In general, it can be said that medicine is poison or has a certain bias, such as excessive cold, excessive heat, excessive acidity, excessive bitterness, etc. Traditional Chinese medicine uses the partiality of herbs to correct the imbalance of the patient’s body,or use its toxicity to fight poisons, generally cannot be compared with daily food.
Long-term use of herbs can indeed harm the human body and cause irreversible diseases. There are many records in the ancient pharmacopoeia. After modern pharmacological experiments, it has been found that long-term use or large quantity doses have many toxic drugs. Even though modern pharmacological experiments prove to be completely non-toxic herbs, due to its partiality such as over-cold or over-heating, long-term use will deviate from normal physical functions. For example, taking long-term use of cold and cool herbs will gradually change the original heat body, and became deficiency and cold, cause low metabolic rate, cold hands and feet, weakness, loose stools, etc.
Some herbs (such as jujube, medlar, yam, etc.) with gentle properties and close to food can be taken in appropriate amounts for a long time and are harmless to the human body.
In addition, some herbs also suffer from heavy metal pollution and pesticide residues.
Therefore, whether the herbs can be taken for a long time depends on the type and condition of the disease. Most chronic diseases require long-term (several months) recuperation. As long as the doctor’s prescription, herbs selection, and dosage adjusted properly, it can be taken for a long time. In fact, many modern medicines for the treatment of chronic diseases are often taken for more than ten or decades. Compared with herbs, which one is safer, you can imagine.
In fact, there are too many varieties of herbs, and they cover even daily food. In fact, traditional Chinese medicine has always advocated the homology of medicine and food, and all foods used under the guidance of traditional Chinese medicine theory belong to medicine. For example, the egg yolks in the ‘Dading Fengzhu’ used to nourish yin and calm wind, the light fermented soya beans in the’Yin Qiao San’ used to dissipate wind and heat, and the wheat in the’ Sweet wheat and Jujube Soup’ used to relieve depression and calm the nerves. These are all Suitable for long-term use and very safe herbs.
Taking herbs is not the only choice of traditional Chinese medicine. Almost all diseases can be improved or cured by completely non-toxic acupuncture, massage and other physical therapies. External application of herbal ointment to acupuncture points is another almost non-toxic choice, so we do not recommend taking medicine alone in clinical practice. For patients who can receive acupuncture, massage, and external application of herbs ointment, we will use more acupuncture and massage, so that the internal and external two-pronged approach can shorten the course of treatment and reduce the time of taking medicine.
