A Taiwanese woman studying Chinese medicine in Western medical circles

November 22, 2007

M. Yang uses science to prove that liver pills work

“Liver pills are popular in the Chinese community and everyone knows they work – but how do you prove it? M. Yang, a professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology and the Department of Cell Biology and Neurology at the University of Southern California, who just presented her research at the 2nd International Conference on Alcoholic Liver and Pancreatic Damage and Sclerosis (ALPD) in Japan, said, “If you want Westerners to accept Chinese medicine, you have to have scientific proof.” Even she was surprised by the liver-protective effects of the liver pills through her own in-depth research.

Doctor of Pharmacy who grew up in a Western medical family

M. Yang is D. in pharmacology from Tokyo Imperial University. After graduating from the Department of Pharmacy at National Taiwan University, she went to Japan for further study and spent more than 10 years in Japan before moving to the United States. She is currently working as a researcher at USC and has devoted herself to Chinese medicine research in recent years. Recalling that she grew up in a Western family where both parents were doctors, and now she is studying Chinese herbal medicine, which is considered unscientific by many people, she laughs and says that it is all by chance, and perhaps this is also an opportunity for her as a Chinese to contribute her knowledge to Chinese herbal medicine.

Originally, like other professionals trained in Western medicine, M. Yang was not interested in Chinese herbal medicine until her husband was declared untreatable by Western doctors for his neck problem, and he was relieved by Chinese medicine instead, which changed her view on Chinese herbal medicine. She spent her summer vacation at the clinic of Dr. Sheng-Pu Lee, a Chinese medicine doctor, before she started her research. After looking through thousands of clinical data, she found that the so-called liver pills were really effective, so she was inspired to uncover the secret of liver pills. At that time, she did not expect that it would take six years.

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It is the responsibility of Chinese people to research Chinese medicine

“How many six years are there in life? Experimentation is very trivial and hard work, but I think it is rewarding. The fact that good results kept coming out during the experiment attracted me to keep doing it; it was like a doctor curing a patient, and the hard work paid off.” She was encouraged by the results of the experiment and saw the opportunity of Chinese medicine for liver disease, and said she was lucky to be involved in the research. With a happy heart, she wants to do more research because “it is the responsibility of Chinese people.

“We didn’t just prove that the liver pills worked, we also found out where in the liver they worked!” The researchers gave the experimental rats a drug-induced fatty liver, and the rats given the liver pills had only a small amount of fibrosis in their livers, while the control group had cirrhosis. “The fibrotic liver is related to the activation of stellate cells, and the stellate cells were not activated when given the liver pills, but the control group was activated by the sixth day.” When it comes to the results of the experiment, M. Yang’s eyes lit up.

Chinese herbal medicine is not verbally effective, and research can prove it.

Chinese medicine believes that the liver is related to the eyes, and the eyes are related to vitamin A. “The liver is the reservoir of vitamin A. Once the stellate cells are activated, the storage of vitamin A is not possible, but the liver with liver pills can still store vitamin A.” M. Yang explained the exciting research results one by one, “Excessive accumulation of collagen causes liver fibrosis, and the experimental group given liver support pills can see that the enzymes that dissolve fibrosis have increased and the enzymes that cause fibrosis have decreased. This explains why liver pills work against fibrosis.”

One study after another, one surprise after another, “because every result was so surprising, the whole lab ended up feeling like they should take liver pills.” M. Yang said with a smile.

It’s not easy for an Oriental woman to conduct research on Chinese herbal medicine in the Western world. Although Chinese medicine and alternative therapies are very popular, Western medicine has not yet fully opened up to the idea of Chinese herbal medicine,” says M. Yang. “My research can at least prove that Chinese herbal medicine is not just effective verbally, but that it can still be proven to be effective as long as research is done.”