Today I am speaking with Dr. Jenn Simmons, MD on all things breast cancer, breast cancer prevention, and treatment. If you are interested in joining my Female Longevity Optimization Group, ⁠learn more here: https://www.skool.com/femalelongevityoptimization/about

About Dr. Jenn Simmons

Integrative Oncologist, Author, Podcast Host, and the founder of PerfeQTion Imaging Her journey into breast cancer care began with a personal tragedy. At the age of 16, Dr. Jenn's cousin, acclaimed singer-songwriter Linda Creed, died of metastatic breast cancer just weeks after Whitney Houston's recording of her iconic song, "The Greatest Love of All," topped the charts. This loss became a defining moment, inspiring Dr. Jenn to dedicate her life to transforming how we approach breast cancer treatment and prevention. Dr. Jenn became Philadelphia's first fellowship-trained breast surgeon and spent 17 years leading the field. This personal journey led her to create Real Health MD in 2019, a practice dedicated to holistic healing for breast cancer. It integrates conventional wisdom with root cause medicine and the drivers of health: nutrition, lifestyle changes, detoxification, and stress management. Dr. Jenn's innovative approach doesn't stop there. As the founder of PerfeQTion Imaging, she is establishing safe imaging centers across the nation, armed with revolutionary technology that promises to redefine breast cancer screening. This technology is not only fast and safe but also comfortable, affordable, radiation-free, and boasts 40 times the resolution of MRI. It has received FDA clearance, signaling a new era in breast health and breast cancer screening. Beyond her professional endeavors, Dr. Jenn is a devoted wife, mother, stepmother, grandmother, and athlete. Her life's mission is deeply personal, rooted in her cousin's memory, and driven by a desire to make a lasting impact on all those who desire breast health. As she famously says, "Breast Health is Health!"

Dr. Jenn Simmons Website: https://www.realhealthmd.com/

Dr. Jenn Simmons Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjennsimmons/

Kayla Barnes Website: https://www.kaylabarnes.com/

Kayla Barnes Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kaylabarnes/

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction and Personal Journey

06:47 Transition from Surgery to Functional Medicine

14:53 Importance of Nutrition and Functional Medicine Training

19:45 Challenges in the Conventional Medical System

25:29 Environmental and Metabolic Factors in Breast Cancer

32:23 Limitations of Mammograms and the Need for Self-Examination

40:40 QT Imaging: Safer and More Accurate Breast Health Screening 46:53 Prevention and Lifestyle Changes for Breast Health

48:20 Informed Decision-Making and Living with Purpose

48:50 Addressing the Downsides of Chemotherapy 51:14 The Importance of Functional and Integrative Medicine

52:43 Empowering Patients to Make Informed Decisions

56:51 The Benefits of Fasting During Chemotherapy

01:16:39 Hormone Replacement Therapy for Women with Breast Cancer

01:31:20 Exploring Additional Therapies: High-Dose Vitamin C and Ozone Therapy

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00.480] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Welcome to the Longevity Optimization podcast, where we discuss longevity, optimal health, nutrition, peak performance, cognitive excellence, and so much more. Doctor Simmons, it is such a pleasure to have you here with me today.

[00:00:14.400] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Thank you. Although when I hear Doctor Simmons, I think about my father in law.

[00:00:18.480] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Oh.

[00:00:20.870] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Funny.

[00:00:21.410] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

The medical practice runs in the family.

[00:00:24.670] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

It does. Well, I'm the first doctor in my side of the family, but my father in law was a physician, and when I married my husband, I was already a physician. So I had used my maiden name for a little while and then changed my name to Simmons. But no one's called me doctor Simmons in many years, because when I left surgery, and I'm sure we're going to get all into it, definitely. But when I left surgery, I kind of went in that, like, Doctor Jen, be more relatable kind of space. That's just funny to hear you say that.

[00:01:04.330] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Well, doctor Jenn. Yes. I am so excited about this conversation, and it's so important. We're gonna be talking all things breast health, breast cancer, and you have an incredible background. Will you share a little bit of your story?

[00:01:19.450] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Yeah. I actually don't know a time, I don't remember a time in my life where I didn't know about breast cancer. It was really, like, completely part of the fabric of my upbringing, because I come from a family where nearly everyone, every woman in my family got breast cancer. So as a child, I had a first cousin. Her name was Linda Creed. You are way too young to know who she is, but I'm gonna try to relate it to you. So she was a singer songwriter in the 1970s and 1980s. She wrote all the music for the Spinners and the stylistics. She wrote 54 hits.

[00:01:56.970] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Wow.

[00:01:57.530] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And her most famous song was the greatest love Fall. So she wrote that song in 1977 as the title track to the movie the Greatest, starring Muhammad Ali. But it really received its acclaim when Whitney Houston recorded that song and released it to the world in March of 1986. And at that time, it would be number one on the charts for 14 weeks. I mean, there wasn't a person alive who didn't know every single word to that song.

[00:02:24.290] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah.

[00:02:24.990] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And my cousin never knew because she died of metastatic breast cancer one month after Whitney released that song.

[00:02:35.150] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Wow.

[00:02:36.140] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And it was a devastating time. I mean, I was 16 years old, and my hero died, and her life, and ultimately her death gave birth to my life's purpose. And I never wanted another woman, another family, another community to have to suffer the way that mine suffered.

[00:02:58.460] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Wow.

[00:02:59.080] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And so I did the only thing I knew how to do. I became a doctor. So I became a doctor. I became a surgeon, and I became the first fellowship trained breast surgeon in Philadelphia.

[00:03:10.980] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I love that.

[00:03:12.300] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Yeah. And, you know, it was really amazing. And I loved being a surgeon. I loved being a surgeon. I mean, to literally hold someone's life in your hands and to have that person trust you so totally and so completely that they are willing to go to sleep and be helpless and completely leave it up to you as to how they do. I mean, it was truly the greatest privilege that anyone could imagine. And I am so grateful to God for having given me that opportunity and that skill. And I was about 15 years into surgical practice and at the top of my game and running the department and running the cancer program for my hospital, and I'm a wife and a mother and an athlete and a philanthropist, and I have all these balls in the air, and I go from probably being one of the most high functioning people you've ever met to a person who couldn't walk across the room because I didn't have the breath in my body. And I went. I underwent a tremendous, intensive three day workup. And at the end of those three days, I find myself sitting in the office of my friend and colleague and physician, and he tells me that I need surgery and chemo, radiation, and I'm going to be on lifelong medication.

[00:04:48.860] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And I completely appreciated the irony. I mean, these are things that I said all day, every day, without hesitation or reservation, but when those words are coming at you feels quite different. And that was the first time ever in my career that I really thought about the why.

[00:05:15.390] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Wow.

[00:05:16.180] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And I had treated thousands of women for breast cancer at this point.

[00:05:21.140] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah.

[00:05:21.610] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And when they asked me why, I would tell them, it's multifactorial. There's nothing you did. There's nothing you can do. It's just something that happens. It's bad luck. And suddenly, those answers fell very short of acceptable.

[00:05:42.700] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Wow.

[00:05:43.820] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And despite the fact that I knew that that was standard of care and exactly what I would have offered someone else in the exact same position, I refused treatment.

[00:05:57.880] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Wow.

[00:05:59.360] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And my doctor told me I would die. And it wasn't that I didn't believe him. I understood what he meant in that if I didn't do anything differently, I would have died.

[00:06:14.120] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah.

[00:06:14.970] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

But something inside of me, you can call it God, you can call it universe, you can call it whatever you want to call it. Something inside of me said, there's more. Go find it. And that was really the beginning of my journey. And, you know, this is how a surgeon walks away from a surgical practice and goes into functional medicine, because the second you become a patient, the world changes significantly.

[00:06:46.170] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Wow. I mean, that's such a powerful story. It really is. And it's just. It's such a big move to go from being a surgeon.

[00:06:56.070] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

It is.

[00:06:57.030] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

To exploring the why and wanting to get to the root cause. But I love that. I mean, obviously, it's a rare case that that happens. Right. But I love that we're at a place where we're starting to ask the why.

[00:07:12.030] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Yeah. Well, I think, you know, for so many people, unless you are put in a position where you have to make some major choice, you often are not going to make a hard one. Right. So for someone to walk away when they've completed training, when they're arguably at the top of their field, and they can, like, put the car in cruise control.

[00:07:43.150] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Right.

[00:07:45.350] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Who would suddenly take off their blinders and walk away from that. Right. So I think that these things that happen to us, they are our callings, but they also ignite curiosity. And that is what is so important for all of us to maintain curiosity, because if you're not asking these questions, you're not improving. And truthfully, none of us should be in cruise control. It's not where we should be. Right. We should all be striving to be better. And, you know, that's what you're about all the time. You're always trying to be better. We all have an obligation to do that, especially our guides in the healthcare field.

[00:08:36.890] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah.

[00:08:37.720] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And our healthcare system, we shouldn't even call it that, really. I mean, it's really a sick care system. It's so broken. And that's why it's broken. Because really, the only way to get into our healthcare system is to fail.

[00:08:54.140] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah, absolutely.

[00:08:55.310] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And whose goal is failure? Like, none of us.

[00:09:00.480] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah.

[00:09:02.510] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

The only way to get into the system is to be sick. And that is oftentimes, you know, my story is unique to me, but it's not so unique in that many of the people that have made that transition from the conventional medical space to integrative medicine or functional medicine or whatever you want to call it, many of them have done it because they faced their own illness and learned that our system that we're operating in, no pun intended, is broken. It doesn't work. And, you know, for me, I was very fortunate in the very beginning of my journey when, you know, I decided that I wasn't going to have surgery and I wasn't going to have chemo, and I wasn't going to have radiation. And so I knew I had to do something, though, right? Like, nothing. Wasn't a choice. And so I decided that I should learn more about nutrition. And as a medical doctor, we get 15 hours worth of training around nutrition our first year of medical school, and then literally never again. And I have eleven years of higher training.

[00:10:25.910] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah.

[00:10:26.430] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And I had 15 hours in my first year of medical school, and that was it. So I decided that I needed to know more about that. And, you know, as physicians, we kind of suffer in areas of ignorance. So I thought that I knew enough about nutrition because I wasn't overweight. So I thought that I had that figured out right. But I decided that that would be a good place to start. So I enrolled in a coaching program called the Institute for Integrative Nutrition after, like, driving them literally insane, because I was calling them every day because it was, like, $5,000 or something like that.

[00:11:08.860] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I took this one, too, actually.

[00:11:10.020] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

You did?

[00:11:10.430] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I did, yeah.

[00:11:11.250] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

So funny, Joshua. So I was calling them every day. Are you sure I'm gonna learn something? Are you sure this is going to be a worthwhile endeavor for me? I'm a doctor. I'm this. Yes, yes, yes. You're gonna learn. I promise. So I'm sitting in one of the very first lectures, and this tall, lanky guy walks on the stage with his big, toothy grin, and he introduces himself as a functional medicine physician. And I had been a doctor for, like, 20 years at this point, and I'm like, there's no such thing as a functional medicine physician. So what is this quack talking about? And then I remember that I'm sick, and I'm there for a reason. So I check my ego at the door, and I tune in, and thank God I did, because as it turns out, the quack was none other than Mark Hyman.

[00:12:07.050] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I love him.

[00:12:08.740] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Right? So in 20, like now, you say, of course you should know who Mark Hyman is. But this was 2016, and even though he had written some books and gained some acclaim, he was still very much considered a quack to the world. So I listened to him speak, and within three minutes, I knew exactly why I got sick.

[00:12:38.160] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Wow.

[00:12:38.900] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

I got sick so that I could be in that room on that day to hear him, what he would say would literally telescope the rest of my life. And not only was I going to learn how to heal myself, but I was going to learn how to heal generations of women from breast cancer.

[00:13:05.790] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Wow. I love it. I love the whole story. It's absolutely amazing. So you enrolled in iin, started learning.

[00:13:15.450] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

About nutrition, and also enrolled in IFM at the same time.

[00:13:20.060] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Amazing.

[00:13:20.980] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

I did both of them. I actually spent the next three years just completely engrossed in all things functional medicine. So I dove into everything and still operated all day, studied all night. I was not a very good wife and mother during those years, admittedly. And I was also trying to figure out how to heal myself, which I should have gotten help, but I didn't. I didn't know enough. I didn't know who to ask the questions to because the people that I knew were in the conventional medical space.

[00:14:02.850] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah.

[00:14:03.430] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And I was learning these things along the way from the functional medicine people. But I'm from Philadelphia. Philadelphia is very, very conventional, very convenient. Even now, there's about three functional medicine doctors in Philadelphia aside from me. I mean, it is just. It's just not there. And so I didn't. I didn't really have anyone to turn to to help me. And so it took a long time for me to figure out what was wrong and how to help myself, but I learned how to ask the questions. I learned how to do the work. And sometimes when you do it yourself, it's an even bigger lesson.

[00:14:51.770] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah.

[00:14:52.930] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Because you learn more from your failures than you do your successes. And I learned what didn't work right. And then when I was done training and I got my functional medicine certification, I just. I couldn't step back into my old shoes. It was like a bell that I couldn't unring. So once I got to that place, I didn't want to be part of that system, that broken system, because, you know, when you take a tumor out of someone's breast, you're not changing the trajectory of their disease. I mean, maybe you're delaying a manifestation, but most women who get breast cancer don't die of breast cancer. Most women who get breast cancer die of heart disease. And it's because it's the same things, that same low lying, chronic inflammation that leads to the breast cancer, that then leads to the cardiovascular disease. So I wasn't really saving anyone, and it just felt wrong to stay in that system. And so in 2019, I walked away. I opened a functional medicine practice, and I started to help women who were dealing with a breast cancer diagnosis to recover their health. Because the truth is that everyone who gets a breast cancer diagnosis, they get a treatment plan, but what they all need is a health plan.

[00:16:32.970] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah. I mean, when you are going through IFM, so at my clinic, we only hire IFM certified providers. And we're also, it's in Ohio, so it's next to the Cleveland Clinic center for Functional Medicine, which doctor Hymane, you know, helped start. But when you were going through these programs, were there moments where you're like, why wasn't I taught this at all?

[00:16:56.720] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Oh, the entire time. The entire time. I really, as hard as it was, I also was in a state of, like, wondrous amazement and fury.

[00:17:16.340] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah.

[00:17:17.740] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Like, deep seated fury that I paid $300,000 for my medical school education, got out and made $29,000 for five years during my residency, $31,000 for my fellowship year, and nowhere was I taught to heal anyone.

[00:17:46.090] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah.

[00:17:47.110] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Like, how I was furious and also fascinated and excited that I was going to change things.

[00:17:57.970] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Right.

[00:17:58.880] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And thank God for that part of it. That overshadowed the anger, because you can really go down a rabbit hole, I'm sure, and be furious about how broken our system is. And, you know, I struggle with that still in that. Should I go over here and help people, or should I go back here and fix the system so that all the new doctors coming through can help the people? And it's a conundrum. It really is, because, you know, everyone thinks that someone else is going to do it, and I pray that someone else does it because I want the doctors coming up to be the best that they can be. I want the doctors coming up to teach people to be healthy, and I want them to know it themselves. Right. I mean, like, I remember my father's cardiologist, God rest his soul, he's no longer with us, 300 pounds. And I remember going to the doctor with my father and hearing what his cardiologist would say to him. And I would just stand there like, how can you take any advice from a man who's 300 pounds who can. Like, he can barely breathe, he can't walk five steps.

[00:19:21.570] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

How is this person guiding you? We all need to. We need to walk our talk. You know, the whole do as I say, not as I do thing doesn't work.

[00:19:33.840] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

No.

[00:19:34.450] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Right. And we need to model it. But in that conventional model, they're not even learning what to model. They just don't know.

[00:19:44.620] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I would say probably 80% of my friends are doctors, and 0% of them are still in conventional medicine. They've all essentially came to the same. And look, I think obviously, doctors all go in it to save people, and, like, the best intentions go in with.

[00:20:03.490] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

The best of intentions.

[00:20:04.590] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

It's just so sad that the system is not actually giving them the tools to heal people instead of just these standard of cares and protocols, and person comes in with x and leaves with y. But I'm so glad that, you know, the work you're doing, because as a woman, I mean, and I am like, I think I'm probably the most. One of the most measured women on the planet at this point. So I've done thousands and thousands and thousands of biomarkers, and I did it all as, like, self experimentation. Right? So we opened this clinic. I had access to do so. I have been so strict in my life, and some people think it's, like, too much, but I love it. So it doesn't feel, like, too much, but, like, I haven't eaten a piece of inorganic food in, like, a decade. And my home, I have a biological home builder come in and assessed, you know, the frequencies and look for mold and the water and all this stuff. But still, developing breast cancer is, like, such a scary thought as a woman.

[00:21:05.200] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

It's frightening. It really is probably, like, the four most frightening words that anyone will ever.

[00:21:11.040] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Hear, and it feels so prevalent. Like, what are the stats today?

[00:21:17.550] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Yeah, they're not good, right? We're pretty much at one in seven will develop breast cancer over their lifetime. That's up from one in eight. And we're seeing it younger and younger. And, you know, there are breast cancers happening in teenagers now. I'll tell you, when I trained, which was not that long ago. I mean, it was a few decades ago, but it wasn't that long ago. It was unheard of. If someone called me and told me that they had an 18 year old in their office and they have a lump in their breasts, I said, I'm 100% certain it's nothing. But, you know, send them over. Now. I can't even say that with any confidence. I can't say I'm 100% certain it's nothing, because we're seeing teenagers with breast cancers now. I mean, we are not living on our grandmother's earth. We're not even living on our mother's earth. You're not even living on your cousin's earth anymore. I mean, it's just crazy how toxic our world is. And it's those tangible toxins, you know, the stuff that we know about the mold and the metals and that kind of thing. But the intangible toxins are insane.

[00:22:36.490] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

The societal pressures, the, you know, the living on social media, these are things that we didn't have this when we were growing up. We weren't faced with this growing up. And for all of these kids coming up in this, like, just growing up in a fishbowl where everything is out there all the time, and the pressure to keep up and do and live a certain way and be accomplished in ways that, you know, the expectations weren't there before. And so, you know, you put those two things together with those tangible toxins and all these intangible toxins, and you have the recipe for breast cancer. I mean, breast cancer is a normal response to an abnormal environment, and we've never seen an environment like this one before. And something's gotta give.

[00:23:44.390] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I heard you say that quote, and I love it. It's, you know, just, it's so obvious, really. But, I mean, it's not obvious to most people. I always think about the statement, too. You know, you can't heal in the same environment that you got sick in. And so, as a surgeon, although you were saving people's lives, I see how, you know, that was a small fix. That was a quick fix that wasn't, again, addressing the root cause, but it.

[00:24:11.790] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Was just like a bridge over troubled water. Right? Like, that's all it was. I was taking them to two places in the same town, right? And so, yes, it bought them time. But unless you fundamentally change why the cancer happened in the first place, you're not changing the trajectory of their lives. So they're either going to have a recurrence, or they're going to have a contralateral breast cancer, a cancer in the other breast, which, I want to be clear, I'm not advocating for taking breasts off. I'm advocating for habit change and environmental change, or they're going to develop some other manifestation. I mean, there's no doubt about it that 80% of breast cancers are preventable, because they are environmental diseases and they're metabolic diseases. And these are the things that are so broken in our current society. I mean, our metabolic health as a country is horrible. There are only 10% of Americans now that are metabolically healthy. I mean, these are deplorable statistics. And then our environment is just so dangerous, and we absolutely need education around it. But then there is so much in industry that makes toxins unavoidable. Yeah, for most people, they're absolutely unavoidable.

[00:25:55.670] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And we've become a society that is just so reliant on conveniences, not realizing that the conveniences are killing us. And the biggest problem is that they're not killing people fast enough for people to recognize. So, like, oh, what's this one piece of cake gonna do? What's this one cookie gonna do? What's this one bag of chips going to do? What's this one glass of wine going to do? And these things are day in, day out, day in, day out. And we don't realize that the cumulative result is breast cancer or diabetes or hypertension or heart disease or dementia. I mean, you know, all these things have become more and more prevalent and are happening younger and younger. And that's why, you know, we're gonna see staggering statistics. One in three people are gonna have cancer in their lifetime. One in three.

[00:26:57.470] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah.

[00:26:57.880] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

This is terrible.

[00:26:59.370] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

It's unbelievable.

[00:27:00.670] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Yeah. Truly and sadly preventable. But, you know, we're going up against people who really, you know, for so much of it, we have farmed out our health to people who do not have our health in their interest.

[00:27:22.000] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah, right.

[00:27:23.060] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Like, big food does not want us healthy. They specifically designed food to addict us and make us sick, and that's because their partner, big pharma, wants us sick, because if we're healthy, we're not using their products. And quite frankly, and this is not to say anything bad, this is not a judgment on physicians, but right now, the only way physicians get paid is if you're sick, they don't get paid for you to be healthy. Right. It's not like they get a bonus when their patients don't come in. Yeah, it's the opposite.

[00:28:06.910] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Right.

[00:28:07.270] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

So physicians can't get paid unless you get sick. Hospitals can't get paid unless you get sick. And how do hospitals make their money? Cancer and heart disease. That's it. So they really have no interest in prevention? None at all. They talk about prevention, but then go into any hospital cafeteria, they're not so much about prevention.

[00:28:34.850] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Right? Yeah, yeah.

[00:28:36.350] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

I remember when I was. It was towards the end of my surgical time, and the chief medical officer of our hospital sent out this email blast announcement that he was delighted to announce our partnership with Pepsi. And I'm like, my goodness. What? Why would we have a partnership? We're a hospital. Why would we have a partnership with Pepsi? He's like, well, they have water. And, you know, it's just there are some battles that. I want to fight that battle. Believe me, I want to fight that battle, but I can't fight all the battles. Like, I'm here trying to fight this one and here trying to fight this one. And I'm involved in a lot of battles.

[00:29:31.100] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Well, I love that it's such a massive problem, though. It's just so systemic. And, I mean, we can't rely on regulations or the government or whomever to guide us in our health journey because we see that that's just failing miserably. Right.

[00:29:50.440] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And, you know, when we look at the various arms of our government, there's a lot of cross talk.

[00:29:58.260] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

There certainly is. Yeah. It's interesting some of the positions that are held by, you know, previous executives at Monsanto or, you know, all these different industries.

[00:30:08.930] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

So I, or the FDA and big pharma or, you know, who sponsors the FDA and why is the FDA even sponsored?

[00:30:20.590] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

It's. I know this is a whole other thing.

[00:30:24.650] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Yes. So, you know, I wish it wasn't that way. I wish that so many things were not adulterated, but they are. And it's a shame that people have to take so much personal responsibility and that you have to be so educated and that you have to become such and an aware consumer. But you do. Unfortunately, my friend Sachin Patel said that the patient is the doctor of the future and that is not to saddle people with responsibility like, believe me, I don't want that. But that, first of all, no one's ever gonna know you better than you knew yourself and no one is going to care about you more than you care about yourself. Right. I mean, maybe I care about my kids as much as I care about myself, probably more. And my husband, Yandy, of course, my husband. But that, you know, we all have to be our own physicians, healers. And health happens at home. It for sure doesn't happen in doctors offices or hospitals or medical oncology suites or radiation suites like health happens at home with the things that you do every day.

[00:31:54.150] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Absolutely. I mean, I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. I want to talk about diagnostics, you know, because obviously there's a certain age where you're supposed to start receiving mammograms. So first, let's just talk about the mammogram. What is your opinion? Is this the gold standard? Is this what we should be doing? If you can, what should you be doing?

[00:32:21.030] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Yeah. So my opinion on mammogram is not well regarded by mainstream medicine. But, you know, you kind of can't argue the facts, and the facts are that we have known for decades of that mammograms do not increase survival. That's the bottom line. There's a very good study out of Canada, the Canadian National Breast screening study, that looked at 50,000 women from the ages of 40 to 59. So screening age. And this is definitely the age where we worry. Right. And they divided them into women that got screeny mammogram and women that did not get screened mammogram. And in the women that got screened mammogram, there were definitely more cancers diagnosed. But ultimately, the same number of women died of breast cancer in both groups.

[00:33:33.170] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Wow.

[00:33:33.810] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

So screening with mammogram does not impact the bottom line. And we know that. And no matter how many mammograms we do every year, the same exact number of women die of breast cancer. The only thing that changes when screening with mammogram is that you diagnose more breast cancers. Now, the problem with that is that we're diagnosing about 20% of the breast cancers that we diagnose don't need to be treated. So those 20% undergo treatment for breast cancer. And treatment for breast cancer is not benign. So when we treat a woman for breast cancer, we shorten the duration of her life and we lessen the quality of her life. So this is a huge problem, because if we have 240,000 breast cancers diagnosed in this country every year, we're talking about 50,000 women being treated unnecessarily for breast cancer. If we are taking these 50,000 women and giving them part disease, dementia, osteoporosis, not to mention the depression, the brain fog, the anxiety, the loss of libido, the mood changes, the loss of connection with their friends, their family, their world, the loss of sexuality, of sensuality, the incontinence. I mean, we are causing major, major problems for these women.

[00:35:22.650] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

50,000 women a year, it's not an insignificant number. So I do not recommend screening with mammogram, ever, not in the high risk population, because they're even more susceptible to the harms of radiation. And I just don't believe in putting a normal woman, a healthy woman, in harm's way with radiation. And you cannot deny that mammograms are radiation. They are. I mean, it's just, it's not, there's nothing arguable about it. They are an x ray to the breast. And for all the people that say, well, you get the same amount of radiation when you fly cross country, and do you tell people not to fly to. No, I don't tell people not to fly, but that is scattered radiation, which, by the way, I don't know about you, but I feel awful after I fly on a plane because of the radiation. But that is scattered radiation. That is completely different than radiation that is focused on your compressed breast tissue. We are not talking about the same thing. We're not comparing apples to oranges. So for all those people that they use that argument that the radiation is the same, it's simply not true. It's not the same at all.

[00:36:48.050] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And you cannot argue, the more mammograms you have in your life, the higher your risk is of getting breast cancer. And I think that it is unethical to screen people with radiation. I don't think that we should be using a test that causes cancer to screen for cancer. And so here's what I know. There is no benefit to mammogram over self examination, and self examination does not cause cancer. So I am very much in favor of self breast examination. I think that no one is ever going to know you better than you know yourself, and you ought to examine your breasts every month. And every woman thinks that their breasts are lumpy. And I say, that's fine, own your lumps, know what they feel like, because if you know what they feel like, you'll know when something feels different and that's something that should be investigated. So I am not saying that you will never have a mammogram in your life. I'm saying that no one should have a screening mammogram. But if you feel something in your breast, I'm not throwing the baby out with a bath water. I believe in these technologies that we have developed, but I think that we should use them appropriately.

[00:38:04.660] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

So if you have something that requires a diagnostic examination, then use everything that you need to get that diagnosis so that you can get to the place where you need to get to. But I don't believe in using anything that could potentially harm someone for screening. So I also don't believe in using MRI for screening because MRI uses gadolinium. This is a heavy metal. It is stored in our body. Anything that is stored in our body is stored at the expense of something else, something that we need, something that should be there, and it's going to cause harm to that organ. So if you're storing gadolinium in your kidneys or your brain, your kidneys and your brain don't want that gadolinium, they don't like that gadolinium, it causes problems. So that is not a safe way to screen someone. And that's, you know, beyond the fact that they're expensive and access and that kind of thing. I mean, they're just not safe.

[00:39:03.710] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

What about. Because I've gotten one and I don't think I had any contrast. So is that unable to pick it.

[00:39:10.050] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Up though, for breast, the thing that delineates something that's abnormal in the breast from something that's normal in the breast, because someone like you is going to have a very dense breast, meaning that you have mostly glandular tissue and very little fat. And so we use the gadolinium to look at perfusion, to look at blood flow. And without it, it's really not a useful test. Now, an MRI, like a whole body MRI, the Pernovo, that is a non contrast study. The threshold and the sensitivity of that study is very different than what we use for a diagnostic MRI. Got it? Yeah, that makes sense. I think the threshold, the last time I checked, the threshold for the Pernovo test is about 1 cm. So that's a billion cells. And in you a 1, you would be able to feel. But, you know, all of this conversation is kind of moot because there is technology now that we can use for screening that is also functional. So it's called QT imaging. And it was originally created, it was created by a genius named John Klock. And Doctor Kloc created this to replace the MRI, because mris have access problems, especially around the world.

[00:40:43.820] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

I mean, if you or I needed an MRI, we would have no problem getting one. But there are lots of places that are medical deserts that people don't have access to technology. And so he originally created this to replace MRI. And what it does is it uses sound waves transmitted through a water bath to create a 3d reconstruction of the breast. And the images look like MRI, but they collect 200,000 times more data points than MRI. It has 40 times the resolution. So we can see things that we can't see on any other technology. So this is really what it was FDA cleared for, is to image dense breasts. And it's the first technology that's received FDA clearance in 50 years. Well, 50 years. And the most interesting thing about this technology and why I have adopted it and why I believe in it, is because it actually has functional capability. So if you see something in the breast, you can bring someone back in 60 days, reimage them, count the cells, and get a doubling time. And we know that cancers have a doubling time of less than 100 days, and things that aren't cancer or aren't meaningful, because we know that there are cancers that will come and go.

[00:42:09.330] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

So if it's not cancer or not meaningful, it's going to have a doubling time of greater than 100 days. And for those women, we're saying, see you in a year, we're just going to follow this. And that saves these women from over biopsy. 75% of the breast biopsies that are done in the United States are benign. That means that three quarters of women who undergo biopsy, and the second you tell a woman that she needs a breast biopsy, I mean, all hell breaks loose. Like, you have just unleashed a tremendous, insurmountable amount of fear in her, right? And it's a bell, you cannon ring. So even though you hand her a piece of paper three days later, saying everything's fine, she doesn't believe you. And she believes for the rest of her life that she's high risk. So if we can save women from those unnecessary biopsies and also not over diagnose cancer, identify the ones that need to be treated, but the ones that don't need to be treated, those slow growing, those ones that aren't doing anything, we just follow them. And in the meantime, we've identified the women who we can put all of these preventative measures in place, because ultimately, that's what we want.

[00:43:32.880] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

We want that teachable moment. We want that woman who now has had her wake up call. But maybe it's not a disaster yet. Right? And so that's the woman. That's actually who I wrote this book for, the smart Woman's guide to good.

[00:43:47.360] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah.

[00:43:48.400] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

I wrote this book for that woman who has her scare or has her diagnosis, to let her know that this is not the end, this is the beginning. This is your opportunity. This is your calling. This is your moment that you can take a breath, take a pause. Let me teach you about what's happening in your breast. And let's learn how to be healthy together. Let's learn how to eat. Let's learn how to move, how to sleep, how to detoxify your environment, how to detoxify your body, how to make sure that you are developing these healthy ways to deal with the stressors in life. Because the stress is always going to be there. And it's not the stress that matters. It's the impact that we allow the stress to have on us. It's how we internalize that stress. That's what matters. So we can build these tools, build our resilience. Then we avoid the detriment that comes along with all that stress and the damage that comes along with all that stress, and then help people to discover their purpose, because it's the purpose driven life that is the one that is well lived. Right?

[00:45:09.930] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And we all need to live life with purpose. And you don't have to save the world. You don't have to be a surgeon. You don't have to be a bio hacker, you don't have to be anything but what God intended you to be, because he put all of us on earth with our unique purpose. And my purpose is no more important than yours, and yours is not more important than mine.

[00:45:31.640] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Right.

[00:45:32.220] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And everyone should just live their purpose. Just live in the way that you are intended to and do what you were intended to do. I mean, I have friends that have raised a. The most amazing children, and they were the mother that I always wanted to be and couldn't. Right. And that is a meaningful life. You know, when you, when you raise good humans, that's a meaningful life. And, you know, some people travel around the world and take the most beautiful pictures. It's a meaningful life, right. And when someone find something that is not particularly aggressive, we have the opportunity to change their lives and to help them to discover a more meaningful, healthy life. And that's really, you know, that's your purpose? That's my purpose. And I think it's a really worthwhile one because this world is a special place, and I want it to be here for my kids and my grandchildren. And I'm sure. Or you feel the exact same way?

[00:46:45.480] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I most certainly do. And yeah, I completely agree. I want to talk about chemotherapy a little bit, because I just don't know a lot about it. I know the basics that it can harm all cells, but we've established that a lot of women are being treated, maybe are being treated unnecessarily. So if we can, hopefully. Do you think this technology will roll out more mainstream, or will it be kind of with people like yourself?

[00:47:15.420] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

I think 100% it's going to become mainstream. I believe that it takes a long time for mainstream to adopt things. I believe it's going to take ten years. But in the meantime, I'm opening my first center, called Perfection imaging, in the suburbs of Philadelphia in a couple of weeks, and I'm going to put up 50 of these in the next five years. I mean, I want to make sure that everyone who wants access to this technology gets access to this technology. And without question what's going to happen with conventional treatment. And I am not saying that no one should get conventional treatment. Please know that I think that there is a time and a place for surgery, for chemotherapy, for radiation. But what I think is that people need to be able to make an informed decision, and they do not have that ability now. They are not given the proper information to make an informed decision right now. And that is another reason why I really wanted that in my book. I wanted to put that out there. I wanted anyone who was put in that situation to take the time to learn about those treatments and learn what the real benefits are, because what they're told is a very exaggerated version of the benefits and a very understated version of the side effects and the downsides.

[00:48:55.810] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

So with regard to chemotherapy, there are without question, going to be people who have very aggressive tumors. I mean, we do have 40,000 women every year die of breast cancer, and those women, some of them will respond, even temporarily, to chemotherapy. So, and I do think that our drugs are getting better. Are they getting less toxic? Not so much. That is a little bit by design because, you know, the industry wants you to move on to the next drug, but that there are people who have aggressive disease and their proverbial sink is overflowing. And like, you know, all the plant based eating in the world and all the saunas and the red light therapy and the cold plunges are not going to turn this around like they need something drastic. So, you know, I say that their proverbial sink is overflowing, and surgery, chemo, radiation, those are the mops, right? That's mopping up the floor. But the far more important thing is to figure out why their sink is overflowing, to turn off that faucet. And that's why, for me, functional medicine, integrative medicine, like whatever you want to call that bucket, that's the, and it's the, and if you just do conventional therapy, it's a zero sum game.

[00:50:33.870] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

You're just not going to get anywhere from that. And in fact, for most people, chemotherapy is quite harmful because it accelerates heart disease, it accelerates brain degeneration, it accelerates bone loss. It actually, it has any number of detrimental long term effects. But if you need it in the short term, you use it, right? Like, I believe in using everything that we can, but you have to do it in a way. Like, for instance, if you need chemotherapy, you should do it along with fasting. So Valter Longo out of USC has come out with all of this data that shows that if you fast while you get chemotherapy, the normal cells go into this quiescent resting phase and they don't take on the chemotherapy, and so they sustain far less damage. So there's less fatigue and less nausea, less headache, less GI distress, and at the same time, it's more effective on the cancer. So we have better response rates and less complications. And yet the medical oncologists are not teaching this. The medical oncologists are still handing people bottles of boost and ensure and telling them that it doesn't matter what they eat, no matter what you do, don't lose weight, eat pizza and ice cream.

[00:52:13.540] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

I mean, like, we shouldn't even be feeding this to children, let alone our cancer patients.

[00:52:19.220] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Absolutely.

[00:52:20.190] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

But it's gonna take a while to trickle down. But it will, and it will, because people will demand it. Women will demand it. Women are intuitive. They know, they understand. And hopefully a lot of them will read my book and learn that they have way more options than they think, that they actually have the ability to decide, because many women think they don't have a choice. You can say no. You can say no. I mean, you are allowed to make your own medical decisions. We do have medical sovereignty in this country.

[00:53:04.890] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

No.

[00:53:05.520] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And so it was really, really important to me that people were able to make informed decisions, because if you know the real downsides and the true upsides, you're going to make a different choice most of the time.

[00:53:26.730] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Right. What is the chemotherapy doing to the body that's then having all these downstream long term effects?

[00:53:34.560] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Yeah. So it depends which chemotherapy we're talking about. But, for instance, some women have an increased number of the, her two protein on the cell surface of their breast cancer cells, and so they get drugs, targeted drugs against that. Her two protein. Well, the problem is that, yes, the breast cancer cells do have that her two protein, but so do a lot of your normal cells, like your skin cells or your heart cells. So these women that get these drugs then have, they have cardiac effects. And you can't live without your heart, you live without your breast, you can't live without your heart. And again, I'm not encouraging these women to have mastectomy, but that, I think that we always need to weigh what's going on there. And is there another problem that we can correct rather than using these drugs that can be really harmful? And the non targeted drugs, the chemotherapies that are kind of the classic traditional chemotherapies, these target rapidly dividing cells, which is why our hair cells are rapidly dividing. That's why people who get chemotherapy lose their hair. Our gut cells, everything that lines our gut from our stomach to our bottom, these are rapidly dividing cells.

[00:55:14.780] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

They're replacing themselves all the time. So when you get chemotherapy, it destroys these cells. So people get all these terrible ulcers and they get nauseous and they get diarrhea, and they, you know, completely changes the microbiome. And so they suffer all kinds of things from that microbiome shift. It also affects their ability to make red cells and white cells. So they become anemic, their immune system is completely disrupted. So then they're vulnerable to all of these opportunistic infections, and it ends up affecting just about every part of them. And the brain changes are probably the most devastating, with brain fog and depression, anxiety and increased risk of dementia, accelerated dementia. And because the way that our system is designed is we only think about survival in a short window of time. So we're talking about five years. So the medical oncologists are only focused on what happens in those five years. And mostly what they're focused on is, are you gonna die of breast cancer in that time? Because if they can get you through that five year window, they can say that they cured you of breast cancer. And it doesn't matter to them.

[00:56:51.740] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And I don't mean, like, literally it doesn't matter to them, but statistically, it doesn't matter to them if you get heart disease or if you get osteoporosis and you die of a fracture, which, incidentally, as many women die every year as a complication of a fracture from osteoporosis as they do of breast cancer. So if we're treating a woman for breast cancer and we give her heart disease or dementia or osteoporosis, have we really helped her? I mean, are we really doing the right thing here? This is a huge problem. And so I'm very, very careful with who I recommend chemotherapy to and who I don't. Because unless breast cancer really is your life threatening disease, and in that instance. Okay, I get it. So if breast cancer really is your life threatening disease, then by all means, we have to use everything that we have. Right. And we will work really hard to protect you while you're getting chemotherapy and rebuild your health afterwards. But unless you're dealing with that, then we ought to be focused on building your health, because when you do, that disease goes away.

[00:58:21.330] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Right, right. So when you mentioned, you know, some breast cancers, if they're not doubling every hundred days, that you can kind of wait and watch, is that so the body can clear them out with better habits, essentially?

[00:58:35.860] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Well, sometimes it's better habits of, and sometimes it's, you know, I can't tell you the number of women who have come to me and I measure their white blood cell counts, and they're walking around with white blood cell counts in the twos and threes. And it's because they either have a mouth full of metal amalgams or they've had a number of root canals and they have cavitations in their mouth, or they have overwhelming parasites, or Canada. And, you know, your body can only fight for so long. And so whenever I see a white cell count that's depressed like that, because it should be greater than 5.5, whenever I see a white cell count that's depressed like that, I know that we all make cancer cells. Young, old, everyone in between. We make cancer cells all the time. But an intact immune system will recognize those cancer cells and destroy them. But you can't do that with a white cell count of 2.3, like, it's not happening. Your body is barely holding on. So I know for that woman, I'm not going to make any progress unless I can get her immune system to come back online.

[00:59:52.380] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

So then I'm 100% focused on the. Where is her immune system?

[00:59:58.670] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Right?

[00:59:59.610] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Is it in her mouth? Is it in her gut? Like, where. Where is the focus of that immune system that is distracting it from doing everything else it's supposed to do? And sometimes it's just people under major, major stress, and they just have no coping mechanisms, you know, like lawyers that are working till 10:00 at night and just burning the candle at both ends. And so you just work with these people, and sometimes it's a lifestyle shift. Sometimes they need to spend some time with the biologic dentist. Sometimes they need, you know, a gut reset. And whatever it is, you help them to figure it out and help them to restore their immune system, because, you know, we are perfect machines. God created us perfectly. Our body knows how to heal. We just need to give it what it needs and take away what it doesn't.

[01:00:58.600] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah, I I agree completely. And that's why, like, as extreme as it seems to a lot of people, you know, I don't think. And, you know, maybe I'll be proven wrong, but I don't think anything's gonna catch me by surprise because of the amount of things I'm looking at. And unfortunately, I mean, I'm doing gut testing, total tox testing, even, like, liquid biopsies. You know, we'll see where the future goes with those. But, you know, lab panels with 150 different biomarkers looking for viruses, pathogens, you know, overgrowths of bacteria. I have a biological dentist. I have, you know, all of the tests of my oral microbiome and just every single thing. And the problem is, is it's not fair, because that takes so many resources to do.

[01:01:43.890] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

That's true.

[01:01:44.910] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

So I hope, I mean, just like you do, that it would be amazing if we looked at this stuff in.

[01:01:50.100] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Your conventional doctor's office, but that would be amazing. And, you know, I am hopeful that. I don't know that we're going to get as far as you go, but I'm hopeful that we are going to find way more common ground and that our medical system can be more prevention oriented and can be more health oriented and actually be a healthcare system rather than a sick care system. So I'm optimistic that it will transition and change with time, and mostly because I think that people are becoming more and more aware, and that generation of people who were seeking paternalistic medicine, that generation is dying out.

[01:02:45.760] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah.

[01:02:46.760] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And the generation that's coming up, they are very proactive, they are very involved. They are very self aware, and they're going to demand it. They're going to demand it.

[01:02:59.530] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

That's a great point.

[01:03:00.790] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And even the kids that are talking to me now that want to go to medical school, and I tell them, I mean, I wouldn't let my children go to medical school. I would maybe let them become functional medicine physicians, but I wouldn't let them operate in the conventional medical world. But, you know, I tell these kids that it has to change, and the change can be you. But if you think that you're gonna, you know, grow up and be a cardiologist, like your father was a cardiologist or something like that, it's not gonna be.

[01:03:39.180] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah.

[01:03:39.660] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Because people are just not gonna tolerate that anymore. Take six drugs.

[01:03:45.480] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

But even when you think about the lab markers that they look at related to cardiac health, they're useless.

[01:03:52.720] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

I mean, I have a funny story. Whatever. I'm gonna throw my children's pediatrician under the bus. But, you know, she had asked for labs on my kits, and, you know, I'm a functional medicine doctor. She wrote for a CBC and a lipid panel, and I was like, yeah, okay, whatever. And so I gave them my panel that. That I run. So we went for their yearly checkup because they have to go for their yearly checkup because they have to sign the forms for athletics. Right. And I don't have a stamp.

[01:04:30.170] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Okay, got it.

[01:04:31.440] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Otherwise, I would just.

[01:04:32.690] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Okay. Yeah.

[01:04:33.620] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

So, um. So we go for their yearly checkup, and she says, you didn't get the labs done. And they said, I did get the labs done. So I said, I'll bring them up for you. So I went to the front desk, and I had them bring the labs up and printed them up, and she walked them back to the doctor, who was done examining my son, and she was now sitting at her office desk. And she's looking through, and she's like, I don't know what any of these things mean. What does she want me to do with these? And I was within earshot, and I said, I don't want you to do anything with them, but if you want the CBC and the lipid panel, it's there. And then I forgot I ordered an advanced lipid panel. So she doesn't know what LDL particles are.

[01:05:17.100] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Tmao.

[01:05:18.160] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And so she was just, she was very put off by me, and I sat there thinking, like, you know, it's sad, but this is the last generation that's gonna be like her anyway, because people are just not going to tolerate it. Although, I don't know, maybe that's me being a little too optimistic, considering that I think the childhood obesity rate is like, two and three kids are overweight or obese or something horrible like that. Is that statistics? I don't do peds too much, but I believe that I read that. And, you know, with half of the country on Ozempic, I don't know, maybe things aren't gonna get better.

[01:06:01.160] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

It's so hard to say. I mean, I would love to hope that they will, but, I mean, the trajectory that we're going is on the opposite direction.

[01:06:10.060] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

I know, right.

[01:06:10.940] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

And, I mean, it all starts at the top. And that's just why, you know, you have to seek out people like yourself, and you have to do your own, your own research and optimize your own house, and it's a lot of work, but I. I mean, what's more important than your health?

[01:06:27.210] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Right? Well, it's true that without your health, you have nothing truly. Right?

[01:06:32.290] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah.

[01:06:33.230] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And so many people do not have access to resources, but then at the same time, and I know you talk about this, there are so many things that you can do every single day that are free. So many.

[01:06:51.140] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah.

[01:06:52.060] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Go outside within ten minutes of waking and be in the sunshine, and get access to direct sunlight and help you to balance your hormones and set your circadian rhythm, and you can do the same thing at noon time, and you can watch the sunset, and that helps significantly with programming your hormones. And, you know, you can choose to eat a whole food diet. I mean, maybe you don't have access to organic food all the time, or maybe you don't have fresh organic food, but you can get frozen organic food. And so, you know, I mean, that's really just as good. And, or maybe you just adopt a whole food diet and eat things that have one ingredient and came from nature, because even that is going to make a significant difference over a processed food diet. And maybe you can take walks several times a day just for, you know, if you did three or 410 minutes walks every day, that makes a difference. It makes a huge difference in your health. And prioritizing sleep at night and, you know, staying off of devices, all of these things go a really long way towards creating health.

[01:08:15.760] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And they're all free.

[01:08:17.630] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Absolutely. You know, I think because of the intensity of where I can go, a lot of times I'll get comments like, well, it must be nice to be able to afford it, and in a big way. Yes, I totally agree. I mean, I will say I have worked super hard. I wasn't given anything. I built the life I wanted. But at the end of the day, it's like some of those same people are not mastering the basics of not watching Netflix till 01:00 a.m. not eating chips, you know, all day long, or all of these ultra processed foods. It's like, at least just focus on the basics. The small things that you do have control over that are free or very low cost, and then start thinking about, you don't need to get an NAD IV if you aren't going to bed at 10:00 you know what I mean?

[01:09:05.030] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

That's right.

[01:09:05.800] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

All these supplements, and I love it, but these are like, these are tiny needle movers, right? They help and they're great, and it's amazing. But the big needle movers are the nutrition, the diet, the sleep, the exercise. They're all free.

[01:09:20.960] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

I get this all the time when people say to me, well, what will this supplement help me? And I'm thinking, you know, you're 80 pounds overweight. This supplement is not going to do one thing one way or the other for you, right? Like, we need to focus on you losing 80 pounds and regaining insulin sensitivity. Right? That's what you need. And we, I mean, it comes back to, everyone wants that quick fix. This is the conventional medical mentality. Everyone wants what's easy and convenient. And unfortunately, health is hard work. It is really hard. And I know from my own personal journey and that, you know, every single day I walk the line, because I know if I don't walk the line, that I'm not going to be given the opportunity.

[01:10:20.910] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Absolutely.

[01:10:22.200] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And so, you know, my own situation is necessitating, like, I have to do this. I have to live this way. But even with that, I think I would choose to live this way, too, because I never knew how good it felt to be healthy.

[01:10:43.540] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah.

[01:10:43.960] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Like, I thought it was normal to be exhausted. I thought it was normal.

[01:10:48.560] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Most people do.

[01:10:49.430] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Yeah.

[01:10:50.310] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Common is not normal.

[01:10:51.900] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Yeah, that's exactly right. Calming is not normal. And I. I thought it was normal to be achy and have your joints. I thought it was normal that every single day, like, at the end of the day, I couldn't get my rings off because my hands were so swollen. And I just didn't know that I had horrible gluten sensitivity. I didn't know.

[01:11:14.520] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah.

[01:11:15.040] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Right. And so every day, I continued to poison myself. And so, really, when you make these changes and you arrive at this place, and it's always. It's a constant, constant battle. I mean, it's never easy. And there are plenty of days where I don't feel like going to lift weights, and there are plenty of days where I would like to not work out. And there are plenty of days when, you know, I would like to just sit home and watch Netflix and scroll, but I know that that's not good for me.

[01:11:50.270] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah. I mean, me too. You know, I've been. I have a very strict routine, and sometimes I don't want to, but then I think about, what would my life look like if I only did the things I felt like doing.

[01:12:02.830] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Yeah.

[01:12:03.380] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Where would I be? Where would my health be? And, you know, it's interesting because. And I talk a lot about this on my platform is, you know, if you want to take the easy route, it actually becomes harder in the long run, because sitting on the couch all day may be easy. Eating processed foods and junk and fast food, it may be easy now, but in the long run, the amount that you're gonna suffer with a chronic disease, illness, all of these medical issues, it's gonna be way harder in the long run.

[01:12:32.940] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Yeah. And I wanna be clear. I mean, you do a lot of amazing things, but you don't have to do all these things.

[01:12:39.490] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

No, you do not have to do all these things.

[01:12:41.440] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And you don't have to monitor nearly as much as you monitor.

[01:12:45.480] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

No, you don't.

[01:12:46.890] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Plenty of people who are doing far less than you are that are very, very healthy and on top of their health.

[01:12:57.990] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Absolutely. Yeah.

[01:12:59.590] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And so. But what you can't do is completely ignore your health and then look for the one thing. It's going to turn it all around. Right. Like, if you're 20 or 30 or 40 pounds overweight. And I know a lot of people are turning to a lot of seeming solutions, which I think are going to end up being a huge disaster, but we'll see.

[01:13:28.690] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Why is that?

[01:13:31.290] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Well, I don't think that the ozempics and the wagos of the world, I don't think it's sustainable. I don't think that people are going to be able to stay on it for life. I don't think that our healthcare system is going to be able to afford it, and I don't know if people will do it. And when they come off, the weight gain is astounding because it changes their body composition. Yes, they are losing fat, but they're also losing a lot of muscle and their metabolism gets completely shut down. So when they start to eat again, it's just, it's kind of an accelerated version of whatever they had before, so at least not in this current paradigm. I mean, will they adjust that so that maybe the dose is lower or it's something that's more sustainable? I don't know. And I don't do any weight loss work specifically. I mean, yes, I help my people to lose weight by helping them to make lifestyle changes, but I don't specifically do any weight loss work. But, you know, we're hearing statistics of pancreatic cancer, we're hearing bowel obstruction, we're hearing some pretty significant dangerous side effects for those drugs, which, listen, if you're 600 pounds, like, that's a gamble you should take, right?

[01:15:15.640] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Yeah, but if it's about losing 20 pounds, I'm not so sure.

[01:15:20.240] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah, I agree. I've never taken a GLP one. And don't ever plan to because, I mean, just abs are made in the kitchen and then some working out and some walking, and it's, I mean, I don't count calories at all. I eat what I want, I eat when I'm hungry. And, you know, I've maintained a good body composition the whole time.

[01:15:42.700] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Well, if you eat real food, you can do that.

[01:15:45.550] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah, right.

[01:15:46.690] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

But if you're eating processed food, there's no way for your brain to tell you that you're satisfied because your brain is searching for nutrients and they're not there. So it tells you, eat more, eat more, eat more, eat more. And so if you're eating a processed food diet, there's absolutely no way to maintain a healthy weight or a healthy body composition. Yeah, because your body is just searching for nourishment.

[01:16:21.350] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

What about hormones and breast cancer and hormone replacement therapy for women?

[01:16:25.610] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

I love this topic. It's actually the title of my next book, which is the forgotten woman. Oh, good, because we have 3 million women in this country living with breast cancer, living with a breast cancer diagnosis. And yet it could be a year ago, three years ago, ten years ago. And these women are told to just be happy that they're alive. And meanwhile, they can't think. They have brain fog, they're depressed, they're anxious, their joints hurt, they have palpitations, they have bloating, they've gained ten pounds or 15 or 20. They have no libido. Their relationship is suffering because they don't want to be intimate. Sex is painful. They have frequent urinary tract infections. They have frequent yeast infections. They're leaking urine because they're incontinence. But they should be happy that they're alive. Right. And not so much. Right. And, you know, we've created this because most of the treatments for breast cancer will either render these women menopausal or we'll put them on drugs that completely block the effects of hormones or if they've had chemotherapy. Chemotherapy does all this end organ damage. So, you know, we're telling these women to be happy that they're alive, but it's not life.

[01:17:58.730] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah. Right.

[01:17:59.840] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And we have data after data after data that proves that women who go on hormone replacement, even if they get breast cancer, because let's be honest, if you go on hormone replacement, you can get breast cancer. If you're not on hormone replacement, you can get breast cancer. I mean, nowhere have we seen that better than since the women's Health Initiative. So that study was stopped in 2003, and at that time, like, we had 18 million women on hormone replacement, and it dropped overnight down to 3 million women. So we should have seen a precipitous drop in breast cancer if hormones were the problem. Right. Only we didn't. All we saw was an increase.

[01:18:48.030] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah.

[01:18:48.690] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

So, but the women who were on hormones that got breast cancer actually had better outcomes than the women not on hormones. And then if you have women who have had breast cancer and you give them hormones afterwards, they actually have less of a chance of recurrence. They have a decreased chance of recurrence, and they have longevity, better outcomes. So I fully believe in hormone replacement in the breast cancer population. However, I won't give anyone hormones until they are a year or two out from their diagnosis. And I know they have no current disease. And I want to make sure that all those things that we talked about are in place. Right. I want to make sure that they are eating in a way that is nourishing them. I want to make sure that their weight is optimized, as, optimized as I can get it without hormones. I want to make sure that they're moving, that they're lifting heavy things because we all need to maintain muscle mass, and that becomes especially important in the post menopausal population. So I want to make sure that they're weightlifting, but also working with flexibility and balance. I want to make sure that they're prioritizing sleep, that they have a good sleep environment and are practicing good sleep hygiene.

[01:20:14.520] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And I want to make sure that we have optimized their environment so that they're not surrounded by toxins, that they have detoxification practices in place, you know, not the least of which, like, making sure they're not constipated, because that is a major source of toxicity for so many people that you think it's totally logical. And yet there are people that I, that come into my practice and I say, you know, how often do you move your bowels? And they're like, oh, I'm regular. I'm like, okay, great. What's regular for you? And they're like, I go once a week.

[01:20:52.090] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

That's totally insane.

[01:20:54.590] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

It's insane. It's insane. But it's happening all the time because we don't talk about these things, and so no one knows what normal is. They think that's normal for them. So I'm making sure that all of these pillars of health are in place, and then I'm putting them in hormone replacement because it's the right thing to do. Yes, I'm using bio identical hormones. Yes, I am monitoring them closely. I'm looking at all their metabolites. I'm making sure that they're not under diagnosed because we want to prevent heart disease, prevent dementia, prevent osteoporosis. We want to keep people out of adult diapers and keep their sexuality going and keep them out of nursing homes and wheelchairs. So we don't want to underdose them, but we also don't want to overdose them. So I'm not using pellets and I'm not using things that I can't take back and reverse and things like that. But I fully believe that people with breast cancer are people, too, and they deserve the same advantages as the rest of us. And what bothers me most, I mean, I understand all the fear around breast cancer and the practitioners not feeling confident in writing for hormones in someone who had a hormone positive breast cancer, even though I could make the argument a thousand times that it's not logical and doesn't matter, but I understand that, you know, they're following a formula and that's the way that they understand the disease.

[01:22:30.250] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

But the people that come to me and they say I can't get hormone replacement because my grandmother had breast cancer or, you know, something ridiculous like that that so far removed. But that misconception is still out there, and it's still very real. And, you know, there are medical oncologists that are horrified by the fact that I put people on hormones, but, you know, I'm horrified that they give people insure. So I guess we're equal.

[01:23:02.840] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

It's going both ways. Yeah. You know, obviously, you and I have very aware circles, right? But my mom, for example, she still lives in a small town, and I've been encouraging her. I'm literally saying, go to my clinic and get hormone therapy, and we're doing it with bio identicals. And then she's going to her regular doctor, and her doctor is making her think she's going to get cancer. And I thought this was, like, way out the window. I mean, I thought we were not saying that anymore. I thought the data was clear, but clearly it's still so pervasive.

[01:23:40.790] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

It is. Well, so what happened is, you know, when that paper was released in 2003, the retraction wasn't printed until 2017. So we have two generations of physicians that were trained with this thought in mind. And, you know, to tell you the truth, I came out of fellowship in 2003. So in 2003, I was trained by a gentleman named Gordon Schwartz. He was really one of the pioneer breast surgeons in the country. Like, he was trained at MGH, and he had, like, an international breast cancer consortium, which was a huge think tank with all the thought leaders in the world. So I was very privileged to be trained by this man. And he was considered a genius. And I still consider him a genius, God rest his soul. He's not with us anymore. But that in 2003, he taught me three things. He taught me hormones cause cancer. The only women who should get hormone replacement, and not even talking about the breast cancer population, the only women that should get hormone replacement are those that absolutely, positively cannot live without it. And if you give those women hormones, you should give them the least amount for the smallest amount of time.

[01:24:57.450] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Wow.

[01:24:58.430] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And so that was my training for nearly. For 15 years. I thought all of that was true.

[01:25:08.890] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Right?

[01:25:09.990] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And then, you know, fast forward, and I don't go quietly into my good night, and I am. If there was, like, a textbook of what perimenopause is, like, I checked all of the boxes, like, I mean, sorry to be so graphic, but, you know, I would be in the operating room. And I would have a period that was like insane. And I would have to leave three times during a case to change my scrubs.

[01:25:40.680] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Wow.

[01:25:41.420] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And then, you know, then the hot flashes and the night sweats and the palpitations and dizziness and brain fog. Like, I would walk into a room and I would be like, hey, why the hell did I come in here? And I would walk out of the room like, oh, yeah, that's why. And then I would go back in the room and I'm like, oh, no, you have to be kidding me. I mean, it was crazy, but I come from this big breast cancer family, so I thought, and, you know, doctor Schwartz is ringing in my ear that no one should get hormones because hormones cause breast cancer. And I'm from a breast cancer family, so I especially can't get hormones. And my aunt had breast cancer, my mom had colon cancer. So someone tells me to read estrogen matters by Avron bluming and changed my life. I mean, he literally saved my life. Literally saved my life. So, you know, anyone who was questioning that data and wondering if hormones are safe, if you can give hormones to women with breast cancer, if hormones cause breast cancer, if you have any of those questions, and if hormones are important, what they do, if you have any of those questions, you should absolutely, positively read estrogen matters by Avron blooming.

[01:27:08.210] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

It will solidify everything for you. I mean, it was just, it's such a well written book and it was really amazing. He was a medical oncologist and a surgeon like me, and he actually conducted research with his patients and put his patients on, his breast cancer patients on hormones. But the true test of whether or not he really believed it was when his wife got breast cancer.

[01:27:44.570] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah.

[01:27:45.320] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And whether or not to put his wife on hormones afterwards, which he's very open and honest about this in the book, and he says, you know, I'm not going to make the decision for you, but you know how I feel. And if you want to go on hormones, of course I support you. And then the same thing with this daughter when she had breast cancer. So, you know, if even the world's expert, his wife and daughter had breast cancer and he put them on hormones, you know, that, that's kind of like enough for me. But all the data is there. I mean, there were only, there were only two studies that ever showed that hormones had any increased risk of breast cancer, and they've both been completely refuted.

[01:28:37.070] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah, I love that. Well, I want to hopefully we just continue getting that information out because as much as it seems like it should be, you know, just well established and well known at this point. I mean, I definitely, you know, when I get to perimenopause, like, I'll be all over that immediately.

[01:28:52.530] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Yeah.

[01:28:52.860] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I mean, because there's so many benefits, like, to do it. I mean, cardiovascular benefits, brain bone, like, everything.

[01:28:59.590] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Everything. Really everything. And Doctor David Rosensweet says it the best in that, you know, our whole goal should be to keep people out of nursing homes, out of wheelchairs and out of adult diapers. Yeah, right. Like, we all want to live a very long time and die young.

[01:29:23.090] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah.

[01:29:23.600] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Right. And we know that there are places around the world where they're doing that. Right. It can be done. We know it can be done. But in order to do it, you have to watch what you eat, you have to move your body. You have to prioritize sleep. You have to manage the stress. You have to live in a connected way. I mean, you know, these are things that are non negotiable and you can't, you're not. Most people in this country, the last 20 years of their life are awful. They're spent in and out of healthcare facilities, out of nursing homes, hospitals, and they live debilitated, in pain. And it's no way to live. It doesn't have to be that way.

[01:30:10.580] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I agree.

[01:30:11.230] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Right. We can make better choices, but we have to make those choices today.

[01:30:15.950] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Absolutely. I agree. Is there any, do you like any additional therapies? So let's say you have everything, you know, diet, nutrition, sleep, everything is all set. Do you think anything about maybe high dose vitamin C or are there any other modalities, ozone, anything like that, that you like that can also help.

[01:30:35.310] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

So I love all of them. Right. But I know that if you're not doing the basics, they're not gonna help.

[01:30:46.010] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah.

[01:30:46.520] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Right. So I love high dose vitamin C, especially in conjunction with chemotherapy. If you're gonna undergo chemotherapy, I love putting ozone in that mix as well. But if you're not going to fast through your chemotherapy, it's not going to do any good. It's not going to matter. So what I don't want to do is have people think that these are the shortcuts that we can take because we cannot take their shortcuts. So there are these adjuvant things that you can add in that are tremendously helpful, but you have to add them on top of the basics.

[01:31:28.810] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Absolutely. What is the mechanism that the vitamin C is benefiting during chemo?

[01:31:34.950] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

There's a clear distinction between low dose and high dose vitamin C. So low dose vitamin C, like your orange, it's an antioxidant. So we create all of these free radicals and the antioxidants bind these free radicals, they neutralize them so that they can't damage our cells. Right. So radiation is something that generates free radicals. Their chemicals, chemotherapy will generate free radicals. So if you have low dose vitamin C, that's gonna bind those free radicals and prevent tissue damage. High dose vitamin C actually is the opposite. So that's an oxidanthe. And so it works very much like peroxide. It helps us to create hydrogen peroxide in our body and that destroys cancer cells. But hydrogen peroxide has no effect on our normal cells. So you'll know, like if you've ever gotten a cut on your skin and you pour hydrogen peroxide on, on your normal skin, it's not gonna have any reaction. It's only going to have reaction on damaged skin. So high dose vitamin C increases our circulating hydrogen peroxide inside of us. And that hydrogen peroxide goes to those damaged cells and helps to destroy them. So that's why I add it on to chemotherapy, because it's like an extra boost, but it won't hurt your normal cells.

[01:33:19.560] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

It will only attend to damage cells.

[01:33:22.340] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I love that. Do you consider high dose, like 50 grams, 30 grams?

[01:33:27.880] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

It's mostly weight based, so it's 0.5 to 1.5 grams/kg so high dose vitamin C is going to be different depending on what you weigh. And most people, I start them off at the 25 and depending on how much they weigh, take them up to 100.

[01:33:49.610] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah, I love that. We recently at my clinic got eboo, which I love. Obviously we had standard and high dose Ivo's on prior, but now we're doing eebo. And I mean, those are just part of my maintenance plans, you know.

[01:34:03.570] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Yeah. And it's all amazing. Right. And if you can, if you have the wherewithal to incorporate these treatments, it's amazing. And I love them. And if all you can do is get your basics going, get your basics going. Now that goes a long way.

[01:34:27.800] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I feel like if you mastered the basics that we've talked about, you would be in a better position than 90% of people in the United States.

[01:34:36.030] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

That's exactly right. And you know, for some people, I remember my friend Susan. She was battling breast cancer and not doing well. And I saw her two years later and she looked amazing. And I was like. Cause that's not what I expected.

[01:34:58.540] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah.

[01:34:59.060] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And I said, like, what happened? And she said, I had a husbandectomy, and, you know, I'm making a joke, but this is to say that, like, sometimes you're in a relationship that's not working. Sometimes you're in a job that's not working. Sometimes you're just in a friendship that is draining you. There are things that are negatively draining your energy, and that they are creating this chemical shift. You know, so many of the things that you do, your hacking things, they're shifting your chemistry.

[01:35:38.320] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Right.

[01:35:38.870] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And they're creating that chemistry of joy. But it's hard to be in the chemistry of joy when you're surrounded by stress.

[01:35:47.480] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Absolutely.

[01:35:48.240] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

And for a lot of people, the reason why they get into trouble with their health is because they're in this stress chemistry because of these situations and circumstances. Sometimes you have to walk away from that job or move out of that home or not cut that person off, even if it's a family member, because you cannot get well in the same environment which you got sick.

[01:36:22.080] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Absolutely.

[01:36:23.010] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Sometimes it requires that huge change to shift that environment from the chemistry of stress to the chemistry of joy.

[01:36:31.970] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I couldn't agree more. Well, this has been amazing to have you here. We feel like we could just go on forever. But thank you so much for coming and joining me. It's such a pleasure. Well, we'll link your book and all of, you know, the links that we talked about, the other books that you mentioned. We'll put it all in the show notes. It's been. Yeah, it's been amazing. So thank you.

[01:36:54.790] - DR. JENN SIMMONS

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here with you in your beautiful environment with this gorgeous view. So, I'm so happy that you had me here.

[01:37:04.740] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Me, too. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and views expressed on this podcast are not medical advice. This podcast, including Kayla Barnes, does not accept responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of the information contained hereinhood. Opinions of their guests are their own, and this podcast does not endorse or accept responsibility for statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guest qualifications or credibility. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to herein. If you think you have a medical issue, consult a licensed physician.