It is well known that the concept underlying oriental medicine is to approach the living body as a microcosm. The model currently used shows that all five basic elements are interrelated. Because only relative directions between the five basic elements are shown, these diagrams can not describe the whole. However, complex systems of the control theory in engineering using the current model remain complicated.In this study, we designed a new model to synthetically interpret the relations among the five basic elements that are used in complex systems. As a result, the new model can describe drastic changes in the creative cycle and the destructive cycle. Furthermore, the model can faithfully express whole changes of the five basic elements and simultaneously describe the relation of the creative cycle and the relation of the destructive cycle. It is suggested that the use of this new basic model may help explain the disease model and treatment theory.

It is generally known that oriental medicine is based on the concept of deficiency and excess to explain disease in a complex living system. However, a disease model based upon the expression of the relationship between the rhythm of the five basic elements and the living body's control system has not been proposed. Therefore, we investigated this relationship by modeling “Kyo-Ja” and “Jitsu-Ja” on abnormal rhythms of the five basic elements.
We constructed models that always reflect changes in the rhythm of the five basic elements to show that disease occurs by breaking these control systems. The present model suggests that treatments of disease should not only incorporate the characteristics of the five basic elements but should also consider the course of a disease and the patient's overall condition.

In oriental medicine, we consider the living body to be a microcosm and understand it as a general complex of systems. The rhythm of the five basic elements in the living body controls these complex systems and maintains the whole by adding restrictions to chaos. Therefore, when distortion of the five basic elements occurs, the living body develops disease. Under these conditions, the first, 69th chapter of “Nan Ching” describes the therapy principle useing the mother and child relationship of the creative cycle in the five basic elements, and the second describes the therapy principle of individual meridian diseases. Accordingly, we developed a therapy model for deficiency-pathogen, excess-pathogen and original-pathogen and tried to interpret the 69th chapter.
The results showed that there is no distortion in relationship of the destructive becoming successful condition of therapy in these models. In addition, it was thought that the original-pathogen is the therapy principle of individual meridian diseases, and these changes suggested the formation of assumptions regarding tonification and sedation therapy for deficiency-pathogen and excess-pathogen. These results suggest that the 69th chapter is a therapy principle based on the relationship of the creative cycle through the whole organism.

To investigate the effect of electro-acupuncture stimulation (EAS) on insulin sensitivity in rats, we performed several stimulations on Otsuka Long Evans Tokushima Fatty (OLETF) rats, during euglycemic clamp. We divided OLETF rats into five groups according to the kind of the stimulation: EAS at vagal innervated region of the auricle (AVA), EAS at non-vagal innervated region of the auricle (ANVA), EAS on the back of the body (AB), pinching on the back of the body (PB), and no stimulation on the body (NS). These procedures were also applied on Long Evans Tokushima Otsuka (LETO) rats as a control study.
Furthermore, we performed long-term stimulation (from six to 24 weeks of age) on OLETF rats to assess the preventive effect of those stimulations on the formation of the insulin resistance. EAS of pulse duration 300ms, 1.5V, 1Hz was applied for 10 or 15minutes. As a result, the glucose infusion rate (GIR) showed significantly higher levels during stimulation of PB group in LETO rats. On the other hand, the GIR of AVA group in LETO rats and PB group in OLETF rats were decreased by stimulation. The GIR in AVA group and AB group after long-term stimulation were significantly higher than those of NS group in OLETF rats. These results suggested that EAS at the auricle and the back is useful for the prevention of the formation of insulin resistance when it's applied before onset of the symptoms in OLETF rats.

The present study investigated the effect of moxibustion for 4 weeks on insulin resistance in Otsuka-Long-Evans Tokushima Fatty (OLETF) rats, a model of spontaneous noninsulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM). Glucose infusion rate (GIR) in the moxibustion group was higher than that in the control group. This finding suggests that moxibustion may be effective for insulin resistance.