Insights and Updates

China is a country with a large hepatitis B burden and ranks first globally in liver-cancer incidence. Liver-cancer mortality is second among malignancies in China (after lung cancer), and worldwide it is the third most fatal malignancy. Four risk factors have been confirmed as the…

When my son was very small, I bought him a pair of children's shoes that lit up when he stepped. He loved them but rarely wore them. When I asked why, he said he was afraid of using up the batteries; once they were dead,…

In Professor Zhao Shaoqin's work Zhao Shaoqin's Inner-Canon Heart Methods there is an experience formula for treating "jiju" (accumulation, i.e., late-stage pelvo-abdominal tumors) in patients with qi-and-blood deficiency and long-standing stasis. It is a pill formula, a combination of "Gongji Wan" (Accumulation-Attacking Pill) and "Bazhen…

Depression is becoming more common and younger in onset; many of my readers, or their family members, are depressed. They are anxious, believing the disease cannot be cured—though this very belief is itself typical depressive thinking, and depressed people are very pessimistic. In fact, this…

The TCM herb Banbianlian is the whole herb with roots of Lobelia chinensis of the Campanulaceae family. It is called "half lotus" because its corolla resembles half a lotus flower. Banbianlian is first recorded in the Diannan Bencao, which states that it "chiefly and excellently…

A statistic released by China's National Health Commission is rather embarrassing: among Chinese adults, only 18% keep exercising. Diseases related to inactivity are therefore becoming more common. Many young people lack exercise because work is too busy. Had it not been for a pandemic, I…

On Friday, March 26, a woman diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma more than three years ago came to see me. She is a nurse from Dalian, twelve years older than I, who has spent her whole career in nursing. I have treated her for three years; recently…

Xin Qiji has a poem, "Zhegu Tian·On the Path the Soft Mulberry Breaks Buds": "By the path the soft mulberry breaks tender buds; the silkworm eggs of the eastern neighbor have just hatched. On the gentle slope fine grass murmurs with the yellow calf; in…

Last night my older brother called. As we talked, he mentioned a visit he had made to my uncle, who spoke of the days before my aunt (his wife) died. He said that on the very day she passed away she had still been at…

Leukemia and neuroblastoma are regarded as two different diseases in Western medicine, but their clinical syndromes overlap: in the acute phase both present fever, anemia, bleeding and pain. In the spirit of TCM pattern differentiation, such symptoms represent alternating or concurrent occurrences of excess evil-qi…