A Traditional Chinese Medicine Chat

This is Ashley.

She’s the one without the fancy hat.

She’s a pharmacist, she’s studied Traditional Chinese Medicine IN China, and she’s traveled the world. She’s also one of the most spiritually grounded, open-hearted, and emotionally intelligent people I have the pleasure to call my friend.

Wednesday was my birthday, and she surprised me with a trip to Breckenridge. On the day of a snowstorm. With an hour notice.

Surprise!

Ever the multitasker, I had every plan to spend our drive and lodge time grilling her about Traditional Chinese Medicine. At one point, I even had the foresight to turn on a recorder and tape a bit of our conversation.

As is the case with conversations, we didn’t stay on topic very well, so the primer to Traditional Chinese Medicine I wanted to share with you isn’t in this blog post.

A snippet of the conversation we DID have, however, is.

It’s pretty fascinating, and I thought you guys might enjoy it too.

So close your eyes. Imagine a cozy studio in a fancy mountain lodge. Imagine two girls sitting on the couch, drinking hot chocolate and chattering like birds.

It’ll be just like you were there with us. How fun is that?

Highlights of the Chat

We may not have talked about the tenets of Chinese Medicine, but we did discuss things like:

• The difference between Chinese and Western Medicine
• The fact that the Chinese are the best bone-setters in the world
• The grant she was given by Eli Lilly to study a Chinese treatment for hepatitis
• Why Eli Lilly pulled her funding and closed their herbal research department
• The difference between biotechnology and herbology and why drug companies focus more on the former than the latter
• Balance, balance, and more balance.

Ready to listen? After the video, there are some links for you all if you’d like to research more into what she was talking about.

Want to Learn More?

TCM Central is a great jumping off point to learn about the intricacies of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Here’s the link that takes you directly to the history behind this rich tradition.

Remember how she talked about the plant she was studying that the Chinese doctor said would cure hepatitis? It’s sedum, and here’s more information. Surprisingly, I couldn’t find much information referencing sedum as a treatment for much of anything – makes you wonder how many plants and herbs are out there with curative properties that we don’t even know about!

Here’s a brief overview on biotechnology pharmaceuticals (again, it was very hard to find a well-written, layman’s article regarding biotech — if anyone can find a better one, I’d love to see it!).

And the biotech cancer medication we talked about – Avastin – was recently found to actually increase death rates in cancer patients by 50%. Yikes. Articles about this are everywhere, but here’s the one from USA Today.

Thanks For Joining Us!

Hope you enjoyed the little chat we had. I’ve listened to it seven times now, and each time I learn more.

We went on, after I shut off the recorder, to speculate whether or not biotechnology is just a new form of evolution – and that perhaps we’re actually being resistant to the “way the world is supposed to evolve.”

Wish I would have taped all that, too.

I’m curious, though, what do you think? About biotech and evolution, or Traditional Chinese Medicine … or anything that was brought up in the conversation?

If you guys have any questions for Ash, I’ll see if I can convince her to mosey on over here and answer them for you.