#164: The REAL Truth About Breast Cancer with Dr. Jenn Simmons

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Hi, I'm Dr. Tabatha, the Gutsy Gynecologist. I'm a triple board-certified OB-GYN and functional medicine physician. I've embraced the world of functional medicine and wellness through my own personal health journey, and I'm super excited to share my wisdom and unique perspective as it pertains to women's health. After caring for thousands of women, I've come to realize that your gut health determines your gyn health and your overall And it's a super gutsy thing for me to go against conventional gynecology practice to bring you the truth. No more Band-Aid medicine, ladies. We're talking root cause resolution on this show. So if you're struggling with hormone imbalance, weight gain, period issues, anxiety, insomnia, you name it, then you've come to the right place. And I want to be your gutsy gynecologist. So welcome. All right. I keep getting asked to bring on a breast cancer specialist, and I finally found the right one. I've been waiting and waiting because what we have been told about breast cancer is a lie. There is so many myths going on out there, so many, um, confused explanations, and there's a lot of doctors who don't really understand breast cancer. So I'm So excited to finally bring my guest on today because we are going to talk about how conventional medicine handles breast cancer, where they're getting it wrong, and how we really should be looking at breast cancer diagnoses and prevention so that we can actually live a healthy, fulfilling life and not make decisions based on fear and bad information. So we're going to debunk a lot of stuff. This is a really amazing episode. I love Dr. Jen and her reason for getting into this. Like, uh, it gives me goosebumps. I love hearing her story. So please share this with everybody you know. Head on over to whatever, um, place you're listening to your podcast— Apple, Spotify, Google, Um, all those cool places, like hit me up, give me a 5-star review. Let me know why you're loving this podcast episode and what else you want to hear about. That is so helpful. So let me just sing Dr. Jen Simmons' praises really quick. She started her professional career as Philadelphia's first fellowship-trained breast surgeon. After spending 17 years as Philadelphia's top breast surgeon, Her own illness led her to discover functional medicine, which is not surprising. That's how most of us get into functional medicine. She was so enamored with the concept of creating health rather than killing disease that she left traditional medicine and her esteemed surgical practice in 2019, and she founded Real Health MD with the mission to help women anywhere along the breast cancer journey to truly heal. Dr. Jin believes that health is much more than the absence of disease. Health is optimal function. In order to function optimally, we must nourish ourselves in a way that is meaningful for us and avoid the things that interfere with health. Each of us is unique and we all have our own bio-individuality. Each of us is different in how we process food, what nourishes us, How we detoxify our bodies, and how our environment affects us. I could not agree more. Most importantly, however, Dr. Jen knows that health happens at home, not in the doctor's office, not in the hospital system. It happens at home. So we're going to talk about all of this today because she is on a mission, just much like I am, to change the impact of breast cancer by empowering millions of women to take control of their health and design their destiny. I love that so much. She created her signature course, My Answer to Breast Cancer, to give women the tools to ditch their diagnosis and design their destiny. Oh my gosh, if you don't want that, I don't know what the heck. That's so good. So Dr. Jen's a motivational speaker. She maintains her private practice. She runs a group program. She's a frequent podcast guest, summit host, author. She's been on multiple TV, speaking engagements, but most importantly, she's a wife, mom, grandma, dog lover, athlete, and friend. And I'm proud to call her my friend. Like, I just think that we're kindred spirits. We've been on kind of this same healing journey together, and we're on a mission to raise women up and give you guys the best lives possible. Like, no more surviving. It's time to thrive. So This information today is invaluable. So good. You're gonna like— she's dropping golden nuggets the whole time, the whole hour. So pause it, come back if you have to, but make sure you listen to this episode and then share it with everybody you know. All right, here we go. Well, welcome, Dr. Jen, to the Gutsy Gynecologist Show.

Thank you. I am so happy to be here. I've been really looking forward to this.

I'm so happy to have you because this conversation is way beyond due. Like, I'm so tired of hearing that estrogen causes breast cancer and that we just have everything wrong, right?

We have everything wrong, unfortunately, from, from screening through diagnosis, through treatment and beyond. We have everything wrong. And It pains me really more than you know because I came from that very system. That really my story, my breast cancer story started long, long ago because I really don't remember a time in my life where I didn't know about breast cancer. When I was growing up as a small child, I mean, my first memories were of my first cousin. She was a woman named 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, like this amazing beam of light, commanded attention the second she walked in the room. She was the queen of Motown sound in Philadelphia, and she was my hero.

Yeah.

She wrote 54 hits in all.

Wow.

Most famous song was The Greatest Love of All. She wrote that 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 released it to the world.

Oh my God. I used to sing that at the top of my lungs. It was my life.

With your lungs. Right? Yes. So you can imagine That this is my first cousin. She is literally a rock star. Like, people talk about people figuratively being rock stars. I have a first cousin who is literally a rock star.

Yeah.

When Whitney releases the song in March of 1986, it spends 14 weeks at the top of the charts. But Linda never gets to know that because she died of metastatic breast cancer 1 month After Whitney released the song. Oh my gosh. You can imagine.

And how old were you, Jen?

I was 16 years old when my hero died.

Oh my gosh.

I was 16 years old. You can imagine the devastation she left behind. 2 small children, a loving husband. We have a very big family. Her community, Her fans, the people that she touched. I mean, the devastation was huge.

Yeah.

And I did the only thing I knew how to do to prevent another woman, another family, another community from having to suffer like that. I became a doctor. I became a surgeon. I become the first fellowship-trained breast surgeon in Philadelphia. And I think I'm really making a difference, right? Like, I think that I am making a shift in these people's worlds, that I'm changing the trajectory of their lives. And it really wasn't until I became a patient that I realized how very broken our system is. And we can take it apart piece by piece and talk about it. But I'll tell you, the one thing that kind of sits with me after all of these years is that so many people see their diagnosis as a punishment. My diagnosis was an opportunity.

Yes.

It was not a blessing, but it was a blessed opportunity. Look at my life. And see if I was really doing what I set out to do. And I wasn't. And so I changed.

Yeah.

And I think that that is a lesson that the medical community needs to look long and hard at. Are we really doing what we set out to do?

Oh my gosh. I'm just feeling you right now because literally I've had this same experience. You know, I went into medicine for the sole purpose of giving women another voice and a choice, just like you. And then I found myself broken in the broken system. And it, it's a huge wake-up call. And you're like, what the heck am I doing? I'm not actually healing women. I'm not actually giving them a better life as a surgeon. We're fixing the symptom, we're removing the problem at the moment, but we're not actually giving them a better future. And I honor you for being brave enough to give up that life because as a fellow surgeon, like, I loved being a surgeon. It was such a painful thing to give up, but I had to do it because it was the right thing to do, right? Once you know better, you do better.

Yeah.

And so I just feel this kindredship with you, like, We had to do hard stuff.

For sure. And beyond walking away from the system and our tribe, right? Because—

Yeah. Like, we're out here alone. What the heck? I'm so glad I have you.

And you think about it from an evolutionary standpoint. What happened when you left the tribe? Yeah.

You died.

You died. Right? So we are inherently programmed To toe the line, to stay within the system. Yeah. Follow along. We are inherently genetically programmed to do that. So it is beyond hard to walk out, to stand alone, to stand strong when all the voices around you are supported and very loud. And so. You know, it was probably the hardest thing that I've done in my life, and I've done a lot of hard things, but it's also my proudest moment and it's my greatest accomplishment. So I think we should talk about like where the breaks are in the system and things that are so seemingly obvious that are wholly untrue. And yet they just get perpetuated.

I want you to debunk all the myths that the conventional doctors are telling patients. Like, literally, I'm still getting patients who get the breast cancer diagnosis. They go to the surgeon, they have all the procedures, the reconstruction. Like, there's not even any time to process it because they just take you through everything, like, within a week, and then you're sent to the oncologist. And the oncologist will literally tell them, oh, it doesn't matter what you eat, just take whatever, you know, just eat whatever, take whatever supplements you want. Here's what's important. You need to be on your aromatase inhibitor or whatever med to prevent any further recurrence. So we need to break all of this apart because women just get sucked in like a vortex as soon as they have the mammogram and the biopsy.

It's really shameful. It's really shameful. We are operating by a system of fear, and it's horrible.

Amen. Amen.

Yeah. So let's even back up to before people get diagnosed.

Oh, with the prevention of mammograms? Come on, please, girl. Like, tell us the truth.

Mammographic system, right? So listen, the mammogram screening program that started in the 1970s had good intentions. Their intention was to find breast cancers in their smallest size, in their infancy, and therefore be able to treat people less aggressively and cure cancer and prevent deaths from breast cancer. And that is a lovely concept.

Right.

It is.

Concept.

But, but it is based on the assumption that breast cancer is a linear progressive disease. It is not.

Yeah.

So that system, this screen them and catch it early system, depends on breast cancer starting small, growing to some critical size, And then being at risk for metastasis. So if you can catch it before that critical size, you can save people from breast cancer. But breast cancer—and there are cancers that that's true for. So I want to be clear that I am specifically talking about breast cancer because colon cancer is a totally different story. Colon cancer grows in a very predictable fashion. Breast cancer does a.

Yeah. And we're gonna talk about why that is. We're gonna talk about how it's a metabolic disease, but keep going. This is so good.

Yeah. So breast cancer is what it is from the beginning. So there are breast cancers that are very aggressive, and it doesn't matter when you find them or how you treat them. These women are not going to do well. There are breast cancers that are completely unaggressive. And will never be a threat to life.

And that's the majority, correct?

The vast majority. The vast majority. But when we use screening mammogram as the determinator of who should and who shouldn't get treated, which is exactly what's happening, we are finding these lesions. Sometimes they're not even invasive lesions. Sometimes they're DCIS or ductal carcinoma in situ. So we are identifying these lesions, biopsying them. So we're putting people through a traumatic experience, not to mention the radiation that we're exposing them to. That's a whole other story.

Right.

But we're discovering these lesions, biopsying them, and then categorizing everyone together. You have breast cancer, right? Those 4 words, you have breast cancer. Even if it's noninvasive breast cancer, these women are still being offered surgery, radiation, chemo prevention. Right? These women are going on—

That word is like an oxymoron in my brain.

I know.

Chemo prevention.

I know. Yeah. And God forbid it's an invasive breast cancer, then these people are getting the gamut thrown at them. This is a huge problem. First of all, we're treating these Cancers that don't even need treatment. And then we're saying, I saved your life. Right? That's where this statistic comes from. Mammogram reduces breast cancer deaths by 40%. Well, you're taking credit for saving someone's life who wasn't in danger.

Yes.

I, I liken it to, I'm gonna give you a vaccine for something that would've never killed you. And then saying, I saved your life. I gave you the vaccine. Right. So we're taking credit for saving people's lives because we treated them for breast cancer when that breast cancer was never going to be a threat to their life.

Yeah. I hope my listeners are hearing this right now because breast cancer, what is it? 90% do not have a risk of death. Like, it's just not a deadly disease. 90%.

No matter what you do to them, do fine.

Yes.

90%. And I am not disrespecting people who died of breast cancer. I am not saying that there is not aggressive disease. There for sure is aggressive disease. And we ought to be working like mad people to discover what those characteristics are so that we know These are the people that we have to treat, and we have to do better at treating them. Right? Because the same old, same old isn't working. Yes. But we cannot take credit for saving lives that weren't in danger. Right.

And in the meantime, we are traumatizing these women, putting through endless procedures and surgeries and chemo and radiation and, like, completely, in some cases, destroying who they are as a woman. You know, I mean, that's exactly right. PTSD over these things.

Yeah. I mean, look at the woman with noninvasive breast cancer, with DCIS. I hate to even call it breast cancer. Let's just call it DCIS. They have bilateral mastectomies out of fear. Out of fear. Yeah. Because we come at them with so much fear. They are forever changed. That woman is never gonna be the same, and she's never gonna be better.

Right. Because of the medical intervention, not because of the diagnosis.

That's exactly right. And we need to talk about the other things that come along with treatment for breast cancer, because this is not benign. Surgery is disfiguring. Yes. If you have a mastectomy, There will never come a day where you didn't remember that you had breast cancer. It affects your sexuality. It affects the way that you relate to the world. It affects the way that you relate to your significant other. I mean, these are not insignificant ramifications.

Right.

And then let's talk about chemotherapy. Chemotherapy accelerates heart disease by far, by far. The number one threat to a woman's life.

Yeah.

By far. And we are leaving these women worse off than when we found them. Accelerates heart disease, accelerates cardiovascular disease like peripheral vascular disease, increases the number of strokes people have, increases dementia, depression, anxiety. These are major, major ramifications from treatment. And then increases bone loss. Pathologic fractures are a major threat to a woman's life. So these treatments that we are putting these women through for a disease that never would have threatened their life, and now we've threatened their life.

Right.

It reminded me, like, of my father swatting in the back of the car, like, if you're going to cry, I'm going to give you something to cry about. We're giving people something to cry about. Yeah, I mean, we're taking a disease that didn't exist and we are giving them. It's a huge problem. It's a huge problem. So, and then, you know, of course there are side effects of radiation and all of that. And the thing that you were talking about, these women get a mammogram, get a diagnosis, and before you know it, they're in treatment. They are like pressured into Getting to treatment right away. This is that fear tactic that I was talking about, and with very rare exception, we're talking about people that have inflammatory breast cancer, which is exceedingly exceptionally rare. There's plenty of time. Yeah. There's absolutely no reason to rush people into treatment unless you're worried. That they may stop and think and do some investigation and figure out that maybe this might not be the right thing for them. And that's really what doctors are afraid of.

Yeah.

That's really what doctors are afraid of. And it's so sad. It's so sad. But for the vast majority of people, there is no reason to rush to treatment. And you should be getting a second, a third, A 4th opinion. Like, you should feel really good about whatever treatment you choose. And if you don't feel good about it, that is not the right treatment for you. Right.

Especially when you're removing body parts and ingesting chemotherapy.

Yeah.

You want to get those other opinions from a different medical system, from a different establishment. Right. Going into the same system does nothing.

A different perspective. And I just, I feel so badly because people are so scared and so confused, and the traditional medical system is just not doing the right thing by them. Just not.

No.

We should never be scaring people into accepting treatments, especially when the treatments come with so many harms. So many harms. Yeah, exactly. You know, just thinking about, we use something that causes cancer to screen for cancer. We use medicines that treat cancer that actually cause cancer, right? So chemotherapy for breast cancer puts you at risk for other cancers. Radiation for breast cancer puts you at risk for other cancers. We have to do better.

Yeah. And we literally do not talk about this. And I promise you, there are doctors who are not doing complete informed consent. These conversations are not being had. They are not saying, yes, you're going to be at risk for lymphoma or leukemia or these other problems and osteoporosis and heart disease. So these conversations are not being had. And the biggest one that keeps getting perpetuated is you need to be afraid of hormones. Hormones caused all of this. It was your estrogen. That's where the focus is. We have to really break this apart because it is not being talked about enough. So there is this huge disconnect between conventional medicine and the rest of the world. Yes. You know, I am the first one to say I had no clue. You know, give seven years ago, never heard of any of this. Didn't understand wellness prevention, functional medicine, integrative medicine. Had no idea about it, and it sounds like you didn't either. And all we can do is you know share the truth now that we know it.

Yeah. So I believe that where the thinking that estrogen causes breast cancer is from is because when we So when we look at breast cancer cells, some of them, the majority of them, have upregulation of the estrogen receptor. Okay, that is a mutation. It's a survival mechanism for the tumor. We, we have to remember that breast cancer is a normal response to an abnormal environment, right? What's happening is that there is some environmental shift, be it from toxin exposure, diet, lifestyle, genes filter in there, but the environment is the far more important thing. So there's been some environmental shift, and your breast cells kind of go into survival mode. That's what's happening. And some of them upregulate this estrogen receptor. So the thinking was, oh, I see estrogen receptors, estrogen must cause breast cancer. So it's logical thinking that is wrong.

Flat out wrong. It turns out we have estrogen receptors everywhere.

That's exactly right. So the fact that they— it's like if A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C. But it's not true. Right.

And, you know, I heard somebody say this was— this made so much sense to me. Just because the breast tissue has the estrogen receptor on it, that's actually a better diagnosis because they're more like the actual normal, healthy version of the breast cell and not totally, completely rogue, unidentifiable. Right?

Yes, that's absolutely correct. So the more the cancer cell resembles a normal cell, The more the easier it is to reverse the process. Yeah, because it it's not that far gone. Yeah, right. We think about it in terms of how far gone is it, and that that's not that far gone. Right.

So having estrogen and progesterone receptors on your breast cancer cells is not a bad scary thing. It's a positive encouraging.

It is. And remember that. Normal cells have estrogen and progesterone receptors on them, right? This is not a characteristic of cancer cells.

Amen.

Normal cells have estrogen and progesterone receptors on them. The cancer cells may have more, but that's okay. So we've taken this concept and said, okay, so if, if they have estrogen receptors on them, Wiping out someone's estrogen must be the answer, right? And so that has been the practice. And so people undergo anti-hormonal treatments. So if you're premenopausal, you get put on a medicine called tamoxifen. And I love it when people say to me, "Oh, I can't take hormones. I'm on tamoxifen," and I say. What do you think tamoxifen is? Because tamoxifen is a synthetic estrogen. And it's like there's millions of women taking this drug that are not told that.

Mm-hmm.

And I said, if the synthetic estrogen is protective, why wouldn't bioidentical estrogen be protective? Because, ladies, That's what estrogen is. It's protective. It's protective against breast cancer in your breast. It's protective against cardiovascular disease. It's protective against bone loss. It's protective in your brain, which is why when women go through menopause, they develop all of these symptoms because it's a lack of estrogen. It's a paucity of estrogen. That leads to all of these symptoms, and there have been 20 studies between 1998 and 2008 that looked at hormone replacement and breast cancer risk, and all but two of them found either neutral or positive findings in that hormone replacement is protective against breast cancer. The 2 studies that did not find it are the Women's Health Initiative and the IMPACT trial. Both of those studies were halted early before you could even attribute hormone replacement to breast cancer, since breast cancer is probably a 10-year process in the making. And both of these studies were halted under 2 years. And the finding of an increased risk of breast cancer with hormone replacement was not statistically significant, meaning that it could have easily happened by chance, found by data mining, meaning that they didn't find it the first time around. So they went back in and manipulated the data to get that out. And the third thing is that both of those studies have since retracted that.

Yes.

Because it's simply not true.

Right. The original author came out and said, we wanted to show that hormone therapy was harmful. That was our goal setting from the beginning. And they twisted the data. And let's not even talk about the fact that these were not healthy women going in. They were already 10 years post-menopause with The average age was 63. Right. They were smokers, they were obese, they had heart disease, and then gave them hormones after not having them for 10 years. Don't tell me that's a good study.

Yeah, that's a bunch of crap. It's— it was an awful study that unfortunately the entire medical community hung their hat on it for 20 years.

And so many still.

20 years. And generations of women, generations have suffered unnecessarily.

And I try to explain to people, like, how you're trained in medical school and residency is how you come out and practice for the next 40 years. There's not a lot of doctors who change how they practice. You get set in your comfort ways, and that is how you do things. You don't look outside of what you're doing To try and go change things up, that wouldn't be safe in the mind of a doctor. Right? Yeah. So it's gonna take an entire generation to get over the damage that was done from all of those lies and manipulation.

And, and maybe even more. Yeah. Because I really worry about, I mean, think about who's teaching at medical schools.

Right. Those doctors. Yeah. I know.

Those very same doctors. So, you know, it's gonna take a lot of loud voices. I think the one thing that we have going for us is this upcoming generation is not like the last.

Right.

They're not blindly accepting. They're asking why, and they want to know. Because is not an acceptable answer to them. And while we— when we went to medical school, you know, people think of doctors as critical thinkers, but the truth is that They may have been critical thinkers, and then they got to medical school. And what made a good medical student and what made a good doctor afterwards was being able to memorize, repeat, and toe that line. Right. They did not reward people for asking why.

Oh, no. When I was an intern, algorithms came out and they were super popular. If someone came in with chest pain, You would do this set of orders and this algorithm of treatment. There was no thought process. You had to check the boxes. And that's exactly right. It's just gotten worse and worse. And now we have algorithms for every symptom in every scenario. So doctors are now not using any critical thinking skills. They're just checking the boxes. And it's really scary.

It's really scary. I'll tell you that my father, about a month ago, was admitted to the hospital with new new onset AFib and congestive heart failure. And so, of course, he gets on the congestive heart failure protocol.

Yeah.

So it's, it's 7 drugs. And I'm looking at this list of drugs and I said to them, well, you know, my father is not hypertensive. There's 3 antihypertensives here. Like, I'm not sure that this is right. This This is our congestive heart failure protocol. I'm like, I understand it's your congestive heart failure protocol, but I just think that maybe it's not appropriate for everyone. This is how we do it. Of course, the next thing that happens is that my father crashes and his blood pressure— So I stopped that one and stopped that one and stopped that one. Fast forward, I called my father last week. I said, Dad, how are you feeling? Because they cardioverted him out of AFib, so that wasn't even there anymore. Dad, how are you feeling? Well, I stopped taking all the medicines, so I'm feeling pretty good.

Thank goodness that he was wise enough to do that.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's like we don't think. No, we don't think. We check the boxes. Everyone gets treated the same. We are not thinking about the person in front of us, and we are especially not thinking about what brought that person here. Why did you get breast cancer? What is happening in your body? What is causing that imbalance? What is the nidus behind the inflammation for that cancer to be able to grow? What is dampening your immune response? Because everyone makes cancer cells— young, old, and everyone in between. But an intact immune system should be able to recognize that in its infancy, except that our immune systems are so challenged because we have gluten and GMOs and trauma and pesticides and herbicides and fungicides and antibiotics and plastics and Stress and EMFs. Yes. Yes. So, like, our immune system is exhausted. It's exhausted. And not for nothing, but we spent the last 3 years, like, in some alternate universe.

Yeah.

Being sold a narrative that was neither true nor helpful and hurt a lot of people and has Divided us horribly. So our immune systems, like, they're shot. They're shot. And the biggest problem with our medical system is that we don't have a healthcare system. We have a sick care system. There is no way to get into our system without getting sick. We only know how to recognize disease.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And system failure.

And there is no value put on health. I have, like, a really disturbing story to share with you. So when I first left surgery, I was being recruited by one of the university hospitals in my, in my town. And I was meeting with the chief medical officer, and he was offering me to be the first chief of integrative oncology at an academic center in the country. Sounds great, right?

I guess I got offered the same exact thing. I know where this is going.

Who, who wouldn't want this, right? So I'm meeting with him and we're getting ready to sign the papers. And I said, what are we going to do about the cafeteria? He said, What do you mean? I said, well, yeah, I can't have people be operated on for cancer and then like given a breakfast of pancakes and eggs and bacon the next day. Like this, you know, like we we need to fix the cafeteria. He's like, yeah, the cafeteria is off the table. I said, what what do you mean? He's like, well, you know, for one thing, the cafeteria is like part of our price gurney scores, and so if we make the food taste too healthy, people give us a lower score, and. We can't afford to have a lower score. So yeah, the cafeteria is off the table. I'm like, okay, let's like shelf that score discussion for a minute. We have this awesome opportunity. We have a captive audience. We have people who are really scared, and this is the time when they're willing to listen and willing to make changes so that they don't have to Be back here again in a year, 2 years, 5 years. Like, we can really teach these people how to be healthy and change their lives. And he said, why would we want to do that?

Oh my God.

Well, what do you mean? He's like, well, we don't want to do less procedures. We don't want to do less cardiac procedures. We don't want to do less surgeries. And I was like, oh, yeah, I get it. We do not have the same goals in mind. I want people to be healthy. I want to teach them how to heal and how to live their best lives. They want to make money.

Yeah.

And the way that they make money is to operate or prescribe or procedure or whatever else they do. That's how they make money. And this is why our system is so broken, because our value systems are completely opposite. Completely opposite.

I hope everybody got that and realizes that they're not truly out to help you. The, the particular doctor may be, they may be a good doctor. We were great doctors, right? We cared. We had good hearts. But you are in a system. Their primary goal is to make money. And to keep you in that system. So let's—

And it has nothing, nothing to do with health. And I do believe that doctors are very well-intentioned. There is no question about it. Doctors are very well-intentioned, but they don't have the skills to teach you how to be healthy. Most doctors are not healthy themselves.

Right. No, I was in survival mode. I was, I was a walking hypocrite.

Yeah. Yeah. And there's so much do what I say and not what I do. But they also, like most doctors, still think the key to health is like eat less and exercise more. And you and I both know that if that were true, we would be healthy. But as we started to say before, 86% 86% of Americans are not metabolically healthy. 86%. Oh my God. So sad. Cancer is a metabolic disease. This is not happening by accident. Cancer is not bad luck. Cancer is not God punishing you. Cancer is a wake-up call. It is your opportunity. It's your body telling you what you're doing is not Working. It's not working.

Yes. And so you had mentioned, like, there's kind of 2 things going on, is your cells metabolically, meaning all the little processes that are happening within the cells are either functioning well or they're not. And then you have your immune system that's kind of overseeing everything and surveying, you know, what's happening in the field, and they're reacting accordingly and helping Restore and heal, or it's not doing that and things are going rogue, right? So explain to people that breast cancer does not happen overnight. It's an accumulation of these dysfunctions. And where do they look? Where do women even start if they don't run off to the surgeon and the oncologist? Like, let's walk them through this a little bit. Yeah.

So If you are pre-diagnosis, right? If you're not carrying a breast cancer diagnosis, but you're worried or you just want to do everything that you can do, the very best thing you can do is remember that breast health is health.

Yes.

Right? So what we're doing is promoting your health.

Yes.

And there are ways to know if you're healthy or not. There are labs that I think every single person should know about themselves. Every single person, every single year. And if they're abnormal, you need to test them more than once a year. You probably need to test them every 3 months until they get right.

Yeah.

Right? So let's start off with everyone should know what their white blood cell count is. Everyone. And if your white blood cell count is below 5, your immune system is not working efficiently. There is some— you are encountering something. There is some chronic immune challenge that is leading— that is making you incapable of making enough white blood cells.

And I'm telling you, I've seen this more and more in the past 3 years.

Like, it's way too often. Without question. Yeah. I don't need to say why. I think that we all pretty much know why.

Yeah.

But when your white blood cells are below 5, we're thinking toxins. Stress can be a toxin, heavy metals, mold, Lyme, viruses, yeast. There are lots of things that cause chronic inflammation that, like, you think about it, when you have to work overtime, one night, you do fine. If you have to work overtime for a couple of nights, okay, you can handle it. If you work overtime for a month, are you going to be able to handle it? No, you're going to be snapped. Of course, of course, you're going to crash, right? So our immune systems have been exposed to increasingly More and more and more toxins. I mean, we are not living in our grandmother's world. We're not even living in our mother's world. No, exactly. Our world is toxic, and it's showing up. It is showing up. So you need to know your white count. You need to know your vitamin D level. Vitamin D is intricately involved in the health of our immune system. And that lab range that's given 30 to 100, no, absolutely not. We do not store vitamin D well. And so, vitamin D is something that you either need to expose yourself to sunshine every day, and that means 75% of your body unprotected.

Right. No sunscreen.

For 15 minutes, unprotected, no sunscreen. 75%. How many of us are really getting that?

Right.

So, if you can't— if you don't get the sun exposure, then you need to supplement. And I tell people to stay between 60 and 100. And the way to know how much you need is for every 10 points you need to come up, you need 1,000 international units of vitamin D. Okay, so we spoke about a C— a white blood cell count. We spoke about vitamin D. Everyone should see a C-reactive protein.

Yeah.

C-reactive protein is a marker of inflammation. It gives you an idea of how much inflammation you have. Ideally, we like to see that number be below 1. If you're between 1 and 3, You have some inflammation and you need some work. If yours is greater than 3, you really need to figure out what's going on. You are inflamed.

Without a doubt. Yeah.

Yeah. Some people throw a sed rate in there, too. I tend to see sed rates go up more with autoimmunity. But for me, I think just knowing a C-reactive protein is good enough. Yeah. And then you need to know about your metabolic health. You just must know about your metabolic health. And that means knowing what your fasting glucose is and knowing what your fasting insulin is. Why doctors are not measuring fasting insulin is completely beyond me.

Because it's not covered by insurance, right? I don't know. I honestly don't think they understand what a good level is because if you look at the lab range, again, it's up to like 20 on some lab ranges. And I'm Like 5, people. We've got to be below 5, right?

That's exactly right. So your fasting insulin should be below 5 and your fasting glucose should be below 90. And if either of those things are off, I don't care what your A1C says because your A1C is a measure of your glucose over a 3-month period of time, and you can have a normal A1C If your fasting glucose or insulin is off, guess what? You are not metabolically healthy. You're not.

And that is the driver of breast cancer and other—

It is the driver. And, and there are so many other disease states that are driven by metabolic health. So breast cancer is certainly one of them. Colon cancer is another. Uterine cancer, ovarian cancer. These are all driven by poor metabolic health, but diabetes, heart disease, dementia, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, depression, anxiety— people don't make this connection. That connection is there. It's very much there. And the very best thing that we can do is mind our metabolic health. Another thing that I think that people should know about themselves is their waist-to-hip ratio.

Yeah.

Because where you store your fat is meaningful. And if you are storing it around your middle— and for some people, unfortunately, it is a genetic predisposition— but if you're storing your fat around your middle, unfortunately, that is not the ideal metabolic space, because that means that you have more visceral fat. fat that surrounds your organs. And those fat cells are not benign. They are very active and they are secreting cytokines that are very pro-inflammatory. You know, one of the fast tracks to health is fasting.

Amen. Yep.

And I know this is your wheelhouse and this is really how you are helping women. And it is helping. Fasting is the very best way to achieve metabolic health, to achieve metabolic flexibility. And at the end of the day, that's what we need.

Yes.

We need to mind our metabolic health. It solves 80% of our medical problems. That's a lot.

Yeah, exactly. So important. Oh my goodness. So we need to clean up our environment. We got to get rid of all these toxins that are disrupting our cells' ability to function. We have to get metabolically flexible again and bring that blood sugar down, get that insulin working appropriately. And I always say, like, you have to lay off the alcohol because that's one of the biggest drivers for women.

It is.

Isn't it like the biggest risk factor?

That's not viable. Don't, don't shoot the messenger, right? Unfortunately, there is no safe amount of alcohol for women. There just isn't. Men and women are not created equally. And this is one of the demonstrations between us. And that's that a male metabolism, as we all know, As we, you know, we watch our husband's diet for a day and lose 10 pounds, and we're struggling for a month.

Yeah.

So, our metabolism isn't the same. And the men have a far more active detoxification process in their liver. So, men can tolerate a little bit of alcohol, not a lot. I'm not saying that, you know, men can have 3 and 4 drinks a day. They can't. But there is no safe amount of alcohol for women because it is very, very difficult for women to break that alcohol down, to detoxify it. And when we detoxify it, we actually break it down into something that's even more toxic for us. So there is a reason why you feel horrible the day after you drink. And it's just, it's just not good for you, unfortunately. Uh, and it is one of the best things that you can do to promote your health is to get rid of alcohol. Yeah, I know it's not a popular opinion. People don't like—

But I stand by it. Like, that's the game changer. And, you know, just real quick, we, we didn't mention genes because I hear this a lot. Well, I don't have breast cancer in my family, so I don't really need to worry about it. Can you just debunk that right now?

So we, we need to address the fact that 90% of breast cancers are spontaneous. Yes. Meaning that 90% of breast cancers are not due to a genetic predisposition. But let's even talk about the genetic predisposition. Let's talk about the BRCA population, the BRCA1 and the BRCA2 population. When we say that these people have gene mutations, the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene are protective genes. They're actually anti-cancer genes. So when you're born with a mutation in one of those genes, it means that you lack the ability to fight off a cancer. But even when we look at those populations, not all of them get breast cancer.

Right.

There is a percentage of them that don't. Which means that there's something else in play. And for— and what's in play is your environment. Your environment decides which genes get turned on, which genes get turned off. Your environment entirely determines what happens to you, even in that genetic population. But the vast majority of people do not have that mutation. Do not have a genetic predisposition, and you are in control of your environment. You can't control everything. You can't avoid everything. There you are going to come into contact with chemicals, with toxins. It's unavoidable, but we can do better. We can filter our water. We cannot drink out of plastic. We cannot cook in plastic. We cannot store in plastic. We cannot use nonstick pans. We can buy organic food, and you don't have to buy all organic. Look at the EWG, the Environmental Working Group, and know what you have to buy organic and what you don't. We can eat in a way that promotes our health. We can get rid of those relationships that are not serving us.

Yeah.

We can work on our trauma. We can live with purpose and meaning. We can Respect and, and engage in those relationships that are meaningful for us, that are loving for us, that are health-promoting for us, and get rid of the ones that aren't. Like, take the trash out. We need to take the trash out. And having a toolbox to, to help you navigate the stressors of your life is so very important. And there's no one thing that's right for everyone, but making sure that you just build that skill set, whether it's prayer or meditation or yoga or breathing or tai chi— like, it doesn't matter. You just need to pick your thing and make sure that you're practicing, because practice makes perfect. And that's what we're looking for here. You don't have to be perfect. You just have to be better, better every day. And the more you practice these things, the better you'll be.

I love it.

And, you know, lastly, I don't want to forget to mention sleep because we are a society that values the waking hours and we undervalue sleep. And sleep is where the healing happens. So we need to prioritize sleep. And, you know, adopting healthy behaviors, adopting a healthy lifestyle will go a very, very, very long way towards protecting your health and towards you living the best life and the life that you want to live.

Right.

Rather than just following along and leaving it to chance. I think that's the worst thing that we can do. We do have the power. And when you know better, you do better. You said that yourself.

Yeah. Amen. I've heard you on another podcast talking about the fact that it's hard for women sometimes because we don't want to blame ourselves. We don't want the patients to blame themselves as a doctor. But you do have to take responsibility at some point and say, okay, I may not have known that my diet was this destroying me, but now that I do know, I have to make these changes. And so just as Dr. Jen and I are freely admitting, like, we were part of the problem, we were removing organs and not helping you actually get better, it's time for you to also take some responsibility and say, you know what, I wasn't making the healthy choices. I was in a toxic relationship. I wasn't Prioritizing sleep. But now that I know I need to do these things, like, take back control and find that empowering, not guilt-ridden. You know, you're not shaming yourself.

Yeah. Because it's not about blame or shame. Right? Right. I think where so many people struggle is they think that taking responsibility means assuming blame. Right. And it, and it's not, it's not at all. Even smokers don't smoke with the intention of getting cancer. Right? No one does anything with the intention of getting cancer. And it's very hard to decipher what's good for you and what's not. I can't tell you the number of, like, marathon runners that come to me and say, I'm a picture of health. I don't know how I got breast cancer. And I was like, well, it could be the fact that your body thinks that you've been running away from a saber-toothed tiger for the last 10 years. That could do it. Because we, we were meant to spend a very limited amount of time in that fight or flight sympathetic state. We were meant to spend the vast majority of our time in the parasympathetic state. But people like endurance athletes, they're in that sympathetic state all the time. And it's just building up inflammation, building, building, building, building, building. And finally, your body's like, yeah, I, I can't handle this anymore. Right? It's the shift worker that's worked too much overtime. You just can't handle it anymore.

Exactly.

So, you know, it's, it's not about what you did. It's certainly not about why you did it, because no one does anything with the intention of getting cancer. And I know that there are people that just want to take the pill. They just want to have the procedure. They don't want to take responsibility because they don't want to feel at blame if the treatment doesn't work. They would much rather blame the system. Than blame themselves. And I get it. It takes a lot of courage, like we were talking about. It takes a lot of courage to, to take responsibility. It takes a lot of courage to go out there and say, I'm going to do this. But the truth is that there's no doctor that can be the hero of your story. We can be trusted guides, but we can't be the hero of your story. And health doesn't happen in a doctor's office. It doesn't happen in a hospital. It doesn't happen with a procedure or a pill. Health happens at home.

Yes. Period. All day long. All your little choices. Yep. Yep, exactly. You are such a wealth of knowledge. I appreciate you so much, Dr. Jen. Thank you.

Thank you. It was wonderful to be here with you today.

Yes. So where can my audience Find you and stalk you and follow you. Don't stalk me. Connect with you if they're ready to work one-on-one, or you have an amazing, you know, group program.

Yeah, absolutely. So, um, my website is realhealthmd.com, and, um, there is a breast cancer quiz there for people to take to learn more about themselves and see where they are. I go through every quiz individually and make recommendations. So please head over to Real Health MD and take the quiz. I have a wonderful course called My Answer to Breast Cancer, which is partially an online course and partially a group of us that meet together to get your questions answered, to have community, and What I think is the nicest thing that I, that I heard about the course is one woman said on the days that she just doesn't feel like she can do it and she goes to our group and she gets lifted up by everyone.

Yes.

And, you know, it's one thing to go it alone and a whole other thing to go it together. I have a wonderful group course called My Answer to Breast Cancer. Then, of course, if you're looking for really personalized treatment and you're struggling with your why, you're struggling with why you got breast cancer, you're really looking to get to the root cause, I do work with people one-on-one, and you can apply for an opportunity to speak to me, and we can see if it's a good fit.

work together. I love that. So I'll have all that in the show notes. Oh my gosh, you have given us—

And I do have a free download for everyone listening. Oh yeah. Yeah, we'll give that to you so that you can get a guide to living your breast life.

Oh, I love that. Awesome. Yes. Get the download, then take the quiz and just keep accumulating all of this knowledge and information Because it's powerful and you should feel empowered, not guilt or shame, right? So, yeah, I love it. Thank you so much, Dr. Jen.

My pleasure. So great to be here.

Wow. I hope you got so much out of that episode. We need to know the truth, ladies. So keep listening to these podcasts and keep following people like myself, Dr. Jen Simmons, other people that I've had on the show, because conventional medicine is missing health and wellness and prevention. They talk about it, but they're not actually practicing it. So it is up to you to get educated and seek these things out. So I would love for you to share this episode with someone you know. I guarantee you know somebody who has had breast cancer, who is worried they're going to get breast cancer, who has a loved one dealing with it. You need to share this episode. It is our duty to support our sisters, to support one another. So please share this episode, pass it along to every woman that you know. Okay, we need to make an impact. Impact. We need to support each other. And I would love it if you would give me a 5-star review because Apple needs to know this is important to you. That drives a lot of decisions of what goes up on Google and what kind of podcasts get advertised and what gets out there and what doesn't. And so we need to let our voices be heard. We need to band together and say, this is important to us. We want to know about health and wellness. We are tired of talking about disease and band-aiding symptoms and all that, all that stuff that doesn't actually work. So do the reviews, share it with people. That lets Apple and all the big players know this stuff is important to you. So I hope you got So many golden nuggets out of this. I know I did. It's such a good reminder to focus on what your daily choices are throughout the day. What are the environmental toxins that are coming in? Manage your inflammation, get a hold of your sleep and your stress and all these things. And if you need a guide, Dr. Jen is amazing. So. I would really encourage you go fill out her quiz. The fact that she looks at it personally is amazing. Like, it's hard to get that kind of expertise looking at your stuff. So let me know if you resonated with this. What else do you want me to cover? Do you have any experts you want me to bring on, any topics you want me to talk about, questions you want me to answer? I am I'm here for you guys. I do this for you. So go have an amazing kick-ass week. Bye, ladies. Bye.