My Answer to Breast Cancer

Hello. Hello. Hello. It's Dr. Jen Simmons from Rural Health MD. I'm so glad you're here tonight. It is October. It's Breast Health Awareness Month. And we're going to talk about my favorite thing, which is prevention. And in this country, prevention is treated the same way that all disease is treated. So, unfortunately, when we talk about prevention in this country, we're talking mostly about mammograms. But. But mammograms have nothing to do with prevention. Mammograms are entirely about early detection. They're about symptom management. So like everything else in this country, they're treated the same exact way. And that doesn't do anything for prevention. But I want you to know that there is so much that you can do, there is so much more that you can do than just wait around for. For things to happen to you, for breast cancer to happen to you, for any disease to happen to you. So let's talk about prevention. These things have a lot to do with breast cancer, but they have a lot to do with all chronic disease. So I'm going to talk about three things that you can do starting tonight that can change the likelihood that you will not only get breast cancer, but yet any chronic disease. Because. Because these are important things for health. These are really important drivers for health. So I want to be clear before I get started that I am not discouraging people from getting mammograms. Mammograms absolutely save lives because they detect cancer in its earliest of stages, hopefully. That is certainly the reason why mammograms save lives. However, wouldn't it be nice? Wouldn't it be wonderful? Wouldn't it be terrific to not have to find cancer in its earliest stage? Wouldn't it be nice and wonderful and terrific to not get cancer at all? And that is certainly my goal. So the three things that I'd like to talk to you tonight again are three things that are easily achievable, easily attainable, if you make them a priority in your life. So let's start with the first thing, and that is that everyone needs proper, nourishing sleep. Everyone. So the only way to balance hormones, to have normal weight, to have energy, to repair your cells, the only way for your body to work the way that it's supposed to work is to get nourishing sleep. Now, that's gonna mean something different for everyone. So some people do well with seven hours a night. Some people need nine hours a night, but everyone's going to fall in between there. Some people are early larks. Some people are night owls. So there are no specific hours for sleep. And you need to get in touch with your own body and just make sure that you're getting what you need. So if you're getting what you need in terms of sleep, you wake up in the morning without an alarm, feeling, feeling refreshed, feeling ready to take on the day. If you are waking at night, or it's really hard to get out of bed in the morning, or you don't have the energy that you need during the day, or if you're getting sick often, or if you don't have the health that you want, look to your sleep first because that is a major, major obstacle for everyone. And we have so many obstacles in our way in terms of sleep. So, so many of us are genetically programmed to be really sensitive to changes in our circadian rhythm, meaning that we need to see the sunlight several times during the day and watch the sun set at night in order for us to realize that it's time to sleep. Some of us are super duper sensitive to blue light. I should be wearing my blue light glasses right now. Some of us are super duper sensitive to blue light. This is too glaring. I'm going to take them off. And so for people, I just want to let you know that I wore them all day long. For those people that are super sensitive to blue light, you should have blue light glasses on. When you're working on a computer, when you're on your phone, but more importantly, when the sun goes down, those close devices, your phone, your iPad, whatever is close to you, those close devices go away. And if you're going to watch TV after dark, which if you have problems with sleep, you should not be watching TV after dark. But if you're going to do that, make sure you have a quality pair of blue light glasses on. I have a super quality pair. I'm not promoting this brand. I happen to use Viva rays. But you can do your own research and make your own decision as to what blue light glasses you wear. But you should be wearing blue light glasses after dark, especially if you're someone who's sensitive to disruptions in your circadian rhythm from blue light. But I think it's a good recommendation for everyone because blue light is stimulating. It tells your brain it's time to be awake. So, so think about reorganizing yourself after dark to promote sleep, doing things that are associated with relaxation, with winding down, dim your lights, get rid of the blue light, take a bath, do your journaling. Do a puzzle, read a book. Like things that are relaxing and settling after dark. But again, make sleep a priority. Create a sleep schedule, stick to it. Have good sleep hygiene. Create a beautiful sleep environment. Like sleep is your number one. Okay? So number one, make sleep a priority. Number two, normalize your weight. So the more weight we have around our midsection, those fat cells around our midsection are ones that are extremely active, extremely inflammatory, and will lead us to go on to these chronic diseases. Long term inflammation. Chronic inflammation. Inflammation in the short term is very important and necessary. It allows us to heal our wounds, it allows us to fight off illnesses. But long term inflammation is very damaging to our cells. It destroys our DNA and it leads to chronic diseases like cancer. So the there are several measures that you can do at home. You can measure your waist and measure your hips. For women, a waist to hip ratio should be no bigger than 0.8. For men, the waist to hip ratio should be no bigger than 0.9. So that's one determination as to whether or not you are storing weight around your middle. But most people know based on their body type if they're storing weight around their middle. And if you are, it can put you at increased risk for breast cancer and other chronic diseases like heart disease and stroke and diabetes and that kind of thing. So even if you are of normal weight, but you're carrying it in the wrong place, it can have implications for you, for your health. So number two is make sure that you're not over fat. And I know I'm not trying to fat shame people. This isn't about criticism. This is about being the best version you can be. This is about prevention. Right? And the way to prevent chronic illnesses is to decrease the amount of inflammation that you have in your body. And one of the major ways of knowing if you're inflammatory or not is if you're carrying that weight in the middle. Okay, so number one is sleep. Number two is get rid of that fat around your middle. Now, the third thing that I'm going to talk about tonight is vitamin D levels. Vitamin D is so essential to your immune system that there's a certain something going around that if you have normal vitamin D levels, you are very, very unlikely to have it have a significant effect on you. A vitamin D level is very, very easy to check. It is a blood test. For some people, it can just be a finger prick. It is a very easy thing to check, a very important thing to check. And we all need to make sure that our vitamin D levels are safe. Somewhere between 60 and 100. Now, I do genetic analyses on people and I know from that where they should land along that scale. But I think it's pretty safe to say that someone with a vitamin D level greater than 55 has adequate vitamin D in their body. Now, there are three components to vitamin D. First is do you convert it well, do you take vitamin D2 and convert it to vitamin D3? That's the process that happens in our skin when we get exposed to sunlight. Now, for some people, they do that really, really effectively and efficiently, and other people don't do it well at all. So for the people that don't do it well, despite getting sunshine, and there's a lot of reasons to get sunshine besides vitamin D. So sunshine helps you with that circadian rhythm back up to sleep. And sleep is very important in terms of your immunity. So the sunlight should happen regardless of whether or not it means that you're getting your vitamin D that way or not. However, if you're not a good converter of vitamin D, then you need vitamin D supplementation. The second thing we look at is if you can make that vitamin D in your skin, are you good at transporting it? Are you good at taking it from where it was made and transporting it to the cells of the body that need it for manufacturing? Some people are good transporters and some people are not good transporters. For the good transporters, they can have one dose of vitamin D a day and they're fine. For the poor. Transporters they like don't have enough delivery trucks like Amazon hasn't hit their body yet, right? So they need to do multiple doses throughout the day. Although to be clear, no dose of vitamin D after 3pm because you don't want it to affect your ability to sleep. And so because we manufacture vitamin D during the daytime from sunlight, if you're getting vitamin D later on at night, after dark, your body thinks it's awake and it's supposed to be awake. So we don't want to confuse our body. So we want to make sure that we get our vitamin D before 3 o' clock in the afternoon. And so people who are poor transporters will need to do that vitamin D a number of times during the day in separate doses, so that it can get transported. The third thing that we look at with vitamin D are our vitamin D receptors. So do we have good receptors and it readily takes that vitamin D into the cells, or do we have poor receptors and that vitamin D, despite the fact that it's in your blood, is just not locking on to that receptor and getting taken inside of the cell. So for the people who have good vitamin D receptors, they don't need high levels of vitamin D. They're going to do fine at 55 at 60. But for the people with poor vitamin D receptors, those people need to be kept at closer to 100. So the way to know that is to do some genetic testing. I am not suggesting that everyone needs to do genetic testing, but please, please, please have your vitamin D level measured. Ask your doctor for that. It's super duper important. It is an essential nutrient. I don't even want to call it a nutrient because it really acts like a hormone in your body. Okay, so let's review these three things that you can do tomorrow to start improving your health. Sleep, normalize your weight or at least make sure that you're not carrying that weight around your midsection and get your vitamin D checked. And if you are lower than 60, supplement and make sure that you're getting a quality supplement of vitamin D3. That's the active form. I will have more for you next week. If you are looking to learn more about prevention, I have several programs for you. You can join my Real Health Reset. It talks about the things that we talked about today and even more where you can optimize your weight, balance your hormones, get better sleep, have more energy, have more interest, have a better attitude, have more confidence. It's really game changer. And we will, we, we have a group starting real soon. And if you're looking for tips on prevention or if, heaven forbid, you've been diagnosed with breast cancer, I can help. My answer to breast cancer can help. So go to realhealthmd.com we have something for everyone. This is Dr. Jen Simmons from RealHealthMD. Bye for now.