The human gastrointestinal tract is the largest reservoir of bacteria in the body,inhabiting a very complex and active microbial community.Under normal circumstances,the interaction between the intestinal flora and the host maintains a dynamic balance.Spleen deficiency syndrome is a common classic syndrome type in TCM clinical practice.A large number of studies have shown that spleen deficiency syndrome is closely related to intestinal microorganisms,and the balance of intestinal flora is the basis for the normal functioning of the spleen's main transportation and transformation functions.Intestinal flora imbalance can lead to a series of manifestations of spleen deficiency.In addition,intestinal flora is an important medium for the metabolism of polysaccharide components and the effectiveness of traditional Chinese medicine for invigorating the spleen,and traditional Chinese medicine for invigorating the spleen can also play a therapeutic role by regulating the structure and quantity of intestinal flora.This article summarizes the relationship between intestinal flora and spleen deficiency syndrome in physiology,pathology,and the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine for invigorating the spleen.Based on intestinal flora,the study of spleen deficiency syndrome aims to provide some thoughts and suggestions for revealing the connotation of spleen deficiency syndrome in traditional Chinese medicine.

Objective To investigate the distribution of TCM syndromes and syndrome elements of irritable bowel syndrome(IBS);To provide reference for clinical TCM syndrome differentiation and treatment.Methods The patients with IBS who filled in the questionnaire were collected from 18 tertiary Chinese medicine hospitals in China from November 2019 to December 2022,including Xiyuan Hospital,China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences,Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine,the First Affiliated Hospital of Henan University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.The contents of questionnaire included the patients'general condition,medical history(onset time,condition changes),Rome Ⅳ symptom diagnostic scale,somatic symptom cluster scale,quality of life scale,hospital anxiety and depression scale,TCM syndromes,etc.The methods of factor analysis and systematic clustering analysis were used,the factors of disease and syndrome were extracted,and the classification of TCM syndrome types was summarized.Results Totally 157 patients were included,87 were male and 70 were female.The age was from 18 to 74 years old.The longest course of disease was 30 years and the shortest was 3 months,with an average of(48.31±5.61)months.Anxiety score:was 3.66±0.30,depression score was 3.39±0.28.The most common TCM symptom was emotional distress(83.4%),followed by diarrhea(80.9%)and abdominal pain(72.6%).The results of factor analysis showed that rotation finally converged after 16 iterations,and 8 common factors and 33 variables were obtained,with a cumulative contribution rate of 60.016%.The sites of IBS were mainly distributed in liver,spleen,large intestine and stomach.The main syndrome factors were qi stagnation,phlegm,dampness,heat and yang deficiency.The results of clustering analysis of 8 common factors showed that the main TCM syndrome types were liver depression and qi stagnation syndrome,damp-heat internal accumulation syndrome,liver depression and spleen deficiency syndrome,and liver-stomach digression syndrome.The main TCM syndrome of diarrhea-predominant IBS was liver stagnation and spleen deficiency syndrome,and the main TCM syndrome of mixed type and constipation type was damp-heat accumulation syndrome.There were statistically significant differences in the distribution of TCM syndrome types in patients with different types(P<0.05).Conclusion The location of IBS is mainly in liver,spleen and large intestine,especially in liver.The TCM syndrome types are mainly liver depression and qi stagnation syndrome,damp-heat internal accumulation syndrome,liver depression and spleen deficiency syndrome.