A text-mining analysis on the application of traditional Chinese medicine external therapy and food therapy in hypertension treatment

摘要

Hypertension becomes a major public health problem due to its high prevalence and serious complications. The complementary therapies of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) play important roles in hypertension treatment. This study analyzed the application of the TCM external therapy and food therapy by text mining. Subsequently, suitable techniques and methods which were frequently used on hypertension treatment were explored. The text mining results showed that acupuncture, massage, Tuina, auricular-plaster and external application of Chinese herb medicine(CHM) were the top 5 TCM external therapy techniques, while placenta, lily root, pseudo-ginseng, peanut, sea horse, wine, radix aconiti carmichaeli, lemon, soybean and fructus crataegi were the top 10 foods used for hypertension treatment. The combinations of external therapy techniques were demonstrated in network, so does the combinations of the foods. The results provided good references for both clinical practice and medical research.