title: Statistical validation of Traditional Chinese Medicine syndrome postulates in the context of patients with cardiovascular disease.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has many postulates that explain the occurrence and co-occurrence of symptoms using syndrome factors such as yang deficiency and yin deficiency. A fundamental question is whether the syndrome factors have verifiable scientific content or are purely subjective notions. This analysis investigated the issue in the context of patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD).
  
  
  METHODS
  In the past, researchers have tried to show that TCM syndrome factors correspond to real entities by means of laboratory tests, with little success. An alternative approach, called latent tree analysis, has recently been proposed. The idea is to discover latent variables behind symptom variables by analyzing symptom data and comparing them with TCM syndrome factors. If there is a good match, then statistical evidence supports the validity of the relevant TCM postulates. This study used latent tree analysis.
  
  
  METHODS
  TCM symptom data of 3021 patients with CVD were collected from the cardiology departments of four hospitals in Shanghai, China, between January 2008 and June 2010.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Latent tree analysis of the data yielded a model with 34 latent variables. Many of them correspond to TCM syndrome factors.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results provide statistical evidence for the validity of TCM postulates in the context of patients with CVD; in other words, they show that TCM postulates are applicable to such patients. This finding is important because it is a precondition for the TCM treatment of those patients.
authors.affiliation: 1 Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine , Shanghai, China .
authors.forename: Zhaoxia
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Nevin L
authors.initials: NL
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Yiqin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Guoping
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Jin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Tengfei
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: April Hua
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy*; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D003663:Decision Trees; D006801:Humans; D008516:Medicine, Chinese Traditional / Q000379:methods*; D013577:Syndrome; D016711:Yang Deficiency / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy; D016710:Yin Deficiency / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy