Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) recognizes four conditions that can lead to breast cancer:

1. Energy Stagnation

Breast cancer, like all cancers, begins with a condition known as energy stagnation. At this stage, a patient may suffer from vague, intermittent discomforts: headaches, stomachaches, constipation, and menstrual problems like bloating and breast tenderness.

Although these symptoms are often shrugged off as just a fact of life, they are actually early warnings of energy imbalances that can lead to serious health problems. Any type of ailment, no matter how minor, is a sign of energy stagnation somewhere in the body.

Conventional medicine does not recognize energy stagnation, and so the condition frequently goes untreated and is allowed to progress. From a TCM perspective, energy stagnation is an early-stage problem and is relatively easy to correct using acupuncture, herbs, exercises like qigong, and even just rest.

2. Organ-Function Disorder

Left untreated, energy stagnation can advance to a condition known as organ-function disorder. Specifically, organ-function disorders of the liver, stomach, and kidney are directly related to breast cancer. Their symptoms vary widely and can include migraine headaches, acute menstrual cramps, adult acne, and mood swings.

When a patient suffers from an organ-function disorder, her symptoms become harder to ignore. She may sense something is wrong with her body, yet her conventional medical tests show nothing. This can be frustrating, especially for women with severe symptoms, who are often told that the problem is just "in their head."

Because conventional medicine has no method of identifying organ-function disorder, it is rarely treated until it progresses to a physical problem, at which point medical tests do detect the problem.

3. Internal Cold

Internal cold is a common and easily cured condition. However, paired with a liver-, stomach-, or kidney-function disorder, it can lead to breast cancer.

Symptoms of internal cold include menstrual cramps, having cold hands or feet, and always feeling chilled. There are three ways that internal cold can enter the body:

• Never fully recovering from the common cold or flu. Conventional medical treatments often suppress symptoms, allowing people to get on with their lives sooner. Unfortunately, it also discourages people from resting as much as they need to for their immune systems to fully expel the sickness from their bodies. This can result in the cold essense of the sickness remaining in the body, causing problems in the future if the immune system becomes weakened again.
• Exposure to cold. Not dressing adequately in cool or cold weather can also lead to internal cold. The midriff and the back of the knee are two areas particularly vulnerable. Simply wearing enough clothing can prevent this.
• Eating cold foods and drinking cold beverages. Continually introducing cold into your body through the foods you eat -- for example, by drinking ice water every day -- is a sure way to develop internal cold.

Internal cold can be alleviated by eliminating cold foods from the diet and eating foods that TCM recognizes as having a warm essence, such as ginger, scallions, and fennel. (For more details, please see our page on recommended foods for breast cancer treatment and prevention.)

4. Emotional Imbalance

Many women live with an organ-function disorder and internal cold for years. Once at this stage, an emotional imbalance can trigger the formation of breast tumors or breast cancer.

The emotional imbalance is often brought on by a traumatic life event, such as a divorce or the death of a loved one. It can also result from chronic, deep-seated emotions that have built up over time. When this happens, the anger, sadness, and stress take a quantum leap and transform into a tumor or cancer.

Although this idea may seem foreign, it does not conflict with the theories of Western science. In contrast to conventional medicine, which focuses exclusively on the physical, traditional Chinese medicine recognizes that energy, such as emotions, can change into matter, such as tumors and cancers. This is not a theoretical construct. The basis of this has been scientifically proven by Western science, and it is the essence of Albert Einstein's famous formula E=mc². As Einstein explained:

Mass and energy are both but different manifestations of the same thing -- a somewhat unfamiliar conception for the average mind. Furthermore, the equation E=mc² ... showed that very small amounts of mass may be converted into a very large amount of energy and vice versa. The mass and energy were in fact equivalent. (See the Albert Einstein exhibit on the American Institute of Physics Web site for more details.)

Almost everyone experiences energy stagnation, organ-function disorder, and internal cold at some point in their lives. It is their ability to deal with their emotions in a healthy way that determines whether these preconditions will lead to a tumor and whether that tumor will become cancerous. The important thing to remember is that no matter how serious the health problem, the body always has the potential to heal itself or at least control the progression of the disease.