{"id":5394,"date":"2023-07-03T12:52:15","date_gmt":"2023-07-03T20:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.activeherb.com\/blog\/?p=5394"},"modified":"2025-02-25T10:12:06","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T18:12:06","slug":"supporting-vascular-health-in-tcm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.activeherb.com\/blog\/supporting-vascular-health-in-tcm.html","title":{"rendered":"Supporting Vascular Health In TCM"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s a plague of plaque that dates back millennia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most people believe an unhealthy modern diet is to blame for poor vascular health. Bacon-double cheeseburgers and cheesy fries. Soda. Chips. Crackers. And all the other highly-processed foods that fill 75% of grocery store shelves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But recent research reveals that clogged arteries were common in ancient times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For proof, we travel back in time and autopsy mummies, not just from Egyptian royalty but from other traditional societies around the globe… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plaque Buildup In Arteries: An Ancient Problem? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Up until just a decade ago, even most scientists would have believed that poor arterial health was a modern phenomenon attributed to unhealthy lifestyle choices such as cigarette smoking, poor diet, and lack of movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A study from 2013 flipped that script. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The so-called \u201cHorus study\u201d published in The Lancet<\/a> examined CT scans on 137 mummies from four different ancient populations: Egyptian, Peruvian, the Ancestral Puebloans of southwest America, and the Unangans, an indigenous tribe of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These four groups had completely different lifestyles. For instance, Puebloans were primitive farmers, while first nation tribes of Southwest Alaska were hunter-gatherers. Of course, all four groups didn\u2019t consume any refined foods, including blood-sugar-spiking white or wheat flour. Heavily-processed food simply did not exist then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the surprising thing was that 47 of the 137 mummies\u2014more than one-third\u2014showed evidence of calcified plaque accumulation in the arterial walls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If pork rinds and ice cream weren\u2019t to blame for the clogged arteries in these ancient populations, what was to blame? <\/div>\n\n\n\n

And it wasn\u2019t just Egyptian royalty, living high on the hog, that had arterial plaque buildup. (Previous research showed that ancient Egyptian elites indeed had poor arterial health, most likely because they ate like gluttons.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All four populations displayed evidence of it. One of the researchers was so surprised by these findings he referred to it as \u201ca shock.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So if pork rinds and ice cream weren\u2019t to blame for the clogged arteries in these ancient populations, what was to blame? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers theorized that inflammation was to blame, whether from smoke inhalation (from utilitarian fires or ceremonial) or untreated infections. Other researchers believe kidney dysfunction or weak bones led to poor arterial health in the mummified subjects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ancient Wisdom For An Ancient Problem<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Despite the surprising findings from the study, it\u2019s no doubt that poor diet and lack of exercise also contribute to poor vascular function. But how does TCM view this seemingly modern health problem?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), poor vascular health results from myriad syndromes. To illustrate how poor vascular health is an ancient problem, the Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor (the \u201cYellow Emperor\u2019s Classic\u201d), written roughly 2500 years ago, describes the pattern. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ancient text describes poor vascular as \u201cHeart pulse paralysis obstruction\u201d. Three underlying patterns cause the obstruction:<\/p>\n\n\n\n