With the inevitability of longer life expectancy, proper understanding of how to maintain our health long-term has become increasingly vital to our quality of life. However, properly managing our health is time consuming and difficult without an efficient, systematic set of concepts to guide us. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) provides these concepts and consequently is perfect for the current era.

TCM has always been profound in ways far ahead of its time. Without a fundamental understanding of modern concepts like computer science and systems, it was taught using archaic variable systems that were often more memorised than fully understood. This led TCM to earn the reputation of being unscientific and mystical, a reputation that overshadowed the simplicity and elegance of its logic. When we view the human body as a machine similar to a computer system, concepts like ‘Blood’ (which holds energy – the ‘battery’) and ‘Qi’ (which is the energy – the ‘power’) as well as energy management (power saving and regulation), become much easier to understand. As body energy is the core of TCM, drawing the parallel between body energy and voltage is an important analogy. Demystifying the concepts of Blood and Qi paves the way for a comprehensive discussion of self-healing.

While the idea of utilising the body’s own self-healing system to cure diseases is shunned by modern Western medicine, this concept is central to the workings of TCM. The human body is intelligent, and more often than not optimal in its goal of preserving itself in its best state given the circumstances. By understanding the way the body’s self-healing system works, we can move up to a healthier state with the least amount of effort and diversion.

I have used the example of gout (page 13) to show that, by understanding what the body is trying to do, we can avoid concentrating our efforts on clashing against our own self-healing system. When modern medicine targets the symptoms of gout as an illness, its medications are designed to combat inflammation (the cause of pain and swelling). The resulting side-effect is that while the inflammation is reduced, the underlying problem – uric acid crystals deposited in joints and tendons – is not removed; the crystals will only pile up more and more when you use medicine to prevent the body from dealing with the underlying problem. What we end up creating using this approach is an untreatable chronic disease.

TCM’s logic of self-healing on the other hand, is to recognise that the swelling is part of a self-healing process that is meant to dissolve and remove the uric acid crystals. By recognising and following through the body’s self-healing process, attention can be focused on strengthening the body’s constitution and energy. To prevent the crystals causing damage to surrounding tissues, the patient must limit movement of the affected joints. The rest of the procedure is simply to rest for three to five days until the swelling goes away and the body’s own healing process ends. To prevent uric acid crystals from piling up again, TCM’s next step is to review and improve the patient’s lifestyle, addressing such factors as lack of sleep, an unhealthy diet, and stress. Contemporary knowledge of nutrition can be used to speed up the healing process. Compared with modern medicine’s agonising and ultimately ineffective process, TCM’s approach is far more efficient.

The effectiveness of making full use of your self-healing system is the main reason why the popularity of alternative medicine has been on the rise. Modern medicine is highly efficient at handling external problems, such as infectious diseases and injuries. The diseases that it has trouble dealing with are generally those that cut across the conditions, where there is no single link between the symptoms and the disease. For these problems, TCM’s advantage compared with other kinds of alternative medicine is in its understanding of how the body’s organs funciton and interrelate (the Zang-Fu system – see page 51).

When we are trying to understand something as complex as our self-healing system, the Zang-Fu system is highly beneficial in providing a methodical approach. The simplicity and well-organised nature of this system allows for easier analysis of the body’s complex problems. This leads to a greater understanding of the bigger picture of what the body is trying to do when a certain symptom is observed. At a philosophical level, TCM’s Zang-Fu system is truly unique in this regard.

With a simplified healthcare philosophy, it becomes easier for us to take responsibility for our own health. In the current mainstream healthcare environment, too much responsibility is left with doctors. Rather than addressing potential hazards while they are still relatively harmless, we continue with erroneous habits until they become significant health risks. Instead, with a better understanding of how our body functions and recognition of the role of the self-healing system, we should be focusing our efforts on taking care of our own health.

The future development of healthcare should involve a reduction in the role of doctors, and a shift towards health ‘educators’ who function like trainers in a gym. With the convenience of smartphone apps and other similar devices, each individual’s health can be regularly monitored. Such health educators could then function as consultants, guiding our health in the right direction. This would not only reduce pain and suffering by treating health problems when they are relatively simple, but also reduce medical costs significantly. Causing massive health problems with unhealthy lifestyles is highly wasteful. It is much more cost-effective to focus our resources on acquiring the knowledge we need to avoid those health problems in the first place.

For such a future, two key sources of objective information are necessary. The first is a means of measuring body energy. The second is a way to assess and monitor energy flow in the meridians. These should be the main parameters for TCM as an objective, verifiable approach to diagnostics and treatment.

Body energy measurement

A system’s energy level is one of the most important indicators of its health. For example, an electronic appliance’s voltage or a car’s petrol gauge are both important indicators of energy level. When the indicator readings are not what they should be, the system concerned is likely to suffer severe malfunction.

The TCM concept of ‘Blood and Qi’ (see page 21) is regarded as just such an indicator of the body’s energy level. A low energy level is then viewed as a primary cause of a variety of illnesses because, with adequate energy, the body’s self-healing system would be able to work properly and many of those illnesses would be solved by the body itself. To think about this in reverse, an adequate energy level would imply that the body has enough energy to maintain what needs to be maintained. When your organs are all well maintained, a large proportion of diseases can be avoided. This is why finding ways to measure the body’s energy level consistently and objectively is the most important goal for developing technology to support TCM.

Modern medicine does not factor the body’s energy level into its diagnostics. However, in sports science the basal metabolic rate (BMR), or resting metabolic rate, is very close conceptually to TCM’s ‘Blood and Qi’. BMR uses the amount of oxygen you breathe in and the carbon dioxide you breathe out in a given time interval to determine your energy expenditure at rest.

How useful is this outside sports science? A famous infertility physician in Taiwan with whom I am acquainted uses BMR tests to screen patients. Those with BMR readings outside an acceptable range are refused infertility treatment. Instead, they are instructed to wait and to follow prescribed health recommendations (lifestyle, diet etc) for a few months, until their BMR results improve to meet her requirements. In other words, she only performs infertility treatment on patients with a satisfactory BMR reading. The result is that the rate of success for her fertility treatment is extremely high. Her explanation is that she has already screened out patients whom it would not help. Her method not only saves her patients from paying large medical bills, but also reduces unnecessary pain and suffering.

This physician looks much younger than she actually is. When I asked her how she had maintained her health, her answer was interesting. She said she had closely observed her patients, both those who had successfully achieved pregnancies and those who had remained infertile, and had asked them for details of their lifestyles. She had learnt beneficial behaviour from the successful patients and to avoid the behaviours of those who remained infertile. Her conclusions had been simple. Go to sleep and wake up early, eat foods that are light in flavour, exercise appropriately, cultivate a positive mood and reduce stress. These are in essence exactly the same concepts as those of TCM healthcare.

More and more studies suggest that today’s popular lifestyles have seriously detrimental effects on health. With this in mind, many doctors preach lifestyle change to their patients. However, these suggestions are not backed up with any way of measuring the immediate effects of lifestyle changes. If there were a testing parameter that could trend negatively in response to a poor lifestyle and positively to an improved one, it would be easier for doctors to persuade their patients to change.

Meridian data

In the previous section, I talked about the importance of Blood and Qi analysis as a TCM parameter. The other important source of data is meridian analysis, giving us information about the state of the meridians. The traditional method for checking a patient’s meridian information is for the TCM practitioner to feel the patient’s pulse with three fingers on the wrist, with the finding based purely on the doctor’s sense of touch. This method of diagnosis has been around for thousands of years, with differing degrees of success depending on the skill of the practitioner. The problems with this method are two-fold. One, it is difficult to learn, and even more difficult to master. Two, there is no way for the patient to differentiate between TCM doctors of differing skills. This is the main reason for the pseudo-science tag that has been given to TCM diagnostics.

Scientists have made many attempts to develop equipment that can replace manual pulse diagnosis, but having to read tiny differences in electrical signals on the human skin, which is full of variability, has made engineering such equipment difficult. Furthermore, to extract Zang and Fu information (see page 51) from an already weak signal has made the difficulty even greater.

As described in greater detail in the Appendix, Dr Yoshio Nakatani discovered in 1951 that meridian points on the skin had different conductivity relative to the rest of the skin. This led to the development of electro-meridian imaging (EMI) for Ryodoraku diagnosis (see page 122). The EMI could receive and process signals from the 12 meridians on each side of the body (24 in total). There were no problems with mechanical precision. EMI, from an engineering viewpoint, was far more successful than any previous attempts to replace manual measurement.

However, even though EMI has been around for more than half a century, and is used in various products, it is still not commonly used as a reliable tool for diagnosis. The reasons include:

  1. Each time you use the EMI monitor, you need to measure 24 meridian points. The process is therefore complicated and time consuming.
  2. Patients expect traditional methods from TCM doctors, often losing confidence in those who cannot or do not perform manual pulse diagnosis.
  3. EMI measures conductivity by running a small current through the skin, which causes temporary polarisation, meaning that the meridian points cannot be measured again within a short amount of time. The effect needs to wear off before another test can be done. This makes it impossible to have real-time readings in the way you can from an electrocardiogram, for example. This greatly reduces the scope of the system as well as the credibility of the readings.
  4. When measuring the electrical characteristics of the skin, differences in the pressure applied, skin moisture, skin salinity etc. easily influence the readings. This problem, when compounded with the fact that you cannot obtain measurements in quick succession, makes it difficult to verify the statistical significance of the data.

In 2011, a Taiwanese company developed a new technology, using electromagnetic waves to measure microcurrents in the meridians directly. This new technology does not require running electrical currents through the skin, so it does not have the problems with polarisation that EMI has. This allows for frequently repeated measurements. Results are also not affected by varying levels of pressure, salinity, or moisture in the skin.

When I first discussed their product with the Taiwanese developers, I suggested that they change it from single-point testing to 24-point real-time testing (12 meridians for each side of the body as in EMI). I figured that by bringing the standard of this equipment up to that of the electrocardiograph, the applicability would increase and it could be made to the standards of modern medical equipment.

This real-time EMI – the Meridian Monitoring System described in the Appendix (page 122) – shows the current conditions of the meridians and gives us new, objective insight into changes in the meridians during treatment. It does not, however, reflect their long-term, accumulated condition, so diagnosis cannot be made purely with the data from the real-time EMI. The other methods of TCM diagnosis (see page 23) must also be applied to get a grasp of the patient’s long-term state of health and to make deductions about the causes of any illnesses.

Conclusion

As healthcare heads towards the era of big data analysis, TCM’s Zang-Fu system is the perfect topic for extensive research. The seasonal fluctuations in our bodies’ energy levels and meridian patterns, the difference in meridian patterns amongst different age groups, and the body energy and meridian patterns related to chronic illnesses are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of potential research topics. In a time where the applications of AI are being explored, it is the perfect environment for TCM to thrive and grow as a science. Without a doubt, in the near future there will be drastic changes in the way we think about healthcare.

The Meridian Monitoring System (page 122), the Real-Time Meridian Monitoring System (page 123) and the Meridian Qi Treatment system (page 123) have all been developed and made available for commercial use in the last decade. As the equipment becomes more popular among TCM practitioners, more patient data can be accumulated in the future. It is my lifelong goal and dream to modernise the diagnostic and treatment methods of Traditional Chinese Medicine. With this new technology, I believe it is possible that one day TCM will be able to provide objective, evidence-based results.