Traditional Medicines in the World: Where to Go Next?

According to the WHO, 65–80% of the world's healthcare practice involves the use of traditional medicine (TM), commonly referred to as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), in some way. Today, TM has become an indispensable part of our health management. It has been well known that TM covers a wide array of therapies and practices which vary from culture to culture and country to country. It is more important that TM differs from conventional medicine (CM) in both theory and practice. However, the research and development of almost all TM systems mostly follow the track that had been laid down by CM nowadays. It is clearly not appropriate for the future development of TM. Therefore, a well-structured strategy for research, practice, and development is instrumental to optimize the utilization of TM which reflects its superiority over CM in some ways. Now it is time for us to start thinking about “where is TM heading?” and “how should TM reach its destination?”