Short transcript excerpt explaining that BRCA (commonly called the "Angelina Jolie" gene) is a DNA-repair mutation found in under ~5% of breast cancers and in under 5% of the population; the speaker argues BRCA status increases incidence patterns but does not affect overall survival, and emphasizes lifestyle and dietary choices to support DNA repair.
In fact, just so your listeners have a sense, you know, a lot of people might know the BRCA gene is like the Angelina Jolie gene. And some people hear they have BRCA and they freak out. And you know, there's definitely a higher incidence type of pattern. But what people don't understand is a BRCA mutation is just simply a mutation of how our body repairs our DNA, doesn't repair it as well as the average Joe, but it impacts less than 5% of all breast cancer or, you know, other cancers in general. It's less than 5% of the population have that particular genetic hiccup. And the other side is that genetic hiccup has zero impact on the overall survival. And so people have this assumption that it's somehow way more dangerous and way more life taking, and yet it isn't. And so this is one of those opportunities of where I start to teach and educate about my philosophical understanding is that there's a lot of things we can do to support our body's ability to protect and, and clean up its DNA and support the repair which you just alluded to. A lot of that comes from our dietary lifestyle choices and maybe not living right underneath a phone tower or walking through lots of going to have a lot, which ironically, those patients are also the ones told to have a mammogram every six months, despite the evidence saying this is.
