A Discussion And Experimental Research Into The Theory Of The Liver Stomach Relationship

Based on a great deal of TCM documents, the article cleared up the origin of Liver stomach Relationship Theory and integrated different schools' expatiation on it, then probed into its inter-existence and inter-restraint in physiology as well as the inter-influence in pathophysiology. It considered that The association of Liver with Stomach embodied the profound conntation -"wood makes earth smooth" and "earth is source of millions of matter", which mainly exists in the relatively stable formation of Qi-varying. It also considered that the Disordered Liver stomach Syndrome included many complicated pathophysiological intensions. So it is important and instructive to grasp the Liver stomach Relationship Theory for the treatment, accurate differentiation and therapeutic selection of the diseases associated with Liver and Stomach.In the experiment, adopting the used animal model, we studied the disorder of gastric movement and secretion caused by Liver's governing free flow by testing some indexes-gastric muscle's electricity, volume of gastric juice, gastric acid, activity of pepsin, volume of mucus of gastric wall and so on. The results indicated that the movement and secretion of the model rats changed, that is, compared with Control Group, the gastric electrical amplitude and frequency decreased significantly in both Liver-Qi Rebellion Group and Liver-Qi Stagnation Group (p<0.01) and the volume of gastric juice, gastric acid, activity of pepsin and volume of mucus of gastric wall also decreased remarkably in all rats (p<0.05 or p<0.01) besides the volume of gastric juice (p>0.05). Moreover, the changes between Liver-Qi Rebellion Group and Liver-Qi Stagnation Group were different: the gastric movement and secretiondecreased more evidently in latter (p<0.05 or p<0.01). So it can be concluded that Theory of Liver-stomach Relationship in TCM has modem pathophysiological evidence. In other words, the indexes of gastric muscle's electricity, volume of gastric juice, gastric acid, activity of pepsin, volume of mucus of gastric wall may be the pathophysiological reflection of "disorder of Liver-Qi affects Stomach's receiving, grinding and fermenting as well as its smoothing and descending". Because of its function of dispersion and regulating of Qi movement, Liver plays a significant role in keeping the balance of Qi movement-ascending, desending, exiting and entering, as well as in promoting the function of Stomach. So the disorder of Liver-Qi can lead to the abnormality of Stomach. Furthermore, the different types of dispersion of Liver have different influence on Stomach.