Scientific Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine to Address the Aging World

Dr. George C.Y. Chiou, Professor and Head, Department of Medical Pharmacology and Toxicology

As the population grows older, more and more chronic diseases associate with aging become acutely apparent. Chronic diseases related to the elderly include, but are not limited to Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, CNS degenerations, geriatric psychosis, nephropathy, osteoporosis, and visual disorders. Although western medicine has been extensively tried for the treatment/prevention of all these disorders, there are many serious problems remained to be solved, particularly the functional disorders. TCM is known to be mainly effective in chronic diseases, yet it is not widely accepted in the western world mainly because its efficacy has not been scientifically proven with placebos. If anything, active principles are isolated from Chinese herbs and are used as western medicine (such as aspirin, pilocarpine, etc.) in the western world. Therefore, it is proposed to develop TCM scientifically with the most advanced technologies and methodologies to scientifically improve the TCM and to convince the western world to accept its use