Traditional Chinese Medicine Finding Acceptance in the Western Medical World
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Posted by Dawn M. Smith Oct 31, 2008 |
Traditional Chinese Medicine is no longer scoffed at by the western medical world. As health care providers recognize the limits of strict science in creating wellness, integrating Chinese medicine is becoming more accepted. While in Chinese herbal medicine, the concept is to bring the body back into balance rather than treating a specific illness, it is becoming more common to do a TCM assessment and then when creating an herbal formula for the individual to use herbs that both fit the person's Chinese medicine patterns and target their western medical diagnosis.
Some of the health problems that TCM is being used for include:
Hypertension/High Blood Pressure
Women's health issues such as:
Menopausal Symptoms
Mental Health Problems including depression where specific TCM herbs such as frankincense have shown great promise. Children and adults diagnosed with AD/HD are also benefiting from the more integrated approach of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
TCM is also proving useful in treating diseases such as malaria which are developing drug resistance. By using whole herbs, and most often a combination of herbs the viruses, bacteria and parasites which cause disease have a much harder time surviving.
The added advantage of Traditional Chinese Medicine is that the plants, once used as treatment are not an environmental hazard the way many western drugs are. The biggest concern with Chinese herbs is that they not be allowed to become invasive in areas where they are not native.