Nowadays, breast cancer is a “red-headed killer” that more and more young women are afraid to hear about. Create a harmonious environment within the body. In Shanghai, the age of 35-45 is the most common age for breast cancer, and the trend of younger age is becoming more and more obvious. However, the etiology of breast cancer development is still unclear so far. For the possible causes of the high incidence of breast cancer, besides the accelerated pace of life, increased work pressure, changes in lifestyle habits and environmental pollution and radiation, changes in dietary structure, especially obesity due to excessive fat intake, may also be a high risk factor for the development of breast cancer. “For thousands of years our intestines have adapted to a coarse diet, and with the improvement of quality of life, it gives us more opportunities to consume foods containing high fat and high protein. In response to the sudden change in diet structure, not only does our gut need a breathing space, but our body likewise needs a process of adaptation.” So how can breast cancer be prevented from a TCM perspective? It is still very difficult to achieve primary prevention of breast cancer, but it is possible to start with secondary and tertiary prevention. ”From a TCM perspective, liver depression can lead to qi stagnation and blood stasis, which has a lot to do with the occurrence of breast cancer.” Therefore, to prevent breast cancer, the first step is to maintain a good state of mind, keep your mood relaxed and reduce unnecessary stress. ”Secondly, in Chinese medicine, breast lumps are believed to be due to Qi and blood stagnation, so it is important to keep the body’s Qi and blood flowing.” Then it is especially important to exercise and exercise appropriately. Domestic and foreign research on the frequency and manner of appropriate exercise is regular. “For the frequency of exercise, exercise 3 times a week, each exercise 30 minutes; exercise can choose aerobic exercise, so that the heart rate reaches more than 120 beats, so that the body sweats and detoxification.” To insist on choosing the right diet for you. If it turns out not to be your habit, there is no need to make it your habit. Choosing a good diet like roughage is still helpful in preventing breast cancer. “For Chinese people, I always advocate that diet must focus on meat and vegetables, eat more vegetarian food and less greasy food, and at the same time, you can choose more coarse grains such as millet, barley and brown rice to eat.” Developing a good lifestyle is also an important step to prevent breast cancer. Chinese medicine emphasizes the balance of yin and yang. If you do not go to bed before the zi hour (11:00 a.m.), you will disrupt the balance of the body. Because the body undergoes detoxification of different organs at every time between 11:00 and 5:00 a.m. These are done during sleep, so it is important to allow the body to get adequate rest. In addition to this, it is important to change the vices of smoking and alcohol abuse. “If the daily intake of alcohol reaches 10-20 grams, this can also be a trigger for the development of tumors.” For office workers who face computer radiation for a long time, in order to prevent the occurrence of breast cancer, it is important to get up and walk around every half hour and keep the air circulating in the room. When benign breast lesions such as breast enlargement or fibroadenoma are found, this is also an important way to prevent malignant breast lesions if they are diagnosed early and treated as soon as possible. Creating a stable and calm environment inside and outside the body As far as the current knowledge and treatment experience of breast cancer is concerned, early detection, early diagnosis and early treatment are very important. “The five-year survival rate for patients with stage 1 or clinical breast cancer can reach over 95%; for patients with stage 4 breast cancer, their five-year survival rate is only 30%-40% because tumor metastasis has already appeared.” Chinese medicine has its unique therapeutic advantages. On top of surgery, radiotherapy and targeted therapy for breast cancer, if complementary treatment with Chinese medicine can be added, its therapeutic effect is still very obvious. “One of the unique advantages of Chinese medicine lies in its function of ‘reducing toxicity and increasing effectiveness’. For patients during radiotherapy after breast cancer surgery, the intervention of Chinese medicine can reduce and moderate the toxic side effects of radiotherapy on the human body, and at the same time, enhance the vitality of chemotherapy; the second advantage of Chinese medicine is that it can play a long-term conditioning role for patients after radiotherapy for breast cancer surgery, and the purpose of long-term conditioning is to resist tumor metastasis, which is also a great concern in China. ” Numerous literature has revealed that after regular breast cancer surgery or after radiotherapy, the intervention of Chinese medicine can significantly reduce the tumor recurrence and metastasis rate of patients 3 or 5 years after surgery. Chinese medicine is a vast and profound discipline, and “looking, smelling, asking and cutting” are the methods of diagnosing diseases in Chinese medicine, so what is the mechanism of treatment of breast cancer in Chinese medicine? After a tumor appears in the human body, it is like a tree with yellowing leaves. “From the perspective of TCM, when I am looking for the root of the disease, I also observe the environment around the period and look for environmental factors such as sunlight, rain and soil that may cause the disease. TCM is all about pacifying the period and regulating yin and yang, and I will achieve a high level of balance by adjusting the environment around the root of the disease as well as the environment in which it is located internally to bring the body to a state of relative stability as well as peace.” TCM focuses on the overall conditioning process for the patient. I once saw a post-surgical breast cancer patient with asthma. This patient suffered from asthma attacks every winter, so some asthma medicine was added to her prescription for breast cancer, and after the patient continued to take the medicine, her asthma was effectively controlled by the fourth year after her visit. “In addition to seeing the patient, TCM doctors also have to look at the patient, especially all aspects of the patient’s constitution and physical state. Many veteran TCM doctors have to put a lot of thought and use a lot of skills in adjusting the patient’s psychological state as well as social behavior, in addition to prescribing and treating the disease. Breast cancer is not a tumor confined to one site, but a systemic disease from the very beginning. Blood metastases and lymphatic metastases are the most frequent metastases in breast cancer disease. Blood metastasis is systemic, while lymphatic metastasis is a one-stop transmission. When breast cancer grows to a certain size, the presence of circulating tumor cells can be found in the surrounding circulating blood in addition to the localized cancerous lesions. For the possible tumor metastasis after breast cancer surgery, there is also a unique way to prevent it in Chinese medicine. In an experimental study of breast cancer inoculation for rats, it was found that although no metastases appeared in the lungs of rats one week after breast cancer inoculation, there were some changes in the alveolar epithelium of the lungs, which indicated that some changes had occurred in the highly metastatic sites of breast cancer. “From the perspective of Chinese medicine, we have a ‘first comfort restricted place’ view. That is to say, before metastasis appears, I have to adjust the inner environment where the site of possible metastasis is located in order to avoid the possibility of tumor metastasis. When the possibility of metastasis of tumor cells is found, for the high-risk factors of tumor cells, we have to block the metastasis of tumor by using traditional Chinese medicine with the effect of chemotoxicity, detoxification and dispersion, so as to achieve the purpose of preventing metastasis. This is the so-called ‘truncation and reversal’ point of view in TCM.” Through years of research, it has been found that the intervention of Chinese medicine means can significantly improve the quality of survival of breast cancer patients. The most likely sites for breast cancer to metastasize are: bone metastasis, soft tissue metastasis, lung metastasis, liver metastasis, and brain metastasis. For bone metastasis, which is the most likely to occur, TCM treatment methods can highlight its unique treatment concept. “For bone metastases, after we treat them through evidence-based treatment, we apply some drugs that warm the yang, open the ligaments and relieve pain, and the effect is very good. Secondly, many patients will feel great pain in their bones after bone metastasis occurs. In the prescription, we will add pain-relieving prescriptions, which can effectively improve the patient’s quality of survival. For patients with advanced tumor metastasis, in the TCM regimen, we ‘save their lives’ by stabilizing the lesions and shrinking them, so that the patient can survive with the tumor and improve their quality of life.” Breast cancer patients also have a number of interventions in TCM to enhance their quality of life after surgery. “In addition to the regular oral Chinese medicine regimen, we also do some ear acupuncture because regulating the ear acupuncture points can have the effect of relieving pain and sleeping. Some patients are very slow to heal their wounds after surgery, and this time by using topical herbs, they are able to heal their wounds as soon as possible.”