[Integrated Chinese and Western medicine and clinical nutrition]

Nutritional support, an important measure for critical patients subject to monitoring, is widely used in clinical practice now. Nutrients have been used early in the Chinese medicine therapy. A number of Chinese medicine prescriptions show nutritional improvement and immune function enhancing effects on critical and/or postoperative patients, and some Chinese herbs are nutrient substances. Although the theoretical bases of Chinese medicine and Western medicine are different, they could work together in the clinical nutritional treatment to form a therapeutic measure with Chinese characteristics, which could promote the heritage and development of Chinese medicine. A discussion regarding the relationship between Chinese medicine drug-therapy, acupuncture and nutrition was also given.