China :: Health :: Medicine

The great waves of plague that twice devastated Europe and changed the course of history had their origins in China , a team of medical geneticists reported Sunday, as did a third plague outbreak that struck less harmfully in the 19th century. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, via Getty Images A bubonic plague smear, prepared from a lymph removed from an adenopathic lymph node, or bubo, of a plague patient, demonstrates the presence of the Yersinia pestis bacteria that causes the plague. And in separate research, a team of biologists reported conclusively this month that the causative agent of the most deadly plague, the Black Death, was the bacterium known as Yersinia pestis. This agent had always been the favored cause, but a vigorous minority of biologists and historians have argued the Black Death differed from modern cases of plague studied in India, and therefore must have had a different cause. The Black...

IN CHINA At least 18 people, most of them in Guangdong Province, died in a month last year after they ingested contaminated medicine. Chemical country The Taixing countryside in eastern China, near the Yangtze Delta. Forty-six barrels of toxic syrup followed a path from a factory in the nearby small town of Hengxiang to Panama. Many of them are children, poisoned at the hands of their unsuspecting parents. The syrupy poison, diethylene glycol, is an indispensable part of the modern world, an industrial solvent and prime ingredient in some antifreeze. It is also a killer. And the deaths, if not intentional, are often no accident. Over the years, the poison has been loaded into all varieties of medicine — cough syrup, fever medication, injectable drugs — a result of counterfeiters who profit by substituting the sweet-tasting solvent for a safe, more expensive syrup, usually glycerin, commonly used in drugs, food, toothpaste and other products. Toxic syrup h...

Chinese villagers eat dinosaur bones; Villagers in central China dug up a ton of dinosaur bones and boiled them in soup or ground them into powder for traditional medicine, believing they were from flying dragons and had healing powers. AP July 3: The heaviest dinosaur bone in Asia on display in Zhengzhou, China. Other bones from the same dinosaur were eaten by villagers. BEIJING — Villagers in central China dug up a ton of dinosaur bones and boiled them in soup or ground them into powder for traditional medicine, believing they were from flying dragons and had healing powers. Until last year, the fossils were being sold in Henan province as "dragon bones" at about 4 yuan (50 cents) per kilogram (2.2 pounds), scientist Dong Zhiming told The Associated Press on Wednesday. Dong, a professor with the Institute of Ver...

China a rising star in regenerative medicine despite world skepticism of stem cell therapies Enforcing new Chinese rules for clinics may impact lucrative stem cell therapy tourism but improve international credibility, confidence This release is available in Chinese . Chinese researchers have become the world's fifth most prolific contributors to peer-reviewed scientific literature on clock-reversing regenerative medicine even as a skeptical international research community condemns the practice of Chinese clinics administering unproven stem cell therapies to domestic and foreign patients. According to a study by the Canadian-based McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health (MRC), published today by the UK journal Regenerative Medicine , China's government is pouring dollars generously into regenerative medicine (RM) research and aggressively recruiting high-calibre scientists trained abroad in pursuit of its ambition to become a world leader in the field. An...

Could wolf-berry and ginseng be the answer to the AIDS pandemic or are we dealing with another wild exaggeration? A three-year medical trial at Guang'anmen Hospital , using Chinese medicine to combat HIV/AIDS, has announced a breakthrough in their studies. Concentrating their studies on 565 patients with AIDS, the patients' symptoms and immune systems have allegedly improved since the beginning of the trail in 2008. Further trials on animals ( they don't have it easy, do they? ) have shown that the unique treatment could hinder the multiplication of the HIV-1 virus. In contrast to western methods, which involve blitzing your blood of all viruses, the traditional Chinese method strengthens the immune system. However, this breakthrough failed to have the desired effect on a few critics. A staff member from a Hong Kong-based traditional Chinese medicine company argues "Government experts receive special funding from the nat...

Traditional Chinese medicine cosmetics have a history of 1,600 years but have only recently started to compete with modern international brands. Cheng Anqi delves deeper University student Lu Jing has been battling acne for the past three years, using dozens of products to get rid of the disfiguring scars on her face - all without success. Three months ago, however, a doctor prescribed her traditional Chinese and Tibetan medicine in her hometown in the Innner Mongolia autonomous region. He told her to mix a mystery powder with egg white every night and apply it to the face. Now, the 25-year-old has a clear complexion free of comedones (blackheads and whiteheads) and with just a few fading scars. According to the Chamber of Beauty Culture and Cosmetics of All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, foreign companies have more than half the domestic cosmetics market and rake in 80 percent of the profits. But people like Lu are increasingly turning to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM)...

As Yuletide approaches once again we mostly listen to the story of baby Jesus as well as the Wise Men who came to benefaction gifts of frankincense as well as myrrh. Why would "Wise Men" bring the baby spices as well as only what only have been frankincense as well as myrrh? Both of these spices have been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for over 1600 years as well as have been mentioned in the Book of Exodus. Both of these tree resins, demeanour similar to small rocks but have been essentially the bleeds from trees. But not only any trees. Frankincense is the creosote of the Boswellia tree, whose roots can grow in plain rock. The trees have been eminent for flourishing in revengeful environments as well as can tarry aroused storms as well as harsh conditions. The tree is "tapped" the similar process to taping maple trees for syrup as well as the creosote bleeds out. It naturally hardens into small rocks as well as valued for its recovering abilities. Chinese ...