Abstract
Tongue diagnosis in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) assesses the health by investigation of tongue coating. The science and technology of tongue coating analysis have become a significant issue for modernization of TCM. The relationship between microecology of tongue coating and TCM was relevant to the syndrome differentiation in TCM, such as the cold/hot syndrome may exhibit different specific microbiota patterns in the tongue coating. This article provides a review on the microbiota research of tongue coating.
Highlights
Tongue diagnosis, as a major means of observation and a characteristic feature of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), discriminates physiological functions and pathological conditions by observing the changes in the tongue coating
In TCM theory, the tongue is an outer extension of pi and wei, while the tongue coating is produced by wei qi through fumigation [1]
The tongue coating reflected the status of pi and wei, corresponding to physiological and clinicopathological changes of inner parts of the body (Figure 1)
Summary
As a major means of observation and a characteristic feature of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), discriminates physiological functions and pathological conditions by observing the changes in the tongue coating. The tongue coating reflected the status of pi and wei, corresponding to physiological and clinicopathological changes of inner parts of the body (Figure 1) It is the first information for TCM doctors to make a diagnosis and cannot be neglected. Zhu et al [19] prepared tongue coating smears for microscopic examination after Gram-staining to set the quantitative criteria for analyzing the microbiota on the tongue coating of patients with damp-heat syndrome. They discovered that the total bacterial count was higher in damp-heat syndrome’s yellow-dense tongue coating than in the normal white-greasy coating. Bai et al [30] applied the next-generation sequencing methods to analyze tongue coating samples via bacterial 16sRNA V6 regions and analyzed the network of operational taxonomic units and microecology of zheng
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