Cell Biology and Cancer

How sophisticated is our understanding of cancer?

I feel like our understanding of cancer is not that sophisticated,  especially in the U.S. I think it's such a complex disease and is constantly changing, so it's difficult to know exactly how it works and its an ongoing battle to be able to determine what will treat it. The article "Is America better at treating cancer than Europe" is such an eye opener. I think as Americans, we pride ourselves on how great everything is. In reality, we probably just have this sense that it's great, but look at the results! America is ranked 11th out of 11 other developed countries. We spend the most on health care, yet it seems that our overall health care is horrible for the average person.  Through this, we can tell that our understanding is very small. While it is constantly growing, I think it will be a continual learning process. 

How does a TCM approach to cancer differ?

The TCM approach to cancer is a bit different in some ways, yet similar in other ways.  In modern Chinese hospitals, when cancer patients have western treatments, it's often combined with herbal medicine and acupuncture to help maintain the person's overall health.  In western hospitals, they just undergo treatment and are sent home to rest.  In TCM, qi is an essential part of health.  Weak qi leads to illness.  When there is no qi, the person would essentially be dead.  PET scanning technology shows that molecules are arranged in crystaline networks in living organisms and this network froms a communication system where information flows.  This corresponds to the Chinese qi network with meridians in the body.  Emotions and diet are also important in both TCM and Western medicine.