The strange circular marks on the Olympics gold medalist Michael Phelps got more attention than who the silver or bronze medalists were. By now, everyone in the world should know that it’s called Cupping Therapy from Traditional Chinese Medicine. If you haven’t heard about it, Google it before you show up in the next party without a clue on what people are chatting about.

Well, the biggest debate now is not what it is or how effective the treatment is. Instead, it’s whether this Cupping Therapy and other treatments from Traditional Chinese Medicine are “scientific” or not.

Before we get into this topic, let me tell you about myself and why I might be qualified to explain it. First, I am trained in sciences and logical thinking. My undergraduate major was Physics. I got my PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford and MBA from UC Berkeley. I did my fair share in the high tech adventures of Silicon Valley. Secondly, I am also one of the top experts in Chinese Medicine, recognized by leading medical institutes in Asia, such as China Medical University (Taiwan), Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine (China), and others. I have quite a few patient cases that medical doctors found amazing. How come? Well, I will tell you near the end of this article.

Did I get your attention? Good. Let’s now discuss the definition of science. What’s “science”? Science is a way of approaching and understanding the world. We observe things, form our hypothesis on how things work, derive possible outcomes based on our hypothesis, and then observe again to see if our derived outcomes match the real outcomes. Once the derived outcomes match the real outcomes all the time, this cycle is completed. Our hypothesis becomes a principle that future hypotheses can be built upon. Gradually, more and more principles are created. It becomes a school of knowledge that can explain and be applied to the real world. This “approach” defines “science”.

How about those schools of knowledge themselves, such as Physics, Chemistry, Biology, etc.? Should they be called “sciences”? Generally speaking, yes. However, let’s not forget that the knowledge itself changed a lot in the past many centuries. People used to believe that many evidences ensured the earth was flat. People used to believe that the Newton Laws of Motion could explain everything and the development of Physics came to the end. People used to believe that atoms were the smallest things in the universe…. Well, you got the idea. So, let’s not be so arrogant to believe that today’s “sciences” are the ultimate truths about this world. The scientific “approach” will always live, but not the schools of knowledge themselves.

Let’s go a little deeper into the medical science. Imagine if we were the very first group of scholars to study human body. There are at least two distinctively different routes that we could take. The first route is to cut a human body in half and see how the upper and lower halves could possibly work with each other. We form hypotheses and check if those hypotheses work. Then, we cut the upper half in half and see how the left and right parts could possibly work with each other. We form more hypotheses and do more experiments to verify. We keep cutting in half to study human body. We get down to organs, tissues, and cells. We explain how they work together through our numerous observations, hypotheses, and verifications. Sounds familiar? Yes, that’s how the Western Medicine science came about. Not quite that simple, but you know what I meant.

The second route, on the other hand, is not to cut human body in half, but to observe many human bodies against all kinds of environmental changes and interactions over a very long period of time. When the wind blows, white liquid comes out of the noses of many human bodies. When the human bodies lack of sleep for a long time, the faces turn pale and reflect less light. The bleeding wounds of bodies with edema tend to heal slower. ….. After we observe millions, billions, trillions of phenomenon, we start to see “correlations”, a lot of “correlations”. Through the complicated web of correlations, we form many hypotheses, verify them against more specific observations, and solidify them into principles, as all other schools of sciences would do. With “verified principles”, we build “models” on how human body works. Of course, it would take much iteration to get these models practical enough to be considered “correct”. This second route is exactly how the Chinese Medicine came about. But, “wait”, you ask, “isn’t it called Big Data?” Precisely. Chinese Medicine might be the earliest form of Big Data, and might well be the most comprehensive form of Big Data! It doesn’t just have the human body models, but also the methods to treat our health problems. And, it has been working for centuries. It is just not very well known to the group of scientists who follow the first route of “cut in half”.

Troubled by many problems of current medical treatments, some technology tycoons start to promote the idea of rebuilding our entire medical knowledge from the ground up. The idea is to collect every single thing about a person from birth to death, from gene to every movie watched, from every food to the name of every classmate, …. Did I emphasize “everything”? No matter if it’s medical records, measures from wearable devices, places visited, and many many many others, let’s record them ALL. We collect all those data from millions of people over many years. Then, we set up a giant computer to crunch all the data to find correlations and build a model on how human body works. Well, it might not be too far off to say that they will likely end up rediscovering the school of knowledge called Chinese Medicine!

Did I get you more fantasized about Chinese Medicine? I hope so. But, talk is cheap. In reality, how can we verify and benefit from the ancient wisdom of Chinese Medicine? After all, unlike the “Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)” in Western Medicine, Chinese Medicine practices highly depend on the individual practitioners. It is very difficult to find real experts who can show excellent clinical results and also can authentically explain the classic literatures of Chinese Medicine. Bummer? Nah. If so, I wouldn’t be writing this article.

Silicon Valley is full of top talents in technology. It’s relatively easy to find experts to inject Big Data and Artificial Intelligence into this ancient wisdom of Chinese Medicine. How? It works from two ends.

The first one is exactly like what those technology tycoons are promoting: collect lots of data about a person. But, we don’t need “everything”. Other than the obvious items such as medical records, we can first focus on those items utilized by Chinese Medicine. Just to name a few: appetite, water intake, perspiration, temperate at various body points, bowel movement, urination, sleeping pattern, pain, emotional feeling, etc. Of course, it’s more complicated than you might think. Take “headache” for example. In Chinese Medicine, the exact location, timing, and pattern of one’s “headache” matter a lot. Headache in the morning is different from headache in the evening. Migraine on your right side is different from migraine on your left side. It’s far more “detailed” than taking Tylenols for whatever headache you have! Anyway, we can collect those “relevant” data and feed into Big Data’s blind correlation searches. Let’s see what kinds of correlations or “knowledge” that we can find out from the giant pool of data from many people over a few years. I bet we will come out with something very close to what Chinese Medicine tells us. For example, some most recent researches showed that depressed people have a high risk for lung cancers. Well, in Chinese Medicine 101, we learn that Lungs and worries are highly correlated. In addition, anger for Liver, happiness for Heart, racing thoughts for Spleen, and fear for Kidneys. Of course, the “human body models” of Chinese Medicine are far more complicated than this. There will be tons of research papers waiting to be published.

The second one is to do the opposite. Let’s take all those hypotheses, principles, and models, treatments, etc. from those Chinese Medicine literatures recognized by most practitioners. We build an artificial intelligence system upon them, and test the system against real patient cases. Of course, it needs to be done step by step to gain confidence in real treatments. But, if a car can drive itself at 100mph on the busy highways of Detroit, we will be able to solve all the devils in the details.

When we approach Chinese Medicine from the both ends discussed above, we will start to appreciate how much scientific Chinese Medicine is. And, the implication is huge, much bigger than pure “scientific interest”. The cost of our healthcare system will decrease significantly. A big chunk of our GDP is spent on healthcare. Or, to be more precise, “disease-care”. While Obama Care is a good intention, the healthcare system probably will bankrupt before the health of general public will turn better. Chinese Medicine is well known for preventative care and personalized medicine at low cost. With supports of those researches of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, we can scale up the applications and utilization of Chinese Medicine into our healthcare system. It will help to bring down the cost of our healthcare system. Then, there might be a chance for Obama Care to succeed.

On the other hand, Western Medicine researchers and practitioners should not see Chinese Medicine as a threat or competitor. They will also benefit from it. The “correlations”, “principles”, and “models” rediscovered from the new researches on ancient Chinese Medicine will provide lots of insights and hints to Western Medicine. It will trigger another round of advances in Western Medicine. It will be a win-win-win situation. The third “win” is the patients, of course.

Back to my own story. Why did I transform myself from a high-tech entrepreneur and investor to a Chinese Medicine expert? While I was like everyone else in the Silicon Valley looking into next big trends in technology, my father got liver cancer. Without hesitation, we jumped onto Western Medicine treatments with all the leverages in our family. The more my father was treated, the worse his condition got. It shocked me and dragged me into hours after hours of studying medical information. I found out that quite a few researches from Stanford Medical School and other leading medical institutes proved many standard treatments of Western Medicine on prevailing diseases useless or even harmful to patients.

Since I grew up in Taiwan, it’s no surprise that I would turn my attention to Chinese Medicine out of desperation. Either the fate or hours of searching online led me to a grand master in Chinese Medicine, who had thousands of students around the world, including leading experts in Western Medicine and distinguished members of US National Academy of Sciences and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences (China), and Academia Sinica (Taiwan). Yeah, no kidding! Interestingly, a few years later, I served as a Visiting Scholar at Stanford helping medical device projects in my spare time. I discussed my father’s case in hindsight with several Western Medicine professors and doctors in Stanford Medical School and Stanford Center of Integrative Medicine. Guess what? They highly recommended Chinese Medicine to me. In their own words, they told me “Western Medicine couldn’t have saved your dad. He would have had a better chance with Chinese Medicine”. I know it’s controversial. But, that’s truly what they told me.

Anyway, one thing led to another. I became one of the favorite students of the grand master, got an advanced degree in Chinese Medicine, and got board certified in California to practice Chinese Medicine. Thanks to my rigid training in sciences and engineering, within a few years, I showed many good patient cases and got recognized as one of the top experts in Chinese Medicine.

In short, a person of a truly scientific mind should be open to and even spend time in understanding Chinese Medicine. It would be very beneficial to our healthcare system if we pour much more time, effort, and good intention into it. Very soon, many Olympics athletes will use cupping, acupuncture, herbs, and other Chinese Medicine methods to enhance their performance. So much so that the International Olympics Committee will ban all those methods for being unfair to those few who don’t use them!

If you’d like to discuss with me, please write to andy.lee@alumni.stanford.edu.

P.S. No, my father didn’t live. The idea of trying Chinese Medicine was rejected by the family until the Western Medicine doctors couldn’t do any more treatment and finally gave up on my father. Those family members and friends with less scientific training tended to insist more that Chinese Medicine wasn’t scientific. How ironic! But, with the help of Chinese Medicine in his last few months, my father lived longer than his oncologists predicted. More importantly, he lived very comfortably to the end without much pain at all. He passed away peacefully in his sleep. It’s a “miracle” to many Western Medicine experts, since almost all patients of similar liver cancer conditions under Western Medicine treatments suffered a great amount of pain that couldn’t be reduced much even by the maximal dosage of morphine. My father’s ending was much more humane, as I was told by them…. It’s exactly 10 years since my father passed away. That’s why I am writing this article.