National geographic: traditional Chinese medicine is the "greatest treasure" to be discovered by modern medicine

Zhou zhou/xinhua news agency December 25, 2016

Xinhua Washington on December 24, the United States national geographic magazine said in a lengthy article in January 2019, from the arctic to the amazon, from Siberia to the south Pacific, many cultures have developed their own traditional therapy, but has the oldest continuing medical observation records of traditional Chinese medicine, is yet to be "the biggest treasure" of the modern medical study.

'in the field of health, few topics generate more heated debates than traditional Chinese medicine, which many doctors consider a pseudoscience,' the article said. But when western medicine fails, many American consumers turn to traditional treatments, especially acupuncture, which is part of the U.S. insurance plan. At the same time, scientists at universities in Europe, the United States and Asia are using modern science to analyze traditional Chinese medicine in hopes of finding cures for diseases like cancer, diabetes and Parkinson's disease.

The article quotes Yale university pharmacology professor yongqi zheng as saying that the focus of TCM, developed from empirical medicine, is to take its essence and discard its dregs.

Zheng yongqi's team has developed anti-cancer drug PHY906 based on the classic prescription huangqin decoction, combined with chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and is carrying out clinical trials in the United States for the treatment of colorectal cancer, liver cancer and pancreatic cancer, etc., "the goal is to make PHY906 the first compound herbal medicine approved by the food and drug administration of the United States".

According to the article, one of the reasons why traditional Chinese medicine has been questioned in the western world is that the production of medicinal herbs is extremely difficult, because the effect of medicinal herbs depends on a series of factors, such as soil composition, planting and harvesting methods of medicinal herbs, etc. Different factors may make medicinal herbs look similar but have different activities. Therefore, without strict quality control, Chinese herbal medicine will not be able to truly enter the western medical arena.

So far, the U.S. food and drug administration has approved only two herbal prescription drugs, one for genital warts made from green tea extract and the other for antidiarrheal drugs made from the SAP of the dragon blood tree, both of which are single-active ingredients.