On the road to a healthy life, we often encounter two important conditioning methods - dietary therapy and medical therapy. They respectively represent the "health preservation" and "health" in the concept of "preventive treatment" of traditional Chinese medicine, and jointly build a unique disease prevention and development system in traditional medicine in China.
Dietary therapy, as the name suggests, uses food as medicine, and adjusts the functions of the human body through a reasonable combination of diet, so as to achieve the purpose of disease prevention and treatment. There is a saying in "The Yellow Emperor's Neijing": "Five grains are for nourishment, five fruits are for help, five animals are for benefit, and five vegetables are for filling." This fully reflects the importance that ancient physicians attached to dietary therapy. For example, ginger brown sugar water can drive away cold and warm the stomach, and red dates and wolfberry tea can replenish qi and nourish blood, which are all common foods in daily life**.
Pharmacotherapy is the use of herbs or other medicinal products to directly act on the human body to eliminate diseases and restore health. Compared with dietary therapy, drug therapy has a stronger pertinence and faster speed of effect, and has a significant effect on the diseases that have occurred. For example, antipyretics used when you have a cold and fever, or spleen and drugs used to regulate the weakness of the spleen and stomach.
However, dietary therapy and medicine do not exist in isolation, but complement each other to maintain human health. In practical application, we should advocate the principle of "medicine in food, food before medicine", that is, pay attention to dietary therapy and health care in daily life, enhance the body's resistance, and reduce the occurrence of diseases; Once the body has symptoms, drugs are used to intervene in a timely manner**.
In general, diet therapy and medicine therapy are like two guardians of human health, one focuses on daily maintenance and prevention of diseases, and the other plays a key role in the occurrence of diseases. The combination of the two can not only improve the quality of life, but also better realize the prevention and treatment of diseases. Therefore, in the process of pursuing health, we should take into account both diet and medicine, making it an important part of daily life.