Common Anticancer Chinese Herb: Sanleng (Common Burreed Rhizome)
Sanleng, also called Jing Sanleng, is the tuber of Sparganium stoloniferum (family Sparganiaceae). It is odorless with a mild taste; when chewed it leaves a slight numbing, tingling sensation. The best pieces are heavy, firm, and yellowish-white. It is used raw after slicing, or processed with vinegar; there is also a method of stir-frying sanleng with wheat bran.
Sanleng is an anticancer herb frequently paired with ezhu (Curcumae Rhizoma), and its effects are very similar to those of ezhu. Chinese materia medica textbooks summarize sanleng's actions as breaking blood and moving qi, resolving accumulation and relieving pain. It is considered pungent, bitter, and neutral in nature, and enters the liver and spleen meridians.
It is generally held that sanleng is stronger than ezhu in breaking blood, while ezhu is stronger than sanleng in breaking qi. In Zhang Xichun's Yixue Zhongzhong Canxilu (Records of Chinese and Western Medicine Integrated), it is written: "Sanleng has both odor and flavor that are mild, with a faint pungent quality; ezhu has a slightly bitter taste and a faint aromatic odor, also with a slight pungency; both are slightly warm in nature and are essential herbs for resolving static blood.... If one carefully examines the difference between the two, sanleng surpasses ezhu in resolving blood, while ezhu surpasses sanleng in regulating qi."
Sanleng and ezhu are a typical example of Chinese herbs used mutually to reinforce each other's efficacy; they form a very common herb pair, and are generally used in equal doses.
Modern pharmacology has confirmed that sanleng can directly destroy tumor cells and has an inhibitory effect on tumor models in experimental animals. It induces apoptosis in human lung cancer cells.
Sanleng has anticoagulant and antithrombotic effects, so its main anticancer mechanism is likewise achieved through inhibiting tumor angiogenesis. Because herbs such as sanleng and ezhu—which traditional Chinese medicine considers to break blood—have strong anticoagulant effects, they are contraindicated in patients with a bleeding tendency. Patients with poor coagulation may develop bleeding if they take sanleng.
Besides treating tumors, sanleng can also treat coronary heart disease, stroke-induced hemiplegia, uterine fibroids, hepatitis, and cirrhosis. Sanleng's main action is to treat various painful swellings and lumps and to promote the movement of blood.
Rihuazi Bencao (Materia Medica of Master Rihuazi) says sanleng treats "irregular menstruation in women, cardiac and abdominal pain, abortion, expels static blood, supplements exhaustion, unblocks menstruation, treats qi distension, resolves static blood from traumatic injury, post-partum abdominal pain, blood syncope, and retained old blood." Kaibao Bencao states that sanleng "mainly treats chronic nodules and abdominal masses." Yixue Qiyuan holds that sanleng mainly treats "pain in the cardiac and diaphragmatic region, indigestion, and breaks qi."
It is clear that sanleng is mainly used to treat various painful swellings and lumps caused by static blood. It is generally held that such pathogen-expelling herbs should not be used for long, for prolonged use easily leads to the side effect of bleeding. Bencao Gangmu (Compendium of Materia Medica) says: "Sanleng can break qi and scatter nodules, hence it treats various diseases; its power approaches that of Xiangfu (Cyperi Rhizoma) but is more forceful, so it is hard to take for long." Especially in frail patients, when using sanleng and ezhu, one must combine them with qi-supplementing and blood-nourishing herbs such as Dangshen (Codonopsis), Huangqi (Astragalus), Baizhu (Atractylodes), Fuling (Poria), and Danggui (Angelica). Otherwise it easily leads to insufficiency of the patient's righteous qi (zhengqi).
The usual dose of sanleng in decoction is 6–10 g, but for cancer patients it may be used at 15–30 g. Sanleng may also be given as a powder or pill, with the dose adjusted according to the specific prescription. If the formula already contains many blood-activating and stasis-resolving herbs, the dose of sanleng should be reduced, because when different categories of blood-activating, stasis-resolving herbs are used together their potency is greatly increased; excessive use risks causing tumor rupture and bleeding in the patient. In the author's experience, when necessary such herbs should also be combined with hemostatic and detumescent herbs such as Baiji (Bletilla) and Xianhecao (Agrimonia).