Journal: Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2008 Feb 27. [Epub ahead of print]
Authors: Chen R, Moriya J, Yamakawa JI, Takahashi T, Kanda T.
Affiliation: Department of General Medicine, Kanazawa Medical
University, 1-1 Daigaku, Uchinada-machi, Kahoku-gun, Ishikawa
920-0293, Japan. kandat@kanazawa-med.ac.jp.
NLM Citation: PMID: 18955323
More and more patients have been diagnosed as having chronic fatigue
syndrome (CFS) in recent years. Western drug use for this syndrome is
often associated with many side-effects and little clinical benefit.
As an alternative medicine, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has
provided some evidences based upon ancient texts and recent studies,
not only to offer clinical benefit but also offer insights into their
mechanisms of action.
It has perceived advantages such as being natural, effective and safe
to ameliorate symptoms of CFS such as fatigue, disordered sleep,
cognitive handicaps and other complex complaints, although there are
some limitations regarding the diagnostic standards and methodology
in related clinical or experimental studies.
Modern mechanisms of TCM on CFS mainly focus on adjusting immune
dysfunction, regulating abnormal activity in the
hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and serving as an antioxidant.
It is vitally important for the further development to establish
standards for 'zheng' of CFS, i.e. the different types of CFS
pathogenesis in TCM, to perform randomized and controlled trials of
TCM on CFS and to make full use of the latest biological,
biochemical, molecular and immunological approaches in the experimental design.
