Patients who practice qigong during their cancer treatments have better cognitive function, less pain and less nausea and vomiting after chemotherapy.
STEPHEN Clarke confesses to being sceptical at the outset of a scientific trial of qigong, a Chinese mind-body practice involving gentle movements, meditation and breathing exercises.
But by the trial’s end he couldn’t deny there was something real, and good, happening to the cancer patients in the qigong classes led by Byeongsong Oh.
Oh, a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, is lead author of the study, published in the journal Annals of Oncology.
“Patients kept telling us `I really feel better’ and they had less fatigue and better mood,” says professor Clarke, paper co-author and oncologist at the Sydney Cancer Centre and head of the Concord Hospital clinical school.
But even more surprising were the reductions in patients’ blood levels of CRP, or C-reactive protein, compared with the patients who did not do qigong. The protein is a measure of inflammation in the body, which can be related to cancer activity.
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