According to the American Cancer Society, for those of us now living in the United States, over 120 million of us will be diagnosed with cancer. And over 70 million of us are projected to die from the condition.1 When confronted with such staggeringly high numbers of such a potentially terminal diagnosis like cancer, basic issues of survival can surface. As we discussed earlier, life and death issues are related to the Kidney, which is also associated with the emotion of fear. When something brings our own mortality into question, it affects the Kidney, as it’s the foundation of our lives and can lead to fear and distress. However, if we take a closer look and begin to notice the patterns that are the root causes of sickness, they can become less scary. Diagnoses of all kinds—both Western and Eastern and on small and large scales—begin to make sense as the result of cause and effect.
Cancer diagnoses are primarily discussed and treated from a Western medicine perspective in the United States. As noted earlier, Western medicine is based on the assumptions of Western culture, which often sees the world as a place of separation and conflict. As a result, it perceives organs as separate from each other, with the physical aspects of our lives being distinct from the mental and emotional aspects. It also assumes much of the time that if there’s a problem, fighting is often a good response. Such a response makes it difficult to uncover the internal patterns that created the conditions for a diagnosis like cancer.
With the emphasis on compartmentalization and specialization that is common in Western medicine, the focus is on waiting to treat conditions like cancer until after they’ve already appeared. Western medicine does acknowledge the connection between cancer and things such as lifestyle and exposure to toxins, but it is in general terms and not focused on the individual. However, what we eat, the amount of exercise we get, and our susceptibility to carcinogens certainly affects our likelihood of developing cancer.
Unlike the general blanket statements that Western medicine delivers on what it considers healthy behaviors and healthy foods, the Eastern perspective is more fine-tuned and specific to each individual. Based on the understanding that we are unique individuals with a unique balance of Yin-Yang and the Five Phases, what can be helpful for one person might not be for someone else, or could even create health problems in others. In addition to the importance of lifestyle and diet suggestions being person-specific, there are bigger, more systemic issues that are creating the conditions within us and within our country that contribute to cancer diagnoses. As we’ll talk about next, the underlying cultural causes of climate change are similar to the root imbalances that create the proliferation of unhealthy cells within us.
In looking at our lives, our culture, and the condition of the climate from the view of Yin and Yang, things are rapidly overheating and coolant is decreasing—too much Yang and too little Yin. From the perspective of the Five Phases, we have a dramatic overemphasis on newness, expansion, and conflict, which is affecting our experience of the sacred, our wisdom, and the way we communicate—an excess of Wood is creating a lack of Metal and Water and an excess of Fire.
Not only are these dynamics showing up in all aspects of our lives—from what we value, to what we buy and drink, to the stories we tell ourselves, to how we communicate—they are manifesting in our health as well. With the inductive and holistic thinking of Chinese medicine, this isn’t much of a surprise. What we think, what we believe, what we ingest, and how we live all affect our Qi. And the condition of our Qi is the condition of our lives—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
Just as the planet is warming as its ability to sequester greenhouse gases decreases, we’re experiencing Yin-deficient heat. And just as our economy and culture promote continuous growth, we’re experiencing excess within us as well. This heat, lack of Yin, and excess growth are a good place to start the discussion about the Chinese medicine understanding of cancer.
A Western medicine discussion often focuses on the growth of cells. While there are many different kinds of cancer that present in many different ways, in discussing the basics, the American Cancer Society says, “All cancers start because abnormal cells grow out of control.” In comparison, “Normal cells grow, divide to make new cells, and die in an orderly way.” In describing how cancer spreads, “Cancer cells often travel to other parts of the body where they can grow and form new tumors. Over time, the tumors replace normal tissue, crowd it, or push it aside,” creating a metastasis.2
As we’ve been discussing with the condition of our planet, a Chinese medicine understanding of symptoms, both large and small, is that they often originate from deeper causes. Thus, the growth of our cells is affected by the condition of our internal environment.
From my clinical experience treating people with cancer, there’s a clear pattern. While everyone is different, and different cancers present differently at various stages of progression, there are underlying similarities. Looking at the Western diagnosis from an Eastern perspective, cells growing out of control fits well with the Chinese medicine understanding of heat. Heat overstimulates us, which can create an excess of growth at a cellular level. As an excess of Yang, this heat propels cells to travel within the body. As tumors grow in size and number, this is again a sign of too much stimulation and too much heat. From a Five Phases perspective, this growth most clearly corresponds with too much Wood. As we discussed, Wood relates to expansion, the climatic influence of wind, and movement. When Wood is in excess, things can start to grow out of control, and when the accompanying wind is also in excess, these things can start to move around the body.
Though we are all individuals with a unique internal environment, all the patients I’ve worked with who had a cancer diagnosis have had significant amounts of heat. Just as occurs within the environment, within us, if things heat up, coolant gets cooked off. The pulse and tongue of those I’ve treated clearly indicate this Yin deficiency—and our Yin is what helps to hold our imbalances in check. When we start to lose our Yin, symptoms begin to surface, including very hot conditions like cancer.
Many of us live overstimulated lives within a hot, Yin-deficient country and culture that values Yang and overemphasizes Wood. To understand just how hot, Yin-deficient, and Wood-focused we’ve become, let’s take a look at the numbers.
Looking at information provided by the American Cancer Society, here are some statistics that tell the story of cancer within the United States.
• 1 in 2 men will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime.
• 1 in 3 women will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime.3
Together, these numbers indicate that about 2 in 5 people in the United States—or about forty percent—will have a cancer diagnosis. Think about that for a moment. Think about five people you know: five friends, five family members, five people from work or school. If the current trend continues, on average, two of them will be diagnosed with cancer at some point.
With the population in the United States currently at about 320 million, that equals over 125 million cancer diagnoses. That’s 125,000,000 diagnoses of cancer in the United States alone. This is not 125 million cases of the common cold or flu. Nor is it 125 million diagnoses of frequent headaches. This is 125 million cases of a severe condition that from a Western view can be life threatening, and from a Chinese view indicates advanced heat.
Not only are the chances of a cancer diagnoses staggering, but the associated mortality rates are also sobering.
• 1 in 4 men will die from cancer.
• 1 in 5 women will die from cancer.4
The simple math is that between twenty and twenty-five percent of the people in the United States are projected to be diagnosed with cancer. Taking 22.5 percent as the average, and with an approximately equal population of men and women, that indicates that seventy-two million people will die from cancer. 72,000,000 people. So many of us know multiple people who have been diagnosed with cancer—a neighbor, a coworker, a friend, a family member, a spouse. From the above numbers, it’s likely even that many of you reading this have been diagnosed with cancer.
Because of how common cancer is, it can take on a sense of inevitability. It might start to seem that people just get cancer, and there’s little, if anything, that we can really do about it. We may also be fearful, as it seems that the possibility of cancer is lurking all around us, and that anyone can get the diagnosis at any time.
Just as there are many different ways to respond to our rapidly warming planet, there are many ways—personally and collectively—to respond to cancer. A very common response that is part of the cultural narrative is that we must fight cancer. This war on cancer may be well-intentioned, because we’re trying to rally support for people with the condition. Western treatments based on this fighting approach can also sometimes reduce or even eliminate the cells that are causing the symptoms. However, there are often negative side effects as well. As we’ll discuss later, this includes treatments that sometimes create the very conditions they’re intended to treat.
If we choose to wage war on people’s cells, there is often very significant collateral damage. These cells are ones that are needed to continue to live: this war on our cells can affect the health of our digestive system, our strength, our overall well-being, and our will to live. In line with our emphasis on Wood and conflict, the typical Western approach to cancer includes using very strong and very toxic substances to kill cells and procedures to remove the affected areas.
On a bigger and deeper level than just the cellular, cancer also mirrors how we’re living our lives. Certainly, there are physical and environmental factors that increase our likelihood of developing cancer, and Western medicine points to the use of tobacco, eating too much meat, drinking too much alcohol, and exposure to a wide range of carcinogens. It’s also noted that exercising regularly and not being overweight can limit the likelihood of cancer.5
But from an Eastern view, too much of some things and not enough of others increases the likelihood of internal imbalance. Over time, this can lead to conditions like cancer. For example, alcohol is widely acknowledged to be warming or hot in Chinese medicine. Widely published Chinese medicine author Bob Flaws describes it as warm and toxic, both of which could contribute to a cancer diagnosis.6
Internationally recognized practitioner and author Giovani Maciocia writes that tobacco was introduced to China in the late sixteenth century, during the Ming dynasty, and that a Chinese herbal text from that era describes it as hot and toxic without any medicinal effects. A Chinese physician, Qu Ci Shan, from the subsequent era of Chinese history, the Qing dynasty, also described how tobacco is hot and drying, and as a result, it burns the jing and fluids, damages the throat, Stomach, and Lungs, and affects the Heart. Another physician from the Qing dynasty, Zhao Xue Min, observed that smoking also affects the blood, and in general shortened life.7
This discussion about the effects of tobacco is interesting and relevant on several levels.8 The first is that it predates our current understanding of the health effects of tobacco by several hundred years. It’s not just a modern Western idea that tobacco can contribute to cancer and decrease our life span. Second, in addition to acknowledging that smoking affects the Lungs, Chinese medicine also recognizes that it can affect the jing. As discussed previously, we live in a time where we’re drilling and burning oil on a massive scale. In addition to speaking to our own lack of wisdom that comes from our jing, this process is also consuming the jing of the planet. The use of tobacco can burn out our jing as well—which is very relevant information during our era of climate change.9
In addition to the temperature of alcohol and tobacco, in Chinese nutrition some meat is also considered warming. Flaws describes beef, duck, and pork as neutral in temperature, but lamb, venison, and chicken as warming.10 An overabundance of the hotter meats in particular can overstimulate our organs and our Qi, contributing to an overgrowth of unhealthy cells and potentially creating cancerous conditions.
Although it’s not commonly noted as a contributor to cancer from a Western perspective, Chinese medicine indicates clearly that coffee also strongly contributes to heat, overstimulation, and growth.
The United States consumes 150 billion cups of coffee a year, contributing to—or even causing—things like anxiety, heart palpitation, and migraines. On a deeper level, coffee can also create heat that overstimulates cells, which can cause them to grow in unhealthy ways and move around the body.
While there is real value in a reciprocal discussion between Eastern and Western medicine, the holistic thinking of Chinese medicine means that we don’t necessarily need to wait for definitive proof to makes choices that promote health. For example, we don’t need studies similar to those that demonstrate the connection between cancer and tobacco to recognize foods that contribute to the overgrowth of unhealthy cells.
For several hundred years, Eastern physicians and scholars have understood and written about the heat associated with coffee. In Chinese medicine, we see the pattern that contributes to the root cause of the growth and spread of unhealthy cells: heat. It is a significant issue with both our health and that of the planet that Western science and medicine wait for the problem to occur before studying and attempting to address the condition.
This might seem reasonable, necessary, and even prudent from our more usual Western view. The rationale of our culture is often that we need a certain type of data and evidence before we can act. But this deductive reasoning—which had us wait until there was undeniable evidence that smoking causes cancer and that burning oil warms the planet—is actually a part of our cultural condition. In particular, it speaks to a worldview based on separation, in which we ignore the larger picture in favor of focusing on issues in isolation. As a result, we’re less able to see the patterns that contribute to forty percent of Americans potentially having a cancer diagnosis and the climate destabilizing rapidly.
Waiting for definitive proof of climate change means that there are already enough greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to dramatically affect the weather. Waiting for definite proof that tobacco causes cancer means that millions of people have already developed the condition from smoking. Rather than waiting for the imbalance to occur on a large scale, it’s much more insightful to treat the condition before it’s a problem.
This is true not only with the heat of cancer but with the heat of climate change as well. We could have anticipated that burning oil on a massive scale would warm the planet, and likewise, we can also see that within an overstimulated culture, regularly drinking something stimulating like alcohol and inhaling a hot substance like tobacco would contribute to internal heat. We can see this same pattern in the effects of coffee.
To be clear, this is not to say definitely that coffee causes cancer—at least not as Western medicine now understands the connection. Unlike the deductive thinking of Western science, which looks for absolute truth and linear cause-and-effect relationship between one particular substance and our health, Chinese medicine’s inductive reasoning looks for patterns and tendencies within the whole picture. Just as coffee on its own doesn’t create climate change, coffee by itself doesn’t always cause cancer. However, coffee is clearly stimulating and does create heat internally. Coupled with its dampness, its overstimulation can be hard to clear from the body. Within the context of a country so amped up that’s it’s overheating the whole planet, this contributes to an overheated internal condition. When this heat has cooked off much our fluids, and latency is lost, conditions that come from heat begin to appear, including cancer.
In addition to the physical causes of cancer, there are also deeper and philosophical causes at play. Not only do alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and too much meat have warming effects, heat and excess growth is created within us by how we see the world. Our perspective of continuous activity and seeking newness speaks to our overemphasis on Yang and our lack of Yin. Our desire for continuous economic growth, our valuing of youth, and our view of nature as a place of continuous conflict speaks to being stuck in Wood.
As we’ve discussed in previous chapters, this very same dynamic of too much Yang, not enough Yin, and an excess of Wood is appearing within us and all around us. It’s part of our beliefs about the world and the cultural systems we’ve created. We’re taught that continuous economic growth is both possible and desirable. From the view of modern biology, all individuals and all species are continuously looking for a competitive advantage over everyone and everything else—a warring nature view of the world.
Medically speaking, this Yang excess and overemphasis on Wood can make it seem like fighting and killing what’s causing our symptoms is the best, and maybe even the only, valid medical approach. However, our lives and medicine make up more than just one half of the Yin-Yang circle or one of the Five Phases.
Thankfully, there are acupuncture treatments that can clear out heat at the deepest level of who we are. These include treatments at depths that are analogous to the Western understanding of DNA and RNA—in Chinese medicine, these would be at the level of our jing. The modern text Advanced Acupuncture by Ann Cecil-Sterman, a long-time student of Jeffrey Yuen, discusses the historical and contemporary uses of the Eight Extraordinary Meridians. As Cecil-Sterman describes, the “Eight Extras” work at a deeper, generational level than the more commonly used pathways of energy that correspond to our internal organs. She writes that a seminal historical text, the Nan Jing: Classic of Difficulties, describes the depth of the Eight Extras and how they can’t be accessed through the use of the primary channels alone. In particular, she notes the importance of their use in the treatment of sicknesses that affect DNA, including cancer.11
Using strong substances to treat serious conditions also has a long history in Chinese medicine. Potent and toxic medicines like Scorpion and Centipede are prescribed for dramatic symptoms, including internal wind, such as seizures, and to forcefully clear out toxins, such as cancer.12 The use of Centipede in particular dates back several thousand years in written form to the oldest existing Chinese herbal text, the Sheng Nong Ben Cao Jing (Divine Farmer’s Materia Medica).13
In contrast with treatments like chemotherapy and radiation, acupuncture and herbal medicine can clear out the heat that is a root cause of cancer while also increasing the cooling effects of Yin and promoting overall health. From several thousand years of clinical application, there are well-developed and time-tested ways of using very strong substances and deep-reaching treatments without further compromising people’s well-being.
For example, when using substances like Centipede and Scorpion, sweet-tasting licorice is often added to formulas to make them more digestible and significantly reduce toxicity.14 Spicy fried ginger is also used to help assimilate harsh substances by strengthening the digestive system and preventing it from getting stagnant. This balance—of strongly clearing out heat while mitigating the side effects and promoting well-being—is a medical approach that is centered on peace rather than war. It is especially important when treating a person who has cancer, which is likely due to significant heat and equally significant loss of coolant, to actively promote health.
An additional aspect of this approach includes herbs that also clear heat and increase coolant. Increasing Yin helps to balance an overheated condition, and herbs like processed Rehmannia root and Scrophularia root clear heat at a deep level and nourish Yin simultaneously.15 When combined with substances like Scorpion and Centipede and herbs like licorice and ginger, Rehmannia and Scrophularia are part of potent formulas that clear heat, increase coolant, protect digestion, and strengthen Qi.
Of course, each herbal formula or acupuncture treatment is best customized to each person and their condition. Because each of us are unique individuals, whether we have the flu or cancer, how we developed that condition is personal. The overgrowth and spread of unhealthy cells fits well with the Chinese idea of heat, but understanding how we accumulated that heat, how severe it is, and which organs are involved needs to be diagnosed on a person-by-person basis. Just as it’s essential to understand the underlying causes of our warming planet, the most effective acupuncture treatments and herbal formulas address our symptoms as well as their individual root causes.
The need for a customized approach is true not only for treatments but also for lifestyle changes. As discussed, Western medicine often promotes eating well, maintaining one’s weight, and exercising to reduce the likelihood of cancer. While certainly relevant, this one-size-fits-all approach has significant limitations as it is based on general trends and not on the condition of the specific individual.
One example of the limitation of general statements is when we focus on the amount of exercise to get. While exercise is undoubtedly important from both an Eastern and Western point of view, more is not necessarily better. Many of us could benefit from the increased movement and deep breathing that exercise provides. But, there are many of us who could benefit from less. As we talked about with Yin and Yang, just because some of something is helpful, more of it doesn’t necessarily promote health.
Exercise promotes the movement of Qi and blood within the body and can directly strengthen muscles, tendons, ligaments, and the respiratory and circulatory systems. How much exercise we need to promote health depends on many variables, however—age, overall health, stress levels, and the amount of Qi we have. In a Yang-excessive culture, something as health-promoting as exercise can be taken too far and instead promote sickness.
When we sweat, we create heat. This is because one way the body tries to get rid of excess warmth is through the skin. In addition to warming us up, the regular loss of fluids through heavy sweating can also dry us out. As with most lifestyle choices, the way and the degree that this affects us depends on our internal condition and the condition of our Yin and Yang in particular.
Since we’re already living overstimulated lives, one possible result of too much vigorous exercise is our heat rising and coolant decreasing. From this perspective, it’s not a sign of a good workout to get sweaty all the time. It’s often more an indication that we’re overheating ourselves and cooking off our fluids.
From an Eastern view, fluids are precious substances. Physically, they are essential to keeping things cool and soft, and prevent our muscles, tissues, and organs from becoming hard, getting hot, and drying out. Fluids have a similar effect mentally and emotionally, helping to keep our mind and responses to the world flexible and in balance. When we regularly decrease our fluids through too much vigorous exercise, we’re literally sweating out our internal coolant. In other words, too much vigorous exercise can contribute to, and even create, Yin-deficient heat. That’s right: this is the same Yin-deficient heat that is warming the planet and creating the conditions for cancer.16
Having spoken to many people in the treatment room about the possible results of too much exercise, I can imagine what you might be thinking. Exercise is good for us, sweating is a way to clear out the body and detoxify, working out makes you feel good, and so on. From a Chinese viewpoint, all of these things can be true—but just like drinking coffee, the issue is context.
We live in a Yang-excess, Yin-deficient country. Within our hot, dried-out culture, doing activities that create more heat and less Yin is just contributing to more of the same. This includes a rapidly warming planet and a staggering number of cancer diagnoses.
As with all things, we need a balance that is specific to our own internal condition. For most of us, moderate regular exercise—with no sweating or only moderate perspiration—is likely to best promote health. Too much activity, with too much sweating, will not balance Yin-deficient heat.
Similar to climate change, it’s imperative to have a proportionate response to cancer. Clearly, 125 million possible diagnoses and 72 million possible deaths are a severe problem. These projected numbers can serve as a wake-up call—the seriousness of the condition is one way our bodies and our cells are trying to get our attention.
Even though the diagnosis can create fear and bring up questions about our own mortality, cancer is not the enemy, and waging war is not the only option. Cancer is no more and no less than the proliferation of unhealthy cells, which are the result of too much heat, an excess of unhealthy growth, and not enough Yin.
With our understanding of Chinese medicine, we can recognize that the individual and internal issues of cancer are a direct reflection of the external global crisis of climate change. In other words, the heating and loss of Yin that create cancer mirrors the increase of emissions of greenhouse gases and the decreasing ability of the planet to sequester them. The overgrowth of cancer cells from an excess of Wood and the increasingly severe storms of climate change mirror our quest for continuous growth.
How we approach the significant diagnosis of cancer speaks to how we look at the life-threatening condition of climate change. Just as waging war on climate change only leads us farther down the path we’re currently on, fighting cancer continues to promote an excess of Wood in our country. Certainly, there can be times when the overgrowth of unhealthy cells has progressed to the point where radiation, chemotherapy, and surgery may be viable options. Waging war, however, doesn’t lend itself to listening to what our cells are trying to tell us. If we simply try to get rid of the symptoms rather than understanding their deeper causes, it’s often much harder to hear the messages they’re trying to tell us.
The overgrowth of cells is trying to tell us that we’re so hot and overstimulated that 125 million of us may be diagnosed with cancer and 72 million may die from the diagnosis if our lives, beliefs, and cultural systems continue in the direction they’re headed. Our severe overstimulation is a reflection of the advanced heat we’ve created in the climate, which may be at a tipping point of dramatic, rapid warming.
While it might be hard to hear, part of the issue with the extraordinary number of cancer diagnoses is that cancer is a big business. A National Institutes of Health study indicates that in 2010, the cost of cancer treatments in the United States was just under $125 billion. That’s $125,000,000,000 spent on Western treatments for one condition in one country in one year. The study also estimates that this cost will increase to at least $158 billion by 2020, an increase of twenty-seven percent in ten years. The research also indicates that, based on current trends in cancer treatments, the cost could reach $207 billion yearly, a sixty-six percent increase in a decade.17
What we’re seeing with the dramatic number of cancer diagnosis and the equally dramatic costs of Western treatments is the intersection of three related views of the world. First, we have a view of separation. This is apparent in medicine, as organs are viewed as isolated from each other and the physical, mental, and emotional parts of our lives are also viewed as distinct. Additionally, this perspective holds that what we see happen in nature is separate from what happens to us. As a result of this perspective of isolation, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to see the patterns that create the underlying causes of cancer. As is common with Western medical treatment with sickness of all kinds, we’re waiting for the problem to occur before we treat it.
Second, we’re encouraged to be comfortable with conflict and waging war. Western science promotes a view of nature as a place of continuous struggle and self-interest, and suggests that waging war on cancer is the only viable approach. Not only does the emphasis on killing cells and cutting out body parts affected by cancer discourage us from listening to our symptoms, the Western approach can also create the diagnosis it’s intended to treat.
From working with people with a cancer diagnosis, we’ve seen at our clinic the effects of the Western treatment. While they’re obviously intended to get rid of the cancer, chemotherapy and radiation also come with a long list of other effects. Though they are referred to a side effects in Western medicine, they often do not happen on the side at all but affect people front and center. I’ve had patients explain to me, and have seen from Chinese diagnostics, how the wide range of symptoms associated with radiation and chemotherapy is affecting them. They include nausea and vomiting, loss of appetite, second- and third-degree burns, joint and muscle pain, sleep disturbances and insomnia, loss of energy, and even a loss of the will to live. The American Cancer Society states that the likelihood of developing secondary cancer varies with higher drug doses, longer treatment time, lifestyle choices, and other patient-specific issues. However, the synopsis of the research states clearly that both chemotherapy and radiation are associated with higher rates of cancerous tumors and several types of leukemia in particular. Specifically, citing a paper from the National Institutes of Health,
Radiation therapy was recognized as a potential cause of cancer many years ago. In fact, much of what we know about the possible health effects of radiation therapy has come from studying survivors of atomic bomb blasts in Japan. We also have learned from workers in certain jobs that included radiation exposure, and patients treated with radiation therapy for cancer and other diseases.18
There is also an established link between cancer and chemotherapy. The American Cancer Society summarizes, “Chemo is known to be a higher risk factor than radiation therapy in causing leukemia. . . . Some solid tumor cancers have also been linked to chemo treatment for certain cancers, such as testicular cancer.”19 Waging war on the growth of cells can create collateral damage—not only on the digestive system, skin, and overall energy, but also on the very diagnosis it’s intended to treat.
Third, we have an often unquestioning belief in continuous growth. With our overemphasis on Yang and Wood, we’re encouraged to gauge the well-being and health of our economic system based on its expansion and growth. This measure of economic health is also applied to the individual companies and institutions that function within the larger system, including those that provide medical services. Coupled with the encouragement to focus on economic self-interest, we’ve created a structure in which it’s good for business when people receive a cancer diagnosis. It’s clear from the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent that the current economic incentive for Western medicine is not to reduce the number of cancer diagnoses. In fact, the more people diagnosed with cancer, the more money there is to make. As we’ve seen above, the already incredible amounts spent are very likely to increase—rather than encouraging health, Western medicine is being paid for sickness.
To clarify, I’m not implying that Western medical institutions and practitioners are not trying to help. We treat many Western practitioners and administrators at our clinic and are friends and colleagues with many others. I have no doubt that many of them are genuinely committed to helping patients to the very best of their ability. However, the cultural systems we’ve created, and the assumptions on which they’re based, are contributing to the millions of cancer diagnoses we’re seeing and the hundreds of billions of dollars we’re spending to treat the condition.
So what’s the alternative? From the view of Chinese medicine, it is to prevent the disease from occurring in the first place and to actively promote health individually and culturally. In addition to the economic and medical issues that arise from waiting to treat cancer until it has already manifested, how we live, what we believe, and what we value are warming our internal environment as well. As things heat up internally, our ability to hold symptoms in latency is lost, and unhealthy cells can begin to spread within the body.
We are a mirror of nature and it is a mirror of us. Just as global warming is trying to get our attention, so is the growth of our cells.
We’re free to choose how we respond to climate change. It’s also up to us how we react to a cancer diagnosis. Once we have the information about the growth of unhealthy cells or about our warming planet, what we do with it depends on how we see our lives and view the world. Data about the growth and movement of cells or about the rates of increase in greenhouse gases is only part of the discussion—the other essential part is how we respond.
To help us examine the possible range of responses, let’s look at two patients I treated at our clinic. The first is a middle-aged man whom I’ll call Ben. Ben, who lives in a small rural community, is tall, strong, and stout from a life of hard physical work, which included long hours outside year-round as a farmer.
He came to see us after his Western doctor ordered a series of blood tests based on his symptoms. He was having regular night sweats, had moderate-size lumps on his neck, and had been tired for several years. Because he’d had these symptoms for some time, he’d also had similar blood work done three years earlier. Then, his white blood cell count was 25,000 per microliter. When he came to see us five years later, it was 48,000.20 As Ben told me during our appointment, his Western doctor told him that a fifty percent increase in white blood cells is one indication of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).
According to the National Institutes of Health, CLL is a type of cancer of the white blood cells, called lymphocytes. These cells are found in the bone marrow and other parts of the body. CLL causes a slow increase in a certain type of white blood cells called B lymphocytes, or B cells, which can spread through the blood and bone marrow. CLL can also affect the lymph nodes or other organs such as the Liver and Spleen. In addition to elevated blood count, Ben’s other symptoms of sweating, enlarged lymph nodes, and continuing fatigue are also symptoms of CLL.21
Ben also told me that since his numbers hadn’t quite increased by the requisite fifty percent to warrant Western treatments, he was told to come back in a few months to have his numbers checked. Once they reached 50,000, his doctor said he could start with chemotherapy.22 Ben had seen several members of his close-knit community go through similar treatments for the same condition, and saw first-hand the effects that come with chemo that we discussed earlier. He came to us looking for other options.
CLL fits well with the Chinese understanding of heat. Ben’s night sweats were coming from Yin-deficient heat, as he didn’t have enough coolant to maintain his temperature later in the day. The lumps on his neck were where the heat was concentrating, and the overgrowth of white blood cells was from overstimulation at a cellular level. In particular, blood cancer corresponds very closely to the Eastern diagnosis of heat in the blood. At this stage of progression, the inflammation had reached a deep level. From the tradition in Chinese medicine that specializes in heat, the Wen Bing, this blood heat is a final stage of the progression of sickness.23
As we do with almost all patients, whether they have a relatively mild condition or life-threatening diagnosis, I talked to Ben about his lifestyle. I told him that if he really wanted to give Chinese medicine the opportunity to help, he had to participate in the process. Specifically, he needed to change the parts of his life that were creating heat and cooking off Yin. Being the hard-working man that he was, that meant doing less and resting more.
He agreed to hire more help and reduce his usual sixty- to seventy-hour work week to thirty-five to forty hours. He also agreed to allow his employees to take on more of the demanding work at the farm so he could concentrate on jobs that were less taxing physically. He also agreed to relax more and do less, and increase his sleep from six or seven hours to nine or ten per night. He agreed to eliminate foods that create heat, which for him meant eliminating chicken, while maintaining his strength by eating more pork. He also cut out all processed sugar, as it’s warming and stimulating, and increased foods that were cooling, including a wide variety of leafy green vegetables. In place of the several sodas he was drinking each day, he substituted water and green tea, both of which are cooling.
For the first month, he received acupuncture twice a week, and for the second month, he received treatments weekly. During these eight weeks, he also took a moderately high dose of a Chinese herb formula three times a day to treat heat in the blood, with additions to clear out toxins. The formula included the herbs we discussed earlier that clear out heat and increase coolant—Scrophularia and prepared Rehmannia—as well as ones to clear out toxicity—Scorpion and Centipede.24
After two months of diligent lifestyle changes and consistent acupuncture and herbs, Ben was doing much better. His night sweats were gone completely and the lumps on his neck had decreased significantly. He described how his energy had returned and how the mental fog he had before starting treatment was also greatly improved. He had also lost thirty pounds, returning him to the trim weight he had been in high school. As a sign of the improvements, he told me that he hadn’t felt this good in twenty-five years. His pulse and tongue told a similar story—his heat had decreased significantly and Yin was increasing.
As he felt so much better, he went back for another set of blood tests. Confirming how he felt as well as his Chinese diagnosis, the test results showed very significant positive changes. In eight weeks, his white blood count had gone from 48,000 to below 12,000. This was over a seventy-five percent decrease from his most recent result two months earlier and a fifty percent decrease from his numbers three years earlier, taking him well out of the range of a leukemia diagnosis. According to Ben, his Western physician was so surprised by the results that he ordered another set of blood work, assuming that there must have been a mistake with the testing process. This time, the results after another week of acupuncture and herbs showed a drop of another 300 points.
In addition to the obvious health benefits from his treatment, there were significant economic benefits as well. The total of twelve acupuncture treatments and eight weeks of herbs cost about $1,240. While there are many different forms of chemotherapy to treat CLL with varying costs, a study in The Oncologist states the wholesale price for a twelve- to twenty-six-week treatment cycle of a newer medication is between $35,000 and $120,000. The study also indicates that these amounts don’t include the cost of administering the drug or the price of other medications associated with chemo.25
Additionally, unlike chemotherapy, which often comes with a long list of difficult negative reactions, Ben’s thinking cleared, his night sweats went away, the lumps on his neck decreased, he lost thirty pounds, and he felt better than he had in years. Not only did Chinese medicine address Ben’s heat, which had created the overgrowth of unhealthy cells, its ability to wage peace had many other benefits as well.
The second patient I want to tell you about is Molly, who was in her mid-forties when she came to see us after being diagnosed with breast cancer at about the same time I was working with Ben. She was worried and somewhat scared as we talked about the Western prognosis and how Chinese medicine could be of help.
When I asked Molly what kind of help she was looking for, she responded, “I just want my life back.” Coming from a Western viewpoint, this is understandable. When confronted with something like cancer, one response is to try to create a sense of stability, where we continue with the things we’ve been doing at home, at work, or at school. But from an Eastern view, how we are living often contributes to our diagnosis. In asking Molly about her life and what she wanted to go back to doing, she told me that she often worked long, stressful hours at a hospital, exercised vigorously most days, and was generally a busy person. She also enjoyed drinking wine and coffee each day.
She had discussed the possibility of surgery with her Western doctor but was planning on having radiation and possibly chemotherapy. While I said that Chinese medicine would likely be of significant help with the effects of both chemo and radiation and could assist her before and after surgery, I also wanted to discuss some of the root causes of where the cancer was coming from.
I explained heat, a decrease in Yin, and a loss of latency, encouraging Molly to do less and rest more, as well as to get enough sleep. I also spoke about how it was important with a cancer diagnosis to protect the fluids and not sweat them out. We discussed the vital importance of diet, and the Chinese medicine understanding of how certain foods and drinks were cooling and others warming. In particular, I talked about the stimulating nature of coffee and alcohol and how they’re connected to the overstimulation of unhealthy cells.
After about fifteen minutes, she looked at me again and said, in slightly different words, “I want my life back.” I told her that I understood and agreed to help her as much as I could as she went through her Western treatments. In hindsight, it’s not surprising that Molly only came in for a few treatments and did not agree to take herbs. As she made clear, she was looking to keep things the way they were and get rid of her symptoms. Of course, it’s her right as a patient to decide what treatments she receives and what changes she makes. She was approaching her health care and her cancer diagnosis from the perspective common in the United States and the West—get rid of the problem by killing the cells and possibly cutting out the affected area, while continuing what we’re doing.
In looking at the experiences of Ben and Molly, Ben was committed to changing many parts of his life, including the hours he worked, the amount he slept, what he ate and drank, and how he approached his life. Molly chose to try to maintain her hours at work, her diet, her exercise, and her lifestyle.
While it’s not a value judgment about how they approached their diagnosis, there are clearly consequences to the different responses. From a Chinese medicine perspective, Ben made changes to his life, received acupuncture treatments, and took herbs to treat the root cause of his diagnosis. For Molly, the approach was to continue to create heat, cook off Yin, create toxicity, and then kill off and cut out the results of these root causes.
We have a similar choice with climate change. How we view the increases in emissions, methane bubbling from the ocean floor, and melting permafrost speaks to how we see the crisis. The usual Western discussion of symptoms—from cancer to climate change—involves how to get rid of the problem. With cancer, it’s how we kill the cells that are causing the problem as we get back to our lives. With climate change, it’s how we reduce emissions and sequester more carbon while keeping in place our cultural systems and the beliefs on which they’re based. But just as a significant diagnosis like cancer comes from the condition of our internal environment, climate change comes from deeper issues within us and within our country and culture.
If we engage with the deeper issues of global warming, not only is there the possibility for a stabilization of the climate, but there is also an opportunity for our own healing as well. Just as Ben’s temperature regulated, his thinking cleared, his energy returned, and he lost weight, we could see long-lasting changes to our well-being in our own lives and in our country and culture.
Along with our rapidly warming planet and the extraordinary rates of cancer, there’s another, person-specific way to begin to understand the state of our Yin and Yang. As we’ll talk about next, tongue diagnosis is an accessible method to see concretely the condition of our internal warmth and coolant, and the state of our Five Phases and internal organs.