Emily Feng
Feb 14, 2024
Everything you need to know about the magical organ "Spleen" (Chinese/Western Medicine prespectives)
What is spleen in Traditional Chinese Medicine?
Spleen is an organ in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) that is in charge of the transformation and transportation functions within our body.
I other words, it breaks down the food that we eat on a daily basis through the digestive systems, then transports the nutrients and good fluids through out the body and feeds all the cells for energy!
It also transports all the yucky fluids or toxins through the lymphatic system towards our waste centres (bladder and large intestines) for secretion.
It is an amazing system that transforms food into energy and transports the good and bad throughout our body. Thus helping us with everyday functions, keeping the body running and healthy!
Each different organ within the TCM system, correlates to an emotion. The emotion that links to this organ is "over thinking". When the spleen is weak, you're more likely to over think or have lots of thoughts flowing through. Or vice versa if you have been constantly over thinking, over-time it will harm the spleen energy and organ. When the spleen is functioning well and balanced, you're able to be productive, remain focused, feel a sense of calm and grounded even in stressful situations.
What is Spleen in western medicine?
The spleen is part of the lymphatic system in western medicine, the major function of the spleen is to help with the detoxification of the body and maintains fluid balance. There are also a few other functions of the spleen includes; generating white blood cell, storing of extra blood, helping with the immune system response and filtering red blood cells (Watson, 2021). A research conducted from (Lau et al., 2016) concluded that the spleen also helped with healing and inflammation symptoms within the body.
References
Watson, S. (2021, December 13). What does the spleen do. Retrieved February 15, 2024, from https://www.healthline.com/health/what-does-the-spleen-do
Lv, Y., Lau, W. Y., Li, Y., Deng, J., Han, X., Gong, X., Liu, N., & Wu, H. (2016). Hypersplenism: History and current status. Experimental and therapeutic medicine, 12(4), 2377–2382. https://doi.org/10.3892/etm.2016.3683