How do we know TCM works?

Hey dedsall, is there a peer-reviewed journal for Chinese medicine? and actually, is there a peer-reviewed journal for Osteopathic medicine? I hear you about Chinese (and Osteopathic Medicine) being a form of medicine. I guess now I'm starting to feel that "western" medicine is more inclusive of effective treatment cases than either Chinese or Osteopathic medicine. One example is a cancer treatment.

I am not sure if there are peer-reviewed journals for either Eastern / Chinese or Osteopathic Medicine. But, as Osteopathic Medicine is Western Medicine (just not the mainstream one), I would assume there is.

I have seen many journals for Eastern / Chinese Medicine with case studies in them. However, I am not sure if they are peer-reviewed or not.

I am not sure exactly what you mean by "more inclusive of effective treatment cases" but I am guessing you mean more inclusive of case studies? In that case, I would say that, yes, there are definitely more case studies in Western Medicine than in Chinese Medicine. The idea of doing case studies to prove the effectiveness of techniques / medicinals was formulated in the West. It has only been recently that they started performing them in China.

In terms of the mainstream Western Medicine compared to Osteopathic Medicine, I would not know. :)

However, since we are on the topic of case studies, I will add that, although I am glad to see more case studies done with Chinese Medicine, case studies are not without flaws. Case studies are designed to isolate factors so that one can see how a certain factor, A, affects a certain result, B. This is beneficial but works better with the mechanical outlook of Western Medicine rather than a holistic outlook, like Chinese Medicine.

When one is dealing with a Chinese Medicine, one is not as concerned with isolating a certain factor and seeing how that factor affects the results. After all, the body is far too complicated and far too connected to be able to isolate a certain factor(s) and say they are the one and only cause of a certain disease.

Case studies are beneficial and have there place in the medical community. But they should never be the sole thing that is looked at.

I was pretty unclear about what I meant with cases. I was trying for something more like examples where some patient, or test group of patients were ill with some disease that wouldn't have shown itself under TCM, but would have shown up under Western medicine. As an example, sometime ago, I dislocated my knee skiing. A doctor X-rayed my knee to see if there was any ligament or bone damage, and then told me that he discovered I had this major league bone growth on my lower leg, just under the knee joint. I didn't know the bone growth was there. He casually mentioned that this bone growth was nothing, but it if had been cancerous, I would have been admitted into the hospital right then.

I wonder if TCM treatments can illuminate problems that do not otherwise have any external symptoms? An X-ray exists in western medicine, is there such a tool in TCM? If a TCM doctor sees a patient that has a lump on his arm, what tools does a TCM doctor use to determine if the lump is a benign or malignant cancer? At what point does the TCM doctor say, "you need to see a western medicine doctor"? Or does a TCM doctor ever say that for fear of losing face?

Ah, ok. I see a bit of what you are getting at.

Well, first off, I will note that you are basically taking Western Medicine and assuming that, in Chinese Medicine, they have something similar. You must keep in mind that Chinese Medicine is an old medicine that has existed far before we had X-Rays or even knew exactly what cancer was. So, there are no tests for cancer in Chinese Medicine. Nor any reason to have them; they already exist in Western Medicine. They may have existed in the past but I did not learn them myself.

This is the reason why all schools also teach Western Medicine. That way, we know when someone needs to go see an MD to get a further diagnosis or to get some more detailed tests. If someone is showing up with signs of just having a stroke, they need to go to the emergency room. A former classmate of mine had this happen to him since, as you may or may not know, people can have strokes without realizing they have had one.

Now, as for problems with no external symptons, Chinese Medicine is quite good at that. This is especially true for a skilled practitioner. A few months ago, I went to a Chinese Doctor to help me with my stomach issues. Simply by taking my pulse, he told me that my stomach acid was too high (he was an MD as well, so tended to think in Western terms at times) and that I had sleep problems, both of which were true. This was before I even told him anything. I have heard of doctors, that my former teachers had met, who could even tell you your entire health history simply by your pulse.

Interestingly enough, before we developed, and came to over-rely on, all of this high-tech equipment, MDs were also skilled in pulse taking and tongue diagnosis. I saw an old book, I think from the late 1800s or early 1900s, on tongue diagnosis at an old bookstore not too long ago. But I doubt, these days, that many MDs would know tongue diagnosis as it's been forgotten and not taught anymore.

Anyways, I hope this sheds a little more light on things. Western and Eastern Medicine should be complementary as they each have strengths and weaknesses. For dealing with more common problems, such as allergies or sleep issues, Chinese Medicine is much better. However, for the much more serious ones, such as where a surgery is required, Western Medicine is.

Thanks for the reply. The pitch black that surrounded TCM for me is lightening up. Its interesting that there were things like Tongue diagnosis. Not sure how to refer to this analysis through the pulse that you mentioned, but that's interesting as well. I would be interested to hear your take on why the fell out of favor in western medicine; was tongue diagnosis inaccurate in some cases? Were you missing key problems with pulse analysis?

I must admit, I'm a bit amazed that you would say that Chinese medicine (being an old medicine), doesn't have tests for things like cancer. To me, that sounds much like TCM advances the TCM art in a relatively narrow set of illnesses and treatments. May I ask what TCM thinks of mental illnesses like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder as well? Not that western medicine, despite decades of treatments, is anywhere near good at treating these things. In that vein, what does TCM practitioners do with Down's syndrome, Alzheimer's Disease and other ailments that have been around for awhile?

I guess though that the benefit of having TCM teaching hospitals teach western medicine is that the students can make their own determination when the things you mentioned like allergies, sleep issues or excess stomach acid are symptoms of something more serious.

Well, first off, let me clarify a bit on the whole cancer issue. The day after posting that, I realized that my explanation wasn't so good :)

When I mean by no tests is, there are no advanced tests to determine if a cancer is benign or malignant. That is not to say that Chinese Doctors do not have a way of diagnosing cancer. I was just reading this morning about how cancer is diagnosed in Chinese Medicine and how to treat it (but please don't ask me if it works as I am not sure; I have heard claims that it both does and others that it does not). It is also possible that there are doctors out there who can determine if a cancer is benign or malignant. However, I have never met one nor do I know how one diagnose if a cancer is benign or malignant without going through advanced western tests. It's possible that this knowledge was around prior to the Cultural Revolution but, now, has been largely lost; I am not sure.

As for why Western Medicine stopped using tongue diagnosis and pulse analysis, it's because it was stopped being taught. Why they stopped teaching it is, in my opinion, due to the fact that they developed advanced testing. Advanced testing is, as with most things, both good and bad. Over-reliance on the tests has been the outcome.

Chinese Medicine does diagnose all of these diseases you mentioned and, without having a knowledge of Chinese Medicine, I wouldn't really be able to explain to you how they are diagnosed.

And, actually, as Chinese Medicine was the only form of medicine here in China before Western Medicine was introduced, it has always diagnosed all types of diseases. It has also gone through many changes throughout the years and is always changing as new theories and information comes out.

To give you an idea, you may notice that I never say TCM, do I? That's because TCM is, basically, Communist Chinese Medicine. It is a modernization of Chinese Medicine that has taken out a lot of the traditional aspects in order to make it "modern." There are many other schools of thoughts that have differing viewpoints on how to treat diseases.

Finally, I should add that, although I am a licensed practitioner and did practice in the clinic previously, I have not been doing much since moving to Asia after I graduated. So, my clinical experience is rather limited. I figured I'd point that out so that you realize why I can't say exactly what I would do if faced with a patient with Alzheimer's or another disease I haven't worked with (although, as with many, many diseases, Alzheimer's is one of those you want to avoid by being healthy long before it shows up). I can only say how I would treat things that I have treated previously or that I have read about.

Ah, and I just realized something else I may not be explaining clearly.

When I say that Chinese Medicine doesn't have advanced tests, my meaning is it was not developed in Chinese Medicine. X-Rays, Blood tests, etc. were all developed by Western Medicine. Now that doesn't mean that a Chinese Doctor won't use those Western Medical tests. These sorts of tests can also be very useful to a Chinese Doctor in determining the best method of treatment.

so Dedsall78, I didn't notice that you weren't using the term "Traditional Chinese Medicine". I'm glad that you pointed that out, although in the end, it confuses what I think I am referring to as Traditional Chinese Medicine.

I'm also glad to hear that you're a practitioner of Chinese Medicine. Good to know i'm hearing from an authoritative source.

I also was thinking that it seemed interesting that earlier, you said that for things like allergies, Chinese Medicine was better than western medicine. I'm not clear why you would say that, when western medicine merely alerts allergy sufferers to the cause of the allergy, but may or may not eliminate the allergy. Can Chinese Medicine eliminate allergies?

Welcome back Simon! I know you were asked about your whereabouts and status on your "yes i'm in China now" thread. You should check that out if you haven't already done so.

I welcome your question. After looking around on the web, I found more going on than I thought regarding the research behind some Chinese Medicine practices. More peer reviewed studies and the like. I guess I am seeing that while the peer reviewed studies are ok, those particular studies didn't seem to have a connection to the actual treatment of patients. I didn't come across a Chinese Medicine treatment peer-reviewed study that looked at patient outcomes, but maybe it was because I didn't look around enough.

please explain why.

Definitely add your own thread to this group. The more we have open and respectful discussions the more we can learn.

I've also tended to use "allopathic medicine" as a preferred term over "evidence-based medicine" because "evidence based medicine" is largely researched through biased mediums. Also, I don't know exactly why allopathic medicine completely disregards inductive reasoning.

If you have any ideas why. I'd love to hear them.