Sugar is actually a traditional Chinese medicine. As early as the Small Jianzhong Decoction in Zhang Zhongjing's "Treatise on Febrile Diseases and Miscellaneous Diseases", there is "Yitang" as a kind of herbal medicine. According to research, Yitang is a food made from starchy grains (glutinous rice, wheat, corn, etc.) through fermentation and saccharification. It has a sweet taste, a slightly warm nature, enters the spleen meridian, and can nourish deficiency and strengthen the spleen and stomach. In the Small Jianzhong Decoction, Yitang is used as the main medicine to tonify the middle and benefit qi, and to protect the middle burner and spleen and stomach. Therefore, from the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine theory, sugar has always been a kind of medicine, and adding sugar to the prescription is not for flavoring, but for compatibility of efficacy.
In the diagnosis and treatment of diseases, traditional Chinese medicine uses a syndrome differentiation and treatment approach, classifying diseases into cold, heat, deficiency, and excess syndromes. Cool herbs are used for heat diseases, while warm herbs are used for cold diseases. White sugar has a cooling nature and can clear "fire", while brown sugar has a warming nature and can dispel cold. In folk medicine recipes, white sugar is used to make tea to clear heat, and brown sugar is used to boil ginger or spring onion water to dispel cold and treat colds, etc.
Although some medicines are bitter, the bitterness plays a certain pharmacological role. Bitterness can stimulate the secretion of digestive gland in the gastrointestinal tract. If sugar is added to mask the bitterness and taken orally, this effect will be reduced or disappear, and the efficacy of the medicine will also be affected. For example, Guadi San is a bitter emetic. The bitterness stimulates the taste buds on the tongue, causing vomiting through neural reflex. If taken with sugar, the medicine may lose its efficacy. Therefore, this type of medicine should not be taken with sugar.
Therefore, whether or not to add sugar should also consider the patient's condition and syndrome characteristics. Therefore, it is advisable to ask the doctor when prescribing whether sugar can be added and what kind of sugar should be used.
