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Earlier articles looked at what dameum actually is — the metabolic residue of the body. In Korean Traditional Medicine (KTM), the traditional healing system of Korea also known as Hanbang (한방), dameum (痛飲) is the pathological waste that forms when food taken in is neither properly digested and absorbed, nor spent as energy, nor excreted, and instead stalls inside the body. As it accumulates, the stomach feels bloated, the head swims, and the heart flutters.
Today I want to look at why Colonotonia and Pulmotonia (금음·금양체질) — the Gold types, strong in lung and colon but relatively weak in the liver — develop dameum so readily, and what eating habits reduce it.
In Summary
- Food that is unsuitable for your constitution does not automatically become dameum. Give bread to someone who has gone days without eating and the body burns it through so fast that dameum never has a chance to form.
- The problem is the everyday life of a well-fed modern person. Eat more than can be metabolised and it exceeds the processing capacity — good food or bad — and becomes dameum.
- That said, at equal quantity, unsuitable food wastes far more digestive enzyme and travels a rougher metabolic road, so it degrades into dameum much more easily. Overeat, and unsuitable food is the more lethal poison.
- Most cholesterol in the blood does not arrive directly from dietary fat; it is synthesised in the liver. When there is inflammation, a metabolic problem, or stress, the liver overproduces cholesterol to protect the body.
- The Gold types have a congenitally sensitive and comparatively weak liver, so meat and greasy food overload it directly. Bile secretion and detoxification decline, and the cholesterol reading — an index of dameum — collapses sharply.
- Avoiding meat alone is not safety. Even plain bread, untouched by frying oil, becomes dameum if eaten to excess: surplus carbohydrate converts to triglycerides and works through to the cholesterol figure.
- Two conclusions. Do not eat more once you are full. And if you must eat your fill, eat strictly to your constitution when you do.
Does Unsuitable Food Always Become Dameum?
The usual explanation in ECM is that eating food unsuitable for your constitution provokes an immune reaction, digestion fails, and dameum results. That is true — but there are exceptions depending on circumstance.
Take an extreme case. Here is a Colonotonia person starving, days without food. Give them wheat bread, the very thing said to harm the Gold types. Does it turn to toxin and lay down dameum? It does not. For the sake of survival the body will digest that bread in short order and spend it down to the last as fuel. It is consumed before dameum has any chance to form.
But the daily life of a well-nourished modern person is another matter. We eat more than the body needs to metabolise. Eat a great deal and — whether the food is good for you or bad — it eventually exceeds the processing capacity and becomes dameum.
What matters is metabolic capacity. At the same quantity, food unsuitable for your constitution squanders digestive enzymes and takes an arduous metabolic route, so it degrades into dameum far more readily. Which is to say: when you overeat, unsuitable food becomes the more lethal poison.
The Truth About Cholesterol in the Gold Types
A high cholesterol or triglyceride figure on a modern blood test can, in KTM terms, be regarded as a form of dameum present in the blood.
We commonly assume that eating a lot of greasy food puts that grease into the vessels and raises cholesterol. But books such as The Truth About Cholesterol, and current medical understanding, tell a somewhat different story. Most cholesterol in the blood does not come directly from the fat in what we ate; it is synthesised in the liver. When the body carries inflammation, when the metabolic system is disturbed, or when a person is under stress, the liver overproduces cholesterol in order to protect the body.
And here a constitutional particularity comes into play. Colonotonia and Pulmotonia have a liver that is congenitally sensitive and on the weak side. General theory holds that dietary fat has little effect on blood cholesterol — but for the Gold types, meat and greasy food impose a direct overload on the liver. Bile secretion and detoxification fall away, and the result is a sharp collapse in that index of dameum we call the cholesterol reading.
The Trap of Flour and Carbohydrate
So is it safe simply to avoid meat? No. Even if you eat wheat — classified as unsuitable for the Gold types — plainly as bread rather than fried in oil, eating too much of it still ends as dameum. Carbohydrate taken in excess is converted to triglycerides in the body, and these in turn work through the metabolism to affect the cholesterol figure. The Gold types in particular can show a tendency, in this metabolic process, to bank surplus energy as dameum.
Conclusion: The Principle Matters More Than the Menu
For Colonotonia and Pulmotonia, the conclusion about reducing dameum is simple.
First, don’t eat more once you are full. The moment you think — already full — “these are healthy vegetables, so it’s fine,” or “this is seafood that suits my constitution, so it won’t put on weight,” and eat more anyway, all of it becomes dameum. More important than whether a food is good or bad for your type is your body’s capacity to process it.
Second, if you do want to eat your fill, eat to your constitution. Life brings occasions of overeating, and dinners you cannot skip. When you have no choice but to eat a lot, that is exactly when to keep strictly to what benefits your type — leafy greens, seafood and the like. That way the body metabolises it at least somewhat more easily, and the accumulation of dameum is kept to a minimum.
In Summary
To the Gold types: if you have given up meat and your body still feels heavy and your digestion poor, take a moment to ask whether you are, in fact, failing to put down your chopsticks once you are already full.
Related reading: Vegetarian and Still Hyperlipidemic: The Taeumin Paradox · Does Fat in the Blood Really Clog Arteries?
This article reflects the teaching and research of Professor Seungho Baek, Professor of Korean Medicine at Dongguk University College of Korean Medicine, specializing in Pathology and Oncology.
