Kevin Chen, Ph.D. MPH
Samuel C. Shiflett, Ph.D.
UMDNJ - New Jersey Medical School | Binhui He
World Institute for Self Healing, Inc.
Chinese Society of Qigong Science |
Qigong is one of the oldest traditional Chinese medical systems believed to have special healing and recovery power. For thousands of years Chinese have used various Qigong techniques to build up healthy bodies, protect themselves, and get rid of sickness. Today millions of people practice Qigong in China and around the world to treat diseases ranging from hypertension to cancer (Sancier, 1996). It was reported that many cancer patients recovered completely by Qigong practice and Qigong therapy. However, there is little scientific documentation on how and why Qigong works, and how effective Qigong is in treating cancer. The word Qigong (pronounced chi kung) is a combination of two ideas: "Qi" means breath of life, or vital energy, which refers to subtle energy which is believed to permeate the physical body; "Gong" means the skill of working with or cultivating, self-discipline and achievement. Qigong consists primarily of meditation, relaxation, physical movement, mind-body integration, and breathing exercises. Practitioners develop an awareness of Qi sensations in their bodies and use their mind or intention to guide the Qi. When they practice long enough and gain sufficient skills, some Qigong practitioners can direct or emit Qi externally for the purpose of healing others. Mr. Binhui He, a prominent Chinese medical Qigong master who has practiced Qigong for more than 30 years, is among those who can emit external Qi to heal others. Although there is still no instrument that can be used to actually measure the strength of a person’s Qi, and the fact that we are not even sure exactly what Qi is physically, research has shown that external Qi of a Qigong master could produce significant structural changes in water and aqueous solutions, alter the phase behavior of dipalmitoyl phosphatidyl choline (DPPC) liposomes, and enable the growth of Fab protein crystals (Yan et al. 1999). There is more and more scientific evidence that demonstrates the physical existence of Qi as well as the healing power of Qigong (Sancier & Chow, 1989; Sancier & Hu, 1991; Wu et al. 1999). Mr. Binhui He is one of the most prominent Chinese Medical Qigong masters, and has practiced Qigong for almost 40 years. He is the director of the Chinese Society of Qigong Science and the head of the Anti-Cancer Research project of that Society (see attachment for more description of Mr. He). Mr. He’s medical Qigong has been very popular in China, reporting much success in treating various cancers with a claimed 90% effective rate. It is said to be especially effective in treating breast cancer with a claimed almost 100% effective rate. He has reportedly helped thousands of patients with cancer recover in China. One of the special abilities Mr. He has claimed is that he can use his healing power to make breast tumors shrink or even disappear within 10 minutes. According to his own statistics, among the 1,100 plus cases of breast tumor (some of them were cancer) treated by Mr. He in China, the tangible tumors completely disappeared in 42% of the cases, and became softer and smaller in 56% of the cases. There were only 2% of his patients that did not show immediate effects. To verify Mr. He’s claim and to carry out the similar study in the U.S. with a more appropriate control, in December 1999, after Mr. He attended the Third World Congress on Qigong in San Francisco (where Mr. He was named the Qigong Master of the Year by the Congress), we invited Mr. He to our school and conducted a few experiments on the inhibitory effects of Qigong on lymphoma in mice, and on PPT-I expression in breast cancer cells. One normal mammary epithelial cell line and four breast cancer cell lines (BC-123; BC 125; BC-HT-20; BC-T47D) were grown to confluence in four 6-well plates, one plate for each treatment condition: Qi treatment, sham Qi treatment, incubator control, room temperature control. In the Qi treatment condition, the Qigong master emitted Qi directly to the cell culture plates for a period of 10 minutes from a distance of approximately 12-15 inches. The "incubator control" plate was kept in an incubator in the lab, and the "room temperature" cells were left on a lab bench in the same lab, both while the Qigong treatment was performed in another room about 10m from the lab. The "sham" treatment was performed by an individual who had no skills in Qigong, and who imitated the sounds and movements of the Qigong master. Following the period of treatment, all plates were re-incubated for 16 hours. Total RNA was extracted by standard procedure and then used in quantitative RT-PCR to determine the levels of beta-PPT-I. The reason for studying this particular gene is because it is implicated in breast cancer. The number of plates and the rationale for each are as follow: Plate 1: Kept in incubator in the lab while the Qigong is performed on the cells. The level of PPT-I can be compared with this plate (golden standard) - Control 1. Plate 2: placed at room temperature during the period of Qigong. If there is a change in the Qigong plate, this will verify that it is not due to the cells being placed at an 'un-natural' temperature - Control 2. Plates 3 & 4: Duplicate placebo plates - these were sham-treated by someone who will mimic Qigong - SHAM treatment. All the plates above were tested immediately and 16 hours after the treatment. Plates 5 & 6: Duplicate experimental plates, replicating Plates 1 and 2 - was tested 16 hours after the Qigong treatment for 10 minutes. At the end of the procedure, we re-incubated the plate overnight before extracting RNA to determine PPT-I levels. If PPT-I is indeed down regulated, this period of incubation is necessary for to detect a change because the mRNA which is generally increased at time 0 will need up to 12 hours for degradation. 
RNA was extracted by standard procedure and the level of PPT-I mRNA was determined by quantitative RT-PCR. Table 1 presents the results for the molecules counts of b-PPT-I per mg total RNA for different breast cancer cells at different conditions in two different trials. As you may see from Table 1, there is no significant difference between two control groups, neither between SHAM treated cells and controls. However, there is an obvious downward trend among the breast cancer cells treated by Qigong. Except for the BC-T47D cells (last row), Qigong treated cells have consistently lower growth than the cells in any other groups. By using some non-parametric statistics to test the difference between Qigong-treated cells and SHAM-treated cells, the closest control in this design, we found that 8 out of 8 trials (4 different breast cancer cells in two trials) the Qigong-treated cells had slower growth than the Sham-treated cells. This could occur by chance only at p = 0.0038 in a cumulative binomial probability distribution. 
These studies are intriguing but need replication with a modified design. In this experiment, the Qigong master attempted to emit both positive and negative Qi on the same plate on 4 occasions, though the results shown here are only the effects of the negative Qi. The next time this experiment is run, the Qi master will emit only negative Qi. The mechanism, which led to decreased beta-PPT-I, is yet to be determined. Further research is required to determine the level of regulation: transcription vs. post-transcriptional regulation. Since PPT-I peptides mediate the proliferation of breast cancer cells, it would be interesting to determine if down regulation of PPT-I expression could also inhibit the proliferation of the cancer cells. These studies could be pertinent to alternative treatment for breast cancer since the peptides produced by PPT-I gene has multiple functions, associated with cancer development: angiogenesis, integration of cancer cells in the bone marrow and cell proliferation. In general, we have observed some consistent positive effects of Mr. He’s Qigong on cancer with animal model or cancer tissue in vitro. However, we are not sure how effective the Qigong emission would be if it were applied to human subjects. Therefore, we plan to carry out the human study in the near future to examine the effectiveness and mechanism of Qigong effects on breast cancer and other human tumors. |
