Is the side effect of Chinese medicine or Western medicine greater? This question itself is not scientific, leaving aside the specific varieties of drugs, the use of the population, dosage, and the background of the use of drugs, talking about who has more side effects, who has more is meaningless. Every year, China's drug regulatory authorities release a series of data on drug safety in China, and analyze them comprehensively and meticulously from various perspectives. It is called "National Adverse Drug Reaction Monitoring Annual Report", which has been released 20 times since 1999.

This data has been gradually improved year by year, and the statistics and analyses have become more and more detailed and scientific, including: the total number of adverse reactions, the situation of drugs involved, the gender and age ratio of the people who had adverse reactions, the dosage form of the drugs that had adverse reactions, the percentage of serious adverse reactions, the situation of human organs and systems that were damaged, and the classification of indications of the drugs that had adverse reactions, etc., which were all subjected to detailed statistics and analyses. Detailed statistics and analysis were conducted.

For the occurrence of side effects and adverse reactions of Chinese and Western medicines, the annual report has detailed statistics. Take the monitoring report for the year 2019 as an example, which can be readily understood:

Overall situation

2. Occurrence of adverse reactions to traditional Chinese and Western medicines

As can be seen from the chart, the occurrence of adverse reactions of western drugs accounted for 84.9% of all adverse reactions, and only 12.7% of traditional Chinese medicines, the number of adverse reactions of western drugs is much higher than that of traditional Chinese medicines, and the proportion of adverse reactions of western drugs has been high for many years.

Of course, it is unscientific to look at the number alone, as it is normal for Western medicines to have more adverse reactions than Chinese medicines. In any case, the overall incidence of side effects of western medicines is still very high compared to that of Chinese medicines. This is not to say that the side effects of Western medicines are greater and those of Chinese medicines are less. Because there is a certain range of drug types with adverse reactions, there are safe drugs in western medicines, and there are also many adverse reactions in Chinese medicines. In the annual monitoring report, there is also a detailed analysis of the drugs with higher incidence of adverse reactions and more serious ones, such as antibiotics, anticancer drugs, and cardiovascular drugs with larger dosages, which have always been the focus of monitoring.

This annual report covers a great deal of ground, and I'm just giving you a guide here, so if you're interested, you can download and study it from the NIDA website. Data from previous years' reports are available and can all be found on the FDA website.

Side effects of traditional Chinese medicine or western medicine

It goes without saying, of course, that Western medicine has a lot of side effects.

What is herbal medicine?

The human body is sick is the function of the internal organs is too strong or not as strong, which is bias, because of bias, so sick.

Herbal medicine is still most abundant in flowers, herbs, trees, wood, roots, etc., that is, it is most abundant in botanicals.

Plants have their own growth period, for example, wheat, by the time the mangosteen is harvested, wheat receives the spring rise of the qi foot, so malt can regulate liver qi, can promote lactation, can help digestion.

In the example of jujube, hang jujube red on July 15, before August 15, you can collect jujube, jujube receive mainly the summer fire and heat qi, summer fire for the heart main qi, so jujube into the heart, the heart is the master of blood, so jujube can be complementary to the blood of the heart.

That's Chinese medicine, it's a medicine with three poisons, and there are three more poisons in a medicine like this, used incorrectly.

For example, a young man, the body is great, ate a wild ginseng, the mouth and nose of the blood.

In the case of, for example, using too much, such as drinking white wine and overdoing it, or even experiencing exotics.

Plants have their own growth period, so the plants themselves have partialities. The Chinese ancestors, based on the partialities of these plants, treated the partialities of the human body, which is called traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).

Chinese medicine says that medicine and food have the same origin, and there are medicines that are food and medicine, such as jujube, ginger, malt, white wine, and round-grained rice.

Of course there are many poisonous drugs in Chinese medicine, but the chances of using such drugs are rare, such as arsenic.

What about Western medicines, chemically synthesized drugs, all of which have serious side effects because of their specialized properties.

If you don't believe me, read the instructions for the medication you are taking.

Whether it is traditional Chinese medicine or western medicine, they both have toxic side effects. Because of the essential difference between the theories of Chinese and Western medicine, there is a great difference between the side effects of the two in the process of treatment, i.e., Chinese medicine eliminates its original side effects in the process of treatment through precise diagnosis and treatment, whereas Western medicine still maintains a greater number of side effects due to its mechanical use.

As in this case of Xinguang Pneumonia treatment, almost all antibiotics and antiviral chemotherapeutic drugs are hepato- and nephrotoxic, such as Cliche, Abidol, and Chloroquine. Since one-third of the epidemic patients had abnormal liver function, Chinese medicine practitioners had to stop all the combined use of Western medicines in the course of treatment, and changed to pure Chinese medicine to protect the liver, and finally the patients were cured and discharged from the hospital. Clinical practice has proved that if Chinese medicine is accurate in recognizing and treating, not only will it not cause liver and kidney injury, but it can also treat liver and kidney injury caused by western medicine. In recent years, the liver and kidney toxicity incidents caused by Chinese medicines have been occurring continuously, in fact, they are all caused by the westernized use of Chinese medicines. If proprietary Chinese medicines are left out of the diagnosis and treatment, they will be alienated into western drugs and produce adverse reactions.

The toxic side effects of Chinese medicines are actually not smaller than those of Western medicines, but why are the adverse effects of Western medicines far greater than those of Chinese medicines in clinical practice? Western medicine does not exist in the process of identification and prescription, are mechanically see is the disease with is the drug. Since toxicity cannot be eliminated through preparation and compounding as in the case of Chinese medicine, western medicine as a single ingredient cannot eliminate toxicity in clinical use, which is why it shows greater adverse reactions in the clinic. The lesser or no adverse effects of Chinese medicine refers to the fact that Chinese medicine practitioners, after diagnosis and treatment, formulate a targeted formula for the patient, and ensure that the formula gives full play to its therapeutic effect through the theory of the formula of the ruler, minister and auxiliary minister and the pharmacodynamic relationship of the seven conditions of the formula, eliminating or reducing the toxicity and side effects that should not be present in the patient.

Therefore, we often say that the Chinese medicine treatment of disease with little toxic side effects, Western medicine treatment of disease with great toxic side effects is a solid theoretical basis.

It should be that western medicines have a lot of side effects. There are many chemicals in western medicines that will directly harm the body when not in the right condition.

Side effects of western medicine are high

Chinese Medicine Side Effects and Western Medicine Side Effects if analyzed by data to 2019 data as shown in the chart below:

Chart data source: National Center for Adverse Drug Reaction Monitoring

As shown in the chart: chemical drugs accounted for 84.9% of the adverse reaction events in 2019; traditional Chinese medicine accounted for 12.7%. As shown by the chart, adverse reactions caused by chemical drugs are much larger than those caused by traditional Chinese medicines.

Now look at the second picture:

Chart data source: National Center for Adverse Drug Reaction Monitoring

By route of administration, adverse reactions caused by injectable administration accounted for 62.8% of the reported proportion, oral administration accounted for 32.5%, and others accounted for 4.7%; among the injectable administration, intravenous administration accounted for 92.5%, and other injectable administration accounted for 7.5%.

Among chemical drugs, the top five categories in terms of the number of cases were: anti-infectives, cardiovascular drugs, oncology drugs, analgesics, electrolytes, acid-base balance and nutritional drugs. Among the chemicals that reported serious adverse reactions, the largest number of cases were anti-infective drugs, accounting for 32.2%, followed by oncology drugs, accounting for 28.8%.

Among the Chinese medicines, the top-ranked categories were blood regulators (28.4%), heat-clearing agents (11.4%), tonic agents (6.8%), qi nourishing agents (6.8%), orifices-opening agents (6.1%), and dampness-expelling agents (5.7%).

Although the data show that there are fewer adverse reactions reported for Chinese medicines than for chemical drugs. However, this data does not show that Chinese medicines are necessarily safer than chemicals. Both traditional Chinese medicine and chemical drugs have adverse effects on the human body. Specifically, it is still necessary to take a specific drug and the patient's disease situation to analyze. In any case, medication is relatively safe when done under the guidance of a physician or pharmacist.

It should be that western medicines have a lot of side effects. There are many chemicals in western medicines that will directly harm the body when not in the right condition.