Nearly 90 percent of respondents in a recent survey on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) said they have received treatment from practitioners, with more than 40 percent of them in favor of its lower cost.

The State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine released the survey results on Sunday. It was the first poll on TCM to receive government support.

The Horizon Research Company, an independent concern, polled 300,000 people in China's 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities from 2007 to June this year, before compiling its report on the basis of 100,103 valid responses.

Not surprisingly, the poll shows that TCM is well received by the Chinese.

Eighty-eight percent of respondents said they had consulted TCM doctors and practitioners, or used remedies based on TCM, while only 5.6 percent said they never tried it.

More than 31 percent of respondents said they turned to TCM as their first choice when they needed medical advice. In contrast, only 6.8 percent preferred western medicine.

"I prefer TCM to western medicine because the former is more natural and contains fewer chemicals that could be harmful to the liver and kidneys," said Liu Zhili, a 46-year-old Beijing resident.

Most chose TCM, however, because it costs less. In the survey, 52.2 percent of male respondents and 47.8 percent of female respondents said TCM is cheaper than western medicine.

As for its curative powers, 24.2 percent believed TCM could successfully treat chronic diseases and another 20 percent resorted to TCM for rare illnesses.

"It is hard to say whether TCM is more effective than western medicine in curing chronic disease," said Liang Rong, a professor at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine.

"Take coronary heart disease, for example. TCM doctors believe people get this condition because they have too much waste inside their bodies, so we give prescriptions to help them get rid of the waste. But if people do not change their unhealthy lifestyles, the medicine cannot work well," Liang said.

China currently has more than 230 million cases of cardiovascular disease, which accounts for 20 percent of adults in the country.

According to the latest survey findings of the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention, more than half of people over the age of 50 in the capital suffer from a heart problem, a 20 percent higher rate of incidence than the overall average in all age groups.

Similarly, the survey reflected that people's awareness of TCM increased with age. Forty-five percent of people over the age of 45 said they continued to learn about TCM, whereas the learning curve was less than 40 percent for respondents between the ages of 18 and 40, and 20 percent for those under 17.

(China Daily September 21, 2010)