Yale University and a company called PhytoCeutica, Inc.,  recently published a study that has great potential for people who are undergoing chemotherapy. The researcher made a drug from boiling peony root, licorice root, red dates and skullcap root, all Traditional Chinese Medicine remedies that help the gastro-intestinal tract, especially when you are suffering from diarrhea, nausea and vomiting.
    They called these 4 Chinese herbs,  PHY906, and found that they were effective against  the side effects of chemotherapy administered to mice. Chinese herbs improved the mice’s symptoms of diarrhea AND simultaneously cut the cancerous tumors growth. The other significant benefits occurred when PHY906 restored the damaged intestinal linings in the mice, replenished healthy gut cells, and blocked the migration of inflammatory cells to the gut.
   

“This combination of chemotherapy and herbs represents a marriage of Western and Eastern approaches,” said lead researcher Dr. Yung-Chi Cheng, something other acupuncturists and I have been promoting for years. 
 
Also, as we know in TCM, herbs work differently when combined than when used individually. The lead researcher noted this phenomenon. He said, “deletion of any of those herbs, you have a different impact on three biological endpoints.” It is the combination of herbs that create the valuable healing medicinal action.
    According to Dr. Yung-Chi Cheng, PHY906 is based on an 1800 year old TCM formula known as Huang Qin Tang, still is used today for treatment of diarrhea and gastro-intestinal tract  disorders.

Note: Dr. Cheng is a scientific founder of and has equity interest in PhytoCeutica, Inc., which develops traditional Chinese medicine into drugs for the treatment of cancer. PHY906 is currently only available for patients enrolled in a clinical trial. The authors caution that many herbal products claiming to be Huang Qin Tang may contain harmful or ineffective substitutes and should be avoided