Chinese Medicine, Cancer and Cannabis
Statistically, either you or I will develop cancer. That’s quite a statement but a study in the British Journal of Cancer states that 1 in 2 of us will be diagnosed with the disease at some point in our lives. Cancer has clearly reached epidemic proportions and the causes of it are vast and varied. From pollution in the air we breathe, to toxins in our foods, we are continually bombarded by potential carcinogens everywhere we turn. Certainly part of the story is that we are living longer and there is more chance that the cancer can take hold but it would be naïve of us to think that our modern lifestyles, where we are continually exposed to a myriad of artificial chemicals and electro-magnetic pollution, wouldn’t have an ill effect on our health.
Cancer however, is nothing new and it was certainly around in ancient China thousands of years ago. Essentially in Chinese medical theory, cancer starts out as a stagnation of energy or Chi. This stagnation then continues on to such an extent that it becomes a physical problem and an actual mass begins to form in the body. There is often seen to be an emotional component to cancer, as stress can cause heat within the meridian system. Heat will then dry up the bodily fluids, causing it to congeal in to a solid lump. Further heat underneath a tumour will then cause it to grow. Different emotions will effect different meridians and therefore different parts of the body. Breast cancer and prostate cancer may be located in different parts of the body but the underlying causation may be the same emotional and energetic stagnation.
So how can it be treated? Well in ancient China there were Qigong masters who were able to project sufficient Chi into a patients’ meridian system that the tumour would literally break down. Acupuncture and herbs were than administered to clear the heat and stagnation from the body so the tumour wouldn’t grow back. Unfortunately ‘WeiQi’ emission as it was known, is one of the hardest and most complicated aspects of Chinese medicine and there are probably very few people alive in the world today who are capable of such things.
So what can we do today in this time of rampant cancer growth in an increasingly toxic world? Well Chinese medicine can certainly help with energetic stagnation and acupuncture is great at clearing heat from the body so it can be very useful in cancer prevention. However what we are severely lacking in, is an ability to shrink tumours like the masters of the past. We now have technologies such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy which are capable of shrinking tumours but these are not without side effects and have no guarantees that the cancer won’t come back. Chinese medicine can certainly be a good complimentary therapy to these radical procedures and has been proven to help with many of the side effects.
Thankfully, technologies and medicines are developing all the time and survival rates for most cancers is improving. One of the most promising areas of research is in using the herb cannabis to treat cancer. High doses of THC, one of the main components of the plant, have been shown to kill cancer cells within a petri dish. There is also growing number people across the world who have seemingly cured late stage cancer with a super high strength cannabis oil. This is a controversial subject, and it is still illegal to state that anything other than chemotherapy or radiotherapy can successfully treat cancer. However as I mentioned in a previous article on cannabis, its potential use is in keeping with Chinese medical theory. In short cannabis is said to disperse stuck Chi. If we have accept that cancer is a form of stuck Chi that has condensed to become physical problem, then it stands to reason that a highly concentrated form of cannabis, would have the ability to disperse Chi to such an extent that it could shrink a tumour.
Much more research needs to be done on the subject, but because of the plants ludicrous legal status and the reluctance of pharmaceutical industries, this is not an easy thing to achieve. Luckily however there are many pioneers across the globe, particularly in America where cannabis is becoming decriminalised, who are taking it upon themselves to undertake this research personally. Early results are very promising and revolutionary protocols are being reported that may shake up the way cancer is treated in the future.
As the Qigong masters of ancient China can no longer be found, maybe the answer lies in this other ancient Chinese offering – the much maligned cannabis plant. There is clearly some hope for the future but in the meantime let us pray that it is neither you, nor I that develops cancer any time soon.