# Rethinking Women's Health: A Functional Medicine Approach to Prevention | Dr. Jenn Simmons (Bonus Episode)

An episode of [Minimalist Moms Podcast | Purposeful Life & Parenting Tips](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1159498258), 31 Jul 2026, 38 min.

Audio: https://prefix.up.audio/s/pdst.fm/e/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/clrtpod.com/m/mgln.ai/e/35/audio2.redcircle.com/episodes/68cbaa3f-a63f-4e91-b6c5-989ce5fd6ec0/stream.mp3

For those that are new around here, I release bonus episodes that serve a niche part of my audience, so if this content is something that doesn’t fit what you’re looking for, check out the other episodes that dropped this week or join me back here next Tuesday for a conversation that you don’t want to miss! ------------------------------------------- Women's health can often feel overwhelming. Between conflicting nutrition advice, endless supplements, and constantly changing wellness trends, it's easy to wonder where to focus your energy. In this episode, Diane sits down with integrative oncologist and former breast surgeon Dr. Jenn Simmons to discuss a simpler, more intentional approach to health. After nearly two decades practicing conventional breast surgery, Dr. Jenn's own health journey led her to functional medicine and a deeper understanding of the root causes of chronic disease. Together, they explore how everyday choices—from the foods we eat and the way we move our bodies to reducing inflammation and minimizing toxic exposures—can have a profound impact on our long-term health. They also discuss Dr. Jenn's book, The Smart Woman's Guide to Breast Cancer, and why prevention, education, and whole-person wellness are essential parts of the conversation. Links Discussed in This Episode | • Checkout the podcast storefront for recommendations from Diane. • Dr. Jenn's Resource: Environmental Working Group | • Connect with Dr. Jenn Simmons: • Website • Instagram • YouTube | Podcast • Book: The Smart Woman's Guide to Breast Cancer About Dr. Jenn Simmons| Dr. Jenn Simmons, MD, is a Philadelphia-based breast surgeon and functional medicine practitioner who pivoted from conventional oncology to focus on holistic, root-cause healing. She founded Real Health MD (2019) and PerfeQTion Imaging, advocating for radiation-free, 3D sound-wave technology, and hosts the "Keeping Abreast with Dr. Jenn" podcast. Episode Sponsors | The Minimalist Moms Podcast would not be possible without the support of weekly sponsors. Choosing brands that I believe in is important to me. I only want to recommend brands that I believe may help you in your daily life. As always, never feel pressured into buying anything. Remember: if you don't need it, it's not a good deal! Enjoy the Podcast? Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning into this podcast, then do not hesitate to write a review. You can also share this with your fellow mothers so that they can be inspired to think more and do with less. Order (or review) my book, Minimalist Moms: Living & Parenting With Simplicity. You can contact me through my website, find me on Instagram, Pinterest or like The Minimalist Moms Page on Facebook. Our Sponsors: * Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com * Check out Cure Hydration and use my code MINIMALIST for a great deal: https://www.curehydration.com * Check out DeleteMe and use my code joindeleteme.com/MINIMALIST for a great deal: https://joindeleteme.com * Check out Wayfair: https://www.wayfair.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

## Transcript

[0:00] \[SPEAKER_00\]: For those of you that are new around here, I released bonus episodes that serve a niche part of my audience, so if this content is something that doesn't fit what you're looking for, check out the other episodes that drop this week, or join me back here next week for episodes that you don't want to miss.
[0:14] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We are a system that is only rewarded when people fail.
[0:20] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Doctors can't get paid, hospitals don't get paid pharmaceutical companies don't get paid device companies don't get paid when people are well.
[0:29] \[SPEAKER_01\]: They only get paid when people are sick.
[0:31] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So our system is 100% reliant on people getting sick.
[0:36] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And as a result, we created this environment that supports that system.
[0:43] \[SPEAKER_00\]: This is Diane Bowden, and you're listening to the minimalist mobs podcast.
[0:46] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Women's health can feel overwhelming.
[0:48] \[SPEAKER_00\]: That's why I've had so many episodes on this topic.
[0:51] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And today we're going to get into a conversation about rethinking women's health from a functional medicine approach with my guest, Dr. Jen Simmons.
[0:59] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Dr. Simmons is an integrative oncologist and former breast surgeon, and after nearly two decades practicing conventional breast surgery, Dr. Jens' own health journey led her to functional medicine and a deeper understanding of the root causes of chronic disease.
[1:14] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Together in this conversation, we explore how every day choices can have a profound impact on our long-term health.
[1:20] \[SPEAKER_00\]: We also get into her book, The Smart Woman's Guide to Brush Cancer, and why prevention, education, and whole-person wellness are essential parts of the conversation.
[1:30] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Quickly before we get into it, if you have been enjoying the content here on the minimalist mom's podcast, I know I sound like a broken record, but if you have yet to leave or rating interview, hit five stars, share this episode with a friend.
[1:41] \[SPEAKER_00\]: All these seemingly small ways are actually great ways that you can support the show that take very little time.
[1:47] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So I appreciate the effort in doing so and I really hope this conversation is helpful to you today.
[1:52] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And with that, let's get into this bonus episode with Dr. Jen Simmons.
[2:03] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Dr. Jen Simmons, I have you here today.
[2:05] \[SPEAKER_00\]: We're going to be talking about simplifying women's health.
[2:08] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I can't wait to get into this conversation because I think it really is about less is more, at least it has been in my own life.
[2:14] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So before we get into the conversation, why don't you just go ahead and introduce yourself to the listeners?
[2:18] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm Dr. Jazz Simmons.
[2:20] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm a breast cancer doctor.
[2:21] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I have been for 25 years.
[2:25] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I really come into the breast cancer space quite organically.
[2:28] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm from a breast cancer family.
[2:31] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I actually don't know a time in my life where I didn't know about breast cancers absolutely part of the fabric, the threat of our family.
[2:39] \[SPEAKER_01\]: growing up at a first cousin, and he must learn to create.
[2:41] \[SPEAKER_01\]: She was a singer songwriter in the 1970s and 1980s.
[2:44] \[SPEAKER_01\]: She wrote all the music for the spinners and the stylistics.
[2:48] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You don't know who that is, but there are lots of lots of people who do.
[2:53] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Linda wrote 54 hits in all and her most famous song was the greatest love of all.
[2:58] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So she wrote that song in 1977, but it actually received, it's a claim, when Whitney Houston would release that song to the world in March of 1986, and at that time it would spend 14 weeks at the top of the charts, only my cousin Linda would never know, because Linda died of
[3:20] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I was 16 years old and my hero died.
[3:23] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Her life and ultimately her death gave birth to my life's purpose, and I did the only thing I knew how to do.
[3:28] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I became a doctor, I became a surgeon, I became the first fellowship trained breast surgeon in Philadelphia, the first oncoplastic surgeon in Pennsylvania, and my career and my life's work is all about changing the conversation around
[3:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: in our current system, women basically farm their health out to people who are ill-prepared to help them with it and we don't have a health care system.
[3:59] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We have a sick care system.
[4:02] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, absolutely.
[4:03] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I was just at the pediatrician with my son this morning, kind of saying the same thing, just that conventional medicine doesn't necessarily address everything that we need to address.
[4:13] \[SPEAKER_01\]: No.
[4:14] \[SPEAKER_01\]: it.
[4:15] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It addresses anything that we need to address.
[4:17] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Listen, if you fall and break your arm, if you have a ruptured appendix, if you, even if you have a heart attack,
[4:26] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Conventional medicine is great in that acute situation, but for health promotion, it doesn't exist.
[4:37] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And for the management of chronic disease, there's nothing that our system offers that helps anyone.
[4:45] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We are a system that is only rewarded when people fail.
[4:51] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Doctors can't get paid, hospitals don't get paid, pharmaceutical companies don't get paid, device companies don't get paid when people are well.
[5:00] \[SPEAKER_01\]: They only get paid when people are sick.
[5:02] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So our system is 100% reliant on people getting sick.
[5:07] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And as a result, we created this environment that supports that system.
[5:15] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We feed our people garbage food.
[5:18] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We put a lot of additives in the food that makes the food unhealthy.
[5:22] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And then we just wait and depending on your exposures and what you come into contact with,
[5:33] \[SPEAKER_01\]: In addition to what your own inherent system is capable of tolerating, will dictate when you come into the system, but it is completely designed to have you come into the system at some point.
[5:47] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Absolutely.
[5:49] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So let's shift back a little bit.
[5:51] \[SPEAKER_00\]: You shared the story about your cousin, which is incredibly heartbreaking.
[5:55] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I appreciate you sharing that.
[5:57] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And it just does seem like
[5:59] \[SPEAKER_00\]: All of us know someone that has been affected by breast cancer if not the listener that's listening to day has been personally affected by it was there a moment for you outside of your cousin that shifted the way that you started to approach healing.
[6:16] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Well.
[6:18] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I did practice breast surgery for a long time and I did it long enough for my aunt to be diagnosed and long enough for my mother and then at 46 it was my turn to hear those words and I'm sitting in the office of my friend and colleague in physician and he's telling me that I need surgery and chemo and radiation and the things that I say all day every day without hesitation or reservation but I can assure you when these words are coming at you they have a different meaning
[6:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And despite the fact that I was a cancer surgeon and running an NIH accredited cancer program in that time in space, even though I knew what he was telling me was the gold standard, was standard of care.
[7:08] \[SPEAKER_01\]: In that time in space, all I could hear was this voice
[7:17] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I didn't know what that something more was.
[7:19] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm a conventionally trained physician running a conventional cancer program.
[7:26] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But I couldn't quiet that voice, and it sent me on a journey, a journey to ultimately discover that we are doing it really, really wrong.
[7:38] \[SPEAKER_01\]: in the area of chronic disease and probably the best example of how we're doing it wrong is in cancer because in cancer all our focus is on the tumor but the tumor is not the problem.
[7:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: The tumor is the symptom of the problem and all along the way
[7:55] \[SPEAKER_01\]: All that we're doing in conventional medicine is symptom management.
[7:59] \[SPEAKER_01\]: That's essentially what's happening.
[8:01] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Symptom management.
[8:02] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Have a symptom.
[8:03] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Take something to suppress it.
[8:05] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Get another symptom.
[8:06] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Take another something to suppress it.
[8:08] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Get a third symptom.
[8:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Take a third thing to suppress it.
[8:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And on and on and on it goes.
[8:15] \[SPEAKER_01\]: and the goal of the system is to keep you alive as long as they can consuming more and more and more things, right?
[8:25] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But that is not what is good for the patient and there is no pill or
[8:35] \[SPEAKER_01\]: otherwise, that is going to make someone with cancer healthier, right?
[8:41] \[SPEAKER_01\]: The only thing that can make you healthier is to get to the root cause of what is leading to the cancer.
[8:48] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Cancer is a normal response to an abnormal environment.
[8:52] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And what we all have to do when we face these diagnosis and let's face it, it's hard to not know someone who has gone through our breast cancer diagnosis or be someone who has gone through our breast cancer diagnosis.
[9:09] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And the work is figuring out why you got that diagnosis.
[9:14] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And it's not about blame or shame, right?
[9:17] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's not about, oh my God, look at all of these things that I did.
[9:21] \[SPEAKER_01\]: to get cancer.
[9:22] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's not about that.
[9:23] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's about discovering how you can shift that environment from the environment of stress to the environment of joy because the chemistry is very different.
[9:35] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so cancer is just that response to this transformed environment.
[9:41] \[SPEAKER_01\]: and if it can transform to this unhealthy place, it can also transform to an environment that fosters health.
[9:52] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I do want to get into the ways that we overcomplicate this as women, but quickly, I am curious when you started shifting your perspective on healing, my mouth sharp, it was in that moment that you received your own diagnosis, but did you receive resistance from your colleagues that there had to be more of an integrative way to manage and deal with symptoms?
[10:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: My diagnosis was in 2016.
[10:14] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I ended up leaving surgery in 2019.
[10:16] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So,
[10:19] \[SPEAKER_01\]: early on in this journey, I had no idea what I was looking for, but God is good, right?
[10:26] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And we get what we need when we're ready to receive it, right?
[10:32] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And had someone told me about functional medicine in 2015, I would have done the same thing that people say to me even now, and that's
[10:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think it has a lot more acceptance now than it ever did, but even when I left surgery in 2019, everyone just assumed that I had lost my mind or my skills, maybe both, right?
[11:00] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And, you know, I immediately went from the smartest person in the room to the nut job.
[11:06] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And that's okay because
[11:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We all fear change and we fear what we don't understand and we kind of put it down.
[11:17] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But in order to be as disruptive as I am, I had to create that narrative that was so unlike what people had heard before.
[11:31] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so, you know, I don't do it for the purposes of grandstanding.
[11:36] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I do it for the purposes of, you know, this is the truth.
[11:41] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And you have to really spill over the apple cart for people to be able to see the truth.
[11:49] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And
[11:49] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It was not an easy transition, but that it was so crystal clear to me why I got sick.
[11:58] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Once I learned about functional medicine, once I took those blinders off, that had been so firmly installed into place in my residency and my fellowship and in my training.
[12:11] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Once I took those blinders off and I could could see all of these things that were dogmatic, rather than scientific or factual, once you see it, you can't unsee it, once you learn it, you can't unlearn it, once you know it, you can't unknow it.
[12:30] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And that's where I was.
[12:31] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So it didn't matter that people were naysayers, they just don't know.
[12:49] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I think there's just so many opinions, there's conflicting advice when it comes to our house.
[12:55] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So from your perspective, what do you believe that we're over-complicating when it comes to house?
[13:00] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I know this answer could probably be.
[13:01] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It whole up as well.
[13:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, we could spend the rest of the time talking about this, you know, the main thing is that we're so trained to do more right take a pill to do add something in we're so trained that if something's wrong we have to add something in but the truth is that most most of the cures are in simplicity and one of the fastest ways to heal is by fasting.
[13:35] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I think one of our biggest societal downfalls is that we are almost universally overfed.
[13:45] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And we're so conditioned to think that we need to eat for energy think about this because we are modern beings living on a very old gene code.
[13:54] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So,
[13:56] \[SPEAKER_01\]: thousands and thousands and thousands of not millions of years ago, you know, you would come out of the cave and encounter a saber-tooth tiger, right?
[14:06] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's not like you could hold your hand up and say, hey, I haven't had my breakfast yet.
[14:11] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Can we just like postpone this until I'm fed?
[14:14] \[SPEAKER_01\]: No.
[14:15] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And when did we hunt?
[14:17] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We hunted when we were hungry, right?
[14:21] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So we are meant to function optimally
[14:26] \[SPEAKER_01\]: as well in a fasted state, as we are in a fed state, maybe even better, because your senses are so heightened when you're in a fasted state.
[14:37] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I remember growing up and the narrative at the time was that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
[14:46] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Well, whenever I ate breakfast, I got tired, right?
[14:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I got sleepy.
[14:53] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It didn't occur to me till high school that like if I had an important day, if I had a test that morning, like when you were going in for the SATs, it it finally occurred to me that I shouldn't be eating if I need my brain sharp.
[15:14] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I figured it out on my own.
[15:17] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I figured out in college that eating after six o'clock at night was very bad for you.
[15:24] \[SPEAKER_01\]: That's that's why everyone's gaining the freshman 15.
[15:28] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So I figured these things out for myself long before I learned about it in through my functional medicine training.
[15:37] \[SPEAKER_01\]: but this is the biggest lie that we tell ourselves and I think we do it because this is the narrative that is perpetuated but remember most of the narratives, most of the truisms that were taught are put there
[15:59] \[SPEAKER_01\]: on purpose to create disease and dysfunction so that you turn to pharmaceuticals.
[16:06] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So for me, it's really about doing less.
[16:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Eating less, less pharmaceuticals, less, less.
[16:16] \[SPEAKER_01\]: getting back to nature and getting back to how our bodies are meant to function.
[16:22] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We're meant to eat far less food than we have been trained to eat.
[16:29] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We're meant to move far more rest far less sleep at night,
[16:41] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We really, as a culture need to be more respectful of our origins because our genes have not evolved so much.
[16:53] \[SPEAKER_00\]: so many good points.
[16:54] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I am wholeheartedly agree with you.
[16:56] \[SPEAKER_00\]: My sister and I talk about our society being over that all the time and all the snacking.
[17:01] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I remember reading before I even had kids.
[17:03] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It's a French parenting book.
[17:04] \[SPEAKER_00\]: They bring you up, they they and they were talking about snacks in America versus just having, in a sense, three square meals a day over in France.
[17:14] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But like just this idea of, oh, we have to make sure if we're going to the zoo, we have to have snacks.
[17:17] \[SPEAKER_00\]: If we're going to the library, God forbid that we're hungry.
[17:20] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I try to tell my kids sometimes, which I know this is a controversial take, but to me, hunger is not an emergency.
[17:26] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And then I say that as a generality, like obviously, you can get to the point of hunger and innovation.
[17:31] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Most people are not at that point in this country.
[17:35] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But yeah, I think that it is a controversial take, especially in modern times right now, we have this whole body positive movement.
[17:43] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Why can't taking care of our bodies be
[17:46] \[SPEAKER_00\]: listening to our instincts and not necessarily needing to overfeed.
[17:49] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So I agree.
[17:50] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I don't know if I said anything you want to comment on.
[17:53] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Well, I think part of the body positivity movement was very, very toxic because I get loving yourself, but I don't get creating this false narrative that, you know, there's all kinds of healthy.
[18:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: There's not all kinds of healthy.
[18:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm sorry.
[18:13] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Right, you may not show signs of dysfunction, but I'm gonna say that's a yet, right?
[18:20] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So maybe you have pretty good genes and your detoxification system has been able to compensate so far.
[18:29] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But if you're overweight, it's catching up with you eventually.
[18:32] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I promise you.
[18:33] \[SPEAKER_01\]: If you're overweight, there's metabolic dysfunction and it's gonna translate into some kind of disease process.
[18:40] \[SPEAKER_01\]: right?
[18:40] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I don't know if you're going to have heart disease or a stroke or fatty liver or breast cancer or colon cancer.
[18:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I don't know what you're going to have, but you're going to have something.
[18:53] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And this is not about like hating yourself for being overweight or anything like that.
[18:59] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But this is about
[19:01] \[SPEAKER_01\]: you understanding that there is no version of health that is you, it that includes you being overweight.
[19:09] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And that whole snack thing, like I think that's probably the question that drives me the craziest when people ask me over social media, what do you snack on?
[19:21] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I don't snack.
[19:23] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm not a child.
[19:25] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I can get through.
[19:26] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I mean, there are two days a week where I only eat once, because I do intermittent fasting.
[19:34] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I do 72 hour fast once a quarter.
[19:41] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And every single day, I have at least a 14, 16, 18 hour fast overnight.
[19:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: right from the my last meal of one day to my first meal of the other.
[19:54] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So I don't snack because my metabolic flexibility is unbelievable.
[20:01] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I wish I could touch my toes with the same flexibility in my metabolism.
[20:05] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah.
[20:06] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Well, and I've heard mixed reviews for fasting as well.
[20:09] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'm more on your team and saying that I think especially fasting for overall health longterm health, getting to a top of G, I believe that's third word where your body starts right about horrible cells, which I don't know if you want to speak to that.
[20:22] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'm curious going back to your diagnosis.
[20:24] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I mean, did you do the various treatments plus fasting?
[20:28] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I guess, how did you heal your body?
[20:30] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It's 10 years post.
[20:31] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So I got a lot worse before I got better.
[20:34] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So I want to put that out there.
[20:37] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I had thyroid not breast.
[20:41] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I don't recommend trying to manage it yourself the way that I did.
[20:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But in any event, thank God, in three years, I was better, but it took all of those three years to get me better.
[20:55] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I also walk a very tight line in that I don't eat foods that are bad for me.
[21:02] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I don't drink things that are bad for me.
[21:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I don't eat things that aren't real food.
[21:08] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I move my body a lot.
[21:11] \[SPEAKER_01\]: If there's one part of me that is probably a little incongruent with what I put out there to the world, is that I probably don't sleep enough.
[21:23] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I work way, way, way, way too much.
[21:26] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm on a big mission because I am forever changing how we screen for breast cancer, how we survive breast cancer.
[21:35] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So, you know, that's a big job.
[21:37] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But
[21:39] \[SPEAKER_01\]: when I was trying to heal, I opted not to do any of the conventional treatments, that is not to say that I am against conventional medical treatments for cancer.
[21:55] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I am not.
[21:56] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think everyone needs to get what they need and sometimes it's a surgery, sometimes it's radiation, sometimes it's chemotherapy, sometimes it's all of it, but it always has to be done in conjunction with all of the pillars of health, the foundations of health, because doing
[22:27] \[SPEAKER_01\]: cancer is not a chemotherapy deficiency, it's not a surgery deficiency, it's not a radiation deficiency.
[22:35] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Cancer is a response to abnormalities in your metabolism, in your immune
[22:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: reversing cancer, healing from cancer has to involve fixing that environment, restoring that environment, restoring health, restoring homeostasis.
[23:05] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And what everyone needs to do that is going to be different.
[23:09] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I had a huge mold problem that I did not know about.
[23:13] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Right?
[23:14] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So my
[23:16] \[SPEAKER_01\]: My illness actually, you know, taking out my thyroid, which is what was proposed, would have never healed me, never.
[23:28] \[SPEAKER_01\]: because it wasn't dealing with the root cause.
[23:32] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And even before I recognized that it was a mold problem, I would get a little better.
[23:39] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I would fix this or that, and then I would get worse again, and we didn't know why.
[23:45] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And ultimately, it took a while to discover and then to remediate.
[23:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Right?
[23:51] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But that's my why, right?
[23:54] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So that's not gonna work for everyone else, which is why I say for everyone, you need to take a long look at what got you to your diagnosis and work on that, right?
[24:08] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Like me putting you on a mode protocol if you don't have mold, isn't gonna help you, right?
[24:15] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So again, I'm not against conventional medicine.
[24:20] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I meet everyone where they are and you need to get what you need, but it's always going to include
[24:29] \[SPEAKER_01\]: eating right, fasting, drinking clean water, moving your body, lifting heavy things, avoiding toxins, having detoxification practices, and living life purposefully, right?
[24:44] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We all need to, we all have our own unique purpose.
[24:49] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Mine is not yours, yours is not mine.
[24:51] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Mine is not more important than yours, yours is not more important than mine.
[25:00] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, absolutely.
[25:00] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I was going to talk about productivity.
[25:03] \[SPEAKER_00\]: When it comes to our breast health, but I think you just filled us in right there.
[25:06] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It's it goes back to these things the our bodies were just a design to do naturally and again we do live in a super toxic environment here.
[25:14] \[SPEAKER_00\]: We do.
[25:16] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And you're not going to be able to control everything, right?
[25:19] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But at the end of the day, breast health is health.
[25:22] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And the same things that are going to give you healthy breasts are going to give you a healthy brain, healthy mood, healthy heart, healthy skin, healthy joints, healthy bones, healthy libido, healthy relationships, healthy everything, right?
[25:38] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so we all need to focus on those foundations.
[25:46] \[SPEAKER_01\]: and then do the best we can with everything else.
[25:49] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So, you know, I, I'm not not wearing makeup.
[25:56] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I use a clean makeup brand.
[25:58] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I do the best I can.
[26:01] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Is it 100% perfect?
[26:03] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Probably not.
[26:05] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Is it way better than, you know, most commercially available stuff?
[26:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yes.
[26:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I have almost completely cut out like personal care products.
[26:18] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I don't, I just don't do very much outside of put almond oil on my skin.
[26:25] \[SPEAKER_01\]: right, like I just want to minimize the amount of toxins that I come into contact with, and that includes how I'm screening for breast cancer.
[26:36] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So one of my biggest platforms is we are using a test that causes cancer to screen for breast cancer.
[26:45] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Make it make sense.
[26:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And we know that the more mammograms you have in your life, the higher your risk is of being diagnosed with breast cancer.
[26:55] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And when you are diagnosed with breast cancer, it's often in a population that has no symptoms.
[27:05] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And we know that 20 to 30 percent of the women that we diagnosed with cancer every year, all they have are cells.
[27:16] \[SPEAKER_01\]: and they would have never in their lifetime developed the disease, right, breast cancer, they would have never developed a lump.
[27:25] \[SPEAKER_01\]: They would have never been at risk.
[27:29] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And yet, once we diagnose them and they go through treatment,
[27:34] \[SPEAKER_01\]: They have a 65% increase in cardiovascular disease, they have an increase in neurodegenerative disease, they have an increase in osteoporosis, and we are actually because we're using a test that is a radiation-based test, we're actually causing some of these cancers.
[27:54] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So, this is a big proportion of the population.
[27:57] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We diagnosed 310,000 women with breast cancer last year.
[28:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: If 20 to 30 percent of them are over diagnosis, this is 60 to 90,000 women every year.
[28:13] \[SPEAKER_01\]: They get a diagnosis of breast cancer when they didn't need one.
[28:19] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And this is a huge problem.
[28:21] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Now, I am not saying that breast cancer is in a problem, but we've been so conditioned to believe that we'll find it early and save women's lives.
[28:32] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But the truth is that no matter how many mammograms we do every year, the same number of women die of breast cancer.
[28:38] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We are not impacting the bottom line.
[28:41] \[SPEAKER_01\]: No matter how many mammograms we do every year, the same number of women present with aggressive disease.
[28:48] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's not impacting who dies a breast cancer.
[28:52] \[SPEAKER_01\]: All that it's impacting is who carries that diagnosis.
[28:56] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And for that reason, we're not saving lives.
[28:59] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And we're also not saving breasts.
[29:03] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so my point is, I believe that we should screen for breast cancer, but we should screen for breast cancer with things that are safe.
[29:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: This isn't even about painless for me, although I think it's definitely a bonus that when people come to me and come to perfection imaging to screen for breast cancer, they have what is comparable to a spotlight experience.
[29:27] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But more importantly, I'm not putting them in harm's way, I'm not putting them in any danger.
[29:34] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I'm doing more than just imaging the breast.
[29:36] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We're checking the tears for biological precursors of breast cancer.
[29:42] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We're checking for inflammatory markers.
[29:45] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We are doing a metabolic assessment.
[29:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So we are able to help women to prevent breast cancer diagnoses.
[29:54] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And we're also not sending everyone for a biopsy.
[29:58] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We're saying, okay, we see something.
[30:01] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Let's not panic.
[30:03] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Let's take another look.
[30:05] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And if this is something that appears to be progressing, okay, we'll pay attention to it.
[30:13] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But if you're asymptomatic and you just have what looks like a nodule on your QD scan,
[30:20] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm watching that and I know that it's safe to do that.
[30:24] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'm about to drive, uh, I living the Columbus area of Ohio.
[30:29] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'm like, I'm going to come see you in Philadelphia.
[30:31] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I don't think it's that far, but that sounds.
[30:33] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I've had so much fear around getting a mammogram.
[30:37] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'm 30, I'll be 38 this year.
[30:39] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I didn't, and I know that is 40 the age when they start doing that.
[30:42] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Or is it 35?
[30:44] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I mean, it depends who you ask, but in general, the recommendations are that you started 40, unless you have strong family history or something like that.
[30:56] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But these recommendations are not unlike,
[31:00] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Everything else that's happening in conventional medicine, they very intentionally want to get you into the system and get you started because they will almost certainly either call you back for additional views or do a biopsy of which 80% of the biopsies that are done are done for benign changes.
[31:20] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So 80% of women who have biopsies didn't need to have a biopsy.
[31:25] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And then a certain percentage, they will either find or cause a cancer.
[31:33] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And this is it's big business for the system.
[31:37] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's not good for the women, but it's big business for the system.
[31:40] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, I think that's my hesitation.
[31:42] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I just, I'm not someone that is reckless about my health.
[31:45] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I take pretty good care of myself.
[31:47] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I drink a little bit too much.
[31:48] \[SPEAKER_00\]: That's probably what I should stop doing.
[31:50] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But yeah, I am just a little bit skeptical, and maybe conspiratorial about some of the information that I've heard.
[31:57] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so yeah, the fear is what has kept me, I'm just not in power.
[32:02] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So I feel like there needs to be more what you're doing in Philadelphia.
[32:07] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I just wish that was more accessible to the majority of the
[32:11] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Well, I'm putting up 50 in the next five years, so they're going to be great.
[32:15] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Well, that's great.
[32:15] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Well, there's so many more rabbit trails we could have gone down, but I think I'm going to leave it at this for this episode.
[32:21] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So Jen, where can listeners connect with you if they want to hear more.
[32:26] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, amazing.
[32:27] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So go on our website, perfection imaging and perfection is spelled with qt in the middle.
[32:33] \[SPEAKER_01\]: My, all of my programming for women who are looking to prevent a breast cancer diagnosis or they've received a breast cancer diagnosis, you can go to gen siminsmed.com and my gen has two ends.
[32:46] \[SPEAKER_01\]: My book, The Smart Woman's Guide to Breast Cancer, is basically the Bible for anyone who wants to promote restore recapture their breast health, and it is also very preventative focused.
[33:05] \[SPEAKER_01\]: and then you can follow me on all the social channels at Dr. Jen Simmons.
[33:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Again, my Jen has two ends.
[33:13] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I have my own podcast called Keeping a Breast with Dr. Jen.
[33:16] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We release a new episode each week.
[33:19] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So lots and lots of places to find me and
[33:23] \[SPEAKER_01\]: and get touches, but basically anything that has to do with the breast, we have some way of helping you.
[33:33] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, absolutely.
[33:34] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I love the podcast name.
[33:35] \[SPEAKER_00\]: That's very exciting.
[33:36] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Quickly, as we're up up here, I always ask my guest just to rapid fire questions here at the very end.
[33:40] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And the first one is, what has been a beneficial resource in your life that you want to share with the listeners?
[33:45] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I know that's broad, so you can share whatever you'd like.
[33:48] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Oh my goodness.
[33:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think that everyone should know about the environmental work in group EWG.org.
[33:56] \[SPEAKER_01\]: One of the most simple resources that they have on there, they have two that I use all the time.
[34:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: One is the dirty dozen in the clean 15.
[34:07] \[SPEAKER_01\]: These are the foods that you must
[34:09] \[SPEAKER_01\]: if you're going to consume them, you must consume them organic.
[34:14] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And the clean 15 are the 15 foods that you don't necessarily have to buy organic.
[34:20] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You can buy them conventional.
[34:22] \[SPEAKER_01\]: They update every year.
[34:23] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So I think that that is something that everyone should be aware of.
[34:28] \[SPEAKER_01\]: The other thing that the environmental working group in its EWG.org, the other thing that they have is a listing of what is in your water by zip code.
[34:40] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Because everyone should know the contaminants in their water so that they can have a filtration system that filters them out.
[34:58] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, absolutely.
[34:59] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'll be sure to everything that you have mentioned today.
[35:01] \[SPEAKER_00\]: We'll put that in the show notes as well as this.
[35:02] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And it looks like when you go to the EWG.org, it immediately will send you if you put EMLN.
[35:07] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And it'll put you into that dirty dozen claim 15.
[35:10] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So that's really it last question for you.
[35:13] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Is what is something you can't stop talking about?
[35:16] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Oh, yeah, for me, it's absolutely how to screen safely for breast cancer and that it's about so much more than just imaging, I mean imaging alone is not enough and if we would.
[35:31] \[SPEAKER_01\]: screen, not just women if we would screen everyone for metabolic health with the same bigger that we screen for breast cancer or for prostate cancer and helped people to correct their metabolic health because less than 10% of Americans are metabolically healthy.
[35:51] \[SPEAKER_01\]: If we would monitor and help people to maximize optimized our metabolic health, we would prevent the vast majority of chronic disease.
[36:05] \[SPEAKER_00\]: such a good point.
[36:06] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think even for some of the skeptics or if there's something that someone heard today that they don't necessarily agree with and you're entirely in charge of your children's health and they shouldn't have to wait until adulthood to know what it is to be healthy.
[36:23] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We should start them from the very beginning.
[36:26] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And in most places, and I'm sure your home is no exception, the women are the center of what happens in the household, especially when it comes to health.
[36:39] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so we have a lot of power.
[36:42] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I just hope that we all use our power for good.
[36:46] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, great point.
[36:48] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Thanks so much.
[36:50] \[SPEAKER_00\]: What did you think of the episode?
[36:51] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I hope you enjoyed the conversation.
[36:53] \[SPEAKER_00\]: To learn more about today's guest, including links, resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at minimalismomspodcast.com where you can find the entire podcast archive as well as my book minimalismoms living and parenting with simplicity.
[37:09] \[SPEAKER_00\]: or other ways to connect or work with me online.
[37:12] \[SPEAKER_00\]: If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, or YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and leave a rating a review of your favorite episode.
[37:24] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Lastly, sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends and social media is very helpful and will encourage others on their journey to think more and do with plus.

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