In the case of Japan, as of 2008, 83.5% of doctors across the country are using traditional Asian herbal medicine. Among them, doctors in the department of internal medicine use it the most, 83.7% of doctors in surgery, and 86.7% of doctors in obstetrics and gynecology use herbal medicine. This ratio is increasing further in 2011. If you look at 2011, you can see that the usage rate is a bit higher at 89%, and the number of cases of using herbal medicine first instead of Western medicine, that is, the first choice, is also increasing significantly at 59%.

Also, according to statistics from 2010, there are many university hospitals in Japan, just like in Korea, a statistics of the 900 people working in these places to treat cancer shows that 92.4% are using herbal medicine. It was found that the side effects of anticancer drugs were better controlled when used together with herbal medicine rather than when using Western medicine alone. In addition, the side effects of radiation were even more decreased when used together with herbal medicine, and our quality of life, i.e. nausea and vomiting, was improved.

A variety of side effects from anti-cancer drugs, such as nausea, fatigue, digestive problems, etc., can occur, but treating these issues is to improve one’s life. Moreover, Japanese doctors actually use it because it has the characteristic of reviving and enhancing immunity. I have been using herbal medicine for over 20 years, so you can see that my expression is quite positive.

Why do doctors need to use herbal medicine? First of all, there is a problem with the first modern cancer supplementary treatment. It is easy to overdose on drugs. In other words, the biggest disadvantage of Western medicine is that it is used for various symptoms, such as digestive medicine for indigestion, muscle pain medication, and constipation for each symptom. Because they use prescriptions, they easily become drug overdoses. When I look at our patients in clinical practice, to put it simply, there are people who bring a bundle of medicines. So in these cases, many medicines are mixed together, so they use too many medicines. Also, since these drugs may interact with each other, we need to resolve this issue. Moreover, this person receives the medication from another medical institution, so in this case, it is quite a problem. Why do they use herbal medicine for these things? Many patients ask questions such as whether they should use herbal medicine or whether additional medicines will be added if they use herbal medicine, but in fact, herbal medicine can deal with many side effects with just one medicine.

So, the characteristic of traditional Asian medicine is that it adapts to the individual physiology and the human system, that is, we can treat multiple symptoms with single medication. For example, cancer patients often have indigestion, and if you have diarrhea or a loss of appetite for various reasons, you may need to use different medications. But there are many herbal medicines that can treat these at once.

Certain herbal medicine is a prescription that is often used by people for cancer treatment, especially in Japan. It is the most basic medicine used for gastroenteritis during chemotherapy. If our stomach is healed by the herbal medicine, insomnia is also largely resolved. Since it also solves the symptoms of anxiety and nervousness, it also treats insomnia and improves loss of appetite. So, the advantage of herbal medicine is that one medication can have multiple effects.

Secondly, when we do anti-cancer, there are many side effects. The treatment of is called auxiliary treatment, and this auxiliary treatment also has side effects. That is, when we say that our hands and feet are numb, the medication used here to treat neuropathic pain, may actually cause severe drowsiness or fatigue, and it can also cause allergies. The medicine that treats us makes us sleepy, and these medicines are effective in stopping a runny nose, but we continue to feel drowsy. Also, in the case of recitation pain, various painkillers can cause constipation as a side effect, such as vertigo. There are also disadvantages to both methods, such as the fact that different side effects may appear while trying to solve one symptom.

But now, Asian herbal medicine has relatively fewer side effects compared to western medicine, so of course, there may be things that we need to be careful about with Asian medicine. Movement disorders may be reported with some herbal medicines, but in many cases, such cases are quite rare. In fact, there are many medicines that can reduce these side effects during anticancer therapy. In other words, if doctors learned about herbal medicine in medical school, they would be able to use these medicines sufficiently. You would have prescribed it, but unfortunately in the US, they can’t do that, so there are some unfortunate cases where we are told not to do it unconditionally. Compared to Western medicine, Asian herbal medicines have relatively low levels of side effects and low levels of general toxicity. So, a Japanese cancer treatment specialist suggests that by changing these herbal medicines, there is not much of a reduction in the effectiveness of these anti-cancer treatments and other medicines, so these can be simultaneously used, safely.

The third is a side effect for which no way to deal with it has been established. Someone insist that western medicine are currently taking care of all side effects, but that is not true. We call it neutrophil reduction, so when white blood cells drop, there is an injection called G-csf, which is generally said to be for patients who have received an immune injection. Also anti-vomit medication can control vomiting, but there a number of cases where are not controlled. So, if there is an herbal medicine that may supplement these things, it can alleviate vomiting much more and reduce white blood cell count much more. There are quite a few herbal medicines that are more effective and efficient to take care of them. However, cancer treatment specialists say that the areas that Western medicine has a bit of trouble with are anorexia, fatigue, peripheral nervous disorders, etc. So these are the medications to anorexia, which is a problem in many cases around the world. Medications are used to solve the problems, but it doesn’t work in many cases. That’s why these things aren’t commonly used yet, so you need to get help in these areas right away. There are side effects that Asian herbal medicine help release or alleviate.

With drugs to solve this kind of loss of appetite or general fatigue, what we are especially struggling with now is the side effect of numbness in the hands and feet due to peripheral nerve disorders. An anti-cancer drug called oxaliplatin is very basic for stomach cancer and colon cancer. It is a very important anti-cancer drug, and it was discovered at Nagoya City University in Japan that ginseng, one of the famous herbs has a neuroprotective effect. So in Japan, ginseng is used a lot when performing platinum anti-cancer treatment. In fact, it is an herbal medicinal formulae containing ginseng. We have basic research showing that the peripheral neuropathic condition has improved when using this, and we are conducting clinical research on colorectal cancer stage 3 at a medical institute. When we studied the rate of phosphorus charcoal compared to when we did not use it from the beginning, we found that the degree to which peripheral nerve disorders accumulate was significantly improved, helping not to reduce the level of anti-cancer drugs. This means that the number of patients who have to give up because they have to reduce the use of anticancer drugs or because their peripheral nerve disorders are too severe due to anticancer drugs has been significantly reduced.

Also, there is a huge lack of experts. Although we have done a lot of research on anti-cancer drugs, there are quite a few experts on side effects. So, in this area, in the case of university hospitals, there is actually not a single Asian medicine doctor. But in Japan, there are many doctors who are experts in traditional Asian herbal medicine, and they research herbal medicine and provide scientific research to determine whether herbal medicine can help with symptoms that cannot be solved by both sides, according to the mucositis, nerve disorders, pain, and skin symptoms that come through the academic society. If so, it means that it is being actively reflected and used. So, a lot of these things are being done centering around academic societies. So, in these subgroup meetings, there are a lot of body parts, and medicinal drugs are used for each side effect, but what is lacking in medicinal drugs is verifying the evidence and writing guidelines on what role herbal medicine plays.