[Effect of aging on the syndrome of essential debility and evil reality--an exploration on mechanism of senility by traditional Chinese medicine].

Effect of aging on essential debility and evil reality was explored by an epidemiological investigation of clinical syndrome with TCM in 878 cases of middle and old-aged patients, inquiring into their relation of senility with visceral weakness and stagnation of Qi, blood stasis, and phlegm turbid. The results indicated that (1) several viscera, feeble and damaged, were the basis of senility, and the feeble kidney was the stress; (2) the syndrome of stagnation of Qi, blood stasis and phlegm turbid speeded up process of senility. The mechanism of feeble phenomena appeared in the middle-old aged patients is that with the rise of age in the patients observed there was interaction between the feeble visceral function and the syndrome of stagnation of Qi, blood stasis and phlegm turbid, that is, there was interaction between essential debility and evil reality. Essential debility may lead to evil reality and the latter will worsen essential debility. Thus, on repeating themselves in alternate cycles, a systemic hypofunction will be formed up to exhaustion. Therefore, "to nourish essential debility first and to purge evil reality second" should be considered as an essential direction of preparing anti-aging drugs in TCM.