Nutritional Medicine

Harmonizing Your Health: Tailored Nutritional Guidance Based on Traditional Chinese Principles

With the findings collected and the diagnosis made during the anamnesis session, we evaluate your dietary log and create a nutritional suggestion.

Just as with herbal medicine, the goal is to bring body functions back into balance with selected foods. For instance, foods like millet, oats, and honey strengthen the functional circuit of the spleen, while celery supports the function of the liver.

Effect: Detoxification, stimulation of metabolic processes, provision of nutrients, and especially the supply of energy.

Application: For targeted support of well-being across a very broad spectrum of treatment.

With the understanding of the basic principles of Chinese dietetics acquired in the lecture, we support you in making and implementing changes in everyday life.

Integrative Nutritional Strategies from Traditional Chinese Medicine

Through nutrition, you can support your recovery and health from within. Prevent complaints in the long term. Positively influence your energy and well-being through what you consume. After your diagnosis is established, a personalized nutritional consultation based on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) can be provided. Together, we will establish general guidelines and specifically advise you on which foods you should ideally avoid. The tips you receive from us are easy to implement! Even if you are eating responsibly according to Western standards, Chinese nutritional advice might offer you new insights. In particular, the necessary supportive or regulating, expelling or cooling foods for you will be discussed. We will explain recipes for preparation. You will be surprised at how different the Western and Chinese perspectives can be on the same food. However, both nutritional approaches can complement each other ideally. Karin Schilling, our dietetics specialist, will be pleased to advise you.

Integrating Chinese Dietetics: A Core Pillar of Holistic Wellness in TCM

Chinese dietetics is considered one of the ‘Five Pillars of Therapy’ (acupuncture, pharmacotherapy, Tuina, Qigong, dietary medicine) in TCM. In China, there was early awareness of the importance of a balanced diet for a person’s well-being. Foods were already viewed as mild yet important therapeutics. They are assigned to different taste directions: they can be spicy, sweet, neutral, sour, bitter, or salty. Their temperature behavior is also differentiated. Cold, cool, neutral, warm, or hot refers not to the state after preparation but to the effect on the body. Moreover, medicines and foods are related to functional circuits or meridians and have a tendency to act (lifting, acting on the “surface,” lowering, acting in-depth).

Chinese dietetics prioritizes your health and works ideally in conjunction with other therapeutic methods. We also offer help with issues such as eating disorders, diabetes, or food intolerances like lactose or gluten intolerance.

In China, there was an early recognition of the significance of a balanced diet for overall well-being. Foods were considered mild but essential therapeutics (agents for treating or preventing diseases). Nutritional counseling and adjustments following a Chinese diagnosis are often necessary.

Additionally, self-care (yangsheng) provides numerous important life aids that lead to a long, healthy, fulfilled life.

Nutritional Counseling Following the Principles of Chinese Medicine

The holistic and qualitative perspective of Chinese Medicine, particularly its dietetics, greatly fascinates me. My research at the Chair of Nutritional Medicine at TU Munich focused intensely on obesity and type 2 diabetes. I am thrilled by Western nutritional medicine with its deep understanding at the cellular and biochemical level. However, nutritional therapy primarily relies on analyzing the individual nutrients in foods and focuses on quantitative relationships. The Chinese dietetics sparked my interest mainly due to its qualitative approach and the possibility of individual nutritional recommendations. Foods are precisely defined in terms of their effects on the body. They are based on the same organizational scheme that underpins diagnostics and other therapeutic methods such as acupuncture. Accordingly, depending on one’s constitution, health status, age, time of day, and season, personalized nutritional counseling can be provided. In the overall structure of Chinese Medicine, dietetics holds significant importance. Foods are considered mild medicinal agents for treating and preventing diseases. Through daily food intake, nutrition is a very sustainable therapy.

My goal in practice is to combine the advantages of Western and Chinese dietary teachings and to implement Chinese dietetics with a background in essential nutritional science knowledge.

Chinese dietetics has shown excellent results for the following complaints. Furthermore, Chinese dietetics can significantly support therapies involving acupuncture, phytotherapy, and Tuina.

Conditions Treated

Metabolism Related

Obesity
Underweight
Metabolic Syndrome
Lipid Metabolism Disorders
Diabetes
Hypertension
Digestive Complaints
Food Intolerances

Gastro-Intestinal

Heartburn
Gastritis
Chronic Inflammatory Bowel Diseases

Gynecological

Dysmenorrhea
Pregnancy Complaints (such as nausea, gestational diabetes)
Climacteric Complaints

Dermatological

Acne
Eczema (Atopic Dermatitis)
Aphthous Ulcers
Urticaria (Hives)

General

Susceptibility to Infections
General Fatigue

Introduction to Nutritional Medicine

Whether it’s headaches, heartburn, digestive problems, fatigue, weight gain, or even sleep disorders. What if someone told you that these varied symptoms could be alleviated or even disappear? We’re here to tell you: It’s possible! And one of the ways is through the right diet, tailored for you. Because: Eating strengthens our organism from the inside out. Complaints that we’ve often had for years or even decades can be resolved as our body returns to its delicate balance.

It’s not enough to know how many vitamins, calories, or carbohydrates are in our food, but also what they do in our body. Nutritional medicine is an essential part of Traditional Chinese Medicine for a reason. We will explain what exactly happens when we eat, how our body deals with it, and what consequences it has for us.

Let's begin with aspects of Western medicine:

When we see delicious food in front of us and can almost smell how good it will taste, our brain calculates at that moment how many fats, carbohydrates, and proteins we will consume. This information, already perceived through our senses, is sent by our brain to the organs involved in digestion. With this knowledge of what is coming their way, enzymes are released in the liver, gallbladder, and stomach to stimulate the digestive juices. The organism is ready to break down the food and further process it in the small and large intestine. There, bacteria transform the food and filter out nutrients. What is no longer needed is excreted. About 20 minutes after eating, the brain receives the feedback “I am full.” The maximum feeling of satiety sometimes occurs only 45 to 60 minutes after the meal.

Ideally, our stomach is 70 percent full at that time. The perfect amount to be nourished for about 4-6 hours (depending on the constitution) and to have energy. This means that if we eat slowly, really take our time to chew well, then the principle works just as it is intended. However, it is often the case that we eat in a hurry, almost gobbling up our food. We don’t take the time to chew well, sit relaxed, have good conversations. Instead, we eat on the go, at the PC, eat so quickly that we shove in another portion afterwards and then realize how “full” we are. Or we even skip meals because we think it will help us lose weight or because we are stressed.

We feel tired after eating, exhausted, get cramps, bloating, diarrhea, or constipation. What follows are heartburn, headaches, sleep disorders. We fall out of balance, out of our harmony. Traditional Chinese Medicine can ideally describe why our everyday habits have such consequences.

Nutrition from the Perspective of Traditional Chinese Medicine:

Imagine the stomach as a cauldron situated in the center of our body. Into this cauldron go the foods, drinks, and medications we consume. Above the cauldron, there’s a sieve (which, in Chinese medicine, is symbolically the spleen) that filters out the good essence from the food components. Above this is the lid of the cauldron, symbolically representing the lungs, which capture the fine condensate and distribute it along with the respiratory Qi across the body’s surface. Underneath the cauldron burns the digestive fire, fueled by the kidney (the “Kidney Yang”)—this is precisely where another vital little pot sits, containing our life essence. But the fire is also fueled by the organs that produce the digestive juices: the liver, gallbladder, and pancreas.

Below, you’ll see what happens when everything operates optimally (1), when we eat too much (2), eat too little, or are burdened by psychological stress.

1 When we eat three meals a day with the ideal composition of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats, giving ourselves 4 – 6 hours in between for decomposition and processing, our digestive fire burns optimally. The decomposed components of the food, their essence, symbolically rise as Qi steam (life energy) upward through the spleen’s sieve, condense at the lungs, and are distributed by them throughout the body. We feel full of energy, well-nourished, and satisfied.

2 When we eat more, filling the stomach cauldron more than 70%, our digestive fire must “burn” more to decompose the food. To increase the flame, our Kidney Yang must intervene and provide more energy for combustion. This consumes energy, making us feel tired after eating. If this state of overfilling the stomach persists, it exhausts us in the long term.

3 If we eat too little or skip a meal, our stomach cauldron is empty. However, the digestive fire cannot be turned off at the push of a button, resulting in the cauldron getting scorched at the bottom. We often feel this as stomach pressure or heartburn. Furthermore, too few or no Qi steams rise, making us tire more quickly. The body must retrieve energy from elsewhere to function optimally. Muscle pain, chronic exhaustion, and lack of drive, among others, can be the consequences.

4 The stomach processes not only food but also worries, fears, rumination, and anger. Our stomach reacts to psychological imbalances, processing these in addition to food. These also harm the spleen, as they “clog” the sieve. Consequently, fewer Qi steams can rise. This means less life energy in the body. The spleen reacts with a craving for sweets because it requires energy to function. Sweets are short-chain carbohydrates, hence quick energy suppliers, but with the side effect that they also clog the sieve. The spleen’s craving increases because it needs even more energy – a vicious cycle. Additionally, the liver has to work harder; it not only supplies digestive juices but also detoxifies the body. In this case, it cleans the “clogged” sieve of the spleen. An overloaded liver can manifest in irritable moods, outbursts of anger, and muscle tension.

As with everything, moderation is key. It’s okay to eat chocolate sometimes, to overeat occasionally, or to skip a meal. The body can handle this if they are exceptions. Problems arise when these exceptions become the norm, or for example, when skipping meals is accompanied by worries and rumination. The good news is: Nothing is set in stone; it’s always worth it to change your dietary habits. For more energy, joy in life, and vitality.

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