My Medical Theory ⁽¹⁸⁴⁾

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…

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…

Patients or their families misusing medication without consulting a physician has become a shocking phenomenon. Many patients subconsciously believe that in medicine the most important thing is the drug, not the doctor, and only look for a doctor after medication has caused a major problem.

I have treated many patients who benefited from various forms of exercise—swimming, running, brisk walking, qigong, Tai Chi, cycling, and ball games, to name only a few. Some survived longer, some had their complications controlled, and some effectively prevented tumor recurrence. So it can be…

Statistics from The Economist show that China's youth suicide rate is already the highest in the world. Every year about 100,000 Chinese teenagers die by suicide; every minute two people commit suicide and six more attempt it. Suicide has become the second leading cause of…

Patients and families often ask me about the efficacy of folk remedies. Usually behind each remedy lies a miracle story of a cancer patient's recovery, but in my ten-plus years of practice I have never seen a single verified case of anyone reproducing such a…

A few days ago, one of my gastric cancer patients referred me to the mother of a patient with advanced intestinal cancer. After reading this patient's medical record, I felt deep sorrow. She was a 19-year-old girl who, at such a young age, had already…

The classical-formula school of TCM attaches particular importance to formula patterns (fangzheng) and herb indications (yaozheng). Of course, many in the classical-formula school have a regrettable habit: they revere only the limited ancient formulas recorded by Zhang Zhongjing and dismiss effective later formulas, which is…

The ancients said that many who study TCM "begin in childhood and, with white hair, still do not grasp its source" (from the Lu preface to Jingyue Quanshu)—a way of saying how hard TCM is. After thousands of years of accumulation, TCM books are beyond…