Do men who are "not good" need to nourish the kidneys and strengthen their virility? Get rid of misunderstandings and deal with male diseases scientifically

In ancient China, due to the low living standards and other reasons, men, especially those with sexual dysfunction, believed that they had a mild or severe "kidney deficiency and yang deficiency" and would take some kidney-tonifying and yang-strengthening products from time to time in order to make themselves more masculine. This trend still persists today.

In the men's clinic, many patients ask the doctor whether they have kidney yang deficiency, whether they need to tonify the kidney, and whether they need to strengthen the yang. Moreover, most patients have taken kidney-tonifying and yang-strengthening drugs before, and only came to the hospital for treatment when the treatment was ineffective. It can be seen that using kidney-tonifying and yang-strengthening drugs to treat male-specific diseases such as impotence has become a habitual thinking of men. The reason is that people do not understand the causes of male sexual dysfunction, especially impotence, and mistakenly believe that the method of using traditional Chinese medicine to treat sexual dysfunction must be "tonifying the kidney and strengthening the yang", thus falling into the misunderstanding of tonifying the kidney and strengthening the yang.

In order to get rid of the misunderstanding of kidney-tonifying and yang-strengthening drugs, we need to understand the reasons for the prevalence of yang-tonifying trends, the TCM pathogenesis and symptomology of male sexual dysfunction, especially impotence, in the context of modern society, the indications of yang-strengthening methods, and the hazards of abusing kidney-tonifying and yang-strengthening drugs.

1. Reasons for the prevalence of the trend of tonifying the kidney and strengthening yang

The trend of men taking kidney-tonifying and aphrodisiac drugs was originally related to the popularity of Yijing. The Book of Changes, which was written in the Western Zhou Dynasty, gradually became a discipline after being annotated by the later Yichuan. Yijing has a profound influence on Chinese culture. To this day, some ideas in Yijing are still deeply rooted in people's subconscious, consciously or unconsciously controlling some of their thoughts, consciousness and actions.

The Yijing believes that men belong to Yang and Qian, while women belong to Yin and Kun. Qian governs the heaven, while Kun follows the heaven. This is a concentrated expression of the ancient thought of valuing men over women and valuing Yang over Yin. Therefore, later generations said that "the Yijing is a book that supports Yang and suppresses Yin." This thought of valuing Yang and despising Yin in the Yijing influenced the medical community, and a method of treating male sexual dysfunction mainly by tonifying the kidney and strengthening Yang was produced. Therefore, before the Jin and Yuan Dynasties, although impotence was called "Yin impotence" at that time, the ancients almost all used the method of tonifying the kidney and strengthening Yang to treat impotence. In the Ming Dynasty, after the name of impotence was widely used, doctors and patients equated impotence with yang deficiency, making the trend of tonifying the kidney and strengthening Yang more popular.

2. The TCM etiology and syndrome patterns of male sexual dysfunction, especially impotence, in the context of modern society

According to a large number of clinical practices and our epidemiological research results, under the conditions of modern society, the TCM pathogenesis of impotence is as follows: sexual fatigue is not the main cause of modern human impotence, emotional changes are its main pathogenic basis, smoking, alcoholism, and eating fatty, spicy, fried foods and other bad living habits cannot be ignored, more excess and less deficiency is a general rule, and the disease-prone organs are centered on the liver and kidneys and involve the five internal organs. The symptom pattern is: in terms of deficiency and excess, excess syndrome is more common (36.23%), mixed deficiency and excess syndrome is less common (30.12%), and deficiency syndrome is in the middle (33.65%); in terms of yin and yang, yin deficiency is more common (23.34%), yang deficiency is less common (5.16%), and kidney yang deficiency is even less common (1.60%); in terms of cold and heat, heat syndrome is more common (22.25%), and cold syndrome is less common (8.07%); in terms of viscera positioning, it is closely related to the liver and kidney, especially the liver. Common syndromes are liver depression and kidney deficiency, liver and kidney yin deficiency, damp-heat downward movement, liver depression and spleen deficiency, spleen and kidney deficiency, liver depression and qi stagnation , etc.

According to the research of Chinese and Japanese medical scientists, only 5.9% of all impotence patients suffer from impotence caused by decreased male hormones. As for whether impotence is mainly caused by yin deficiency or yang deficiency, it is not difficult to see from the survey results that ** modern humans rarely suffer from yang deficiency after suffering from impotence, and even less often suffer from kidney yang deficiency, while yin deficiency is more common. ** Think about it, even among patients with impotence, the proportion of patients with yang deficiency or decreased male hormones is so low, let alone other male diseases.

Compared with ancient society, in modern society, science and technology have brought about modern civilization, and economic development has improved human living standards. However, with the improvement of civilization and the acceleration of economic development, the highly competitive social atmosphere has also brought great mental pressure to human beings. Coupled with changes in diet and living habits, environmental pollution, etc., it is easy to affect human physical and mental health and cause illness.

Specifically speaking of its relationship with impotence, in modern society, due to the improvement of living standards and the progress of medicine, people have enough food and clothing, their physical fitness has been enhanced, and there are very few people who are physically weak or allow themselves to be physically weak; due to the changes in the marriage system, the popularization of medical and health knowledge, and the influence of the traditional "precious essence" idea, there are very few people with chamber damage; the times are developing rapidly, the pace of life is accelerating, and in order to pursue a higher level of quality of life, people have a strong sense of competition and a strong sense of urgency of the times. ** Social and work pressures are high, and the mind is overworked, resulting in mental tension and excessive emotional changes, which ultimately increase the number of people who become ill due to emotional changes; ** Due to lack of knowledge or misunderstanding of chamber affairs, occasional failures in sexual life will put psychological pressure on the man, causing emotional depression and illness; the earth's warming climate, environmental pollution, food pollution, changes in dietary structure, as well as a fondness for spicy, roasted, fatty and sweet foods, heavy smoking and drinking, etc., often damage the human body's yin fluid or accumulate phlegm or generate dampness, heat and blood stasis.

The above is the background and basis for the changes in the pathogenesis and symptomology of impotence today. The above factors can easily cause the human body to produce depression, phlegm, heat, blood stasis, turbidity, dampness and other solid evils, leading to changes in the solid etiology and pathogenesis of impotence, and rarely transforming into virtual etiology and pathogenesis, thus forming the physiological and pathological basis of the pathogenesis of impotence; and all these changes in the pathogenesis of impotence with the change of social background will inevitably lead to changes in the manifestation of impotence syndrome. It can be seen that due to the different social environment and background in ancient and modern times, from a theoretical and logical analysis, it can affect the onset of impotence and its symptom manifestations, resulting in the different pathogenesis and symptomology of impotence in ancient and modern times.

3. Indications of Kidney-Tonifying and Yang-Strengthening Method

Tonifying the kidney and strengthening yang is a treatment method in traditional Chinese medicine. It is applicable to various diseases diagnosed as kidney yang deficiency by traditional Chinese medicine. For example, when men suffer from sexual dysfunction accompanied by chills, cold limbs, cold perineum, sore waist and knees, pale complexion, clear and long urination, frequent urination at night, etc., they can be treated with Chinese medicine to tonify the kidney and strengthen yang. From the perspective of Western medicine, when using traditional Chinese medicine to treat male sexual dysfunction, in general, only when the male hormone in the patient's blood is reduced can the kidney tonifying and strengthening yang method be used for treatment.

Among the health products and drugs for treating sexual dysfunction currently sold on the market, the vast majority are mainly for tonifying deficiency, which is mainly for tonifying kidney, which is mainly for tonifying kidney yang, leading to the proliferation of drugs for tonifying kidney and strengthening yang. From the above introduction, we already know that the vast majority of patients with male diseases such as impotence are not caused by kidney yang deficiency and male hormone deficiency, so it is no wonder that most people complain that the drugs for tonifying kidney and strengthening yang are ineffective. If the disease is caused by yin deficiency, the treatment will not tonify yin but strengthen yang, which will inevitably lead to more fire and more water deficiency, and the result of water deficiency and strong fire will inevitably be that the human body's sexual function will be completely "withered" and there is no medicine to cure it.

4. Harm of abusing kidney-tonifying and aphrodisiac drugs

In clinical work, adverse consequences caused by the indiscriminate use of kidney-tonifying and aphrodisiac products are often seen. For example, patients with chronic prostatitis originally suffered from damp-heat and blood stasis syndrome. After indiscriminate use of kidney-tonifying and aphrodisiac products due to sexual dysfunction, not only did the chronic prostatitis and sexual dysfunction not improve but worsened, but the quality of semen and sperm decreased, leading to infertility. Sexual dysfunction caused by hypertension and diabetes, after the indiscriminate use of kidney-tonifying and aphrodisiac products, often caused blood pressure and blood sugar to rise, and a variety of symptoms arose, worsening the condition.

According to literature reports, some patients with impotence abuse kidney-tonifying and aphrodisiac drugs, which not only fail to cure impotence, but also cause many disadvantages, such as sore throat, nose and mouth bleeding, excitement and insomnia, irritability, high blood pressure, hematuria, etc. In addition to directly leading to the aforementioned adverse consequences, the harm of abusing kidney-tonifying and aphrodisiac drugs can also increase the psychological burden of patients and lose their confidence in treating the disease due to delaying the disease.

Therefore, do not blindly abuse kidney-tonifying and aphrodisiac drugs as soon as you suffer from male diseases. Even if male diseases such as impotence are really caused by kidney yang deficiency, you should still use the drugs under the guidance of a doctor.

We do not deny that the method of tonifying the kidney and strengthening the yang can improve men's sexual function, but this treatment method has strict indications. It is only suitable for a very small number of patients with men's diseases and must be used under the guidance of a specialist physician.

Column name: "Men's Health and Family Happiness"

Implementing body: Qin Guozheng Science Studio, a famous doctor and expert of the Chinese Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Department of Andrology and Reproductive Medicine, Yunnan Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Yunnan Provincial Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Pharmacy Committee

Column Editor: Qin Guozheng

Column editor: Lin Xuyao

Editor-in-charge: Ma Chunli

(Pictures from the Internet)