Abstract
In Sasang constitutional medicine, a part of oriental medicine, there are beneficial foods of harmful foods according to the each constitutions. Until now, most of the studies have investigated the classification of foods according to the each constitutions, The clinical usage of the constitutional diets in now in the beginning. The purpose of this study is to investigate the therapeutic effects of the constitutional diets in comparison with general therapeutic diets in the patients with hyperlipidemia. From January to August, 1999, the 65 hyperlipidemic patients admitted to Kyung Hee Oriental Medical Center were studied. Therapeutic diet for hyperlipidemic patients or each constitutional diets were given to the subjects 3 meals a day for 6 weeks. The Sasang constitutional classification, food habits were assessed. The anthropometric assessment and blood analysis were carried out before and after taking each experimental diets. The results are as folow ; 1) The mean age of the objects was 62.4${\pm}$6.5 years, the distribution of their constitution were Tae-eumin :63.0%, So-yangin :26.2% So-eumin: 10.8%. 2) The mean body weight and BMI of Tae-eum were significantly higher than those of So-eum and So-yang. 3) Food habits of each constitutional groups were very similar to those described by sasang medicine. 4) The therapeutic and constitutional diets lowered the serum levels of total lipid(from 756.4mg/dl to 692.3mg/dl) triglyceride(from 244.4mg/dl to 212.mg/dl) and VLDL-cholesterol(from 48.9mg/dl to 42.5mg/dl). The therapeutic diet decreased the HDL-cholesterol level(from 49.0mg/dl to 41.7mg/dl) but the constitutional diet did not. 5) The effects of the therapeutic and constitutional diets were the highest in Tae-eum group. In the So-yang group, the constitutional diet lowered the levels of total lipid and LDL-cholesterol but the therapeutic diet did not. But the therapeutic and constitutional diets did not change the blood lipid levels significantly in the So-eum group.(Korean J Nutrition 33(8) : 824-832, 2000)
