Traditional Chinese medicine offers a holistic approach to treating an illness. Traditional medicine focuses on the whole person, and will usually help the body fight disease or infection instead of trying to cure it directly. Typically traditional medicine has little side-effects. This is because it is based on precisely balanced formulas so that side-effects are minimized (e.g. if you wanted the anti-bacterial effects of cinnamon without the blood-thinning properties, you would add licorice, which has a blood thickening affect).

Western medicine can be more effective because it uses medicines that attack the symptoms, not the problem as a whole. For viruses which cause colds, you have fever reducers and anti-biotics. In addition to “pills,” western medicine has made many advances in surgical technology..