Disclosure of suboptimal health status through traditional Chinese medicine-based body constitution and pulse patterns

•Suboptimal health status (SHS) is an intermediate status between being healthy and unhealthy.•People with SHS often experience fatigue and other nonspecific symptoms, which are related to a deviated body constitution in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).•This study finds that SHS is correlated with body constitution and pulse analysis. Suboptimal health status (SHS) is a dynamic state wherein people have not been diagnosed with a disease but tend to develop diseases. People with SHS often experience fatigue and other nonspecific symptoms, which are related to a deviated body constitution in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). However, the correlation between TCM constitution and SHS has not been adequately investigated. Furthermore, no study has explored the radial pulse analysis—an assistive objective indicator of TCM constitution—in healthy people and people with SHS. A cross-sectional study. Center for Traditional Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taiwan. Sixty-six adults (27 healthy participants and 39 participants with SHS) who were aged 20–39 years. The body constitution questionnaire (BCQ) scores, suboptimal health status questionnaire-25 (SHSQ-25) scores, and radial pulse waves detected using sphygmography were recorded. Pulse wave analyses are presented as the ratio of frequency below 10 Hz to that above 10 Hz (SER10), which represent energy changes in organ blood flow. Participants with SHS had significantly higher Yang-Xu, Yin-Xu, and stasis scores of BCQ compared with healthy participants. The SHSQ-25 scores of the participants with SHS were moderately correlated with their Yang-Xu, Yin-Xu, and stasis scores (r = 0.65, 0.66, and 0.72, respectively; all p