According to Dr Tamdin Sither Bradley, the UK's first practising Tibetan physician, the philosophy guiding Tibetan medical practice requires doctors to have a 'good heart' and compassion. Without the right approach, she says, it doesn't matter how good the medicine is.
For Marissa, who is taking Tibetan herbal medicine alongside conventional medicine for ovarian cancer as part of an ongoing research project, it was the depth of the diagnosis that impressed her. 'The doctor mentioned symptoms that I had, but which my other doctor was simply not interested in. It was wonderful to have someone take my feelings and everything that was going on in my body seriously.' Both believe Tibetan medicine, the newest entrant on the alternative medicine scene, has much to offer in terms of approach and treatment.
As with other complementary disciplines, most of Dr Bradley's patients have chronic ailments, such as irritable bowel syndrome, ME and arthritis, which conventional medicine often finds hard to treat, or disorders for which there is no obvious organic cause. Tibetan medicine is particularly effective in these cases, explains Dr Bradley because of its 'unique spiritual-philosophical principles and mind-body dynamic'.
'So much disease is created by our mind when it is filled with negative thoughts and anger,' she says.
Developed in the eighth century, Tibetan medicine is a synthesis of Ayurvedic, Chinese and Greco-Persian medicine which means it integrates acupuncture, herbalism, massage, yoga and meditation with indigenous knowledge of healing plants and minerals, and the Buddhist understanding of the mind-body relationship.
Practitioners hold that health is maintained by the balance of three complementary energy systems in the body, responsible for activity ('wind'), vitality ('bile'), and stability ('phlegm'). Imbalances in the energy systems are created by ignorance (which gives rise to the three poisons of attachment, aggression, hatred, close-mindedness or self-absorption), improper diet and interaction with the environment.
'The unspoken ethos in Western medicine is to move the person back to the state they were in before, with the least amount of effort for patient and physician. The ultimate purpose of Tibetan medicine is to help people awaken to the truth of who they really are,' says Dr Jerry Geffen, director of the Geffen Cancer and Research Institute, Florida.
Tibetan doctors diagnose by closely questioning their patients, observing (especially the tongue) taking pulses (of which there are six on each hand) and analysing urine by taste, smell, colour, bubbles, steam and sediment. Treatment aims to readjust the balance of the energies and is approached on four, levels beginning with dietary changes, herbs and massage, acupuncture and moxibustion and finally the most intensive yoga and meditation.
In her treatment for ovarian cancer, Marissa has been prescribed herbal pills, the intermediate level of Tibetan treatment. There are hundreds of different combinations of herbs, resins, saps and minerals, and any one medication can contain up to a 100 different elements.
In Tibet itself, patients with serious illness such as cancer would be prescribed 'jewel pills.' These involve months of careful preparation and contain metals such as gold, lead and mercury. It is illegal to prescribe them in the UK and the US because of their metal content, but there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that they are effective.
'Anaesthetics and chemotherapy are also poisons,' contends Ken Holmes, director of studies at the Kagyu Samye Ling Tibetan Centre in Eskdalemuir, Scotland, 'but we still use them. So, it's no different. We could be missing out on enormous potential by not studying these pills.' One preparation that is available commercially is Padma 28, a product which contains 22 different ingredients, including sandalwood, cardamom, and liquorice. It has been the subject of several clinical trials across a surprising range of conditions. Preliminary results from a trial of 90 patients at the Middlesex Hospital, London, for example show that it can alleviate the immobility and pain of peripheral vascular disease, a condition caused by hardening of the arteries in the legs. Patients taking the preparation have been able to almost double their walking distance. Other trials have suggest it may be able to treat hepatitis B and C; and laboratory studies, showing its anti-clotting and antioxidant properties, have excited interest in its potential for the treatment of heart disease.
Another branch of 'roof of the world' treatment under study is Tibetan, or tumo yoga meditation. Researchers led by Herbert Benson, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, found that in outside conditions of a few degrees above freezing, meditating Tibetan monks were able to completely dry wet sheets wrapped round their bodies while meditating.
Researchers at the University of California at San Francisco have also discovered that raising peripheral skin temperature during deep meditation accelerates wound healing, as much or more powerfully than antibiotics.
'Meditation is a tremendously powerful form of defence against a wide range of pathogenic organisms, but it can also represent an aggressive form of treatment,' comments Dr Bill Bushell of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
University of California researcher Dr Charles Raison believes tumo meditation may also offer clues to depression and new possibilities of non-pharmacological self-help. The same neurological and hormonal circuitry that is activated during tumo meditation which produces feelings of intense bliss is dysfunctional in people who are depressed, he says.
