Festival celebrates TCM for winter

A traditional Chinese medicine healthcare festival was launched on Tuesday to mark the annual TCM reinforcement period.

Winter is the best time to take gaofang and other TCM therapies, according to experts from the Shanghai Yueyang Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, the festival organizer.

Chinese people have a tradition of taking herbal paste tonic, or gaofang, during winter to improve health and prevent disease for the coming year. Prescriptions of gaofang have been rising by 10 percent a year in Shanghai, with more young and middle-aged people taking it. 

“Gaofang is a traditional health tonic, which has effects to deal with sub health. More young and middle-aged people come to gaofang clinic to ease their fatigue and improve sleep,” said Zhou Yang from Yueyang, the only hospital making its own gaofang. Other hospitals hire pharmaceutical companies to mass produce the tonic.

“Having our own gaofang workshop and producing gaofang all by hand not only ensures gaofang quality but is also an inheritance of the TCM culture,” Zhou said. “For convenience,, the hospital has made gaofang into daily packs, allowing people to take the drug with them every day.”

Credit: Shanghai Yueyang Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine / Ti Gong