Do Not Be Overly Aggressive About Taking Chinese Herbs for Cancer

Some patients, once diagnosed with cancer, think of nothing else day and night. When taking Chinese herbs for cancer, they want to drink them all 365 days a year; missing even one dose leaves them uneasy.

This belief is wrong. Even in treating cancer with herbs, one should not be too aggressive. I generally ask non-acute patients to take herbs for three to five days and then pause one or two, or take a week on and a week off; after a while, they may even need only half a month's worth of herbs per month. Sometimes patients do not understand and feel anxious. I want to write this piece to correct patients' understanding of how TCM treats disease.

There is a widespread misconception that Chinese herbs have no side effects. This is a grave mistake. In recent years I have seen many patients felled by a single herbal formula. The renowned Chinese pharmacognosist Prof. Zhang Tingmiao once said that Chinese herbs are not only toxic—some are highly toxic. The toxic side effects of many herbs are still unclear; some have caused irreversible damage to liver and kidney function. Taking herbs too aggressively backfires.

A core principle of TCM treatment is "stop when the disease is reached": once the medicine takes effect, dosing should stop in due measure. TCM often says: "To treat disease with a highly toxic herb, stop when six out of ten are gone; with a moderately toxic herb, stop when seven out of ten are gone; with a mildly toxic herb, stop when eight out of ten are gone; even with a non-toxic herb, stop when nine out of ten are gone. Then use grains, meats, fruits and vegetables to nourish the remainder. Do not overdo it, lest you damage the righteous qi."

This means: with highly toxic herbs, stop after six of ten are cured; with moderately toxic, after seven; with mildly toxic, after eight; even with non-toxic herbs, stop after nine. Once the disease is largely resolved, dietary nurture finishes the job. Do not over-treat and damage the patient's original qi.

Actually, this principle applies equally to Western medicine. Regrettably, in clinical practice many patients cling to life while doctors chase results aggressively, so that some patients die not of the disease but of over-treatment.

In treating major illnesses like cancer, trying to finish the job in one battle is extremely difficult; patients and families should prepare for a long war. For a long war, the first thing is to stay alive—do not treat too aggressively. Some patients insist on taking every single dose without fail; most of them end up with over-treatment that spirals out of control.

Long-term herbal use injures the liver, kidneys, spleen and stomach. Few patients who take herbs for a long time do not grow to dislike them; after a while, the sight of herbs gives them a headache and drinking them makes them retch. Never mind the patient—even a healthy person could not stand drinking bitter medicine like that. Some relatives cannot imagine the "misery of taking medicine" and think the patient is being too delicate. Put yourself in their place: who could endure bitter medicine without missing a single dose?

Stopping in due measure actually lengthens survival. Some of my own long-surviving patients have never taken herbs every single day without a break, and their conditions are well controlled.