Is there any scientific analysis of the medical benefits of Qigong, which is a type of health/healing/martial arts exercise that has been practiced in China and other countries for at least two thousand years? Recently an important book “Chinese Medical Qigong” [1] has just been published. It provides a comprehensive summary on the theory, practice, clinical applications, and modern scientific research on Qigong. This article reports on excerpts from this book in the area of modern scientific research on Qigong. Readers can get an introduction to Qigong from an earlier article in my website “A Proposal to Perform Scientific/Medical Analysis of Qigong“.
The book reports on modern scientific research in control settings that could be repeated. The results so far are very encouraging, showing positive evidence of physiological effects, psychological effects, biochemical and immunological effects, and physical effects. These encouraging results definitely show that more research in this field at a larger scale is warranted, and show hints of an alternative medical approach that could complement and supplement the traditional western medical approach, and could help to slow down or even reverse the rapidly rising cost of healthcare.
Multiple Solutions: Implications for Social and Political Analysis
From our high school and college education in math and physics, as well as in other science courses, we know that for many problems, there could be multiple solutions, and often one solution is not necessarily better than the other solutions. This article discusses the implications for social and political analysis when we take into account that there could be multiple solutions to any particular social or political problem.
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