Blood Flow Volume as an Indicator of the Effectiveness of Traditional Medicine

In pulse diagnosis, an important diagnostic technique in traditional medicine (TM), treatment plans for traditional therapies are adjusted according to a patient’s observed pulse. Use of this approach suggests that blood flow can be an ideal indicator of the effectiveness of TM in humans. To our knowledge, few studies have examined the relationship between peripheral artery haemodynamics and traditional therapies in humans. We must overcome some difficulties to confirm this hypothesis. First, it is necessary to use a very simple intervention in the study to investigate its effect and add reproducibility. Second, we need to use a quantitative indicator to evaluate the effect of traditional interventions such as acupuncture, moxibustion, and herbal medicine. Acupuncture and moxibustion therapies are complex interventions, and this complexity causes a loss of objectivity for the study. In our recent studies, we employed a simple or standardised acupuncture technique and a moxibustion simulator to ensure reproducible results. On the other hand, blood flow volume (BFV) is known to be an important index to demonstrate the condition of organs and tissues. Thus, we employed BFV as a quantitative indicator to show the effects of traditional interventions on the human body. We would like to summarise our 4 recent studies: first, a study of the effect of simple acupuncture on the BFV of extremities (Takayama et al., 2010); second, a study on the effect of the moxibustion simulator on the BFV of the abdominal organs and extremities (Takayama et al., 2009); third, a comparison study on the effects of herbal medicine and the moxibustion simulator on the BFV of abdominal organs (Takayama et al., 2010); and fourth, a study on the effects of standardised acupuncture in a patient with open angle glaucoma (Takayama et al., 2011).