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- [00:00]
A
On today's episode of the Real Foodology podcast.
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It's immoral, it's unethical to use a test that causes cancer to screen for cancer. It's painful, it's uncomfortable, and it's wrong. And it's time to change.
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Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Real Foodology podcast. Today's episode is with Dr. Jennifer Simmons. She's a breast cancer surgeon and a functional medicine expert. She's also the founder of Real Health MD and also perfection Imagery. I actually had the pleasure of flying out to Philly to have a breast scan at her imaging center and it was such a wonderful experience. I've never had a breast imaging done like that before. That was so simple and not painful. As I'm going into my 40s, I'm also concerned about making sure that I'm staying on top of all my breast exams. So this is a great option. It was such a cool experience. They lower you down on this table into a little pool of water, and then your breast sits in that pool of water for about 10 minutes while the imaging goes around and takes images of it. Actually, I think it was about 20 minutes per side and it was super relaxing. I actually almost fell asleep on the table while they were doing the image. I loved my conversations so much with Dr. Simmons. She has such a wealth of knowledge and she, like many other integrative, functional doctors, actually came from the allopathic side and then started learning more about diet and lifestyle and how much these actually really affect our health. And she decided to go to the functional side of things. So she tells her, and we talk a ton about breast health and things that you can do scans. We try to go over everything, every possible question that I think that you would have. And I just thought this was such an amazing episode. So if you are looking for a more integrative and functional approach to breast health, then I highly recommend listening to this episode. If you could take a moment to rate and review the episode. It means so much to me. It also really helps the show and I really hope that you love the episode with Dr. Jennifer Simmons. Electrolyte imbalances are no joke. And many popular sports drinks out there are packed with sugar and artificial ingredients. And that's why I'm excited to introduce to you Element, a zero sugar electrolyte drink mix designed to tackle these issues head on. And it tastes so good that I actually want to drink more water throughout the day. It's based on cutting edge research showing that optimal hydration Requires sodium levels 2 to 3 times higher than government recommendations. Each Element stick pack is a powerhouse of electrolytes, delivering exactly what you need.
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Need.
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I. It's my pleasure and I'm so happy to have you here.
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A
Yeah, we're actually recording out of your office right now. I just did your scan, which I want to talk more about later. But I want to hear first about your story so that everybody kind of knows about your background. You were a breast cancer surgeon and you were just kind of telling your story. And I'm curious to know how you got from that place. You can tell kind of how you got there and then how you got to functional medicine. Because how did you go from being an allopathic surgeon to then going the functional route?
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Yeah, yeah, it's a good story. So breast cancer and that space is very much part of the fabric of who I am. I come from a breast cancer family. Every woman in my family had breast cancer with the exception of my mother, who had colon. And I really don't remember a time in my life where I didn't know about breast cancer. So as a child, I had a first cousin. Her name was Linda Creed. She was a singer songwriter in the 1970s and 1980s. She wrote all the music for the Spinners and the Stylistics. She was beautiful, brilliant, larger than life, the queen of Motown sound in Philadelphia. And she was my hero. So she wrote 54 hits in all. But her most famous song was the Greatest Love of All. So she wrote that song in 1977 as the title track to the movie the Greatest starring Muhammad Ali. But it really 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 Linda died of metastatic breast cancer one month after Whitney released that song. I was 16 years old and my hero died. And her life, and ultimately her death gave birth to my life's purpose. And I did the only thing I knew how to do. I became a doctor, the first doctor in my family. I became a surgeon. I became the first fellowship trained breast surgeon in Philadelphia. And I did that for a really long time. And I did it really well. And I did it long enough for my aunt to be diagnosed and long enough for my mother to be diagnosed. And I was about 15 years into my career and I was a full time surgeon running the cancer program for my hospital and a wife and a mother and a stepmother and an athlete and a philanthropist and an author and had all these balls in the air. And I went from being probably one of the most high functioning people you've ever met to I couldn't walk across the room because I didn't have the breath in my body. And I had this really intense three day workup at which time I found myself sitting in the office of my friend and colleague and physician. And he told me that I needed surgery and chemo and radiation and I was going to be on lifelong medication. And despite the fact that these were things that I said all day, every day, without hesitation or reservation, when those words are coming at you, I assure you they have different meaning. And though I knew that what he was telling me was the gold standard and standard of care, and though I knew that this is what I would tell someone else seated in that chair across from me, I could not silence this voice in my head telling me, there's something more. Go find it. And I was a completely allopathic, conventionally trained, running an NIH accredited cancer program kind of girl, right? So I didn't know what that something else was. And yet I couldn't silence this voice. So I declined treatment and went on a journey. And this was not about healing the world, this was about healing me. And so I find myself in a lecture hall and this tall, lanky guy walks on stage, big toothy grin, and he introduces himself as a functional medicine physician. Now, I am still my cynical self. So my snooty booty self said, I've been a doctor for 20 years. 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. So I check my ego at the door and I tune in, and thank God I did. Because in that time and space, I knew exactly why I got sick. I got sick so that I could be in that room on that day listening to this man speak. Now, as it turns out, this man is Dr. Mark Hyman.
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A
I had a feeling who, you know.
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Arguably in 2017, he was famous for sure, but I didn't have any idea who he was. So in. How long happened?
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2011. So I feel you. I was like, talk about my hero.
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That's pretty amazing, right? In 2011, not a lot of people knew who he was. I know in 2017, not a lot of people knew who he was, despite having New York's Time bestselling books and having the Ultra Wellness center, because that's all he was really up to at that point. Yeah, but I had no idea who he was. And not only did I have no idea who he was, but these concepts that he was talking about, they were revolutionary. I mean, this was not stuff that we were talking about in medical school, and I went to a great medical school. Never, ever, ever did we talk about root cause medicine. Never did we consider why things were happening. Right? A good doctor is someone who can take that constellation of symptoms, name it, and prescribe. Right? Like that's what's considered a good doctor. And never were we taught to say, well, I wonder why this symptom is there?
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Which is crazy to me.
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I just have this crazy to me, crazy. But now fast forward all these years. You know exactly why that's happening. Because asking why doesn't fit the narrative. Because the narrative is written by Big Pharma, by Big Medicine, and by Big Ag. Right? And they are all working cooperatively against our health and for their profit. And I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but there's no other explanation. Because these things that we're doing as physicians, these things that we're prescribing, they're not good for people.
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A
And they make a lot of money. They make a lot of money for.
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Their health, and they make a lot of money. They make a lot of money. At multiple steps along the way, they make a lot of money. And a lot of things that we're doing are causing the next thing, which makes them more money, which causes the next thing, which makes them more money. And we fall into this vicious, vicious cycle. And instead of saying, the tumor is not the problem, the tumor is the symptom of the problem, and why is the tumor there? And when we uncover that when we address that, only then do we make a profound impact on people and their health. Only then do we change the trajectory that they're on. And I knew on that day that that's what I wanted to do and that that's what I was put on this earth for. I was without question put on this earth to change the conversation around breast cancer. And that's what I'm doing. I'm changing the way we diagnose it, I'm changing the way we treat it, and I'm for sure changing the way that we screen for it.
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B
Yeah. So this is very much part and parcel to this narrative and this system and this highly choreographed dance that is happening. And it's very intentional. And so I think when the mammographic screening program started out in the 1970s, it probably did start out with good intention. But we have known for decades since 1977, and the mammographic screening program was rolled out in the early 1970s. And we have known since 1977 that mammograms do not save lives. But it was built on this foundational understanding that breast cancer growth was both linear and predictable. So if you were to find something that was small and catch it before it reached this critical mass, at which point it was more likely to metastasize, then you can save lives and save breasts. And it sounds logical.
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Yeah.
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And it's very noble. It just doesn't happen to be true. So breast cancer growth is neither linear nor predictable. So small things don't have to become big, and small things can be very aggressive. Because in the breast cancer realm, it's all about biology. It's not about size. Size is a function of time, and the biology is the only thing that matters. But we used this really unsophisticated test, an unsophisticated system, and we sold it. And you know, this is, I would have said before, before 2020 or 2021, I would have said this was the best campaign ever. Now we had one that eclipsed it in 20 and 2021. But before that, this was the biggest, best ad campaign ever. Because everyone believes that mammograms save lives, even though there is no data that shows that. And they do not. And in fact, we have data to the contrary. And it's because a mammogram, even though we gave it a lovely name, mammogram, picture of the breast, it's an X ray. And if we called it what it was, people would connect it more. But they don't, right? We call it a mammogram, so we don't call it a breast X ray. And even experts, even radiologists, you ask them if mammograms cause cancer, and they say, absolutely not.
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A
Oh, yeah.
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And you ask those same people if radiation causes cancer, and they say, absolutely right. Why do you think we wear our little badges around that measure how much radiation we're exposed to and they go.
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Outside of the door and close you in to just even perform it?
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Yes, that's correct.
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It's crazy.
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Radiation causes cancer. X rays are radiation, mammograms are X rays. But mammograms don't cause cancer. I mean, like, you could pull your hair out.
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I know.
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Like a three year old understands this. Yeah, right. And yet. So that's, that's their justification. And this is how they like to hoodwink people. And I don't want to sound so diabolical, even though it kind of is. But then they, then they say, well, it's not that much radiation. Okay, that, that may be true. And one mammogram probably doesn't mean that much in the course of a lifetime. However, who gets one mammogram, right? We're telling women to start screening at 40 and have a mammogram every year until they're 70, 80, 90. Like I had a 90 year old come in to be screened. I was like, honey, what are you doing? I'm not taking your Money go right, like you've done enough, you don't need to screen, you're good, you get a passing grade, you're good, go home. So we're talking about 30, 40, 50 years of mammograms. But it's not just once a year. Because when we look at the statistics, when we screen a woman over 10 years, 50% of those women will get called back. So now it's two mammograms a year. Sometimes, you know, if you get called back and then you need more studies and it's three times a year. Now we're talking right now, the radiation starts to add up. So they counter that with, well, it's the same radiation as you would get during a cross country flight. And you don't tell people not to fly cross country, do you?
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I've been told this before too.
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Yes, of course. It's like they keep coming up with more justification. So let's put this one to rest. When you fly cross country, for sure you are exposed to radiation. It's scattered radiation, right? This is entirely different than the focused coned down radiation that you get to the tissues of the compressed breast during a mammogram. These things are not the same. And if you can't understand that conceptually, think about this. The sun, which is arguably the greatest collection of energy there is. But by the time the rays get to Earth, what's the most damage the sun is going to do to you? You're going to get a sunburn, right? However, a laser which has a fraction of the energy, a tiny, tiny fraction of the energy of the sun. But those rays are so condensed, so focused that it can cut through glass and rock. Right? This is what we're talking about. Mammograms are capable of great damage and they're doing it.
- [21:59]
A
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B
Yeah, I don't want to kind of scare people away from getting a mammogram if they have a symptom.
- [24:47]
A
Right.
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Because I don't believe in throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Right. So we, we definitely have a lot of technologies that have been developed over time that are beneficial when they are used properly and correctly.
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A
Yeah.
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So from my standpoint, if you have a lump in your breast, if you have skin retraction, if you have nipple discharge, if you have a change in the appearance of your breast, if your breast is suddenly larger or, or smaller or something along those lines, you need a diagnostic study, you need a diagnosis, you need to know what's happening in your breast and you need to do whatever you need to do. I mean, do I wish that people could choose to just have an ultrasound? Of course I do. And that is the mission that I'm on. I'm hoping that I am an essential part of that process with this administration. That's certainly my goal, is to be instrumental in changing the way that we screen. But right now that's not happening because doctors won't allow you to just have an ultrasound. They're going to insist on a mammogram. They say they insist on a mammogram because they don't want to miss anything. The truth is that it's, it's how their reimbursement is structured. That's what that's about. So they, they can't get paid for the ultrasound unless they do a mammogram first. So they don't, they don't like to do studies and not get paid for them. Yeah, right. And I don't blame them from that standpoint in that, you know, I don't go to work for free every day and I don't expect anyone to go to work for free every day. But the system is very broken. So going back to screening mammogram and what the major problems are, no matter how many mammograms we do every year, the same exact number of women die of breast cancer. No matter how many mammograms we do every year, the same exact number of women present with advanced disease, we are not impacting the bottom line. We are not saving lives. What we're doing is inflating the numbers. So when we look at the Swedish studies, when we look at the Canadian study, when you screen women for breast cancer, and we look at these populations because these are populations that the screeners and the non screeners have equal access to care and the care is the same. So it's not like the non screeners are getting bad medical care after they've been diagnosed and the screeners are getting good medical care. The medical care is the same, access is the same. The same exact number of women die of breast cancer. In each group. And the only difference between them is that the ones that are screening for breast cancer with mammogram have a 20 to 30% increase in diagnoses.
- [28:09]
A
And why do you think that is? Is that because of the radiation? Because we're exposing them?
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B
Part of it's because of the radiation and part of it. So some of it is a radiation induced cancer. Right. And some of it is because we all make cancer cells. The very young to the very old, everyone in between. But our body is designed to contain those processes. So when we screen with mammogram and we're picking up these little tiny things, many of them would never become clinical disease.
- [28:47]
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Yeah.
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So if your criteria for who to treat is who develops clinical disease, then you know that you're not going to over diagnose, you're not going to over treat. And if, if treatment for breast cancer were a benign entity, that would be one thing, but it's not. It's not. And anyone who is treated for breast cancer will tell you there are profound, significant and permanent changes in women who have been treated for breast cancer. Not the least of which, if you're treated for breast cancer, you are two to three times more likely to die of cardiovascular disease than women who are not treated for breast cancer. Now, that is twofold. Part of it is because most women never get to the why. Most women never figure out why they got breast cancer, and they don't eliminate that inflammatory stimulus that also happens to lead to cardiovascular disease. So that's one of the reasons. But the other reason is that radiation damages the heart, chemotherapy damages the heart, putting women in menopause prematurely, really damages the heart and the blood vessels. So these women are far more likely to develop cardiovascular disease, to develop neurodegenerative disease, and on top of it, osteoporosis. But on top of it, there are those secondary effects that are not insignificant. Brain fog, depression, anxiety, dry hair, dry skin, dry everything. Weight gain, breast deformity, loss of libido. Sex is unwanted and painful incontinence.
- [30:49]
A
That's the kind of stuff that can just change your life, too.
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B
It ruins your life. It ruins your life. That's actually the topic of my next book is called the Forgotten Woman. Because we have all these women who are treated for breast cancer and we say you should be grateful to be alive. And they are grateful, of course, but it's very hard to feel grateful when you can't think and you can't sleep and you're anxious and you're depressed and your relationship is suffering and you're in pain and you're uncomfortable and it's hard to feel grateful. It's hard to feel grateful when all of that is happening. And it's high time that we started to help these women because they have been ignored for decades. And mostly under the guise of hormones cause cancer. Right. Because we. That's a very convenient narrative because if hormones cause cancer, then we get to sell all these anti hormonal drugs. But what if that's not true also? What if that's just a story we've been told?
- [31:53]
A
So I've heard this, that there's different thoughts, like camps of thought about this and there's also different ways to approach it. As far as, for example, I've been reading a lot about IVF and cancer, especially if you have the BRCA gene, and I wanted to know your thoughts about that. But then I know taking the bioidentical hormones would be very different than taking something like synthetic hormones, like birth control. Right. Because my thinking is always, and this is just my personal opinion, I've always thought, how are these synthetic hormones not causing cancer in women, especially when they're going on it for 10, 15 years. And this drug was never designed to be on for long periods of time like that. So what are your thoughts about those different types of hormones?
- [32:33]
B
Yeah, so the synthetic hormones are a problem. Right. So bioidentical hormones, these are chemical substances that our body is accustomed to seeing. They look just like our endogenous hormones. But the birth control pills are hormones that horses are accustomed to seeing, but not us. Right? Yeah, but the problem is you can't trademark a molecule of nature.
- [33:00]
A
Well, yeah, that's.
- [33:01]
B
So the pharmaceutical companies have to come up with something else. So that's the something else that they came up with. Now these are a real problem. And we know in the population of women from The Denmark study, 1.8 million women and your risk of breast cancer is directly linked to how long you were on birth control bills. So we know that that increases the risk, but that doesn't mean we can't take that information and say estrogen causes breast cancer, because it's ridiculous. Now you brought up fertility. This is a chicken in the egg. So I don't think, I don't think it's the hormones. Right. I don't even think it's the synthetic hormones. I think it is the need for hormones and the reason why you needed fertility treatments.
- [34:00]
A
Exactly.
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B
That is far more likely to be the etiology. Because I say all the time, breast healthy is Health. And the same things that you're gonna have to have your breast be healthy is gonna be the same things that make a healthy heart and a healthy brain, healthy gut, healthy skin, healthy bones, healthy joints. All of that fertility is health.
- [34:24]
A
Exactly. So what's causing your infertility in the first place?
- [34:27]
B
Yes.
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A
And in most cases, I don't wanna say all, but in most cases, they just automatically throw you on ivf. They don't even test anything ahead of time to see do you have hormonal imbalances, what's going on with your gut?
- [34:38]
B
Yes.
- [34:39]
A
Have you been exposed to pesticides?
- [34:40]
B
Yes, all of it. So that is almost universally not happening. And so what do we do? We take someone whose body is saying, hey, like, I'm out of balance, because if I were in balance, I would have gotten pregnant. Right. We know how to do this. And so we take that person, and what do we do? We force a pregnancy on them. So then you have a lot of synthetic hormones coming in, because that's what we use to stimulate. And we're taking someone who's already saying, like, hey, I'm not in balance, and we're throwing them further out of balance. Now. It's surprising that we don't see more cancers in and around that situation. But the truth is that once they get pregnant, estrogen is very protective.
- [35:40]
A
Yeah, I was gonna say that. I've heard that a lot.
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B
And so I think that the infertility population is pretty big, and we're not seeing as many cancers as I think we should should out of the infertility population. But I think it's also once you get pregnant and your own endogenous hormones kick in, it's quite protective.
- [36:07]
A
Interesting. Okay, so I want to go back to the scans quickly, just because I know everybody listening is going to go, oh, my God. Okay, so if I can't get a mammogram or not can't, but I shouldn't get a mammogram, what are the other options as far as scans go? I mean, we can go through all of them, because I know there's thermography, there's mri, and I did want to ask you one more thing. So I was told by several doctors that if you have really dense breast tissue, that the mammogram is the only way that you can see all of that.
- [36:38]
B
That is insane to me, because, quite frankly, mammogram will miss 40% of cancers in women with dense breasts, which is 40% of the screening population.
- [36:50]
A
Wow.
- [36:51]
B
So now what are they doing over there? There is an element of that imaging process which I would say before. Before QT came around, mammogram kind of owned, because that was really the only way that we could see calcifications. And it's those tiny flecks of calcium, the micro calcifications that are commonly associated with dcis, or ductal carcinoma in situ. So the argument against screening with ultrasound is just that because it won't pick up calcifications, it won't pick up micro calcifications. And so you're going to Ms. DCIS. My response is, okay, so I missed DCIS. First of all, I don't even believe that DCIS is cancer. I think that it was misnamed decades ago, and I think that had we called it. I was with Dr. Thomas Lodi the other day. I don't know if you know him.
- [37:58]
A
I don't know him.
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B
He's a cancer doctor. He founded an oasis of healing in Mesa, Arizona. And he said, like, what if we didn't call it cancer? What if we called it Sagittarius? And I'm a Sagittarius. So I asked him to please pick a different astrological sign.
- [38:17]
A
Just don't call it Virgo.
- [38:20]
B
Now I'm gonna be with him on Thursday, so I'll tell him. Also not Virgo. So, you know, we assigned this name and gave it this scary word. So now everyone thinks they have cancer, but it's not cancer. It's not cancer? No.
- [38:36]
A
What is it?
- [38:36]
B
No. So, yes, these are cellular changes, but no one dies of dcis. No one. Because it does not have the potential to spread. And anyone could live without their breast. And you can have widespread changes in the breast, but if it doesn't go into your blood vessels, if it doesn't go into your lymphatic system, it's not gonna hurt you, and it can't hurt you.
- [39:01]
A
And is it one of those things where it could technically travel?
- [39:05]
B
It could. Well, it couldn't technically travel, but it could progress and become invasive.
- [39:13]
A
Is that. When. Is that. Would that be considered stage zero? Sometimes you hear, like, stage zero?
- [39:18]
B
Yes.
- [39:18]
A
Okay, where?
- [39:20]
B
Stage zero.
- [39:21]
A
If you don't find it at stage zero, sometimes your body may just get rid of it before you even actually know that it's a thing.
- [39:27]
B
Okay, 80% of the time. 80% of the time, Right. So we're treating everyone so that. That 20% doesn't progress. But, like, who says we have to treat them? Who says. Now you make a lot of money by treating them, and it's 90,000 women a year that are getting treated for cancer even though they don't have it. So it's big numbers for sure. But are we really doing the right thing?
- [40:02]
A
Could there be an argument, and I'm just genuinely curious, could there be an argument for if we let it progress, then it could become really aggressive and then it could travel throughout the body? Because I know that that is a concern with breast cancer becoming metastatic and then all of a sudden it travels and you didn't even know that it traveled and then all of a sudden it's in your liver.
- [40:20]
B
Would that be a concern? Yeah, I hear you. And it sounds like a legitimate concern, but all evidence to the contrary, because the people that are going to develop aggressive disease are gonna develop aggressive disease no matter what we do. I know we like to pat ourselves on the back and say like, great job. Look, we're curing cancer. We're not curing breast cancer. We're not. I mean, yes, we do change the trajectory for some people for some period of time, but we're not making any significant long term impact or we're making a negative long term impact. So these people that are going to develop aggressive disease are developing aggressive disease no matter what we do. No matter what we do. And I think that goes back to we're focused on the wrong thing and in the wrong place.
- [41:20]
A
I agree. And I was just going to ask you, so in situations like that, would you say that it would be better than to address these, what a lot of people the functional world calls buckets? Right. Where your buckets are overflowing of the toxic overload, or you might be eating a diet of ultra processed foods and you're getting exposed to a lot of pesticides and things of that nature.
- [41:40]
B
Yes. Or you're in a toxic relationship, or you have a mouth full of metal amalgams, or you've had root canals and you have chronic infections going in your mouth. Or you were like everyone and you hit the age of 18 or 19 or 20 and you had this ceremonial removal of your wisdom teeth. Right. And so there are micro infections all over the place, or you're living in mold and you don't know it. 25% of us lack the enzymes to properly break down mold and we become mold factories. So there are so many things, and if we were thoughtful about it, we could change this trajectory without giving people surgery and chemotherapy and radiation and all of these things. But you know what? That takes a lot of time, a lot of thought, a lot of attention and you know, I can tell you when I was at the tail end of my surgical career, once I was sick and learned about functional medicine. And I'm a really early adopter. I get really excited about things. So the day I met Mark Hyman, I enrolled in the Institute for Functional Medicine and I spent three years just totally absorbed in the study of functional medicine, just submerged myself in it. And I came out at the end of three years, got my certification and I was in my office one day and this 19 year old comes to see me and she's wheeled into the office by her mother because her Ms. Is so progressed that she can't walk the 30ft from the elevator to my office. Now, I had just met Terry Wahls. I don't know if you've ever met Terry Wahls. I haven't met her, but I know she's amazing. So she's this Midwestern doctor whose Ms. Was so badly progressed that she was actually let go by the hospital. She was in a zero gravity wheelchair, couldn't support her own weight, and then made some dietary changes, got rid of the toxins in her environment and started to get better and better and better. And within a couple of months of eliminating these toxins from her life, she is riding her bike for 20 miles every day. So she writes this protocol and the hospital has her come back and she has since treated thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of people using her protocol and has reversed their Ms. So I had just met Terri and I'm so, so, so excited. So I'm here I am telling this woman about Terry Walls and you know, you don't have to suffer with your Ms. And it can be reversed and you can live a normal life. I mean, she's 19, in my office with a breast mask. But like to me, I'm like, the breast mass is nothing like here you are in a wheelchair, you're 19. So I'm so excited, bursting with this information, thinking that I'm going to change her life. She puts her hand up in my face and says, are you going to do my biopsy or not? And I'm like, oh yeah. Not everyone wants to help themselves. And on top of it, from the hospital perspective, it takes a lot of time to educate people. It takes a lot of time to get to someone's root cause. You have to do a lot of digging. When I meet with people, I meet with them for hours, right? This does not fit in our conventional medical model where they want us seeing people every 15 minutes. And that's literally all we had. So when I would diagnose a new person with cancer, I would have 15 minutes to talk to them all about their disease, all about the treatment, and get them signed up for surgery.
- [46:03]
A
That is insane. I didn't even know that from the cancer perspective. I knew that just from the, you know, going to your general practitioner, but for cancer.
- [46:11]
B
Well, so my hospital didn't say, oh, you can only spend 15 minutes with them.
- [46:16]
A
But they said, get all these appointments.
- [46:18]
B
You have 30 people to see in the course of your day. So, you know, spend your time however you wanna spend your time. Wow, thank you. Yeah, Right. So, you know, of course I'm at work at 8 o'clock every night and my family hates me. They don't really hate me, but they love me. But you know what I mean? And so I realized that they don't want me to talk to people. It's not of their benefit. And this is not the kind of medicine that I want to practice and not the kind of impact that I want to make in the world. So I knew I had to get out of the one on one space because my mission is big and I need to be one to many. And I also knew that I didn't want to be a part of the problem anymore. I wanted to be a part of the solution. And I knew the solution is not inside of there. And so I actually quit the day that I met that woman. Because really? Yeah. I said I need to go and follow my heart and help people that want to be helped in the way that I know actually helps them. Right. Like, there are lots of people out there who can cut out tumors. I don't think I was so special. Was I a great surgeon? For sure, I was a great surgeon. I probably still am. Although I have no desire to go back into the emergency room. I mean, into the operating room. It's funny, I had. I had spinal fusion two years ago. I had sciatic pain that just wouldn't quit. And I did everything and I did all the things and I actually ended up having to have surgery in the end. And as they're wheeling me back, the surgeon is a friend of mine and he's like, jen, you know, do you miss it? And I was like, not even this much. Like, better you than me. And after this surgery, this is probably going to be the last time you see me inside of an operating room. Like, I just don't miss it at all. I mean, I did it for a good long time. I did it for 20 years. It's enough.
- [48:32]
A
Yeah.
- [48:33]
B
And I made the impact that I wanted to make there, but I could never make the impact that I want to make staying as a surgeon.
- [48:41]
A
My story is very similar. When I went back to school to get my master's in nutrition, my initial plan was to have my own practice, one on one clients. And then as I went through and I started learning about the corruption of the food industry and how broken our food system was, I felt the same way. I was like, I can't just do one on one clients because I need this message to reach many people.
- [49:03]
B
I always wondered what made you make the switch because you, too, are on a big mission. Yeah, yeah.
- [49:09]
A
I think we're on a similar mission in different veins of it. But, yeah, yeah, I mean, it was just. It was that it was really going back to school, and I was very, very interested in the human body and nutrition and just how food fueled our cells, essentially, you know, like, and.
- [49:24]
B
But depending on when and where you went to school, I would imagine your education was like, calories in and calories out. And doesn't matter what you eat, because all calories are the same. Same. And make sure that you don't lose weight during chemotherapy, which, incidentally, is still happening at nearly every single cancer center. They're giving them in a cure and boost. I know.
- [49:53]
A
It's me. Insane.
- [49:55]
B
I know.
- [49:57]
A
I actually listened to a podcast one time. My dad sends me this podcast last year, and this is to no fault of my dad, but he was telling me about how he had a friend that had a really big medical center or something, and they started this podcast and they wanted to send it to me. And it's these two RDs talking about how people on chemotherapy need to have candy bars because they're not feeling well, and it's the only thing they can keep down. I literally almost threw my phone across.
- [50:21]
B
I know.
- [50:22]
A
And I said, pull your hair out. Literally. I said, you tell that man that they need to take this down. This podcast could seriously harm people. People that are on chemotherapy and dealing with cancer do not need to be eating candy bars. And these were RD chemotherapy medical professionals. I have never been so mad in my whole life.
- [50:41]
B
I know.
- [50:42]
A
It's asinine.
- [50:43]
B
They still tell people when they're getting chemotherapy, don't lose weight. Whatever you do, don't lose weight. Eat pizza, eat ice cream. I'm not paraphrasing either.
- [50:56]
A
No, I have.
- [50:57]
B
Literally. Who went through chemo last year and ice cream.
- [50:59]
A
I have a friend who went through chemo last year, and I can attest that they Literally told him this.
- [51:03]
B
Yeah.
- [51:04]
A
And alternatively, I've heard you say that it's better for people to be in ketosis when they're doing chemotherapy. Why is that?
- [51:10]
B
Fasted. Fasted. You know, when we are in a fasted state, that is our repair state. And so to get there, we have this process where we're checking out the cells, right? We're checking ourselves out. Are you good? Are you good? Are you damaged? That kind of thing? Well, the damage cells you want to get rid of, right. But when you're in this fasted state, this is the only time it happens, because otherwise you're digesting, you're doing whatever else you have to do, form these, doing these other functions, performing these other functions. But in a fasted state, once that normal cell is checked out, it's asleep. Right? But the damaged cell and the cancer cell doesn't have the ability to turn itself off because it's lost its normal function. Right. And then you give chemotherapy. So that cell that is still active, that's hangry, Right. And it's going to take up whatever is coming in. It's going to take up the chemo, but the cells that are quiet are not taking it up.
- [52:21]
A
That's amazing. My only question to that is, having witnessed my friend who went through chemo last year, how, when they're that sick, are they even able to fast? I'm not saying it's not possible, but.
- [52:34]
B
I'm genuinely curious because it really depends where you are along the spectrum. For instance, I'm just gonna pick a cancer which is very associated with weight loss. So most people don't get diagnosed with, let's say, pancreatic cancer until they've had a profound weight loss and someone finally is like, wait, maybe we should check for pancreatic cancer. So those people are in what we call a cachectic state, Right. And they are metabolically overactive. These are people that don't do well with fasting because they've already had such profound metabolic shifts. This does not apply to most people. Most people, they get cancer, especially the cancers that I talk about the most, which are breast, uterine, ovarian, colonial. Most of these people are overweight coming in or normal weight. And fasting is highly, highly beneficial for them. Most people who fast do not get sick with chemotherapy.
- [53:48]
A
Really?
- [53:48]
B
Because their guts are turned off.
- [53:50]
A
Wow. Okay.
- [53:51]
B
So they don't get sick.
- [53:53]
A
That's pretty incredible. So what does that fasting protocol look like if somebody was on chemo?
- [53:58]
B
So it's called the fasting mimicking diet.
- [54:00]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [54:01]
B
What the fasting mimicking diet is, it was founded by Dr. Valter Longo who spends six months at his hospital in Italy and six months at USC. And USC really is the place where most of these studies were done and they were mostly done on breast cancer patients. And what happens is that it's a 72 hour fast and it does not have to be a water fast. It can be, but it can also be the fasting mimicking diet, which is eating in a way that is ketotic and beneath a threshold that triggers significant digestion. Okay, so it's somewhere around 400 calories. So not much, but enough to allow you to go into autophagy, enough to shut down the digestive tract so that when you get chemotherapy you don't get nauseated, you don't get tired. Many of these women do not need growth factors. So it is highly, highly protective and it makes the chemotherapy more effective.
- [55:18]
A
That's really amazing.
- [55:19]
B
So they have better outcomes, less side effects and they actually feel fine. They're highly functional while getting chemotherapy. So it's more to them. I know, I know. And the fact that we're not talking about it at every single cancer center across this land of ours is astounding to me.
- [55:46]
A
I agree.
- [55:46]
B
Because what does it take? It's like a tiny, I mean I could make a video in five minutes. I actually have a video. I have what, when and how to eat during treatment and beyond and which, you know, I'm happy to share with anyone. And this is something that can be easily taught to anyone. I have a one page guide to your fasting mimicking diet. If you don't wanna a prepared one, here's a really easy thing. Like I give you a recipe to either do a green smoothie or do vegetable soup. And then you're going to have either half an avocado or you're going to have a handful of nuts or a handful of olives. And this is what you do for two days before and the day of chemotherapy and then the day after you go back to your diet, which is a whole food, plant based, low glycemic, grain free diet. Because we know that this makes a significant difference in this population.
- [56:58]
A
And you think no meat. Do you mean by plant based no.
- [57:01]
B
Meat or just like, I mean no meat? I'm meeting people where they are. Some people, you know, function a lot better, even metabolically function a lot better when they use animals as their protein. Some people function a lot better when they use plant as their protein. As long as they're supplementing. If you are not supplementing and you are on a vegan diet, and I don't want to get into the politics of veganism or whatever, but if you're only eating plants and you're not supplementing, you are going to get in a lot of trouble. You are not going to be healthy. There are very serious long term consequences to doing that. And I say that from personal experience. I have never been so sick as when I was completely vegan and not supplementing. I had a TSH, a thyroid stimulating hormone of 115. It's supposed to be between 2 and 5. So you know.
- [58:09]
A
Yeah, wow.
- [58:11]
B
Yeah, that's so. Oh, no, no, I'm sorry. It's supposed to be a maximum of 2.5. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mine was 115. I was nearly dead. It was horrible. It was really bad.
- [58:20]
A
My God. Yeah, I feel you. I think a lot of my thyroid issues that I've had in the past were because I was vegetarian for five years. But you know, I digress. We're here to talk about cancer, but I think that's important that people hear that. So what do you think that we are getting wrong in the. So we've already. Well, we've kind of already talked about this as far as like from the standard of care. And I love your approach of a more bio individualized approach. But what are things that we could be doing that would be helping a lot of people, whether it's to avoid breast cancer or once they get it, like what are we not doing that we should be doing?
- [58:59]
B
You know what I really wish in December I spoke about this at A4M the American Academy of Anti Aging Medicine. The focus of that conference was metabolic health. And you know, of course about a third of the talks were on the GLP1s and I get it, I get it. And here I am talking about breast cancer. Now what does breast cancer have to do with metabolic health? Well, actually it's the number one predictor of who's going to get breast cancer and who isn't.
- [59:34]
A
Makes sense.
- [59:35]
B
And if we would screen for metabolic health with a fraction of the budget of the intensity that we screen for breast cancer, we would be in great, great shape.
- [59:50]
A
That's some tea right there.
- [59:52]
B
Yeah.
- [59:52]
A
So are we talking about testing A1C?
- [59:55]
B
Yeah. So what you want the markers of metabolic health, the things that we look at, we're looking at fasting glucose, but more importantly we're looking at fasting insulin. We're looking at blood pressure, since it's a Marker of metabolic health. We're looking at waist circumference, waist to hip ratio, because that is one of the indicators of how much visceral fat you have fat inside of you rather than outside.
- [60:28]
A
Isn't that also an indication of higher estrogen or is that not true?
- [60:32]
B
It can be, yeah. Because the more fat cells you have, the more aromatase you have. Aromatase is the enzyme that can your testosterone to estrogen. Again, I don't want to say that estrogen is bad because it's not right. But hormones are a balance. And you don't want a lot of fat cells that are taking all of your testosterone and converting it into estrogen, because estrogen is really good at fat deposition and testosterone is really good at muscle building. And how do we maintain our metabolic health? By our muscle mass. Right. So we don't want to get rid of the thing that makes the muscle.
- [61:17]
A
Yeah.
- [61:18]
B
Right. So, and then we're looking at some of your lipids, we're looking at your triglycerides, and we're looking at your hdl, the good cholesterol, even though all cholesterol is good. And if you have elevated cholesterol, Cholesterol is a very anti inflammatory molecule. This is your body trying to put out a fire. So instead of taking a lipid lowering agent, instead of taking a statin, if your cholesterol is elevated, ask the question, what fire is your body trying to put out? Find the fire.
- [61:56]
A
Thank you. I've been trying to get my dad off statins for 10 years and I try to explain this to him and he doesn't get it. Yeah.
- [62:03]
B
And I do want to go back to screening a little bit because I don't think that we, we covered it with enough.
- [62:10]
A
Fully cover it.
- [62:10]
B
Yeah.
- [62:11]
A
And I want to talk about your screening too.
- [62:12]
B
Yeah, absolutely. But I do think that we should be screening for metabolic health. The reason that we don't is because when we use mammogram for screening, which is what we're doing right now to screen for breast cancer, then we are actually feeding the system because that's how people get in. And if we treated 30% less breast cancers every year because we didn't use mammogram to screen, we're talking about big numbers. In 2024, we diagnosed 300,000 women with breast cancer. If we cut that number even by 20%, that's 60,000 less breast cancers every year. This is going to have an impact on income. And hospitals don't like that. They don't like that at all. And I actually have a very personal experience with that when I. Here's another tangent. When I was leaving surgery, my friend who was on the board of the hospital that I was with said, you can't leave. You can't leave. We'll create a position for you. Why don't you become the first chair of integrative oncology in the country? Because there aren't any chairs of integrative oncology. There aren't any academic departments. Let's make the department. Let's give you the chair. Lovely, right?
- [63:46]
A
Love that. Yeah.
- [63:46]
B
And I think I can do that. I can make an impact there. So I meet with the head of the hospital and I say to him, hey, what are we going to do about the cafeteria? And he said, what do you mean? I said, well, listen, I can't have people wake up from cancer surgery and have jello waffles and bacon. High fructose corn syrup.
- [64:11]
A
Juice.
- [64:12]
B
Yeah, Pancakes. Syrup. Like, I can't do that. Fruit Loops and Fruit Loops.
- [64:18]
A
Yeah.
- [64:18]
B
Frosted Flakes is no joke, right? Yeah, no, it's donuts.
- [64:22]
A
Oh, yeah. All of it.
- [64:24]
B
He said, well, the cafeteria is off the menu. I was like, well, what are you talking about?
- [64:29]
A
And they have contracts with kellogg's and Pepsi ConAgra.
- [64:35]
B
Yeah, yeah. He's like, also, you know, our reimbursement is tied to how good the food tastes. And so, you know, if we make the food healthy, it doesn't taste good and we get lower scores, and so we get lower reimbursement spent. I'm like, I'm sorry.
- [64:49]
A
I'm so tired of this narrative that healthy food doesn't taste good.
- [64:52]
B
Right. I know, I agree.
- [64:55]
A
Homemade, real food meal.
- [64:57]
B
Ridiculous. It's absurd. It's absurd. I mean, just ask my husband. I made whatever. Yeah, whatever. Doesn't matter. So I said, okay, okay, fine. Let's just put that aside for a moment. We have these people here. This is a teaching moment. They are ready to hear us. We need to seize this opportunity so that we can prevent them from having a recurrence, from having another procedure. He's like, well, why would we want to do that? I'm like, because, you know, because we.
- [65:34]
A
Want them to heal.
- [65:35]
B
Yes, of course. We want to. Want to save their lives. He's like, but we make money when they have their next procedure.
- [65:42]
A
I can't believe this guy actually said that.
- [65:44]
B
Yes, yes. And I said to him, okay, we are clearly not on the same page. We have very different goals. And that was it. That was me walking away from the first department Chair.
- [65:58]
A
Sorry. I would have burned that place down. Not literally. Not literally, but.
- [66:03]
B
But you have to understand that at this time, this was really outside of the box. I mean, they were still calling Hyman a quack. Then I called him a quack. Right. Like this was way outside of the box. And in fact, when I left surgery, everyone assumed that I lost my skills, I lost my mind, maybe both. Right. Like all the people who the week before I was the smartest person in a room and suddenly like, you know, I'm a quack. Right. Actually, Terry Walls was the one that said to me, jen, take that as a compliment. And then, you know, you get five years in and suddenly you're interesting and then 10 years in and now you're revolutionary.
- [66:48]
A
Exactly.
- [66:49]
B
Yeah. So she's like, hang in there, you'll.
- [66:51]
A
Get there, just wait. Everybody else will catch up eventually. Well, and you know, we've gotten to this place, sadly, because so many people have been diagnosed with, with cancer and so many people have either been through the system or are maybe currently going through the system. Everybody's waking up to our food and how big food, big pharma, big agriculture are all working in cahoots. And also too, I was going to say, I don't even know necessarily if it's at the fault of this guy that you sat down with at the hospital, because it's the insurance companies that are dictating all of this, whether or not they get their payments for certain things. It's all connected.
- [67:25]
B
Definitely. It's a broken system, it's a systemic problem, but we don't have to participate in it.
- [67:33]
A
Exactly.
- [67:33]
B
And that's why I am so intent on we need to adopt screening in a different way. We do not have to play by those rules. And so that's why I'm so glad my screening paradigm is 100% safe, it is accurate and you can have peace of mind without putting yourself or your health in danger. Right. So I tell everyone to do a self breast examination. No one is ever going to know you better than you know yourself. And so if you know what you feel like when you're normal, you'll know when there's been a change. So everyone should be doing self breast exam. If you are premenopausal, you're doing it on day seven. So the day you get your cycle is, is day one and then you're examining yourself on day seven because that's when your breasts are the least stimulated. Then if you're postmenopausal, you can just do it once A month, whenever you want to do it. I use the ARIA test. I don't know if you've heard of it. This is the test that is done on your tears. And we have these proteins that are secreted in the very early phases of breast cancer, the S100A8 and S100A9 proteins. And so in a very simple, fast five minute at home test, totally painless, you can find out if you have these proteins, and if you have these proteins, you either have breast cancer or, or you have the precursors to breast cancer. And at least you know that. And you can use that opportunity to turn it around to look for sources of inflammation and change things. So I use the ARIA care test. And anyone who's interested in that test, you can use my code. Doctorjenn20d r j e n n 20 and get 20% off. It's a $130 test.
- [69:39]
A
I want to do this.
- [69:40]
B
So it's totally, totally affordable and it's something that you can do at home. And it's useful information because at least you'll know if you're at risk. And it has a 93% sensitivity. So the people that it's missing is those proteins tend to go away with time. And so it's going to miss late ones, but you should be picking up late ones. And then the third thing, if people want to image, and I understand we're very conditioned to image. We're very conditioned. So I have a QT scanner at my center, Perfection Imaging. And I have a center in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I have a center in Nevada, California. I'm putting eight more up this year. I'm putting 50 up in the next five years because I want to make sure that anyone who wants access to this technology gets access to this technology. And I also want it to be recognized as how to screen for breast cancer because it has all the capabilities that all the other screening modalities have, except it's 100% safe, it's painless. It's actually a lovely experience. So we use sound waves transmitted through a wa warm water bath to collect data points and create a true 3D reconstruction of the breast. And I know you had a scan today.
- [71:12]
A
Yeah.
- [71:13]
B
And that it is truly, it's a transformative experience.
- [71:17]
A
I mean, it was amazing. I told you this earlier after I got out of it, but I was really surprised by the whole process because I've gone through other things. I've actually, I've had a mammogram. I've had other things. I've had a sonogram, and this was so lovely. I fell asleep on the table. I also. I landed this morning. Just for context for everybody, I got up super early this morning. I flew here, and then I got on this table, and I'm like, oh, it was cozy. I fell asleep on the table. I didn't feel anything at all. It wasn't uncomfortable. It was quite a lovely experience. And your office is also beautiful. It's very warm and welcoming and doesn't make you feel like you're in this sterile medical environment that I hate.
- [71:57]
B
So that's what I want to create, and that's what I want to offer to this country and eventually the world, is that taking care of your health, being mindful of your health, building health, doesn't have to be scary. It doesn't have to be painful. And that is also the theme of my book, the Smart Woman's Guide to Breast Cancer. Because even if you get a diagnosis, with rare exception, this is not an emergency. You have time to think, you have time to learn. You have time to get educated. You have time to get everything that you need to make a decision. Because the way that we're doing it now and rushing people into decision before they've had the opportunity to educate themselves, yeah, it's really. It's cruel, it's unfair, and I'm changing that. I am forever changing that. So this is a new paradigm. I am not saying you're never gonna have another mammogram, because again, if you have a symptom, if you feel a mass, if you notice skin puckering, nipple discharge, a change in the appearance of your breast, I want you to go get the answers that you need. And most. Most physicians at this time are not accepting QT as proof of anything. They want their own studies, and I get it right? They're uncomfortable. Change is uncomfortable for everyone, but it doesn't make it bad. And for the screening population, we need to do better. It's immoral, it's unethical to use a test that causes cancer to screen for cancer. It's painful, it's uncomfortable, and it's wrong. And it's time to change.
- [73:51]
A
Amen. I love that. Just for my own curiosity, would this be something that could technically replace your mammogram? I'm not saying for everybody listening, do whatever you think is best for you. But if. If you wanted to replace your mammogram, could you.
- [74:04]
B
Yes, with that. So according to the fda, we're supposed to say that this is a companion examination to go along But I will tell you that mammograms detect calcifications. QT detects calcifications. Mammogram detects masses. QT detects masses. But QT can also determine if those masses are cystic or solid. A mammogram needs an ultrasound to be able to tell if it's cystic or solid. QT also has a quality that none of them have. The mammogram doesn't have it. The MRI doesn't have it. In that if we find a lesion, if we find a mass, we can bring you back for a short interval study, measure the volume, and determine a doubling time. And we know that cancers have a doubling time of less than 100 days. And things that are either not cancer or not important have greater doubling times. So we have the ability to say to someone, listen, you do have a mass in your breast, but you have the option of following this, and we can see you in a year, because this is not growing at a rate that we have any concerns about it. So it saves women from over diagnosis, from over biopsy, from over treatment. And I think that this is what we owe people. So if you're asking me, does this have the potential to replace everything else, yes. But it also has the benefit of being 100% safe. I am not putting anyone at risk when I put them on that table. Anyone. But you can't say that about the mammogram, and you cannot say that about the mri.
- [76:00]
A
In the essence of time, I think we're gonna have to go. But I wanna bring you back on. Cause I have so many other questions that we didn't get to get over today. But this was so amazing.
- [76:07]
B
Well, so we'll do the next one in your studio.
- [76:10]
A
I would love that. Yeah, let's do it.
- [76:11]
B
Yeah, that would be amazing.
- [76:13]
A
Or when I move to Austin, which, by the way, please, please open one in Austin.
- [76:17]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah. So Austin is 2026, but it's gonna be early 2026. Yes, yes.
- [76:23]
A
Oh, my God.
- [76:23]
B
Okay. But I hate to, like, promise dates to people because then they see start direct messaging me, like, when are you going to be open? Can I make an appointment? I'm like, I haven't broken ground yet. Give me time. But I have my formula down and I can go from signing my lease to opening within three months. So, you know, I'm pretty much there. And we're going to start to go very, very fast.
- [76:49]
A
Okay. I'm so excited. Please tell everyone where they can find you your and your book Absolutely.
- [76:55]
B
So my medical practice is Real Health md. And at Real Health md, I am helping women with a history of breast cancer to truly restore their health. And I am offering them hormone replacement because we know that it's safe and we know that it's what people need for longevity, and we can offer it safely when you do it correctly. And then, so my website is realhealthmd.com and then you can find me on all the social media channels. Rjensimmons and my Jen has two ns. I also have a podcast, which I'm gonna have you on. I would love that, called keeping abreast with Dr. Jen. And we put out a new episode every Monday. And then my book is available on Amazon. It's called the Smart Woman's Guide to Breast Cancer. Please buy my book by Dr. Jen Simmons because my book has been pirated not once, but twice. Oh, wow. How's it legal? It's not legal, but please buy the one by Dr. Jen Simmons. And lastly, come visit us at Perfection Imaging. And perfection is spelled with a qt in the center.
- [78:11]
A
Yes. Okay. We'll leave all the links in the show notes too, so y'all don't have to write it down. But thank you so much for coming on. This was amazing.
- [78:16]
B
Thank you. Thank you for coming.
- [78:19]
A
Thank you so much for listening to the Real Foodology podcast. This is a Wellness Loud production produced by Drake Peterson and mixed by Mike Fry. Theme song is by Georgie. You can watch the full video version of this podcast inside the Spotify app or on YouTube. As always, you can leave us a voicemail by clicking the link in our bio. And if you like this episode, please rate and review on your podcast app. For more shows by my team, go to wellness loud.com. see you next time. The combination content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first.