Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) already exists for over a thousand years, which makes it one of the oldest health systems in the world. It uses among other things, acupuncture, moxibustion, tui na massage, cubbing/scraping, herbs, nutrition and of course medicines. These techniques are based on a couple beliefs.

Yin and Yang

First, TCM is based on an old Chinese philosophy about Yin-Yang. It states that forces need to be in balance and harmony to gain an optimal health level. A good example is light and dark, because shadow would not exist if there was no light. According to TCM an imbalance between forces would lead to disease.

Five elements

On top of that, another philosophy in TCM is the five elements. These elements are a symbol of all natural phenomena and each categorie repesent an almost limitless amount of processes in nature and the body. Every element is also working together with the other elements and all are related to eachother. The five elements are shown in the table below.

Present

Although western medicine is more used than TCM in China nowadays, it is still well integrated in the Chinese health care system. TCM and western  medicine are the two mainstream health practices in China now.

Lately more research is done about the working of the medicines. However, a problem is that the general beliefs of TCM are hard to confirm or reject, because it is hard to measure abstract theories like Yin-Yang. Furthermore, recent studies find contradicting results about the healing effects of TCM.