Moxibustion: have you ever heard of it?

In Asian lands, this is not news.

It is an ancient Chinese therapy and its effects are proven. Moxibustion is a heat treatment aimed at the welfare and harmony with the elements, made with mugwort extracts. Typically, the natural extract is burned on the patient’s skin or impregnated in acupuncture needles.

Although embedded in traditional Chinese medicine for millennia, moxibustion began to be used by Portuguese missionaries in the sixteenth century, when they were exploring Asian lands. At that time, they named it for the therapy was “fire button”, but it only appears in manuscripts and notes of these explorers. However, it was the German Herman Buschoff who spoke of it for the first time, in his book about this therapy in 1674. The term “moxa” is a corruption of the Japanese term for therapy, mogusa, which was eventually merged with the Latin terminology combustio, which means burn.

This treatment is painless; patients only tend to feel an intense heat in certain areas of the back, belly and chest, or other areas where feel pain or are subject to diseases. Moreover, when applied on the skin, burning mugwort leaves no mark type and it’s removed a few minutes after application.

Currently, the treatment is studied and has encouraging results, such as: mitigate problems such as strokes, several types of cancer, colitis, constipation, gynecological problems (particularly post-partum), flu and colds prevention, among many others. Mugwort, in particular when concentrated in tea is considered a medicine for cardiac problem, headaches, intestinal transit and blood flow.

Although there are still not many reasons to trust this treatment, try wouldn’t hurt. And in the end, it may happen that the results are unexpectedly positive.