A review of medicine and food homology on traditional Chinese medicine as functional food

“Medicine and food homology” (MFH) on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a term originated from “Huang Di Nei Jing-Su Wen”, and its theory with a long history in China. Some TCMs as functional food, which have been used for “food therapy”, and “medicine”, either acting as food on an empty stomach or as medication for administering to the patient. These are also known as “functional foods” for curing diseases or modulating human body functions. TCM has not just one, but rather multiple principles or concepts for food, which are based on the nutrition of organs (“Yin and Yang” theory), warm and cold food (“Four properties”, and “Five flavors”), season matters, body types, etc. There are different classifications of TCMs, such as seed, flower, and wood containing several active ingredients with a wide range of nutritional and medicinal values. There were nine electronic databases searched including WanFang Data, PubMed, Science Direct, Scopus, Web of Science, Springer Link, SciFinder, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), about the “Medicine”, “Food”, “Homology”, without regard to language constraints. This article discusses the concept of MFH, its research cases, guidelines, regulations, and the pharmaceutical effect of MFH in daily life.