Black sesame paste isn’t a cure for ‘white lung’

 

Screenshot of the Facebook post.

 

News Brief

A picture was posted Jan. 10, 2023, on Facebook, along with a claim that inhaling black sesame paste can treat “white lung.” The text in the picture, written in Chinese, translates as, “Hu Zhou, a renowned Chinese medicine expert, said in an interview that patients diagnosed with ‘white lungs’ can be cured by inhalation therapy…Black foods can be inhaled to ‘neutralize’ white lung…If you don’t have a grinder, take black sesame paste instead.” During the COVID-19 pandemic, white image area appeared on the chest CT scans of some severe cases of COVID-19. Such symptoms are informally called “white lung.”

As of the publication of this report, the Facebook post had been shared 11 times, and received 50 comments as well as 288 likes or reactions. Similar claims have been circulating on Twitter and the Taiwanese media outlet NewTalk.

 

Fact-checking

A reverse image search found a post published Jan. 9, 2023, on Weibo, by the account called “Chinese Medicine Health Collection” (Chinese: 中醫養生集萃). The content of the Weibo post is identical to the text in the viral picture. Another Weibo post published Nov. 6, 2022 by the same account claims, “Lidong (Beginning of Winter, one of the  24 solar terms of the traditional Chinese calendar) tomorrow, drinking milk tea is a traditional Chinese medicine approach to maintain winter wellness.” The post mentions that from the Chinese medicine perspective, people have different constitutions, so they should drink different flavors of milk tea to maintain good health. For example, the post claims, “People with Qi-deficiency should drink milk tea topped with cheese foam while those with Yang-deficiency should drink milk tea with red bean pudding.”

Another post published by the same Weibo account says, “Hu Zou, Attending Physician of Sanhe Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, said that under the condition of strong virtual fire in the body and with the presence of plastics bags, it is more easily to produce medium and short electromagnetic waves which will affect human brain. Especially for middle-aged and elderly people, with a large number of plastic bags stored at home, it will increase their risk of brain cancer as well as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases.” The above posts quoted the so-called Chinese medicine experts “胡鄒” (Hu Zou) or “胡舟” (Hu Zhou), almost the same pronunciation as “胡謅” in Chinese (Hu Zhou, literal meaning “nonsense”). The content of the previous posts indicates that the Weibo account “中醫養生集萃” is a satirical account.

 

Screenshots of the Weibo posts published by “中醫養生集萃”

 

Liu Yi, Deputy Chief Physician of the Department of Lung Tumor Surgery, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, recently posted an article on the website Good Doctor Online (haodf.com): “If you have difficulty breathing due to white lung, you need to go to the hospital to get the right treatment. Inhaling black food powder, such as black beans or black sesame paste, to treat white lung is definitely unacceptable.”

Professor Chen Hubiao of the School of Chinese Medicine, Hong Kong Baptist University, told HKBU Fact Check that the claim was groundless. Dr. Zhao Hui, Chief Physician of Thoracic Surgery, Peking University People’s Hospital, also said that the claim was baseless, and this kind of treatment would cause harm to human bodies. Viral infection in lungs will lead to increased respiratory secretions. Not only does inhaling extensive amounts of powder hinder the healing process, but it also aggravates lung function decline and even causes obstructive pneumonia.

Keyword searches have not found any articles about the so-called Chinese medicine expert Hu Zhou saying in an interview that black sesame paste can be used in inhalation therapy to cure white lung. At present, there is no evidence to support this.