Autumn Issue, 2017

“ The soup helps prevent and ameliorate the side effects of chemotherapy without altering its efficacy, thereby not only improving the patients’ quality of life but also potentially reducing the chances of not completing the chemotherapy treatment. ” A research team at the School of Chinese Medicine (SCM) has developed a medicinal dietetic soup that helps to ameliorate the side effects of chemotherapy, which can include reduced white blood cell count, alopecia, fatigue and the discolouration of the skin and nails. Team leader Dr Chen Jian-ping 陳建萍 , Associate Professor at the SCM, said they are still doing clinical trials, but the mid-term results of the research show that the soup may prevent and ameliorate the side effects of chemotherapy without altering its efficacy, thereby not only improving the patients’ quality of life but also potentially reducing the chances of not completing the chemotherapy treatment. “Advances in cancer diagnosis and treatment mean that the survival rate of cancer patients has been increasing, yet the side effects of chemotherapy can still be acute and affect the quality of life of patients. So I started looking for a way to help,” said Dr Chen. The dietetic soup has taken more than three years to develop and combines a mixture of Dr Chen’s knowledge and clinical experience of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Jessie You 游傑舒 (PhD Year 5), Dr Chen’s PhD student who is doing the clinical trials, said the soup ingredients are not ordinary foods but what they term as “function foods”. It is a mixture of processed medicinal food, including black soya beans, coarse cereals and phycomycetes. In addition to soup packs, the team has also produced it in teabag form. They have now applied for a patent and want to move to the next stage of developing further products, hoping that an important outcome of this research will be to open up more medical practitioners to the possibilities of TCM. Souped Up Black soya bean is known in TCM for its efficacy in cleaning out toxins – and for its antioxidant properties. It is also renowned for protecting normal cells. 37