Any of the eight constitutions can lose hair. But if you had to name one that loses it most readily, it would be Pancreotonia — and the reasons are specific enough to act on. This article is about hair loss and the Pancreotonia constitution, and about why one widely recommended remedy may be making it worse for this particular type.
In Summary
- KTM holds that hair is the surplus of the blood — baljajahyeoljiyeo (발자혔지여 髮者血之餘). What is left after blood has served the essential functions becomes hair.
- Blood is built from jing (정 精), the refined energy the kidney stores. Weak kidney storage means less jing, less blood, and hair goes first.
- Pancreotonia has the most recessive kidney of the eight. That is the first reason.
- The second is stomach heat. In KTM the whole head and face belong to the same yangming (양명) division as the stomach and large intestine, so stomach heat becomes scalp heat — and a hot scalp turns dry.
- Two directions of prevention: bring the stomach heat down, and replenish the kidney’s jing.
- The counterintuitive part: kelp and wakame, routinely recommended for hair, add stomach heat and can worsen hair loss in this constitution.
- Alcohol matters more than people expect — it consumes kidney jing strongly.
- These are tendencies, not verdicts. Hair loss has medical causes that deserve medical assessment.
Hair Is the Surplus
Korean Traditional Medicine (KTM), the traditional healing system of Korea also known as Hanbang (한방), states the relationship compactly: hair is what the blood has left over. The Donguibogam records it as baljajahyeoljiyeo (발자혔지여 髮者血之餘) — blood is spent on what is essential first, and hair is made from the remainder.
You can see the logic without any theory. Well-nourished, healthy people and animals have good coats; depleted ones do not. In clinic, when I treated something blood-related and then looked at the patient again, it was common to find the hair had improved, the skin had become more lustrous, the eyes brighter — several surplus functions recovering together, which is what you would expect if they were all drawing on the same account.
Where Blood Comes From
KTM’s account of blood production resembles the modern account of haematopoiesis in outline, with one concept that has no direct equivalent: jing (정 精) is the material from which blood is made.
The energy obtained from food, breathing and movement is spent on the day’s business, and what is good and left over is stored by the kidney as jing. That stored jing later becomes the raw material for the blood the body needs.
The chain therefore runs: kidney stores jing → jing becomes blood → the surplus of blood becomes hair. Weaken the first link and the last one thins.
Reason One: The Kidney
Of the eight constitutions, Pancreotonia has the most recessive kidney — the hierarchy runs pancreas > heart > liver > lung > kidney. Since the kidney is where jing is stored, this constitution starts with the least storage capacity for the substance that hair is ultimately made from.
Reason Two: The Stomach Heat
The second reason is separate, and it compounds the first.
Pancreotonia runs hot in the stomach. And in KTM the head and face as a whole belong to the yangming (양명) division — the same division as the stomach and large intestine. They are not separate territories. So heat accumulating in the stomach shows up as heat in the face and scalp.
A hot scalp is a drying scalp, and a dry scalp loses hair readily.
This is the strong-is-not-safe principle again. In ECM the dominant axis carries the most qi and tips most easily into excess. Pancreotonia’s pancreas-stomach axis is its strongest, and the heat it generates is precisely what is drying the scalp. The hair loss is not a weakness showing; it is a strength running hot at one end while the recessive kidney fails to supply the other.
What to Do: Two Directions
Bring the stomach heat down
- Reduce spicy food.
- Avoid alcohol. This one deserves emphasis — alcohol consumes kidney jing strongly, so it damages both sides of the mechanism at once.
- Avoid heating foods — chicken, red ginseng, honey.
- Let go of the hurry. The impatient, pressing state of mind characteristic of this constitution is itself heat, and it feeds the same fire.
- Do not overeat. Large quantities raise stomach heat regardless of what the food is.
The remedy that backfires
This deserves its own heading because the advice is so widespread.
Some of the seaweeds routinely recommended for hair — kelp and wakame among them — add heat to the stomach, and can therefore worsen hair loss in Pancreotonia.
It is a clean illustration of why a generic remedy list is not enough. The food is genuinely good for hair in general. It is working against the specific mechanism that is causing the problem in this constitution.
Replenish the kidney’s jing
Foods that support this side: black beans, seafood, and fresh vegetables. All three sit comfortably within what Pancreotonia should be eating anyway, which makes this the easier half of the programme.
A Necessary Qualification
Everything above describes a tendency. What is fixed in ECM is the arrangement of the organs; everything built on top of it is probabilistic. A recessive kidney shifts the odds toward earlier thinning — it does not decide the matter, and plenty of Pancreotonia keep their hair.
It also does not replace a diagnosis. Hair loss has causes that need identifying — androgenetic patterns, thyroid disease, iron deficiency, medication effects, sudden shedding after illness or stress. Rapid or patchy loss, or loss with other symptoms, should be assessed by a doctor. What is here is a framework for prevention and for understanding why a general remedy might not be working for you.
And the closing note from the original applies: most of this helps anyone, whatever their constitution. Reducing stomach heat and protecting kidney jing are not narrow interventions. The point of knowing the constitution is knowing which of the two to weight.
Summary
Pancreotonia loses hair for two reasons that reinforce each other — the least kidney storage of the eight, and a stomach that runs hot enough to dry the scalp. Work on both ends, and check the remedy list against the mechanism before trusting it.
Related: The Pancreotonia Constitution · Cholesterol and Jing
