Bruce Stewart, L.Ac., MTOM
619-423-2326

More About Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine

Researchers are increasingly finding acupuncture to be an effective, non-invasive alternative to drugs and surgery. Recent studies have found traditional Oriental medicine to be valuable in the treatment of back, neck, shoulder, wrist, knee, and nerve pain, nausea associated with pregnancy and chemo-therapy, and
as an adjunctive therapy in comprehensive weight loss or smoking-cessation programs. The World Health Organization (WHO) lists over 40 health conditions that may benefit from acupuncture.

Scientific explanations of the benefits of acupuncture include:

• regulation of the neurotransmitters known as enkephalins and endorphins
• regulation of serotonin – a powerful vasoconstrictor
• control of the gates in the central and peripheral nervous systems
• stimulation of endocrine glands, resulting in the production of beneficial hormones

Oriental medicine relies on the experiences of scholar-physicians for over 5,000 years. Acupuncturists and herbalists have systematized theory, developed and refined treatments, and transmitted the accumulated knowledge formally for over two millennia. Modern practitioners have access to the writings of the sages
of traditional medicine, the insights of modern masters, and the world of Western biomedicine.

Today’s acupuncturist is able to appreciate the perspectives of a pre-scientific system of medicine based
on observed and demonstrable philosophical principles, and the relationships of humankind to the natural environment. Taoists, Confucianists, Legalists, and Neo-Confucianists contributed such concepts as yin
and yang, qi, five phases, systematic correspondence, and channel theory to traditional Chinese medicine.

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