• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.32 no.7
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• pp.827-837
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• 1999

Presently Sasang constitutional medicine draws public attention and a diet based on this theory in gaining popularity. However, scientific data are not available to probe the effects of constitutional diet and the correlations between constitution and food consumptions. Thiry-four healthy subjects[26 females and 8 males] with Tae-eum(females: 5, males: 7), So-yang(females: 9)and So-eum(females: 12, males: 1), were studied. Subjects were not told the kind of constitutional diets they were consuming. Tae-eum constitutional diet was given to all subjects more than 2 meals a day for 8 weeks. The Sasang constitutional classification, food frequency questionnaire and food habits were assessed. The anthropometric assessment, dietary assessment, health status assessment and blood analysis were carried out before and after taking the Tae-eum constitution diet. In case of females, the body weights and BMI were different among the constitutional groups in the following order : Tae-eum constitutional diet. In case of females, the body weights the body weights and BMI were different among the constitutional groups in the following order: Tae-eum>So-yang>So-eum. In case of males, the body weights and BMI of Tae-eum were significantly higher than those of So-eum. In general, habitual food consumption of all of these four groups were very close to those for each of Sasang constitutional types described by Sasang medicine. After 8-weeks of Tae-eum diet, the health status and blood biochemical parameters were not significantly changed.