Insights and Updates

Jianghuang (Curcumae Longae Rhizoma, turmeric) is one of the commonly used Chinese medicines. It was first recorded in China's first official materia medica, the Xinxiu Bencao (Newly Revised Materia Medica, also called the Tang Bencao or Yinggong Bencao), compiled in the Tang Dynasty by Su…

In the book Anticancer, the author David, who is both a doctor and a cancer patient, quotes a healthcare worker, Michael Lerner, who spent twenty years caring for cancer patients: "On a sick planet, it is impossible to be well." I like this sentence very…

Many cancer patients suffer from digestive (spleen-stomach) complaints, with a wide range of causes. Some have always had a weak spleen and stomach; some develop digestive problems after anticancer treatment with severe side effects; and in others, digestive discomfort accumulates from long-term use of anticancer…

When I go in the morning to the vegetable plot I rent, I usually run into an 82-year-old man. His plot is less than ten meters from mine, with another man's plot sitting between the two. At the "One River, Ten Gardens" ecological farm at…

People often tell me that having someone trained in modern medicine study Chinese medicine is nothing short of a disaster—implying that learning modern medicine harms rather than helps the study of Chinese medicine. Such a claim is logically hard to sustain, yet it is preached…

If the medical profession were to adopt Taobao's "good-review" rating system, I doubt a single doctor in the world would have a good-review rate above 50%. I used to allow comments below my articles, and the great majority of the messages were flattering; a large…

After being diagnosed with a brain tumor, the French physician David Servan-Schreiber devoted himself to studying everything available on cancer recovery and talked at length with a great many cancer survivors. Out of this he wrote a book entitled Anticancer: A New Way of Life.

During the three-day National Day holiday, I taught my students three lessons—one each day. Besides teaching, I kept to my usual daily routine of reading, studying, and writing. I have now kept up teaching for four years, and the Shanghan Lun (Treatise on Cold Damage)…

Some cancer patients develop radiation enteritis after radiotherapy as a sequela—long-term diarrhea with blood in the stool, which over time also causes anemia. Radiation enteritis is hard to treat; neither Chinese nor Western medicine has a particularly good solution. On the basis of Taohua Tang…

Ermiao Wan (Two-Marvel Pill) comes from Yixue Gangmu (Outline of Medicine) and is said to have been created by Zhu Danxi. Its composition and preparation are very simple: equal parts of Phellodendron bark (Huangbai) powder and Atractylodes rhizome (Cangzhu) powder are formed with refined honey…