Efforts to modernize the practice of traditional Chinese Medicine is evident at a conference in Hong Kong:
“Hong Kong is on the cutting edge of the movement to modernize traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), a practice which dates back thousands of years, and ranges from herbal medicine to acupuncture, massage and Qigong. Underlying the philosophy is the idea that good health is inexorably related to balance and harmony — to Yin and Yang, the human meridian system, the five elements, and the Zang Fu organ theory system.
Raised in the heart of Silicon Valley amid a burgeoning Chinese population, I already had some experience with TCM: My family had tried it when my brother developed an assortment of health problems, baffling Western doctors. I once accompanied him to a little herb shop in downtown San Jose run by a traditional Chinese doctor; walls lined with glass jars full of herbs, barks, dried berries and leaves of every shape and color. The practitioner did a “pulse diagnosis” on my brother and prescribed a half-dozen ingredients that simmered on the stove for hours into a foul-smelling, bitter-tasting brew. My brother drank it dutifully — with ambiguous results.
The TCM showcased at this year’s conference bore little likeness to the dusty herb shop of my childhood memories — still ubiquitous throughout the mainland. Gone are the jars of roots, dried berries and musty-smelling tree bark. In their place are neatly packaged pills — ginkgo, herbal remedies, ginseng — aimed at a burgeoning western market.
Interest in complementary and alternative medicine is on the rise worldwide, and China is eager to partake in the growing market. In the U.S. alone, sales of alternative remedies reached approximately $5 billion in 2005, according to a market study by Mintel research. Nearly 62% of American adults have used some sort of alternative medicine, which respondents “felt to overall be safer and have fewer side effects than pharmaceuticals,” according to the study.
Why the interest? The answer lies in part with demographics, according to Dr. Albert Wong, founding president of the Hong Kong-based Modernized Chinese Medicine International Association. “Wealthy, aging baby-boomers are growing disillusioned with pharmaceuticals,” he says. Advances in Western medicine have increased longevity, so patients are less likely to suffer from specific diseases, and more likely to suffer from chronic conditions like high blood pressure, cholesterol and metabolic problems. “These are conditions herbal medicines are much more capable to handle than specific synthetic drugs,” Dr. Wong asserts.”
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