← Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Why Women Should Avoid Mammograms & Other Cancer Bombshells | Jennifer Simmons, MD
01:23:27
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- [00:00]
A
When we talk about the mammogram, of course it's going to cause cancer. Some of the cancers that we have in our population of women that screen are because they are screening with mammogram. So many women opt for mastectomy because they think it's better. The truth is that there is absolutely no survival advantage to mastectomy. But if you have a mastectomy, even with a well done reconstruction, you will never forget that you had breast cancer. Those scars run so deep.
- [00:55]
B
Why should women avoid bath and body works like the plague? Are mammograms contributing to breast cancer rates? Why are we seeing an explosion in breast cancer in young women in their 20s and 30s? This is what we're going to find out today with integrative oncologist, breast surgeon, author, podcast host, and the founder of Perfection Imaging, Dr. Jennifer Simmons. She left traditional medicine in 2019 and founded Real Health Maryland to support all women on their breast cancer journey toward true healing. This episode was important for me to release this month since everyone will be talking about breast cancer awareness. I would like for people to hear the truth that they're not going to get this month from their breast cancer walk getting handed Doritos and Keebler cookies. Watch this episode on Spotify or the real Alex Clark YouTube. I'm able to film such a beautiful show thanks to donors like you. To send a tax deductible donation to Fun Culture Apothecary, click the link in the show notes. We are on a journey to heal a sick culture physically, mentally and spiritually and I'm really glad you found us. I'm Alex Clark. Please welcome Integrative Breast Cancer doctor Jen Simmons to Culture Apothecary. What is the standard healthcare women diagnosed with breast cancer receive in the United States and how does that compare to what they deserve?
- [02:13]
A
I think the treatment for breast cancer right now is pretty much one size fits all, no matter where you are. And it has not significantly changed in decades. So women who get a diagnosis get immediately shuttled into what we have come to accept as the treatment paradigm, right? You have surgery to remove the cancer. You have either radiation. If you haven't opted to have your entire breast removed, they add radiation into the rest of the breast tissue and then you get evaluated for whether or not you should get chemotherapy and whether or not you should get hormone therapy. And what this all translates into is a one size fits all system that is hurting a lot of people and the fact that we have not put our resources towards knowing who needs what treatment and individualizing treatment, it's disgraceful.
- [03:21]
B
Why can't we individualize treatment? Does this have to do with insurance?
- [03:24]
A
It has something to do with insurance. It has something to do with standardization of care. It's very hard to standardize care if you're going to treat everyone differently. But the trade off that you get for not for standardizing care is that everyone gets the same whether they need it or not. And if breast cancer treatment were a benign entity, that would be something. But breast cancer treatment is not benign. And when we treat women for breast cancer, we significantly decrease the quality and the quantity of her life. Now, I don't want to pretend that breast cancer isn't a devastating disease, because for a percentage of breast cancers, it for sure is. And for that percentage of breast cancers, those women that have very aggressive disease, they need everything thrown at them. They need what is considered the standard of care. Right. They need everything that modern medicine has to offer. However, there's a large percentage, 40, 60% of women diagnosed with breast cancer that don't need that at all.
- [04:35]
B
Really? They don't need it?
- [04:37]
A
No, no. When we look at. There are some really important studies that we should talk about. One of them is the Canadian Breast Cancer screening study. And what they looked at was 90,000 women, 45,000 they screened with mammogram. 45,000 just went on their way. Whether they did self examination, whether they went to the doctor and had an examination, but they were not screened with mammogram. And they followed them. These are women age 40 to 59, and they followed them out over 15 years. And what happens is that the same exact number of women die of breast cancer in both groups, the same exact number of women. The difference is the women who are screening with mammogram, there are 20 to 30% more cancers diagnosed in that group. And what that means is we're picking up cancers by screening with mammogram that would never have become clinically relevant. These women would have never developed disease. They would have never developed anything that was life threatening. And yet we made them into breast cancer patients. Now, again, I started this by saying if breast cancer treatment was benign, that would be one thing. But when you get treated for breast cancer, you get brain fog, depression, anxiety, palpitations, cardiomyopathy, you have osteoporosis, you're subject to rib fractures, you have loss of your libido, loss of your sexual drive, your intimacy is affected. Women become incontinent, you gain weight, you have gut problems, you have reflux, you have joint pain, you have muscle pain, you're not as active as you were before. These are serious, serious consequences of treatment. And when we look at the population of women who are treated for breast cancer, they are two to three times more likely to die of cardiovascular disease than women who are not treated for breast cancer. Cardiovascular disease is already exponentially the threat to a woman's life.
- [06:53]
B
So you're saying there's something that we're doing when it comes to treating breast cancer that's making women sicker?
- [06:57]
A
Yes.
- [06:58]
B
Is it the mammograms?
- [06:59]
A
Well, the mammogram is the start. The mammogram is the entry point because we're using this really unsophisticated test, which is radiation. Right. In every other arena, when we talk about radiation, radiation causes cancer. And yet when we talk about the mammogram, because we gave it a nice name, mammogram picture of the breast, because we gave it this friendly name, now we've forgotten that it is a breast X ray. Of course it's going to cause cancer. Some of the cancers that we have in our population of women that screen are because they are screening with mammogram.
- [07:41]
B
Okay, so then what do you say to the person listening? Because I get this all the time. And they are very upset when people talk about this and talk about mammograms in this way, because they say, well, you know what? If it wasn't for a mammogram, my mother or my sister or my daughter would not be alive because that was how we were able to find this cancer. What would you say?
- [08:00]
A
That brings up the point from the Canadian breast cancer screening study. And that's not the only one. The Nordic trials, the Cochrane report reports the same thing. 600,000 women. Half of them, they screen, Half of them, they don't screen. The same number of women die of breast cancer in both groups. So those screen cancers that we're picking up, they would have never come to fruition. So you can't ever say that a mammogram saved someone's life. And when we look at the actual statistics, for every 2,000 women that we screen over 10 years, we may potentially save one woman's life, and we will cause 10 to 20 women to be treated unnecessarily for breast cancer.
- [08:48]
B
This is unreal.
- [08:49]
A
Unreal, Unreal. And the fact that we're not talking about it and the fact that the radiologists are so adamant that mammograms save lives, it's really disgraceful. It's like that rumor that won't die because you've heard it so many times that you believe it to be true. And listen, when I was in medical school, I believed it to be true, right? And that's the thing.
- [09:12]
B
A lot of these doctors probably believe it.
- [09:14]
A
That's right. I was taught that mammograms save lives, and I believed it. I was taught that finding things early was beneficial. And that is really the basis. That's why we developed the mammographic screening program, because we believed that breast cancer growth Was both linear and predictable. So if you have a breast cancer, it starts small and it grows to some critical size, at which point it's more likely to metastasize, to spread, right? And the only breast cancers that we worry about Are the ones that spread, because breast cancer in the breast is not life threatening. Breast cancer anywhere else in the body is life threatening. So if you could catch these tumors before they got to that critical size, Then you could both save lives and save breasts and save women for more treatment. And it's a lovely theory. Just doesn't happen to be true.
- [10:09]
B
What are we seeing in breast cancer cases in women under 40?
- [10:14]
A
These young women with breast cancer is our latest epidemic, and it is multifactorial without question. But, you know, I can't help but think what happened just two or three years ago. And really, it has had a significant impact on the immune system. And if you understand breast cancer and what happens with breast cancer, then you understand that the immune system is central to whether or not you develop breast cancer. So if you all of a sudden roll out something in millions and millions and millions and millions of people, and that something that you roll out has a detrimental effect on the immune system, we're going to be in trouble. When I was in practice for the first 15, 20 years, okay, if someone called me and said, I have an 18 year old with a lump in her breast, I would say, I'm sure it's nothing.
- [11:23]
B
Assist.
- [11:24]
A
I'll see them, you know, next week, next month. It's fine. Tell them it's fine. Tell them I said it's fine and not to worry. You know, I can't say that anymore Because I never saw a teenager with a breast cancer before. Now you're seeing teens, teens, teenagers, women in their 20s, women in their early 30s. This is the latest breast cancer epidemic is these young women. And it's because we have confused the immune system and it's no longer able to do its job. You know, we all make cancer cells, all of us, from the young to the Old, everyone in between. We make cancer cells, but an intact immune system can recognize those cancer cells in their infancy.
- [12:12]
B
Is there any relation between hormonal birth control and the rise of cancer rates in women?
- [12:16]
A
Absolutely, 100%. Because hormonal birth control is not bioidentical. And I really am very clear about this distinction between the two because I am a full supporter of bioidentical hormone replacement even in the breast cancer population. And that is the title to my next book, the Forgotten Woman, because that is the woman who was treated for breast cancer is kind of left to die in this miserable state. So I am intent on helping that population. But when we talk about the birth control population, the birth control pill population, what it's being prescribed for, what it's being used for, because it's being used outside of just birth control. Right? Like if you have a young girl with heavy period symptoms, what happens? She gets put on birth control. You have a young girl with acne, what happens? She gets put on birth control. You have a young girl with irregular periods, what happens? She gets put on. On birth control to regulate her cycle. And what no one's thinking about is that it's not normal to have an irregular cycle. And we should be looking at what's happening and instead we're filling these girls system with estrogens that they don't even know these are foreign estrogens.
- [13:33]
B
Preach this.
- [13:34]
A
Yes. So of course there's going to be consequences to that because they're going to be overstimulatory. And that in a vacuum probably wouldn't matter as much as now we have all of this immune dysfunction. And the combination of the two is going to lead to more breast cancer diagnoses. And we have the data to support that. You know, in 2019, we were probably diagnosing around 240,000 invasive breast cancers a year in this country. Now it's 290,000. Where did that 50,000 come from? It came from several things. It came from. We are definitely surrounded by xenoestrogens, these artificial estrogens, these.
- [14:21]
B
Where do you find those?
- [14:22]
A
So those are all the chemicals. That's the plastics, that's the fragrance, that's the antibiotics, that's the pesticides, the fungicides, the herbicides. That's all the things that we're coating, the fire retardants, the water sealants, all of those things. Those are xenoestrogens. They are acting on our estrogen receptors, but they're acting abnormally on our estrogen receptors. They're overstimulatory and any time we reproduce cells, we have the chance to make a mistake. And that's how cancer cells happen. And again, in someone who has an intact immune system, it probably wouldn't matter. But our immune system is so distracted by all that is going on in modern life.
- [15:10]
B
And is diet a big part of that immune system being distracted?
- [15:13]
A
A huge part of it. A huge part of it. Because our biggest exposure to the outside world is through what we put in our mouth. It's through what we eat and drink every day. We think about our gut as an internal organ. It is not an internal organ. It's an external organ. It's coming into contact with the outside world every single day, multiple times a day, through what you eat and what you drink.
- [15:39]
B
Is there any link between IVF and breast cancer?
- [15:43]
A
Fertility is health. And if you are struggling with fertility, there's a reason why it's not bad luck. It's that you have a hormonal system which is not conducive to either getting pregnant or staying pregnant. And so these are the people that go for ivf. And there are a number of drugs administered for sure. But remember that it's only happening in someone who already has the stage set for hormonal imbalance.
- [16:18]
B
Do you think that they are not exploring why somebody is not getting pregnant enough?
- [16:23]
A
100%. So.
- [16:26]
B
Wow.
- [16:26]
A
I think that everyone who wants to have a child, fertility and thinking about fertility should start years before.
- [16:36]
B
Yes.
- [16:36]
A
And if your cycle is irregular, if you have severe periods, cramping, mood changes, pms, heavy bleeding, any of those things that are abnormal, if you're suffering during your periods or your skipping periods, this is the time to figure out why. Because that's not normal. It's not normal. And hormone balance can be achieved, but it can be achieved by adding something in.
- [17:07]
B
So there's this really popular influencer, and I. I mean, my heart just goes out to her. She was just diagnosed with breast cancer and they've already. They've got her doing ivf.
- [17:15]
A
I know real. You're talking about Bridget.
- [17:17]
B
Yeah, yeah. I don't know this girl and whatever, but I. I feel for her. But I just thought, like, that was interesting. Like, I was like, is that a good idea to be trying to do IVF right now? Like, that soon?
- [17:27]
A
Well, I think that she was already in the throes of IVF before. I think that's partially why her breast cancer diagnosis came to be.
- [17:38]
B
So what do you think about that?
- [17:40]
A
The truth is that the stage was already set for breast cancer. Right. It's her fertility struggles that were setting the stage for breast cancer. Whether or not the drugs that they used to kind of stimulate ovulation and stimulate follicle development so that they could retrieve eggs, whether that sped up her timeline or not, I'm not sure. And I can't say, however, that breast cancer was already there. That breast cancer didn't develop out of the ivf. It was already there, and the stage was already set for my practice. When I see women with breast cancer, so many of them have gone through fertility treatments, and I am like 10 or 20 years down the road from that with them, because no one ever asked the question, why are you struggling with fertility? We are not supposed to struggle with fertility. Maternal fetal medicine doctors, the fertility doctors, they have an amazing opportunity because they have the women before they've developed breast cancer, before they've developed dysfunction. And listen, they don't want to take their. The money out of their pockets. I understand what they do is ivf, and that's how they earn their money and how they get paid. But they would be doing women a great service if at the same time, they use that. And they would have more success if they use that opportunity to teach these women how to eat, how to move, how to think, how to sleep, how to do all the things that we know drive ideal, optimal function, and that would actually stimulate fertility. So I don't want to take their job away from them, obviously, but they should all be partnering with a functional practitioner so that we can actually help. You had a guest on your show that described a situation where it would be like your fire alarm going off in your house because there was a fire, and just shutting the alarm off, but not doing anything about the fire. It was the thyroid doctor that you had on.
- [19:58]
B
Oh, Dr. Red.
- [19:59]
A
Yes. Yeah, yes. This is exactly the problem over and over again, all over the place. It's the problem in the fertility world where you're forcing a pregnancy, right? You're doing IVF and you're. You're forcing this whole situation without saying, why isn't this happening on its own? I mean, if we really needed ivf, we wouldn't be here.
- [20:23]
B
Is it possible to treat breast cancer without chemo?
- [20:27]
A
It depends. It depends. It depends on where you are. So I always say, I meet everyone where they are. If you have a tremendous amount of tumor load, right, like your proverbial bucket is overflowing your body and your body's ability to contain this process, at this point, it's probably. It's nearly impossible. So for people with a significant amount of disease in their body. I'm not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. That's someone who I'm probably going to use chemotherapy with because I need a quick fix. I need to turn this around quickly.
- [21:11]
B
So there are times where it is too late to go the holistic route. There are times where it's like we just. Chemo is the only thing.
- [21:16]
A
Well, I would say that and then I would say that there are people who will, who are alive and well, who have had stage four disease for 20 years. Who would speak otherwise. Right. And I mean, I think Chris Wark, I don't know if you've ever had Chris on your show.
- [21:35]
B
Yeah, I have.
- [21:35]
A
Chris would say differently. I mean he had stage three colon cancer and refused chemotherapy. Chemotherapy. He did have surgery. So I think there's probably something like, I treat it a little bit like a Chinese menu. Like I'm going to take something from column A and something from column B and something from column C. But what I'm always clear about is that functional medicine is always the end. You can take stuff from the conventional medical paradigm. It's never going to make you healthier. I am someone who, I know how to manage, someone who's getting chemotherapy. I know how to protect them from the long term damage of chemotherapy. And I am selective about the drugs that they get and how much they get and how they get them. I'm not using that one size fits all philosophy because I think it's wrong.
- [22:27]
B
What are the ways to protect somebody from the long term effects of chemo?
- [22:29]
A
The first thing you can do is fast when you're getting chemo. If you are getting chemo in a fasted state, your normal cells become quiet, they become quiescent and they are not taking up the chemotherapy. So if they're not taking up the chemotherapy, they're not getting damaged by the chemotherapy. So you really want to shut down your metabolic system so that the only. The cancer cells, which the cancer cells don't have that self regulation.
- [23:00]
B
So if it's chemo day, you should stop eating when the night before, two.
- [23:03]
A
Days before and chemo.
- [23:05]
B
Oh my gosh, you got to starve for three days.
- [23:06]
A
Yeah, sounds horrible. Yeah. You can do the fasting, mimicking diet that was made famous by Valter Longo at usc. And that is a way of eating under a threshold that your body actually sees that you're eating. So you can do that. But the people that fast while they're going through chemotherapy, they will do it over and over and over again because it makes a huge difference not eating for three days.
- [23:34]
B
So then you have to wait till the whole next day after chemo to start eating like that. Morning.
- [23:38]
A
Yeah. The following day.
- [23:42]
B
My go to airport snacks are a bag of cold rotisserie chicken squeezable almond butter beef sticks in Masa chips. Recently I was opening my bag of masa chips and the lady sitting next to me was asking about them. She'd never seen them before and I told her they are the best tasting seed oil free tortilla chips. I gave her one to try. She practically jumped out of her seat. I am very picky about people that I allow to be partners on the show. I say no to more than I say yes to. The family behind Masa chips are full of integrity, amazing values. They have a mission to totally disrupt our corrupt food industry and that is something I can get behind. Before they were sponsors, I actually interviewed the really Tan man because I love these chips so much. Masa chips are made with only three ingredients. Beef tallow, organic corn in real salt. You can get 20% off with code real Alex Clark on your first purchase@masachips.com that's code real Alex Clark for 20% off@masachips.com seed oil free and never take tasted better. After my episode with Jen Thatcher from Zebra, I couldn't believe the amount of DMS from you guys saying that you were dealing with an excessive amount of cavities in yourself and your children and that until that episode you had no idea it could be the non toxic hydroxy appetite toothpaste that you were using. Zebra is the cleanest toothpaste, floss and deodorant brand that I found that shares my exact values, has gorgeous packaging and quality products that work. After Jen's kids got super sick she realized that the majority of so called non toxic products in the supermarket were anything but no fluoride, no hydroxyapatite. Instead she uses xylitol in her toothpaste. Go to yay zebra.com use code Alex for 10% off any order. That's yay zebra.com code Alex for 10% off non toxic floss, toothpaste and deodorant. True or false? Thermography is the best screening for breast cancer. False.
- [25:38]
A
I love thermography so please don't think that I am trashing thermography in any way. Thermography is safe. Thermography is extremely useful for what it is. It detects a heat signal. This is our way of knowing if there is Inflammation Thermography is not a screening tool for breast cancer. It's not. And the reason why it's gotten a bad rap is because people market it as a screening tool for breast cancer. And so when it misses breast cancers, the opponents of thermography say, see, yeah.
- [26:13]
B
The mammogram people, right? If it's not mammograms and it's not thermography, what should we be using to detect breast cancer?
- [26:20]
A
Oh, I thought you would never ask. So first let me say that I believe in self breast examination. I think that everyone should know what their breasts feel like when they're normal so that they can know what they feel like when there's something that's changed, when there's something that's abnormal. And I really only believe in addressing clinical disease. I only believe in addressing things once they have presented themselves, because I am a huge proponent of people not getting harmed unnecessarily. And I don't like overbiopsy, I don't like over treatment. I really believe in knowing what your clinical examination is like. So for women who are premenopausal, that means examining your breasts one week after your cycle. So just once a month, but one week after your cycle, that's the time when your breasts are the least stimulated. And then if you're postmenopausal, it's just once a month, like most people say, feel them on the first. So that's my first thing. Up until a year ago, I would advise people who wanted to do imaging to get ultrasound. Ultrasound is a very low resolution technology, but for me it was far better than people getting radiated every year or having an MRI every year. Because MRI has been used as the gold standard for screening in women with dense breasts. However, MRI requires gadolinium. Gadolinium is a heavy metal that is stored in the body. It's always stored at the expense of something else, something that you need. And it does cause long term end organ damage. So I can't in good conscience recommend that people get MRIs for screening every year. And so now I'm just so grateful that there is technology that can be used for screening that is fast, it's safe, it's affordable, it's comfortable, there's no radiation, it's FDA cleared and it's called qt. So QT uses sound waves that are transmitted through a water bath. So no radiation, no compression, and in as little as 20 minutes, you can have a true 3D reconstruction of the breast. And the most exciting thing about this technology is that it has functional capability. So what I mean by that is if we find something, if it's an obvious cancer, obviously we tell people to go get treated. But if we find something that is ambiguous, instead of having people going and getting additional images and getting a biopsy, we ask them to come back in 60 days. So a short interval study, we rescan them and we measure the volume, we measure the doubling time. And we know that cancers have a doubling time of less than 100 days. And things that aren't cancer or aren't meaningful have a greater doubling time. So we can say to people, you know, we might not know exactly what this is, but we know this is not going to hurt you. Yeah. So come back in a year, let's follow it. And in the meantime, here you are with this opportunity. You have the opportunity to look at your life, look, see what's working, see what's not, and take this opportunity to make improvements. Because as you and I know, health is not a destination. Health is a journey. Health is a journey that you have to stay on this journey every day. And I know this from experience. You know this from experience. This is something that if you are committed to your health, then you have all these amazing opportunities to always improve and be better. And you're not limited by age or stage, because as long as you're here and alive, you have the opportunity to be better. Now, there is one more screening test for breast cancer that I'm using every year on people. It's called the ARIA test. A U R I A. It's the tears test. I don't know if you've heard of that.
- [30:31]
B
No.
- [30:32]
A
So early on in breast cancer, we secrete these proteins. They're called the S100 proteins. And specifically with breast cancer, it's the S100A8 and S100A9. And they are concentrated in your tears. So we can take a sample of someone's tears and measure for these proteins and determine their risk for breast cancer.
- [30:57]
B
So now what kind of doctors are offering like the QT or the tier one? Where can you get these done?
- [31:03]
A
So I have an imaging center just outside of Philadelphia. It's called perfection imaging. I also have one in Nevada, California. And so you can go there to be image and on my website and in each of my imaging centers, you can pick up one of these ARIA kits. The website is called ARIA care and I actually have a discount code for your listeners. If they put in Dr. Gen 20 in CAPS, Dr. R J E N N 20, they can get 20 off of this test.
- [31:36]
B
Oh, nice.
- [31:37]
A
Okay, perfect.
- [31:37]
B
And we'll put that in the show notes too, for those that are like, what was that code again? And all that. Yeah, you don't have to listen to the whole episode. We'll put it in the show notes. What are the top things women are exposing themselves to on a daily basis that is increasing their cancer risk unknowingly?
- [31:50]
A
You know how you go into an office or lots of people have these in their homes and they have little K cups. They make their coffee every morning.
- [31:58]
B
Yes.
- [31:59]
A
Yeah. So, you know, you put that little K cup in and you get your coffee and you go on to drink plastic.
- [32:07]
B
The K cups are contributing to breast.
- [32:10]
A
Cancer rates, of course.
- [32:11]
B
Oh, my gosh. Millennial women are falling over, cars are crashing, listening.
- [32:16]
A
I know. And you also have to be super duper careful about what's inside of that K cup too, because most coffee is really, really toxic. And I know you talk about this on your show, so. So you have to be super duper careful about how you're starting every day and that morning coffee can either make your day or break your day. We all love our products, right? We love our products, but so many of our self care products are just not good for us. There are heavy metals in lipstick. Most lotions and potions have something called triclosan in them. And that is an antibiotic that is, is there to prevent, you know, growth, organism growth inside of your product. But in the meantime, that is a xenoestrogen.
- [33:11]
B
So you're saying there's an ingredient in like our pots of a lotion or things like that so that they'll last for years and not get yucky in the, in the container.
- [33:19]
A
That's correct.
- [33:19]
B
And it's an antibiotic that we're putting on us.
- [33:23]
A
Yep.
- [33:23]
B
Okay. I had never heard that.
- [33:25]
A
Yeah, People like really get upset about this, especially because think about how much money women spend on their products and.
- [33:33]
B
Think about how much money cancer costs to treat.
- [33:36]
A
I know.
- [33:36]
B
Hello.
- [33:37]
A
I know.
- [33:37]
B
This is the kind of stuff that just drives me this. You know how expensive you want us to like get, you know, grass fed meat? Well, that's a little bit more expensive than factory farm. Well, you want us to throw away our toxic lotions. It's like, fine, don't do it. But know then where the cost is coming from potentially in the future. It's like.
- [33:52]
A
Yes. So it's pay now or pay later. Yeah. Right. And so that's a big one. Toothpaste is one of my, like super duper pet peeves.
- [34:04]
B
What's going on with the toothpaste?
- [34:05]
A
So, first of all, most toothpaste still has fluoride in it. And fluoride is a horrendous endocrine disruptor. So what fluoride does is it exchanges with iodine in thyroid hormone. And so, so you can have normal thyroid hormone levels, but if there's a fluoride in there instead of an iodide, then your thyroid hormone is not going to work. So we have all of these people out there complaining of thyroid disease symptoms, and they measure their levels and they're told that their levels are normal. And it's because they do not have normal thyroid hormone because they don't have the iodine molecule in there.
- [34:50]
B
Holy smokes. That's huge.
- [34:53]
A
Yeah. So no fluoride toothpaste. And I mean, I take it a bit further because most of the things in toothpaste are super duper toxic. And so, you know, I'm one that I'm very particular about the toothpaste brands that I use, I love Revitin. I don't know if you've heard of that one, but that is a probiotic toothpaste. So that one's really lovely. And then I also use the Primal Life organics. And it's messy, it's powder. My kids hate it, you know, but it's clean. It's clean.
- [35:31]
B
Okay. I like. And talk about Zebra on this show. This. This brand called Zebra, they have toothpaste, floss, all that kind of stuff. And she uses, I think, xylitol and something, but no fluoride. Everything's fluoride free. Do you know the eight signs of breast cancer by heart?
- [35:48]
A
The obvious one is a mass in your breast, right? You can sometimes get retraction in your skin. So I always recommend that people put their arms up over their head and look in the mirror for any retraction in the skin. Because sometimes when a tumor forms, it will pull on the Cooper's ligaments in the breast and make a dimple in the skin. And then there is a form of breast cancer called inflammatory breast cancer. So that is associate. That's a tumor in the breast, but it's associated with an inflammatory reaction. So you'll have redness of the skin and a certain kind of dimpling in the skin called peau derange. The skin of an orange, right? Where you basically see dimples where the hair follicles are. And that's because there's so much swelling in the skin of the breast. So swelling in the skin of the Breast redness in the skin of the breast, that's all associated with inflammatory breast cancer. Then nipple discharge, spontaneous nipple discharge. Please ladies, do not go and check to see if you have discharge coming out of your nipples. Trust me, if you have nipple discharge, you will know without trying to elicit it yourself. Because if you try to elicit it, our bodies are really smart. And if you try to elicit it, your body thinks that you want to have nipple discharge and so it will produce some and it's like this self fulfilling prophecy. So don't check. But if you have nipple discharge, that is something that should be investigated. Some people don't present with a lump in their breast, but instead present with a lump underneath their arm. So I do tell people to include that in their examination.
- [37:30]
B
Okay, you're checking arms.
- [37:32]
A
Yeah, you're going to want to feel around your breast, but you're also going to want to feel underneath your arm. And I don't know if I covered all eight, but those are the major ones that I think about. If you have a lump in your breast, retraction in the skin of your breast, a change in the appearance of your breast, if your breast is suddenly bigger or suddenly smaller, these are things that should be investigated. If you have redness and swelling in your breast, peau derange, which is skin, skin of the orange, that dimpling of your skin, and if you have a lump underneath your arm, these are all things that are consistent with breast cancer and should be investigated.
- [38:13]
B
What are the five blood tests every woman with breast cancer should get?
- [38:18]
A
Oh, I love this question. So everyone should know what their vitamin D level is. I know that that's a really controversial thing because.
- [38:26]
B
Why is that controversial?
- [38:27]
A
Well, first of all, most primary care doctors have no idea that vitamin D is involved in anything other than bone health. So they're very reluctant to order it. They don't understand the, the meaning of vitamin D in our immune system. In, you know, vitamin D is involved in our hormonal system, our METAP metabolic system. It's the basis for thyroid hormone.
- [38:54]
B
I take D3K2 every morning and night. Do you feel like that's kind of one of those supplements that's like, like everyone could benefit from taking?
- [39:01]
A
Everyone. Yeah, but you need to know your level and I believe that your level should be somewhere between 60 to 100. And most doctors feel really uncomfortable with that. I also don't recommend taking vitamin D at night because it's our day hormone.
- [39:19]
B
Oh.
- [39:19]
A
And so it can cause sleep disruption and a little bit of hormonal confusion in your body.
- [39:25]
B
Oh, that's good to know. Maybe I should take two in the day.
- [39:27]
A
I tell people not to take vitamin D after 3:00 in the afternoon because you really wouldn't. I mean, depending on the time of year it is, you can take it a little later in times where your days are longer. But for most people you would be getting your vitamin D from sunlight. It's just that we live inside now. I know, right?
- [39:50]
B
I don't get enough.
- [39:51]
A
But you should be supplementing your vitamin D at a physiologic time, so at the time when you would be getting it anyway. And that's during daylight.
- [40:00]
B
Okay. I love that hack. I love that hack. Didn't know that.
- [40:03]
A
Yeah.
- [40:03]
B
Okay, so we need to be doing a vitamin D blood test. What else? If you have breast cancer.
- [40:07]
A
If you have breast cancer. So breast cancer is both an environmental disease and a metabolic disease. And so much of breast cancer is the end of the line of metabolic dysfunction. So I want everyone to know, what's your fasting glucose? What's your fasting insulin? What's your A1? Your fasting glucose should be below 90, and if it's not, you need to think about why. Is it your diet? Are you under a significant amount of stress and your body thinks that you need to run away from a saber toothed tiger and it's trying to give you the glucose to do it. Do you have enough zinc? Do you have zinc dysfunction? Because if you have zinc dysfunction, this will also affect your fasting glucose. What's your fasting insulin? Insulin. If your fasting insulin is above 5, you probably have some dysfunction there. Now if it's 6, I'm not going to get upset. If it's 30, you're in real trouble. Okay, so if it's 30, you're careening out of control.
- [41:10]
B
So is this one blood test that will do all these things that you just listed?
- [41:13]
A
Yeah, I want people to know their glucose, their insulin, their A1C, your A1C should be below 5. And then I think everyone should know what their high sensitivity C reactive protein is. I think that we need to know if you are running around with a significant amount of inflammation. Because if you are, you need to fix that and your disease is not going to reverse until you do. And so it goes back to that thing that we talked about with the fire. It doesn't help to just shut off the fire alarm. You have to put out the fire. And so when you have a diagnosis of breast cancer, and this is why I wrote my book the Smart Woman's Guide to Breast Cancer. So you don't have to panic. So if you get a diagnosis, you can take a breath and know that I've got you. And this is what you need to know to understand your diagnosis. This is what you need to know to build your team, and this is what you need to know to build your health going forward. And all of the labs that I recommend are in there.
- [42:17]
B
Okay, great.
- [42:17]
A
You can literally bring this book to the doctor, talk to your doctor and.
- [42:22]
B
Say, this is what I want and.
- [42:24]
A
Here'S all the questions I need to ask you, and if you're not answering them for me, I'm moving on.
- [42:32]
B
If you've been on birth control for 10 years or more, your body as a woman can be extremely sensitive to phallus and fragrance. This is why I choose garnu 100 organic cotton tampons and pads. You do not want to be using tampons and pads saturated with heavy metals, glyphosate, fragrance, chlorine or worse. Garnew pads and tampons are really cute branded period products that you should feel good about. One because they're better for your body and two because part of every monthly purchase goes towards helping victims of human trafficking. Garnew is a conservative owned small business that deserves your support. For sharing your values, go to Garnew.com use code ALEX for for 15% off Garnew.com code ALEX for 15% off you can buy once or you can set up a monthly subscription so you never accidentally run out. That's what I do. G.com code Alex for 15% off non toxic 100% organic period products G-N U.com code Alex for 15% OFF focusing on nutrition and supplements is important, but so is cleaning up your personal care products, right? This is something that we just learned with Dr. Simmons in this episode. You do not want to be using toxic body wash washes with endocrine disruptors. By the way. If you use those, you have up to a 70% increase of likelihood of endometriosis. According to PubMed. I only use Alia organic prebiotic body wash which feeds the skin's delicate microbiome. If you struggle with sensitivity to synthetic fragrance and chemicals, eczema, psoriasis or burns, this body wash is going to change your life. In fact, one of you just messaged me and said after a couple days of using this, your child's eczema was completely cleared. The Green Tea Honeysuckle Olivia Wash is my all time favorite scent of theirs. They also have a men's body wash. They have hand soap. They have travel size. Everybody from baby to grandma can use Alia. It's also great as a shampoo. So if you have psoriasis on your scalp, give this a try. Go to alia.com use code ALEX15 for 15% off. That's alia.com a L V I A with code ALEX15 for 15 percent off. The best organic prebiotic body wash. I've been diving into learning about high fructose corn syrup lately and it's one of the only calories that doesn't make you feel more satiated. It actually makes you hungrier. It's also made from GMO corn, which is of course sprayed with glyphosate, a neurotoxin linked to cancer and autoimmune issues. Tons of juice brands have this ingredient in them. I drink non GMO Squeeze Juice from a small family farm in California. Never from concentrate, no water or sugar. Added 100 mandarin pomegranate juice in antioxidant lemonades. They're shipped cold so you can take a cool, refreshing drink as soon as you open the box. Squeeze Juice is the cleanest juice in lemonade on the market. Besides making it yourself at home, ingredient wise, it's exactly the same. You're just paying someone to do the work for you. Go to shop.squeezejuice.com and use code Alex for 25% off. That's shop.squeeze juice.com with code Alex for 25% off. Squeeze juice straight to your door. Your practice, if people go see you in Philadelphia, is it covered by insurance or.
- [45:34]
A
No, it's not because I won't work for insurance companies.
- [45:38]
B
Because insurance companies.
- [45:39]
A
And that's what a lot of you guys don't prioritize. Health.
- [45:41]
B
Yeah, that's exact. That's what a lot of these doctors say. And, and I mean it totally sucks. I mean that's like a whole nother conversation of corruption. But that's why. Because people are like, I don't understand why won't they. Don't they take insurance is because then you guys would be regulated to do all this crap you don't want to do.
- [45:55]
A
Right? And that has nothing to do with health. Yeah, it has nothing to do with health. And just adding those administrative layer layers and checking boxes for insurance companies when I would rather spend that time with you. And quite frankly, and this is going to be a little bit of a tangent, but I can't help myself. We have made the insurance system Something that it should never be. Insurance should be for catastrophic events. If you fall and break your hip, if you, God forbid, have an appendicitis, if you, God forbid, get a cancer diagnosis. That's what insurance should be for. Insurance should not be because you need to go to the doctor for a checkup. Insurance should not be for that. It should not be the day to day things things. It should be for catastrophic things for when you're hospitalized, for when you, you know, you have excessive needs. But it should not be because you need to go to the doctor. That that is not what insurance should be for. And people are using it as their medical plan. But what it lacks, what it's always lacked, is a health plan. And that's what everyone needs. No matter what diagnosis you have or if you don't have a diagnosis, everyone needs a health plan. And that is completely lacking in our medical system. Doctors have no idea how to reverse disease. They have no idea how to make people healthy. And everyone is suffering as a result. And if we had a healthcare system rather than a sick care system, we would be in a very different place. So while I sympathize with people that they would want me to see them and accept insurance, I will not work for insurance companies because they do not have your best interest at heart.
- [47:45]
B
What should the ideal diet for a breast cancer patient look like?
- [47:49]
A
I want to be clear that I don't think that there's any one diet for everyone. Right? And you may be in the vegan camp, you may be in the paleo camp, you may be in the carnivore camp. And I can dispute all of those people. But there's one thing that we all agree on, and then I have some nuances. We all agree that no one should be eating processed food. There is no benefit to anyone eating processed food ever.00. And I don't believe in eating anything that doesn't have benefit to you. Right? Every single thing we eat should be building up, up.
- [48:31]
B
Imagine trying to live, right? You were just diagnosed with cancer, you're trying to live and then you are putting dead food into your body.
- [48:39]
A
Well, beyond that, some people are not even putting food into their body. That, that is the major, major issue. And the messaging that they're getting from our medical system is what you eat doesn't matter.
- [48:53]
B
Well, look what they feed the cancer patients in the freaking hospital.
- [48:56]
A
Boost ensure. I was actually, when I first left surgery, I was interviewing with a hospital and they were offering me a job to be the first chair of the department of Integrative oncology in the country. And it was such an honor, right? Such an honor. So I'm sitting down with the chief medical officer and I said, what are we going to do about the cafeteria? He said, what do you mean? I said, well, you know, I can't have people wake up from a cancer surgery and get fed pancakes and waffles and bacon and you know, I can't do that. He's like, yeah, the cafeteria is off the table. I said, what do you mean? He said, well, you know, the price gurney scores, which are the scores at which we get reimbursed. One of the questions is how tasty is the food? And if we make the food healthy, people don't like it, we get lower scores and lower reimbursements. I'm like, okay, let's just put that aside for a minute and talk about the fact that, you know, we have people here at a teachable moment. They are so vulnerable, they are so willing to do something extraordinary. Yeah. To live at this moment. So let's take this moment to show them how to eat, to teach them how to eat, so that they can take that forward and not have to come back here. Why would I want that? I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, well, we get paid to operate on people. Oh gosh, why would I want to prevent that?
- [50:31]
B
That is profoundly evil.
- [50:32]
A
Evil. And I said, thank you so much. I won't be working here.
- [50:37]
B
This is the corruption that people don't understand. And I, and I'm reminded of, I grew up, I grew up right around Louisville, Kentucky. And so our big children's hospital there, they have a McDonald's in there. And I just.
- [50:47]
A
It, I think they have a McDonald's at like 70% of children's hospitals.
- [50:52]
B
Okay, that is so. That is so crooked. I know you've got a organization who's contributing to the rise of sickness, chronic disease, metabolic disease in this country and we're putting them directly in the frickin hospital. That is crazy. That is crazy.
- [51:10]
A
Money talks. And you know that. And we are living in a very, very, very corrupt system.
- [51:17]
B
It's like having a whole bunch of banks and telling them that you're taking the locks away and saying like all your vaults have to stay open. We're going to drop all your locations in the middle of the crime in San Francisco. Good luck. Yeah, it's kind of like that. Like we're just like leaving you vulnerable to all this disease. We're going to like literally put the food that is causing you know, the majority of all of these problems right there.
- [51:41]
A
Yeah.
- [51:41]
B
So while you're getting operated on right after, you can just eat the food that's going to land you back in here.
- [51:46]
A
This is a very intentionally contained system. Big food, big pharma, big medicine. They're working together and it's. It's horrible and sad. And I do want to say something for the doctors because I know that they are all like me and I know that they all went to medical school with the very best of intention. And there are a lot of doctors out there still very well intentioned, doing the right thing. Unfortunately, they are doing their job. They're doing the job that they were trained to do by a system that is governed by big pharma and big food and big medicine. So the doctors are very much a victim of the system. And so many of them who are doing things that are harming people are doing it with the very best of intentions and they're doing their job and doing it correctly. Medical oncologists are trained to give chemotherapy. Yes, they're hurting people for sure. But they are doing their job and they're doing it correctly. And they're really good people that are caught in a very broken and damaged system. It wasn't until I became a patient that breast cancer of this. I had thyroid. You know, my story is that I come from a breast cancer family. Like I. My entire career, I was waiting for the ball to drop. So I had a first cousin named Linda Creed. She was a singer songwriter in the 1970s and 1980s. She wrote all the music for the Spinners and the Stylistic. She was the queen of Motown sound in Philadelphia. She was beautiful, brilliant, larger than life. She wrote 54 hits. But her most famous song was the Greatest Love of All. So she had written that in 1977 as the title track to the movie the Greatest, starring Muhammad Ali. But it actually received its acclaim in March of 1986 when Whitney Houston would release that song to the world. And at that time, it would spend 14 weeks at the top of the charts. Only my cousin Linda would never know because she died of metastatic breast cancer just one month after Whitney released that song. I was 16 years old and my hero died. And because I never wanted another woman, another family, another community to have to suffer the way that mine suffered, I did the only thing I knew how to do. So I became a doctor, I became a surgeon, I became the first fellowship trained breast surgeon in Philadelphia, the first oncoplasty breast surgeon in Pennsylvania. And I did that really well and for a really long time. And I was about 15 years into my career. Long enough for my aunt to be diagnosed, long enough for my mother to be diagnosed.
- [54:42]
B
Oh, my gosh.
- [54:43]
A
And I completely saw the writing on the walls. And yet here I am, busy person, running the surgery program for my hospital, running the cancer program for my hospital. And I'm a wife and a mother and an athlete, and I am burning my candle at both ends. And I think I'm invincible and probably one of the most high functioning people that you could ever meet. And whenever anyone asks anything from me, the answer was always yes. I go from that to not being able to walk across the room because I don't have the breath in my body in a matter of days. It's not like I had a slow decline. It was like I was on the top of the world and I couldn't breathe. So I have like a very intense three day workup and I'm sitting in the office of my friend and colleague and physician and he tells me that I need surgery and chemo, radiation, and I'm going to be on lifelong medication. And even though I knew that this was the gold standard, that this was the standard of care, that this is what I told people all day, every day, without hesitation or reservation, when these words are coming at you, it's a different story. Yeah, I don't know what to call it. You can call it God, you can call it universe, you can call it whatever you want to call it. The voice inside my head said, there's something more. Go find it. And I walked out of the office that day. He told me I was going to die. And it's not that I didn't believe him. And it's not that I hadn't given that same response to thousands of women who asked me what would happen if they didn't treat their cancer. I had, I gave that exact response, you will die of your disease. But that I could not quiet this voice, this voice inside of me that was telling me I need to go find whatever that it is. And I was so fortunate that very shortly thereafter I enrolled in a program called iin, the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. And I'm sitting in one of the first lectures and I'm a total snooty booty because like, here I am, I'm a doctor for 20 years. Like, what could I possibly learn? I'm in this certificate program with a bunch of people that don't have any kind of background like mine. And this tall, lanky Guy walks on the stage, big toothy grin, and he introduces himself as a functional medicine physician. And I'm like, there's no such thing as a functional medicine physician. What is this quack talking about? And then I remember that I'm sick and I'm there for a reason. And so I quiet my ego, check it at the door, and I tune in. And thank God I did. Because what this man would say over the next two hours would not only telescope how I was going to recover my health, but he was telescoping how I was going to spend the rest of my life.
- [57:48]
B
Wow.
- [57:49]
A
Helping others to heal.
- [57:50]
B
It wasn't Dr. Hyman, was it?
- [57:51]
A
It for sure was.
- [57:53]
B
Shut up. How did I freaking know, Jennifer? How did I freaking know? He's, he's like my hero. Like I'm. That's like my dream guest. Like, if I ever like people. Who would you like, die to interview? It'd probably be Dr. Hyman.
- [58:06]
A
I'll be with him this weekend, so I'll be sure to tell him. I'll interview, introduce you to.
- [58:10]
B
That is so crazy. I just like, my into. I was like, that's gotta be who it is. So he is the doctor who you credit for now wanting. You wanted to get out of conventional medicine and pursue this path.
- [58:19]
A
He changed my life.
- [58:20]
B
That's so cool.
- [58:21]
A
He healed me and he changed the life of millions of women with breast cancer because he put me on this path. And without my interaction with him, this would have never happened. Had I not gotten sick, this would have never happened. So I am not saying that sickness is a blessing. Please know that. I am not saying that. But it is an opportunity. And it's an opportunity that I would have never had because I would not have taken my blinders off. It was only through my own experience as a patient that I questioned our system that I asked why. That I took my blinders off and allowed myself to see the landscape.
- [59:07]
B
And so now, how long has it been since you survived all that?
- [59:11]
A
Yeah. So that was 2016.
- [59:13]
B
Oh, my gosh.
- [59:14]
A
Yeah. But, you know, I went from that talk with Dr. Hyman, I immediately enrolled in the Institute for Functional Medicine. I spent the next three years of my life just submerged in the study of functional medicine.
- [59:27]
B
Going to school all over again.
- [59:28]
A
Going to school all over. I mean, like, literally doing another residency.
- [59:32]
B
Yeah.
- [59:32]
A
I knew that that's what I wanted to do, that that was the path that I was meant to be on.
- [59:38]
B
Are there any vitamins, herbs, supplements that you, like, love recommending to people with breast cancer?
- [59:44]
A
So I think that everyone needs to know about medicinal mushrooms. Do you like medicinal mushrooms?
- [59:49]
B
I have. How do you pronounce it? Reishi.
- [59:51]
A
Reishi.
- [59:52]
B
I take that every day. I take lion's mane. Those are the two that I do.
- [59:58]
A
So that's the mushroom of cognition. And then reishi is the queen of all mushrooms. It's one of my very, very favorites. It's my go to for everyone. And then for people with breast cancer, I also encourage them to look at turkey tail. Look at chaga. Cordyceps is very good for endurance and blood vessel health. So is shiitake. So the medicinal mushrooms to me are like the essence of the universe.
- [60:28]
B
Okay.
- [60:28]
A
And I, you know, I don't want to sound woo woo because there's so much science there.
- [60:33]
B
Well, according to the Atlantic, I sit on the woo woo caucus. Okay.
- [60:38]
A
You know, I'll go right there with you. With medicinal mushrooms, we have to understand what they do in nature. So what they do in nature is they take decaying, rotting matter and they actually convert it into that fruiting body. Oh, that thing that we eat, that thing that we consume. They are actually taking toxic matter and converting it into something healthy. So what do you think they do inside? You love that? The same exact thing.
- [61:07]
B
See, I'm like, I'm like whatever with mushrooms, like I said, I take a couple. But that like, makes me really excited to like get more into it.
- [61:14]
A
Look at Tiro's book, Healing Mushrooms. His book is amazing. He would be another amazing guest for you because he's so knowledgeable on medicinal mushrooms. For my part, what I can say is that this is enabling your body to heal. So in every system, the mushrooms are assisting your body in healing. So they have all these amazing properties where they can help regulate your immune system. So if your immune system is underactive, it can help stimulate it. If your immune system is overactive, it can help dampen in it. Right. It's. They're really smart and they help with your gut health, they help with your lung health, they help with your skin health, with your joint health, with your bone health, with your urinary tract health, with your hormonal health, with your central nervous system, your brain health, your heart health, your blood vessel health, and on and on and on. So while I really love reishi and turkey tail for breast cancer, I love medicinal mushrooms for health. And anyone who is an endurance athlete where you're breaking your muscles down, I actually don't support being an endurance athlete. But if you're doing it for women or everyone, definitely more for women than anything else.
- [62:37]
B
We are. We shouldn't be working out like men. We shouldn't be doing the same things as them.
- [62:42]
A
We're not equal. And I'm not saying that in a derogatory way, but we are not equal. And lots of parts of us aren't equal. We're not as strong as men. We're not as good detoxifiers as men. Which is where that whole alcohol thing comes in. Because alcohol is one of the worst toxins for women. According to the American Cancer Society, there is no safe amount of alcohol consumption for women.
- [63:09]
B
Are you. No alcohol, period.
- [63:11]
A
If you are actively cancerous. Right. If you. If you have disease right now or you've recently been diagnosed with disease, even if you've had your surgery already or whatever, if you haven't come back to health, there's no room for alcohol. When we consume even an ounce of alcohol, that takes our liver eight hours to metabolize. If your liver is busy metabolizing that alcohol, it cannot be doing the other things that it needs to do.
- [63:43]
B
Okay. This is okay. I needed to hear that. It's okay.
- [63:46]
A
Sorry.
- [63:46]
B
I'm like a cocktail once in a while person. I've been doing a lot more mocktails, but I've been like dibbling, dabbling, wondering if I should get rid of it. Totally.
- [63:53]
A
Probably doesn't matter. But the women who are having a glass of wine every day.
- [63:59]
B
No, I don't do that.
- [64:00]
A
Absolute no.
- [64:02]
B
Okay.
- [64:02]
A
An absolute no. So if you're going to drink alcohol, it should be seldomly and never on consecutive days. Because your liver needs time to recover. And we do not have the liver capacity that men do. We just don't.
- [64:19]
B
This is a hot tip. Never drink alcohol on consecutive days if you're going to do it once in a while. And then don't ever drink like one day after another.
- [64:27]
A
Yeah. So I do want to talk about the diet and I don't want to get into diet wars, but I do want to say that. That women with breast cancer need to be extremely aware of their metabolic health. And so what I advocate for is a whole food plant based. Because that's where we're getting our nutrients from, that's where we're getting our vitamins from, what's. Where we're getting our minerals from, Even though we still have to supplement with some minerals. Low glycemic, because we do not want those increases in blood sugar. Because those increases in blood sugar come with increases in insulin. Come with increases in insulin, like growth factor. And that basically is growth Hormone for cancer cells.
- [65:13]
B
What do you think about the people that say, like avoid vegetables because they're high in oxalates and that's causing a bunch of problems?
- [65:18]
A
No. Okay. No, absolutely not. I hear you with the oxalate argument and I can tell you with 20 years of clinical practice, it is not the issue that the anti vegetable people would like to have you believe. Okay. And it's where you're getting your vitamins and minerals from. Where you get your protein from is your choice as long as you are using extremely clean sources of protein. So if you want to be plant based and you want to use plant based proteins, great. Those are your beans and your legumes. If you're going to consume soy, it needs to be non GMO organic soy that is minimally processed. Because what we all need to do do is avoid processed foods. Now the one thing that's probably different with me that other people are not necessarily saying is I am a no grain person. And this is very intentional. It's for two reasons. First, grains are high glycemic foods. And so I want to keep people's blood sugar down, insulin down. Insulin like growth factor down. So that's one reason. But the second reason, and we talked about this a little before, I don't believe in eating things that have no benefit to you. If we never ate another grain again, we would suffer no nutritional deficiencies. Grains are seeds of grass and grasses are to be consumed by ruminators. Ruminators have very long redundant gastrointestinal tracts.
- [66:58]
B
Like cows.
- [66:59]
A
Like cows, like horses. Compared to us, we have very short gastrointestinal tracts. So we cannot extract the nutrient from grains. We're not capable of doing it. So for us, it is all inflammation and no benefit. So I do not believe in eating grains. I know that that is probably like heresy to a lot of people and I get it. And I know that there are patients of mine where I'm telling them do this and they do 80% of it. And you know, part of that, that 20% may be some grain consumption now and again. And it's okay because like, you know, I'm not your mommy and I'm not your teacher and you know, you don't have to listen to every single word I say, but that I know that people are healthier when they take grains out of their diet and replace them with whole plant foods. I was talking to Terry Wahls not too long ago. Do you know Terri?
- [68:00]
B
No.
- [68:01]
A
She is an amazing, amazing lady. I'll try to tell her story. Shortly. But she was the head of the residency program at, I think University of Iowa. She was an internal medicine doctor, brilliant woman who developed primary progressive Ms. And within two years went from like high functioning to in a zero gravity wheelchair because she couldn't like sit up and support her own weight. And she had access to every drug at every clinical trial and every everything thing. She basically got let go by her hospital because she couldn't perform the duties of her job. So she was a very grain based vegetarian, which most vegetarians are grains and dairy. But she came upon some information that said that if you avoid grains and dairy that your autoimmune disease can improve. And Ms. Is an autoimmune disease. And so she eliminates grains, eliminates dairy, is eating like nine servings of vegetables every day, which she was not doing before because most vegetarians don't eat vegetables. Most vegetarians eat a bunch of junk food that doesn't have meat in it. Right, right. And so she becomes a whole food person. She actually adds in meat to her diet. And again, I'm not joining that political arena. I'm not judging where you get your food as long as it's whole. Food is where you get food. She starts to improve and she sticks with the diet and improves more and improves more. And she goes from the zero gravity wheelchair to biking 20 miles a day.
- [69:44]
B
You are kidding.
- [69:46]
A
Her chairman at the hospital calls her in and hello, Yeah, I don't know what's going on here, but can you write a protocol and can we maybe help like thousands of people with ms? And so what does she do? She writes the Walls protocol and she helps. I mean, probably now it's more than hundreds of thousands of people with Ms. She helps them to reverse their disease.
- [70:10]
B
Okay, so that's somebody I got to interview then.
- [70:12]
A
Yeah. Oh, my God. You have to interview. She's fabulous. Terry Walls. Terry Walls.
- [70:16]
B
Okay. As a functional medicine doctor specializing in breast cancer, do you trust Susan G. Coman?
- [70:23]
A
Oh, God. This is a terrible, absolutely, positively not.
- [70:29]
B
Why?
- [70:30]
A
You know, this is where we get confused between mission and industry. So I think that the Komen mission is amazing. Sure, right. Like they want to help save lives, they want to help save women from breast cancer in order to do what they do. They're funded by industry. So when you think about it and you go to these, like Mother's Day walks, right? And there's 50,000 people there and there's all these displays and tents with food and drink and what's in the food and drink tents? It's Crazy Yoplait, yogurt. And you know, Coleman, it partners with all of these companies that make pink products during the month of October. And we think that we are supporting this great cause when in fact we are supporting something that is creating the very disease that we pretend to want to protect against.
- [71:33]
B
Do you feel like we are going to see a cure for breast cancer or do they have and they're keeping it from us or we've had the cure all along.
- [71:40]
A
There is no way that any pharmaceutical company is going to release a cure for cancer. Cancer ever. Why would they? What advantage is there if there is a cure for cancer? And you know, cancer is such a diverse disease. Right. Like, even when you look at breast cancer, the reason the why people. Because cancer is just the symptom, it's not the problem. Cancer is the symptom of the problem. Right. It's the manifestation of whatever the problem is. So everyone comes to that space differently. So there's not going to be a pill or a cure for cancer. And the cure is in us. It's always been in us. The cure is to live in a way that doesn't promote cancer birth.
- [72:36]
B
Are you saying breast cancer is a metabolic disease and not genetic?
- [72:40]
A
Genetic, 100%.
- [72:42]
B
So it's not genetic.
- [72:44]
A
There are.
- [72:44]
B
Because you had a lot of you talk about, but you had a ton of women in your family that breast cancer. So. But it wasn't genetic.
- [72:49]
A
Yeah, but think about, think about how women who grow up in a family live.
- [72:55]
B
I mean, that's what I think.
- [72:56]
A
People just think the same, live the same, do the same. And so they manifest the same, right?
- [73:04]
B
Oh, yes.
- [73:04]
A
And so we, we all need to break the pattern. It's the same thing with the obesity crisis where we have. I can't remember the name of the Harvard doctor who said that obesity is a genetic disease. Why? Because the people growing up in the same house, eating the same, moving the same, doing the same, are all overweight. It's not a genetic disease. It's an environmental disease.
- [73:34]
B
This is what I think too. But it's interesting because my dad's dad had glioblast blastoma. Now my dad currently has glioblastoma. But they you saying like you, you do life the same. They totally do. Same type of diet, everything. I think that's very interesting.
- [73:52]
A
Yeah, I mean like begets like.
- [73:54]
B
Yeah.
- [73:54]
A
For the breast cancer part of it. We know that 80% of them are preventable. 80% of breast cancers are preventable. And due to lifestyle, due to environment, due to metabolic state 80% of breast cancers 20%. And I am not saying that there's not a genetic influence because there is. And for my part, I know that the genetic influence is. I have terrible detoxification genes. Terrible, right. So my ability to tolerate the toxic load is far diminished from someone else. So I know that if I don't want to develop disease, and I only learned this because I developed disease, I know that if I don't want to develop disease, if I don't want that next manifestation of toxicity, then I have to live a really non toxic life. Now my mother, God bless her, sorry, mom, has made a different choice, right? Like she got very scared around the time of her diagnosis and changed some of the things that she does, but she quickly reverted back to what she knew. And, and that's what happens. So, you know, if you don't change, you can expect change.
- [75:16]
B
True or false. A gift basket from Bath and Body Works is a great gift to give someone just diagnosed with breast cancer.
- [75:24]
A
Oh God, no. I mean basically a gift basket from, from that place is, you're basically like handing them a whole basket of xenoestrogens that will only make their disease worse.
- [75:40]
B
What are the first steps that a woman just diagnosed should take today when it comes to treating this holistically?
- [75:49]
A
So this is exactly why I wrote my book the Smart Woman's Guide to Breast Cancer with rare exception. And I'll tell you what those exceptions are. The first thing that everyone needs to do when they get a breast cancer diagnosis is take a breath. There is no reason to sign up for anything. There is no reason to treat anything immediately. Most likely this disease has been going on, the stage has been set for this for five, 10 years. And the very best thing that you can do is get informed, get educated, build your team, decide what you want, decide what you want to do. Because that decision that you're making is going to affect you forever. And so you better really make an informed decision. And until I wrote this book, it was very hard for women to make an informed decision because the information simply wasn't there. And women were not getting told what the long term consequences of these treatments are. And even something as simple as deciding whether you're going to have a lumpectomy or a mastectomy because so many women opt for mastectomy because they think it's better that they have a higher chance of cure, that they have a less chance of dealing with breast cancer again. What's the truth? The truth is that there is absolutely no survival advantage to mastectomy and if you have your breast removed, I can promise you that there will never come another day in your life where you won't remember that you had breast cancer. Those scars run so deep. And if you have a well done lumpectomy, there will come a time where you will not identify as a breast cancer patient. There will come a time where you will put that behind you. But if you have a mastectomy, even with a well done reconstruction, you will never forget that you had breast cancer. So there are a couple of exceptions. There are a couple of emergencies in the breast cancer space.
- [78:02]
B
Okay?
- [78:03]
A
They are if you have inflammatory breast cancer, if you went from having a normal breast to a big, red, swollen, inflamed breast with a. With a cancer in it, that is an emergent situation that is already affecting you systemically. And those people need treatment and need treatment fast. If you have a bone metastasis that has caused a fracture, right? If you have breast cancer that spread to your bones and caused a fracture, these people are in tremendous pain. It is impossible to heal when you are suffering like that. Impossible. So those people need very emergent treatment.
- [78:46]
B
Okay?
- [78:47]
A
And the last one is, if you have brain mets. Our skull is a fixed space, so we cannot. We cannot tolerate too much swelling of the brain. So if you have brain mets, that needs to be treated right away too. If those three things don't apply to you, you have time. Time to get educated, time to learn, time to decide what feels right for you, what resonates with you. Time to build your team, and time to get a health plan. Because everyone's going to get a treatment plan. Everyone. But what everyone needs is a health plan. How are you going to recover your health? How are you going to figure out your why? How are you going to remove the things that you have that aren't serving you and get the things that you need? How are you going to change from the chemistry of stress, which fosters disease, to the chemistry of joy?
- [79:47]
B
What remedy would you prescribe to heal a sick culture? And that could be physically, mentally, or spiritually?
- [79:54]
A
Well, we are in a very sick culture right now.
- [79:56]
B
Now.
- [79:57]
A
And we've gotten so far away from how our bodies are meant to function. We are meant to be completely connected to circadian rhythm, to the rhythm of the sun. We've become inside dwellers when what we're supposed to be is outside dwellers. We've become so overexposed to artificial light when where we're supposed to get our energy is natural light. And I think that if we could just spend More time outside living in natural surroundings rather than all the artificial surroundings that we are in all the time. It would go a very long way.
- [80:46]
B
So you need to work on your regular food diet, but people also need to work on their light diet.
- [80:50]
A
Yes. Getting a good light diet without question.
- [80:54]
B
How can people work with you as their doctor?
- [80:57]
A
So my website is called real health, MD and there you'll find all of our resources for women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer. Or you're in treatment right now, or you've completed treatment and you're wondering now what. Or you're living with metastatic disease. We have resources for all of those women. I work with people one on one and I also have some group programming for people that, that just want a community of like minded individuals. And then if you're looking for imaging, come see us at perfectionimaging. And perfection is spelled with QT in the middle so you can find us@perfectionimaging.com. i have a podcast, it's called Keeping Abreast with Dr. Jen. I hope to have you on real soon.
- [81:44]
B
Oh my gosh.
- [81:45]
A
Yes. So we, we release a new episode every Monday. I've been doing it for about a year. That's great. Yeah. And then you can follow me on all social channels. I'm Dr. Jen Simmons. My Jen has two N's and I have a YouTube channel where we're putting longs and we're putting shorts and we're putting all those answers to the breast cancer questions that you have.
- [82:08]
B
Well, Dr. Jen, you are a phenomenal interview. Thank you so much for coming on Culture Apothecary.
- [82:12]
A
Thank you. Thank you for having me. It was really such an honor to be here. To say how much I appreciate a like minded woman is an understatement. And I've really been looking forward to this and it was just such a pleasure to be with you. To be in this beautiful space and your beautiful universe and share with your beautiful mind.
- [82:36]
B
I loved her so much. She told me I could text her all my labs and tests that I've taken for my Hashimoto's to give me another set of eyes, which was just really kind. Love that she's conservative. Also, new episodes every Monday and Thursday at 6pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern, anywhere you get your podcast and the real Alex Clark. YouTube. YouTube. Please leave a five star review that's free. Or consider becoming a donor for Culture Apothecary so that we're able to continue making episodes like this one focused on healing a sick culture Merch is available@TPSA merch.com the holidays are coming up. Don't wait till the last minute and more conversation about these episodes. And just like minded women you will find them become friends in the cute servatives Facebook group. I'm Alex Clark and this is Culture Apothecary.