Advocating an Alternative Approach for Chronic Liver Disease
We stand at the precipice of a grave threat to our public health. . . . It affects people from all walks of life, in every state, in every country. Unless we do something about it soon, it will kill more people than AIDS.
—C. Everett Koop, M.D., Former U.S. Surgeon General
The threat that preoccupies Dr. Koop is what keeps Dr. Dan Wen advocating an alternative treatment approach here in the West. The concern is a virus with which some two hundred million people are already infected worldwide. "Chronic liver disease—particularly hepatitis C—is a major health issue here in the United States as well as other parts of the world," says Dr. Wen from his office at Honso USA, Inc., a Japanese company, specializing in the manufacture of traditional Asian herbal medicines, with a base in Phoenix.
Underlining the severity of the problem, Dr. Wen continues, "Last year in November, during the annual meeting held by the American Association of the Study of Liver Disease, which is attended by some 5,000 hepatologists and liver disease specialists from around the world, the current estimate of hepatitis C infections in the U.S. was revised from four million to five million . . . that number is growing every year, so it's an exploding public health issue."
What makes hepatitis C so difficult to treat—and ultimately so deadly—is the fact that it is an RNA virus. This type of virus mutates quickly and can "outsmart" the immune system, which normally protects the body by recognizing, disabling, and then killing a virus. Around the world there are six basic genotypes (the basic combination of an organism's genes) of hepatitis C, with fifteen subtypes, making this virus's rapid mutation process especially daunting when it comes to formulating treatment protocols and developing vaccines that actually work.
"In the U.S." says Dr. Wen, describing the overwhelming challenges this disease is presenting researchers and doctors, "the majority of the hepatitis C infections are with genotype 1. Genotype 1 is the most difficult to treat. It is the type of virus for which the current conventional medicine—interferon therapy—does the job poorly because half of these type 1–infected patients are either not responding to interferon therapy very well or they are having severe side effects and complications. So roughly speaking, half of the hepatitis C patients in the U.S. are actually not treatable, not having a reliable therapeutic tool." He then emphasizes, "That's why I feel it's important to look around for alternatives. It's very important for us to introduce traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) treatment for chronic liver disease. That's the model that is practiced in China—the integration of Western and traditional medicines."
The development of effective treatment is certainly critical at this time. Because of hepatitis C's long disease path, infected individuals often carry the virus—in a completely contagious state—for decades. In its early stages the disease can manifest flu-like symptoms, sometimes arising years after the initial infection: fatigue, loss of appetite, vague abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle and joint aches, and a mild fever. The similarity to flu symptoms frequently prevents hepatitis C from being correctly diagnosed.
It is estimated that between 80 to 90 percent of those infected with hepatitis C will develop the chronic form of the disease. "Liver disease development has certain stages," Dr. Wen says, the natural teacher in him adding, "When a patient is suffering from hepatitis C infection we first see inflammation, and when the disease goes on we see fibrosis develop, and then it moves into the cirrhotic stage, and finally the patient either progresses to liver cancer or dies from other complications. Either hepatitis C, or B, or even alcoholic fatty liver disease—they all come down to cirrhosis, fibrosis, and the cancer stages."
The causes of hepatitis infection include excessive alcohol use, direct or indirect exposure to infected blood, I.V. drug use, and unprotected sexual activity with an infected person. When asked to talk about the causes, West versus East, of this front-burner health issue—one among many that seem to be surfacing in the world right now—Dr. Wen replies, "It's a complicated question, basically. In those types of things, I think, in East and West, there are certain differences. Also, the infections are with different virus types. For example, in Asian countries people tend to get infected with hepatitis B more, and in the Western countries, hepatitis C has a higher rate. It's a complicated issue here—it's involved with the society, with the culture, with the human genome differences."
Clearly passionate about his work, Dr. Wen states, "I feel very strongly that teaching people—practitioners—about using Chinese herbal medicine to treat chronic liver disease, having this huge growing patient population, is very important. And I think acceptance by the society is mostly dependent on the efficacy. If we can provide more research data and provide efficacy support, then the TCM treatment approach will be more successful in terms of acceptance."
Look for Part 2 of this interview in our fall issue! Dr. Wen discusses the promising results of ongoing U.S. clinical trials of a Chinese herbal formula as well as the economic benefits of TCM treatment for hepatitis C and chronic liver disease.
Dr. Dan (Jipu) Wen, M.D. (China), holds degrees in both Western and Chinese medicine and has an extensive background of more than twenty years in clinical and laboratory research in the area of integration of Chinese and Western medicines. The author of numerous research papers, Dr. Wen is president of Honso USA, Inc.
Practitioners: Dr. Wen will present basic and advanced treatment tools for hepatitis C and chronic liver disease at the 2006 Building Bridges Conference. Learn the most recent results—and their treatment significance—from the clinical trials of TCM formulas for liver disease currently underway in the U.S. as well as advanced research developments in China and Japan.