The Best Way to Preserve Health Is Not to Moxibustion or Take Medicine Recklessly

I once met a middle-aged woman who believed an online "divine formula"—"some Banzhilian (Scutellaria barbata) and Baihua Sheteng (Oldenlandia), one iron tree leaf, and some jujubes"—could fight cancer. She bought the herbs herself and drank them for several months, ending up with liver necrosis and eventually dying despite treatment.

On Tianya Community I saw a thread about this folk remedy, in which many patients or their families reported various adverse reactions after trying it at home.

I do not know what those who aggressively spread this folk remedy for marketing purposes feel when they see these case reports. Of course, patients who blindly believe such rumors and take medicine without consulting a professional doctor are hardly blameless themselves.

I have also seen a cancer patient who, after joining a moxibustion anti-cancer group, believed moxibustion could fight cancer and applied it to himself according to the methods circulating among fellow patients. After prolonged moxibustion, he developed what TCM calls "root of the kidney shaken, floating yang external uprising, persistent high fever, and incessant sweating." Thereafter, every method used to reduce the fever and stop the sweat worked poorly.

After I posted this moxibustion patient's firsthand experience on my Moments, several other patients immediately contacted me to report they had experienced similar situations.

Less than two hours before writing this article, one of these friends, who had once relied on moxibustion for health, came to my home for a consultation. He had done moxibustion health-building for a year; afterward he developed persistent low fever, and now his defensive yang is unsecure—the slightest wind brings sneezing—and his body is no longer as robust as before.

This phenomenon is not new; it has existed through every dynasty. The Yuan-dynasty physician Luo Tianyi, in his work Weisheng Baojian (Precious Mirror of Hygiene), already noted the then-fashionable spring practice of taking "venting medicines" for health, and that many people developed problems from it.

Nowadays information spreads easily, and all sorts of health-preservation knowledge is everywhere, much of it exaggerated advertising. Media professionals love to move audiences with highly sensationalized language to boost exposure and grab attention; as a result many people fall into such pits, self-medicating or moxibusting, and end up not preserving health but raising a whole body of problems.

This vice has also led the general public to love talking about health preservation; patients or families often ask me about health teas and moxibustion, which gives me quite a headache. Whether medicine or moxibustion, both are means of treating disease and should be used only when indicated. People who do not follow medical advice and use them on their own are really in danger.

Confucius's attitude toward medicinal health preservation is well worth learning. When someone offered Confucius health-preserving advice, Confucius said: "Qiu has not mastered it; he dare not taste it." The Master meant that, since he himself did not understand the principles of medicinal health preservation, he did not dare taste it at random. The ancients said: "Unless the physician has studied medicine for three generations, do not take his medicines"—meaning that without the diagnosis and advice of someone who has systematically studied medicine, one should not casually take drugs.

This cautious attitude toward health-preserving means that may damage one's health is well worth emulating. If you are not careful but recklessly take medicine or moxibustion, calling it health preservation, and instead harm yourself, you can only be called a fool.