Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) takes a unique view of the role that genetics plays in breast cancer. From the perspective of TCM, everyone who is born with a genetic predisposition for the disease is also born with the knowledge of how to heal from it. This is based on ying-yang theory, which states that opposites are always in balance. If there is a negative, it always occurs with an equally powerful positive.

Having a genetic marker for breast cancer is, in and of itself, harmless. You can think of the genetic predisposition as a seed. Under particular conditions, the seed will grow. Without these conditions, it will simply remain dormant.

Often younger women with a genetic marker for cancer face the agonizing choice of whether to have a mastectomy when diagnosed with a nonmalignant tumor. From the perspective of TCM, having a mastectomy still leaves the genetic seed for the disease in the body. If the patient allows her body to become unbalanced and then experiences excess negative emotions, she will still be at high risk for developing some other type of cancer.