 One of the most common clinical patterns that I see with patients and that I've experienced a long time is What's called spleen chi deficiency now in this video? I thought I would talk about it a little bit more Including what ancient doctors and ancient books mentioned about this pattern as well as foods that are good for it And foods that are bad for it. Hey guys, I'm Dr. Alex Hein Chinese medicine doctor licensed acupuncturist and Author of the health book master the day on Amazon and audible now below this video I've included a free download Which is on four daily rituals that can possibly help you have years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine You can check it out right below the video now spleen chi deficiency as it's called is a very kind of textbook definition That is often a lot more complicated and a lot more nuanced in clinical practice But in this video I thought I would share some general Recommendations because they do come up quite a lot and a lot of people fit this picture Especially in this generation which seems to be the digestive problem epidemic So let's first look at two quotes and references on specifically what affects the spleen and what affects the certain organs and what kind of Pathological factors are most susceptible to now this first reference in the Hongjin aging says that Use bitter to drain it and use sweet to strengthen it now The second passage is all about really the pathological factors that certain organs Let's just say dislike or they hate or they're sensitive to so it says the heart loads or hates heat The lung hates cold the liver hates wind the spleen hates dampness the kidney hates dryness This is talking about the five organs and the things that I like to think of them as susceptibilities Right tendencies susceptibilities or weaknesses, so it said that the spleen loads or hates dampness That is considered the main pathological tendency that the spleen has from a Chinese medicine perspective Now let's talk about what specifically the clinical manifestations or the presentation of spleen cheat efficiency usually is So these are six very very very general characteristics and in practice It's often a lot more complicated and there are other patterns layered on now The first one is typically that the appetite is generally on the lower side and people are prone to getting a food baby So bloating with meals the second one is regarding bowel movements where a textbook spleen cheat efficiency pattern is Loose stools sometimes even diarrhea Potentially what I see is often constipation But the actual stools themselves are soft or wetter meaning like soft serve or they stick to the side of the bowl The next pattern is visually often people with spleen sheet efficiency or often more on the pale side or the more anemic side And that can be the sequela or a ranch manifestation later than the line of long-term spleen sheet efficiency can be anemic like presentations The fourth is that these people often have food allergies or they have food sensitivities So one of the expressions here that comes up a lot is that people with spleen sheet efficiency Often just don't like eating that much because they often feel food in their body. They feel bloating easily They easily get like that rock food doesn't descend in their stomach Sometimes eating is not an easy part of a spleen cheat efficient person's life So they often have a resistance to wanting to just eat that much The next pattern is that generally not always they tend to lose weight easily So one thing I see is that more of the textbook pattern is that people can be thin and can be prone to low appetite kind of what you think of as a very anemic presentation and when under stress sometimes these people fit the pattern of They just lose weight without even realizing it now on the other hand You can often have people who are quite overweight who feel like if they don't eat they get heavy fatigue So it's almost like a blood sugar dysregulation issue But the manifestation is that they're still very overweight, but they feel like if they stop eating Then they're fatigued but from an outside perspective They're eating quite a lot of food still so they're still overeating The last factor that I see is that generally like I mentioned they tend to not just enjoy eating But they also tend towards eating a limited specialized diet So this is generally how most people self adjust to this pattern is that over time They just eat fewer and fewer foods because they can't digest them They get too much bloating discomfort or other symptoms too and to avoid the pain and the discomfort They just really don't eat that much and that's been one of the ways they found a cope with this kind of problem So now let's talk about four pathological factors related to the spleen The first is basically a factor that really impacts the digestion is what you might consider directly dampness Causing foods because remember dampness is the king pathological factor the spleen is susceptible to so directly dampness causing foods can be oils Dairy cold and raw foods like salads or people who are on raw vegan diets beer fruit juice and sugar now for a lot of these people especially the ones getting a lot of phlegm in their throat with our Like always clearing their throat. It's usually easy to observe Sweet the flavor of sweet in almost any form it comes in is a problem because it will usually exacerbate that kind of flamminess the second is Congestion as a general thing meaning overeating in general. So this idea of congestion You know, you take someone who eats a healthy diet, but then let's just say it's a healthy kind of burrito But now for whatever reason they eat a massive of burrito in one sitting and Even though it's healthy food because they've introduced this massive log Spleen sheet efficiency means the person generally is weak digestion. They cannot eat a lot of food They cannot eat a lot of strong spices. So they eat this huge burrito and then for hours after they're like Because this kind of a mucus saliva is the fluid related to the spleen specifically So when the spleen is struggling it produces this excess mucus is excess saliva So even with a healthy diet overeating produces congestion Which is a problem for the spleen and then later even the gallbladder. So congestion is another big one People don't talk about the third strong flavors. So for example, you talk to people who are on the weaker digestive side And they'll say I went out to get spicy Mexican or spicy Indian And I had horrendous diarrhea the next day or all the next day or I very commonly here I drank beer and I got diarrhea I eat pizza and then I get diarrhea any of these strong things either Strong flavors like strong spices are a problem, but also just heavy food is a problem now the last I guess you could call pathological factor is this tendency to pivot what I see clinically in spleen sheet efficiency is What one of my mentors called excess opening or excess closing? Excess opening is when a person is prone to frequent stools. So I hear people that say I have Three four or five six seven stools a day. That's definitely spleen she or even spleen what we call young deficiency Where there's way too many stools on the other side is what's called? Too much closing where a person still has a spleen she pattern weak appetite food allergies anemic looking but they miss bowel movements easily they easily miss a day or two or three and Even then they still may be cold But this is still kind of the same pattern because a lot of the time but not always when the stool comes out Let's just say they miss one day when the stool comes out It can still be soft Maybe the first part is hard and then after it's soft or maybe they have just a large stool the next day And it still is pretty soft So there's still is that kind of wetness to it which is like the lack of digestive fire for lack of a better term Now finally let's talk about some of the beneficial foods for the spleen I'm going to give these two general buckets. Let's just call it dampness 1.0 dampness 2.0 Now dampness 1.0 is just General low-grade Loading a little bit of food sensitivities lower appetite side Maybe you just have two meals a day and that kind of thing So for general dampness 1.0 not super severe just the tendency you have I would say good general foods are rice easy to digest grains root vegetables meats cooked vegetables and warming spices like ginger Cardamom and pepper now and it's more severe state I call it dampness 2.0 because it's like dampness on steroids where the person's having just severe bloating at the point of shortness of breath or Severe food allergies where they really cannot eat much without getting headaches insomnia Crushing fatigue they often say things like I got gluten and then they're off for a few days The most severe being really severe ulcerative colitis where people are having like white rice and boiled chicken And that's that's it and they're still having 20 bloody bowel movements a day That would be the very very severe spleen she young and other organ deficiencies going on there But for these really severe cases or if you feel like you're allergic to literally everything I recommended the avoidance of all starch altogether whereas for the average person rice is usually not a problem even for spleen She deficient people bread can be a problem still Whereas in this 2.0 version all starch should be avoided. So a diet may look like No starches, which means rice and potatoes and root crops a moderate amount of sauteed vegetables Meats and then lesser portions of fat like avocados because remember those oily things can cause dampness And then modern diets that come to mind based on this the specific carbohydrate diet, which is specifically for digestive disorders strict paleo or These gaps and all these kinds of Elemental type diets those tend to be pretty extreme You know whole 30 all these kinds of things that are all related from each other that would be dampness 2.0 So I hope this gives some insight into what spleen she deficiency is obviously we could do 10 more videos on these and the various Manifestations is there reflux with it? Is our gallbladder disease gallstones? What is our abdominal pain because that's not strictly spleen she deficiency There are many other ways this can manifest that is the core pattern very useful to know Now if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally or online via telemedicine There's a link below to my clinic contact We can get a hold of me to book an appointment and before you go I have two related videos on the topic here