Abstract
Background: In contrast to the increased interest in constitutional medicine evidenced by clinical experiences, there has been no theoretical or mathematical analysis on the stability or number of constitutional types. Objectives: The purpose of the study was to evaluate the stability of possible constitutional types and to find stable constitutional types based on imbalanced structure of five energy elements using mathematical analysis. Methods: For the 120 constitutional types which are possible by the imbalanced combination of five energy elements, vitality, stability and continuity were evaluated mathematically based on mutual activation and suppression between the five energy elements. Results: 10 constitutional types were derived. They had the highest vitality and stability, and they had permanent continuity, never changing their order of imbalanced structure. Conclusions: 10 constitutional types are logical and most reasonable when we classify the body types based on imbalanced structure of five energy elements.
