How is Breast Cancer Treated?
**Integrative Oncologist & Functional Medicine Expert | Founder of Real Health MD & PerfeQTion Imaging**
How is Breast Cancer Treated?
Jennifer Simmons, MD
Full Transcript
Introduction to Breast Cancer Treatment 0:00
Hi there. Welcome back to the Breast Cancer Breakthroughs Summit. I'm Dr. Jenn, your host. And I want to talk today about breast cancer treatment in conventional medicine. The way that breast cancer is treated is very standardized. You have X, you get Y, but no two people are alike. No two people's Y's are alike and no two breast cancers are alike. And so I invite you to indulge me a little bit. And let's talk about how breast cancer should be treated, because after having spent nearly 20 years as a breast cancer surgeon, it wasn't until I had my own diagnosis that I realized that everyone's story is different, everyone's Y is different.
And so we need to take all of that into consideration when we design breast cancer treatment protocols.
Why Breast Cancer Is More Than a Standard Protocol 1:13
And so I want you to first think about when was the last time you were well When was the last time you felt good. When's the last time you weren't taking any medications? When was the last time you didn't carry any diagnoses? So many people come to me and they say I'm healthy, but I have breast cancer. Well, that's a big but. Breast cancer is an indication that there is some imbalance in the body. Breast cancer is a normal response to an abnormal environment. And what everyone needs to ask themselves is where is that abnormality coming from?
Now, for some people, it's so obvious. For some people they come to me and they say, the last two years of my life they have been horribly stressful. Stress is so damaging. As you probably know, stress can kill stress does so many things on so many different levels in our body. It adversely affects our microbiome. Our microbiome is the collection of organisms that lives in of us. And the vast majority of our microbiome lives in our gut.
Stress, Microbiome, and Immune Dysfunction 2:29
And there it is in intimate contact with 70% of our immune system. So if you have something that is adverse affecting your microbiome, it's also going to adversely affect your gut. And when that happens, your immune system is going to become compromised. And like we talked about on the very first day when I defined what breast cancer is, you have the development of abnormal cells, of breast cancer cells, and every single woman will make breast cancer cells. Every single woman and an intact immune system should recognize those cells and destroy them.
But if your immune system is being distracted by stress or by some other toxin, then it's not going to do its job and it's not going to be able to protect you against breast cancer. So the first thing that we need to think about in treatment of our breast cancer is what is causing it. And if it's a divorce, if it's a if it's a difficult relationship, if it's a death in the family, if it is pas trauma, prior trauma, if it's an ongoing toxin exposure, whatever that is, you need to think about it. And we need to see if we can correct that, because that is going to make a huge difference on how you do going forward, because any of the conventional treatments for breast cancer and these are surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, anti hormonal therapy, any of these conventional treatments, they are not going to leave you healthier.
Finding and Addressing the Root Cause 4:20
In fact, most of them will further compromise your health. And the key to overcoming breast cancer. The key to treating breast cancer, the key to putting breast cancer in your rearview mirror is to building your health. And so I ask you to take some time to contemplate, really look at what are the sources of inflammation in your life and try to mitigate those because, again, bringing your immune system back online is going to be the key to all of this. And maybe you've had gut problems for years, or if you've had gut problems for years, I can assure you if you go on chemotherapy or you go on hormonal blockade, those got problems are only going to get worse.
And so it's important to deal with those. Another thing that I want to bring to your attention is thyroid disease, because in my experience, breast cancer follows a diagnosis of hypothyroidism by 10 to 15 years. If you don't do anything and figure out why the hypothyroidism is there hypothyroidism or an underactive thyroid is often caused by an immune condition called Hashimoto's thyroiditis, and that is not solved in any way by going on thyroid replacement hormone. And in fact most women are put on synthetic thyroid replacement hormone and never, ever achieve true homeostasis afterwards.
Thyroid Health and Hidden Imbalances 6:00
So a breast cancer diagnosis is mostly thought of as a punishment. But instead, I would love for you to think of your breast cancer diagnosis as an opportunity. It's an opportunity to take stock in your life. It's an opportunity to look at you, your environment, your relationships. It's an opportunity to really do things differently, to do things better, and to achieve real health, real health that you maybe didn't have before. And so many of my patients, when you can approach it from this manner, we can come up with a treatment plan that not only addresses the breast cancer, but addresses every single aspect of your life.
Because at the end of the day, breast health is health. So I urge you to think about that throughout this week, and I urge you to take a look at every aspect of your life and ask, Is this serving me? And if it's not serving you, it's okay to let go. As women, we struggle so much with being everything to everyone,
Breast Cancer as an Opportunity for Change 7:22
but we need to learn to put our oxygen mask on first. We need to learn to prioritize our health because when we don't, we lose our health. And unless you change why you got breast cancer, what is to stop it from coming back or what is to stop the next manifestation? Because the truth is that the vast majority of women who get breast cancer will not die of breast cancer. The vast majority of women who get breast cancer will die of heart disease. And that is twofold. First, unless you deal with the inflammation that gave you the breast cancer diagnosis, then it's just going to manifest as something else.
The second part is that most of the conventional treatments for breast cancer in the therapy, anti hormonal therapy, radiation, these all accelerate heart disease. In fact, when we look at a population of women who are treated for breast cancer and we compare them to the general population, they are two to three times more likely to die of heart disease than the general population two to three times. These are frightening statistics, but they don't have to apply to you.
Heart Disease Risk and the Importance of Whole-Body Health 8:43
And like I say to all of my patients, I expect you to be the exception. It is exception. Now that you're here, stay here. Stay with us. And we're going to tell you all about the various treatments for breast cancer that not only will address the breast cancer, but they will help you to address your entire health so that you can not only go back to normal afterwards, because remember, normal is what got you here, but you can go back to a place or go forward to a place like you've never known before, and you can go forward to the health of your life.
And that's what I want for you. So stay here and listen in. And I look forward to spending this time with you and being a part of your journey, which I hope is a beautiful time of enlightenment, of empowerment and of strength. It's Dr. Jenn, Bye for now.
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