Dr. Robert Whitfield and patient advocate Candice discuss why some people develop breast implant illness while others don't. In his practice of 1500+ explant cases, about 35% show biofilm, and removing implants improved their symptoms. Genetic predisposition appears key, with affected patients typically having 3-4 dysfunctional inflammatory pathways.
Questions this video answers
1500+ cases
~35%
Having about 3–4 dysfunctional inflammatory pathways (from reviewed genetic reports)
September 25, 2025
Chapters
Why do some people, in your opinion, get breast implant illness while others don't? Because obviously there's a lot of people with implants and some may not even notice an issue. And some obviously are starting to have issues. So that the way the surgeon puts the implants in, is it size? Is it like, why do some people feel the effects not? Or is it something where the implant just has to be in your system for X period of time and then over time you're going to kind of fight these kind of things?
Yeah, I think in the simple way to think about it, in our experience, which encompasses 1500 plus now, 35% have biofilm. So I'll just say for everybody in the audience, so biofilm to me is an infection. I will always just say in those, regardless of their genetics, you take it out, they get better. They were going to get symptomatic at some point. If you get them and take them out, they're better. But what you're asking is the more complicated question is who's actually predisposed to have a problem? And so from genetics, you have to be, in my opinion, after looking at several hundred genetic reports on people with breast implants who have explanted, you have to have three to four of those pathways. I mentioned not working properly. And just like Candice, our patient advocate, she had all four that didn't work properly. Whether or not you know that that person is going to be uniquely susceptible to increasing amounts of inflammation regardless of the device. Hip implant, knee implant, breast implant, dental implant. Yes.
Talk to us about more stories of explants. You talked about my story with the thyroid. What are other things that you've seen that are just wild?
So, you know, just recently we had someone not. Not sauna like you sauna.
We're going to talk about the sauna. That's on my list.
This gal came and everybody's trying to just take care of themselves. So they know infrared sauna will help them in the detox process. And sweating will help you and all this. But heating yourself up is not going to help you with a prosthetic device. And the device that we're discussing doesn't have a shell. That's titanium. Right. You can heat up somebody with a knee implant, they're not going to leach it. Heavy metals are obviously a problem, and we can get to your story later with heavy metals. But this girl, as soon as I took her implants out, she felt magically better. And she wasn't, you know, so much infected as she was basically melting herself in the sauna. So, you know, obviously that's a strong.
Example because these implants are not tested in sauna heat.
No, you would not put anybody in a trial, FDA trial through that kind of heat. So that wouldn't, that would never be part of a protocol in a FDA's trial.
So I'm going to say what you are not saying saying, because maybe it can't be said. What I think is that I was saunaing so much with my implants that it started to seep out.
