TCM Syndrome Recognition Model of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Shanghai Based on TCM Inquiry Information

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) has become one of the serious public health problems in China, and it affects the quality of survival of patients significantly. The long-term monitoring and early warning of T2DM and its complications should be paid attention to. Artificial diagnosis of T2DM in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is subjective and unrepeatable at the present stage. It is important to develop standardized collection and objective analysis methods of TCM inquiry. Therefore, we are interested in establishing syndrome recognition models.

The establishment of the TCM syndrome recognition model of T2DM is helpful to the syndrome diagnosis of the disease, and the clear diagnosis of the syndrome is the prerequisite for the effective treatment of the disease by TCM. At present, there are few studies on syndrome recognition models of T2DM. Therefore, based on the inquiry information of TCM, we establish a latent structure model (LSM) of T2DM syndrome in Shanghai, hoping to provide services for the health management of TCM for diabetes in the future.

A total of 587 effective samples of T2DM patients in Shanghai were collected. The gender, course of disease, and chronic complications were analyzed by one-way ANOVA and frequency analysis. Inquiry symptoms that could be included in the model were screened. In the study, 30 symptoms were used as observable variables to analyze the symptom information of TCM inquiry, and then, the TCM syndrome recognition model was established.

The clinical syndromes of patients with T2DM in Shanghai were mixed with deficiency and excess. The LSM divided the pattern of the disease into qi-yin deficiency pattern, yin deficiency pattern, qi deficiency pattern, and qi stagnation pattern. These patterns were mainly located in the spleen and stomach, liver, and kidney.

The results of the syndrome classification of T2DM by LSM are basically consistent with the TCM clinical characteristics of the disease, which could reflect its main etiology and pathogenesis. The LSM of TCM inquiry syndrome diagnosis of T2DM confirmed the objectivity of TCM syndrome differentiation to some extent, and it will lay a foundation for the development of a mobile APP for TCM health management of T2DM.