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Published: 27 January, 2012
by JOSH LOEB

Nineteen seventy-two was a landmark year for China. It was the year when US president Richard Nixon made his historic visit to the country.

Closer to the West End meanwhile, it was the year traditional Chinese medicine took a big leap towards respectability in this country when Hong Kong-born Professor Man Fong Mei opened his AcuMedic acupuncture clinic in London.

Since then the institution has moved to larger premises in Camden Town and has expanded.

Professor Mei says it now treats several hundred patients each week, many of whom come for help with problems including addiction, stress and obesity.

AcuMedic sells herbal medicines and Chinese teas, and famous customers in years past have included Princess Diana.

This week, the store will be staging an event involving the traditional dragon dance, tea tasting and a lecture on wellbeing given by Professor Mei to mark Chinese New Year.

He says Chinese medicine, like the country’s cuisine, has “gone global” in recent years.

He adds that each year brings new levels of acknowledgement from Western mainstream health practitioners that Chinese medicinal techniques can have a role to play in healthcare.

Critics argue that the effectiveness of such techniques cannot be rigorously tested.

But Professor Mei says: “They say Chinese medicine cannot provide evidence, but that is because there is no single active ingredient, no single target medicine. It’s multi-target, it’s a holistic system which targets the body as a whole, not the disease. So Western models are not valid for Chinese medicine.”

Professor Mei sites the treatment of pain in phantom limbs – where patients who are missing limbs appear to feel them nonetheless – as an example of an area that does not conform to Western scientific models and where acupuncture can be of great use.

But Professor Mei, whose company created the first disposable acupuncture needles to prevent Hepatitis B or HIV infections, is critical of less qualified practitioners of Chinese medicine, who he says offer substandard treatment.

“I’m very much in support of more regulation, because otherwise our reputation is gone,” he says. “We’ve got to practice safe medicine and good medicine.”

His talk tomorrow (Saturday) will focus on healthcare in tough financial times.

“Everybody is worried about the economic crisis,” he says. “I want to tell them that the most important thing is to get yourself into good health and your wellbeing. You might have to tighten your belt, but you have to maintain hope and positivity.”

• The AcuMedic Chinese New Year celebration will take place at noon tomorrow (Saturday) at the store at 99-100 Camden High Street, NW1