China :: Health :: Medicine

The forum on Guangdong-Macao Cooperation of the Chinese Traditional Medicine Scientific and Industrial Park 2010 will be held here, as experts, officials and entrepreneurs from the region will gather to discuss relevant topics, the government of Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) said on Monday. Sponsored by the SAR government, the forum will be held tomorrow at the Macao Business Support Centre. The participants of the forum will held discussions on the construction, operation, regulation of the Chinese Traditional Medicine Scientific and Industrial Park, and the production standard, investment, talents of traditional Chinese medicine, according to the SAR government. The governments of Macao SAR and China's Guangdong province have decided to establish a government-run company to build a Chinese Traditional Medicine Scientific and Industrial Park on Zhuhai's Hengqin Island, the SAR government previously announced. Source: Xinhua

Acupuncture is used to treat children with shortsightedness at a Hefei hospital in Anhui province. [Photo/Liu Bingsheng /China Daily] A new study shows acupuncture needles can help children with a 'lazy eye' but experts caution this is not a definitive conclusion. Sticking acupuncture needles into points on the body classically associated with vision in Chinese medicine could prove to be an alternative to bothersome patches or drops for older children with a 'lazy eye', suggests new research. Children who received needling from a certified acupuncturist saw similar improvement in their affected eyes as those who underwent the standard treatment of wearing a patch over the strong eye for a couple hours a day in order to strengthen the weak eye. Most participants in both groups advanced two lines or more on an eye chart over the course of the study. Experts don't recommend that parents swap patches for acupuncture treatments just yet, however. Further research is need...

Traditional Chinesemedicine (TCM) producers are now facing huge cost pressures due to surging raw material prices, which have been rising since the start of this year. “Price increases for TCMs has for sure cut into producers’ profit,” said Lou Shengrui, a pharmaceutical industry analyst with Shenyin &Wanguo Securities Co. Some raw material prices have surpassed the price of the products themselves, forcing some producers to cut or halt production. Some 84 percent of the nearly 600 Chinese traditional medicines in the market have seen price spikes as high as 700 percent over the past year, according to an earlier report from the China Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine. For example, price for prince ginseng, a winter tonic, have risen from 80 yuan ($12.01) per kilo to as high as 340 yuan ($51.04) per kilo recently. Producers of traditional medicines, whose profit margins are not that high in the first place, are feeling the squeeze as profit margins hover between 8.5 to 12...

MANY parents are fearful when their children's body temperature elevates. Fever is in most cases a response to infections, diseases or extreme (also emotional) conditions for the child. Treatments to reduce fever are diverse, so what is the best thing to do? In Western medicine mostly, the primary purpose is to reduce the fever promptly. This is often done with the help of fever-lowering or anti-inflammatory medicine, a cooling fan or wet towels to take away the external heat. Traditional Chinese medicine, however, believes that bringing down the fever directly won't help the patient in the long run and often increases the recovery time. Fever has a reason and always comes with accompanying symptoms that help identify the root cause. Fever's root causes are divided into external causes (cold wind, hot wind, warm heat and damp heat) and internal damage, such as yin (cold energy) deficiency and qi (energy) and blood deficiency. According to the specific diagnosis, the TCM doc...

Herbal pill for leavening infection does not invent today. Actually it has been used for many most years. But in terms of a experience accumulation, theorization, as good as systematization of herbal applications, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is offering a single of a many appropriate home remedies for leavening infections. Theory of natural pill for leavening infection in TCM Yeast infections, from a point of view of TCM, have been mainly related to dampness-heat, poisonous as good as fungus. However, those referred to elements have been only a extraneous conditions instead of a main base causes of vaginal leavening infection in women. Traditionally pruritus vulvae is viewed as damp invasion of lower energizer in TCM. These symptoms were also commonly seen in very old China so which a lot of concrete case records as good as evidences had been documented by a little famous traditional Chinese physician. TCM believes which a physique is a difficult constituent system. Any deep hid...

In 2010, 250,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer, but there is some good news: the disease’s death rate is steadily declining. That’s largely due to modern treatments, but they often come with intense side effects. Quintell Williams is getting ready for what may just be the most relaxing part of her day. Believe it or not, it’s being poked with a dozen or so acupuncture needles. Quintell is a two time breast cancer survivor. She’s gone through a mastectomy, reconstruction, chemotherapy and radiation. But what’s really hurting her now is a side effect of her breast cancer medicine. “There’s joint pain. Sometimes you feel like your joints are on fire actually, you know. That’s the basic side effect that I would feel more than anything,” said Quintell. Even though these drugs can reduce the risk of breast cancer recurring by almost 50 percent, the joint pain and stiffness cane be so severe. “That a lot more women are stopping their medication than we originally realized and ad...

Vitex agnus-castus is one of important fertility herbs for women who try to get pregnant quickly. Also known as chaste berry, vitex agnus-castus actually is not a native Chinese herb. The native vitex in China is the close relative to European vitex agnus-castus. They are different but both chasteberry can be used as fertility herbs clinically. Chinese vitex agnus-castus In China, Chinese vitex agnus-castus is also traditionally used as a medicinal herb, which mainly grows in subtropical regions of China. According to records from “Compendium of Materia Medica” by Li Shi Zhen, Chinese chaste berry was widely used in treatments of dampness-phlegm, asthma, deafness, cancer and vaginal discharge in women and other symptoms. Chinese people even used native vitex agnus-castus as supplements to diet on daily basis. They collected and stored chaste berry during harvest season. Not only chaste berry was used as herbal tea to quench thirst during busy farming seasons, also it was used to reliev...