Treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome from yangming meridian, 2022, Xue and Cui

Based on the theory of "brain-gut communication" and "heart-stomach disease simultaneously", the thinking and method of treating chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) from yangming meridian were discussed. CFS is related to brain and heart. Based on the analysis of meridian circulation, zang-fu function and the indication characteristics of yangming meridian, the indications of yangming meridian are closely related to brain and heart, so it is proposed to start from yangming meridian and use Chinese herbs combined with acupuncture to treat CFS, including the four methods of clearing away heat and moisturizing dryness, cooling blood and removing blood stasis, promoting qi to clear the organs, and strengthening and replenishing deficiency. It has certain guiding and reference significance for clinical treatment of CFS.

Abstract, in English, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35152588/
Article, in Chinese, https://kns.cnki.net/kcms/detail/detail.aspx?doi=10.13703/j.0255-2930.20210106-0001

 

What’s the etiquette on this forum regarding expressions of scepticism towards, well, pretty much everything in the above? Presumably it’s not being posted just so that it can be mocked.

 

Spoiler: An inappropriate response

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvS_1jn9F6M

 

I will post almost without exception any studies on, or claiming to be on, ME that I find (as well as others that I think are of interest or might be connected in some way). Those that deserve to be ripped apart hopefully will be so that anybody who didn't realise why it's bad might learn from it.

 

A long while ago I was wheeling a toddler around an oriental food court and retail complex in northwest London. She was recovering from chicken pox and was heavily pock-marked. Passing a traditional chinese medicine shop, I decided to pop in for my own amusement and test out a school of practice which I already thought of as on a par with Galen’s theories of humours and remedies of bloodletting.

Initially startled by my daughter’s floridly multicoloured face, the shopkeeper recovered his poise quickly and diagnosed an imbalance in the kidneys. The herbs which would be needed to restore renal equilibrium would cost some £100, but if we didn’t start treatment quickly, the blotches would undoubtedly spread even further.

This made me look less favourably on TCM.

 

I see TCM and other such practices as based on a theoretical base of complete nonsense (four humours, magical energies) modified by thousands of years of experience of what works and what doesn't. Since the theories are meaningless, they could be modified to fit actual observations. So, the practitioners can get some treatments correct, such as "if white spots on tongue, and urine dark, prescribe these herbs (maybe only one of which is actually effective)". I expect that new treatments based on their theoretical base are very unlikely to succeed. Given a few hundred years of experimenting, they might stumble across something that actually works, and then modify their theories to fit that.