Expert Insights: Your Burning Questions Answered!

Véronique Desaulniers, DC

I did. And what a conference it was. For those of you who don’t know about Beljanski and the story behind that real briefly. Basically, they’re involved in research that has been going on since the 1990s, and they have several published studies on multiple cancers that show that specific natural extracts literally kill and target cancer cells and stem cells, cancer stem cells, and are actually synergistic when it comes to conventional treatments. And so I know that’s one big question that comes up all the time. That’s one of the questions we often receive is how can I prevent recurrence. Recurrence is such a worry for women with breast cancer. You know, your doctors told you were cancer-free, quote-unquote, go live out your life. Your blood work looks good. Nothing’s on your skin. But what they neglect to tell you is that there are still breast cancer stem cells or baby cancer cells that are responsible for recurrence and metastasis. When it comes to conventional medicine, they don’t have any drugs or any tools to affect those and stop those. So the beauty of this.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

They also don’t even know about them. I mean, we’re not in conventional medicine. We’re not really routinely even checking for them, measuring them, studying them.

Véronique Desaulniers, DC

Right. And when women do conventional treatments like chemo and radiation, they’re actually creating more resistant breast cancer stem cells. You know, they won’t tell you that. Yeah. But, you know, the beauty of this conference and I gave a presentation on breast cancer stem cells is that there is a lot of research out there that shows that there are so many things that you can add to your protocol, natural extracts that will literally slow down or kill those breast cancer stem cells. So you don’t have to worry about things like a recurrence. So here’s a few examples. So curcumin has been shown in multiple studies to reduce the stem cell activity. The extract out of blueberries, and taro is still being has been shown to literally kill those breast cancer stem cells. We know cruciferous vegetables from sulforaphane to BITC which is isothiocyanates. It has been shown to kill those cancer cells in vivo, like in live animals and in the petri dish. EGCG from green tea, melatonin, and vitamin D, all these things affect those breast cancer stem cells. The Beljanski Foundation has an extract product called Ankle Bell Probe that they are now getting ready to fund the research on breast cancer stem cells using those extracts. So it’s really exciting times in the world of breast cancer.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Yeah. Especially in natural resources. And you had the benefit of getting to interview Sylvie and that interview is part of this summit. So that’s super exciting. And I’m sure make sure everyone that you catch that interview because I’m sure it was amazing. Her story is mind-blowing.

Véronique Desaulniers, DC

Yes. And you must read her book, Winning the War on Cancer. It’s a very short book, but it will bring tears to your eyes. It’s such a beautiful story.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Yeah, it is. It is. Really an amazing story. So make sure you read her book and definitely catch the interview. And then what else were we going to talk about today?

Véronique Desaulniers, DC

Well, one thing I wanted to ask you. I know you were a breast surgeon for many, many years, and it’s important to be able to prevent breast cancer. And there are so many different opinions about what is the best screening when it comes to breast cancer. So what are your thoughts on that?

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Yeah. So, you know, first, I think that in a universal way, we need to distinguish between prevention and screening, because I cannot tell you how many people came to me and still come to me and say, I don’t know what happened. I get my mammogram every year and there’s a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding around mammograms. You know, we are told everyone across the board for as long as I can remember, we are told that mammograms save lives and we accept that as fact. But we need to ask if that’s really true. Do mammograms save lives? Because when we look at a population, the answer is no. It’s resoundingly no. It’s definitively no. What’s happening is that in using mammograms to screen populations and screening women year after year after year, we are repeatedly exposing them to radiation. For some women, we are actually going to cause breast cancer and these radiation-induced breast cancers that we’re identifying. And we’re kind of like making ourselves into heroes for having identified these cancers that we caused and then we’re treating them. Many of these screened-found cancers, these tiny cancers, they would have never become clinically relevant. And what I mean by that is they would have never been life-threatening. And so for us to identify these cancers and then subject women to the harms of breast cancer treatment, of which there are many. First of all, there’s the psychological issue of just having been diagnosed with breast cancer. Right, because that changes you for the rest of your life. And I know that you can speak to that personally when you get a breast cancer diagnosis, you are forever changed. I don’t care how strong you are on harassment, you are on your health, you are on care, how connected you are. If you have a breast cancer diagnosis, you are forever changed.

Véronique Desaulniers, DC

Absolutely.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

And so we put that psychological burden on people and then we treat them. We give them surgery, traumatic. We give them radiation, more cancer-causing radiation. And then we oftentimes we give people chemotherapy that permanently damages DNA and permanently damages mitochondria and changes people’s overall health. And we put people on hormone blockade and when you take estrogen away, you shorten lifespans, you accelerate heart disease, you accelerate brain disease, you accelerate bone loss. And when you look at the population of women that are treated for breast cancer, they are two to three times more likely to die of heart disease than the population that is not treated for breast cancer. So we can’t treat someone for one disease and create a whole other one, create a worse one. We can’t take years off of people’s lives for the purposes of running our machine, and that’s what it’s come down to. So for every one in 10,000 women that we allegedly help or save with our breast cancer screening we are causing seven in 10,000 cancers. This is a problem. Now, thankfully, there is a solution because there is a new revolutionary FDA-approved imaging that does not use radiation. It is safe. There’s no compression. It’s painless, it’s fast, it’s affordable. And it is currently happening on the West Coast. I am bringing it to the East Coast. It is called QT imaging. You can find out about it on the website qtimaging.com. If you caught my interview with the inventor John C. Klock and you know all about it and you know to be looking at for it sometime soon. But please know, until then, mammograms do not save lives no matter how many mammograms we do, the same exact number of women will die of breast cancer every year. We are not impacting the bottom line. All we’re doing is creating more breast cancer diagnoses, creating more treatment, creating more anxiety now. So I am not a believer in mammograms. I know that was a very long-winded answer.

Véronique Desaulniers, DC

But it’s so true. You know, it’s women do not realize and unfortunately, you know, we’re doing this presentation during the Pink Months Breast Cancer Awareness Month. You know, I’ve renamed that to Breast Health Awareness Month because it’s about breast health versus the disease of breast cancer. So let’s talk about the going back to the idea of recurrence and what factors may contribute to the recurrence.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Yeah.

Véronique Desaulniers, DC

So one of the things that I’ll mention and I’m sure you have several as well, is being able to manage your stress. You know, I have a system called the 70 Central System essential number for A is to heal the emotional wounds. Essential number three is to balance your energy. And that’s making sure one of the factors is putting your body into that parasympathetic relaxation mode every single day. And women who do not do that and I’m sure you’ve seen this, you may have similar diagnoses is similar treatments, but one takes that to heart and does the emotional work and the stress work. The other one doesn’t. And you know, they don’t do as well.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Yeah, it’s absolutely true. I mean, there’s no doubt about it that your body is keeping score. And I was just talking about this today that so many of us were raised in an environment where we masked our pain with alcohol, with drugs, with pot, and it was like a routine thing. I saw it on TV and then saw it in my childhood where you go to work all day. I had two working parents and at the end of every single day was marked with a drink. I mean, like that’s how they knew that their work was over and that’s how they relieved their stress. And there are still many, many people that are doing that and having unhealthy mechanisms to cope with stress and that is a problem. And after a while, and certainly, when you are in a situation where you’re given a breast cancer diagnosis, you must come up with healthy ways to deal with the stressors of life because they’re not going anywhere now. We’re surrounded by them.

Véronique Desaulniers, DC

And I would say, you know, we talked about, you know, the trauma of that initial diagnosis. You can never go back to that pre-diagnosis life because you keep doing the things you’ve always done. You’ll get the same results. And that’s what got you to the diagnosis in the first place lifestyle and choices that you’ve made not to make anybody feel guilty. But, you know, we know that there’s a lot of, you know, environmental issues. 95% of the issues are in environmental and lifestyle. You know, 5% is the genetic component. So you have a large measure of control on how your body responds. And once you get through that journey, it’s you know, it’s a transformation. It’s not just getting rid of that lump or the bump, but it’s changing your whole life so that at the end of this journey, you come out a happier and healthier you different from the one that you were pre-diagnosis.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Or sure and most importantly, what you talked about being in that parasympathetic state, being in that rest and repair state, that health-promoting state, because so many of us, intentionally or unintentionally, and it has really you know, this is not about blame or shame. It’s not about what you did to get there. And no one deserves a breast cancer diagnosis. I don’t care who you are, or what you did, no one deserves a breast cancer diagnosis. And no one lives their life in a way that intends to lead to a breast cancer diagnosis. Even smokers don’t smoke with the intention of getting lung cancer, but most of us unknowingly live most of our lives in a sympathetic state. I say, like most of us are, white-knuckling it through life. We’re going from one stressor to the next. We’re tied to our phones, we’re tied to our screens. We have too much blue light. We have not enough activity, not enough nature, not enough love, not enough God. And this is a problem. We all walk around in this sympathetic state and our bodies simply cannot heal in that state. So it’s so important to have the tools to transport you into that parasympathetic state and to spend most of your time there.

Véronique Desaulniers, DC

True. So let me ask you, Dr. Jenn, we’ve spent many hours,

Jennifer Simmons, MD

You know, I’m Jenn to you.

Véronique Desaulniers, DC

You know, we’ve spent a lot, many hours on this breast cancer breakthroughs summit. What is it that you’re most excited about in creating this summit? I mean, it’s taken a lot of work and organization. Yeah, but I just want to hear from you. What you’re excited about with the end result?

Jennifer Simmons, MD

I hope that as many women can listen to this as possible and really feel empowered to take what they learned from here and go on to make the rest of their lives better than ever. Better than it ever was before. Because I truly believe that when we get to a place, we can find a place that is even better. We can become the 2.0 version of ourselves. We just need their permission and the aptitude and the space to be able to do it. And I know that the information that you want that you and I have gathered and packaged together in that summit can empower people to do just that.

Véronique Desaulniers, DC

Beautiful. I’m really excited about envisioning these women listening and that light bulb moment where they realize, Wow, I can do this and I don’t need to fear breast cancer again, and I can break through breast cancer and change my life and have a different outcome that perhaps I’ve been told by my conventional doctors. And so it’s really for me, it’s just about hope and getting women excited about the possibility of a better life and a happier and healthier life.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Absolutely. Well, I hope that you enjoyed this segment. Stick around, because there’s still a lot of great stuff here. And we will see you real soon. Thanks for joining.

Véronique Desaulniers, DC

Bye, everybody.