Cancer Is Curable, but Curing Cancer Is a Systems Project

Is cancer curable? For a long time, influenced by the prevailing view, I thought it was not. Because in practice things always fell short at the last step: we thought some cancer patients would not relapse, but they did, and the reasons were baffling.

Yet I keep encountering cancer survivors who have lived with cancer for decades without relapse after treatment; some even live past 100. For example, Su Yiran, a former member of the Central Advisory Commission, was diagnosed with gastric cancer in 1977 and lived until 2021, dying at 103—44 years after cancer.

In my own practice I have also met a few patients who survived cancer-free long-term, some of them my own patients, so I know their situations well. Though I have never publicly claimed to have cured them—mainly to avoid unnecessary trouble, unrealistic expectations from other patients, and too much pressure—I suspect these well-responding patients will eventually survive for decades to a very old age.

I have found three common features among these recovered patients: first, a predominantly vegetarian diet; second, more stable emotions than other patients; third, a simple life. Since most of my patients live in China, those meeting all three are mostly Buddhist believers; among the good recoveries I have seen, Buddhist believers account for over 80%, which has forced me to look anew at Buddhist faith. Of course I also know a Chinese-American cancer survivor living in the U.S. who is Christian; her calm also impressed me.

All three are very hard to achieve. Most Chinese cancer patients, after diagnosis, assume they are weak and so try every means to supplement animal protein—especially after surgery and chemo/radiotherapy, many take various tonics and supplements, and doctors advise the same. Some even buy rare animals (such as pangolins) to nourish themselves; the result is that these patients relapse and die much faster than others, and it is no exaggeration to say they are sending themselves to the gate of hell.

Emotional stability is even harder. A cancer diagnosis is, for many patients, a death sentence. Such a bolt from the blue creates psychological problems in those who had none and worsens existing ones. In modern society, simple living is even harder. Popular trends and advertising have long stripped most people of themselves, making them slaves of consumerism; in this state, how easy is simple living!

Cancer is the king of diseases, a disease of very complex cause; malignant transformation occurs only when a person's genes, habits, environment and food, and upbringing have all gone wrong. Many people carry proto-oncogenes and long contact carcinogens yet do not develop cancer—is it fate's favor or another cause? Unfortunately, neither modern nor traditional medicine has treated cancer as a systemic problem; instead, reductionism treats it as a disease caused by a simple factor.

I believe no one in the world today is truly a cancer therapist, because no physician treats the patient as a complex whole; each has only learned one skill for solving one local problem. That is clearly not enough: cancer patients have problems in every dimension, and how can solving one aspect cure them? Curing cancer requires working on body, mind, and spirit all at once. In short, we need the patient to be remade and reborn.

Since the modern era we have grown used to reductionism in understanding the world: we learn that a certain gene mutation or carcinogen may cause cancer, that a bad habit may cause cancer. But when we try to solve a patient's genetic defect, we find the results less than ideal. Because a disease may be triggered not by one gene but by a set of mutated genes, with non-genetic factors acting in concert. Of the biochemical reactions in the human body and how they influence one another, we grasp only the surface. Modern medicine is built on this surface knowledge, and such shallow understanding is, no doubt, far from the truth.

A living person has many interrelated problems: nutrition, emotion, mental stress, relationships, finances, habits, education and faith. Each is highly complex, and they interact.

Cancer is a systemic problem, not caused by any single factor. To solve it requires launching a systems project to remake the patient—one completed jointly by the patient, the family, and the doctor. A true cancer therapist must have the knowledge and skills in all these areas, plus the patience and love to help the patient, in order to solve the systemic problem.

Modern medicine has split treatment into isolated blocks; every physician is like the blind men touching the elephant, unable to see the whole. Surgeons know only surgery, TCM doctors only TCM, chemo doctors only chemo, radiation doctors only radiation, and psychiatrists know nothing about standard cancer treatment—hardly a scientific or successful model. I believe that in future, cancer therapists will be more specialized, mastering systematic knowledge rather than fragments. They will sharply detect problems in patients' body, mind, spirit, and habits, and be able to guide and inspire patients to make thorough changes.

People get cancer because their whole life system has gone wrong. The idea of curing patients by studying just one mutated gene is too romantic; in practice we already know that targeted drugs developed on the gene-mutation theory generally have both side effects and drug resistance. Tumor suppressor genes (such as P53) are also a double-edged sword: they can indeed suppress overexpression of oncogenes and block cancer-cell proliferation, but they also accelerate aging and do not win patients longer lives.

Funded biopharma research institutions release sensational news at the drop of a hat, and economic interests usually lurk behind it. I have studied cancer for nearly twenty years; such news once thrilled me, but now I subconsciously pick apart the researchers' flaws and quickly find the defects and deliberate exaggerations, knowing they have almost no practical value.

We live in an age of high cancer incidence. Some claim the high incidence is mainly due to longer average life expectancy. That is only partly true; it overlooks the fact that modern lifestyles are themselves unhealthy.

Professor T. Colin Campbell, hailed as the Einstein of nutrition, was studying aflatoxin-induced liver cancer and protein deficiency in poor children in the Philippines when he accidentally found that children of wealthy families were more prone to liver cancer: poor children exposed to aflatoxin did not develop cancer, because they could not afford meat. This led Campbell to realize that aflatoxin is highly carcinogenic only in combination with animal protein.

Campbell later learned from reports that Indian researchers, in animal experiments, found that mice fed aflatoxin mixed with 20% animal protein developed liver cancer 100% of the time, while mice fed the same aflatoxin with 5% animal protein developed none. Campbell and his students repeated the experiment several times at Cornell and reached the same conclusion.

Campbell collaborated with China's CDC for 40 years on rural Chinese diet and disease, concluding that a vegetarian diet is healthier. Vegetarians are more contented and less driven, and suffer less cancer, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and other major illnesses.

In fact, the Chinese ancients reached this conclusion long ago. The TCM classic *Huangdi Neijing* says that rich, greasy food "breeds great sores." The Qing physician Chen Shiduo, in his surgical masterpiece *Dongtian Aozhi*, also noted that boils and carbuncles (today's various benign and malignant tumors) were especially common among wealthy Beijing households. We have long known that animal protein (the main component of fish, meat, eggs, and dairy) is the culprit in tumors; it is just that too many people cannot conquer their appetites.

Many people try to tell me that without animal protein (fish, meat, eggs, dairy) the body will weaken. In my view this is nonsense, because it contradicts everything I have personally seen. Before twenty I lived mostly in the countryside, where farmers' diets had little fish, meat, eggs, or dairy—poor living conditions were universal then. Yet the mostly vegetarian villagers had well-developed muscles and far sturdier physiques than modern urbanites, built through labor. Now we are richer and eat far more animal protein, with far less physical labor and sport, yet I see most people fatter and weaker than before, more prone to cancer, heart disease, and diabetes, and with patients at younger ages. I believe my peers share this sense.

Rural people used not to live as long, but frankly that was because of low mechanization and labor intensity that wore bodies out. Had they been less exhausted while keeping a mainly vegetarian diet, they would have lived much longer.

I was born in the late 1970s. My village is large, with over 2,000 permanent residents, all of the same clan and similar genes. Twenty years ago there were basically no cancer or heart-disease patients; everyone ate plainly and ate meat only on festivals. Now our village sees over ten deaths a year from leukemia, cancer, and cardiovascular accidents.

So by intuition alone we know animal protein is harmful. The successful cases I have published share a feature: after cancer, patients become contented and simple, eating vegetarian and chanting the Buddha. One patient, last year, could not bear the plain diet, yielded to temptation and ate meat, and relapsed; now he honestly keeps to the light diet. So for cancer patients, the best dietary restriction is to avoid or minimize animal protein, and to go fully vegan if possible.

From my own life and the real condition of my patients, I know Campbell's research is correct. Campbell advocates a whole-food, plant-based natural diet; many think veganism makes people weak. In fact we are close relatives of chimpanzees and gorillas, neither of which are carnivores, yet their physiques are far stronger than ours.

Through Campbell's tireless efforts, mainstream views among American doctors have changed greatly; the American Cancer Society's nutrition and physical-activity guideline for cancer patients explicitly recommends plant-based foods and at least five hours a week of aerobic exercise—exercise that makes you sweat. The WHO has already classified red meat as carcinogenic, and recent research finds white meat once thought healthy (such as chicken) is also carcinogenic.

Whole-food veganism plus sweaty exercise plus a contented, simple mind—that is my current health philosophy, and I practice it. I used to feel the cold, but now living in Beijing I need no down jacket or cotton coat all winter and take off my long johns right after Spring Festival, which most Beijingers cannot manage. I now have great stamina and fear no cold; although I study TCM, I have taken no yang-supporting therapy. My health has improved greatly these two years, and my mood is much better. I no longer rush to expand my practice or take exams and trainings; I let things take their course and now value my health highly. I believe a medical person who is himself sickly has not studied well.

The most miserable life is one of living in fear and gloom after cancer, spending all one's money on medicine. Preventive medicine is the best medicine; our ancestors long ago said the supreme doctor treats disease before it arises, and the key is preventing disease. Prevention also means preventing worsening once ill and preventing relapse after treatment. The core of preventing cancer relapse is to bring body, mind, and spirit into a healthy state: relaxed mood, healthy diet, regular exercise, harmonious relationships, gentle and friendly dealings, love, compassion, and empathy, avoiding frequent conflict, having hobbies, a rich and varied life, no anxiety, no depression.

With these plus appropriate treatment, cancer patients can fully recover and be reborn, at far lower cost than the so-called standard treatments in vogue today. I have long advocated such integrated rehabilitation and written around it, but sadly few patients can achieve and sustain it.

I treated one patient with abdominal mesothelioma who strictly followed this philosophy, which gave him far longer survival than similar patients. But after five years of my treatment he relaxed his demands, stopped keeping to the light diet and exercise, and clashed with others over interests. His disease soon relapsed; after relapse he was impatient for quick results and, sadly, died.

Many patients become gloomy after diagnosis, exercise less, lose passion for life, and eat more meat to "nourish" themselves. The body is highly intelligent: if we feed it a pessimistic, world-weary signal, it issues chronic-suicide commands to end life sooner. So after cancer one must activate one's vitality, overcome inner cowardice, change bad habits, and rewrite one's life; otherwise no matter how skilled the doctor, such a patient cannot be treated.

The reason I have tirelessly written so many life-science articles over the years is that a group of patients need this guidance. I venture to think this guidance matters more to them than medicine.