Health Blog
Written by Dr. Heo Ji-young. Each piece takes a single symptom and follows what is actually happening in the body.
Why the Herbs Are Decocted Together in One Pot
Herbal medicine puts several herbs in one pot and decocts them together. A patient once asked me: could you not decoct them separately and mix them afterwards? Today I want to look at this old method through the eyes of chemistry.
Can Tension Be Seen as a Number? — On Heart Rate Variability
The device on your wrist gives you a number like a "stress index," and more and more people bring me a screenshot of it and ask whether a low reading is all right. It is a good question, so today I want to say what that number actually is.
The Road Medicine Takes to the Brain Without Going Through the Blood — There Is a Telephone Line in the Gut
Medicine is absorbed and spreads through the blood. That is the picture we know. But the gut has a separate line running straight up to the brain. It does not go through the blood. When your stomach eases the moment you take something, there is a road like this behind it.
Medicine Switches Bacteria On, and It Also Fixes the Neighbourhood They Live In
You will have heard plenty about gut bacteria activating medicine. But there is a direction running the other way too. When medicine changes the environment of the gut, the make-up of the bacteria living there changes, and as a result the mucosal cells recover. This is not a story about switching medicine on; it is a story about fixing a neighbourhood.
Some Medicines Are Felt the Moment You Take Them — Each Compound Travels a Different Road
Some people tell me they feel something the moment they swallow the medicine. It is not their imagination. A single herb holds tens, hundreds of compounds, and some of them never need to reach the gut at all — they simply pass through the membrane. The same herb carries both a fast road and a slow one. Though having the fast road does not mean it only does fast work.
The Yellow Powder That Lowers Blood Sugar — Following Berberine All the Way Through
More and more people know the name berberine, and many now ask about it first in the clinic. In herbal medicine it is the bitter yellow compound in herbs like Coptis and Phellodendron, and today I want to follow it all the way through.
Why Medicine Wakes Up Where It Hurts — What Happens at a Site That Has Turned Acidic
The medicine you take circulates through the whole body. So why does it come undone precisely where it hurts? A site of inflammation turns acidic, and that acidity does two things — it loosens the barrier, and it wakes a locked compound right there on the spot.
Why the Pungency of Herbs Acts on the Body — The Compounds That Open the Cell's Door
Ginger, cinnamon, mint, Sichuan pepper. The taste and aroma of these familiar ingredients are not mere sensation. They are keys that open a "door" in the cell membrane. That door is called an ion channel.
Herbal Medicine Doesn't Press One Spot — The Doors Are Several, and They Open at Different Times
Say 'medicine' and you picture one spot pressed precisely. Herbal medicine isn't built that way. The doors it goes in by are several to begin with, they open at different times, and what opens pushes on what opened before. Here they are, gathered in one place.
The Exact Meaning of 'Your Tests Are Normal' — How Reference Ranges Are Made
The normal range is an interval cut from the middle 95% of healthy people. That's why kidney function can drop by half and still register as 'normal.' Tests look at items. And the place where you are struggling may be not an item but a chain formed by stringing items together.
The Medicine Your Gut Has to Switch On — Following a Single Herb, Gardenia, All the Way Through
Gardenia's main compound arrives locked. Only when the bacteria living in the gut strip off its sugar does it become active. What switches the medicine on is not the medicine — it is that person's gut.
The medicine that does not press the brake for you — following magnolia bark down to its ingredients
People come after being told their breathing feels tight but the tests are normal. The lung is an organ; breathing is regulation. Tests look at the organ. The ingredients of magnolia bark do not manufacture a brake that isn't there — they help the brake the body already has work better.