Contact: Dr. Bruce Dubin, Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine associate dean for information and planning, (740) 593-2182

ATHENS, Ohio (April 26, 2000) -- Ohio University's College of Osteopathic Medicine (OU-COM) has teamed with nine Chinese medical institutions, forming the Sino-American Consortium for Traditional Chinese Medicine to study traditional Chinese medicine and its potential for application in Western medical practice.

The first-of-its-kind agreement, organized by the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine of China, partners Chinese and OU-COM doctors and researchers seeking to integrate Western and Chinese medicine.

"The focus of this partnership is to increase multinational cooperation in the study and practice of traditional Chinese medicine through affiliated research, education and scholarly activity," said Ohio University President Robert Glidden.

Traditional Chinese medicine, long regarded as an important part of China's public health care, emphasizes a balanced diet, health-promoting practices such as massage, tai chi and quigong, and medicines derived from a large pharmacopeia of herbs and plants that have therapeutic effects with a relatively low incidence of adverse symptoms compared to Western drugs.

The Chinese-OU-COM partnership comes as Americans are increasingly turning to alternative medical treatments. American consumers annually spend an estimated $4 billion on herbal medicine, including Chinese remedies such as green tea, ginseng and ginkgo bilboa.

From 1990 to 1997, the number of U.S. patient visits to alternative therapists increased from 427 million to 629 million per year, exceeding the number of visits to all primary care physicians, as reported in the March 2000 issue of the medical journal Primary Care: Clinics in Office Practice.

As the only U.S. medical school involved in the consortium, OU-COM was selected to participate because it incorporates many of the holistic principles in health promotion and disease prevention that characterize Chinese medicine, including a strong emphasis on preventing disease, total patient care and family medicine. In 1998, the American Medical Student Association Foundation's Primary Care Scorecard ranked OU-COM No. 1 among the nation's 144 medical schools in the percentage of graduates entering family medicine residencies.

"The recognition of Ohio University's contributions to medical education, research and health care makes it a strong representative of Western medicine and a good fit with the mission of the consortium," said Dr. Bruce Dubin, an associate dean and Ohio University's consortium representative.

Dubin recently returned from a meeting of the International Congress on Traditional Chinese Medicine in Beijing where he met with consortium members to develop a comprehensive textbook on traditional Chinese medicine, which has been part of Chinese culture for more than 5,000 years. The textbook is expected to serve as an authoritative resource for Western medical schools and health care providers.

The research and educational partnership will help U.S. medical students and physicians better understand the strengths and limitations of alternative treatments and increase educational efforts for patients who use alternative treatments.

"We hope to make our students aware of the existence and extent of these alternative methods of treatment and to improve communication and understanding in the physician-patient relationship," Dubin said.

Elective rotations in China for OU-COM students and lectures from visiting Chinese medical professionals are planned.

OU-COM researcher Dr. Xiao-zhuo Chen has been working on isolating and identifying natural molecules in plants and marine organisms that have therapeutic effects. He has shown that a plant extract exhibits significant glucose-lowering activity that can be potentially beneficial for diabetic patients. From other plants and marine organisms, Chen's team also has cloned genes involved in natural anti-aging processes.

"These plants and marine organisms have been shown in our long human history to have therapeutic effects," Chen said. "Now we want to know why and how. These investigations using modern scientific concepts and means are also consistent with the philosophy of traditional Chinese medicine that for every disease, substances can be found in the body or the environment to cure or reverse the course of the disease."

The consortium also includes Hong Kong Baptist University, Beijing Chinese Medical University, Shanghai Chinese Medical University, Shangdong Chinese Medical University, Guangzhou Chinese Medical University, the Chinese Medical Research Institute, Chengdu Chinese Medical University, Heilongjiang University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine of China.

Beginning in 2001, OU-COM will incorporate a basic understanding of traditional Chinese medicine into its curriculum.