Do you drink sweet beverages all day long?

People should drink plain water most of the time and drink sweet beverages only occasionally.  When you consume sweet beverages the body has to do work to process it.  In addition, excessive sugar consumption can lead not only to obesity, but also to diabetes, which has many serious long-term health effects like loss of vision and loss of limbs.

In TCM, excessive consumption of sweet foods is said to damage the Spleen function and encourages the production of Phlegm in the body.   Phlegm in TCM is not only the phlegm that we can cough up from the throat.  In TCM, there is also another concept of phlegm called internal phlegm that can invade various parts of the body.  This internal phlegm can cause a whole host of symptoms including a feeling of heaviness of the body and limbs, fatigue, dizziness, lack of appetite or even excessive appetite, or it can create or aggravate mental problems.  Some lumps under the skin can be caused by the accumulation of internal phlegm.