Herbal and Traditional Medicine

Traditional Chinese Medicine

Traditional Chinese medicine aims to restore the body's balance and harmony between the natural opposing forces of yin and yang, which can block qi and cause disease. Traditional Chinese medicine includes acupuncture, diet, herbal therapy, meditation, physical exercise, and massage.  A Nature editorial described TCM as "fraught with pseudoscience", and said that the most obvious reason why it has not delivered many cures is that the majority of its treatments have no logical mechanism of action. TCM is widely used in the Sinosphere, where it has a long history, and in later years it is also practiced outside of China. One of the basic tenets of TCM is that the body's vital energy is circulating through channels, called meridians, that have branches connected to bodily organs and functions. The concept of vital energy is pseudoscience. Concepts of the body and of disease used in TCM reflect its ancient origins and its emphasis on dynamic processes over material structure, similar to European humoral theory. In more recent years the emerging interdisciplinary science of bioinformatics has provided "biological evidence for the basic understanding of TCM mechanisms, safety and efficacy of TCM treatments".