Outsmarting Breast Cancer: An Integrative MD's Guide to Prevention, with Dr. Jenn Simmons

Everyone is going to be impacted by breast cancer in some way, and it has most to do with we are literally surrounded by xenoestrogens in our environment.

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Hello and welcome to this episode of the Feel Freaking Amazing podcast. Ed might or might not join us today, and you'll know he's joined us because he'll be next to me all of a sudden. But until he does, it's just you, me, and Jen Simmons. Dr. Simmons started her professional career as Philadelphia's first fellowship trained breast surgeon. And after 17 years, she discovered functional medicine and made a complete career pivot through speaking, practice programs, public appearances. She's on a mission to change the impact of breast cancer by empowering millions of women to take control of their health and create the life she wants. Hi, Jen. Welcome.

Hi. Thank you. I'm super excited to be here.

I love the intersection between breast cancer, breast cancer prevention, and toxins, which, you know, it's like, we're like a rhesus, except that I don't. I don't eat that.

I don't know if you do, but I do not.

So let's talk about, really, how prevalent is breast cancer? Because every woman I know worries about breast cancer, and every woman I know says to me, I don't have a family history, so I don't need to worry as much as the people who have family history. And, like, I don't think that's the case, my friend, you know?

No, it's not the case. It's not the case. And the reason it's not the case, basically everyone over their lifetime will be impacted by breast cancer.

Everyone.

Because if you don't get breast cancer, you're going to have a sibling, a parent, a friend, a neighbor, a colleague. Like, everyone is going to be impacted by breast cancer in some way. And it has most to do with we are literally surrounded by xenoestrogens in our environment. And I know you know all about this. Xenoestrogens are chemical compounds, synthetic compounds that look like estrogen, and they bind to the estrogen receptor. But unlike estrogen, which does its job and then dissociates from the receptor, these because they have A funny shape. They hang on to the receptor, they don't dissociate. And even when they do, they are metabolized in a way that they remain toxic. They're overacting on the estrogen receptor in the body, and then they're overburdening our detoxification system. And as such, they are causing a lot of problems. And so the xenoestrogens that are around us, we're talking about things like plastics, antibiotics, fragrance, any of the antibacterial anythings. And so these are commonly found in what we're drinking out of our cookware, what we're cleaning our homes with, what we're putting on our body. And the microplastics have become a huge issue because they're in your dishwasher if you're using those little pods, they're on your clothes if you're using dryer sheets or the pods in your. In your laundry detergent. So you're wearing the plastics, you're eating the plastics, you're drinking the plastics. And they're having profoundly negative effects on our body. And one of those effects is breast cancer. And so it doesn't mean that we're powerless. It just means that we have to respond appropriately and we all have to do our part in eliminating these toxins from our environment.

Well, let's talk about that, Jen, because so when you say do your part, what I hear is vote with your feet, Vote with your pocketbook. Don't purchase, don't use, don't perpetuate the demand for these things. And I'm always picturing that little cartoon that says, like, why don't you vote? Because it doesn't make a difference. And there's one person who votes, and then like a whole bunch of people, like, it doesn't make a difference. And there's thousands of people. And so the. The power, yes. As an individual, maybe it doesn't go that far. But if you and your whole community and then their whole community are able to alter their behavior, it does add up. Especially if you call the company and say, I just want you to know I'm not buying your product, and here's why.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, listen, I recently heard that Lululemon is making clothing where the crotch has pfas, those forever chemicals. And if you tell enough people not to wear Lululemon clothing because they are lining their. The crotch, which is close to your vagina, one of the most absorptive parts of your body, they're lining them with pfas, forever chemicals. People are gonna stop buying them, they're gonna make another choice. They're gonna make a better choice, and they should. And you know what that's gonna do. Lululemon is gonna stop doing that. So we, we do have the power, especially now with social media, with platforms like this, we can talk to people, we can educate the public and the public can.

It's so interesting, Jen, that you can't make that choice unless you have the awareness, right? Like if you don't know that you're putting PFAs right in your vagina, which highly vascularized, a great absorber. If you don't know, you don't know to make another choice. So it's really the ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is danger.

Yeah, yeah. Breast health is health. And the same things that promote healthy breasts, promote a healthy heart, a healthy brain, healthy gut, healthy bones, it's all the same thing. So it's about eating in an anti inflammatory way. It's about getting the processed food out of your diet. It's about getting the sugar out of your diet. It's about getting the gluten out of your diet. It's about getting the things that we know are harmful out of your diet. It's about moving. We are a nomadic people, all of us, even though we are living in modern times, we're living on a very old gene code and our bodies only know movement. And if you don't move your body, you lose it. So it's about being active and being active throughout the day. No exercising, couch potatoes, it doesn't count. You have to move throughout your day. It's about prioritizing sleep. We are a nation that only values the waking hours. And the truth is that sleep is when the healing happens. And if you're not sleeping, you're not healing. If you're not sleeping, you're not detoxifying. We are going to encounter toxins in the course of our day. For sure, it's unavoidable. But you need to sleep at night to get rid of those toxins. And the only way that you're going to do that is if you're actually sleeping at night. And it kind of has to be at night.

Right. We need to honor the circadian rhythm. We cannot, we can't buck the system on that one.

Exactly. So we know that shift workers, people who work the night shift, have more chronic disease than people who are sleeping at night and working during the day. So you can't, you can't get away from Mother Nature. You can't get away from circadian rhythm. I'm sorry. And I know we need shift workers, so, you know, I. I'm sorry if that's your lot in life, but it's just not healthy.

So what are the things that would change someone's outcome around breast cancer? For better or for worse? Are there things that are clear that you can. You can go, okay, if you have these factors, this is concerning. And if you have these factors, it's health promoting? Yeah.

So I think that everyone's disease is different and we're meeting each person in a different place. And I think for, for most people, where this is coming from, where the change needs to happen, is fairly obvious. There are always going to be some people where it's not so clear. But I always go back to the foundation. I always go back to what is your diet look like and are you eating in a way that is health promoting for you? There are some universal rules that I follow. I don't believe that sugar is good for anyone. Processed food is good for anyone. I don't believe that grains are good for anyone. Even if you're not celiac. I just don't believe that grains are good for anyone.

Well, let's pause there, Jen, because there's so many levels. Okay. Sugar, I said on some podcasts, sugar's the devil. I'm like, dude, don't make me a meme. Sugar's the devil. Sugar's the devil. But I said, sugar's the devil. So sugar, I totally get behind processed foods, totally get behind grains. I think the biggest challenge with them is that they're not organic. They're contaminated with herbicides, pesticides, insecticides, particularly glyphosate, which is the most commonly used herbicide in the world. And that has its own risks for cancer and alters the gut microbiome in the immune system, et cetera. So, so is it that if it's organic and it's the actual unprocessed form, it's reasonable, or is it, period, grains are just a bad food, even organic?

Yeah. So we can. We can break it down. First of all, when you have people pull grains out of their diet, everyone gets better because they're missing all of those chemicals that you were just talking about. And even when you're eating organic whole grains in general, maybe those crops aren't sprayed, but they are still next door to crops that are being sprayed. And so there is air spread, there is water spread, so you're still getting some degree of pesticide, herbicide, fungicide, glyphosate. If you're eating grains at all, organic.

Or not even actually organic legumes in the country, they're all contaminated with glyphosate. Even the organic ones is horrifying. I'm like, so I'm like, I get my kids hummus and I'm like, I'm just not looking because I'd rather have them eat something that's real.

Yeah, and I hear you. And that is something that we do have to trade off. Like you cannot control every single thing. But here's my issue with grains. First of all, in the cancer space, it's almost impossible to eat grains that don't have a high glycemic index. Grains just when compared to other foods, have a high glycemic index. Cancers in general, most endothelial cancers are very tied to insulin, to glucose, to insulin, to insulin, like growth factor. And so what we want to do is keep people in low glycemic states, low insulin secreting states, so that we don't have the presence of the growth factors of insulin. The glycemic index is part of it, but the other part of it, and this is really well elucidated in no Grain, no Pains by Peter Osborne, by Wheat Belly, by William Davis. But grains are the seeds of grass. Grass is what's consumed by ruminators. Ruminators have very long and redundant digestive tracts, so they are able to pass the grains back and forth for a very long time and be able to extract the nutrients from it. In comparison, humans have a very short digestive tract. And so not only are we not able to extract the nutrient from grains, but we really weren't meant to consume grains. So grains are seen as a foreign food by our gene code. And truthfully, we've only been consuming grains for the last few thousand years. Before then, we did not eat grains at all. And so everyone is going to get some degree of inflammation from grains. Some people a little, some people a lot. But I have to live in that anti inflammatory space. So I'm really not including inflammatory foods in a diet that I'm recommending to people. So are there some people that can tolerate grains that have good insulin levels, that have good glucose control? Yeah, probably. But if we never ate another grain, again, we would suffer no nutritional deficiency. So if we have no nutritional need for grains, I just don't see why we should include it in our diet. I think our diet should be made up of things that, that benefit our health.

So it's such an interesting point you make, Jen, because if you and as A celiac person, if you eat gluten and have the genes for celiac, you don't have to have celiac, but you have the genes. The DQ2, DQ8. When you eat gluten, specifically gluten or the gluten grain. So barley, malt, rye, wheat, kamek, spelt, triticale. If you eat those, you're going to open the lining of your tight junctions, meaning the outside world and the inside world are exposed to each other for four hours. Four hours. And now if you have a standard American diet and you're eating gluten three times a day, essentially your tight junctions are open your whole day, which means your immune system is like, what is this? But here's the thing, here's the crazy part. If you don't have the genes and you eat gluten, you still open your tight junctions. It's just for less time. So it's about 50, 15 minutes instead of four hours, but you still open the tight junctions and get your immune system jacked.

And maybe it's 15 minutes, maybe. I think that there are varying degrees of sensitivity to gluten. So I do think that that time varies for people. And the people who are particularly not sensitive, maybe they have a 15 minute gate opening, but I think that there is a spectrum.

So, okay, so avoiding sugar, processed foods and grains, is there anything else that impacts response to cancer treatment or response to crafting a wellness plan around food?

Yeah, well, I need to include dairy in there because the proteins in dairy are very similar to the protein in grains, because that's where the dairy gets its protein from. Right. So the, the animals that make dairy eat grass and then that is converted into the dairy in that animal. So the proteins are very, very similar. So I do not advocate for dairy. Dairy is, the purpose of dairy is to make a baby something into a big grown something. It is a growth factor. And I don't think that adults of any kind need more growth factor. So I include dairy in there. And then what we eat matters, but when we eat really matters too. And so I am very concerned around fasting. And there are a number of ways to fast. And different fasting routines are important at different points in people's journey. But we are not meant to be grazers, we are not meant to be eating all the time. And mostly for the reason that you pointed out in that every time we eat or drink something, our immune system has to check that out and decide if it is friend or foe. So if you are constantly eating or drinking, your immune system is Constantly on our immune system is like our army that's guarding our health. Right? So if you don't give your army a break, yeah, maybe it can do it for a day or two, but it can't do it for weeks and months and years on end. And yet that's what we ask, that's what we ask of our immune system when we are eating all the time. And in addition, what happens is if you're eating all the time, the other things that get tired, like your pancreas gets tired and you stop making as much pancreatic enzyme. So now you're forced to use your white blood cells to break down your food. Now your immune system is really, really shy. And these are the people that get into trouble with illness because their immune system is just exhausted from eating all the time. So we all need to get back to that evolutionary place. The truth is that you were not out of the cave and eating at night. Because if you were out of the cave and eating at night, guess what? You were someone else's food. Right. And so we are meant to function optimally either in a fed state or an unfed state. And most people will say, like, they get tired after they eat because your body is sending its energy to digest. And the truth is that, you know, it's not like you could come out of the cave in the morning and encounter a saber toothed tiger and say, hey, could you just wait a second because I haven't had my breakfast yet. No. Right. We are capable of having tremendous amounts of energy whether we're in a fed state or not in a fed state. And we need to respect that because it's only when we are in an unfed state that our body can repair and do all of the mechanisms of healing that it's supposed to do.

So is there a time frame? I mean, it's so funny because I've been intermittent fasting since before it had a phrase attack attached to it.

I was just talking about this yesterday.

Yeah, I just liked eating in a window. And that's just how I felt. Good. And then I laughed because I was like, oh, it's called intermittent fasting. But I've been doing it for years before that.

Yes. So I was telling this story. I. In college, between my freshman and sophomore year in college, the girl in the dorm room next to me, her name was Tara, but I can't remember her last name. College. This is a very long time ago for me. And Tara came back looking unbelievable. And I said like, what did you do? And she Said I stopped eating after 6 o' clock at night. And I had no idea that that was intermittent fasting. I had no idea that that was circadian timing. Right. But not eating after 6 o' clock at night means you're not eating during the. During. When. When it's dark. Right. You're not eating after sundown and you're taking a long break from eating from one day to the next. So I started intermittent fasting as a sophomore in college because I wanted to look great. Like Tara looked great.

We want to look like Tara.

Yeah. And so I think that everyone should take long breaks from food from one day to the next. Everyone, I think, has a different kind of rhythm that they need to be on. The rhythm changes depending on where you are in your menstrual cycle because in the first part of the month, you definitely want to be have a lower carbohydrate, higher fat to help with estrogen production. In the latter part of the month, during your luteal phase after ovulation, you're going to tolerate way more carbohydrate because that helps with progesterone production. There is a brilliant book that talks about all of this. It's Mindy Pell's Fast Like a Girl. I love that book. But Cynthia Thurlow wrote a book called the Intermittent Fasting Transformation that also talks about all of this. In the Postmenopausal Woman. You also want to vary your fasting a little bit, but you can vary it in the week. So five days a week you can do a longer fast, and two days a week do a shorter fast. Everyone needs a minimum of 12 hours. That is the absolute minimum. I think the absolute minimum looks more like 14 hours. And ideally you want to get to like either a 16, 8 or an 18, 6, where you have a long period of fasting to allow all the healing processes in your body to happen. And then have that eating window and have that eating window be when the sun is out. We really want to try to not eat after sundown because our digestive processes are not working as well, and we want to preserve that for sleep. And we know that you are not going to sleep as well and be as effective in your repair processes if you're going to sleep on a full stomach.

This is fascinating, Jen. And it's so funny. Like, you know the things when you leave the body to do what it's supposed to do, it gets in the right place, right?

Yeah. Our bodies know how to heal. It's absolutely true.

Tell me where people can find out more about you and we will put this all in the show notes so people can click on it.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So My website is realhealthmd.com and you can find me there. If you're looking to work with me, you can apply for a call there. You can follow me on social Media. I'm at Dr. Jen Jen Simmons and my Jen has two N's. And lastly, if you want to be part of my community, I have a free Facebook community called keeping abreast with Dr. Jen. You can have access to me, you can ask questions and in that space, we always publish what I'm up to. So you can see my latest videos. You'll probably see an announcement for this podcast and anything that you want to know about breast health, you're going to find there.

That's great, Jen. And you have a podcast of your own?

I do. It's called keeping abreast with Dr. Jen. So it is launching in two weeks. I am super excited about it and it's going to feature wonderful people like yourself and all people who are kind of like minded in the, in the health care space because we are truly about health care and not sick care. Our conventional medical system, as you very well know, because you came through it just like I did, our conventional medical system is very broken. It is focused on the wrong thing. The only way to get into that system is to fail. And it is really designed for failure. Because if you come into that system and you say, I'm tired, I'm achy, I have no libido, I can't sleep at night, what do they do? They run a meaningless panel. They tell you you're fine. They put you on the line of fine. I think that's your line and not mine. And they just send you home and tell you to come back when you're really failing. You know there's a better way. I know there's a better way. Health is not the absence of disease. Health is optimum function. And I, like you, want to help everyone to function optimally. And I'm having people on my podcast who are doing the same thing. We're focused on the right thing. We're focused on health.

Yes, I think that's a perfect place to stop. Dr. Simmons, thank you for joining us for this episode of the Feel Freakin Amazing podcast. If you're listening, this is Dr. Jen Simmons. Ed didn't make it to hang out with us today, but he'll be here for another podcast. And Jen, thanks for being here.

It was my pleasure. Always love spending time with you.

Ditto. Don't go it alone.

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