Press Release
Jockey Club "Embrace Health" Chinese Medicine Programme launches FREE large-scale body constitution study
Thursday, 12 Dec 2019
The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust funded The School of Chinese Medicine (SCM) at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) to launch the Jockey Club "Embrace Health" Chinese Medicine Programme in 2016. Under this Programme, a territory-wide Chinese medicine study will be launched which aims to understand the distribution of the nine body constitutions among the elderly population in Hong Kong.
The study, which hopes to recruit 5,300 people aged 65 and above to participate in the research, will also explore the relationship between the nine body constitutions and dietary habits, lifestyles, etc., in order to formulate strategies to improve their respective body constitutions.
Body constitutions may be attributed to different lifestyles
Chinese medicine divides people into nine types of body constitution, namely "qi-deficient", "yang-deficient", "yin-deficient", "phlegm-dampness", "damp-heat", "stagnant qi", "stagnant blood", "inherited special" and "balanced" constitutions.
The Hong Kong Baptist University ‒ Jockey Club Chinese Medicine Disease Prevention and Health Management Centre under the SCM conducted a preliminary survey on the distribution of body constitutions from March 2018 to September 2019. Of the 589 participants, 426 were female and 163 were male.
The survey results show that those with "yin-deficient" or "yang-deficient" body constitutions both make up 17% of the total number of respondents. Some body constitutions show bigger gender differences. For example 12% of males have a "damp-heat" body constitution, compared to only 7% of females. Meanwhile, 14% of females belong to the "stagnant blood" category, while only 8% of males have this body constitution. The differences may be attributed to various lifestyles, such as a higher intake of fried, high-fat food and alcohol by males, and lower rates of physical activity in females.
Analysing body constitutions for disease prevention
Chinese medicine aims to achieve the goals of preventing disease and speeding up recovery from minor illnesses by analysing and improving body constitutions, thus reducing the number of people with a suboptimal health status. A global study conducted by the World Health Organization in 2014 showed that only 5% of the worldwide population is healthy, while 20% suffered from various illnesses, and 75% experienced suboptimal health.
Although people with a suboptimal health status are not diagnosed with disease, this status is critical for those alternating between disease and health. With its ageing population, the number of people developing chronic diseases due to suboptimal health is expected to increase in Hong Kong.
Understand the body constitutions of elderly in Hong Kong
To further understand and improve the body constitutions of the elderly in Hong Kong, and help prevent them from contracting chronic diseases, SCM will randomly sample households in all 18 districts of Hong Kong to recruit seniors to participate in a study on the distribution of body constitutions. Participants must be aged 65 and above, have no serious illnesses, or be in a stable medical condition. Relevant data will be collected for further analysis.
Interested seniors can call 3411 2691 to sign up for the study. They can also sign up online by scanning the QR code below with their mobile phones. Registration and participation in the study are free of charge.
