Why use Traditional Chinese Medicine?
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is an ancient system of health and wellness that has been used in China for thousands of years. While Western medicine typically focuses on treating disease, TCM looks at a patient's entire well-being and balances the Yin and Yang within one's body. Simply, TCM considers that most diseases are an imbalance of the Yin and Yang. The purpose of herbal treatment, herbal decoctions and herbal pills, is to make a good Yin-Yang balance and to create good homeostasis. TCM can treat most human diseases, especially infectious and chronic diseases. By creating personalized herbal tea formulas, Dr. Mao is able to promote and maintain the flow of Qi (life energy) depending on each individual patient's medical issues. The herbal tea formulas consist of herbs, roots, and natural ingredients only. While much of Western medicine has many side effects, one of the main benefits of herbal teas is little to no side effects.
China contained the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) quickly within 1-2 months and the widespread use of TCM was a key fact in fighting this new virus. In fact, at the beginning, there were only 30% of patients who used TCM in Wuhan, and the death rate was very high. However, outside Wuhan, most patients used herbal tea and the death rate only about 0.7%. Later, nearly 90% of Wuhan patients also began using TCM, and the mortality rate significantly reduced. Very interestingly, a temporary makeshift hospital in Wuhan received 564 COVID-19 patients who were diagnosed early and mainly treated with herbal medicine. All the patients recovered quickly without a single death. In this way we can say, if we find any infectious disease early, treating it with TCM as soon as possible will allow us to control it quickly, without worrying about its toxicity and spreading. Dr. Mao also treated COVID-19 patients, some via telehealth services, all of whom made a full recovery. If we use more herbal medicine, we can save more Americans from COVID-19.
The discovery of antimalarial Artemisinin by Professor Tu Youyou has saved millions of people worldwide, and she was awarded a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2015. In fact, Artemisinin is derived originally from Traditional Chinese Medicine/herb Qinghao 青蒿 (Blue Green herb, Artemisia annua or sweet wormwood). The medicinal value of this plant has been known to the Chinese for a long time. In 1596, Li Shizhen recommended tea made from Qinghao specifically to treat malaria symptoms in his “Compendium of Materia Medica”. This special example further indicates that TCM is a great treasure house, that does not just belong to China, but rather it is a world treasure. I hope it will be widely used in the US and better recognized in the future.
Every flu season, more than ten thousand of Americans die from flu-related illnesses, including many children. By June 2020, COVID-19 virus had already killed more than 12,000 Americans. One year later in June 2021, the U.S. COVID-19 death toll surpassed 600,000. These sad facts clearly indicate that the current conventional medical system is not good enough to keep Americans safe and healthy, despite the fact that the hospitals and doctors are excellent and can treat most diseases. TCM has been developed and testified in China and Asia other countries including Korea and Japan. It is an effective, and relatively safer medical system, and it has some advantages over Western medicine, especially in treating many chronic diseases, in fighting against virus-infections, and promoting/regulating immune and nervous-endocrine functions, etc.
In summary, TCM as a new medical system in the U.S. will help most people live healthier and longer. I hope someday you may find it useful and powerful, and that it will be recognized throughout this nation as an indispensable part of our health system.