Possible Alternative Treatment For Hepatitis C

I have spent the last couple of days studying the book, “Healing Hepatitis C with Modern Chinese Medicine” by Qingcai Zhang, M.D. Dr. Zhang graduated from Shanghai Second Medical University in 1962, he then worked as a physician at Reijing Hospital in Shanghai, conducting clinical and research work to integrate Chinese and Western Medicine.
In 1980, he was awarded a scholarship, which supported a two-year fellowship at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1984 he worked in research at the Wakai Clinic in Nagoya, Japan. A year later, he received a one-year appointment from the University of California at Davis as a professor.
Beginning in 1986, Dr. Zhang was the primary researcher at the Oriental Healing Arts Institute, where he conducted research on treating AIDS with Chinese medicine, designed herbal formulas for AIDS patients, and wrote two books on AIDS and Chinese medicine.
He started his private practice in 1990, first in Cypress, CA, and then in New York City. He is the founder of the Zhang Clinic in New York. Since 1987, his focus has been viral hepatitis, AIDS, Lyme disease, and autoimmune diseases.

Why use Chinese medicine to treat hepatitis C?
A third of all hepatitis cases worldwide are found in China. Chinese doctors treat most of the world’s hepatitis patients. A survey was done in China to compare Western and Chinese medicine for treating chronic viral hepatitis. It questioned 188 doctors. Among them, 88 were Western medicine practitioners, 80 were Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners, and 20 were like Dr. Zhang, practitioners of integrative Chinese and Western medicine. All 188 doctors agreed that Traditional Chinese Medicine and Integrative Chinese/Western Medicine produce better therapeutic results in treating chronic viral hepatitis than does Western medicine.

What are the clinical outcomes of Dr. Zhang’s protocols?
As of 2000 when he wrote this book Dr. Zhang had treated more than 600 hepatitis C patients. More than 80% have seen their conditions improve. Patients usually see their liver enzyme levels-especially ALT-improve or normalize in about two to three months. After two or three months, biopsies usually showed a reduction of inflammation. All of these things are quantifiable by Western medical lab results. All of this without the side effects produced by Western medicine’s protocol of interferon and ribavirin. Subjective symptoms, such as fatigue, achiness, nausea, and poor appetite, improve within three to four weeks.

In a newsletter written by Dr. Andrew Weil he wrote;
“Doctors in China have a great deal of experience treating hepatitis with Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Chinese studies show that their herbal regime has a much higher sustained response rate than the Western drug interferon, and has no serious side effects…”
This from an M.D. from America trained in Western Medicine.

Dr. Zhang’s book carefully spells out the protocol to be used for each patient’s set of symptoms and severity of abnormal lab results. He doesn’t ignore Western approaches; he uses Western medicine’s diagnostics (lab results, biopsies) together with Chinese medicines herbal treatments. I am willing to give this a try at this point. The only major drawback is the price of the herbs used in his protocols. The protocol I will be using to start this program will have a cost of slightly over $200.00 per month. But after my last bout of illness I now realize more than ever the truth of the old adage, you can’t put a price on your health.