What TCMHH is
TCMHH is an independent education site about Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for English-speaking readers. It is run by an individual publisher with a long-standing interest in Chinese medicine, working with an editorial team. We publish explanations, not prescriptions. We do not sell herbs or supplements, and we do not accept payment for coverage.
Who produces the content, and what our review does not mean
Every article is produced by the TCMHH editorial team. That means the topic is chosen, the draft is written and edited, and the final text is checked for accuracy of wording, internal consistency, missing safety framing and unsupported claims before it goes live.
It does not mean the article has been reviewed by a doctor. We do not claim medical review or medical approval anywhere on this site:
- No article carries a “medically reviewed” badge, and no article names a licensed practitioner as a reviewer.
- We do not publish reviewer credentials we do not have, and we do not use the
reviewedByproperty in our structured data. - Where a claim needs clinical judgement — dosing, interactions, whether a herb is appropriate for you — we say so, and we point you to a qualified practitioner who can examine you in person.
We would rather be plainly honest about this than borrow authority we have not earned. If a licensed TCM practitioner or physician later joins the review process, this page will say so, and the articles they review will name them.
Sources we work from
When we describe what is known about an herb or a condition, we work from public sources, in this order of preference:
- Public health bodies and official monographs — for example the World Health Organization, the US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), MedlinePlus, the UK NHS, and European or national herbal monographs.
- Peer-reviewed literature indexed in PubMed and similar databases — human trials and systematic reviews first, then observational work, then mechanistic and animal studies.
- Pharmacopoeias and official drug standards for identity, quality and typical preparation of a substance.
- Classical and standard TCM texts for how a herb or formula is traditionally understood, and for the traditional cautions attached to it.
We do not invent sources, quotes, statistics or case studies. When we cannot find good evidence for a traditional claim, we say that the claim is traditional rather than demonstrated.
Evidence and tradition are labelled separately
TCM and biomedical research describe the body differently, and mixing the two without labels is how health writing misleads people. Most of our articles therefore separate:
- what clinical research does and does not support, and
- what the TCM tradition holds, and what a practitioner would look for.
Where the evidence is thin, absent, or contradictory, we say so rather than smoothing it over.
Use of AI tools
We use AI language tools in drafting and editing. A human editor sets the topic, works from the sources above, reviews what comes back, corrects it, and is responsible for what is published. AI tools are not used to fabricate sources, quotations, statistics, author identities or clinical experience, and no AI tool is credited as an author. If we ever publish an article that is substantially machine-generated without editorial rewriting, it will be labelled as such.
Dates, updates and corrections
Every article shows when it was last updated. We revise articles when guidance, evidence or safety information changes, and when readers show us something is wrong.
If you find an error, please email [email protected] with “Correction” in the subject line. Tell us the page and what is wrong. We will check it against our sources and either correct the article, add a clarification, or explain why we are keeping the wording. Corrections are made in the article itself, not buried in a comment.
Reader questions
Questions sent through our question form may be answered publicly and may become articles, because the same question is usually on many other people’s minds. We remove names and other identifying details before publishing. We cannot answer questions that require diagnosing an individual.
Advertising and independence
This site displays third-party advertising (Google AdSense). Advertisers have no say in what we write, which products we mention, or how we describe safety. We do not run sponsored articles, and we do not sell links. Any future sponsored content would be clearly labelled as advertising and kept out of the editorial sections.
What we cannot do
We cannot give you personal medical advice, cannot assess your individual situation, and cannot comment on your diagnosis, your prescriptions or your test results. For anything specific to you, see a licensed practitioner who can examine you in person. For severe or sudden symptoms, seek medical care immediately.
Contact
Editorial and corrections: [email protected]. General questions: our question form. Copyright and rights matters: see copyright.