How a 3000 year old art is quietly revolutionizing modern medicine.

Here in Austin Minnesota, we have the world famous cancer research lab “Hormel Institute”. One particular lab at the institute is currently focused on the investigation of a form of gall bladder cancer called Cholangiocarcinoma or bile duct cancer. A notoriously painful and lethal form of cancer. The people in the lab are doing everything they can to quickly find a cure for this type of cancer and all of the others using the highest technology and modern science available. They just recently published a scientific article looking at the roll of a cell’s “cilia” in cancer. Cilia are the tiny hairs on the outside of a cell. Top scientists in the field from all over the world converge on Austin Minnesota to gather together and solve this problem.

But what if there was another way, besides high tech science to address this problem. What if there were ways to prevent and care for patients who have this and other terrible diseases… even without drugs or surgery or genetic manipulation?

What if there were other, additional ways to tackle this problem that were still scientifically studied and proven approaches to reduce and eliminate a whole plethora of humanities illnesses; using things like diet and herbs and environment and manual therapies and lifestyle management to care for these patients.

There is. There are many investigated and accepted therapies which we all can do to not only treat illness, and not only prevent illness, but also to enhance and optimize our overall health and performance, vitality and wellbeing.

For example; did you know that taking a 15 minute walk in nature improves your immune systems ability to fight off colds and flus? Or that having green plants in a hospital recovery room reduces the need for pain medication after a surgery by 36%? Or that playing a team sport has been found to be THE most effective treatment for moderate anxiety and depression? Far better than any pharmaceutical or talk therapy. Or how about how laughing out loud can immediately lower your blood pressure by relaxing your blood vessels and making them more pliable by 22%. Or, finally, did you know that having sex has been found to be the best, most effective therapeutic intervention for passing kidney stones? It is almost twice as effective as standard non-surgical medical treatments (84% effective versus 48%).

Health does not necessarily have to come in a bottle of pills or at the edge of a scalpel. Sometimes it does, for sure, but there are also many things that modern science knows to be effective for so many of our medical conditions. It is time to start rediscovering and incorporating them into our healthcare.

 

Therapies such as Traditional Chinese Medicine, in particular, have a 3000 year old track record of continual use. The world’s oldest continually practiced form or medicine. This is the medicine of Emperors and Empresses, concubines, powerful government ministers and warlords. TCM was originally available only to the highest echelons of power and influence… the portion of the population which historically lived twice as long as the general population in ancient China (33 year life expectancy for peasants versus 67 years for the ruling class).

What makes Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) different from modern medicine? One thing is that it looks at each individual as a unique person and bases the treatment off of that; rather than isolate, identify and treat the single dysfunction or symptom… often on a microscopic level.

How would your Imperial physician treat you if you were the emperor or empress today? First they would prescribe exercises and a lifestyle specifically for you. Tennis for you, weightlifting for you… They would prescribe a specific diet suited for your unique constitution. A raw food vegan diet for you, full of fruits and fresh vegetables…. And an all meat carnivore diet for you. Every patient is prescribed a different treatment even if they have the same symptom or disease. This is because of the understanding that the underlying cause of that symptom or illness is different from person to person.

In TCM it is the underlying cause of the illness that is treated, not the superficial symptoms of the illness itself.

From herbs to diet to acupuncture, every patient gets a unique treatment prescribed based on their underlying patterns of illness. There is no “one size fits all”.

This approach is becoming more accepted and embraced by Americans today. Many people are taking charge of their own health by seeking alternatives and complementary approaches to good health. Rather than just wait for an illness or disease to strike, many people are becoming proactive with their lifestyle choices and experimenting to find what lifestyle behaviors fit best for their own personal constitution… even if it mean going against the grain of conventional wisdom (such as in the case of those eating the exact opposite diet recommended by the American Heart Association).

By incorporating this personalized approach to lifestyle behaviors and medical treatment, any person can live life full, like an emperor.