BRC Weekly BRC-ISSUE-2026-003 Vol. 1, No. 3
Overlapping Discomfort, Different Criteria
Rome IV functional dyspepsia and selected, verified classical passages on 痰積, 食積, and 積聚 share some symptom terms but use different criteria and observations. We ask what future studies must define, validate, and measure together without treating them as one diagnosis. Seven occurrences of 痰積, 積聚, and 食積, selected after checking their contexts in normalized electronic records, appear alongside different material: diarrhea and pulse observations, form and movement detected by pressing, and varied descriptions of illness. They do not establish overall distribution, genealogy, current diagnosis, or treatment guidance.
Editorial
From the editors
- Starting point
- Rome IV and the selected classical passages share some symptom terms, but they ask about and observe different things.
- This issue’s finding
- Overlapping symptom terms do not establish diagnostic, mechanistic, or causal equivalence.
- Next research step
- A same-person, same-time comparison first requires each examination finding to be separately defined and validated.
Rome IV asks about the frequency and duration of postprandial fullness, early satiation, epigastric pain, and epigastric burning, and requires that there be no evidence of structural disease likely to explain the symptoms. The selected passages examined here from Jingui Gouxuan, Zabing Guangyao, and Donguibogam also attend to pulse findings, palpable form and movement, locations in the chest, flanks, and abdomen, diarrhea, and changes in pain after defecation. Even when symptom terms overlap, that overlap does not establish diagnostic, mechanistic, or causal equivalence. The materials reviewed contain no same-person, same-time comparison; such a study would first require each examination finding to be separately defined and validated. The comparison draws no conclusion about the definition, genealogy, validity, clinical utility, or treatment effects of contemporary damjeok, and another diagnostic language does not replace Rome IV's requirement that there be no structural disease likely to explain the symptoms.
Source scope and edition limits
This short note reads seven occurrences selected after checking each sentence and its surrounding context in normalized electronic records. The two occurrences in Jingui Gouxuan place 痰積 respectively in contexts of diarrhea and historical treatment, and dizziness and pulse observation. The two in Zabing Guangyao distinguish form detected by pressing, movement and location, firmness, and changes of gathering and dispersing; the three in Donguibogam appear in separate contexts involving the location expressions ‘within the chest’ and ‘outside the intestines and stomach,’ a list of illness presentations, and fever and headache resembling cold damage (傷寒). These differences can be described only within the seven purposively selected examples and do not establish distribution or representativeness across a book, period, or body of material, or a genealogy. The line numbers identify positions in normalized electronic records, not pages or folios in an edition. Because the exact editions and facsimiles, transcription and character variants, cited predecessor texts, responsibility for and collation of the renderings, later reception, and publicly traceable source locations have not been established, the quotations and renderings remain provisional. Historical treatment language is context only, not a current recommendation or evidence of efficacy, and this note does not validate a current diagnosis.
Issue contents
Reading order
- 1 Read first
Perspective
Functional Dyspepsia and Accumulation (積) in Classical Texts: Overlapping Discomfort, Different Criteria
Rome IV functional dyspepsia and selected classical passages on 痰積, 食積, and 積聚 share some symptom terms but use different criteria. This article asks what future studies must define and measure without treating them as one diagnosis.
- 2 Read next
Research article
Seven Selected Occurrences of 痰積, 積聚, and 食積 in Electronic Texts
Seven selected occurrences of 痰積, 積聚, and 食積 appear with different observations across normalized electronic records. They do not establish overall distribution, genealogy, current diagnosis, or treatment guidance.