Approaches for developing a system model for health evaluation based on body constitutions of traditional Chinese medicine and order parameters / 中西医结合学报

ABSTRACT

From the point of view of systems science, human body can be considered as a complex system, and the human health system is a subsystem of it. Systems science conducts investigation in a holistic manner. As a theoretical method, it deals with the operation and evolution of systems from the macroscopic perspective, so this theory is similar to phenomenological theory of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in methodology. Naturally, numerous theories of systems science can be used in research of the human health systems of TCM. In this paper, the authors introduced synergetics, a theory of modern systems science, and its slaving principle, and in particular, analyzed the concept of order parameters related to the slaving principle and the relationship between body constitutions of TCM and order parameters. The body constitution of TCM can be treated as a slow variable in the human health systems. By using synergetics, the authors established a model of the human health system based on body constitutions of TCM. As an application of the model, the authors illustrated the argumentations in the theory of constitution being separable, the theory of a relationship between constitution and disease, and the theory of a recuperable constitution. To some extent, this work has made links between the TCM theory of body constitution and modern systems science, and it will offer a new thought for modeling the human health system.