The Same Remedy Works Differently When the Gut Is Different

I gave the same prescription, and one person responds well while another finds it flat. Similar body weight, similar symptoms, yet the responses differ. In such cases, before I suspect the dose of the remedy, I first think of the gut (腸) that completes that remedy inside the body.

A remedy is not completed the moment you take it

Many herbal compounds don't act in the exact form in which they entered the mouth. A large share enter with a sugar (糖) attached, and only when gut bacteria strip off that sugar do they turn into their active substances. In other words, the final assembly of the remedy is done not by the person, but by that person's gut bacteria.

If so, the conclusion is clear. Because the composition of gut bacteria differs from person to person, the same remedy is activated differently in each person. People who have recently taken antibiotics, whose gut is always poor, or whose eating habits are skewed to one side have a weak version of this assembly process. That's why the same remedy works well for one person and feels flat for another.

Up to this point, it's established pharmacology. That many medicinal compounds are activated through the metabolism of gut bacteria is well known. One compound in licorice, and various other glycoside compounds, pass through this pathway.

From here on is my interpretation. This is why, before changing the remedy, I first look at the condition of the body receiving the remedy, especially the state of the gut. When the same remedy doesn't work, it's often not that the remedy is weak, but that the gut meant to complete it is exhausted. When you tend to the gut first, a remedy that had been flat sometimes shows its full strength.

So what do I do?

When I decide on a prescription, I don't look only at the symptoms — I also look at the state of digestion and the gut, and recent antibiotics or eating habits. If the gut has broken down, I steady the gut before the remedy. Even in the hours after you've left the clinic, soothing the gut's environment so the body properly receives the remedy — this is where herbal medicine has its place. It's not a way of forcibly cranking up the remedy's effect, but of first preparing the place where the remedy will be completed.

When you should go to the hospital first

That said, when the gut has been poor for a long time, there is something that must be checked. If you're losing weight, if there's blood in your stool, if abdominal pain wakes you at night, or if anemia is present as well, the disease of the gut itself must be examined first. If these signs are present, I recommend internal medicine and a colon examination first.

Finally

There's no need to blame yourself, asking "why doesn't that remedy work for me?" It's not a matter of willpower, nor a bad constitution. It's only that the body's conditions for completing the remedy aren't yet in place. Let's put those conditions in place together, starting there.