A Comprehensive View of Tongue Appearance: How Middle-Aged Men Can Assess Bodily Functions Through Tongue Color, Coating, and Shape

A dulled tongue, unable to taste, accompanied by palpitations, vivid dreams, and insomnia, may indicate impaired heart function, possibly due to overwork. A dry mouth, thick tongue coating, and inability to taste food should raise suspicion of heart disease. A pale red tongue indicates good health; an excessively pale tongue suggests anemia or tissue edema; a bright red and flat tongue often indicates diabetes; a glossy red tongue indicates a lack of niacin; a deep red tongue indicates heat entering the blood, yin deficiency with excessive fire, and blood stasis; a bluish-purple tongue indicates oxygen deficiency, which can be seen in certain congenital heart diseases, or drug/food poisoning; a slightly purple or magenta tongue indicates a vitamin B2 deficiency. A stiff, inflexible tongue, accompanied by slurred speech, is often a precursor to a ruptured blood vessel in the brain or a sequela of a stroke; tremors when the tongue is extended indicate neurasthenia and chronic illness. The appearance of prickles on the tongue generally indicates pneumonia or other high-fever illnesses; scarlet fever patients often exhibit this symptom. The clustering of taste buds forming grooves and ridges indicates a long-term deficiency in B vitamins. A thin, white tongue coating indicates health; a thickened tongue coating suggests possible digestive or respiratory system diseases; a change in tongue coating from thick to thin indicates improvement; a change from thin to thick indicates worsening of the condition. A yellow, greasy tongue coating reflects indigestion, loss of appetite, and an increase in putrefactive organic matter in the digestive tract; patients with acute hepatitis often have this type of tongue coating. A shiny tongue with little coating indicates a deficiency in vitamin B12 or folic acid. Normally, the veins under the tongue are of moderate thickness and bluish-purple in color. Dilated, thickened, and purplish-red veins under the tongue suggest a risk of angina attacks in patients with coronary heart disease or a possible malignant transformation of a pre-existing tumor. A swollen tongue may indicate hypothyroidism or acromegaly; a swollen, tender tongue with teeth marks on the edges indicates edema, which traditional Chinese medicine considers "qi deficiency." A dry tongue indicates increased sympathetic nerve tension and decreased parasympathetic nerve tension, thus reducing saliva secretion.