Lifestyle or Medicine

Thoughts after reading an interesting article about the prevention of diabetes in BMJ.

Some thoughts for sharing. Two days ago, Xunpin, Xinzi and I walked around the building and fought for an answer of whether Chinese traditional medicine sucks. I gave Xunpin an example of differences between Western medicine and traditional medicine. It is about red yeast and statin.
The Chinese have used red yeast for many centuries as a food preservative, food colorant (it is responsible for the red color of Peking duck), spice, an ingredient in rice wine. Red yeast rice continues to be a dietary staple in China, Japan, and Asian communities in the United States, with an estimated average consumption of 14 to 55 grams of red yeast rice per day per person (I don't know from where these numbers are).
At the same time, read yeast is a traditional medicine for treatment or improvement cardiovascular disease or system for over a thousand years. One day, persons abstracted a component from the yeast and find it can reduce the level of blood cholesterol, then synthesize it and called it as STATIN - a new drug was born.
So,
If we eat food with red yeast in it, we may say that we eat healthy food or have a good lifestyle.
If we use red yeast only for treatment or prevention purpose, we may say that we take Chinese or alternative medicine.
If we take a statin, we may say that we take medicine for treatment.
More information about Red Yeast from Mayo Clinic and Natural Standard.


More information about Red Yeast from Mayo Clinic and Natural Standard.