Cancer and Chinese Medicine - Part 2
By Emma Suttie, D.Ac, AP
Nutrition - The Biggest Weapon Against Cancer
It is always amazing to me that patients receiving conventional treatments for cancer (chemotherapy and radiation) are given little to no information about what to eat. I know because I always ask if there was any nutritional counseling that went with the other therapies and more often than not, the answer is no. This shows an alarming lack of understanding about how important what we eat is to our health, and especially in the case of cancer.
I think that the correlation between what we eat and our overall health is understood by many industries, and certainly by many informed people, but the cancer industry (and I say that because it has turned into an industry), seems to be decades behind. Now, without getting into why that might be (which would be a whole other article), let's just say that there is a tonne of evidence to suggest that our food can both give us cancer and help keep us healthy so that we never get cancer. Food is also a powerful weapon in detoxing the body and healing from a cancer that already exists.
Foods to Avoid
Sugar
In my opinion, the number one thing to know concerning diet and cancer is to stop eating sugar. Completely. It is literally the food that cancer eats. The tests that Western medicine uses to find and diagnose cancer in the body, called PET (Positron Emission Tomography) and CT (Computed Tomography) scans, actually inject glucose - a type of sugar - and watch the cancer gravitate to it because sugar is what cancer eats. Eliminating sugar from your diet is the most important thing to do if you are either struggling with cancer, or having health issues in general. Sugar is a poison to the body, and most people in the developed world eat far too much of it. Now, let me be clear, I am talking about refined sugar which is in a huge amount of our foods, especially processed foods. There are naturally occurring sugars in things like fruits, and although we need some of these, it is a good idea to cut back when you are trying to heal from cancer. Refined foods of all types should be avoided whenever possible, and refined sugar is the worst of all.
Chemicals
We also have seen an unprecedented increase in the number of chemicals used in our foods, many of which are untested on human beings and cause harm to not only us, but pollute the earth we live on, the water we drink and the air we breathe. Our food becomes more and more processed all the time with the addition of these dangerous chemicals, and our bodies are not designed to deal with them. There are also the dizzying amounts of chemicals in other products that we use in our homes, like makeup and personal care products, soaps and detergents, cleaning products, gardening products, etc.. not to mention toxic chemicals that are the byproducts of industries which are released into our soil, water and air.
It is a good idea BEFORE you get sick to have a look at how many of these chemicals you have in your home and are coming into contact with on a daily basis so that you can eliminate any that are not absolutely necessary. I would always recommend eating fresh, local, organic food (more about that below), using completely natural beauty and personal care products free of toxic ingredients, make sure the water you are drinking is as clean as possible and limit any environmental toxins that you can. All these toxins combine to place a huge burden on our immune systems which we need to be at full strength to keep us disease free.
Eat Real Food
Because of the philosophy of living as harmoniously with nature as possible, this obviously bleeds into the foods we consume as well. I believe that many of our current health problems as a society are due to the UN-natural nature of the foods that we eat. Small farms are disappearing and being replaced by large-scale factory farms, our soil is depleted of essential vitamins and nutrients, and men in hazmat suits spray toxic herbicides and fungicides on the foods we are supposed to confidently feed our families. It is becoming increasingly difficult to even understand food labels, and corporations spend billions of dollars to keep what is actually IN our foods off the labels, which is certainly a worrying trend and not designed to make us feel confident about what is being put into our food.
My solution is to keep it simple. Eat as few processed foods as possible (this means anything in a box or can that has been altered from its natural state), eat as many fresh, local and organic foods as possible. Keep your diet mostly plant-based, especially if you have cancer. If possible, grow as much of your food as you can in a backyard or front yard garden. Vertical gardens are awesome for this! If you have limited space or live in an apartment, make friends with a local farmer, or frequent a farmers market. Also, take time to lovingly prepare meals for you and your family. Energetically, this is important too. Be mindful and thankful to the food you are eating for sharing its life force with you. Being grateful is also a powerful tool and beneficial to your health and the way you feel.
Acid & Alkaline Foods
Disease thrives in an acidic environment and cancer is no exception. As a culture, we eat a disproportionate amount of acidic foods (as you will probably see the list below) and precious few alkaline ones. Use the information below as a guide and a good way to begin is to slowly start replacing acidic foods with alkaline ones. It may seem hard at first (because who doesn't love a burger every once in a while?), but you will soon notice how much better you will feel, as that you will no longer have the cravings for the fatty, sugary foods that are so acid forming once they have been out of your system for a while. I promise you will definitely feel a difference!
Acidic Foods
**Note - there are different ways to measure the acidity and alkalinity of foods, but this one - from Energise for Life - makes the distinction of measuring a foods acidity and alkalinity AFTER it has been ingested - therefore, how it is affecting your body. If you would like to have a copy of a good few charts detailing acid and alkaline foods, you can find them here - Energise For Life.
Below is a list of acidic foods. If dealing with cancer, cut out as many of these as possible (I would recommend ALL) and introduce alkaline foods as an alternative. Remember, cancer thrives in an acidic environment.
Acidic Foods
Look yummy? *sigh*, I know. But these foods are highly acidic. Try eating some cucumber instead!
MEAT
- Bacon
- Beef
- Clams
- Corned Beef
- Eggs
- Lamb
- Lobster
- Mussels
- Organ Meats
- Venison
- Fish
- Oyster
- Pork
- Rabbit
- Sausage
- Scallops
- Shellfish
- Shrimp
- Tuna
- Turkey
- Veal
DAIRY & EGGS
- Butter
- Cheese
- Milk
- Whey
- Yogurt
- Nuts & Seeds!
- Cashews
- Peanuts
- Pecans
- Pistachios
- Walnuts
- Brazil Nuts
- Chestnuts
- Hazelnuts
- Macadamia Nuts
- Oils!
- Cooked Oil
- Solid Oil (Margarine)
- Oil Exposed to Heat,
- Light or Air
- Cottage Cheese
- Ice Cream
- Sour Cream
- Soy Cheese
- Eggs
FRUIT
- Apple
- Apricot
- Currants
- Dates
- Grapes
- Mango
- Peach
- Pear
- Prunes
- Raisins
- Raspberries
- Strawberries
- Tropical Fruits
- Berries
- Cantaloupe
- Cranberries
- Currants
- Honeydew Melon
- Orange
- Pineapple
- Plum
NUTS & SEEDS
- Cashews
- Peanuts
- Pecans
- Pistachios
- Walnuts
- Brazil Nuts
- Chestnuts
- Hazelnuts
- Macadamia Nuts
DRINKS
- Alcohol
- Black Tea
- Coffee
- Carbonated Water
- Pasteurized Juice
- Cocoa
- Energy Drinks
- Sports Drinks
- Colas
- Tap Water
- Milk
- Green Tea
- Decaffeinated Drinks
- Flavoured Water
SWEETENERS
- Artificial Sweeteners
- Carob
- Corn Syrup
- Fructose
- Processed Sugar
- Saccharine
- Sucrose
- Sucralose
- Honey
- Maple Syrup
OILS
- Cooked Oil
- Solid Oil (Margarine)
- Oil Exposed to Heat,
- Light or Air
SAUCES
- Mayonnaise
- Ketchup
- Mustard
- Soy Sauce
- Pickles
- Vinegar
- Tabasco
- Tamari
- Wasabi
OTHER
- Mushrooms
- Miso
- White Breads, Pastas,
- Rice & Noodles
- Chocolate
- Chips
- Pizza
- Biscuits
- Cigarettes
- Drugs
- Candy
Alkaline Foods
Some super yummy alkaline foods. They look fresh, cleansing and delicious, don't they? ;)
VEGETABLES
- Asparagus
- Broccoli
- Chilli
- Capsicum/Pepper
- Courgette/Zucchini
- Dandelion
- Snow Peas
- Green Beans
- String Beans
- Runner Beans
- Spinach
- Kale
- Wakame
- Kelp
- Collards
- Chives
- Endive
- Chard
- Cabbage
- Sweet Potato
- Coriander
- Basil
- Brussels Sprouts
- Cauliflower
- Carrot
- Beetroot
- Eggplant/Aubergine
- Garlic
- Onion
- Parsley
- Celery
- Cucumber
- Watercress
- Lettuce
- Peas
- Broad Beans
- New Potato
- Pumpkin
- Radish
FRUIT
- Avocado
- Tomato
- Lemon
- Grapefruit
- Fresh Coconut
GRAINS & BEANS
- Amaranth
- Buckwheat
- Brown Rice
- Chia/Salba
- Kamut
- Millet
- Quinoa
- Spelt
- Nuts & Seeds!
- Almonds
- Coconut
- Flax Seeds
- Pumpkin Seeds
- Sesame Seeds
- Sunflower Seeds
- Oils!
- Avocado Oil
- Coconut Oil
- Flax Oil
- Udo’s Oil
- Olive Oil
- Lentils
- Lima Beans
- Mung Beans
- Navy Beans
- Pinto Beans
- Red Beans
- Soy Beans
- White Beans
GRASSES
- Wheatgrass
- Barley Grass
- Kamut Grass
- Dog Grass
- Shave Grass
- Oat Grass
NUTS & SEEDS
- Almonds
- Coconut
- Flax Seeds
- Pumpkin Seeds
- Sesame Seeds
- Sunflower Seeds
OILS
- Avocado Oil
- Coconut Oil
- Flax Oil
- Udo’s Oil
- Olive Oil
BREADS
- Sprouted Bread
- Sprouted Wraps
- Gluten/Yeast Free
- Breads & Wraps
SPROUTS
- Soy Sprouts
- Alfalfa Sprouts
- Amaranth Sprouts
- Broccoli Sprouts
- Fenugreek Sprouts
- Kamut Sprouts
- Mung Bean Sprouts
- Qionoa Sprouts
- Radish Sprouts
- Spelt Sprouts
This comprehensive list of acid and alkaline foods came from a great chart I found from energiseforlife.com There is an 8 page PDF that you may download with more information which can be found here - Acid & Alkaline Food Information.
Water
Water is also something that I don't think people think about enough in terms of health. I think there is a misconception that if we are drinking bottled water and not water out of the tap that we are somehow safe from many pollutants that may be in our waterways and make their way into water processing plants. Unfortunately, this has been shown not to be true, and many bottled waters' are just as unhealthy as drinking straight out of the tap. If you must drink tap water, find out from your local city or town, what they are adding to it. Is there flouride in it? What levels of certain contaminants are acceptable as far as they are concerned? Do some research. If you have a water filtration system, again, do your research and get one that filters out as many undesirable chemicals as possible. Water is incredibly important for our health and it is worth the effort to be drinking the healthiest and cleanest water possible. The good news is, that there are many good water filtration systems out there that will allow you to enjoy clean, healthy water which is essential for a strong, healthy body.
Emotions
Expressing emotions freely is just as important to our health as a strong, flexible body.
I really feel that the emotions do not get enough attention or recognition for the role they play in our health. This is another area that seems often entirely left out of the diagnostic as well as the healing process in Western medicine. In Chinese medicine, the emotions are just as important as what is physically happening in our bodies. The two are inseparable and when someone is going through the intake process with a doctor of Chinese medicine, there are a lot of questions inquiring about a person's emotional life. You may be wondering how much of a role the emotions can play in a disease as devastating as cancer. My answer is - a HUGE one.
In my experience with my own cancer patients, the emotions are often where it starts. Complex and serious diseases often begin with extremely stressful, difficult, and emotionally devastating events that the body is simply not able to cope with. Preceding almost every case of serious disease I have treated, there was either one or a series of extremely stressful/emotional or difficult events that the patient had to contend with. I have made this observation over and over again. The body can handle a lot, but it has its limits, and the way we live along with the pressures and stresses we are under often are too much for our bodies and psyches to bear which can result in disease and illness.
In terms of how this relates to the emotions I want to be clear, it is not HAVING emotions that can make us sick, in Chinese medicine, it is how we deal with our emotions that is the key. In modern culture, at least in North America, we are not taught what I like to call "emotional intelligence". We spend decades in school learning how to live in this world, but I find that so many of the most important things that we need to be healthy and happy in our lives are missing. How to express our emotions in a healthy way is one of them. This expression is important not only to our health but to our happiness and well-being as well. So often our emotions can come out in hurtful or destructive ways to ourselves or the people around us, or worse, they are held in where they fester and eventually turn into disease. So, find healthy ways to express the emotions you are having. Write, talk to a friend, acknowledge them, process them in a healthy way and let them go. They are taking up precious space, that, once they are dealt with and let go, can be replaced with lovely things like love and light, happiness and feelings of joy and gratitude.
Managing Stress
Stress is something we hear about a lot and I believe is also a huge factor is our health and well-being. Stress is something I ask every single patient about both in our initial consultation, and at almost every visit. I give it a one to ten scale and ask patients to rate where their stress is in relation to that scale. Most people are at the top end, and many have become resigned to living there. Stress is difficult to avoid, but what we do have control over is how we deal with it. Managing the stress we are feeling is the key, not eliminating it altogether. I am not even sure if that is possible considering the world we live in. I have seen patients doing everything right - eating the right foods, exercising, sleeping enough, really taking care of themselves and still they get sick. Those cases very often lead back to stress. You can't work hard to eat well and live a healthy lifestyle but be in an unhealthy relationship that is driving you crazy or going to a job that you hate every day and still expect to be the picture of health. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work like that. In Chinese medicine, as in life, it is all about balance.
One of my keys to managing stress is meditating. Now the thought of meditating can be intimidating for some people and I understand that. This doesn't mean having to give up all your worldly possessions, shaving your head and going to live in a cave in the Himalayas. That is totally cool if that is how you want to do it, but what I am talking about for the rest of us is just taking some time for yourself every day to sit quietly and try to empty your thoughts. In our hectic, modern lives, we hardly ever get a chance to do this. Stop. Listen. Relax. Breathe deeply. Meditating is like a gift you give yourself. It benefits your brain, your nervous system, your heart and your psyche. Think of it as preventative medicine. I think we all need to start thinking about medicine and health differently and Chinese medicine can teach us how to do it. Do small things every day. Tend your garden (the body and spirit), and disease will never develop. Disease cannot thrive in a healthy garden.
If you would like to read about a bit of a hardcore immersion into meditation (and the amazing benefits that it yielded) you can read about my two intense Vipassana meditation retreat experiences. They are not quite the shaving your head and disappearing into the Himalayas, but they were definitely the most intense meditation experiences I have ever had. They were also the most edifying and positively life-changing experiences of my life.
Cancer and Chinese Medicine - Part 1
By Emma Suttie, D.Ac, AP
Cancer and Chinese Medicine
I get a lot of people writing to me, telling me that someone they love has been diagnosed with cancer and asking if there is anything Chinese medicine can do. This is a good question, but it has a complex answer. It means looking at a disease like cancer in a completely different way than we have all been taught to look at it through the eyes of science, which is difficult especially if the world science is all you have ever known.
To begin a discussion about cancer and Chinese medicine, we must first gain an understanding of where Chinese medicine came from, the philosophy behind it, and a little bit about how it works. Let us begin.
The Proliferation of Cancer in Modern Society
For at least the last fifty years there seems to have been an explosion in cancers, especially in industrialized nations. According to the American Cancer Society, there will be 1,688,780 new cancer cases diagnosed and 600,920 cancer deaths in the US in 2017. According to a WHO report, there has been an alarming increase in cancer rates all over the world. The report also states that:
"Globally, life expectancy has increased from 45 years in 1950 to 66 years in 2000, but the population of the world is aging rapidly—the median age will have risen from 23.5 years in 1950 to 36.5 years in 2050. By 2050, more than 20 percent of the population will be 60 years and over, versus 10 percent in 2000. By comparison, the number of cancer deaths increased by 35 percent during the period 1985-1997. The report states that “[w]hile extending life expectancy is desirable in itself, it is equally important that increased expectancy is accompanied by freedom from any prospect of years of suffering as a consequence of chronic diseases, pain or disability.”
Why is There So Much Cancer?
Why is this? Why has there been such an apparent increase in the numbers of people getting cancer in the world? Perhaps our diagnostic methods have gotten better, and there is certainly truth in that. Perhaps people are taking better care of their health and going for regular checkups more than they have in past years and that is also probably true. But would these factors account for the explosive numbers of cancer diagnoses in the past half a century?
Living in an Unhealthy Way
In my experience and opinion, these are not the main factors contributing to the huge numbers of cancer being diagnosed every year, it is the way we are LIVING. And what you may ask, do I mean by that? Well, that is what I am going to try to tell you. Most human beings on this planet, save a few communities scattered around the world, are living in a way that is not conducive to health. This lifestyle becomes more toxic every year resulting in more disease, mental health problems, addictions, violent crimes, and suicides. We are an unhealthy and deeply unhappy culture.
Chinese Medicine and the Importance of Lifestyle
Our culture, with its ambitions, innovation, and reliance on technology as well as its obsession with bigger, faster and MORE has largely become disconnected from the way we were designed to live on this planet. We have, as a people, become disconnected from our true nature. This idea goes far beyond the reaches of Chinese medicine, this is a human being issue that touches each and every one of us regardless of religion, race, gender or nationality. But for the purposes of this discussion, let us talk about Chinese medicine, and how it views the human being and how it is designed to live in a harmonious and healthy way. I feel like the name Chinese medicine really limits the seemingly endless wisdom that encompasses what it represents. People think, oh yes, Chinese medicine means things like acupuncture and smelly herbs, but in fact, Chinese medicine grew out of Eastern philosophy that had been explored and understood for thousands of years, a wisdom that many people seldom encounter in their day to day lives. Lao Tzu, the Chinese philosopher credited with developing Taoism (or Daoism) is where much of Chinese medicine wisdom springs from. In Taoist philosophy, the person is connected to every other living creature, the planet and the universe itself. They are all one energy and indivisible. You cannot separate them into parts, or you would be hurting the sum total. Whatever happens to one part, also happens to the whole.
this incredible illustration from theawesomedaily.com
Our Relationship with Nature
What people have been doing (and only really for about the last 10,000 years, starting after the beginning of agriculture by then hunter gatherers), is that we decided in our wisdom that we did not belong in the throng with the rest of the plants and animals, living harmoniously within the perfectly balanced web of life. We began to have delusions of grandeur and wanted more for ourselves. It was at this point in history that people removed themselves from the food chain and started to grow crops, and begin to have more than they needed. This move also began a long descent into a relationship with nature that was no longer symbiotic and mutually beneficial, human beings began to try to dominate and control nature for their own personal gain.
A Medicine of Prevention
According to the philosophy behind Chinese medicine, a person doesn’t wait until they get sick in order to correct the illness. This philosophy teaches a way of life. The philosophy is intensely pragmatic, understanding (in a way that many modern people have forgotten) that living in a healthy way, or preventatively, is a much better approach to health that waiting until things become catastrophic (i.e., a disease) to correct the problem. So how did Chinese people live preventatively? Well, for the sake of explanation I love to use the analogy from the wonderful book Between Heaven and Earth - that the body is like a garden. You must tend your garden for it to flourish and grow. You must go out into your garden every day, pull weeds, water and inspect your plants to see what the garden needs. Small changes every day are much easier than large changes every few years, often when it is too late. This, in a nutshell, is the philosophy of Chinese medicine and part of what makes it so effective. That said, because of the ways that Chinese medicine describe the body, the organs, qi and their relationships, it is also excellent for correcting diseases when they do arise, and this is why it is so effective, even after 5000 years, at treating modern diseases in the Western world.
Waiting Until It's Too Late
In the West, we tend to wait until something is quite wrong before we seek medical attention. We wait until something hurts, there is a pain we can no longer ignore, a lump or some other symptom before we go to the doctor to get it checked out. We are not taught the value of living in a healthy, balanced way and instead, we rely on doctors, surgeons, and pharmaceuticals to cure our ills when they come up. It is a different approach, and we are not entirely to blame because it is the way we were taught by our parents before us and that thinking is galvanized by advertising as well as the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry. This reliance on medications and complex surgeries seems to have increased also in the past fifty years (and is increasing all the time) as we become more and more disconnected from nature, each other and ourselves. In a country like the United States where people spend more than any other country on health care, they are some of the sickest people on the planet. Do you see something wrong there? In a PBS newshour report published in July of 2016, the United States saw a rise in healthcare spending that reached a mind boggling $3.35 trillion dollars which works out to $10,345 for every man woman and child. The report also stated that US healthcare spending is wildly unbalanced reporting that about 5% of the population, which encompasses the most frail and ill, accounts for nearly half of all healthcare spending in any given year.
this amazing illustration from theawesomedaily.com
A Healthy Way of Life
To give a brief overview of the “way of life” that the Taoists were talking about and Chinese peoples subscribe to, as I said above, Chinese medicine is a medicine of prevention. This means that there is a constant awareness of what is happening in (and out of) the body and that you learn to really LISTEN to what your body is trying to tell you. Does this sound strange? It may, but your body talks to you all the time. Consider your last headache after a long stressful day, pains in your stomach when you knew you had a presentation at work, the hair that stood up on the back of your neck when that person got on the bus behind you, the sense you got that maybe you shouldn’t eat that piece of sushi… there are all ways that your body speaks to you. And it is speaking to you all the time. Are you listening?
Living in Harmony with Nature
Because the Chinese were living in a way that was much more in tune with their natural environment, the way they lived changed in subtle ways according to the seasons. The foods they ate, their daily activities including how much and when they slept and how much physical activity was appropriate were ways in which they were able to stay healthy. Foods were eaten that were available at that particular time of year and grown locally, as these were the healthiest according to Mother Nature and her wisdom, and the people recognized this. The amount of sleep a person would strive for depended on how much energy would be exerted during the day. If a persons energy was to be conserved (as in winter) or expressed freely (as in summer). Internal practices were also important as things like Qi Gong and Tai Chi were a way to keep the body and mind supple and agile well into old age. 5000 years ago there was no retirement, a person had to work until they were no longer able, so keeping your body and mind in the best shape possible was the main motivation.
The Importance of Emotions
Another thing and this is unique to Chinese medicine and very different from how we view health in the West, was and is the importance of the emotions. A healthy emotional life was just as important as a strong, flexible body. The emotional life of a human being is complex, just as complex, it seems, as the workings of the human body. And being emotionally healthy has a great deal to do with a person's overall health. The fascinating part is that in Chinese medicine each emotion is associated with a specific organ so that an imbalance in that emotion can point to a problem in its respective organ and vice versa, an imbalance in an organ can point to problems with a particular emotion. It is all interrelated. So, being able to understand, and freely express emotions was and are an important part of overall health.
this image from huffingtonpost.com
Chinese Medicine and the Organs
Without getting too deep (because we could get so SO deep into this), let me explain a little bit about how the organs work in Chinese medicine and how important they are in the process of diagnosis. One thing that is important to note, is that the organs in Chinese medicine have very little similarity with the organs and their functions in Western medicine. This causes a lot of confusion when explaining things to patients so it is good to clear that up right away. There are certainly some similarities, but there are far more things that are completely different and unique to the organs in Chinese medicine. The organs in Chinese medicine each have a list of responsibilities. Processes in the body that they are responsible for. The organs are also, all connected. So, if there is a problem with one, then you must look at them all to discover where the root of the problem lies. This is another unique feature of Chinese medicine, is that everything is connected and nothing, be it physical, emotional or spiritual, exists in isolation. This is why as a practitioner, you have to have a very solid understanding of, well everything before you can begin to understand anything that might be happening to your patient. Our intake procedure and questioning are thorough and complex, and this is why.
How Symptoms Point to Specific Organs
Knowing each organ, its associated emotion and its list of responsibilities help one to understand what might be going wrong when problems arise. If someone is struggling with the loss of a spouse and having lung symptoms, in Chinese medicine, this would make perfect sense, as grief is the emotion of the lung. If a particularly angry person comes in with symptoms of red eyes, headache and bitter taste in their mouth, this would point to excess heat in the liver as anger is this organs corresponding emotion. Understanding the connection that the organs have to each other is also important as an excess or deficiency in one can spill over to the next in the cycle, affecting it adversely. Time also is very relevant, as the longer an imbalance has been active, the worse the imbalance will become, creating more severe symptoms and being more difficult to correct.
Location is Important
In a disease like cancer, we are always looking at where the cancer has been found which can tell us a lot about why it has come about in the first place. It is because of the way Chinese medicine sees the organs, their responsibilities, and their interrelationships that the location is so important. In treating my own patients with cancer, it became obvious after the initial consultations why the cancer had presented itself. Often, in listening to a patient's history it is clear that there have been particularly severe stresses on either the body, the psyche or both that have pushed the body to its breaking point, and cancer is the result. There is also often a long history of signs and symptoms that the patient has had but has either not been aware of or unable (or unwilling) to deal with for various reasons.
Having an understanding of the philosophy of Chinese medicine and the organs and their functions can do a lot to help you to stay healthy, and be able to recognize warning signs; ways that your body is telling you that something is not right. Cancer in many cases is the result of many years of imbalance that started small, building into something larger and more complex and thus, is more difficult to treat.
Resources
WHO report - increase in cancer rates: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/04/canc-a26.html
The Nocebo Effect
By Emma Suttie D.Ac, AP
What Is The Nocebo Effect?
Have you ever heard of the "nocebo effect"? The nocebo effect is basically the opposite of the placebo effect. Lets define both terms.
The placebo effect is a measurable, observable or felt improvement in health or behaviour which is not attributable to a medication or any procedure that has been administered to the patient.
The nocebo effect is an opposite tendency - and one that has been largely overlooked by the medical/research community. Put simply, the nocebo effect is the phenomenon in which inert substances, suggestions of substances or the words of a medical professional can actually bring about negative effects in a patient or research participant.
The Nocebo Effect And Cancer
The nocebo effect is real and very powerful. I have seen it in action in my practice and in my patients. Nowhere is the nocebo effect more noticeable than with my cancer patients. And in those cases, it was elicited simply with words. Patients aren't feeling well and go in to the doctor to try to ascertain what is happening. There is testing and then a doctor's visit to discuss the results. In the session, the doctor tells the patient that they have found something irregular, and that it is cancer. They are told where the cancer is and at what stage it is at according to the staging system which is comprised of four stages. The stages help the doctor to determine the appropriateness and aggressiveness of the treatment required and determine the prognosis, or outcome for the patient. Stage four is the last and most serious stage, meaning that the initial cancer or tumor has spread to other parts of the body (metastasis). And in these discussions, something often happens. The oncologist will tell the patient how long they have left to live or can expect to survive. This is usually *if* they start treatment right away. If they refuse treatment or ask for some time to consider the options, they are often told that the clock is ticking and that they are wasting precious time because death, is racing towards them.
Cancer is the extreme example because it evokes such an intense fear response. No one wants to receive a cancer diagnosis, because in many cases they believe that it is literally a death sentence. The truth is, that we are all living with cancer in our bodies every day, and if our immune systems are healthy, then we are fighting it off on a regular basis. It is when the system gets out of balance due to various factors like extreme stress, poor nutrition and sedentary lifestyle that we are no longer able to fight off disease causing agents in the body and things like cancer can develop. The other thing that is important to remember, is that many cancers take between 5-12 years to develop to the point where they are measurable with modern medical equipment.
The Power of the Word
I am not sure if most of us realize how incredibly powerful words can be. The nocebo effect is a clear illustration of their destructive power. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the placebo effect does not only have to be medications, treatments or procedures that have a beneficial effect, it can be the words themselves that do the healing in the body and the psyche. There is a wonderful book that talks about this concept in detail called The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. It is definitely worth a read. In the book it talks about the importance of being impeccable with your word, which means being very careful with what you say, as words can create destruction as well as joy in the person they are being said to (and in the person saying them).
While I was writing my thesis in my last year of Chinese medicine school I read a lot of books on the power of the mind and its ability to heal the body (I wrote about the mind/body connection and how it related to healing). In my reading I discovered many documented cases of people who had been unknowingly living with cancer for many years, and it wasn't until they got diagnosed that they got sick and died. This got me thinking about the power of words and how important it was to be responsible with my own. In another book I read about how, in some experiments with olympic athletes, they had hooked them up to electrodes that measured their brain activity and muscle activity simultaneously. The athletes were asked to visualize themselves doing their events in their minds. The thing the scientists discovered was that the muscles that they would be using to do their events were firing as if they were actually doing them which led them to conclude that the mind doesn't know the difference between actually running an event, and visualizing it. What is happening physiologically can be profoundly affected by our thoughts and emotions, which is something that I believe Western or allopathic medicine is just beginning to recognize.
The Nocebo Effect And Chinese Medicine
In Chinese medicine the nocebo effect is well understood. Not by that name, but the integration of all aspects of a person's being in how it relates to health and wellness are built into the foundation of the medicine. The nocebo effect is a Western term for a phenomenon that the Chinese have understood for thousands of years. Words like "cancer" don't exist in Chinese medicine, they are a result of a long term imbalance in the system. When things have been out of balance for so long that disease develops, cancer can be the result. In the office of a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner you will discuss many lifestyle options when it comes to your diagnosis and treatment. An extremely detailed initial consultation is one of the ways in which the practitioner can determine where the imbalances lie. The more information that is gathered, the more detailed the entire picture of what is going on with the patient. And, the more information about the patient and how the imbalance was created, the better and more targeted the diagnosis and treatment. One of the reasons that Chinese medicine is still so effective after thousands of years, even for diseases that are attributed to modern living, is that is is based on principles that don't change. The effect of our physical, psychological and emotional lives all have an impact on our health. What we eat, how much we exercise, how well we sleep... these are the pillars on to which our health and wellbeing are built. And each person is given a thorough intake and therefore receives a very personalized diagnosis and treatment. Cancer is one diagnosis, but there are a million reasons that cancer can develop. It is the job of the TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) practitioner to determine WHY you have that cancer and give you recommendations and lifestyle advice along with acupuncture, Chinese herbs and other modalities to help your body to heal itself. The TCM practitioner believes in the body's innate ability to heal itself if it is given everything it needs to do so. They are your partners, helping you to find the balance that will bring you back to ultimate health, harmony and happiness.
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References
Smithsonian - www.smithsonianmag.com
The Nocebo Effect : Chinese Medicine Living