Breast Cancer and Mammograms with Dr. Jenn Simmons
Episode 191
Have you ever wondered how someone was diagnosed with cancer? If you don't address this issue, what keeps the cancer from returning? By employing mammograms, we are identifying and treating cancer that doesn't actually need to be treated while subjecting individuals to exponentially more radiation. Through screening, we're hastening the onset of bone loss, Parkinson's disease, anxiety, depression, and depression. On this week's Integrative Wellness Radio, We'll talk in-depth about mammograms, breast health, and your options for genuinely taking charge of your breast health. As they introduce this episode, Dr. Nicole and Dr. Jenn will talk about breast cancer, chemotherapy, and radiation. They will also impart some of their personal experiences. And discuss in detail the drawbacks of mammograms. Interested in learning more about Dr. Nick & Dr. Nicole’s courses, memberships, or private work? Learn more at Integrative You . Have a quick question, Would you like to schedule a call, or just want to say hi? Text us at 732.913.0009. Our mission to innovate humans & Healthcare does NOT start and stop with us! This is why we are also dedicated to helping other practitioners in evolving healthcare too! If you are a healthcare leader and are looking to up-level your clinical + business excellence Learn more about our course membership: Limitless Healthprenuer and start boldly disrupting this industry! What you’ll learn: What is the underlying cause of breast cancer? Why do cardiovascular diseases typically claim the lives of breast cancer patients? How breast cancer therapy contributes to cardiovascular illness Do radiation and chemotherapy treat breast cancer? Why does not using mammography cause fear? Interested in working with Dr. Nick & Dr. Nicole at Integrative Wellness Group? Text 732.913.0009 to book a complimentary consult call OR learn more here: https://bit.ly/IWGCoaching Are you a Practitioner? Learn from 12 years of advanced clinical insight and real success storie
Topics: breast, cancer, health, integrative, unknown, mammograms, because, learn
Key takeaways from this episode
- ## Breast Cancer and Mammograms with Dr. Jenn Simmons
- Mammograms may lead to overdiagnosis and overtreatment, exposing individuals to unnecessary radiation and potential harms.
- Understanding the root causes of breast cancer is crucial for effective prevention and management, moving beyond symptomatic treatment.
- Traditional cancer therapies like chemotherapy and radiation can have significant adverse effects, including contributing to cardiovascular disease.
- Exploring a holistic approach to breast health involves addressing lifestyle, environmental factors, and individual vulnerabilities.
Pull quotes
Imagine if medicine actually looked at you as a whole opposed to looking at you as a bunch of separate systems.
Nick and Dr. **Unknown:** Nicole to learn more about the top trends in integrative medicine, to learn about what the limitations are with testing, and what you can do to start your health journey.
I have a lovely guest, and I am very, very excited. **Unknown:** We actually had, like, I don't even know, like a little Instagram rendezvous, and she's like, "Hey, girl, let's do a live.
Transcript
**Unknown:** I've been up all night, no sleep. Imagine if medicine actually looked at you as a whole opposed to looking at you as a bunch of separate systems. Dive into Integrative Wellness Radio with Dr. Nick and Dr.
**Unknown:** Nicole to learn more about the top trends in integrative medicine, to learn about what the limitations are with testing, and what you can do to start your health journey. Hello, everyone. So welcome back to another episode of Integrative Wellness Radio. I have a lovely guest, and I am very, very excited.
**Unknown:** We actually had, like, I don't even know, like a little Instagram rendezvous, and she's like, "Hey, girl, let's do a live. I like you." And I was like, "I like you, too." And here we are. Yeah. We did, we did bond.
**Unknown:** We did bond. We're just discussing prior to pressing the record button that it's because we're just real and raw, and we're just like, "Screw it." Yeah. You have to be you, right? And that's what's gonna draw people to you, because, you know, if you try to be someone else and someone that you're not, it's gonna show through.
**Unknown:** That raw part of you, that's you living your integrity. Yeah. And that's why people are so drawn to you. Well, it's interesting that you say that, because today we're gonna be talking about breast health, and I'm really, really excited about this, because she is the expert.
**Unknown:** And we're gonna talk about breast health. We're gonna break down the mammogram conversation. We're gonna break down the options to really be proactive in your breast health. Because even the patients that I've worked with for years, there's still this confusion around this topic.
**Unknown:** And what I loved about what you just said about being your authentic self, because as you know, 'cause you've, you've watched us and many of you that are here, we have had such a big focus on this mental-emotional component to health and wellness, and it's mainly just because it was very fascinating to see these connections. But when we talk about breasts, like, think about what breasts do for our children. They nurture, they nourish. And sometimes when we are not nurturing ourselves or nourishing ourselves, AKA we're not willing to be our authentic self, we're doing all the things that we should do, then sometimes that is one extra stressful layer amongst all the other things we're gonna talk about today that can play a role in your breast health.
**Unknown:** So don't ever underestimate that piece. It's not always just about the toxins and the deodorants. Those are 100% important and relevant, but a lot of us, as women, we need to remember who we are, because we immerse ourselves in taking care of everyone else, and that can serve you for a while, and then you just become resentful and lonely. Yeah, and when you're not paying attention to the signs that your body gives you, like if we don't listen to the whispers, we get screams, right?
**Unknown:** Great way to put it. And it's the screams that we're all trying to avoid. So I will say that I was not always in this space. Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** And I did not always see the world through this lens, and I did not always have this degree of clarity. So actually- I wanna hear all about it. Yeah. Yeah, so I don't know a time where I didn't know about breast cancer.
**Unknown:** So my first cousin was a woman named Linda Creed. Linda was a singer-songwriter in the 1970s, 1980s. She wrote 54 hits in all, but her most famous song was The Greatest Love of All. So she wrote that in 1977 as the title track to the movie The Greatest starring Muhammad Ali.
**Unknown:** But it really received its acclaim in March of 1986 when Whitney Houston would release that song to the world, and at that time, it spent 14 weeks at the top of the charts. But Linda, who was my hero and was literally a rock star, like, I don't use that term figuratively. Lots of people know people who are like rock stars. She was literally a rock star, brilliant, beautiful, lit up a room, was the queen of Motown sound, and she was my hero.
**Unknown:** So Whitney released this song. It's at the top of the charts, only Linda never knows it, because she dies of metastatic breast cancer one month after Whitney releases this song. I'm 16 years old at the time, and my hero dies. So Linda's life, and ultimately her death, gives birth to my life's purpose, and I am going to do everything that I can do to prevent another woman from suffering in that way, another family from suffering in that way, another community from suffering in that way.
**Unknown:** Because I can still recall Linda's funeral. I can still recall the thousands of people that were there mourning her loss, because it was so great. So I do the only thing I know how to do. I go to medical school.
**Unknown:** I become a doctor. I become a surgeon. I become the first fellowship-trained breast surgeon in Philadelphia. I am doing great things, innovative things.
**Unknown:** I'm at the top of my game, really thinking that I'm making a difference, and I'm kind of in that position that you just talked about. So I'm the top breast surgeon in Philadelphia. I'm running the cancer program for my hospital. I'm a wife.
**Unknown:** I'm a mother. I'm an athlete. I'm a philanthropist. I have all these balls in the air, thinking that I'm an expert juggler, and one day, literally on a dime, everything comes crashing down.
**Unknown:** So if there were whispers, I didn't hear them. I pushed through. And literally, I went from someone who could play three hours of tennis and say, "Does anyone wanna hit some more?" to I couldn't walk across the room. I couldn't do a flight of stairs.
**Unknown:** So I end up going to the emergency room, 'cause I think I'm having a heart attack. I spend three days in exhaustive testing, and I'm sitting in the office of my friend and colleague and physician, and he says, "Jen, you have Graves' disease. You need to... It's life-threatening.
**Unknown:** You need to have your thyroid removed. You need chemo, radiation, and then we'll give you lifelong thyroid hormone replacement." I knew that was standard of care. I completely appreciated the irony that surgery, chemo, and radiation are things that I tell people to do all day, every day, without hesitation, without reservation, and the words are coming at me, and it's like I'm in Charlie Brown's classroom, right? Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.
**Unknown:** I am underwater. I have no idea what's happening here, but something inside me made me say no. I just somehow knewThat that was not the answer for me. It just didn't resonate that God would give me an organ that I needed, only to have it removed, be radiated, and then have to replace that hormone for the rest of my life with synthetic hormone.
**Unknown:** Just didn't make any sense. And so I left. He told me I was gonna die. Thank God he was wrong.
**Unknown:** I went on a journey. I first went to Dr. Google, the place I tell everyone never to go. But I fancy myself an educated consumer.
**Unknown:** Mm-hmm. So I go to Dr. Google, and I ask how to heal my thyroid, and what comes up again and again and again? Diet, diet, diet, diet, diet.
**Unknown:** Now, I'm not overweight. I am a physician, so I figure that I know enough, everything there is to know about diet. So I figure there has to be something there. Maybe I should check it out.
**Unknown:** So I enroll in the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Now, as you probably know, this is a certificate course. Yeah. And believe you me, I called them a thousand times before I enrolled.
**Unknown:** "Are you sure I'm gonna learn something here?" Yeah. "I mean, I'm a doctor, for God's sake. I'm not even a new doctor, like, I've been a doctor for, like, 20 years at this point. Are you sure I'm gonna learn something?" "Dr.
**Unknown:** Simmons, I assure you, we have lots of doctors in our program. You're gonna learn something, promise, promise, promise." "Okay, okay." So I enroll, and I'm sitting in one of the first lectures, and a man named Mark Hyman walks on the stage. He introduces himself as a functional medicine physician. I am a doctor for 20 years at this point.
**Unknown:** I say, "There's no such thing as a functional medicine physician. What is this quack talking about?" But then I remember that I'm sick, so I decide to check my ego at the door, shut my brain up, and start listening. And thank God I did, because within five minutes of this man speaking, my entire world makes sense, and I know that the reason that I got sick was so that I can be in that room on that day listening to this man speak. Because what I learned from him is how very broken our system is.
**Unknown:** Yeah. And I knew that the reason that I was sick was because I needed that to be able to see it, because when you're in it, you cannot see it. And believe me, my colleagues think I'm nuts, think I've lost it. But, you know, that day...
**Unknown:** I am an early adopter. That day, I went home, I enrolled in the Institute for Functional Medicine. So at one time, I'm a full-time surgeon, I'm full-time at IIN, I'm full-time at IFM, and you know, really, I was on that journey selfishly. I mean, it was really only about healing me.
**Unknown:** And it took me three years. I did get well, and that was three years of perspective, firsthand seeing into how very broken our system is, how we're focused on the wrong thing, and how if I were to stay in surgery, I was really just perpetuating the problem. And I did have, like, the day that I decided to leave surgery. I had a particular patient that I'm happy to share with you the story, but the end of it is that I couldn't stay in a system that was broken.
**Unknown:** As a breast cancer surgeon, and the entire cancer program, what are we focused on? We're focused on the tumor. Mm-hmm. But the tumor's not the problem, the tumor's the symptom of the problem.
**Unknown:** And nowhere along that process, before, during, or after, nowhere does anyone consider why that person got sick- Yeah ... why that person got cancer. And unless you do that, unless you deal with why someone got cancer, what's stopping it from coming back? Or worse, because the vast majority of women that get breast cancer don't die of breast cancer, they die of cardiac disease, and that's twofold.
**Unknown:** First, it's the number one killer of women exponentially, by far, and the second reason is that almost everything we do to treat breast cancer causes cardiovascular disease. So for most of these women that get a breast cancer diagnosis that would have never died of breast cancer, we ensure that they're gonna die of heart disease, and sooner than they should've. So- Oh my goodness ... our system is so very broken.
**Unknown:** And I knew that if I was really gonna make an impact, if I was gonna leave this world a better place than when I found it, I needed to leave that system, step outside, and educate the world, just like you're doing- Mm-hmm ... on where we need to focus, where we need to shine the light, because we're never gonna find the answers that we're looking for in that broken system. It's really interesting the story you share, too, because firsthand witnessing my mother-in-law with breast cancer, that she had three diagnoses over her life of breast cancer, and, you know, the first diagnosis was when sh- she did her mastectomy, and not a double, she did a single mastectomy, and she did chemo, and she was clear for a long time. And then her second diagnosis, uh, you know, they were like, "Oh, it's just a small area.
**Unknown:** We'll deal with it." And then the third, by that time they said it had metastasized everywhere, and it was in her bones. And what I always found interesting was after I met her and started doing the work that I did, there were factors that nobody was talking about, and one was the fact that she actually had parathyroid disease, and nobody knew if all four parathyroid glands were removed. And I was like, "How do we know that the parathyroid disease is not still present, and that's what's putting holes in her bones?" Which essentially is what they're seeing on the imaging. Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** Like, how do we 100% know that this is cancer? Really just fast-forward is they got to a point that they were like, "It's everywhere, so you're not really a candidate for a lot. So what we're gonna do is we're going to give you medications, and we're gonna see what stick." It got to the point that nothing was really working, so she would go in, and they were like, "Here's the t- the two new ones on the market. Which one do you want?" And my husband was there for one of the sessions, and he's like, "Wait, th- this is a joke, right?" Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** Um, she was not of the mindset of wanting anything to do with anything that wasn't true conventional medicine. So fast-forward, she ended up living with, you know, what they were calling metastatic cancer that originated from the breast for about eight years, and at the end they told her that, "Well, now the cancer has gotten into your liver, and essentially we're looking at the end of your days," and failed to acknowledge that she was on an extremely high dose of fentanyl through a patch, and then taking oxycodone three times a day.And her liver enzymes were skyrocketing, and she died from liver failure, but they told her that the liver, it was just cancer. And just observing, like, what was happening was just absolutely- Yeah ... mind-blowing.
**Unknown:** It is. It's frightening. Yeah. You know, when all of that focus is on the tumor, it's like you lose sight of there's a person in front of you, right?
**Unknown:** You're not treating a tumor. Mm-hmm. You're treating a person. Yeah.
**Unknown:** And none of the modalities ever help anyone to get better, ever help anyone to get healthier. And I say this all the time, and it's met with a lot of hate and resentment, but cancer is not a chemotherapy deficiency. Yes. It's not a radiation deficiency.
**Unknown:** Chemo and radiation do not cure cancer, and the only one that can cure cancer is you. Our system is set up for the doctor to be the hero. We can't be the hero of anyone's story. Yes.
**Unknown:** Only, only the individual can be the hero of their story. We can be a trusted guide. We can help to guide them in the right direction, but we can't be the hero of anyone's story, and that's part and parcel of what is wrong with the medical system is the doctor wants to be the hero, and it's misguided. But I feel like on the flip side, there's a lot of people that are wanting to be saved from an external source, and- That's for sure true ...
**Unknown:** and so the, the combination of the doctor wanting to be the hero and the person who wants to be saved, they're a perfect combination. They might not be a good fit for us because we're gonna empower you to say you are in that driver's seat- Yeah ... and you have to care just as much about your health or more about your health than I do. I am here as your guide, but no one's saving you.
**Unknown:** No- No ... no higher power- No ... is saving you. No doctor is saving you.
**Unknown:** The only one can save you is you. Yes. And that is, that is really why I ended up leaving. So one day I'm in office hours, and I have a 19-year-old come in there to see me for a breast mass, and she's wheeled into my office by her mother.
**Unknown:** She has primary progressive MS, and her disease is so bad that she really can't walk the 30 feet from my elevator to my office. She's wheeled into the office, and just the week before I had met Terry Wahls. So for those of you who don't know who Terry Wahls is, she is a physician in the Midwest who was running the residency program, the internal medicine residency program at the hospital that she worked at doing research, you know, a very productive physician. And she gets diagnosed, and within seven years she goes from fully functioning to in a zero gravity wheelchair, so she doesn't have the strength to even s- sit up straight.
**Unknown:** She can't fight gravity just to sit up. So she gets let go by the hospital because she can no longer perform her duties. This is someone who is... has access to everything, took every drug, went on every study.
**Unknown:** Like, she... There was no stone in traditional medicine that was unturned, and nothing worked. She just got worse and worse and worse. She gets let go, and she...
**Unknown:** I don't even remember why she started this journey, but she figures out a way to literally heal herself. She changes her diet. She does some integrative alternative therapies, and literally in two years she goes from wheelchair to riding her bike 20 miles every day, goes back to work, and the hospital says, "Hey, listen. Y- you need to develop a protocol.
**Unknown:** You need to help people like you." So she develops the Wahls protocol and helps thousands and thousands and thousands of people recover from MS. So I had just met her the last week. I am brimming with excitement. I'm like a giddy schoolgirl.
**Unknown:** Yeah. So I'm telling this patient and her mother about the Wahls protocol, that she should have hope, that there's so much that she can do. I'm going on and on and on, and after a minute she puts her hand up in my face to stop me and says, "Are you gonna do my biopsy or not?" And I was like, "Oh, yeah. Not everyone wants to help themselves." Wow.
**Unknown:** 19. Some people just want the procedure. Wow. Some people just want the surgery.
**Unknown:** Some people just want the pill, and that's okay, but I don't wanna work with them. I wanna work with people that wanna help themselves because we have so much more power than we think, but the power isn't in the doctor's office. Health doesn't happen in a doctor's office. It doesn't happen in a hospital.
**Unknown:** It doesn't happen in a chemo suite, in a radiation center. Health happens at home. Again, like, I can empower you, but I can't do it for you, and I totally get the people that don't wanna do it. Yeah.
**Unknown:** Right? Because it's hard. Yeah. It's hard work, and in this life you have to choose your hard, but there are people who would rather blame the system when it doesn't work than them try it and blame themselves.
**Unknown:** And so that's okay because we all get to choose our hard. Yeah. No, 100%, and you know, one of the things that I always found so fascinating about the way that we go about helping women to know where their, the, their breast health is is, you know, mammograms, so the gold standard. You know, something that was very obvious to me when I was learning about this in school, uh, was isn't this after the fact?...
**Unknown:** is, okay, we're getting this done, and they're like, good, good, good, not good, emergency. Like, there was no in between. Yeah. And I was like, this just doesn't make a ton of sense to me.
**Unknown:** Yeah. You know, what are we doing to actually get ahead of it, be proactive in it? And that was a very fascinating concept. Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** And then, you know, come to find out later down the line is that, you know, mammograms have their own downsides. So I would love to dive into this topic around the good, the bad, and the ugly with mammograms. Yeah, absolutely. And then of course, we wanna wrap up this with what do you do instead?
**Unknown:** Yeah. Or what do you do as a complementary option? Yeah. Um- Yeah, for sure ...
**Unknown:** and how do we empower these women to take care of the business? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm gonna start by saying that breast health is health, right?
**Unknown:** So if you're healthy, your breasts are healthy, and if you're not healthy, your breasts are not healthy. Yeah. Right? There's a reason why breast cancer is so common.
**Unknown:** There's a reason why it affects so many people, because breast cancer is not a disease of the breast. If you get breast cancer, your breast isn't bad, right? Breast cancer is a normal response to an abnormal environment. So let's talk about the health of our society in general.
**Unknown:** 88% of Americans are not metabolically healthy, right? I mean, it's a terrible statistic. Yeah. But the bottom line is that when we look at the markers of metabolic health, right, fasting glucose, fasting insulin, HDL, blood pressure, 88% of Americans are not metabolically healthy.
**Unknown:** This is a huge problem, and why we're seeing so much breast cancer, because breast cancer is a metabolic disease. Yeah. Insulin is a growth hormone. It drives breast cell growth, right?
**Unknown:** Everyone makes cancer cells, young, old, everyone in between, and the reason why some people get breast cancer and some people don't is our immune systems are constantly on and keeping those cancer cells at bay. Yeah. But then you come up against some kind of barrier. You have a trauma, you have a divorce, you lose a job, you move, you take care of a sick family member.
**Unknown:** Like, something happens, and your immune system gets- The straw that broke the camel's back is what I always say. That's exactly it. That's exactly it. And so that's, that's when it happens.
**Unknown:** Now, when we talk about prevention in this country, we are always talking about mammogram in that conversation, and it is crazy to me, and it's clearly crazy to you, because that's how you started this conversation, because mammogram has nothing to do with prevention. In fact, I would argue that mammogram, because it's radiation, goes more towards driving disease than preventing disease. So let's talk about the intentions of mam- I wanna actually ask you a question really quick about this, because I work with a lot of people for long periods of time, and it's not because they're sick for long periods of time, it's just because they're like, "I can't go back," you know? Yeah.
**Unknown:** I, I'm like, this is, this is- Well, they, they trust you. You're, you're ingrained in their health ... 100%. Yeah.
**Unknown:** But there is a conversation that comes up about breast screenings. Mm-hmm. And now I don't have my physical office anymore. I used to offer thermography, so that was a great option for- Yeah ...
**Unknown:** for women. And in New Jersey, which is still where a large portion of my patients are, there's one facility, and some of them wanna travel, some of them don't. But more importantly, the question that I have for you is, is there is a fear around not using mammography. 100%.
**Unknown:** And, and I just would love for you to speak to that- Yeah ... because there's a part of me, you know, of course, like, we're a guide. We're not necessarily there to drive the boat. And I'm like, "Listen, like, the ball is in your court.
**Unknown:** I can give you the information, but I sure as hell don't wanna drive you away from something," and then something happens down the line because you're so fearful, because yes, massive fear can create a lot of biological changes. You have this massive fear of breast cancer because mom, grandma, whoever had it, and then doctor whomever said, "Don't get mammograms," and now you end up with a mass, and then you think it's because you didn't do mammograms. Yeah. So that's never true.
**Unknown:** Although that is people's perception, and that is very intentional. The mammographic screening program which was rolled out in the 1970s, the intention of the screening program was to find cancers at their earliest point, at which point we could intervene and save lives, right? And the whole program is based on the assumption that breast cancer starts small, grows to some critical point at which it might metastasize, and if you find it before that critical point, you're able to save lives. And it's a great theory.
**Unknown:** It also doesn't happen to be true. So breast cancer does not grow in a predictable way. Breast cancer is what it is from the beginning. So there are very small tumors that no matter when you find them or what you do, these women unfortunately are not going to do well.
**Unknown:** And there are very large tumors that no matter what you do, this person is not going to die of breast cancer. And then there's everything in between. Hmm. And so the statement that mammograms save lives is really a lie.
**Unknown:** It's created by industry. It's what they want you to believe, because mammograms and their subsequent biopsies and the subsequent treatment for breast cancerMakes billions and billions and billions of dollars for the system, but what it doesn't do is save lives. And this is why many European countries have abandoned their mammographic screening programs, because- They abandoned all of it over there, and here we're just like, "Give me more." Yeah. Well, because it's not for the good of the people.
**Unknown:** That's not what drives our system unfortunately. Yeah. It's profit. And there are so many examples of this.
**Unknown:** You, you can find it in every aspect of our medical system. It is driven by profit. It has nothing to do with patient care. 100%.
**Unknown:** And in fact, when you look at screening the population over a lifetime, for every one person that you save, you will cause seven breast cancers. These are unacceptable numbers. Unacceptable. You're talking about from ma- uh, mammograms?
**Unknown:** From mammogram. Yeah. So over someone's lifetime, for every one, one person whose life you save from mammogram, you will cause seven breast cancers, and this is why it has been abandoned in all of these countries in Europe. Because- And you're saying that statistic comes from the compounding of the radiation?
**Unknown:** Yeah. So what happened is when mammogram was originally approved, it was approved as a 2D mammogram, right? And what we have done over the years in making our test more sensitive, we've gone from 2D to 3D, right, to tomography. And when we did that, we are two to three times-ing the radiation.
**Unknown:** So over someone's lifetime, we're talking about exponentially more radiation. And when we did that, we did that with the understanding that there would be less callbacks, so ultimately it would be less radiation. So we went from a 60% callback rate to a 50% callback rate. So we're really not improving things.
**Unknown:** We are exponentially radiating people more, and not to mention that we are finding and treating a whole bunch of cancers that really don't need to be treated, that these people would be fine no matter what. And so we're treating them, and what are we doing with our treatment? We are, uh, accelerating heart disease, accelerating brain disease. Think brain fog, depression, anxiety, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's.
**Unknown:** I mean, these are not benign things, right? Yeah. We are accelerating bone loss. We already have a problem with fractures, and we're making their bones weaker, more brittle.
**Unknown:** I'm not sure that we're helping people at all with screening, and in fact, I think ultimately we are hurting people. We need to unlearn that mammogram saves lives. It's simply not true. And we need to not feel guilty that we're not getting mammograms.
**Unknown:** If you think about it, like, would you feel guilty saying no to radiation that you know wasn't helping you? That's how we need to reframe it, because that is what's happening. I'm gonna share with you what to do now, and I'm gonna tell you that there is something on the horizon that is so much better than what's out there now. It's already FDA approved.
**Unknown:** It will be widely, widely available in the next five years, and it's going to change how we screen breasts. Let's talk about what's happening now. So I love thermography. It doesn't involve compression.
**Unknown:** It's looking at heat. It's looking at physiology. It's not as good at imaging the breast necessarily. Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** But it is a functional test, and after all, that's what we're after anyway. And if there is a finding on thermography, I'm fine using conventional radiology to localize things, to determine what they are. I just don't think that we should be screening with mammography every year. Yeah.
**Unknown:** Right? The other thing is I really believe in self-exam. Mm-hmm. I really do.
**Unknown:** If you know your body, you're going to know when something is different. Yeah. And are you gonna miss those tiny things that are seen on mammogram? Yeah.
**Unknown:** My answer to that is who cares? Who cares? Do you know the thousands if not millions of women who have had their breasts removed for DCIS, for ductal carcinoma in situ, a disease that would never kill them? Never.
**Unknown:** It's not life-threatening, right? It shouldn't even be called cancer. It- But how much is that surgery? Oh, I, I mean, forget the price of that surgery.
**Unknown:** Think about the price that these women pay. Yeah. They lose their breast. They lose their identity.
**Unknown:** They lose their sexuality. I'm not even talking about them. It's like, but what's, what's the system making on that surgery? Oh, yeah.
**Unknown:** A fortune. It... Yeah, and that's why it's like- A fortune ... "Do this.
**Unknown:** Be proactive." Having... Mutilating women. Remember our first day of medical school, first do no harm. We are mutilating women.
**Unknown:** We're mutilating their bodies. We're mutilating their mind. Yeah. We're mutilating their psyche.
**Unknown:** I mean, we... What we are doing is so wrong, it is so harmful, and we're scaring people into agreeing to it. We're scaring them into getting mammograms. We're scaring them into having unnecessary surgery, unnecessary medications, and we are hurting them.We are hurting them.
**Unknown:** We are causing cancers. We are causing heart disease. We are causing neurologic diseases. We are causing bone loss.
**Unknown:** This is wrong. It's very wrong. Something that I... I- I'm curious because you said you were in surgery for 20 years.
**Unknown:** So it was probably two, three years ago, I worked with a woman who ended up having a diagnosis, and she, she shared her journey of the double mastectomy, and I, I will tell the rest in a moment. But I sat there and I was just like, "Pull your shit together, Nicole," because my face was... I w- I couldn't believe that that was, that was the process. And I don't know if the process has changed, but she went from double mastectomy.
**Unknown:** They said, um, while they were in there they were gonna put her expanders in right away because she was gonna get constructive, uh, reconstructive surgery immediately, to the point that she got an infection. The expander popped out, like ripped her open and popped out, and she was just in such horrific pain. So she finally then went in and they... Everything, you know, the, they got rid of the infection, they dealt with it, and she said the expanders were one of the most painful things she ever experienced.
**Unknown:** Then she finally went in and she had breast surgery, but there was so much weakness in the tissue that they had to take muscles out of her back. Mm. And then they, they did the reconstructive surgery, and then it turned out that they put the gummy bear implants in that are recalled for lymphoma. Yeah.
**Unknown:** And I c- I, I was like, I don't even know if I can tell this woman this right now, because it was just, it was the wildest thing that I heard. Yeah. And I was just like, how is this the standard of care? Yeah.
**Unknown:** It has not improved much. I mean, w- the surgical techniques are getting better. The incisions are getting smaller. You know, people are honing their craft, but the basics are the same.
**Unknown:** You know, unfortunately, think about you're gonna do surgery on someone. You want them to be the best that they can be, but you don't do anything to help them to optimize their health. You don't talk to them about eating a plant-based, nutritionally dense, whole food diet. There's no discussion about that.
**Unknown:** You don't tell them to prioritize sleep. You don't tell them to make sure that you're moving. You don't tell them to develop some tools to manage your stressors. You don't tell them to avoid toxins.
**Unknown:** You don't tell them that instead of seeing this as a punishment, see this as an opportunity. Yeah. There's no discussions about this. Yeah.
**Unknown:** And so people don't go into surgery their best, they go into surgery their worst, and this is a problem, right? Yeah. You know, you can't- The recovery is so much harder ... you can't heal a wound if you don't have the capability to heal a wound.
**Unknown:** Mm-hmm. Surgery is a trauma. It might be a controlled trauma- Yeah ... but it is a trauma.
**Unknown:** So if you're not going into it the best that you can be, you're definitely not gonna get the best outcome. It goes back to we're focused on the wrong thing. We're focused in the wrong place. You know, it reminds me of that story of the old man that's in the street, and he's looking for his keys, and a policeman walks by.
**Unknown:** And he said, "Sir, you know, what's wrong?" And he said, "I lost my keys." And the policeman said, "I'll help you find them." And so they're looking on the street, and after 10 minutes, the policeman says, "Are you sure this is where you lost your keys?" He says, "No, I lost them in the park." And he said, "Well, then why are we looking for them here?" And he said, "Well, this is where the light is," right? So the traditional medical system is looking in the wrong place, right? Yeah. They're looking where the light is instead of where the issue is, and they're so focused on the tumor that they forget the person in front of them.
**Unknown:** 100%. It's- Yeah ... that's really, you know, the theme of why we get into the functional world and the integrative world, is, you know, finding that root cause. Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** And, you know, and then also understanding the intricacies of how all of the body systems work together because nothing is siloed. Everything is working together- Yeah ... as we've clearly covered today. There was a quick...
**Unknown:** I'm super excited to hear about this technology on the horizon. Yeah, yeah. But, um, one thing I wanna say too about thermography that a lot of people don't know is that there are different versions of thermography. So there was a facility that I would refer to before I had thermography in my office, and it was a thermography that was doing a snapshot of the body, so it was creating an image of the full body.
**Unknown:** And it was obviously doing this from a lot of different angles to pick up on those heat patterns, which was definitely valuable. The thermography that I ended up getting, primarily because I wasn't just focused on breast, I was focused on looking at all of those parts, ended up being a wand that focused on points. So the session was actually pretty long, but we actually did this... It, it was like an integrative thermography.
**Unknown:** Yeah. It looked at every single tooth, to all of the lymphatic pathways, to I think there was 30 spots on each breast. Um, we looked at the reproductive organs. We looked at all of it.
**Unknown:** And so I do want people to know that there is a difference, uh, between thermographies. So if you are going to go that route is being able to do your research to see is this a wand-based thermography? Is this a, you know, a full body shot thermography? Because they could be beneficial together or they could be beneficial separately as well.
**Unknown:** I just think the wand was very interesting because, as you probably know as well, there is actually a lot of dental connections to the breast as well- Mm-hmm ... from the meridians. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
**Unknown:** So sometimes we would find that there was a really bad abscess underneath a bad root canal, and that was a part of why that breast was having issues. Yeah. Yeah. So that is one of the f-First things that I tell everyone when I see them for a new breast cancer diagnosis is you need to go visit a holistic dentist.
**Unknown:** Mm. Because they, they often go hand-in-hand. And, you know, this goes to the... Again, speaks to the fact that we are one system, right?
**Unknown:** Breast cancer isn't a bad breast. We are one system, and what is happening is that our chemistry is changing based on what's happening in the whole system. Mm. And it's, again, a normal response to an abnormal environment, and the work is figuring out what is causing that imbalance, right?
**Unknown:** What do you have that you don't need? What do you need that you don't have? Mm-hmm. This is the work.
**Unknown:** For the people that get it, they're all in, right? Yeah. And for the people that don't, they tend to respond with, "You're just blaming the victim," right? "Stop blaming the victim." But it's part and parcel to that mentality.
**Unknown:** If you see your diagnosis as a punishment, believe you me, it's gonna be a punishment. Yeah. And instead, if you see your diagnosis as a message, as an opportunity, then you have the opportunity to create something really great. I am 1,000 times the person I was before I got sick.
**Unknown:** And though it was really, really hard, really, really hard to change everything that I changed, and I changed everything. But look what I have. Look what life is like on the other side. It's amazing.
**Unknown:** And it's not even just... Like, having your health is obviously so essential, but this has gre- created purpose. This has created a, a meaningful purpose that you get to wake up every day and know that you're, you're making a difference in a different way than you were prior. And- For sure ...
**Unknown:** it's like that, that is something that will keep you well. Mm-hmm. You know, you can do all the things, all the therapies, all the supplements. You can do all of that, and that's really great.
**Unknown:** Mm. But if you don't wake up with knowing what lights you up or at least having an inkling of what drives you, then that will create illness just in itself. For sure. Absolutely.
**Unknown:** So we started off by saying that breast health is health, right? And we were talking about prevention. So the key to prevention is the key to health. It's all the drivers of health.
**Unknown:** So it's eating that whole food diet that is low-glycemic, that is building your health. It's having joyful movement in your life every day. We were meant to be active beings. It's about stress management systems.
**Unknown:** We are never gonna get rid of the stress. Yes. But we need to build our toolbox to deal with the stress. Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** We need to have a system so that we don't take it in, so that it rolls off. We need to prioritize sleep. We are a society that prioritizes, that values the waking hours, and sleep is where the healing happens. So if you are not sleeping, you are not healing.
**Unknown:** And so we all need to prioritize sleep. We need to detoxify our worlds, get rid of the plastic, get rid of the cleaning agents, get rid of the antibiotics, get rid of... We think that we have to sterilize everything, and in sterilizing everything, we are killing our immune systems. Yes.
**Unknown:** Your immune system is a muscle like anything else, and you need to flex it. So stop cleaning all of your shit and let the germs in, right? Yeah. We need to learn to be strong.
**Unknown:** Let your kids eat dirt. Yes. For sure. Like, we have, like, a 10-minute rule in my house.
**Unknown:** I know people- If it gets over 10 seconds ... and they're like, "Oh, should he have that?" I'm like, "He's fine." He's fine. He's fine. And, and lastly, what you said, is that we need to live with purpose.
**Unknown:** God put us all on this earth for a purpose. My purpose is different than your purpose. Yeah. And I don't know what someone else's purpose is.
**Unknown:** I only know that I am here to be the best version of me. I'm never gonna be you. I'm never gonna be like you. I'm not supposed to be.
**Unknown:** I'm here to be the best version of me and to fulfill my purpose. And it... You don't have to be famous. You don't have to change the world.
**Unknown:** You just need to change your world. It's interesting, too, because some people right now might be in such chronic stress state that they almost even get triggered by that statement, you know, find your purpose, live your best life, be the best version of yourself. But what I will say to those individuals is that we think of money as a currency, and I honestly had to learn this the hard way, but your energy is one of your most valuable currencies. Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** And time is a very valuable currency. Mm-hmm. And if you started to evaluate your time and your energy, because most of them are synonymous, is if you looked at the amount of time you spent on social media distracting yourself, or the amount of time you spent ruminating about a bad conversation or a bad email, or the amount of time that you give to the one person that is so unappreciative to you, or the time that you give to trying to save everybody else, and the amount of energy that that takes from you, then that is why you're gonna get triggered by a statement like that. That is why you're like, "That's not possible for me." Mm.
**Unknown:** But if you took a little bit of that time and you cut one energy-draining thing out of your life, and if you replaced that with, "I'm gonna sit here and just think. I'm gonna think about what the hell I like. I don't even know. What is my purpose?" Like- Mm-hmm ...
**Unknown:** if you were to give yourself another 10 minutes, 20 minutes, and build on that, that is where the magic is. Most people are triggered by what they recognize and don't like in themselves. Right. That usually is what, what triggers people.
**Unknown:** So as my husband says, "Don't engage." It's true. True. Don't engage. Let it go.
**Unknown:** Yeah. Let it go. That's, um- So tell us about what is on the horizon. Yeah.
**Unknown:** I need to know. Yeah, yeah. So there is a man named John Klatt. He invented the calcium score.
**Unknown:** He invented the virtual colonoscopy, so suffice to say, super brilliant, right? Yes. So the NIH gives him $20 million and charges him with inventing a screening tool for the breast that can be a replacement for MRI, because MRI is very expensive. Yeah.
**Unknown:** And while it is fairly readily available in the United States, that is not true in other countries around the world. And so the NIH really wanted to solve this problem, so they, they go to this brilliant man and he invents something that is more sensitive than an MRI, more specific than an MRI, does not involve a tube or compression. You actually, like, immerse the breast in water- Mm-hmm ... and it is scanned by sound waves.
**Unknown:** Oh, interesting. But there's no wand. It's just, you know, within this bowl. It takes seven minutes per side, so it's not like an MRI.
**Unknown:** You don't have to be in there for 30 or 40 minutes. It is absolutely painless. In fact, you know, quite pleasurable. You're just immersing your breast in a bath of warm water, and the images are amazing.
**Unknown:** So a negative scan means that you do not need to be imaged for two years. That's how sensitive it is. That's amazing. So it has seven FDA approvals, and it will be shortly rolled out everywhere around the country.
**Unknown:** Now- Yeah ... the hospitals are not happy about this because the test is inexpensive. It's nothing like an MRI. And what has every hospital in the US purchased?
**Unknown:** An MRI machine, and now they're up to, like, a 10 tesla machine. So they've spent however many millions of dollars on their machine. They want their money back, so they're not terribly interested. So this technology is gonna come because of practitioners like you and I who are gonna...
**Unknown:** It requires, like, an, I think, 9x11 room to image the patient, and it's gonna come because of practitioners like you and I who are gonna open up screening centers, and it is absolutely going to change, change how we screen people, change what screening means, because there's no ionizing radiation involved, so we're not putting, uh, anyone at any risk. We're not compressing them. The images are more sensitive and more specific than anything we have out there, so the false negative rate is going to... or the false positive rate is going to plummet.
**Unknown:** Yeah. And it is going to change the landscape if we let it. Now- Do we know what this will be called for people to do their Google search to see when it's going to be available? Not yet, but- Okay ...
**Unknown:** but if you, if you follow me on social media, Dr. Jenn Simmons, you'll hear all about it. That's amazing. And even, too, if all else fails, it's like, if we can maybe use those key words that you mentioned, you know, sound wave, breast analysis, or breast exam.
**Unknown:** Yeah, yeah. Um, but that, you know, that's really exciting. Really, really exciting. Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** And I guess we'll have to wait and see as to where it will be available. But I thank you so much for all of this. I love doing podcasts with people where I get to learn stuff, 'cause you really are the expert in all things breast and, and just women's health in general. So I definitely wanna do this again and bring- Yeah ...
**Unknown:** more gems to our audience. We'll do this again. We'll talk about hormones next time. Oh, yes.
**Unknown:** We, we gotta talk about that. Everybody wants to hear about that. Yeah, yeah. So let everyone know again where they can find you.
**Unknown:** Yeah, so you can follow me on social media. I'm on every platform, except I never pay attention to Twitter, so don't contact me there. But Dr. Jenn Simmons, and my name has two Ns, Dr.
**Unknown:** J-E-N-N S-I-M-M-O-N-S. My website is Real Health MD. And yeah, I always get it backwards. Yeah.
**Unknown:** And so if you have a question and reach out to me, I'm very, very good at responding. Awesome. Well, thank you again for being here. It is a true, true pleasure, and I hope everyone enjoyed and you have lots of breast empowerment from this.
**Unknown:** We thank you for being a listener and subscriber to Integrative Wellness Radio. If you're looking to learn more about Integrative Wellness Group, as well as Dr. Nick or Dr. Nicole, you can check out integrativewellnessgroup.com.
**Unknown:** All night, no sleep. 'Cause I feel like a woman.
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About Integrative You Radio
Integrative You Radio is a root cause medicine and integrative medicine podcast hosted by Dr. Nicole Rivera and Dr. Nick Carruthers — two integrative doctors who build personalized wellness protocols from your DNA, minerals, hormones, gut, and nervous system rather than from a population template. Looking for an integrative doctor who reads your labs together instead of in isolation? This is the show.
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