Tongue and facial imaging characteristics in the evaluation the condition of type II diabetes.

What is it about?

This pilot study evaluates the tongue and facial imaging feature and its relationship with the parameters of type II diabetes.

Featured Image

Photo by PAN XIAOZHEN on Unsplash

Photo by PAN XIAOZHEN on Unsplash

Why is it important?

In the longtime ago,, tongue features have been utilized to evaluate the condition of an individual for it could reflect a person's health. However, in modern medicine, its value has diminished due to our understanding of the complexity of diseases, and its reflection seems to vary between people and diseases. Still, traditional Chinese medicine's value has been conserved to date, from infectious to chronic non-communicable diseases. In the ancient, it is a mirror of a person's inner homeostasis of organs, as all organs have relationships to the tongue, such as Yin and Yang, Deficiency and Excess, Heat and Cold, Superficial and Deepness. Diabetes in the TCM belongs to the syndrome of Decrease and Thirst-- "Xiaoke"(not only Diabetes). In addition, in actual clinical settings, we could find the various symptoms various T2DM patients may complain about other than what classical textbooks could tell us. At the same time, the current measurement could not differentiate it from functional disorders such as peripheral neuropathies to mental diseases. We may underscore the value of integrative medicine despite the many advances in this field. Therefore, we first tried to test the possible relationship between tongue imaging and T2DM using the most advanced imaging and machine learning algorithms. Although this is only a superficial test, we wish this methodology could indicate to a physician a unique tongue imaging of a specific patient may help acknowledge their body's intricate changes.

Perspectives