Mr COCUDE

You have just heard the presentation of an old qi gong experiment (1983) carried out on pneumoconiotics. As we have seen, Dr WANG has researched the most recent work undertaken within China and we arc now going to hear her on the topic 'Qi gong and pneumoconiosis'.

Mrs WANG

A distinction is to be drawn between health maintenance and therapy. As regards health maintenance, qi gong is like all sports ... jogging, tai chi chuan, etc.

On the other hand, when it comes to treatment, we are talking about medical qi gong, which is practised in a medical or a hospital setting. Moreover, a fortnight ago, a new regulation was introduced, severely banning the practice of the various types of qi gong outside the medical setting.

Before the new regulation, China had been trying for two years to test all qi gong methods to find those with most applications.

Everyone tried to find scientific justifications for their methods: studies on mice, statistical analyses... but how can prejected Qi be monitored?

The medical profession is very vigilant but open-minded to research.

On Interne you can find information on the types of qi gong used, but when you look closely there are only a few cases. Clinical observation is the important point. I'm not making any judgement but it can be noted that, since the 1950s, establishments for pneumoconiotics and terminal occupational diseases have tried all the traditional methods aimed at well-being.

As you saw in the second cassette, qi gong is used to breath better, for massages on the stomach and for massages on acupoints. We have already spoken of acupuncture: some points are more effective than others. You massage them. yourself, and then there are breathing exercises like we mentioned earlier, deep breathing, reverse breathing, etc...

Mr COCUDE

I have noted a certain parallelism. with what Mr PUJET said this morning on the improvement in the sensation of well-being. No matter how subjective it may appear, objectivity can be sought by asking patients to locate their sensations on scales. These experiments are very current in psychology, so where's the problem?

Dr MAHIEU, if we wanted a resuraption in the kind of experiments you have described, what should be done? What methodology should be adopted ?

Mr MAHIEU

The application of our western scientific criteria to experiments conducted in the context of the Chinese conception of medicine leads inevitably to very negative criticism: ethics and problematics are too différent.

If such an assessment of the efficacy of qi gong were to be undertaken according to 'our' standards, it would be carried out as a case-control study with 3 groups of 70 to 80 persons each

• A group of treated silicotics pair-matched (particularly regarding their consumption of tobacco) with
• A group of untreated silicotics
• And a group of healthy subjects treated the same way as the first group.
• The impressions of the patients with regard to what they feel would also be collected by means of a questionnaire.

This longitudinal study would take place over at least four to five years, monitoring the following objective parameters: radiographic images read collegially and 'blind' in accordance with the international classification; thorough respiratory functional explorations (spirometers, flow rates/volume curves, CO transfer, etc ... ). Lastly, it would be necessary to apply to the results the classical statistical tests of epidemiology to determine significance.

Following such a population for four years represents a very time-consuming study.

Mr COCUDE

We used that number of persons when we studied the sensitive crystallisation method, crystallisation of copper chloride (CuC12) with additives as a possible indicator of the pneumoconiotic risk. We took three population groups, a control group not exposed to dusts, a group of exposed subjects but who had not developed the disease, and lastly a group of silicotics.

I now turn to Dr AMOUDRU: 15 or 20 years ago, at the time when you were in charge of 2 000 hospital beds in the Nord department, would you have agreed to launch a study with a methodology like that explained by Dr MATHIEU?

Mr AMOUDRU

Thank you, that's a very good question as would be said on television. I think we were faced at the time with problems of life and death for which these therapies with functional aims would have appeared out of the question. 1 don't think we would have sought to use such practices, no matter what we may think of them, in the state of distress in which were to be found these populations with tuberculosis, early deaths, acute respiratory insufficiencies, etc...

Ifs because we are at another stage of the pathology, with more discreet manifestations at the beginning of slow changes with a low, then progressive ftmctional effect and which can therefore be improved by such techniques.

I was therefore in such a différent epidemiologic and cultural context that I would not have attached any interest or importance to these techniques.

I would like to ask Dr MAMEU: in what context was this experiment carried out, a hospital establishment? A mine? Does the thesis state the context?

Mr MAHIEU

The authors are situated: two of thern are members of the qi gong research association of the province of YUNNAN and the third works at the silicosis treatment and prevention hospital in KUN-NfflG. We can believe that it took place in a hospital context.

Mr AMOUDRU

Regarding qi gong, I would have liked to ask those who have practised this therapy or studied these documents: doesn't this fit into a very specific cultural model which allows it to work in a way that I'm ready to believe effective, but would it be transposable into our western mentalities? It's not because 1 like paradoxes but 1 genuinely feel that this kind of technique supposes an attitude and a mentality that refer to a whole cultural universe and way of thinking that are very différent from, ours. With the Voltairian and the rationalist spirit often to be found in France at all levels of society and knowledge, do these techniques work?

Mr COCUDE

I, for my part, indeed feel that the cultural refèrence is definitely important, which explains the interest of experiments on animals or cells where the cultural gap does not arise. Although on principle rather opposed to animal experiments, 1 recognise that in this specific case they could be justified.

Moreover experiments on the immune effect of qi gong, which 1 spoke of in the bibliographic overview, often concern animals (mice) or even animal cells.

Mr LAFON

We indeed have the abstract of a study carried out at the Institute of Qi Gong Sciences in BEIJING. It concerns the effect of qi gong on mice immunodepressed by cyclophosphamide (CY) Three groups were formed, one with animals having received it on the first day, the second with animals that received it and Qi projection for 10 to 15 minutes for 7 days, and the third which received only physiological liquid on the first day.

They observed that qi gong lèssened the negative effects of CY on the thymus (thickening of the cortex and medulla) and spleen (proliferation of T cells).

It is merely an abstract which does not give any information on the mechanisms of the exposure and it is very difficult to give a firm opinion on this paper.

Top of page
Next talk
Summary