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The needles in Greg Rowley's face should increase circulation, eliminate headaches and heighten brain energy, according to acupuncturist Dr. Ying Qin Wang.

Point Taken

Eastern medicine enjoys a burgeoning popularity

By Steve Enders

They've been keeping people healthy in Asian countries for more than 4,000 years, but practitioners of Eastern medicine have traditionally gotten a bad rap in the United States. They are more often described in terms befitting a witch doctor or snake oil salesman than a "true doctor." But this has changed in recent years as practices such as acupuncture, herbal remedies, massage, reflexology, aromatherapy and homeopathy have gained a foothold in the West's medical consciousness.

The trend has gained momentum across the United States, and here in Sunnyvale, as more and more people make visits to alternative medicine specialists.

* Freedom Quest's online acupuncture information page
* the Office of Alternative Medicine
* American Medical Association
* National Institutes of Health

According to a 1997 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (AMA), which quoted the latest statistics on visits to "unconventional medical practitioners," about 425 million Americans sought alternative health care in 1990. This figure exceeded, for the first time, the total number of people who sought care from a standard physician.

The AMA also reports that in 1990, Americans spent $14 billion on alternative therapies. These increasing numbers, the article says, show that attitudes are changing toward "unconventional therapies" and make it necessary to study the "safety and efficacy" of these medical practices.

The Journal even advertises itself as open to input from scholars and doctors on such subjects and says that alternative medicine is one of the top three priorities of the association for the coming year. This is in contrast to 1996, when doctors ranked the topic 68th of 73 subjects to cover in the Journal for the year.

The expansion of alternative medicine is also evidenced in local malls and grocery stores. Echinacea and goldenseal are just two herbal remedies some laud as a remedy for the common cold. These and other herbal medicines can be purchased in bulk from almost any drugstore or supermarket, and a trip to the classifieds of any local newspaper reveals an array of services from massage therapists and chiropractors to aromatherapy experts and Reiki healers.

In Sunnyvale alone, there are some 13 acupuncture clinics to choose from. According to the Department of Consumer Affairs, there are about 3,100 licensed acupuncturists in California.

At the Sunnyvale Town Center Mall, the store Heaven Scents is devoted to aromatherapy. Owner Marie Beers says business over the past two years has been getting better.

She says now doctors are even referring their patients to the store.

"I have a 30-year-old man who's had two strokes, and his doctor tells him to come in," Beers said. "People are finding ways to relax with scents."

Alternative-medicine practitioners say that people are turning to these more natural techniques because they are tired of taking drugs and going through expensive and sometimes painful surgeries for their most major problems.

This is despite the fact that many of these techniques are clinically unproven and have not yet undergone major studies by the major players in United States medicine.

It was big news recently when the benefits of acupuncture were touted in a study by the National Institutes of Health, the governmental body that oversees the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM).

A November 1997 New York Times article reported that the panel studied and concluded that acupuncture was an effective therapy for certain medical conditions. It has also recently been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

The result of these stamps of approval is that medical-insurance providers will now usually cover the costs of therapies such as acupuncture.

This is good news for doctors like Ying Qin Wang, owner of a Sunnyvale acupuncture clinic, who has recently decided Eastern medicine is so popular that he's going to open a university to teach it.

Wang plans to open his doors to about 30 students in March. He says interest in his school, the University of Eastern and Western Medicine, is increasing. He already has 15 doctors from all over the world and the Bay Area signed up and ready to begin teaching these ancient techniques.

The grounds of his clinic on W. El Camino Real are torn apart now. But in two months, the site will have been remodeled into an architecturally Chinese, fully functional Eastern medicine center. It will include classrooms, a library, an herbal pharmacy, a laboratory, various treatment rooms and a tai chi and qi gong studio.

Wang, who says his clinic's patients are about 60 percent European American and 40 percent Asian American, expects the university to teach about 60 percent Eastern medicine and 40 percent Western medicine.

He will offer three-year master's degree programs in Oriental medicine and eventually, he hopes, Ph.D. certification through the University of Eastern and Western Medicine.

Ironically, Wang was trained in a Beijing university in modern Western medical practices. He says that his background in Western medicine allows him to better understand the human body and its ailments, and he emphasizes that there is a balance that can be found between Eastern and Western techniques.

"With Western medicine, I can make the diagnosis. Anatomy and physiology are correct," Wang says. "But with Eastern medicine, and feeling and touching, I can make the treatments."

What Wang is referring to is his own theory, the Vital Core Medical System.

Developed through 18 years of research--including studies on 20 patients at Stanford University--Wang determined that a person's health can be controlled and influenced through three "gates" that are in different locations along the spinal cord.

These gates are passageways to the "vital core," he says, and by finding out whether or not the gates are open or closed, a practitioner can determine how healthy or susceptible to disease an individual is.

Opening the gates, he says, can end common pain problems such as headaches and can help heal lung and heart problems and reproductive disorders.

The Vital Core Medical System won Wang an award for "best achievement" from the Conference on World Traditional Medicine last year in Las Vegas. The conference is sponsored by the American Institute of Chinese Medicine and the Chinese Cultural Research Institute.

Ellen DiNucci, project coordinator of complementary medicine at Stanford University, points out that there are many organizations and associations all over the world that Oriental medical doctors (OMDs) can belong to.

There's not one distinct licensing organization such as the American Medical Association that approves OMDs, she says.

The California Department of Consumer Affairs, however, is in charge of licensing acupuncturists like Wang.

Critics of alternative medicine cite the fact that there isn't one organization overseeing all OMDs, nor are there extensive studies being done on their practices.

The OAM recommends that people consult their regular physicians before seeing a complementary therapist.

Dr. Wang, however, responds to such criticism by pulling from a seemingly endless pool of success stories. Dick Wilbur, a software engineer, says he was having digestive problems that he tried to cure using modern drugs and changes to his diet.

"Things were getting a little bit better," Wilbur, 40, says, "but then I had a relapse."

The relapse sent him to Dr. Wang, who cured Wilbur within a month using acupuncture, herbal remedies and qi gong ("chee kong"), an ancient, intensely meditative exercise similar to tai chi.

Now Wilbur comes to Wang's office to help teach qi gong, and he hopes to continue helping others using the techniques that helped him.

Wilbur says he sought out Dr. Wang because he was interested in the techniques and the culture of Eastern medicine.

Wang says his techniques have been in use for more than 4,000 years.

"I am here to make people healthy," Wang said. "This is not a cultural or political thing. We are all people, and science is good for the whole world."

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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, January 28, 1998.
©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.