Hot and Cold Theory: The Path Towards Personalized Medicine (eBook)

This book is about the theory of Hot and Cold, a mutual fundamental base of traditional medicines all around the world. The theory describes the dynamic balance state of the body on the axis of hot and cold for each individual and proposes the fact that deviation from this equilibrium is a predisposing factor for diseases. Such an approach helps practitioners to provide treatments tailored to the patient's condition, not the disease.

This book, for the first time, has gathered native descriptions of Hot and Cold theory in different traditional medicines, including traditional Chinese medicine, Persian (Humoral, Unani) medicine, Ayurvedic medicine and Latin American and Caribbean medicines. After defining the common ground, contemporary research - in nutrition, pharmacology, physiology and systems biology - has been explored using scientific methodology. This work is the result of an international collaboration of more than 30 scientists and scholars with high reputations in their fields.

Hot and Cold theory, as a holistic individualized approach in prevention, diagnosis and treatment, can be merged into the novel fast-paced concepts in systems biology and precision medicine. Through this bridge, the authors propose that the Hot and Cold theory should be revisited more deeply by medical scientists, who are the main audience of this book, to pave the way towards integrated holistic personalized medicine.

Maryam Yavari, M.D., Ph.D., N.D. is a medical graduate of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. She has been a research scholar at Duke University Clinical Research Institute. She then pursued a Ph.D. degree in traditional humoral (Persian) medicine at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences and worked as an assistant professor at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. She received a naturopathic medicine doctorate (N.D.) from the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine (CCNM) and is currently working as a resident and clinic supervisor at CCNM. She has been active in medical education, research and development for her entire career. Her passion for evidence-based practice, holistic integrative medicine, medical education and research contributed to holding and instructing more than 40 academic courses and workshops and directing or mentoring several research projects. She has authored or coauthored over 50 peer-reviewed articles, 7 scientific books and has received 17 awards and grants in her endeavours in science and clinical practice.