Dr. Jenn Simmons (Real Health MD) delivers a spoken message encouraging people facing breast cancer diagnoses to view diagnosis as the start of a journey, not the final destination. She critiques traditional medicine for focusing primarily on killing tumors without addressing the underlying biological and environmental imbalances that contribute to cancer. She promotes a functional-medicine approach emphasizing that genetics explain only a small fraction of cancers (she cites ~5%–10% but favors ~5%), and that the cellular environment and lifestyle factors (diet, movement, toxin avoidance, stress management, social connections, meaning/purpose) are central to prevention and healing. She affirms that conventional treatments may be necessary to remove disease burden but urges addressing root causes alongside them.
Chapters
You. Hello? Hello? Hello, it's Dr. Jenn Simmons from Real Health MD. It is Tuesday night. It's 7 o'. Clock. And that means it's time for my answer to breast cancer. You know, I have a smile on my face today, but today was a pretty hard day, and I'm going to tell you why. I had a very near and dear friend get a very bad diagnosis today. And I had a whole other thing that I was going to talk about tonight. But I think it's really important for everyone to know that your diagnosis isn't your destination. It's only where your journey begins. And the cancer journey is so confusing. The. The landscape is so hard to navigate, and you cannot properly navigate the cancer landscape within the confines of traditional medicine. And I want to talk to you. Why? In traditional medicine, there is so little focus on the things that we are only now realizing are so very important. So as we start to realize what cancer is really about, we realize that our traditional treatments are focused in the wrong area. So I'm going to stop being so vague and start to be more specific when referring to any cancer. And let's use breast cancer, since most of you are here to learn more about how to navigate your breast cancer journey. But the cancer itself is not the issue. And so much of traditional medicine is completely focused on targeting the tumor, killing the tumor. The medicines kill the tumor. The surgery removes the tumor, the radiation kills the tumor cells. But the problem is that the thing that put that process in motion, the thing that threw off the balance, that disturbed your equilibrium, that is not addressed by any surgery, by any radiation, by any chemotherapy, by any drug. And the drugs that are used to manipulate the hormonal environment afterwards also do not address the reason why the cancer developed in the first place. And so it's the process of understanding imbalance that allows you to move your journey in the right direction. Now, I am in no way saying that you should not pursue traditional cancer treatments that will. You'll never hear that come out of my mouth. I don't believe it. Because by the time that you've developed cancer, the horse is out of the proverbial barn, your sink is overflowing, you have to mop up the floor, right? So you need the surgery, you need the radiation, you need the chemotherapy, if that's what you need to get rid of the disease burden that's there. But remember that mopping up the floor does not deal with why your sink is overflowing. Why is your drain clogged? Why can't you shut that faucet off. And those are all the questions that. That we answer in the course of functional medicine and a functional medicine approach. So I was on Instagram today and I noticed a post that talked about genetics and a genetic mutation. And I have been asked this by a number of people who say, you know, how. Where are you going to find the answer? The reason that I got breast cancer is because I had a genetic mutation. I have BRCA1 or I have BRCA2, or I have the PAOB mutation. And certainly that contributes. Certainly. But the environment in which your cells live are actually far more influential on whether or not you develop a cancer, far more influential than that genetic mutation. And please remember, for most of you that are watching, that you're not going to have a genetic mutation. A genetic. A genetic mutation is associated with a very, very, very small percentage of breast cancers and other cancers. So, you know, we're talking about 5% of the population now. There are numbers that reported that call it up to 10%. I'll tell you that in my experience, it's just not true that the numbers are much closer to 5% of people who have a genetic mutation. That is one of the factors, not the only factor, one of the factors that contribute to the development of breast cancer. Not all mutations are created equal in that there are some mutations that are actually protective, that do not predispose you to disease, that are actually protective against the development of breast cancer. So the environment ends up being the most critical part. And restoring that environment after a diagnosis or protecting that environment and promoting a healthy environment is of utmost importance when we're talking about prevention. And so much of prevention is confusing in this country because we don't really talk about prevention. We talk about things like early detection, we talk about screenings, but we don't really talk about prevention. And prevention is so important because it is what allows us to not have to go through that diagnosis, to not have to go through those treatments, because the treatments themselves aren't curative. The treatments themselves are actually quite harmful a lot of the times, but it's the lesser of the evils. And the cure is in you. I'm going to say that again so that everyone hears it. The cure is in you. So you have way more control than you think everyone does. And if you are dealing with a new diagnosis of any kind, I want you to know that you have more control than you think, that your diagnosis isn't your destination, it's where your journey begins. And you get to decide where you want that journey to Go, you get to decide where you want that journey to take you. For some people who are going to continue down the same path and maybe sprinkle in a little surgery and chemotherapy and radiation and maybe that feels right to you. And if that does, I really hope that that works out for you. But it's the people that find meaning in their diagnosis, it's the people that find a new path after their diagnosis. Those are the people that actually find health. And the way that you do that, the keys to health for everyone are going to be getting on a whole food plant based, nourishing diet. It doesn't mean that you're going to be a vegan. You don't necessarily have to be a vegan. But of all the dietary theory, everyone agrees you need to get the processed food out of your diet and everyone needs to be eating mostly vegetables and fruit. Bottom line, you need to have some kind of joyful movement routine. We are accustomed to being active beings and so you need to find some way to be active that also makes you happy. You need to avoid toxins. You need to have some way to manage your stress, to be mindful, to give meaning to the things that help promote your health and diminish meaning of the things that don't. And so when you put all of that together and you have strong social connections and you have an attitude of gratitude, when you find meaning and purpose in this diagnosis and allow it to infiltrate into your life so, so that you live your life in a healing, restorative way, then your diagnosis is just part of the journey, the start of the journey. But it is by no means the end. It's not a condemnation, it's an opportunity. I don't want to downplay anything. There are no, it's not a blessing, but it is an opportunity. And for many, many people and certainly the people that I work with at Real Health md, it's a wonderful opportunity. It's an eye opening opportunity to live your life in a deeper, more meaningful, more connected, more aware, more alert, happier, more joyful way. So if you are on the right path, God bless you and I hope that you share all of your wisdom with others. If you need help on your journey, reach out to me@realhealthmd.com Bye for now.
