Therapy of the future

American medical students learn cupping from Chinese doctors at a Shanghai hospital.

In recent years, cupping has returned as a cure within the framework of so-called "non-traditional medicine". However, its controversial methods of practice take different forms.

Doaa Mahgoub, a physician at the Emergency Unit of King Abdulaziz University hospital in Saudi Arabia's Western city of Jeddah, says that sucking impure blood follows the same traditional methods used in Saudi Arabia and other Arab and Islamic countries thousands of years ago.

"East Asian countries including China and Japan practice cupping in a different way," Mahgoub says.

She adds that dry cupping or the use of air cups is widespread in mountainous areas where people are liable to suffer clotting due to high blood density.

Cupping, known in the past as blood sacrifice, was a means of protecting those people from blood clotting, as recorded in medical registers of the Arabs more than 1,400 years ago.

Mahgoub pointed out that this primitive method is still practiced in some areas in Saudi Arabia. It depends on using elephant horns imported from India.

There are three types of cupping according to Mahgoub: dry cupping, impure blood sucking and massage cupping.

She says that Sheikh Ahmad Hefny is accredited with having revived the third type of cupping in Egypt through strict measures established to protect both the patient and the cupper. Disposable instruments are used each time.

Sheikh Hefny teaches this therapeutic practice to about 5,000 doctors and 3,500 practitioners in different Arab countries.

The modern practice of cupping is described as "entirely safe and non-feared when compared with the old non-disposable brass cups" by assistant professor of surgery and endoscopy Adel al-Gohary.

"Thus, risks of catching hepatitis or AIDS have largely disappeared," adds al-Gohary, who is also an expert in cupping at the same hospital.

Al-Gohary explains that sterilizing applied instruments and placing honey on the blood-sucking areas and other preventive measures were not taken in the past. He added that this helped protect patients from catching hepatitis or AIDS.

"A cupper avoids sucking blood from veins and arteries and concentrates on the cellular fluid to reduce negative effects and keep side effects to the minimum level," he adds.

Al-Gohary says that cupping proved to be very effective in curing chronic diseases, neck and back pain, headaches, ophthalmic diseases, abdomen pain, diabetes, digestive diseases and hypertension.

It also proved effective in increasing white blood cells as well as anti-bacterial and anti-viral immunity bodies.

More than 30 women, who suffered from back pain after giving birth, were treated by gynaecologist Haifaa Mazhar using cupping. While Hany Hashem Moquebel, who works as an engineer in Jeddah, says that cupping was the best remedy to cure his hypertension symptoms.

Hassan Amin Sembawa, a specialist in emergency medicine and holder of an Arab Jordanian fellowship, says that traditional methods of cupping have largely developed as preventive measures were being taken.

He adds that cupping is very much in demand after being proven effective in treating drug addiction.

"Cupping is found in Chinese and Indian medicine as one of the most effective non-traditional therapies," Sembawa says, pointing out the importance of Syrian research studies which were carried out in this field 100 years ago.
Sembawa says that there was an ancient belief that cupping strengthened memory and that some Muslim scholars, including Avicenna and Ahmad Ben Hanbal, had used cupping to help remember forgotten information.

The dean of the faculty of medicine in King Abdulaziz University Adnan al-Mazroue echoes Sembawa's words. He says that cupping was an essential part of ancient Arab medicine

"No one can deny its several benefits as part of Eastern integrated medicine, despite the lack of scientific experiments and scientifically proven facts," says al-Mazroue, who also hailed the role of King Abdulaziz University in carrying out scientific research on cupping to establish references in this domain.

Amin Youssef, a gynaecologist, says that he underwent physiotherapy for his left shoulder. Finally, his pain was relieved when he was treated with cupping.

Youssef argues that cupping is now used in the treatment of gymnasts in the United States and many European countries as it has proved effective in the treatment of ruptured muscles, ligaments and headaches.

Although pharmaceutical companies feared that cupping would affect their sales adversely, particularly of sedatives, its high cost makes it inaccessible.

It costs between 400 and 500 riyals ($107-133) in Riyadh, and between 150 and 300 in west Hejaz, where it is more popular.

Some believe that the medical debate on the use of acupuncture and cupping weighs in favor of cupping as the effect appears more rapid. Treatment using cupping takes about 30 minutes in most cases, while acupuncture treatment takes between seven and 10 days to carry out seven sessions (each session takes 40 minutes).



taken from : China Daily