Chinese medicine believes that everyone is born with a particular constitution, inherited from both parents. Your constitution will tend to determine what kind of diseases or imbalances you are prone to developing, and how you react to them. A Chinese medicine practitioner will take your constitution into account in the treatment and (more importantly) the prevention of disease and imbalance.

Historically, the idea of a natural constitution or temperament was also basic to Western medicine as developed by the ancient Greeks. Through Medieval times and even into Victorian days, people were called sanguine, phlegmatic or bilious, depending on whether they were more influenced by Blood, Phlegm, Yellow Bile or Black Bile (the Four Elements of Greek medicine). As modern Western medicine evolved, the emphasis switched to the germ theory of disease, organ-based dysfunction, pharmacology and lab tests to determine pathology. In a manner of speaking, people have been taken apart and broken down into smaller and smaller areas of treatment. If you go to a hospital, you will probably be referred to as a "torn knee ligament," a "diseased gallbladder" or a "case of hepatitis."

Western medicine can do some amazing things with the tools at its disposal, such as organ transplants, state-of-the-art imaging and drug cocktails. It is less effective in dealing with chronic, functional health problems that affect large numbers of people for extended periods of their lives: arthritis, constipation, heartburn, back pain, headaches, low energy, PMS, allergies and many other such problems. We often hear stories from people who went to their doctors complaining of symptoms, but the doctor and the lab tests could find no objective evidence of disease, so they were told to come back when their problem became more obvious.

This would never happen in Chinese medicine. Symptoms that a Western doctor would consider "vague" are recognized as the first signs of an imbalance. By taking a person's basic constitution into account, the Chinese medicine practitioner can see what weaknesses that person has, what diseases are likely to develop and how they will progress if untreated. The sooner an imbalance is recognized, the less drastic the treatment needs to be. Acupuncture, herbs, diet and lifestyle modifications are the chosen methods of treatment for Chinese medicine.

An even more important consideration is the concept of prevention. In Western medicine, prevention is either in terms of advice, like "stop smoking," or "lose weight." Or it takes the form of screening tests like PAP smears, mammograms or cholesterol levels. But a test to detect an existing disease is not the same thing as heading off a disease before it can manifest itself.

The Chinese medicine method of evaluating people in terms of their constitution is not only central to treating a health problem once it appears, it provides a clear, useful way of preventing the development of a problem in the first place. Ideally, if you knew what your basic constitution was, and how it related to your health, you would be able to keep yourself in balance by choosing the diet, exercise, rest, work and medicines that were exactly right for you.

We don't live in an ideal world, of course. Most of us will get sick, and in many cases, Western medicine provides the best and quickest way to treat a problem. However, if you know about the basic theories of Chinese medicine, its holistic approach and emphasis on prevention of disease, you will have a greater resource base to draw on to protect and improve your health.

Let me give you an example of how constitutional theory was used in ancient China. Right now, China has the largest population in the world. But up until the middle of the Ming dynasty (about 600 years ago), the population had been steady at about 60 million, because of infectious disease and frequent warfare. Then there was a major breakthrough in the theory and practice of Chinese medicine. Several of the nationally famous medical schools developed versions of a theory called "Warm Disease Theory for Infectious Diseases." This theory is not one specific treatment for fevers and infectious diseases. Instead, treatment is based on individual reactions of people to specific pathogens, according to their constitutions.

Using this approach, which works by regulating the constitution instead of killing bacteria or viruses directly, the scourge of infectious disease was brought under control and China's population grew rapidly.

American Academy of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (AAAOM) offers professional training program of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine. The Masters-level program in acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine offered at AAAOM starts three times a year at the beginning of the winter, summer and fall Trimesters. Applications are now being accepted for the Summer 2002 trimester, which will begin April 24. AAAOM is located at 1925 West County Road B2, Roseville, Minn. To request information from the American Academy of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (AAAOM), please call (651) 631-0204 or see the website: www.aaaom.org.

Changzhen Gong, Ph. D, MS, is the president of the American Academy of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. He came to the United States with a Fulbright Scholarship. As an educator, he wrote many articles on the education and study of traditional Chinese medicine. Dr. Gong can be reached at (651) 631-0204.
Copyright © 2002 Changzhen Gong