New York - Henry Pamboukian, a resident of Rockville in the US state of Maryland, went to a local acupuncture workshop on a rainy afternoon.

He had been suffering chronic pain in his back for three years and had visited many physical therapists. Having tried almost every treatment possible, he then decided to take his wife's advice and give abdominal acupuncture a try.

A few minutes after the acupuncturist, Bo Zhiyun, inserted several 75-millimeter needles into his belly, Pamboukian said the pain was gone.

"It's magic," Pamboukian said while still in bed.

He didn't feel any pain at all, although the needles were still in his abdomen, he added.

"The abdominal area is a hub where governor and conception vessels as well as the internal organs are all connected," Bo, 67, said. "That's why putting a needle there can treat the pain elsewhere."

TCM is growing in popularity in the United States, along with other alternative therapies.

Clinics and practitioners of acupuncture are sought after in many parts of the country. Although acupuncture has been denounced by many scientists as nothing but a placebo, it has been said to be effective for plenty of patients in relieving nausea and some types of pain.

Only four US states to date do not have legislation on professional practices of TCM. It has grown into an industry with 40,000 licensed therapists and more than 380 million patients every year.

The world has rediscovered the value of TCM in recent years, after the 2015 Nobel Prize in psychology or medicine was awarded to Tu Youyou, a Chinese pharmacist, whose discovery and extraction of artemisinin in the treatment of malaria won her world fame. Although the Nobel Prize did not honor TCM in particular, the fact that the findings are based on a Chinese medical context and proven to be effective through TCM clinical experiments is indisputable.

Acupuncture has also been studied alongside conventional Western treatments in recent research.

Virender Rehan, a professor specializing in pediatrics at the University of California, Los Angeles, has been studying the effectiveness of acupuncture in mitigating the damage to new babies whose mothers were exposed to nicotine during pregnancy.

The result, he said, was that active acupuncture intervention in pregnant women was an effective strategy to prevent lung damage in babies throughout the antenatal, natal and postnatal periods.

"Our studies are showing that we can address the fundamental mechanism of the disease process through acupuncture or some other Chinese medicine approaches," Rehan said.

"By applying Chinese medicine with Western medicine, we are combining a holistic approach."

As Chinese therapists conduct treatments across the US, some institutions in the country are offering degrees and giving accreditation to TCM practitioners as well.

Five Branches University, a private university in California, is one such institution. It was established in 1984 by Ron Zaidman, who said that many Americans are now getting to know this ancient treatment.

The university has more than 100 academic staff members, offers curricula that include acupuncture and has trained many acupuncturists.

The fundamental idea behind TCM is based on nature.

Xinhua