62: Cancer Treatment and Prevention Methods Conventional Doctors Don’t Tell You About with Dr. Lucas Tims

Hello and welcome to the Kenya Breast podcast with Dr. Jen. The show dedicated to empowering women through knowledge, tools and resources to take control of your breast health journey. I'm your host, Dr. Jen Simmons, and I'm thrilled to have you join me on this insightful and inspiring journey. As a breast cancer surgeon turned functional medicine physician, I'm on a mission to empower women to live their breasts and need best lives. This podcast dives deep into all topics related to breast health, including prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and holistic approaches to support overall well being.

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I'm going to hit you with a shocking statistic. In 2024, we estimate that there will be 310,000 new cases of invasive ductal carcinoma of invasive breast cancer. These numbers are astounding. They are up from what we saw almost the entirety of the beginning of my career, which was in and around 240,000 cases every year. So, you know, we're talking about 70,000 more cases of invasive breast cancer. I can give some reasons why I think that is the case, but no matter what they are, the fact is that we have an epidemic on our hands and we are in crisis in the way that we are diagnosing breast cancer and certainly in the way that we are treating it. So I brought you an expert today to talk all about this, to talk about how we are treating breast cancer and honestly, how we can bridge the gap between conventional medicine and integrative oncology, because it is more important than ever that we do that. So I'm going to welcome Dr. Lucas Times into the show. Thank you so much for being here. I am so delighted to have you. I'm just going to give people a little background to see how. How important and special you are. So you were the medical director both for City of Hope and. And for the Reardon Clinic. You have an enormous amount and breadth of experience in this integrative oncology space, and I'm just so delighted to have you here to share your wisdom with us.

Thanks, Dr. Simmons, for inviting me and for the nice, kind words. The respect is obviously very mutual for everything you do and your expertise. And yeah, we've been lucky enough to connect a few times and have Some good conversations around, some of the neat stuff you're doing. And so excited to talk today and hopefully get into some meaningful discussion around, like you said, this cancer epidemic that we're seeing, not only breast cancer, but really all types of cancer.

Yeah. So I know that you really deal with all types of cancer. I am very familiar, obviously with the breast cancer statistics. Are you seeing those kinds of alarming statistics across the board? Board in terms of cancer?

You know, what I'm seeing that I think is most alarming in the last five years is not only the incidence is going up. And I mean, you really only can tell that by looking at the data and the research that's out there. But in terms of my bubble that I live in and work with patients, what I'm seeing most alarming is the age, really. And, you know, I think it's, you know, it's fair to call it what it is. I mean, at this point, cancer is no longer a disease of the elderly. This is no longer a disease of the middle aged. I have women with breast cancer in their early 20s, late 20s, early 30s, you know, barely adults. So, and this was something that 10 years ago you just, I mean, maybe one once in a blue moon. But now it's becoming just as common as seeing the 60 year old with cancer.

I always say that, you know, when I was in practice as a, as a breast surgeon, if someone called me, I have an 18 year old in my office, she has a lump in her breast where you see her. And I would say, you know, I'm 100% certain that it's going to be nothing but. But send her over, of course I'll see her. Right. I can't say that anymore. I can't say that anymore with any confidence because we are having teenagers diagnosed with breast cancer. It is unheard of. When I trained, it was unheard of. And yet now there's no one out there in the cancer space who hasn't had one of these. No one.

No. And it's, you know, you're, you're seeing the reports, you're seeing the research. You know, every other day. You know, I'm always scouring and looking for new journal articles to read and trying to understand better what's going on. But, you know, it took a while, but now it's. Every day there's headlines about this.

Yeah.

And so mainstream media, I mean, I think everybody, unless you've had your head under a rock, everyone knows that this is happening. Okay. That where we're caught right now is the you know, we've got the awareness which is building, which is great, but what are we going to do about it? Yeah, what are we going to do about it? And I think that there's some very, you know, bright minds and courageous people that are, that are out there. I would include me and you in that, in that discussion that are, that are realizing that this is a, this is an oh, crap moment and we can't wait for the science and everything to catch up 10, 15 years from now. We need to be pushing the envelope. We need to be having these conversations and figuring it out. I mean, at the end of the day, you know, the journals and the research and the studies and the trials, it's going to be too late. The tsunami's happening.

Yes, I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, someone reached out to me on an Instagram post this week and they were talking about how, you know, I'm opening a perfection imaging and we're using QT technology to screen the breast. And we were talking about the fact that they, they said, you know, the company started in 2012 and why is it taking so long? If it's so great and so monumental, why is it taking so long to, to become available and commonplace? And what people don't understand is that the mainstream medicine is 10 to 15 years behind and it's taking people like, like me and you to bring these technologies which are necessary, especially in this time of crisis. They're necessary to get out there. And we can't wait for the hospitals to get on board. We can't wait for mainstream medicine to get on board.

No, they'll be the last to adopt these types of things. And that's okay. I mean, that's how these things scale. And when you look back over, you know, the history of, of modern medicine, that's how it happens. And so there has to be trailblazers. There has to be people that are willing to, you know, put themselves out there a little bit and, you know, try some things that may be considered outside the box or, you know, non standard of care. If we're going to, if we're going to shift the paradigm, if we're going to actually start addressing the root causes of why this tsunami of cancer is happening.

I know, I know, absolutely.

The detection part of it and the technology and all that, that's a big piece of the puzzle and having safer, less invasive options like we've talked about with the QT imaging. But, you know, there's just a huge conversation that's happening in the Integrative space about the underlying causes of cancer. And then when patients go and they have their sit downs with their conventional oncologist, there's a complete disconnect with those two things.

Yeah, absolutely. So I want to start off by talking about what is integrative oncology. What does that mean for you? What do people need to know about this space?

Yeah, yeah, I think it's a phrase or a term that's evolving. I think, you know, when people talked about integrative medicine or complementary alternative medicine not that long ago, it was kind of, you know, it was almost a derogatory term. It was, you know, these people are, you know, pushing quacks. You know, let's just say it. That's a word that most people know. You know, they understand that. But yeah, there was just, you know, people were look down upon that practice, any kind of integrative or complementary alternative medicine. Now, you know, you see some real leaders in medicine that are using those terms. To me, what integrative means what it's always meant, whether people used it this way or not. But to me, it's the best of both worlds. It is realizing that there are lots of different approaches to medicine and health and wellness that go back thousands of years, some of them. And that there's strengths and weaknesses amongst all of them. And integrative to me is how do we integrate all the different styles and practices of medicine and healing to really boil it down to what works the best, and in my case, for cancer patients, because cancer is, you know, by far the type of disease where you do need all hands on deck and you do need to hit it from multiple angles. And so to me, the integrative approach works. You know, it's such a great fit for cancer care because these people need to be supported from many different angles.

Yeah. And almost like necessary. Right. Because these people are in crisis. We talk about health continuums and if you've gotten to the point where you have a cancer diagnosis, that is a failure of your health and it's going to take a lot of coordination to restore it. And one of the biggest objections that I have to the conventional medical system, and I'm not criticizing because I spent a lot of time there and I did a really good. I was trained to do a job and I did a really good job and at doing what I was trained to do. But the problem is the training is wrong, the thinking is wrong. Right. So I'm not criticizing conventional medical doctors, except that they are and they're. And they're Doing exactly what they were trained to do. And they're focused on the tumor, not realizing that the tumor is the symptom of a problem. So unless you acknowledge that there is a problem that, that led to the tumor and work on that, work upstream, you're not really going to change the trajectory of people's illnesses. And that is so clearly demonstrated in the breast cancer space. Because you take women who get diagnosed with breast cancer and if all they do is go through conventional therapy, they're two to three times more likely to die of cardiovascular disease than people who were not treated for breast cancer. They have increased rates of Alzheimer's, of dementia, of osteoporosis. So all of these, all of these factors that led to the breast cancer remain undisturbed in the conventional treatment paradigm, Correct?

Yeah, I mean, it's, you're right about the doctors. I mean they, they're, they're doing what they're trained to do. And just like, you know, people in the military are trained to sometimes kill other people. Enemies. Right. We don't ask them to, to, to, to solve the, you know, the global problems that are causing war. We just ask them to fight in the war. And I think it's, it's very similar to the way that we just, you know, our medical system is set up for our doctors to, at least in the cancer space, to just fight cancer, kill cancer.

Right. Yeah.

And, and yes, that is sometimes needed. A lot of times it is at least that approach is needed at some point in the journey. But if we're not having the conversations and trying to make peace with what's causing the cancer, to me it's, we're just going to get stuck in this never ending cycle of just kill cancer, kill cancer, kill cancer. And then, not to mention you've got these other stakeholders, you know, the, the industry of medicine, you know, big pharma, insurance companies, hospital systems, and their only job is to make money off of sick people, let's be honest.

Yes.

So there's a big conflict of interest there.

Yes. And the doctors, no benefit to them if people get well? None.

There really isn't. I mean they want, they want them to stay alive because, but, but, but they're, they're, they're, they make their money in the treatments and unless someone's really sick, you can't justify giving them very expensive chemotherapy. So yeah, it's, it, there's a big conflict of interest. We have to, we have to somehow deal with that. I mean, I don't know, you know, who is the Right group of people to deal with that issue. It seems like it's almost suffocating the size and the scale of it and how much money is involved. But to me, that's something we can figure out. It's absolutely daunting, very daunting, you know, and it's very overwhelming for, you know, individuals to think about how do we change this? Because there's just so much money involved, there's so much power. There's such a power differential between the patients and the people that make money off the patients.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. It's quite a conundrum. I'm not going to solve it. I know that we got to do our piece. I'm on a mission. It's not that mission. I certainly, in the one on one space, help to navigate people through this system as best I can and make it clear for them what each person's intentions are, because everyone's intentions are certainly different. But I. I know that I'm personally not going to fix that system, but I'm going to do what I can do and help the individual. And that's really what you've spent your career doing, is helping the individual. So take us through your approach and the kinds of things that you think are really important in helping someone navigate a cancer diagnosis.

Yeah, my approach has evolved over the years of my practice, and I've developed new tools and strategies. But I, you know, it all comes down to I. I always go back to this. This analogy, which if you've watched any of my videos or podcasts, other people, they may have seen me talk on this before, but this really is what sets up the sort of chessboard for me, is looking at cancer as like a weed problem in the yard. Okay. And so patients get diagnosed with a specific type of wheat. This, you know, the conventional system does a biopsy or a blood test or whatever it is. You have a weed problem. This is the type of weed you have. We need to cut it out. We need to put some weed killer on it. Maybe we'll burn it a little bit, too. That's kind of like the standard approach to the weed problem. To me, my role is not really in killing weeds or doing anything that physically kills the weeds. It's looking at what's going on in the soil. Okay. Why are these weeds here in the first place? And let's take a sample of the soil, you know, so we start with our testing. We start with our blood test, we start with our testing for different markers of the terrain of the Soil metabolic markers, inflammation markers. How's your immune system working? Key nutrient levels, hormones, gut health, everything that makes up the health or the disease of that soil. We need to get an idea of what we're dealing with there. Because. Just because you have a certain type of weed, let's say you have a breast cancer weed. Lots of different problems in the soil can lead to that. One kind of weed.

Yeah.

It's not like it's a cookie cutter thing. Oh, you got a breast cancer weed. We know that it's a hormone problem, and we just have to fix the hormones. I wish it was that simple.

Yeah, yeah.

Fortunately, we got to take a.

It's not one thing. Right.

It's. It's. Gosh, I mean, I. Maybe I can count on my hand the times it was one thing, you know, in the thousands of patients I worked with. But there sometimes can be one thing that's the biggest piece of the puzzle. What's that?

Or the trigger.

Or the trigger. Or the, you know, straw that broke the camel's back, however you want to say it. But yeah, there's. There's usually an inflection point, because at the end of the day, and I've heard you talk on this as well, I think we're in agreement. We all have potential cancer cells in our body on a daily basis. Right. So what takes that from a. An issue that our. Our body can overcome, our immune system can deal with? What's the tipping point where it becomes a threat? Right. And so the human body is pretty amazing. It can deal with a lot of threats at one time. Obviously, we fight off infections all the time. We were exposed to stuff all the time that our body fights off a lot of times without us even knowing. But you get enough insults stacked upon each other coupled with, you know, an unhealthy environment, which we can talk more about, and it just becomes too much for the body to handle. And I think that's what we're at with this epidemic is we've got too many insults coming into the system on a daily basis. So we, you know, going back to my process and my approach, it's all about, you know, fleshing out what does the soil look like, and then putting in place a plan to repair the soil, strengthen the soil, so that, yeah, if you do have your weed treated and taken out, how do we set up that soil that it. So that it's not a hospitable place for those weeds to come back? Okay. Doesn't guarantee that they're not going to, but we can absolutely stack the odds in your favor by dealing with those underlying issues.

Yeah. So what are. We talked about that you're looking at metabolic markers, you're looking at markers of inflammation, you're looking at nutrient profiles, gut health, hormonal health. So what kinds of things are, are you presenting as solutions for people in that. How, how do people go about resetting their soil and improving that environment so as to not foster disease, but to foster health?

Yeah. And this is where it takes time. Right. The soil, the cleanup of the soil is usually not a quick fix. And so by understanding what the problems are in the soil, then we have to start to understand what is, what is creating this problem in their day to day life. Because you know, we get in the big argument of like genetics versus environment. Everything that happens in the body is, is the, your genetics meeting your environment.

Yeah. Okay, so they're both, the marriage of the two.

They're both involved. Okay. We don't need to be having this, this argument of oh, it's genetic or oh, it's all diet and lifestyle. It's, it's where those two things are meeting each other. Okay. And your genetics are going to make you a little more predisposed to certain environmental triggers than mine and vice versa. And so that's why we're all unique. So to me, I need to understand, if someone comes to me and they've got very high levels of inflammation, their metabolic health is, is trashed and they've got low nutrient levels that they need in order for those other things to work. Well. Okay, let's start repleting them with the key nutrients. Okay. Let's look at what's driving the inflammation. Is it, you know, a toxin load? Is it a chronic infection that they may have like a stealth infection? Parasites, viruses, bacteria, fungus, we find all this type of stuff in people.

And what you mean by a stealth infection is people don't necessarily feel sick, but it's causing chronic inflammation in them. Right.

Usually they, they have, maybe they do.

Feel sick and they don't realize that that's what it is.

They just haven't gotten labeled by anybody because it usually doesn't show up on the cursory blood work that traditional doctors are doing. Right. It doesn't send up those red flags that it's a big problem. It's this low level problem that's there and it's probably been there for years. And most of the time people say, I just don't feel good, I'm tired, I don't sleep well, my stomach Hurts when I eat most kinds of foods. I can only eat these three foods. Otherwise, my stomach hurts. I've been constipated for 20 years. You know, my joints ache. And I'm only 35. You know, it's these types of this, These constellation of symptoms that, you know, medical doctor, traditional medical doctors, they're like, they see these patients and they're like, oh, I got to deal with this person again. All they do is complain about these problems that I don't have a fix for.

Yeah.

So.

Well, it's because they don't have the.

Tools of a chronic inflammation or a stealth infection.

Yeah. And I think it's important to note that it's not normal. I don't care how old you are, it's not normal to feel tired. It's not normal to have poor sleep. It's not normal to have abdominal discomfort after you eat. It's not normal for your joints to ache. It's not normal to be constipated. So if these things are happening to, you know that these are precursors or this is your body telling you I'm not working correctly.

Exactly. And it's actually your body, Your body actually is behaving normally. Your body is sending you a signal that there's a problem. And that's what it's supposed to do, a symptom, which I'd like to talk a little bit about cancer being a symptom and not a disease. But these symptoms are signals. They're our body telling us that they're actually a normal reaction to an. To an unhealthy environment. Okay. Yeah.

So.

So. So we have to help people understand, like you said, that. Yeah. When you have these symptoms, you know, these. All these check engine lights are on in your dashboard. That's not the way it's supposed to be. That means we have to do a deeper dive. We have to look under the hood and figure out why you're getting these symptoms. And, you know, our medical system, again, going back to the infrastructure, it's. It's not set up to do that. It's set up to a pill for every ill. Here's your quick fix next in line, you know, and just keep moving through.

And that's a very big problem for a lot of reasons, because you said before that, you know, fixing the soil, it's not. It's not a quick fix. And yet we've been so trained that have a symptom, take something to eliminate the symptom, and everyone is looking for that quick turnaround. I mean, I can't tell you how many people that I've worked with that, you know, I'm working with them for six months and they're like, we haven't made enough progress.

And it's.

And I'm saying, like, I'm trying to undo 20 years of damage, 30 years of damage, 40 years of damage. Like, that's not happening in a couple of months. And I know it's frustrating to people, but the truth is that there, there is no quick fix here. And people ignore these symptoms for years and years and years. Sometimes they do go to their physicians. Right. But their physicians are only trained to recognize failure. They don't tell you you're diabetic until you're frankly diabetic. Right.

And all of our, all, all of our mainstream medicine is basically built on the emergency room model, right? That person's in there with an acute problem and you give them something to address that, you get them out of there as soon as you can, and you get them home and then let them, you know, find their own way back to health from there. That's all it really. And even the way we treat chronic disease, we still are kind of doing that same thing.

It's true.

And we just keep add, you know, we just keep adding a bigger band aid on top of every other band aid, you know?

Yeah.

Oh, that band aid stop work. Let's just put a bigger one on there. Oh, okay, that does not work. Let's just put a bigger one on. So that's. That, that's the model. That, that's the paradigm shift. I think it's happening. I mean, I think more people are waking up. The demand is there. People are more educated now about integrative and alternative medicine than they've ever been. So we're getting there. But, yeah, we're still, we're up against it with that model.

Yeah.

And, but yeah, when you're talking about cleaning up the soil with these patients, you know what I try to stress with them early on in the education part of it is that, yeah, we need to clean up your soil as quickly as possible, but there is a long term responsibility to you to keep the soil clean. Okay. It's not like six. You do this protocol for six months and then you just don't have to worry about anything anymore. That's what some people, I think that's, that's how they think. Because again, they're working in that program of acute care, clear the infection, patients get better and move on. When we're talking about cancer or other Chronic diseases. And you've got a serious soil problem. We need to fix the soil. But then you're going to need to tend to that soil for the rest of your life.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, listen, we know that health is not a destination. Right. Help is a journey. And I will, I'm going to throw my own husband under the bus, who he has for the third time in our 21 year marriage, has lost 60 some pounds. And he's really good for a, for a period of time. And then he kind of falls off the wagon and, but still preaches as if he was on the wagon. So he was talking to a mutual friend of ours, Bruce, and Bruce is like, how does Albert look so good? And I gave him Albert's whole plan and he's out with Albert and Albert's eating pizza or whatever he's eating and he's like, wait a minute, this is not on the plan. And you know, it's a real problem for people because long term habit change is really hard. And when you're in crisis, it's easy to kind of get there and stick to it. But as you ease your way out of crisis mode, when it doesn't feel emergent, it's, it's hard for people. And we need an understanding that the way we have to live in a healthful way, we have to, that needs to be our baseline. If every now and again we, we slip up, that's okay. But our, it's what we do most that matters. And we need to maintain that throughout our 8020 rule.

I tell people all the time is. Yeah, I mean, you may be stricter in the beginning when we really need to get a shift happening.

Yes.

But long term, you know, if you, if you settle into that 8020 mindset, you're going to be fine. I mean the body does not require perfection. It can deal with a lot of crap.

Yeah.

And you gotta live, people gotta live.

Their life with all crap. Right. Like that that doesn't work. We know that that doesn't work. And everyone's gonna tell a story about someone who ate bacon every day and smoked cigarettes and drank beer and lived till 98. And God bless them, some people do have really, really, really great genes and can tolerate that amount of toxin.

Exactly.

But most of us don't.

Yeah.

Most of us will not tolerate that amount of pollution in our lives.

Yeah. I mean, that's just. You hit the nail on the head. It's. And going back to, that's, you know, the genetics, meeting the environment. Right. You know, not Everyone that smokes gets lung cancer.

Yeah.

And some people that, you know, don't even smoke but are around secondhand smoke. Get it like that.

Yeah.

So, yeah. So. And, and you never, you know, part of our process with the soil sample stuff is to also educate people on like, what are they going to be most predisposed for. And we, we have the genetic tests now where we can look at, you know, it's not complete yet, but we know a lot of these key markers and enzymes that are involved in setting people up for cardiovascular disease or certain types of cancers or, you know, whatever. And so doing that deep dive, looking at nutrient levels and metabolic markers, inflammation, part of that's also looking at, you know, what is your genome kind of look like, what is your blueprint and what are things that you need to be a little more squeaky clean with versus your neighbor.

Yeah, yeah. So that's part of, that's really important testing to have. Right. To know your genetics enough to nurture your nature.

Right.

I know when I ran mine, I learned a lot about myself that if I was being more self aware, I probably could have figured it out. But we just don't necessarily think like that. So. For years I used to do spin. I used to go to spin class at 6am before I would go into work. And the days that I would spin, I would spin three days a week. And the days that I would spin been I would be like asleep at my desk by 10 o'. Clock. And it was because I just don't burn my exhaust cleanly. Right. So I was actually toxic for hours afterwards. And my body just wanted to sleep because it wanted to detoxify, you know, because sleep is where our healing happens. And it wasn't until I had my DNA run and it told me that I cannot do that high intensity stuff because I just create too much exhaust that I was like, oh yeah, that makes so much sense.

Yeah. Yeah. We see so many light bulbs go off with patients when we, when we connect those dots for them and when we get the testing done and then we say, okay, this is why, you know, you have these, you know, symptoms with certain things, certain foods, with certain types of activity, like you said, or this is why you, you know, burn really easily in the sun or you can't handle, you know, a certain type of toxin very well. Yeah, those, those light bulb moments start going off for people. And then we also connect it with, okay, this is why you're having these symptoms. This is why your other lab markers, you know, why your vitamin D is chronically low despite taking a supplement. Well, your VDR has a mutation and we have to adjust for that. Your hormones, you've always had, you know, terrible periods and, and maybe you got a history of pcos, whatever. Okay, here's the blueprint. This is the mechanism by which that's causing that when it interfaces with a certain environment. And then we help people see the full picture so that they can set up their day to day life to live in harmony. Like you said, nurture their, you know, their nature. And so it's empowering for them, you know.

Yeah.

And, and this is all because they may have gotten a cancer diagnosis and now they understand. Now they actually have a user manual for their body.

Yeah, I love that. What is your go to nutrigenomic test?

I like nutrition genome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the one I've used the most. There's a lot of good ones. I mean that space is just. There's lots of new offerings there. But the nutrition genome is a pretty good one. It's fairly affordable. You get a ton of information. Sometimes people. It's too much for people.

Yeah. I mean it is overwhelming. It is overwhelming because it's like there's some page report or something. Something.

And you know, there's really only, I would say, you know, there's about 10 to 15 pages that give you most the information and the rest is just like additional if you wanted information. But you know, again, I'm working with cancer patients so we're doing that full thorough look under the hood. You know, if, if patients don't have cancer or they're more worried about cardiovascular issues, there's smaller genome tests they can do just for those issues or you know, more of a male based one or a female based one.

Yeah.

So there's different ones out there, but I typically am running the full nutrition genome on people.

Yeah. And I think it's a really worthwhile endeavor whether you have cancer or not, because it does, it does give you the information that you need to protect yourself against a variety of chronic diseases and knowing your risks and knowing where your vulnerabilities are, but also knowing how to avoid the minefields. Right. I mean, I think that that's the most valuable part is avoiding the minefields for you.

For sure. For sure. And that's, you know, like I said, it's an out of pocket cost. But you know, it's something you do one time. Right. You spend the three or four hundred dollars for that test. You do it one time, that information static and you can make decisions for the rest of your life based on that information.

Yeah. So as far as those kind of indolent infections that we talk about, I've been talking a lot about parasites and people having chronic parasitic infections. Some people feel as if that is just part a normal part of our microbiome. How do you feel about that whole parasite thing?

Yeah, I mean both can be true. There, there are, we do all. It's kind of gross, but we do all have parasites. You know, it kind of in our body that, that are commensurate there. And so if the problem is just like with yeast or certain bacteria or certain viruses is if they become overgrown. Right. Just like you know, going back to the, the weeds in the yard. Right. If you got one weed, it's probably not a big deal. But if you start getting lots of weeds, it can take over the yard. And so parasites the same way some parasites, you know, can cause big problems. A lot of them don't, don't cause many problems unless your immune system really gets, you know, taken out. You've got, you know, all other problems going on with your soil. You've got inflammation, you've got, you know, you not don't have enough nutrients, your hormones are all over the place. All the other things that keep those types of infection, those pathogens in their place when all those other checks and balances are out, that's where you see these opportunistic infections, these stealth infections usually take over.

Yeah. And then you gotta find that almost everyone is suffering from an immune perspective these days because of the amount of stress that we all have in our lives. Right. We were only meant to be in that fight or flight state about 5% of the time. And most of us are in that state almost all of the time. Right. And so that immediately that suppresses everyone's immune system. Because if you need to run away from a saber toothed tiger, if you're eminently going to die at the, at the mouth of a saber tooth tiger, you don't need to fight off the common cold, you don't need your immune system. So, so many of us are switched off anyway. And I think that that is a lot of the reason why we have so much imbalance. And then on top of it, we had something happen in 2020 and 2021 that really messed with our immunity. Yeah, really put it's contributing to those numbers that we're seeing in terms of a cancer epidemic.

100%. And I get people that are, you know, they're active online on, on social Media and, and you know, they, they want to paint the picture that like Covid and the COVID response and the fallout from COVID is like, that's the only thing that caused this. Right. I think it's a big piece of the puzzle. I think that it certainly has been a contributor to this meteoric rise. But a lot of these things were happening. We saw this momentum in this trend coming even before COVID for sure. It accelerated it, no doubt. And not only the disease, but the response to the disease, which was multifactorial.

Yeah.

And then just the way the world's changed since then, you know, we've got a lot more things to be stressed out about. Right?

Yeah.

Like you said, stress is a problem. It's, it's oftentimes the biggest X factor. When I'm working with patients, we'll go through, you know, all their soil issues and we'll fix their nutrient levels and get their inflammation under control and their infections and everything. But what's oftentimes left for them to really deal with is getting a grip on their day to day stress. And you know, if you're alive on this planet, you're not just on a, you know, secluded island somewhere, you're gonna have stressors. Okay. Work, family, relationships, politics, whatever you want to get. There's plenty to get stressed out about, right?

Yeah. There's no lack of things to be stressed about.

And we can't just avoid stress. So what do we got to do? We gotta build routines into our day that allow us to disconnect from that stress. That's the only way to do it.

Yeah. Otherwise I have some way of becoming stress proof and like letting it roll off of you. Right. You can't, you can't sweat every single thing that comes in your field.

You gotta find what, what works for you. Some people it's, it's, you know, meditation and mindfulness based practices, prayer. Some people it's spending time in nature sometimes. Some people it's deep breathing exercises, journaling, art, dance music, something that gets them into their body and out of their head. But you, you have to build these, these routines. I mean there's, this is a must for people because if you're, if you're only way of disconnecting from stress is, you know, going and having a couple of drinks or, or jumping on these things. Right. You know, that's not gonna, that's not gonna cut it. And you're never gonna disconnect from that sympathetic state, which is what keeps our nervous system in that fight or Flight state which was what if, if done too long, suppresses the immune system, leaves you open to these problems like cancer. Because stealth infections start roaring, inflammation levels go up and you make yourself just more vulnerable across, across the board.

Yeah. And speaking of it taking time, you know, if you wake up one day and there's a saber toothed tiger there, and then you wake up the next day and there's a saber tooth tiger there, and you wake up the next day and there's a saber tooth tiger there, your body then gets conditioned to think that there's always a saber toothed tiger there. Right. We are all in that state. Right. If you're, if you're on your cell phone 24 7, even when you're off it, your body still feels all of that. That's the stage that you've set, that's the soil that you've, that you have. Right. So it does really take a lot of time and a lot of work in order to undo that formula.

Right, right.

And you have to believe that you're worth it.

You have to believe it. And it's hard for people, you know, to, you know, people might listen to this conversation and be like, well, I mean that sounds great, but like, how do I actually do that? Right. Or like do I really need to do that? You know, like, how does it, what's going to work for me? Right. And I say, look, you, everyone's got to find what works for them. But to me, you have to try different things. And to me it's most powerful when you are working with a physician, a doctor that understands how does this translate into what we're seeing in your labs, in your soil? Because people are going to be most motivated when they know that there's something in their labs that is connecting the stress. They're going to be much more motivated to deal with their stressors when they see that connection with, hey, in your body, this is what's going on because of these stressors you're dealing with. And if you don't get a grip on this, these are going to get worse. And that's why we can't get maybe these inflammation markers under control or we can't get your immune system. Where we need to get it is because of the stress.

Yeah.

And so that's why that also spills.

Over into your metabolic system too.

100.

Yeah.

100 yeah. Because the cells, you know, when we talk about metabolic health. Right. It's become kind of a buzzword. Right. But what are we actually talking about? We're Talking about the metabolism of your cells. Okay. And this is where we can geek out on the Krebs cycle and mitochondria and all these. But how do your cells make energy and how do they function? Are they functionally in a healthy metabolic state or are they in a reverted to maybe a low energy state like fermenting cells, which is oftentimes a precursor to a cancer cell. And this starts in the mitochondria. So mitochondria, metabolic, those, those words can kind of go hand in hand. But it all comes down to what damages the mitochondria's ability to produce enough energy. So that cell runs correctly, that cell cycle operates correctly, and it doesn't turn into a bad cell or a cancer cell. What are the biggest, you know, mitochondrial disruptors? Toxins, infections, inflammation. Okay. So when we look at root causes of cancer, it really comes to down to mitochondrial disruptors. And so people have told me, you know, have heard me talk about what I feel are the three biggest root causes to cancer is chronic inflammation, chronic toxicities, and chronic infections. Because those are the three categories of things that mess with your mitochondria, force them into a low energy state, which then pre, you know, sets them up to, to go down that road of becoming a cancerous cell. That's the only way they can survive. Yeah, the cell is doing what the cell is supposed to do. It's surviving in a very unhealthy environment.

Yeah, yeah. I always say cancer is a normal response to an abnormal environment. And you're never going to solve the problem unless you figure out what is making the environment abnormal. And in the, in the conventional cancer world, the thinking is that it's the tumor making the microenvironment abnormal, but it's actually the tumor happened because the microenvironment was abnormal.

Right.

And this is part and parcel to the reason why we don't see the results that we want to see from the conventional medical approach. Right. No one gets healthier if all you do is have a surgery and have radiation and have chemotherapy. Quite the contrary, you're saying, as a result. Right. But that our system doesn't really value health. And that is. Yeah, that is a major, major problem.

That's got to change. And there's more and more doctors that are, I think, are realizing that and waking up. And so, you know, I don't want to paint too much of a doom and gloom picture. I think, I think we're getting there. And I think that one of the silver linings of all this awareness around cancer and the epidemics and all this is that a lot of doctors are waking up and strength in numbers. And, you know, it's going to reach a tipping point, I think, at some, you know, some level, because the patients, I think, are, have been really the initial drivers in the demand of this. But now the doctors are getting on board and you're seeing more and more integrative clinics and even hospital systems that are, you know, hopefully coming in the not too distant future. And so we're going to get there. It's. It's too slow. Let's, let's admit it. It's too slow, but I think we're going to get there.

Yeah. And I agree with you. I wish that it were happening faster. I wish that it were happening on a more broad scale. You know, I still have patients who are not telling their medical oncologist the truth because their medical oncologists are telling them, you know, what you eat doesn't matter. And that feels really offensive to them, especially when they're working so hard to, to eat in a way that's nourishing. They're not supportive in fasting when we know from the work of Dr. Valter Longo that if you are going to get chemotherapy, and I am not entirely against chemotherapy, so I want to be out there and say that if your proverbial sink is overflowing, if you have significant tumor burden and you need a quick fix, which is what chemotherapy is, and we know that about 10% of people who get chemistry chemotherapy will have benefit, right? So we're, we're looking for that, that 8 or 10% that are really going to have benefit. But if that's you and you believe in your heart that chemotherapy will help you, because that is the other necessary piece, like don't undergo chemotherapy if you don't think it's going to work, because I can promise you it's not going to work if you don't think it's going to work. But we know that there is a greater effect with less side effects if you fast through chemotherapy. We know that from Dr. Valter Longo's work at USC. And yet how many, how many medical oncologists are talking to their patients about the fasting, mimicking diet?

They're not. And they won't. Because guess what? They're not being told to do that. They're not being told by their societies and their journals and all these things that set the standard, the standard for, for how, for how medical oncologists practice. They have A very strict set of guidelines. And they. To, to a fault. They, I mean, they. They're nothing if not consistent. They stick to that damn, you know, script.

Yeah, yeah.

For better or worse, they stick to.

It for some, to some extent, because they have to. Right. This is the study. This is what the study said. And so they're going to follow study guidelines. And people don't realize that so many of those guidelines that are set forth by the study, they're randomly chosen. Right. Like in. In terms of Herceptin for HER2 positive disease, they just chose a year. It doesn't mean that six months wouldn't work. They just didn't trial six months or conversely with Herceptin. They trialed it along with other chemotherapeutic drugs. It doesn't mean it wouldn't work alone. They just didn't trial it.

Yeah, Herceptins. I mean, the, the data around Herceptin, the data around Avastin is, you know, people actually go and look at these, these drugs and you can argue the research and the methods and material, all that, and how they were set up and maybe conflicts of interest when it came to funding. But at the end of the day, even with all of that finagling going on in the research world, we have drugs that are getting approved to treat cancer based on extending life by two months.

I know.

And these drug companies are making billions, billions off of drugs that have been shown, on average, to extend someone's life two months.

And it's a miserable two months. It's not two months. It's two months of misery.

But they're going to extract the rest, you know, as much money from you in that last two months as they can.

Yeah.

All based on this hope that you're that 1 in 200 patients that has some sort of miracle response to it.

Yeah. Which I would probably argue that it has nothing to do with the chemotherapy and has a lot to do with all the other things.

Right.

And it's because most of these drugs, the clinical trials, are not designed to show an improvement in survival. They have these surrogate endpoints like response. Free treatment or disease. Yes. Progression free survival. Survival. And that does not translate into overall survival. And yet people get entered into studies or agree to take these medications and they don't know about that.

No.

Like we talk about informed consent, but I really don't think that that's happening. I mean, that's part of the reason why I wrote my book, the Smart Woman's Guide to Breast Cancer, because people do not have the opportunity to make an informed decision because they're not being given the real facts.

And look, these are complex topics. I mean, even for people like you and I who have been swimming in this type of stuff and have training and know how to read, research and understand the, what's going on behind the scenes, it's still, at the end of the day. It's, it's, it's a complex conversation to actually consent someone on risks and benefits of these types of treatments. And you can't do it in these five minute medical models that we have now. So you're right. That's a big problem. I think a lot of people, in hindsight, you know, I hear this from patients all the time. I wish I wouldn't have done that treatment or I wish I wouldn't have agreed to do this. And I wish I would have been a little more, I wish I would have advocated for myself a little more and, and sought other opinions before I just jumped into what my medical oncologist said I better do or else I'm going to die in six months.

Yeah, well, yeah. And people make so many decisions out of fear and desperation.

100%. Yeah, 100%. And it's, it's, it's too bad, it's unfortunate. Yes. Cancer can kill you. Yes, it's something you need to take seriously. But I tell everybody that there's always time to get additional opinions. Okay. Unless you're in the hospital and like you've got a, you know, an obstructing tumor somewhere or you, you know, you have brain bleed from a tumor in your head or something like that, if you're at home and you're eating and walking around on your own, you've got time to get another opinion.

A hundred percent. Absolutely. I think that, that if, if you hear nothing else, hear that, that unless you have some emergent situation. In the world of breast cancer, I talk about three things. I talk about inflammatory breast cancer because it is so rapidly progressive and that is something that needs intermediate immediate intervention. I talk about if you have a pathologic fracture. So if you have metastasis to your bones that has caused a fracture and you're in a tremendous amount of pain, it's impossible to heal when you're in pain. So that is something that needs immediate intervention. And the third thing is if you have brain mats, because our score goal is a fixed space and there's a lot of swelling involved with brain metastasis. So if that is the case, yes, you need immediate intervention and Everyone else, you have time. Take a breath, take a pause. Yeah. Educate yourself. So I know that you have worked at the finest integrative oncology clinics in the world. I would love to hear some insight about what happens there that's different and what is new on the horizon in the integrative medicine space that is going to make a difference in the cancer world.

Yeah. I mean, what works? You know, like you said, I've worked at a lot of different hospitals and clinics and places that were cutting edge for their time when I was there. Integrative oncology is, you know, in contrast to mainstream medicine, I'd say it's a very quickly evolving space. And there's always new stuff coming down the pipe that we're. Which is really exciting, but it's also like, you know, the protocols I used last year are already kind of out of date. Like, I got to update, you know, what I'm doing. Yeah.

So if you're not embarrassed about something that you did six months ago, you are not learning.

Right, Right. So. So I really try to try to take my ongoing learning and education, you know, pretty seriously and keep up to speed with everything, because there's people all around the world that are doing really cool things. Everything from, you know, IV therapies, like, things like IV nutrients. Right. That's something a lot of patients come to integrative oncologists for. IV vitamin C, IV alpha lipoic acid, IV methylene blue, IV glutathione. I mean, there's so many nutrients that we can do in a high dose intravenous fashion that bypass what you would get just taking them orally and can really create a shift in the body much quicker, especially with someone where that timeline sped up a little bit when they have a cancer diagnosis. You know, we're doing a lot of more now than a couple years ago. I'm doing a ton of detox with patients, you know, not only detoxing them from their chronic toxicities, but then also detoxing them from some of the treatments they've been through. Some of the conventional treatments.

Well, that.

That's an important part. Part. Right. I mean, people ask me all the time, how do I recover from radiation. I would love. I would love to address that a little bit. How do I recover from radiation? How do I recover from chemotherapy? Because these are really important questions that people are asking all the time.

Yeah, they are. And, you know, they're not getting answers from the other side, obviously. And so, you know, there's. There's a time and a Place for detox. You need to be, you know, you need to know what. What toxin you're dealing with and what the constitution of the patient is, make sure that their body is ready to handle a detox, and then utilize the right protocols based on that. And, you know, when patients are in active treatment, you know, that's typically not when we're detoxing them.

Right.

But usually there are spaces and breaks where we can devote some time to that, even just in a couple of weeks. You can get a lot of crap out of people if you're doing the right things. So there's a time and a place for that. I'm doing that a ton with patients. We're working on their immune system. You know, mistletoe is one of my favorite therapies to help patients immune systems sort of restore the factory settings, is what I. What I call it, because we do have a portion of our immune system that is designed to deal with cancer. But when we see these patients that have a cancer problem, for some reason, that program is not running correctly. Their immune system's either, you know, dealing with another problem or confused, or they're not producing enough natural killer cells or whatever it is. And we still have to address those other problems. But in the meantime, we can get their immune system working again with therapies like mistletoe, therapies like Helleboros. These are. These are.

So are you using subcutaneous injections for mistletoe? Is that what you're doing?

Subcutaneous? Yeah. I mean, 95% of mistletoe is typically done subcutaneously. There are protocols to do it, IV and even some intratumoral injection protocols out there. But 95% of the time, the subcutaneous injections are what most patients need to do. And it's very simple. These are self injections. Like a diabetic gives themselves an insulin shot.

Yeah.

So. And these are therapies, you know, mistletoe specifically, you go to at least half of the European countries, and they're doing this as part of their standard of care.

I know there's so much that's happening in Europe or internationally that is standard of care that we don't even begin to address here. Or we are so afraid of it. You know, so many of my patients are on supplements that they can't tell their medical oncologists about because the medical oncologist would say, no.

Yeah. Or. Or they send them to the. The pharmacist, and the pharmacist finds some obscure reference of why? There's a nutrient drug interaction.

Yeah.

So. Yeah, I mean, it's. It's way easier for them for patients not to do all that stuff. Right. Because then they don't have to deal with it because they don't really know what to do with that stuff. Stuff.

Yeah.

But if we have a truly collaborative and integrative approach with, with the, with the medical oncologist being a piece of that team, but also other integrative practitioners, then guess what? The medical oncologist says, you know what? You need to go talk to Dr. Lucas. He's. He deals with that stuff. Just like I would say, oh, you need chemo, Go talk to this guy. I don't do that. Yeah, you need surgery, go talk to Dr. Simmons. Whatever. So it's. We all know our role. I know you don't do that anymore, but. But you know the point. Take that. Yeah. Yeah. The point is that instead of just telling patients, you know, don't do mistletoe, don't do ivc, don't take supplements, diet, doesn't matter. Send them to people that know what they're talking about.

Yeah.

I say all the time, I think that what's happening is instead of saying, I don't know, they say no. And it's because we're kind of trained along this paradigm that we're not allowed to not know. Right. It's embarrassing or makes us inferior or what. Whatever it is, whatever that fear is, they say no when they don't know. And it's such a shame that we can't be vulnerable and say. I mean, I say this all the time like, I don't know, but I guarantee you I'm going to figure it out.

Right.

Like, I'm going to do my damnedest.

To get a real.

Let's find somebody that knows the answer to that.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you like mistletoe for immune stimulants? I get this question all the time. What else are your. What. What are your other. Go to things to help people to improve their immunity? I mean, obviously you. You need to remove whatever is suppressing their immunity. Right. So I talk to people a lot about what's happening in their mouth and going to have a cone beam CT to make sure that they don't have cavitations and chronic infections getting the mercury out of their mouth. Because that is an immune suppressant.

Yeah. Well, yeah. Being a breast cancer specialist, I mean, there's such a huge connection between dental issues and breast cancer. And I've seen that in my practice. Anybody that's out there in the integrative world would agree with that.

I think we're seeing it in thyroid disease, too.

Head and neck as well. You're right. Absolutely. But. But, yeah, you got to. You got to address what's creating the immune dysfunction or immune suppression. The mistletoe is great, but ultimately, long term, you know, we want to address the root cause of that dysfunction. And so that's usually a chronic infection, whether it's in the mouth or somewhere else that we talked about stress and its impact on your immune system. Other toxins. You know, mold is one of the huge toxin issues we see in our cancer patients, and it's a double whammy because it not only can cause cancer, it suppresses the immune system. Most of your immune suppressant drugs are made from mold. Okay. Mycophenolate, cyclosporine. These are all. Mold is the great immune suppressor.

Yeah. Yeah.

A lot of people are chock full of mold and have no idea.

Yeah. Mycophenolate is a drug that we actually use in transplant patients when you don't.

Want them to overreact to a new. Yeah. New tissue. Exactly. So, yeah, these are. These are mold. Mycotoxins, mold toxins that people breathe in when they've got water damage in their home or office. And it can be 20 years ago. These things can still be in your body.

Yeah.

And you've got some people going back to the connection of the genetics and the lot in the environment. Some people genetically are ill prepared to deal with mold. They get exposed to very little, and it causes a major problem. Whereas other people, they live in a mold home their whole life. It doesn't cause a problem. The body's able to deal with it.

Yeah. I mean, I had that issue in my house where, you know, I'm living with three other people and I'm the only one that's sick.

Yeah.

And, you know, my husband's like, we're fine. We're. Everyone's fine. It's only you. It can't be the house. And I'm like, it's definitely the house. Definitely the house.

Yeah.

We talked about mold and mycotoxins at one end of the spectrum. What about medicinal mushrooms on the other end of this?

Oh, yeah, Yeah. I mean, to stay with the topic of, you know, how to get the immune system working. Well, medicinal mushrooms are wonderful. There's. There's so many now, too. Turkey tail and cordyceps and reishi maitai. There were some great studies that came out recently with maitake not, not only showing the immune support, but also showing direct cytotoxicity to a lot of cancer cells. So these things are very exciting. Again, you go to other parts of the world and they're used more regularly than we find here. Japan is huge. They do a ton of medicinal mushroom treatments with cancer patients over there, combining them with, you know, medications and stuff.

And so, yeah, they're almost always part of cancer protocols.

Always. Always. Yeah. And just like mistletoe, you know, you go to Germany or Switzerland, they're like, okay, we, we realize that the immune system, we need to, we need to strengthen the immune system. You know, while we, while we work on the. I'm not saying they're not giving the patients chemo too, but they're at least also supporting the immune system along the way.

Yeah, absolutely. And I'm also using a lot of low dose naltrexone. How about you?

Oh, love Lotus Nutrixone. Ldn, as most people, you know, hear it phrased as. But that's such a, it can be such a game changer for people, especially if they have any history of any autoimmune diseases. I always run an A, A screen on, on my patients as part of that soil test. A, because it can help with selecting the right type of mistletoe for them. But B, if they have a positive A, N, A, even if they don't have a full blown autoimmune disease, if they've never been diagnosed with one, low dose naltrexone is the first thing I'll put them on.

Yeah, amazing.

You got Hashimoto's, you got Crohn's colitis, Anything like that going on.

Yeah.

Ldn. I've seen LDN single handedly. Reverse autoimmune disease.

Yeah. It's really amazing. It's really amazing the impact that it has.

Powerful.

And it's, it's equally as amazing to me that that hasn't crossed over.

Well, yeah, I mean the, the research, if you go to remember the website is. But it's like, I think it's like LDN Research Trust, but they have, it's like a database for all those. I mean the research is astounding.

Astounding.

You can't. The research isn't there for it.

Yeah.

So. But the practice. Yeah.

Autoimmune thyroiditis is so, so, so common and these people are not being put on ldm.

No, no. Very few rheumatologists or conventional doctors even know what that is.

Yeah.

They see naltrexone and like, why Are you taking this like that? You know, because usually it's used as a kind of like Narcan. Right. For like people that have either an overdose or withdrawals from opiates.

Yeah.

Seen as like a rescue drug, but low doses, guess what? It does something very different in the body. You start releasing endorphins, particularly in your gut. That boy. That gets things moving in the right. And that calms down your immune system. So when you've got an overactive immune system and you start sending these. These endorphin signals in the gut, which is where the immune system really nests, it just calms it down. It calms it down and it can break that cycle. Because oftentimes autoimmune disease is just a bad. Your immune system is just caught in a bad cycle.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had a patient with metastatic breast cancer who has been stable for years and years and years. And her son is a physician. Physician. And when I suggested that she go on low dose naltrexone, her son was just adamantly against it. He's like, you're not at. You're not an opioid user. And. And if there's no, there's just no education around it in a conventional medical space.

No. Because guess what? It's cheap.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So who's not worth anyone's while?

Who's gonna sink money into. To market it and, you know, bring it to the physicians at these different conferences and, and say, oh, you need to be doing this because we're gonna make money off. Well, yeah, it's like, you know, it's like oftentimes what we see with some of these off label drugs. Right. Like ivermectin. Right. You see that same thing play out. Oh, yeah, Cheap drug. That's effective. Get this thing out of here. Yeah.

I mean, listen, this is a threat. Lost their medical licenses over that.

Over a drug you should be able to buy over the counter.

Yeah, yeah. A drug that we have. I mean, decades of safety profiles on. Decades.

A lot of cancer research too, if. Believe it or not.

Yeah.

A lot of cancer doctors stumbled upon ivermectin based on what happened through Covid. And it's like, oh, gosh, we've got studies going back 20 years showing this thing helps with triple negative breast cancer, bladder cancer, kidney. I mean, it's. The research is actually pretty. Pretty amazing.

Yeah.

We never knew about it, really.

Well, this has been an amazing conversation. I think we're going to have to have you back for a part two. But in the Meantime, where can people find you if they want to learn more from you?

Yeah, I'm, I'm actively, you know, accepting patients. I'm working right now strictly telemedicine, so I can pretty much work with patients all around the country, all around the world, as long as you got an Internet connection and we get you set up. But yeah, I'm working exclusively with cancer patients and you can book consults with me through my website, which is www.drlucas.org Dr. Spelled out. I'm also pretty active on social media, particularly Instagram. Patients or people sometimes reach out to me through there. That's totally fine as well. And I'm, I'm working on some, some next chapter things that I'm looking forward to share with people here. Probably, probably in the next six months. So stay tuned for that as well.

Well, when you're ready for your next chapter things, I would love to have you back. And in the meantime, I thank you so much for your time, for sharing your wisdom. I know that you have a breadth of experience in this space and you are really making a difference in the world of integrative ecology. And we need this now more than ever. So thank you so much for your time and thank you for everything that you do.

Oh, amazing. Thank you so much for having me.

My pleasure. And if you liked this episode, if you know someone that needs to hear this episode, please like it, share it, send us a comment, send us a question. We're happy to address that for you. And I will be back next week, same time, same place. It's Dr. Jen. Bye for now. Foreign.

Thank you for joining me on this episode of the Keeping abreast podcast with Dr. Chen. I hope you found the discussion informative and empowering. Remember, breast health is health. So by staying informed and taking proactive steps, you have the power to optimize your well being. My team and I encourage you to apply the knowledge gained from today's episode to make positive changes in your life and share what you've learned with others. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast and leave us a review. Your feedback and support mean the world to us and help us to reach more people who can benefit from these conversations. Stay connected with me on social media where I share additional resources, advice, updates and announcements related to breast health. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Rjens Simmons and remember, MyGen has two N's, so until next time, remember to stay proactive, informed and confident in your breast health journey. The key to your health is you.