However, one problem the WWF has to try to overcome is that of traditional Chinese medicine.
Baicalein is used in traditional Chinese medicine and biochanin A is found in peanuts, chickpeas and other legumes.
"In traditional Chinese medicine, they feel your pulse, look at your tongue and smell your breath, " he told BBC News.
Traditional Chinese medicine practitioners have stuck with the old ways, shunning modern medical tools such as MRIs and CAT scan machines.
He studied traditional Chinese medicine and has worked at figuring out how the way doctors interact with patients helps them feel better.
Her adherence to the unproven concepts of traditional Chinese medicine puts the science she presents later in the book on uncertain footing.
Officially, 1, 273 Western drug formulations are sold in China, far more than the 564 traditional Chinese medicine formulas, according to the 2005 Chinese Pharmacopoeia.
Harvard researcher Ted Kaptchuk trained for five years in traditional Chinese medicine, but then became one of the leading researchers into the placebo effect.
Acupuncture and moxibustion are forms of traditional Chinese medicine widely practised in China and also found in regions of south-east Asia, Europe and the Americas.
Adherents of traditional Chinese medicine cherish it for its heart-protecting powers.
Mr. Bongers estimated that half of the 4, 500 metric tons exported each year from Ethiopia is shipped to China, where it is used in traditional Chinese medicine.
The traditional Chinese medicine banxia houpo tang improves swallowing reflex.
If that were not bad enough, the growing popularity of traditional Chinese medicine in the last decade has vastly increased the worldwide demand for dead tigers--various body parts are important ingredients.
But Western medicine doctors in China often look down on colleagues who practice traditional Chinese medicine, scoffing that it lacks scientific grounding, even if its precepts have been accepted by billions of people for thousands of years.
Major institutes of higher education, such as the University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Baptist University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, either have already begun or soon plan to launch bachelor-degree courses on traditional Chinese medicine.
Hutchison Managing Director Canning Fok liked that idea but also saw an opportunity to get in on sales of traditional Chinese medicine in China, a segment of the pharma business that had not yet opened up to foreign investment.
Effects of the traditional Chinese herbal medicine Yi-Gan San for cholinesterase inhibitor-resistant visual hallucinations and neuropsychiatric symptoms in patients with dementia with Lewy bodies.
There are old-fashioned Chinese medicine herbalists, traditional foodstuff vendors selling seaweed and glazed crickets by the handful, and more than a few shops hawking aka-pantsu -- bright red, high-waisted underwear believed to ward off evil and bring the wearer strength and vitality.
In 2000 the Chinese government finally opened the traditional medicine sector to foreign investment, and Chi-Med was one of the first in.
In Hong Kong, the authorities have set up a preparatory committee on Chinese medicine to pave the way for the licensing and registration of traditional practitioners.
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