Searching for the emotional roots of breast cancer: A cross-disciplinary analysis integrating psychology, Chinese medicine, and oncology biomarkers.

Objective: We employed a multidisciplinary approach incorporating theoretical ideas, clinical experience, psychology, physiology, traditional Chinese medicine (CM), modern practice of CM, and oncology to explore the effect of patients' repression of negative emotions and traumatic events on breast cancer (BC) pathogenesis.

Methods: BC female patients, older than 18 years of age, with available pathology reports who were treated at Rabin Medical Center were recruited. All participants completed questionnaires regarding medical history, behavioral tendencies, negative emotions, trauma, symptoms, and pathology (from a CM perspective).

When science meets medical tradition: what is needed for a dialogue on integrative medicine?

It has been more than a decade since the release of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) consensus statement declaring that acupuncture is not an experimental therapy but a sound medical technique comparable in effectiveness to common conventional medical treatments for certain clinical conditions, such as nausea and pain. For the first time in the history of modern medicine, a traditional medical system gained legitimacy in the Western medical establishment. Yet, it remains unclear whether the motivation behind this endorsement represents a unity of conceptualization regarding the desired structure of the health care system and the nature of the integration of conventional and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).