Chinese Herbal Medicine in Cancer Treatment
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) includes acupuncture, herbal medicine, moxibustion, gua sha, cupping, dietary modification, tuina massage, feng shui and qi (energy) manipulation techniques as in qi gong, tai qi and other martial arts.
Chinese herbal medicine is the largest branch of oriental medicine and has been practiced for thousands of years. Today it is the therapy of choice in treating the side effects of Western oncological cancer treatments.
Especially in the last dozen years physiology, biochemistry and pharmacology research has validated and added to the effectiveness of herbal medicine.
Today herbs can be scientifically processed in hygenic laboratories to pharmaceutical standards. The process from growing , harvesting, screening (bacteria, fungus, pesticides, heavy metals), analytical testing (taste, aroma, color, components and constituents, potency and consistency), preparation (roasting, baking, stir or wine frying), extraction (various methods and timing), granulation, tableting, and packaging can be meticulously controlled to produce a safe, effective, more potent and consistent product.
Herbs benefit the body by cleansing, normalizing body function, providing nutrition, increasing energy levels and enhancing the immune system.
Chinese herbal medicine is based on traditional formulas and modern research. Formulas are generally composed of multiple ingredients. A formula is selected according to a diagnosis in terms of TCM and modified to each individual’s needs and as conditions change during treatment.
Traditional Chinese Medicine is complex and requires professional training to be practised safely. Licensed acupuncturists are the only herbalists who are examined for competency and licensed by the state of California.
The approved treatment of cancer in the USA by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is treatment by a medical doctor using surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation. Therefore the role of TCM is adjunctive and involves: 1) minimizing the damaging side-effects of radiation and chemotherapy; 2) building the immune system and blood cells which may be weakened by cancer or cancer treatment; 3) aiding in tumor reduction therefore possibly reducing the amount of chemotherapy and radiation required; and 4) assisting in post-surgical recovery by reducing pain, swelling, scarring, recovery time, and; 5) by decreasing the need for medications and reducing side-effects of treatment.
The effects of herbs and cancer are continually being researched. Medical doctors, practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine, pharmacologists and other medical practitioners must all work together to: 1) have common treatment goals; 2) minimize negative interactions; and 3) ameliorate undesired side-effects and maximize positive herb-drug interactions.
TCM is extremely useful in terms of preventative medicine. Our culture focuses on treating ourselves only when we have an acute and serious problem. We may be able to prevent cancer in the first place or after conventional treatment possibly prevent reoccurance by having regular treatment with TCM. A qualified practitioner of TCM may be able to harmonize body functions and prevent disease. Lifestyle, diet, emotions, pollutants, exercise, and the external environment are all important aspects to staying healthy and maintaining an healthy internal body environment.
The San Diego Cancer Research Institute is offering an integrative medicine program. Integrative medicine in oncology combines multiple treatment modalities and support to create a total healing environment and encourages the patient to become an active agent in his or her care and wellness. Modern drug therapies are complemented with integrative approaches including: mind/body research, immune system enhancement, intention and intuition, patient support groups, meditation/relaxation, massage therapy, nutrition, emotional well being, acupuncture, exercise/yoga.
Prepared for San Diego Cancer Research Institute
by James Madison, L.Ac.
Acupuncture in Cancer Treatment
by Eugene Mak, MD Board Certified Oncologist and MARF Board Member
A frequently asked question by patients undergoing cancer treatment is, "Can acupuncture help me?"
The issue then becomes: is there a place for acupuncture in the vast field of cancer with its diverse treatment modalities?
"Vast" since cancer is not one disease but over 300 different malignancies, each with its own unique histology, patho-physiology, and clinical behavior. 'Diverse" because of the different chemotherapeutic classes of agents, hormonal agents, types of High-energy particle beam generators, and various delivery systems for radiation treatment. "Diverse" also because it encompasses various types of surgical procedures, nutritional support, and the body-mind holistic approach.
Timely diagnosis and early surgery offer the most favorable possibility of a cure for solid tumors. The germinal cancers and Hodgkin's lymphoma, along with some hematologic malignancies such as childhood leukemia, are the few exceptions. These are treated with chemotherapy, radiation therapy, bone marrow or stem cell transplantation singly or in combination. Some of the latter are the most predictably curable malignancies with or without surgery.
If the diagnosis is late, surgery unsuccessful, or should the tumor recur after surgery, then the chance of a cure, with rare exceptions, is considered lost This class of patients, along with those not amenable to surgical approaches, are treated palliatively. Palliative therapies also consist of chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, and radiation therapy and/or palliative surgery.
The role of acupuncture in the curative group is in its adjunctive use in anesthesia, in post-operative pain control, and in aiding and hastening recovery from the side effects of the various therapies. Acupuncture is effective for control of pain, of local swelling post-operatively, for shortening the resolution of hematoma and tissue swelling and for minimizing use of medications and their attendant side effects. Energetic acupuncture, an approach consisting of the use of needles with electricity and moxibustion (a form of local heating with herbs imparts a sense of well being and accelerates patients' recovery. In conjunction with nutritional support, its use is routinely employed in some cancer institutions.
The dreaded nausea and vomiting which commonly occurs in some patients undergoing chemotherapy and inevitably, with the use of certain classes of agents, can often be worse than the disease itself. Most oncologists have experienced the patients who start vomiting at the thought of their next clinic visit. At the University of Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Medicine, a well-controlled study completed over two Years ago, the authors of the published paper reported significant reduction of nausea and vomiting when pre-treated with acupuncture. It is now routinely administered before, after and in between chemotherapy treatment sessions for control or nausea and emesis. Such treatments are relatively simple and easily executed in an outpatient setting. Its effectiveness helps in minimizing the use of standard, expensive multi-drug anti-nausea regimens with their attendant side effects, given along with the chemotherapeutic agents.
That acupuncture is a powerful tool for general pain control is widely known. . Less known is its success use in some cancer-related pain and in reducing narcotic use and thereby minimizing the side effects confusion, disturbed mentation, behavioral changes, nausea and severe constipation.
Needling a variety of trigger and painful points, percutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, and osteo-puncture, along with whole body energetic acupuncture support, .are approaches available to the acupuncturists. In the acupuncture paradigm, any chronic disease process depletes the energy level in the organism. Such depletion can be ameliorated, at least temporarily, by tonification, a process of imparting energy into the system. This is deemed necessary for more durable, successful pain control. It can also add to the patients' sense of well being and decrease the malaise associated with any chronic disease, especially cancer.
Nutritional support as an aid in boosting immune response in cancer patients, along with minimizing the immune and white blood cell suppression that occurs with most chemotherapeutic agents, has been receiving greater attention and funding for research.. Kenneth Conklin, M.D., Ph.D., an anesthesiologist at UCLA working with the Oncology Department, reports gratifying results utilizing nutrition and supplements combined with energetic acupuncture.
Energetic acupuncture repletes energy level to the organism as a whole, reestablishes homeostasis by re-balancing energy distribution and un-blocking energy flow. This systems approach to deal with system wide patho-physiology can be complemented by distinct meridian acupuncture, which directs healing energy to specific organ pathology and is a routine approach in treating diseased organs such as liver, pancreas kidney, including those ravaged by cancers.
While the degree of beneficial results from acupuncture treatment is dependent on various clinical factors such as presenting symptoms, clinical staging, timing of the encounter in the course of the illness, areas of involvement, the answer to the opening question "can acupuncture help me?" is, in all probability, that it can help in the care of the cancer patient.
Article taken from http://www.medicalacupuncture.org/acu_info/articles/cancertreatment.html
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The Changing Paradigm of Medicine
The crisis today in medicine is a crisis in our perception of the world and the universe. Conventional models of health and disease, birth and death come out of an old world view or paradigm that sees the universe and life as a machine.
Living systems are self-organizing systems that expend energy in order to maintain their coherence and integrity, and they occasionally undergo shifts in their dynamics due to internal fluctuations or changes in external factors. These dynamic shifts may be challenging enough that we consider them diseases, and many of these resolve themselves over time with little or no medical intervention.
All living systems are moving by themselves toward greater wholeness of body-mind-spirit, despite the fact that they may be diseased or broken.
Serious disease can be regarded as a natural disturbance in their body-mind-spirit that can actually lead them to a higher level of organization. Disease can be a response to changing dynamic patterns in life, and included in that is a call for increased awareness: to change those particular patterns to overcome the illness before the organism dies.
When healing mobilizes more than the physical body and becomes a personal journey, it is a creative process of life and work that is full of uncertainty and unpredictability.
Conventional medicine finds it hard to admit that remarkable recoveries of serious illness can indeed occur, sometimes without invasive medical intervention. In the new world view these are not paranormal events, but distinct possibilities.
In Chinese calligraphy, the word "crisis" is the same as that for "opportunity." People who survive life-threatening illnesses are forever changed, their body-mind-spirit emerges with a new wisdom, a higher state of dynamical order.
Practitioners can serve as educators to help patients see their illness in new perspectives. They can then work with patients to create strategies for their healing and optimal wellness. The emphasis should not be to make patients endlessly depend on medical procedures. Enhanced self-reliance and self-care should be encouraged as much as possible.
Treatments or combinations of therapies may be nonlinear in their additive responses. 1 plus 1 plus 1 may equal 9 and not 3.
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ACUPUNCTURE, PAIN AND FIBROMYALGIA
A new study has been carried out to assess the effectiveness of acupuncture in treating pain levels and decreasing the number of tender points in fibromylagia patients. Twenty nine patients with at least a six year history of fibromylagia were given acupuncture and tested by using a pain scale and by dolorimetry (a method of measuring pain perception in degrees ranging from unpleasant to unbearable by using heat applied to the skin). No other pain medication was taken. Pain levels were found to decrease from 64.0 to 34.5 after acupuncture, with a decrease in the number of tender points from 16.0 to 11.8. Results also showed an increase in certain blood chemicals (serotonin and substance P) which help to regulate pain. (Pain treatment of fibromyalgia by acupuncture. Sprott H, Franke S, Kluge H, Hein G. Rheumatol Int 1998;18(1):35-36).
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Advocates of Acupuncture Have a Point
By Brigid Schulte
Knight-Ridder News Service
November 6, 1997
Printed in the San Diego Union Tribune
WASHINGTON -- A panel of scientists at the National Institutes of Health yesterday confirmed something the Chinese have known for thousands of years and many Americans are discovering: acupuncture can work.
The panel, which included doctors who practice acupuncture and some skeptical scientists, agreed that acupuncture clearly works to treat a number of conditions, including nausea and vomiting after chemotherapy and surgery, the nausea of pregnancy, and postoperative dental pain.
The NIH panel also found "intriguing" but incomplete scientific data that acupuncture may help stroke rehabilitation and relieve addictions, headaches, menstrual cramps, a variety of muscle pains, carpal tunnel syndrome and asthma.
"This is a pretty dramatic finding," said Dr. David Ramsey, president of the University of Maryland Medical Center and an initial acupuncture skeptic who chaired the panel. "Acupuncture has fewer side effects and is less invasive than many of the other things we do in conventional Western medicine. It's time to take it seriously."
The decision, reached yesterday by the group of 12 independent scientists and researchers convened by the NIH for a "consensus conference," will undoubtedly bring the ancient Chinese art of sticking needles into specific points on the body into mainstream Western medicine, Ramsey said.
The panel's "consensus statement" recommends integrating acupuncture into standard medical practice, calls for further study into how acupuncture works, and urges Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance companies to begin paying for acupuncture treatments. Though the recommendations are not legally binding, they carry great influence in the medical community.
Already, the World Health Organization has endorsed using acupuncture to treat about 40 ailments.
Dr. Marjorie Bowman, NIH panel member and chairwoman of the University of Pennsylvania's department of family practice and community medicine, said acupuncture should now be considered a treatment option that patients and doctors talk openly about.
"We did not find acupuncture a panacea," she said. "But for chronic problems which have no good alternatives for treatment, acupuncture seems worth a try. There's very little downside, and there may be a gain."
Acupuncture, which has been used in China for about 2,500 years, is premised on the notion that an energy or life force, called qi, (pronounced "chee") travels through the body along 14 channels. When qi is blocked, people get sick. Sticking needles at various angles into points along the channels is thought to remove the blockage, get qi flowing again and restore harmony between the opposing forces of yin and yang in the body.
Interest in the procedure was sparked in the West after President Nixon's 1972 trip to China.
NIH consensus conferences work like science courts. NIH convenes such panels a few times a year to consider the scientific evidence surrounding controversial medical issues or to publicize research that practicing doctors may not know about. Recent panels have dealt with mammograms and breakthrough treatment for premature babies.
The Food and Drug Administration estimates that in recent years, as many as 12 million Americans have sought acupuncture treatments from about 10,000 medical doctors or licensed acupuncture practitioners and paid mostly out of their own pockets. But American doctors and scientists have had a hard time taking acupuncture seriously.
In large part, that is because the philosophy is completely foreign. The diagnoses, which consider which of the five elements -- earth, air, water, fire and wood -- is out of whack, sound more like the horoscopes printed on place mats in Chinese restaurants. And the treatments are as poetic as they are vague and mystical. Each of 400-some acupuncture points has an arcane name like "hundred insect nest" "plum blossom," "heaven's residence" and "purple palace."
Organs are known not for what they do, as in Western medicine, but for the metaphorical feelings they govern. Kidneys, for instance, are associated with water, the feeling of cold, the taste of salt, the smell of decay and the sound of a groan.
"Look, my patients may not understand that I'm treating rising liver fire, which is the Chinese diagnosis for a migraine," said Dr. Gary Kaplan, an osteopath, an associate professor at Georgetown University and a practicing acupuncturist. "But they understand when the migraine goes away."
As strange as that might sound to a Western doctor, recent studies have shown that acupuncture somehow taps into the body's natural protective and pain-fighting system. Brain activity increases, the immune system is boosted, and pain-fighting endorphins and peptides are released during acupuncture, studies show. That was what convinced the NIH panel.
"We tried to back away from the philosophy and stick with what we understand," Ramsey said. "There's no way you can marry these two different philosophies of how the body works. But you can evaluate the science. And the science clearly shows that if you stimulate acupuncture points in the skin, things start to happen."
But no one really knows why. Even those who practice acupuncture say qi and the channels, which have no connection to physical anatomy, remain a mystery.
"A lot of people are afraid of acupuncture, doctors aren't willing to evaluate it medically, and occasionally someone thinks it's voodoo or magic or quackery," said Maj. Steven Braverman, chief of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and one of five practicing acupuncturists in the Army. "But I'm less concerned about how it works than that it does. I think qi, yin and yang, flow and meridians express what's happening in the body in ways that we don't yet understand."
Added a colleague, Lt. Col. John Chiles, an anesthesiologist: "Maybe qi is ionic flow. We don't know. There's a wealth of mythology and poetry, but acupuncture is not invoking the spirit of Zool or something from 'Ghostbusters.' "
Copyright 1997 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
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Instructions For Life
1) Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2) When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
3) Follow the three R's: Respect for self; Respect for others and Responsibility for all your actions.
4) Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5) Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6) Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7) When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8) Spend some time alone every day.
9) Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
10) Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
The Delai Lama
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