Revisiting the relationship between traditional East Asian medicine and biomedicine: Incorporating the Western into the Eastern

Abstract

Introduction

Whether traditional East Asian medicine (TEAM) is compatible with biomedicine remains controversial, with biomedicine research failing to explain key TEAM concepts. This article hypothesizes that reconciliation could be effective if biomedicine assumed that it examines a limited portion of reality, whereas Eastern medicine aims to conceptualize reality in its entirety. Re-discovering elements of Western thought that allow epistemological expansion, such as the notion of a non-material aspect inherent to all phenomena, and its implications for research methodology, can encourage biomedical research to reflect on TEAM.

Approach

The article reviews sources from the Western and Eastern medical literature to explore the above hypothesis.

Discussion

The concept of Qi (氣), inherent in TEAM's interpretive framework, lays the foundations for theoretical compatibility and a practical integrative approach. In TEAM, Qi is the basic fabric from which all things are made; however, holding that all things have a non-material aspect is also deeply rooted in the European religious and philosophical tradition. This article proposes that biomedicine detects the denser part of the Qi spectrum conceived by TEAM. As an illness progresses, parts of Qi that make up the organism become increasingly separated, but biomedicine detects disharmony only when the magnitude reaches a certain level owing to its sensitivity range.

Conclusion

Both TEAM and biomedicine consider the patient's complaint as an unquestionable reality that medicine can observe and aims to alleviate. TEAM assumes that traditions distilled over millennia require verification through evidence-based medicine to gain credibility in the West, which owes its success to its skeptical attitude. Meanwhile, biomedicine assumes that some mechanisms that influence health and healing may not be measurable by current biomedical devices. However, this does not mean that these mechanisms cannot be verified, albeit with an emphasis on patients’ subjective experiences. The theoretical compatibility of TEAM and biomedicine creates sufficient legitimacy for their co-existence, and research on their sequential, rather than alternative or complementary, use in healthcare is needed.