Traditional Chinese medicine has won more recognition in Western countries in recent years, but the 5,000-year-old medical science still needs a modern interpretation to break into the mainstream Western market.
According to the Beijing-based World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies, more TCM clinics have opened in the West and more colleges are starting to offer TCM education, but TCM has not attained legal status in many countries.
In some countries, TCM is considered a food supplement rather than having medicinal effects, it added.
A major reason that TCM is not widely acknowledged in these countries is a lack of research on TCM such as its pharmaceutical details and its interaction with other medicines, according to the federation.
The number of registered TCM practitioners worldwide is estimated at about 500,000.
A cooperative project between the Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicine and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia is trying to combine TCM with modern interpretations of ancient documents and high-level clinical research.
"International society has increasing recognition of traditional Chinese medicine. TCM's natural therapies are in fashion, with many Western pharmaceutical companies looking for a formula for natural products when they develop new drugs," said Lu Chuanjian, vice-president of the TCM hospital based in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province.
"Tried and tested throughout several thousand years, the effectiveness of TCM is indisputable, with all the ineffective medicines and those with adverse reactions eliminated over time," she said.
"Now we need to use modern technologies and ways of thinking to explain to the world how TCM works on specific diseases and prove that it can cure diseases.
"The modernization of TCM is the prerequisite for it to go global."
The cooperative project began in 2008. It has chosen 26 diseases and is collecting evidence of TCM's curative effects.
It requires a huge amount of work to search among the sea of ancient documents for descriptions of the symptoms and pathogenesis, and compare them with modern descriptions. The research team will then use the assessment system it established to evaluate the therapies.
Besides collecting evidence from documents, the team also conducts clinical research combining approaches of TCM and Western medicine.
The research on psoriasis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is almost done and the results will be published in papers and as part of the book collection Evidence-based Research of Clinical Chinese Medicine.
The books on the two diseases, with Chinese and English versions, are expected to be released in October, according to Lu.
Meanwhile, select young Chinese scholars were sent last year to work and study at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, where they will obtain doctorates. The project plans to cultivate 20 such doctors by 2025, Lu added.
