I’ve struggled to find a medical practitioner that articulates this problem with the gravity that it presents to us as a species.

Very much of this threat or condition within our bodies is due to our disastrous eating habits. There are major factors such as toxins and the cultural aspects of the problem are mainly excessive food choices, including excessive alcohol and weakness from emotions such as excessive worry.

This blog is not going to be a directive toward healthy nutrition, more an illustration of what poor nutrition is doing to us on mass. Many of the silent killers in biology - Cancer, Diabetes and Heart Arterial plaque have their origins in the imbalance of dampness or dryness within us and the formation and ensuing damage that phlegm in this particular discussion wreaks upon us.

Chinese Medicine is less concerned with what food is made of than what the food is actually doing to us. There is a significant shift when we encompass Western Medicines approach toward nutrition which is obsessed with "‘ nutritional values’ with the food and less with the environmental outcome. In the West there is a naivety that ensues, boldly assuming that the body will tolerate or naturally utilise good quality nutritious food intelligently.

It will, but it needs the correct conditions so that foods are not fighting against each other for the bodies directives. Or more accurately the body is not fighting against itself to cope with multiple food directives.

Probably the most advanced science ever known regarding these matters is Ayurveda the Indian Medical Wisdom. However the Chinese were not far behind, in fact their comprehension is comparable.

Gluttony and ignorance of these understandings in the West, and its relentless food industry masters have devastated our wellbeing beyond belief.

If you are a medical student, veterinary student or TCM practitioner and wish to understand this issue in clinical depth please purchase the most excellent publication “ The Unchartered Body'“ by Dr Daniel Keown.

The origins of phlegm production are a condition the the Chinese call Damp-Heat and these conditions are the response to pathogenic factors. External pathogens such as fungi. viruses and bacteria are termed Cold Pathogens in TCM.

These pathogens invade and steal energy ( heat) from the body, and the body’s response is to produce excess heat to drive them out. Once established though, phlegm binds things up - cells, tissues and even organs ( bunches of cells).

You may related to the feeling that something is stuck inside of you - this is the effects of phlegm. Western doctors struggle with this seemingly non descript symptom definition. The most obvious example being peritoneal adhesions.

An amazing thing happens in many endometriosis cases, there is an internal procedure enacted often with negative or inconclusive results yet the pain has subsided. This is because the procedure itself has dislodged or broken the phlegms adhesions to the cavity walls. Great disease pathology may not have been observable because phlegm was not fully understood in this dynamic.

Phlegm is basically a mix of dead white blood cells from our immune system mixed with bacteria/fungi/virus matter, that transitioned into damp stickiness. Over time heat can further transform it into what we would consider plaque - baked phlegm!

Phlegm allows a cell to become detached from the rest of the body and, if it has the ability, to invade it it hat cell and turn it malignant as well. Generalised phlegm will have a general carcinogenic effect, but specific phlegm will be specifically carcinogenic.

The former can be seen in central obesity and it’s role in abdominal cancers, and the latter in the example of viral DNA ( HPV-16 virus) being inserted in to cervical cells and turning them cancerous.

How the layers of the body deal with this dynamic:

Defensive heat to fight pathogens such as bacteria/fungi/viruses manifests as a fever, sweating and feeling hot on the’ TaiYang’ - 1st layer and most external of the body ( Bladder, Skin, Spinal nervous system). If the body fails to drive the pathogen out, it will dig deeper into the Lymphatic ‘ShaoYang’ - 2nd layer of the body which is concordant with Western Medicines understanding of being primarily responsible for dealing with pathogens via the immune system.

Pathogens can also reach this layer via the digestive tract or lungs. The key understanding though is that the Lymphatic system ) comprised of ‘white blood’ is built around managing damp-heat wherever it originates from.

In TCM ( Chinese Medicine) this layer is the lymph nodes system and fascial plane negative spaces, governed by the Gall Bladder channel in the lower body and the Triple Heater Channel in the upper body. One of the most vital aspects of this ‘ShaoYang- 2nd layer ’ combination of channels is the deliverance and maintenance of heat distribution in the body primarily as a defence against cold.

We are creatures that like to stay warm, in fact the body is a deliberately hot place thats designed to stay warmer than the outside world, and incredibly, generating heat at a more furious rate than the inside of a star. Consequently stark changes of heat / Cold ratios like ice baths, or sauna to cold water, hot to cold shower etc, is i’m sure part of stimulating this ShaoYang immune system response into action and have been used for centuries by many humans as just such a tonic.

I would thoroughly recommend researching and discussing with your health care professional before undertaking these types of "‘temperature therapies’ as they can be very brutal, and hardly the type of activity recommended for an unfit person. i certainly would not consider them accurate therapies for the above titled conditions. They are more maintenance- enhancing and strengthening techniques for a relatively healthy body.

Both the Skin ( TaiYang) and Intestinal and Lung skin/ lining ‘TaiYin - 4th layer ‘ ‘open’ to the outside - the skin obviously as our most external layer, and the internal skins of lung and Intestinal tract via the mouth, nose, ears, genitals and anus. As such they are all vulnerable to invasion.

The pathogens are not just Cold and Windy ( i.e. can move around the body), but also Damp. Dampness is the osmotic effect of a toxin being present where the body draws fluid to the toxins to resolve them. Western Medicine calls this Oedema.

It is the role of the ‘ShaoYang’ 2nd layer of lymph to metabolise damp-heat within this fluid and stop it producing phlegm. If it fails a slime is produced that over time is baked and hardened into phlegm. This phlegm is precisely the substance of arterial plaque and endometriosis.

In TCM the two channels within the lymphatic immune system - ‘ShaoYang’ - 2nd layer are the gallbladder and Triple Heater fascial planes spaces. Heres the link to endometriosis and arterial plaque. The Gallbladders wood element partner in the body is the Liver. Endometriosis occurs in the Liver channel which encompasses the peritoneal cavity of the abdomen and connection to the reproductive organs of the abdomen. The embryological plane that the Liver channel develops within encompasses the diaphragm , pericardium and lung membrane, it is the deepest ‘JueYin 6th layer’ in the body.

The abdominal aspect of endometriosis is part of the Liver channel within the peritoneal cavity and the increasing occurrence of endometriosis in the chest is explained by the pericardium channel that supplies the pericardium organ ( heart protective thick membrane), and the internal lung membrane.

Endometriosis ‘phlegm/plaque’ is simply occurring all alone this embryological plane. Abdomen to chest.

Arriving from the underlying condition of Dampness. The Western description of phlegm is consistent with the Chinese description. Bacteria and to a certain extent, dead white blood cells from lymphatic immune response, represent Dampness.

White cell reaction will cause localised and possibly generalised heat, which Western Medicine has labelled inflammation. Any lingering damp condition in the body, over time will produce phlegm. The most common way for damp to be generated is by absorption through the intestinal tract. What we consume is so important. The classic damp disease is Diabetes.

Just further reminders to get the balance of our food right is that phlegm can also be generated by dryness which relates to the YangMing-3rd layer of the body primarily. This is due to the systemic lack of fluids within tissue ( intestinal gut lining tissue primarily ) with ageing being the greatest symptom. Tissues that are dry and lacking enough fluid also develop residues that are difficult to remove - Phlegm.

Phlegm is ubiquitous in disease and is hidden in medical vernacular and descriptive narrative such as phlegm, plaques, casts, fatty deposits, visceral fat etc.

These are some of the conditions that arise from the core platform of phlegm.

Lung pathologies, atherosclerotic plaques, Alzheimer’s, fatty liver and disease, kidney disease, arthritis.

A key to treating this build up is via the TCM medical understanding of “ The Spleen creates phlegm and the Lung stores it' “ - The Spleen is intrinsically linked to the GUT as the brain of digestion and Earth element partner of the Stomach (Gut) in the body. Phlegm and its production is mainly approached through the Gut ( stomach ST) channel in the body, with St 40 being a master point for phlegm in the body, and ST36 being an abdominal health master control point.

At the tail end of the digestive tract at the bowel, the Lungs metal element partner resides - The Large Intestine ( Bowel). The LI- Large intestine is responsible for the fluid content of the bowel. With the spleen ( supported by the lung) responsible for the gathering of nutrients from food and its transportation, supported by the tonal strength and warming aspect of the gut lining provided by the ST-Stomach channel. And the water management of the LI-bowel ( again supported by the lung) we have a dynamic system.

Symptoms will help us discern the weakens points in the chain which deserve immediate attention.

Harmonising the Spleen/ Lung connection is very important ( SP9-LU5) as it strengthening the Gallbladder '/ Triple Heater performance , GB41- TH5 is a great start.

Emotional factors affect the Gallbladder/ Triple heater performance as well and control or ‘lack of control’ in life plays a vital role. Financial pressures are just such an emotional lack of control type of pressure.

Worry is also a huge presenting factor. I have yet to meet a client with endometriosis that is not a damn good worrier. These mental contractions have a very direct effect on the lung patterns of breathing which in turn govern the rhythms of digestion via the lungs embryological partner the Spleen TaiYin - 4th layer. Anger via the Liver/Gallbladder is in the mix too.

Many of these problems are advanced by the bodies congestions reducing effective energy distributions. Emotions such as ones just discussed can have a very direct contracting effect within the organs channel systems as Qi is very strongly influenced by emotion.

So a holistic approach is required with diet, direct energy work like mine or acupressure/acupuncture, and emotional releasing ( or the effects thereof) and educational understanding all encompassed will assist to a great deal.

Like all thins, illness can be considered a compass to learn from - how can we move toward greater balance and harmony in the ways that we are living. The Taoists of course got it very very right.