (1996);

Female: 8(6), 5(11), 2(6), 8(6) found diabetes in the 3(1) year (1996);

You can find a lot in these cases. For example: lots of the cases are found diabetes in (11) year, because (11) could trigger (7), (4) and (3): (11) could merge with (7), (3) or (4) and become Fire.