What causes cracks on the tongue coating?

The tongue coating controls our body. By checking the tongue coating, we can know whether our body is healthy. If you find many cracks on the tongue coating, be careful, as it may be caused by heat injury or lack of blood. In addition, excessive moisture in the spleen and stomach may also cause cracks on the tongue coating, so everyone should pay attention to it in daily life.

Fissured tongue main diseases:

(1) Excessive heat damages the yin, often resulting in a red tongue with cracks;

(2) Blood deficiency, often with a pale tongue and cracks.

(3) Spleen deficiency and dampness: The tongue is pale, plump and tender, with teeth marks and cracks on the edges. The treatment is suitable for nourishing yin essence, replenishing qi and producing body fluid; tonifying the spleen and draining dampness; tonifying yin and purging fire; clearing heat and moistening dryness.

In addition, cracked tongue refers to the cracks in the tongue texture, and also refers to the cracks in the tongue coating. When making a diagnosis, one should distinguish based on the dryness or moisture of the coating. If it is cracked due to dryness, it indicates that the body fluids are damaged by heat from an exogenous disease, and the dryness and heat are severe. If the tongue coating is wet and cracked, it is mostly caused by qi deficiency.

Modern research believes that shallow cracks on the tongue are mainly caused by atrophy of the tongue mucosa, which causes the longitudinal or transverse lines of the tongue to show through the surface. Deep cracks on the tongue are more serious atrophic lesions of the tongue, which causes the tongue epithelium to lose its normal structure. Some papillae become flat and fuse, while others atrophy and break to form cracks, and thickened scar contraction can be seen underneath.

The Guide to Tongue Discrimination: The Nature of Tongue Discrimination believes that a normal person’s tongue has no cracks. If there are cracks, it means blood deficiency. The number and depth of the cracks reflect the slightest degree of blood deficiency.

——The tongue has transverse cracks, which indicates deficiency of Yin in the body, like borneol lines, which is mostly caused by Yin deficiency in the elderly;

——A red tongue without coating or with short horizontal and vertical lines indicates yin deficiency and fluid depletion;

——The tongue is cracked and broken like the Chinese character "人" or "川", which indicates dryness of stomach fluid and internal heat.