At the symposium, "The Power of Moxibustion", four panelists discussed the mechanism, clinical effectiveness, and current conception of moxibustion in Japan with an aim to explore the potential role of moxibustion in the future.
Mika Ohta noted that a bioinformatics approach could select basic research for the effectiveness of moxibustion. She also reported an example result of bioinformatic analysis focusing on the "heat"which can be produced by moxibustion and it can predict the mechanism of moxibustion.
Keiko Tsujiuchi, an acupuncture and moxibustion practitioner, has been promoting moxibustion since 1980s.She has engaged in clinical research on obstetrics and reported a variety of favorable outcomes from using moxibustion in that field.
Motoko Otsuka presented Ehime's cultural inheritance of moxibustion as a "healing tradition."She reported cases in which the patients received important interventions from moxibustion for their life, measured by chronological analysis, by introducing clinical practice including acupuncture and moxibustion treatment in the Acupuncture and Moxibustion Care Unit, East Asian Traditional Medicine, Ehime Prefectural Central Hospital, and instruction in self-moxibustion at the Perinatal Medical Center for mother and child health.
Sachiko Y. Itaya, from the United States, reported activities and results of Moxafrica, which is using direct Moxibustion as an adjunctive treatment for tuberculosis in South Africa and Uganda. She emphasized that the role of moxibustion could be expanded much further as shown by the achievements of Moxafrica.

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As a characteristic of traditional medicine, the direction of development of acupuncture and moxibustion would be headed towards localization. Whereas Western medicine has been developed along the road of globalization, traditional medicine has developed along the path of localization.
So what are the characteristics of Japanese acupuncture and moxibustion, which have been developed locally in Japan?Very delicate procedures for acupuncture and moxibustion, a variety of equipment, diagnosis that emphasizes heart pulse, and combination and compromise of various treatment methods are all such characteristics. These characteristics have been strongly influenced by Japanese culture, spirit, feelings, and mentality.
It has been reported that acupuncture and moxibustion, as traditional medicine, were cultivated in close association with the people of each era. Since they are medical treatments that connote tradition, acupuncture and moxibustion should be able to meet the needs of people in any era. We need to reconfirm this and survey the future of acupuncture and moxibustion.

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[Introduction]Patients express various symptoms that reflect their physical, mental and psychological conditions. Thus, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) emphasizes the relationship between physical and mental states. In the clinical practice of acupuncture and moxibustion, however, many patients chiefly cite physical complaints, and are often treated without a full discussion of their mental and psychological conditions. In TCM, feelings are divided into five categories:anger, happiness, concern, sadness, and fear. The relationship between these feelings and symptoms of disease of the five viscera is not clearly defined, so we attempted to clarify the correlations. This report describes the results of a survey on the characteristics and nature of anger and depression in terms of the five viscera.
[Methods]After obtaining informed consent, 102 students from a vocational school and our university (60 men and 42 women, average age 25 ± 8) were recruited for this study. Three survey sheets were used:Oriental Medicine Health Questionnaire 57 (OHQ57) for understanding the condition of the five viscera; 24 of the 34 items of the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI) for understanding the state of anger;and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) for assessing depression. The survey was conducted from June to July in 2012.
[Results]The average scores in OHQ57 were 5.1 ± 3.1 for kan (liver), 4.6 ± 3.2 for shin (heart), 5.2 ± 3.1 for hi (spleen), 3.8 ± 3.3for hai (lung), and 3.9 ± 2.7 for jin (kidney). The average scores in STAXI were 23.0 ± 5.1 for State of Anger, 18.8 ±.1 for Anger-Expression, 20.8 ± 3.8 for Anger-Suppression, and 18.9 ± 3.5 for Anger Control. The average score in BDI was 12.4 ± 8.0. Significant correlations were found between State of Anger and kan:Anger-Expression and han/shin/hai in STAXI, and between depression and shin/hi in BDI.
[Conclusion]The Suwen ("Basic Questions,"the oldest Chinese medical text) and other TCM literatures report that anger and depression are related to kan, and the results of this study confirmed the relationship between anger and kan. Based on factor analyses, scores of Anger State (intensity of anger) revealed that groups suspected of having diseases of kan tended to get angry easily and Anger-Expression (expression of anger) showed that these groups displayed both aggressive behavior and verbal assertion. On the other hand, latent factors of depression, possibly caused by diseases of kan, were not revealed in factor analyses, although depression was significantly correlated with shin and hi.

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The WFAS Houston 2016 annual conference was held in the Royal Sonesta Hotel, Houston, Texas, USA from 31 October to 2 November 2014. The theme of the conference was "East Meets West -Shaping the Future of Healthcare", and more than 900 acupuncture practitioners and scientists participated. The number of papers presented was 216, including 6 keynote lectures. Papers from Japan numbered 11.
At the Executive Committee (EC) meeting, 39 of the 76 EC members were present (10 EC members sent a letter of attorney in advance), including 3from Japan. Although Tokyo was approved as a host city of WFAS 2016 last year, we proposed changing the venue to the Tsukuba International Congress Center, which was approved.

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