Description
By Tai Lahans
Trade paperback book
ISBN 9789814436311
538 pages, 6.00 x 9.00″
This book is the author’s effort to bring into focus the many perspectives necessary for understanding the steep rise in the incidence of cancers in the developed world in our time. She notes that without knowledge of the reasons for this rise it is difficult to act preventively. Beyond the biochecmical and molecular mechanisms of cancer causation, Lahans looks at the way we live, the decisions we make, the emotions that drive us, and the history of our relationships to one another, ourselves, and our environment. She gives us a well-written and broad-ranging survey, through the lens of Chinese medicine, that weaves anthropology, history, sociology, psychiatry, politics, economics, medicine, nature, and the commons, into an inspiring image of the possibilities inherent in reengaging our interconnections to all life and to conscious being.
Cancers are on the rise across the world. Except for viral-based cancers, overall cancers are diseases that may be preventable. This book looks at the many levels of determined, probable, and possible causation for several common cancers. These causes include realities found in culture, anthropology, sociology, politics, the environment, agriculture and food, beliefs, and the modern lifestyle. These realities are filtered through the perennial science of Chinese medicine — an ecological system of knowing and understanding the human body as it relates to the world around us.
The book covers lung, colorectal, breast, prostate, and virally-caused cancers. It interweaves conventional medical knowledge of these cancers with modern realities of everyday life we all live, and with Chinese medicine interpretations and strategies for treating probable pre-cancerous conditions. This makes it a book that is useful for the practitioner of Chinese medicine. It is also useful for the patient suffering a cancer diagnosis in terms of survivorship and for other medical practitioners who wish to understand how integrated care for cancerous diseases and conditions may relate to Chinese medicine and prevention.
The final chapters of the book are dedicated to finding answers for a cure for cancer through making connections between how we live, what we believe, the environment we are creating based on those beliefs, and the social and political mechanisms we now have in place that keep us from change and, therefore, from the cure for cancer.
About the Author:
Tai Lahans holds a bachelor degree from Cornell University, a MED from San Francisco State University, a PhD from University of California at Berkeley, and a PhD from China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences Beijing. She has taught extensively at several colleges of Chinese medicine. Dr Lahans also sits on many boards that are involved in advocacy for cancer patients, and she has written the book Integrating Conventional and Chinese Medicine in Cancer Care. She was voted a Top Doc as seen in Seattle Magazine and was also Faculty of the Year at Bastyr University.
Praise for Geology of the Modern Cancer Epidemic Through the Lens of Chinese Medicine
“In this book Tai Lahans combines the wisdom of perennial systems of medicine with modern knowledge and presents the greater message the cancer epidemic stands for. She takes a bird’s view perspective to illustrate how the “cancers” inflicted on our planet by the modern disconnected world directly relate to the disease of cancer. By employing a micro-macrocosm approach, she explains why the “fight-the-cancer” approach is no real solution and how humans and human health are part of the intricate and fascinating web of life. In addition, Tai Lahans offers her profound experience of Chinese medicine treatment approaches for cancer patients and pre-cancerous conditions. However, more than anything, this book deepens the understanding of the world as a whole, the Great Chain of Being and the Sacred.”
-Simon Becker, Academy of Chinese Healing Arts, Switzerland
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.