- See 3rd post.
- Natural therapeutics (herbs, foods, etc.). They include natural materials from plants, animals, minerals, and microbes (mushrooms included), among others. But they don’t include drugs produced by synthesis which invariably carry with them toxic impurities that include intermediates, toxic reagents, and/or byproducts that are hidden in the ‘pure’ chemical drugs, normally expressed as 98% to 102% purity, which is never 100.00% pure. I have discussed the issue of toxic impurities hidden in modern synthetic drugs in my books and other writings, such as online, on my blog. I don’t believe these impurities (no matter in what quantities present) have ever been tested in humans. If you have contrary information, I’d love to hear from you. These might have been tested on receptors or small animals, and then the results were projected onto humans. Testing them on some isolated receptors, chemicals, or cells in vivo certainly doesn’t translate onto our living and extremely organized and well-functioning body. This reminds me of Dr. Albert Hofmann. He was the famous chemist at Sandoz of Switzerland who, 50 years ago, was the first to have isolated the hallucinogen, psilocybin, from a Magic Mushroom of Mexico. At the time I was a graduate student at Michigan, Ann Arbor, working on cultivating a North American hallucinogenic mushroom (Psilocybe baeocystis) in submerged culture and isolating 2 new sister compounds of psilocybin from its fungal tissue, whose chemical structures I determined and named baeocystin & norbaeocystin. I met Dr. Hofmann a couple of times at meetings or conferences and remember his story of trying a tiny little bit of a synthetic compound that he had synthesized, shortly before he went home one day. That chemical was LSD! He certainly had an unexpected trip riding home on his bicycle that day! What I am trying to say is there are two major systems of discovering and developing therapeutics – the scientific but uncertain way and the human empirical, trial-and-true way. What Dr. Hofmann took was maybe only micrograms of LSD, but that would be enough to give him a trip. The chemical (ergotamine) from which he synthesized the LSD is a drug for migraine and related headaches used in doses of a few milligrams (or thousands of micrograms) each time. The LSD made from it has much stronger effects in a different way, not necessarily in relieving migraine. I believe the in vitro and in vivo testing microcosm won’t be able to predict that effect, nor will it work as well as actual human experience. Only time will tell. However, for natural therapeutics, our herbs and foods have already gone through the tried-and-true process. The fact that we know what herbs or foods are safe to eat should serve as evidence that the process for natural therapeutics is far ahead of the modern ‘scientific’ process. For synthetic drugs, we won’t have the verdict for who knows how long, decades, centuries, or millennia? Shouldn’t we reset our thinking in modern drug discovery and development? And start looking at traditional medicines that have already gone through the process, not just for 2 or 3 decades, but for millennia? Using natural therapeutics can start to complement our current toxic drugs and help mitigate their toxic effects. To my drug colleagues, please point out what you see as wrong in my thinking in terms of science and common sense. To be clear and impartial in your thinking, please temporarily step outside the vicious cycle of drugs (which financially benefits only the greedy) and put yourself in the shoes of the health- and financially oppressed public.
There are two subgroups of natural therapeutics within the herb/food domain. They are tonics and fashi or fawu (or food ‘taboos’). Many people outside of China may have heard of tonic herbs, but few may know what they mean. Tonic herbs are loosely defined as natural materials, mostly botanicals, that double as both medicine and food, depending on usage. Thus, ginseng tea (Asian or American) can be drunk either as a medicine or simply as a beverage. Same with astragalus root, goji berries, Schisandra berries, and danggui (Chinese angelica root). They can be taken as medicine or as food. From modern research performed over recent decades, these tonic herbs all have some the following biological functions – antioxidant, immune-system modulating, anti-inflammatory, and anti-allergic, among others. These and their formulas have been often described in my latest book, My Life & Rollercoaster Career.
The other subgroup consists of mostly foods and tonic herbs that are generally used as foods with certain other specific foods. While my sisters and I were growing up under Grandma’s traditional medical care, we learned the very basics of Chinese medicine, including cooling versus warming herbs, yin versus yang herbs, detoxifying herbs, tonic herbs, and what to use in warm or qi-deficient conditions, among others. There are some herbs and foods that should not be used with one another. For a more detailed description, read pp. 228-229 of my My Life & Rollercoaster Career (from my newsletter, Issue 5, January 1997) reproduced below:
A NOTE FROM DR. LEUNG
One of the things I learned while growing up in a cosmopolitan city like Hong Kong is the contrast between East and West in treating illnesses. We learned early on that illnesses are closely related to our diet. When we are ill, we need to watch what we take into our body. For example, according to Cantonese tradition, if one has a fever or a “hot” condition (such as canker sores, blood-shot eyes, bad breath and dry and hoarse throat), one should avoid warming foods or herbs, such as lamb, beef, Asian ginseng, chili pepper, cinnamon, and other strong spices. On the other hand, cooling foods or herbs are just what one needs for such a condition, which include American ginseng, watercress, kudzu root, mung bean, and bean curd. In contrast, when one is treated by modern Western medicine, except on extremely rare occasions, one is allowed to eat anything because modern medicine does not believe in food taboos as they have no “scientific” rationale. Since I have grown up in a traditional Chinese environment and received a solid Western scientific education, I have always been torn between tradition and science regarding this issue. We rarely took any modern drugs while we were growing up but on the few occasions that I did, I wholeheartedly endorsed the Western way because it allowed me to eat my favorite foods. I was certainly guilty of expediency. But I was young. For a long while, up until several years after I obtained my doctorate, I leaned towards modern medicine, even though all the time my traditional upbringing was prominent in the back of my mind. Then, as I learned more about the deficiencies of modern medicine and of drug treatment, the voice of my background and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) started to speak louder to me. Now, I am convinced that both conventional Western medicine and TCM have strong points and weak points and they can coexist to serve us well. Nevertheless, I have a healthy skepticism towards both systems, especially when proponents of each often try to outdo the other. But in reality, there is no need to do so, as there is plenty of room for each to exercise its good. Getting back to food taboos. I think it won’t hurt for one to be open minded about it. Here is a little “scientific evidence” I recently came across in my files to support food taboos.30 It is by no means a quality report, but the results intrigued me.
In a brief report from the Department of Surgery of Jiaxing Municipal No. 1 Hospital of Zhejiang Province, the incidence of postoperative infection was evaluated among 4,357 patients who underwent surgery between 1978 and 1982. Among the 2,171 patients who observed food taboos, i.e., eating only mild and plain foods and not eating so-called fashi or fawu (nutritious foods that cause the “flare up” of certain diseased conditions, such as chicken soup, fish, shrimp, crab, mutton, green onions, and jiucai or Allium odorum), only 71 had infections. In contrast, among the 2,186 patients who maintained a normal diet after surgery, 191 had experienced infections. The difference was almost threefold! I personally think it is worthwhile to investigate this type of food taboo further in a more controlled manner. And I don’t think it is difficult to design a good protocol for this either. After all, the terms fashi and fawu are not recently made-up terms; they have been around for centuries, a result of practical human experience with diet and diseases.31 According to Chinese diet taboos, “nutritious” foods (yes, chicken soup included!) do not necessarily suit all occasions; some actually aggravate certain diseased conditions. This is something modern nutritionists should heed.
30. J .J. Ying et al., “The Clinical Significance of Food Taboos in Surgery,” Zhongxiyi Jiehe Zazhi, 5(7): 439(1985).
31. J Huang, “Preliminary Evaluation of Fawu,” Zhongguo Zhongyao Zazhi, 17(9): 563-565(1992).