A Brief Survery of Modern Scientific Researches on Meridian Theory

by Conrad Ho, Hong Kong, 31 January 2018

The traditional approach of western medicine on the human body would focus on its structure. This bias probably originates from the famous book “L’ homme machine” written by Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650), a 17th-century French philosopher and mathematician. Being the maintenance personnel of this body machine, the western medical doctor has to be familiar with its setup. Thus, anatomy has naturally become the compulsory subject for the study of western medicine. In approaching the subject of “meridians”, the immediate response by western medicine is unsurprisingly: What makes up the tubing of the meridian system? What is flowing in the pipelines? And they have been trying to find the answer in anatomy. The issue is that the meridian pathways could be energetic rather than material. The content that flows in them could be energy instead of matter.

Direct Evidence Relating to the Existence of the Meridians

In 1950, a Japanese named Yoshio Nakatani discovered that acupoints were good conductors of electricity, and so are the meridians. In the late 1980s and afterwards, Chinese researchers used a variety of biophysical media to examine the meridians, including sound, light, heat, electricity and magnetism. It was confirmed that the phenomena of low-resistance and high-vibration lines existed among bodily tissues which were consistent with the meridian system as described in traditional Chinese medicine (“TCM”). At the same time, similar phenomena were found on animal bodies, thereby, giving rise to animal acupuncture. Since then, some scientists have redefined “acupoints” as points of electrical resistance change on the skin; and meridians, lines of electrical resistance change on the skin.

Please refer to (1) Zhu Zongxiang’s “Biophysics of Acupuncture Meridians – the Scientific Examination of China’s First Great Invention” (Beijing Publishing House, 1989); (2) an article in “Chinese Contemporary Medical Science”, 5th issue, 2014, depicting the characteristic of electrical directionality of the meridians and its purpose of transmitting electrical signals from the brain to control body movements; (3) Professor Bei Lun, a molecular physicist at Fudan University in Shanghai, conducted a research on ion quantities present in interosseous membranes beneath acupoints and non-acupoints. It was discovered that collagen micro-structures with properties similar to optical fibres existed in interosseous membranes and were considered possible physical basis of the meridians. See the article “Experimental Exploration and Research Outlook on the Material Basis and Functional Characteristics of the Meridians” issued in “Chinese Science Bulletin” , March 1998; and (4) “The Fascia System of the Human Body – a New Interpretation of the Physical Basis of the Meridians” written by He Zhenquan, Chen Yaojian, and Yuan Lin (Huilun Press, April 2007)

Indirect Evidence Relating to the Existence of the Meridians

At the end of the 1970s, Chinese TCM doctor Hu Xianglong of Fujian Research Institute of TCM conducted a large scale study which involved 63,228 subjects from all over China and beyond, as far as Africa. The statistics revealed that the so-called Qi perception along the meridians existed, regardless of the factors of age and nationalities, with a ratio of occurrence as high as 78%, much higher than the possible placebo effect of 25%.

The Material Basis of the Meridians

According to the book of “Scientific Qigong: Dr. Li Sicen’s 30-Year Personal Experience to Prove that a 10-minute Daily Exercise Would Clear the Meridians and Steer People away from Diseases” (Sancai Cultural Press, November 2016, first edition), in the beginning of life, the fertilized egg starts to divide from one cell into two and, then, two into four. In each day, approximately one cell division will happen so that on the fourteenth day, nearly 40,000 stem cells will be around.

The primary regulatory genes are responsible for controlling the overall plan of body development. Its way of doing it is to coordinate the genes for the same body region to consistently express how to produce appropriate protein. Starting from the first cell division (so that there are two stem cells), for every 18-30 hours to the next cell division, the information of the primary regulatory cells in each stage must reach each stem cell right into the nuclei through the molecular structure formed among stem cells. This ensures that no stem cell would differentiate into a duplicate or abnormal body structure. This molecular structure, which must complete an energy and information cycle within 24 hours, could be the mechanism eventually leading to the Mid-day and Mid-night Law. This molecular structure itself could be the prototype of the meridian system. In other words, if this theory is correct, the physical basis of the meridian system could be this molecular structure at the cellular level, not bodily tissues which can be seen by the naked eye.

The Functional Mechanism of the Meridians

There have been two hypotheses: (1) the hypothesis of neuronal excitement transmission in the central nervous system – the essence of Qi perception is the directional diffusion of neuronal excitement in the central nervous system; (2) the hypothesis of movement excitation in the peripheral nervous system – due to a stimulation on the body surface or some change in the cellular environment, peripheral neurons are excited so that electrical signals flood into the central nervous system. Recent studies have further revealed that when the needle penetrates into an acupoint, it may either activate the axonal reflex of the sensory nerve or stimulate mast cells. Both will result in the release of information substances into tissue fluids, most of which are non-flowing intercellular fluids in gel-like form while the tissue fluids adjacent to capillaries are sol-like and they can flow. The information substances could diffuse in the non-flowing tissue fluids and also be carried away in the flowing tissue fluids. In these ways, they could transmit information over long distances in the body, thereby, allowing the meridians to function as an information system. Please refer to (1) The Hypothesis of the Meridians Functioning through Channels of Body Fluids raised by Japan’s Fujita Rokuro and Takayuki; and China’s Yu Yangang, Wu Shanling and Zhang Weibo; (2) the article “The Kinetic Mechanism of Directional Tissue Fluid Flowing and the Phenomenon of Meridians in the Human Body” written by Ding Guanghong, published in the 1st issue in 2005 in the journal “Progress in Natural Sciences”.

Conclusion

Evolving from the macro-scale Newtonian physics into the micro-scale quantum physics, Physics has achieved leaping progresses. In a similar way, the focus of modern scientific research on meridian theory has developed from macro-scale phenomena observable by the naked eye to micro-scale molecular structures as well as from matter to energy. This seems to have opened up a brave new world. When Chinese people are still arguing over the basic issue of the existence of meridians, some scientists in other countries have long accepted the theory of meridians, as proved by the recognition of acupuncturists as “doctors” by certain foreign governments. These countries and scientists are already actively searching for ways to make good use of this ancient wisdom originated five thousand years ago. Conrad Ho holds the same opinion and chooses to explore into alternative applications of the meridians.