 Have you seen this crazy thing going around the internet? There are these photos of jars of liquor filled with pit vipers, aka snakes. And their mouths are open and their fangs are hanging out. And apparently this is some kind of mysterious libido tonic from Okinawa, Japan. Now basically all over the world there are traditional kind of folk or pseudoscientific tonics for libido and vitality and for all kinds of health conditions. And you see this a lot in like very traditional cultures where it sort of falls into the category of folk medicine. Not really sure if there's something scientific there. Doesn't sound very scientific but some of them really are true and they actually do have measurable scientific value. Now sometimes people have criticisms of these kinds of weird trends and they use it as a criticism of traditional medicine like traditional Chinese medicine. But is it really true and is there some kind of value here? That's what we're talking about in this video here today. Hey guys, I'm Dr. Alex Hine, board licensed acupuncturist and doctor of traditional Chinese medicine and author of the health book, Master of the Day. Let's jump in. What is this weird trend called Habushu? If you pull over to this Wikipedia page here you'll see these pictures of pit vipers. Now they say that apparently this is a liquor made in Okinawa, Japan. Now what's interesting is that they're using extremely venomous snakes. This family of vipers is very similar to what we have in America, aka rattlesnakes as well as copperheads, which are very, very venomous. Now basically what they do is that unfortunately they often drown these snakes in the alcohol. So you can see that like when you click on these images the pit vipers have their mouths open, like they're ready to strike and apparently they are not propped open like that. Apparently what they do is sometimes they put the viper on ice until it passes out and then basically when they put it inside the alcohol it wakes up and as it's basically drowning in liquor it has this like fighting angry appearance. So it's pretty cruel and a pretty sketchy ritual that's been done in Okinawa here. But you see this sort of thing all over the world, right? You see these supposed tonics. Way in Western Europe, in Southeast Asia you see people consuming shark fin soup. You see all kinds of animal penises of any kind of any animal like tigers. And you see this on every real continent where there's been indigenous people living. So it's not something unique to Asia for example. But a lot of these fall into the category of sort of folk medicine, pseudoscience, shamanic kind of rituals or talisman. But is there any actual measurable value here? You know, sometimes in traditional medicines you see a bit of the overlap between like let's say using a certain part of the body to treat an illness in a certain part of the body, right? So obviously men having issues with libido and erections will consume animal genitalia for that. And you also see, for example, sometimes this is true, that there is clinical measurable value. For example, in ancient China in traditional Chinese medicine it was very common to use animal gallbladders to treat gallbladder issues in people. And it actually worked. You also see all kinds of different organs that were actually being used to treat very similar organ issues. So it's fascinating that going back really several thousand years these ancient doctors and ancient people had some idea of not only anatomy via dissection, dissection of animals or occasionally dissection of people, right? Postmortems, even though that wasn't common until much later in human history, was fascinating is that these ancient doctors and TCM did make an observation that you could use a gallbladder, something about that organ to treat something about that anatomical organ in a person. Now, sometimes the bile, for example, was extracted from bears. Unfortunately, there were like bear farms where they are constantly extracting the bile and then basically utilizing it for people who have issues with bile production. This is very fringe, right? That's why I'm sharing it. It's all over the internet. But lots of these practices are that weird overlap of pseudoscience, real, measurable, scientific benefit, and then kind of folk medicine in between because these kind of things were not really learned in traditional medical schools. It's sort of like in this village or in this town, they do this practice. Now, there are obviously lots of different healing practices inherent in traditional Chinese medicine. And I've actually put together a free guide which is four healing practices you can do on a daily basis that can potentially help you add years to your life. So it's actually one of the downloads right below this video. And you guys can check it out because it really does go well with this video. Even though we're not talking about these kooky folk practices, these are real, measurable ones. And there's a neat case study in there. Now, it also brings up this discussion of folk medicine versus actual medicine because there is an overlap. Like let's just take the most quintessential example of that, which would be, let's say, traditional herbal medicine. Herbal medicine has been used for tens of thousands of years in human history, right? Probably much longer. But documented, within traditional Chinese medicine, there are books written on sophisticated herbal theory going back to the BC era. So if you imagine these are combinations of herbs that synergistically work together, that some that offset toxicity, some that include extensive pre-preparation instructions, some that are said, take it at this time but don't take it at this time and some that have noted incompatibilities between herbs. So this is sophisticated herbal theory in the BC era. So this must be thousands to tens of thousands of years of traditional herbal knowledge that has been passed down. What's interesting is that there is overlap between folk medicine, right? Folk medicine basically being like, in my town in the Philippines, grandma gives me this root for this kind of headache or for this sort of fever. A lot of those we find through scientific research and studying biochemistry that there is real measurable benefit and sometimes we find that it's not any different than a placebo. But what's fascinating is that lots of these compounds, you know, I'm focusing on one aspect of traditional medicines, but herbal medicines are easy to study because it's easy to study the biochemistry. You can inject a rat with something that's said to have an effect on the gallbladder and then it does or it doesn't, right? It kills the rat, the gallbladder function gets better, bio flow, whatever it is. So the traditional herbal medicines are very easy to study if there's efficacy, if there's a safety concern, if there's real accurate benefit from the traditional ancestral record. But for example, people who did folk medicine were traditional folk healers, right? These were not people who went through traditional medical examinations. Now in the ancient times, there weren't really medical licenses in Western Europe and also in Asia, but there were traditional medical educations. Often it would come from a family of physicians and then the son would continue that tradition, they would apprentice with the doctor, they would go through a medical schooling system, and so on. So there was a traditional lineage. And in the same way today, you know, I did a four-year doctoral program, I have to be board licensed in the state that I work in. It is the same number of clinical hours as if I went to Harvard Medical School seeing patients with senior mentors that are board licensed in their states. So it's a very legitimate training program. Which would be different if I just said, you know, my grandma was a traditional Cherokee healer and these are some of the herbal remedies she recommended and I see people in my community just for free. It's still valuable, but it's different from I spent four years over a quarter million dollars and did the same number of clinical hours and rotations as if I got in Harvard MD just in my specialty, which is traditional Chinese medicine. There is that overlap of both have an aspect of traditional herbal medicines, but one is sort of, this is what we've noticed to work and one is a little bit more of an established and a little bit more of a scientific and regiment with clinical supervision practice. Now this is also something I see really gives my patients a lot of benefit in my practice in Los Angeles. So if you guys don't know, I actually do see people in my practice in Los Angeles and virtually via telemedicine. There's information right below this video to contact my practice. You can just call us or email us if that's something that's interesting. But I find that the traditional herbal medicine component is often the thing that makes the biggest difference for my patients. And you know, a lot of what we're coming up here is against the stereotype of traditional Chinese medicine using these endangered animal parts. Some of that is sort of a way that conventional medicine tries to criticize other forms of medicine. You know, it's turf wars, right? I mean, there are PTs and chiropractors and medical doctors doing acupuncture now. And this is already a profession where 50% of us go out of business in five to 10 years because we don't tend to be good business people. So you can imagine the upset that people in our profession have and it goes both ways, right? Maybe the news media is like, well, COVID came from a wet market from people eating bats and Wuhan even though we later found out it was a lab leak. So you can see there are these political games being played to discredit a lot of traditional medicines and there are games being played to discredit even the Chinese, right? I mean, there's beef between America and the Chinese maybe depending on who our president was. But in general, what I mean is there is a sort of not propaganda but there's a bias against a lot of these traditional medicines. There's a bias against China. And so in a way, you could say there's a bias against traditional Chinese medicine despite the evidence of how well it actually works. So while it is true that throughout history, traditional Chinese medicine has used various methods of creating gelatin like donkey hide or it has used rhino horns. Folk doctors have probably used actual tiger bones but it's not really like the truest form of Chinese medicine. Again, it is that intersection. But what we're seeing is that, you know, there is a stereotype that TCM uses lots of endangered animal parts. I can tell you as someone who specializes in custom compounding these traditional medicines that there are no endangered animal parts in anything I use or really anything that I learned. Right? Like you hear shark fin soup. That's like a delicacy in Asia that falls again to the category of like this Habushu weird fertility tonics. And I'm like, well, why don't you just take Viagra? Or why don't you just take all the various kinds of traditional Chinese medicine herbs that work just like Viagra to improve libido? Right? There are lots of other things you could do that aren't so exotic. But you and I both know human nature, novelty and as exoticism have a high price tag because the weirder it is and the greater the claims, the more likely people are wanting to pay a lot of money for it because they think it has a mystical power. And that by itself is a powerful placebo that has an effect on people. So TCM in general, modern TCM doesn't use a lot of exotic animal parts. Maybe if you go to small towns in Asia and you see a TCM doctor or traditional doctor, they might, but certainly not in North America or in the US for people that are born licensed. It's a lot less common. So Habushu, one of those weird sort of trends. And in reality, there are lots of other ways of healing that are not so weird or not so kind of pseudo scientific. I mean, for example, we just launched this brand new introduction to healing with traditional Chinese medicine online course. You guys can check it out below. It's the pinned comment there. And we talk about the various healing modalities inherent in TCM. Yes, traditional herbal medicine, these formulas is one, acupuncture is one, moxibustion is one, manual therapies and Qigong. You know, I translated it as breathwork. Some people call it energy healing, but there are lots of different healing modalities you can apply that are very effective and modern clinically studied. So I would recommend it. For example, if that's interesting, check out that intro to healing with TCM program because there's a lot more in there that's authentic than these weird pit viper, you know, elixir wines that are supposed to give you erections. I don't think that's probably a good place to start for people. And I don't even know if it's safe. Just my two cents you guys, one of those weird fads and one of those weird things going around the internet that I thought I would comment on. Now, before you go, hold up. I have a related video on sort of these weird trends like this right here for you.