A Ring Without End: Reflections on Classical Chinese Medicine Mind/Body Mapping

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a_ring_without_end book

A new book has been released by Z’ev Rosenberg and Stephen Cowan.

From the publisher: A Ring Without End explores the contrasting Western and Eastern approaches to mapping the human body, offering tools for practitioners to develop a personalized clinical practice. Based on Nanjing and others classics of Chinese medicine, a picture of health and illness emerges as dynamic processes rooted in ecological principles such as water cycle, circulation and seasonal influences. These ideas, reflected in channel maps, provide valuable insights into how yin/yang medicine can address the modern health crises we face today. By adapting these teachings to new contexts—patients, society, planet — a new school of ecological medicine can spring up from transplanted (foreign) medical teachings into new soil, embodying the concept: many streams, one source.

This book can be purchased through purchase through Redwing Books (www.redwingbooks.com) and Amazon.

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Plastics and Breast Cancer Risk

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A 20-year follow-up study from Taiwan found that:

This prospective epidemiologic study in an East Asian cohort demonstrates that women with both high di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) exposure and a high percentage of mono-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (MEHP%) have a significantly increased risk of breast cancer, establishing clear temporal causality.

DEHP (which stands for Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate) is a chemical additive known as a plasticizer. Its primary job is to take a plastic that is naturally hard and brittle and turn it into something soft and flexible. It is most commonly used with a specific type of plastic called PVC (polyvinyl chloride).

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AI for Traditional Medicine

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In May of 2025 a paper was released on this subject, although I just located it now.  They’re stating: “Through this review, we hope the researchers from AI community can understand where AI techniques have been applied in TM, and the researchers from medicine community are aware of what and how AI techniques can be applied in TM.” Having the skill set of custom LLM design and modification and an expert knowledge in herbal medicine is obviously rare and not expected, we shouldn’t that as an excuse to not explore this direction. And while many have healthy scepticism about the application of AI to traditional medicine, that should not stop us from exploring how it’s being used and benefitting mainstream medicine and how it may benefit us in our field.

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Rising CO₂ Levels in Human Blood

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Human blood chemistry is being impacted by the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

And this quote is concerning: “If current trends continue, modelling indicates average bicarbonate levels could approach the upper limit of today’s accepted healthy range within 50 years.” Note that bicarbonate levels are a proxy/indicator for CO₂ levels. Source: https://phys.org/news/2026-02-carbon-dioxide-human-blood.html

It’s not quite clear yet what the implications for human health are, but the effect will be higher in those exposed to these higher levels for more of their lifespan.

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Infant Screen Time Linked to Teenage Anxiety

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The following study Neurobehavioural links from infant screen time to anxiety found concerning but not altogether surprising findings that resulted from exposing 1-2 year old children to screen time.  This is yet another reminder to parents to be limiting their children’s screen time and delaying its introduction into their lives until the appropriate time.

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