A Kenyan doctor uses herbs to treat malaria:

"he 57-year-old Maseno University organic chemistry lecturer cultivates Artemisia annua - a plant with strong plasmodial clearance power - and teaches postgraduate students how to do research on local plants with traditional medicinal therapy.

Jondiko, Dholuo for a writer(s), pays a lot of tribute to the late Prof Thomas Odhiambo. The two met when Jondiko had made a scientific breakthrough in a research on pyrethrum insecticides at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (Icipe).

When Odhiambo learnt that Jondiko was the graduate researcher who had developed a chromatographic method for separation of six pyrethrin compounds from pyrethrum extracts, he offered him a PhD scholarship at Nottingham University to study organic chemistry. During his PhD studies he developed a new method of making synthetic pyrethrins.

Jondiko now grows at Maseno University the medicinal plant the Chinese are believed to have used 2000 years ago to treat malaria. The university has provided land to the scholar to grow and process the drug to fight the mosquito plasmodia and discount the World Health Organisation's belief that it might develop resistance in the near future."

Scientists in Taiwan are researching the properties of Chinese herbs in order to make new products:

""We are researching the medicinal properties of Chinese herbs and looking for ways to make them available commercially. Of course, we have to go through several clinical trials before we could market those items," said Li, one of the exhibitors at BioTaiwan 2006.

"The future however looks bright for Taiwan's agricultural biotech specialists. Within the next few years, you will likely be seeing many of these products in the market."

One of the potentially lucrative research projects being bankrolled by the Council of Agriculture involves "dang-gui." According to Li, this herb - a traditional "home remedy" - has been extensively used to regulate menses, reduce swelling, and treat skin disorders. The plant has leaves that are similar to coriander and has fleshy roots. Mature plants even produce clusters of beautiful white flowers.

"We got our first plant samples from China and we planted them in a nursery in Hualien. We are now trying to grow them in other parts of the county," said Li, adding that the "dang-gui" study was launched four years ago.

"Currently, we are conducting trials to prove that 'dang-gui' has properties that can cure certain diseases."

Another herb, salvia miltiorrhiza - often described as Chinese sage or red sage root, is another potential gold mine. The plant, according to Li, possesses properties that can cure coronary diseases.

"The whole plant - from its roots to its leaves - is extremely useful," he said, adding that each part possesses different medicinal components."

Chinese herbal treatments for diabetes has shown some promise with helping alleviate diabetes:

"A TRADITIONAL Chinese medicine said to help patients with diabetes has been given the backing of scientists.

The natural plant product known as berberine has been documented in Chinese literature as having a blood sugar lowering effect in people with type 2 diabetes, but it was not known why it has this effect.

Now an international team from China, Korea and Australia has demonstrated how berberine helps diabetics. In tests on animals, the researchers from the Garvan Institute in Sydney found berberine was interacting with the body chemistry.

They believe the product could be a valuable new treatment, especially where traditional drugs fail, though it would need to undergo properly evaluated clinical trials before entering widespread use.

Berberine is found in the roots and bark of several plants, such as goldenseal and barberry.

It is commonly used for treatments to tackle diarrhoea and to promote wound healing.

Dr Jiming Ye said: "Our studies in animal models of diabetes show that berberine acts in part by activating an enzyme in the muscle and liver that is involved in improving sensitivity of the tissue to insulin. This helps lower blood sugar levels. it seems berberine can also help reduce body weight.""

How some people are overcoming their fear of needles to benefit from acupuncture's healing properties:

" Self-professed needlephobe Debbie Scully says two years ago she never would have believed acupuncture works. Now she is one of the area's biggest advocates.

"I'm terrified of needles," she said recently. "It was a great act of courage for me to even step through that door."

Shooting pain through her legs and back brought her to the offices of Triangle Acupuncture in Chapel Hill several years ago. Although she had seen chiropractors and physicians, no one had been able to give her any relief.

"After four visits I never had that pain again," she said. "Never."

No one knows exactly how acupuncture works in terms of Western medicine. But Kosdan said ancient texts describe acupuncture as a way to manipulate a person's chi -- or electromagnetic life force.

The needles work to remove blockages in the chi system -- which Kosdan likens to an alternative nervous system. A chart of the human body Kosdan keeps in his office shows which parts of the body are interconnected through chi.

In theory, a spot on the wrist could be connected to the digestive system. So the right placement of needles there could clear up an upset stomach or acid reflux.

If this system of chi and interconnectedness sounds a little out there, don't worry. Toby Wedgle, an owner of Triangle Acupuncture Clinic, says you don't need to believe for it to work.

"A lot of people don't have a frame of reference in order to wrap their minds around the concept of chi," she said. "For a Westerner to talk about chi isn't always helpful. If that doesn't work for your mind, we can always talk about it a different way." "

"I thought it was disgusting and cramped," he said. "I never thought about why things are they way they are."
Ng, who has lived in San Francisco's Chinatown his whole life, found an opportunity to learn about his community through the Adopt-an-Alleyway Youth Project (dubbed "triple A"). He now says he loves Chinatown.

After three years of trying to conceive and three failed attempts at in vitro fertilization, Tracey Carroll, 33, desperately turned to the East for help. She sought the needles and herbs of an acupuncturist.

Whether it's the adventure of learning to eat with chopsticks, the freedom of choosing one food from Column A and one from Column B or the promise of good things to come tucked inside a fortune cookie, Chinese restaurants are among our top three ethnic choices, according to the National Restaurant Association.

After four years of suffering from the efffects of Crohn's Disease, such as vomiting every day and severe weight loss, dropping from 170 pounds to 115 pounds, David Fairweather of Redwood Valley sought my help. Before turning to Chinese Medicine, Fairweather had gone to three different specialists who recommended surgery and prescribed medications, including prednison, for treatment of his symptoms. The symptoms always returned when the midication was discontinued.

An excellent article in the Wall Street Journal (requires a subscription) about the business of traditional medicine:

" After two unsuccessful attempts to have a child through in vitro fertilization, Melbourne resident Michelle Harrison was willing to try anything. So while getting fertility treatments at Melbourne IVF clinic, she also visited the Melbourne Holistic Health Group for a course of acupuncture. The results were two-fold: the birth in January of Caitlin Aleisha Harrison and, unexpectedly, newfound relief from her annual allergy attacks.

"The hay fever treatment was fantastic," the 35-year-old mother says of the acupuncture therapy. "For the first time in my life, I went through a whole hay fever season without any drugs."

Helping make babies and cutting down on Kleenex costs are two small parts of the growing consumer appetite for products and services derived from ancient Asian medicines. Researchers from consumer-products companies such as Estée Lauder Cos. and Coca-Cola Co. of the U.S., and Japanese cosmetics maker Shiseido Co. are increasingly mining folk medicine to create modern products and treatments.

"The reality is existing Western medicine can't meet current medical needs," says Edmund Lee, executive director of the Hong Kong Jockey Club Institute of Chinese Medicine, which was set up in 2001 and has a $64 million endowment for research into traditional treatments.

Often termed "complementary" or "alternative" medicine in the West, disciplines ranging from Ayurveda in India to traditional Chinese medicine are finding more fans outside Asia. According to data from the alternative medicine division of the National Institutes of Health in the U.S., a 2004 survey showed that more than a third of American adults above the age of 18 use some form of alternative medicine including herbal remedies, acupuncture and meditation. The World Health Organization says that a 2003 survey showed that 75% of people with HIV/AIDS in London and San Francisco were using traditional medicines to augment their standard treatment.

According to figures compiled by the WHO, global sales of herbal remedies totaled more than $21 billion in 2004, the latest year for which data are available. As the number of users of traditional medicines has increased, so have world-wide efforts to regulate their sale. The WHO says that in 1988 only 14 of its member nations regulated the sale of herbal medicines. By 2003, that figure had climbed to 53 countries, with another 42 in the process of developing regulations."

Some people prefer to purchase raw herbs for their medicinal needs:

" With an estimated 19 percent of Americans using herbal medicines and other dietary supplements, jars of capsules and tablets crowd grocery and drugstore shelves. But in some areas, particularly in ethnic communities, many people buy their medicinal herbs in raw plant form.

People with roots in China, Latin America, Africa, the Caribbean and the Indian subcontinent often use herbs in this form because of cultural tradition, because they're less expensive than processed supplements or because some herbs are not available as extracts. Experts say many people also make the mistake of thinking "natural" products are safe, although medicinal herbs can be toxic and are subject to only loose government regulation."

Indians, the world’s largest consumers of tea, are developing a taste for a new brand of drink — Chinese green tea, attracted by its medicinal properties. Chinese tea, which is taken without sugar or milk, is now on top of the menu at plush restaurants where health-conscious Indians riding an economic boom dine.

Weary and frightened after 10 years of fighting a losing battle against bronchitis, Sheila Cohen turned two years ago to traditional Chinese medicine. A practitioner from the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at UCSF prescribed herbal pills and teas, as well as deep tissue massage, to boost the 58-year-old's immune system.

Acupuncture is an alternative medical method that originated from China.This method is based upon the old Chinese assumption that there are invisible energy point scattered across the human body. Theses energy points are called Meridians. during an Acupuncture treatment, tiny needles are inserted into the Meridians, causing he energy flow through them to change. This principle is used for quit a few benefits:

Still dealing with monthly cramps, bloating and irritability? Chinese medicine offers natural remedies to ease your menstrual cycles.

out your tongue. It's one of the first things a medical doctor tells a patient with a sore throat to help make a diagnosis.
Doctors trained in Chinese medicine ask the same thing of their patients, but besides a sore throat, they say they can diagnose heart disease, cancer, stomach problems and psychological problems, among other things, just by examining the tongue.

Good overview of Tai Chi:

"Distinguish between solidness and emptiness, hardness and softness - as the change in the four seasons.

Once you have learned the structure of the Forms, you can focus on the contrast between solidness and emptiness, hardness and softness in your body. During the Forms, your weight is always shifting as you move continuously between attack and defence positions. Always be clear when and where your energy is being used-which parts are relaxed and which are working; which are solid with weight and which are empty; and also which parts of the body are moving and turning.

Concentrate the mind, let your spirit lead your movement - the body must follow the chi.

The procession of Tai Chi exercise requires the body's movement to be led by the mind, so that spirit is placed into every part of the exercise. First, relax the body and empty the mind, breathing naturally. Second, concentrate the mind on the dan tian, so that you can call upon its balance through all the movements."

Chinese medicine is popular among increasing numbers of non-Chinese:

"More people are turning to traditional Chinese medicine to seek a cure for their ailments, and almost half of these patients at one TCM centre are non-Chinese.

Kathy O'Brien has been suffering from chronic sinus problems for more than 20 years, but less than a year ago, she started acupuncture treatments at the Raffles Chinese Medicine centre at Raffles Hospital.

Said Ms O'Brien, "I knew I had a chronic problem. I had too many colds turning into flu, then into a sinus infection, and I'd walk out of a GP's office with a set antibiotics, which I didn't want to keep dumping into my body."

After about 20 treatment sessions she is now free of sinus problems.

She still receives acupuncture treatments once a month, just to keep her body in tune; each session costs about S$40.

She says she is now more aware of her own body and physiology, and she has also changed her lifestyle, buying ginseng and altering her eating habits.

Said Ms O'Brien, "The bit that was new to me was the environment, because most of what I heard about TCM was an environment that was very different from the more clinic, hospital-oriented environment I was more used to, coming from the West."

The profile of the patients are varied; in fact, 40 percent are non-Chinese. "

An interesting acupuncture success story:

"At age 20, Kelly McGarvey barely had the energy to get through the day. She had to drop out of college and was in chronic pain.

The symptoms had been mounting for over 10 years and McGarvey felt she had lost control of her life.

It was at this time that McGarvey started to see a new medical doctor, and he diagnosed her with chronic Lyme disease. He also recommended that she receive an alternative course of treatment in conjunction with what he could do for her.

McGarvey started a course of acupuncture and herbal treatments administered by Samantha Jacobs, of Ridgefield Acupuncture LLC.

"I came to Sam and she helped me with my problems," McGarvey said. "That was two years ago. Sam helped point me in the right direction. She controlled the inflammation, the pain of Lyme related arthritis. I now have a better range of motion. I sleep better and the chronic fatigue is gone. I've gotten my life back."
The News-Times/Chris Ware
Samantha Jacobs uses acupuncture to treat pain.

McGarvey is going back to college part time attending classes at Western Connecticut State University. She is vibrant and healthy and has her cognitive function back."

Ineresting information about Korean ginseng:

" Korea is not the world’s no. 1 in terms of ginseng production. That is China, which produces 52,000 tons of the root to account for 67 percent of global production. Korea follows with 16,000 tons (20 percent), ahead of Canada with 6,000 tons (7 percent) and the U.S. with 2,100 tons (3 percent). Recently, countries like Australia and Germany have also started producing ginseng. But in terms of market size, Korea is way ahead. As of last year, the global ginseng market was valued at W2 trillion(US2 billion) and the Korean market took the biggest share with W85 million. The reason is that Korean ginseng is significantly more expensive than ginseng from elsewhere, and much of it is consumed locally. The highest quality Korean ginseng is 10 times more expensive than the Chinese variety and five times more than the U.S. equivalent.

Among the various varieties, red ginseng leads the way in recovering Korean exports. Red ginseng is produced by steaming six-year-old ginseng and then drying it. The unique color that results gives it its name. As a flagship ginseng product, red ginseng accounts for two-thirds of total exports.

Korean ginseng is so popular around the world because it is particularly efficacious, as scientific studies show. Research by pharmacologists and doctors suggest ginseng is effective in preventing cancer and diabetes and also helps treat erectile dysfunction. In addition, taking ginseng helps reduce stress and fatigue and improves memory. The core element that makes it so effective is called ginseng saponin. “Korean six-year-old red ginseng has as many as 37 kinds of ginseng saponin,” says Park Jong-dae, a researcher with KT&G, the nation’s biggest tobacco company and KGC’s parent company. “By contrast, Chinese ginseng and U.S. ginseng have only 13 and 14 kinds of ginseng saponin.”"

DAAN carries Korean ginseng tea, Korean ginseng powder, Red panax ginseng capsules (made from Korean ginseng), and Red panax ginseng (Korean ginseg roots).

Couples are using acupuncture to help them conceive:

"It's been used in China for over 2,000 years but acupuncture to help infertility is a new concept in North America.

Dr. Lorne Brown is a doctor of Chinese medicine specializing in fertility. This former Fredericton resident is now living in Vancouver.

Daily, he says, he receives e-mails from around the world from couples who have been unable to become pregnant who want more information on acupuncture as a treatment for infertility.

"We know it increases blood flow to the reproductive organs. The more blood flow to the ovaries the more nutrients and oxygen and balanced hormones. That means, hopefully, better egg quality and also the more blood to the (uterine) lining which means better implantation of the embryo."

Acupuncture has also been shown to reduce the effects of stress which has been proven to impair fertility. If stress and its negative hormones can be lowered and blood flow can be increased, he says, this can help people who want to have a baby."

Like acupuncture for people, acupuncture for pets is gaining in popularity:

"Acupuncture has been used for thousands of years on people, so this isn't a new practice. But Milo is a mastiff-boxer crossbreed, and the table was in Granite City Pet Hospital & Surgery Center.

He is one of a growing number of pets -- household and other -- who receive acupuncture to treat ailments.

During that 20-minute session, Milo had 10 needles inserted into various places on his body. He was receiving after-surgery treatment for a ruptured ligament in his knee.

The needles, inserted into his right hind leg -- the one that had surgery -- right foreleg, his head and back will speed the recovery. Four needles were connected to a machine that provides an electric charge to stimulate them.

"As people begin to look for alternative therapies for themselves, they search for them for their pet, too," said Alyssa Erlandson, a veterinarian at Granite City.

Erlandson is one of a handful of vets in the area who practice alternative healing methods for pets.

In the year Erlandson has been practicing acupuncture, she has treated arthritis pain, post-surgical conditions, seizures, inflammatory bowel disease, behavioral problems, urinary tract incontinence and other chronic conditions.

Erlandson usually recommends procedures and normal medications before suggesting acupuncture.

The needles stimulate nerves and release natural pain relievers. It won't cure things such as arthritis, but it will alleviate some discomfort. It can usually relieve urinary incontinence completely with several treatments.

Sergeant, a papillon from Foley, started acupuncture treatment three months ago. He now has it every other week to treat seizures.

"He has definitely cut down in the frequency and the strength of the seizures (after acupuncture)," said Sharon Rausch, Sergeant's owner. "They're much, much more mild than they used to be.""

Researchers in Adelaide have found that giving acupuncture to IVF patients can substantially increase pregnancy rates.
But the reasons for the treatment's apparent success are still unclear.

Plants valued for their fragrance, flavor or medicinal and healthful qualities are often referred to generally as herbs. They cover a wide range of trees, shrubs, perennials, vines and ferns. From wild plants to garden favorites, there is a wide, wide world of herbs to choose from.

Milo Hirt was a little uneasy last week. Recovering from knee surgery, he was about to be poked with 10 needles to help his recovery.
Acupuncture has been used for thousands of years on people, so this isn't a new practice. But Milo is a mastiff-boxer crossbreed, and the table was in Granite City Pet Hospital & Surgery Center.

Acupuncture is used for a wide variety of medical conditions, but in the United States it's accepted by conventional doctors if at all solely for the treatment of pain.