The Spleen Qi Deficiency Diet For Beginners

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 of 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 add 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 they're most susceptible to. Now this first reference in the Huangdi Neijing 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 loathes 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 things that I like to think of them as susceptibilities. Right tendencies, susceptibilities or weaknesses. So it's said that the spleen loathes 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 deficiency pattern is loose stools, sometimes even diarrhea but 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 cheat deficiency are often more on the pale side or the more anemic side and that can be the sequelae or a branch manifestation later down the line of long-term spleen cheat 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 cheat deficiency 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 deficient 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 to 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 where they're like always clearing their throat, it's usually easy to observe. Sweet, the flavor of sweet in almost any form that comes in is a problem. Because it will usually exacerbate that kind of phlegminess. 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 burrito in one sitting. And even though it's healthy food, because they've introduced this massive log, spleen deficiency means the person generally has 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 mucus, saliva, is the fluid related to the spleen specifically. So when the spleen is struggling, it produces this excess mucus, this 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 hear 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 chi deficiency 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, five, six, seven stools a day. That's definitely spleen chi or even spleen what we call yang 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 chi 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 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 bloating, a little bit of food sensitivities, lower appetite side, maybe just have two meals a day and that kind of thing. So for general dampness 1.0, not super severe, just a 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 in its more severe state, I call it dampness 2.0 because it's like dampness on steroids where the person's having just severe bloating to 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 glutened 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 it. And they're still having 20 bloody bowel movements a day. That would be the very very severe spleen, chi, yang, 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 recommend the avoidance of all starch altogether. Whereas for the average person, rice is usually not a problem. Even for spleen chi 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 Whole30, 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 chi deficiency is. Obviously we could do 10 more videos on these and the various manifestations. Is there reflux with it? Is there gall bladder disease, gallstones? Is there abdominal pain? Because that's not strictly spleen chi deficiency. There are many other ways this can manifest. That is the core pattern and 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 where you can get a hold of me to book an appointment. And before you go I have two related videos on the topic here.