Discussing Traditional Chinese Medicine for Cancer Treatment

Author: Ma Zhongxue
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: This book was first serialized in the long-standing Chinese-language newspaper Jinshan Times in the United States for 206 days, totaling 206 issues, with almost half a chapter published almost every day. Later, the serialized content was compiled and first published in a traditional Chinese character edition in the United States, sparking a fervent response in the Chinese-American community. The book summarizes the accumulated experience of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in cancer prevention and treatment over thousands of years, interpreting TCM knowledge in a popular, chapter-based narrative style, advocating the widely practiced "Kangso Therapy" in the United States, and providing another scientific tool for cancer prevention and treatment. TCM has a history of over 300 years and remains the world's largest alternative medical system alongside modern Western medicine. As early as 2,000 years ago, the classic TCM text Huangdi Neijing recorded related knowledge about cancer. The book summarizes the accumulated experience of TCM in cancer prevention and treatment over thousands of years, interpreting TCM knowledge in a popular, chapter-based narrative style, advocating the widely practiced "Kangso Therapy" in the United States, and providing another scientific tool for cancer prevention and treatment. The book was serialized in the long-standing Chinese-language newspaper Jinshan Times for 206 days, later compiled into a book, and received a response in the Chinese-American community.
As mentioned earlier, a person's life is influenced by seven emotions: joy, anger, worry, pensiveness, sadness, fear, and shock, which TCM refers to as the "Seven Emotions." According to the Five Elements theory, these emotions can be further divided into five categories: joy, anger, worry and pensiveness, sadness, and fear and shock, each corresponding to the five internal organs: heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys. Under normal circumstances, moderate emotional changes do not affect the body and may even provide some protection; excessive emotional fluctuations, however, can harm the body, and over time, may lead to cancer. Let's discuss each of these emotions in turn.
Joy nourishes the heart but can also injure it: Joy refers to happiness. If a person maintains a cheerful mood, the function of their heart remains strong, as joy is the emotion associated with the heart. Clinically, people who are often happy tend to have better cardiovascular function, and even elderly individuals often have significantly better cardiovascular health than those who are less cheerful. These individuals are often long-lived. Conversely, those who are frequently unhappy often have poor cardiovascular function and are prone to shorter lifespans. This is why the Chinese proverb says, "A smile makes you ten years younger; a frown makes you prematurely gray." Here, "younger" () is pronounced in the fourth tone, meaning youthful, so happiness can make one feel ten years younger.
Another extreme example is sudden, overwhelming joy, which can suddenly harm the heart, a condition known in TCM as "excessive joy injures the heart." For instance, in The Story of the Scholars, it is written that during the Ming Dynasty, there was a man named Fan Jin, who took the imperial examinations every year but failed each time. Finally, when he was around 50, he passed. When officials came to deliver the good news with drums and cymbals, he was so overjoyed that he became irrational, laughing wildly and shouting, "I passed! I passed!" His family was frantic and didn’t know what to do. Someone suggested finding someone Fan Jin was afraid of to scare him, perhaps saving him. Fan Jin was usually afraid of his (father-in-law), Hu Tuofu. Hu Tuofu found Fan Jin and yelled, "You wretched creature! What did you pass?" After shouting, he slapped Fan Jin hard. Fan Jin was knocked unconscious but later woke up with his mind cleared.
Ladies and gentlemen, do you know the medical principle behind Fan Jin’s story? As discussed earlier, in TCM’s Five Elements theory, the liver corresponds to wood, the heart to fire, the spleen to earth, the lungs to metal, and the kidneys to water. Please note that when we talk about the Five Elements, we often follow the order of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water, while the five internal organs are arranged as liver, heart, spleen, lungs, and kidneys. This is not arbitrary but follows a logical pattern. What is that logic? Think about it: wood can burn to produce fire, fire can cook crops grown in the earth, the earths metal that can be used to make tools, tools can be used to draw water for human consumption, and water is essential for the growth of wood. This relationship is called "mutual generation" in TCM, meaning each element supports the growth of the next, such as wood generating fire, and the liver generating the heart.
In the story of Fan Jin passing the exams, joy, which is governed by the heart, and anger, which is governed by the liver, are involved. Excessive joy injures the heart, meaning when the heart’s function is impaired, strengthening the emotion of anger (governed by the liver) can mitigate the damage caused by joy, achieving the effect of "attacking Wei to rescue Zhao." This type of therapy, where one emotion is used to treat another, is called "treating emotions with emotions" in TCM. This is also a unique aspect of TCM.
Shock and fear injure the kidneys: Startling and fear can harm the function of the kidneys. Most of us have seen similar scenes in movies or TV shows: an emperor disguised as a commoner "visiting in disguise" and encounters corrupt local officials. The emperor becomes furious, but the local officials, unaware that the visitor is the emperor, glare coldly. When the emperor reveals his identity, the officials are instantly terrified, losing control of their bowels and bladder. We can also find similar examples, such as prisoners who often lose control of their bowels before execution. What is the medical explanation for this? TCM holds that the kidneys govern urination and defecation and that the kidneys "open" into the anterior and posterior orifices. Here, "govern" means to oversee, so the kidneys regulate the excretion of urine and feces; "open" means that the health of the kidneys can be reflected through the function of the anterior and posterior orifices. The anterior orifice refers to the urethra and reproductive organs, while the posterior orifice refers to the anus and large intestine. Sudden shock and fear severely impact kidney function, leading to loss of control over urination and defecation.
When I was in high school, there was a student in another class. When the teacher entered the classroom, the class monitor shouted for everyone to stand up. The student behind him jokingly moved his chair away. When the monitor shouted for everyone to sit down, the student in front sat down, and the student behind fell to the ground. Such pranks are not uncommon among students, but this student broke his vertebrae and became paralyzed, losing control of his bowels and bladder. From a TCM perspective, this situation can be attributed to two factors: first, sudden shock damaging the kidneys, and second, bone injury damaging the kidneys. The kidneys govern the anterior and posterior orifices, so the principle of shock injuring the kidneys leading to loss of control over urination and defecation is well understood. Another important issue is that the kidneys govern bones, meaning the skeletal system is managed by the kidneys. Therefore, bone injury results in kidney damage. For such cases, the fundamental TCM treatment principle is to regulate kidney function.
We have introduced the effects of "joy" and "shock and fear" on the body. Since these emotions often occur suddenly and rarely accumulate, their relationship with cancer is generally not significant. We can consider that emotions like "anger," "worry and pensiveness," and "sadness" in daily life are often easily accumulated. Over time, repeated damage to the body can lead to cancer. Ladies and gentlemen, if you want to know how "anger," "worry and pensiveness," and "sadness" harm the body, cause cancer, and how to regulate emotions to prevent cancer, stay tuned for the next discussion.