Integrating Chinese and Western Medicine to Treat Cancer

This is quite good news! A documentary from RTHK shows how government hospitals is now combining traditional Chinese herbal medicine into its "western"-based medical care to combat cancer.
Among many of the reported benefits are:

• Herbs that substantially reduce the tiredness induced by chemo in the treatment of stage 4 breast cancer, allowing patient much higher leukocytes count, better health and abilities to complete the chemotherapy on time.
• Development of patented Rx Arsenol to treat APL (Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia). Arsenic trioxide was the main ingredient of Pi Shuang (砒霜), and making it into a liquid/oral formulation provided for better pharmacology and lowered side effects (as opposed to IV form).

Hopefully more of this kind of research get sponsored. And let's hope it does not take the standard 10-12 years of "western" drug development life cycle, as such therapy just need to be "rediscovered"...

If you want to concentrate... exercise!

"exercise enhances our ability to concentrate, think and make decisions"
No wonder the harder I work, the harder I want to exercise! It may help fend off cancer too!
Full Article: Why Exercise Works Magic

Cool, a new Periodic Table ! Now I am in the P-block :)

If you are healthy, popping vitamins may do more bad than good! Just keep on exercising! The Myth of Antioxidants

What should be the focus of personalized medicine in cancer treatment?

Here are a couple of articles on personalized medicine for cancer treatments:

1. Latest trend in cancer treatment: Personalized care plans
2.  Breast Cancer Biomarker Helps Personalize Treatment

The first one is probably not what most researchers (and readers) would associate "personalization" to "personalized medicine", since such moniker is typically used to indicate genetic research to differentiate one patient to the next, giving them specific drug as appropriate.

However, the personalization in the first article is probably going to have much more important impact on patient care and recovery, at least in the short term.  Sure, research is important, but knowledge transfer from doctor to patient and family care giver is also a critical for the recovery of the patient's well being.  It is sad that so little research and practice is focused in this area, probably because of a lack of "sexiness" of such work.