On Monday, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine jointly released a plan for the protection and development of TCM materials between 2015 and 2020, the first national level plan for TCM material protection.
European and American experts see integration between Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and conventional Western medicine as the natural evolution of medical science, with the aim to cure patients just on the basis of what is best for their health.
Shen Weidong, an acupuncturist and the chief doctor at Shanghai Shuguang Hospital, said the practice which originated in China thousands of years ago, was primarily used previously for pain relief and in anesthetizing patients for surgery. However, this was now changing.
Reporting on Thursday on a small study of 200 cases at a Baghdad hospital, the doctors said their results suggested the ancient Chinese technique could also be a useful addition to standard medical practice in fully equipped hospitals.
Lazy eye in children is an important cause of visual impairment worldwide. About 3 to 4 percent of all children are afflicted with it. The condition results from degradation of the retinal image during a sensitive period of visual development. Onset usually takes place during the first few years of a child's life.
A study published in August in the journal Arthritis Care and Research found that among 455 patients with painful knee arthritis, acupuncture, in which thin needles are inserted deeply into the skin at specific points on the body, delivered no more relief than a sham treatment.
China's acupuncture and moxibustion of traditional Chinese medicine along with Peking opera were both inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity during the ongoing 5th session of the Inter-governmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage meeting in Nairobi.
Alaeldin, a doctor in Sudan, learned western medicine for 10 years before he worked in a hospital built by China in Sudan. He said he found some diseases can be cured with treatments like acupuncture and manipulation instead of surgery, according to his experience
By April 24, a total of 105 out of 112 SARS patients had recovered and had been discharged from the provincial Chinese Medicine Hospital based in Guangzhou. Meanwhile, the No 1 Hospital attached to the Guangzhou Traditional Chinese Medicine University had successfully treated all of its 36 SARS patients.
Traditional Chinese Medicine could join the ranks of the world's so-called masterpieces if an application to UNESCO is successful. TCMs could join Chinese arts like Guqin Music and Kunqu Opera as "world intangible heritages" if the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine gets its way.
The Chinese Government's decision to apply for "world intangible heritage" status for Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is certainly heartening news to its practitioners, and is a move expected to give a huge boost to the protection and promotion of TCM.
Ferid Murad, chair of the Department of Integrative Biology, Pharmacology and Physiology at the University of Texas, won the Nobel Prize for physiology in 1998 for his discovery of new properties of nitric oxide. A colourless, odourless gas, nitric oxide acts as a messenger to tell blood vessels to relax and widen, thereby lowering blood pressure.