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Ready to understand the real story behind anti-estrogen therapy for breast cancer?
If you are facing decisions about anti-estrogen therapy or feeling pressure to begin treatment, Dr. Katie offers a balanced perspective based on facts rather than fear. She walks you through how to understand treatment statistics and identify the essential questions to ask your healthcare team.
Many women struggle with fear of their own bodies after receiving an estrogen-positive breast cancer diagnosis. Dr. Deming addresses these concerns head-on, explaining the natural role of hormones while sharing valuable insights gained from treating hundreds of patients in both conventional and integrative settings.
Key Takeaways:
What estrogen-positive breast cancer really means
How hormone therapy works and its side effects
The truth about risk reduction in breast cancer treatment
Cytostatic vs. cytotoxic: why it matters
The role of lifestyle changes in healing
Questions to ask your oncologist before starting treatment
Dr. Katie also explores aspects of anti-estrogen therapy, including the importance of timing in treatment decisions, how to maintain quality of life while on these medications, and strategies for managing potential side effects naturally.
She discusses the critical difference between relative and absolute risk reduction – a distinction that can dramatically impact how you view treatment benefits and make more informed decisions about your care.
Most importantly, Dr. Katie shares practical strategies for supporting your body's natural healing processes while on anti-estrogen therapy, including nutrition, stress management, and lifestyle modifications that can enhance treatment outcomes.
Listen, learn, and equip yourself with knowledge to have more productive conversations with your healthcare team.
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Read the Transcript Below:
[00:00:00] Dr. Katie Deming: Hello everyone and welcome back to the Born Heal podcast. I'm your host Dr. Katie Deming and today I am doing a solo episode on Breast cancer and hormones and I want to start the episode by clearing up a misconception that Many people have is that if your tumor has estrogen receptors That means that your cancer is estrogen driven and women get really afraid They're like, oh my cancer is estrogen driven.
[00:00:33] Dr. Katie Deming: And so then I have to be afraid Of the fact that my body makes estrogen, and I just want to say that all it means if you have estrogen positive breast cancer is that your breast cancer cells. have estrogen receptors on them. And the reason why we test that is because we have medications that can block it.
[00:00:59] Dr. Katie Deming: If [00:01:00] we didn't have medications that could block estrogen receptors, I don't know that we would be testing that. So I want to give a little bit of the biology of breast cells. And then talk about breast cancer cells and estrogen receptors. But I think it's important to understand the normal breast physiology in order to understand how to think about estrogen receptors on breast cancer cells.
[00:01:27] Dr. Katie Deming: So normal breast cells. have estrogen receptors on them. They also have progesterone receptors on them. And the reason why is because breast cells are designed to grow when levels of estrogen are higher. And there are certain times in our body, or sorry, certain times in our life where estrogen levels are higher.
[00:01:52] Dr. Katie Deming: And those times are during adolescence or puberty, during pregnancy, during pregnancy. And also during [00:02:00] breastfeeding and basically because breast cells have receptors on the outside for estrogen, it means that when estrogen levels rise, estrogen then binds to those receptors on those cells and sends a signal to tell the breast cells to grow.
[00:02:22] Dr. Katie Deming: And this is just normal breast physiology. This is not related to breast cancer. So every cell in our body has specific receptors for molecules or hormones that they are sensitive to, which means they are going to do specific things when those molecules or hormones are around. And breast cells are designed to grow during adolescence, during pregnancy, and during breastfeeding.
[00:02:51] Dr. Katie Deming: So they have estrogen receptors on the outside of them. And you can think of these receptors as like little hands on the outside of the cells. [00:03:00] That when estrogen levels rise and estrogen is present, it binds to those receptors and then sends a signal into that cell telling it to divide and grow. That is normal breast physiology.
[00:03:15] Dr. Katie Deming: Now with breast cancer, we check to see if those breast cells have estrogen receptors. And if they do, it's actually a good thing. And this is the big thing that I want people to take away from this, why I don't want people to be afraid if your breast cancer is Is estrogen positive, and it's a good thing because if your breast cancer cells have estrogen receptors, It means that those cells have not changed so much away from the normal cell that they've lost all the features of a normal breast cell.
[00:03:55] Dr. Katie Deming: The most aggressive types of breast cancer have lost all of the [00:04:00] receptors and lost all of the normal features of of a breast cell. And that's why you'll hear people say a triple negative is a very aggressive type of breast cancer. It's because it's changed so much from the normal breast cell that it's lost all those receptors.
[00:04:16] Dr. Katie Deming: And I also don't want people who are triple negative now to freak out and be like, Oh my gosh, this means You know, this is super aggressive and that's the narrative that you're going to hear in Western medicine. And I'll do a separate episode or maybe at the end of this episode, I'll have some time to talk about the way that I think about the, actually I will talk about how I think about these different receptor types of breast cancer, but basically having those estrogen receptors actually suggests that your breast cancer is less aggressive because it still has the features.
[00:04:51] Dr. Katie Deming: Of a normal breast cell. And then the other reason why in conventional Western oncology, they consider it, consider it [00:05:00] a positive thing to have those estrogen receptors is that then you have medications that could potentially either lower levels of estrogen in the body. or block those receptors at the receptor site.
[00:05:15] Dr. Katie Deming: And so I want to talk about those two options just so that you know what the different treatment options are that affect the estrogen receptor. But this is why having estrogen positive breast cancer is considered favorable is because it's a good way to It the breast cancer tends to be less aggressive, still has a lot of the features of a normal breast cell.
[00:05:39] Dr. Katie Deming: And then you have some treatment options that are less toxic than, uh, traditional chemotherapy. Okay. So that's the piece that I want people to understand in terms of the physiology of the normal breast cell, and then looking at the physiology of the breast [00:06:00] cancer cells. Now, when. When your doctor talks to you about anti estrogen, the type of anti estrogen that they may recommend to you is different depending on your age.
[00:06:16] Dr. Katie Deming: And there are different types of anti estrogens. I'm not going to go into all of them, but I'm going to give you some of the classes so that you can understand the difference of these. Before you go through menopause, The anti estrogen that is most likely going to be recommended is tamoxifen, or if they suppress your ovaries, then they may offer something else, but we're going to get to that next.
[00:06:40] Dr. Katie Deming: So I just want you to hear this first, and then we'll get to talking about aromatase inhibitors. But tamoxifen blocks the estrogen receptor. At the receptor site. So you can think of it like this if you are premenopausal and tamoxifen is recommended, or even I guess [00:07:00] in the postmenopausal state, the idea is that the Tamoxifen will, when you take the Tamoxifen, it would bind to the that estrogen receptor, and then it would basically block the estrogen in your body from attaching to that receptor and what the Tamoxifen does instead of stimulating growth.
[00:07:21] Dr. Katie Deming: which the estrogen does, it basically shuts that down and it doesn't allow it to do anything, it just sits there. Except on certain cells in the body, tamoxifen has a pro estrogen effect, and that is on the uterus. So on the cells in the uterus, Tamoxifen is actually pro estrogen, and that's why there is a risk of causing endometrial cancer with tamoxifen.
[00:07:51] Dr. Katie Deming: That risk is low. It's about 1%, but there is a risk of that because it has a pro estrogen effect on the uterus. [00:08:00] But that's the way that tamoxifen works. And then the other risks associated with tamoxifen are blood clots. So estrogen, I mean tamoxifen can have the risk of increasing your risk of developing blood clots.
[00:08:15] Dr. Katie Deming: And so anyone who has a history of that, they will likely not recommend tamoxifen. The other class of anti estrogen medications are something called aromatase inhibitors. And these are used in after menopause. So tamoxifen basically is given usually before you go through menopause. And I'll talk about the caveats of when it might not be when I talk about the post menopausal state.
[00:08:45] Dr. Katie Deming: But basically before you go through menopause, your ovaries are still Producing estrogen. And so you've got estrogen circulating in the body and tamoxifen is used to block that estrogen from [00:09:00] binding and sending the signal to the breast cancer cells to grow. And that's the mechanism. Now, after menopause, your ovaries are not producing estrogen.
[00:09:12] Dr. Katie Deming: And so most people ask, well, where's the estrogen coming from after menopause and we produce estrogen in the fat on our body. So all of us do this. So after we go through menopause and the ovaries stop producing estrogen, we are still making estrogen in our fat. And aromatase inhibitors, that's like, ~um, ~arimidex, letrozole, some of these other drugs, they basically block the production of estrogen in the fat because you no longer are worried about production of estrogen from the ovaries.
[00:09:51] Dr. Katie Deming: It's coming from your fat. And so if you can block that production, you don't need to give something that's going to block it at the receptor. You can [00:10:00] basically lower the levels of estrogen in the body by using an aromatase inhibitor. And the data shows that aromatase inhibitors are more effective than tamoxifen in postmenopausal women.
[00:10:14] Dr. Katie Deming: And in premenopausal women, there's data that suggests that if you could suppress the ovaries and use an aromatase inhibitor instead of tamoxifen, that may be preferential. And so you may hear this from your doctor If you're premenopausal, they might start with tamoxifen and then suppress your ovaries either through an injection or removing the ovaries and then use an aromatase inhibitor.
[00:10:45] Dr. Katie Deming: But the whole idea is that you can't use an aromatase inhibitor unless you have induced menopause. So these are some of the options that you're going to hear. There are a lot of [00:11:00] Side effects associated with just even taking the any kind of anti estrogen, but then especially for the young women of suppressing the ovaries and doing an aroma taste inhibitor on top of that.
[00:11:15] Dr. Katie Deming: And so the side effects associated with. We talked about tamoxifen. So the complications associated with tamoxifen, mainly, I'm not going through everything, but the big ones are,~ um,~ blood clots. and endometrial cancer. Those are the two big risks associated with those. They're still small. They're in the single digits, but the risks associated with aromatase inhibitors are bone loss.
[00:11:42] Dr. Katie Deming: So decreased bone density. And this is why your doctor will always check a bone scan not a bone scan, but a bone density scan,~ um,~ before you start an aromatase inhibitor so that they can see what your baseline bone density is before starting it. And then they can monitor it [00:12:00] to see if there's been bone loss.
[00:12:01] Dr. Katie Deming: So that is the main, one of the main,~ um,~ longterm risks associated with aromatase inhibitors. The other thing associated with aromatase inhibitors is that they can cause joint pain. Okay. And that's something that many women,~ um,~ you know, it can be debilitating to have the joint pain. Okay. So those are kind of things that are specific to aromatase inhibitors.
[00:12:27] Dr. Katie Deming: And if you look at the side effects, these are kind of the things, the symptoms that you might experience on these medications. There are a lot of them that are common between the two. So hot flashes. Weight gain. Mood changes. Difficulty sleeping. ~Um,~
[00:12:45] Dr. Katie Deming: hang on, Marvin. I'm just, I'm wondering if there's a way for me to pause. I don't see it here. Hang on. I'm just going to pull something up.
[00:12:53] Dr. Katie Deming: So, ~um, ~some of the other ones that are maybe less commenting that people can have, uh, [00:13:00] are nausea, uh, headaches. Constipation. Those are definitely lower on the wrist. I would say the main ones for both tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitors are the mood changes, the hot flashes, weight gain, vaginal dryness is also one that you would experience on both of them.
[00:13:22] Dr. Katie Deming: So kind of think of it like anything that you would experience during menopause. Those things will be exacerbated or induced through taking an anti estrogen medication. And the, I think the, one of the important things to think about with this is what is the benefit and then thinking about those risks.
[00:13:49] Dr. Katie Deming: Now, in general, anti estrogens reduce the risk of recurrence by A relative risk of recurrence by 50%. So [00:14:00] let me just give an example. So say you've had a lumpectomy and radiation for an early stage breast cancer, and your risk of recurrence is, let's just say 10%. By adding an anti-estrogen, you're reducing that risk by 50%, but it's a relative risk reduction.
[00:14:19] Dr. Katie Deming: So it's from 10% down to 5%, and that's an absolute. risk reduction of 5%. So these drugs, when they're offered, many women have already had, you know, surgery and radiation. And the relative risk reduction is significant 50%, but the absolute risk reduction is only about 5%. And the other thing to note is that Many women do not end up taking these medications as prescribed because their quality of life is [00:15:00] significantly affected by this.
[00:15:02] Dr. Katie Deming: And a lot of the studies have shown that only about 60 percent of women take these medications as prescribed because they don't tolerate them. And so that's something just to note is that when your doctor talks about this is a lot of women don't tolerate these medications because it's, you know, it's a big quality of life factor.
[00:15:25] Dr. Katie Deming: If you're moody and you can't sleep and you're gaining weight and just not feeling good. So that those are things to like, keep in mind when you're thinking about this and. The other thing is that, and this is going to get to the bigger picture of, like, all the different subtypes of,~ um,~ let's just with breast cancer.
[00:15:48] Dr. Katie Deming: So thinking about triple negative or her to new positive or estrogen receptor positive, these different types of breast cancers. The reason why we test these different receptors [00:16:00] is to direct treatment. If we didn't have these treatments, these receptors may not be tested because if we didn't have something to, um, treat them with, there would have been no incentive to test these necessarily.
[00:16:17] Dr. Katie Deming: And so you have to remember that, like, I have a lot of people who come and talk to me and they're like, you know, With if you're doing more natural treatments, if you're really looking at a holistic approach of treating cancer naturally, they're like, Oh, well, you know, how would you treat it if it's triple negative or her to new positive.
[00:16:36] Dr. Katie Deming: But the truth is, is that the these receptors and this whole idea of classifying cancers. Much of it is driven by the Western oncology treatment options. And if you come zoom out and are looking in the way that I'm looking at things now. So I was in that world for a very [00:17:00] long time. Like I would, you know, these are the talks that I had every day with people.
[00:17:03] Dr. Katie Deming: I would be doing the radiation portion, but then they may not understand the anti estrogen that their medical oncologist was recommending. So I would talk about this all the time. But now. That I'm seeing, you know, these treatments that we do, all of them like surgery, chemo, radiation, anti estrogen, none of them really deal with the underlying problem.
[00:17:25] Dr. Katie Deming: I'm zoomed out and looking at, okay, why did you get sick in the first place? Like, what are the underlying causes? What are the things in your life that we need to change? And I talk about this in my guide, you know, the three things you need to know about cancer is that cancer is not caused by one thing.
[00:17:43] Dr. Katie Deming: And unless you have like, you know, uh, even if you have a genetic condition, it's not just caused by that genetic condition. Cause not everyone with a BRCA mutation gets breast cancer. It also is influenced by your lifestyle. And this is the whole idea [00:18:00] of epigenetics is that you can have a gene mutation, and it's not, you know, you don't see that as a physical manifestation of disease.
[00:18:10] Dr. Katie Deming: Unless the lifestyle is also contributing to that. So even with people who have genetic mutations, it's not like a done deal that that means your gets cancer. Your lifestyle plays a huge role in in the expression of that gene mutation. In terms of developing disease, but so cancer is not caused by one thing.
[00:18:31] Dr. Katie Deming: It's really related to our modern lifestyle. And there are so many things that we need to change. And that's what I say all the time to my clients is like, You have to change the way that you're living to change the underlying problem that led to disease in the first place. And so when I'm treating someone now, and I'm not treating, but when I'm coaching people on how to help them heal in a natural [00:19:00] way, I don't care whether it's a triple negative or estrogen receptor positive or her to new positive because the underlying condition that caused you to develop this cancer has nothing to do with those receptors.
[00:19:15] Dr. Katie Deming: Those receptors have to do with the treatments that are available from a Western perspective that don't actually address the underlying problem. And so it's all of the things. It's your diet. It's the supplements. It's your water. It's emotional trauma. It's stress and managing your emotions, you know, ongoing.
[00:19:39] Dr. Katie Deming: It's your what's programmed into your subconscious mind. It's your alignment. Are you living a life that's true to yourself? All of those things are common for all of us. And this is not even just if you have breast cancer. This is if you don't want to get cancer. If you don't want to get all of the diseases that we are seeing [00:20:00] skyrocketing, These are the things that you need to change.
[00:20:03] Dr. Katie Deming: And so I really wanted to talk about number one, just this idea of people, women are now afraid of their own bodies because they think, Oh my goodness, my body makes estrogen. So that's a problem. No, our bodies need estrogen for our bone health, for our cardiovascular health, for, you know, to feel good, to sleep, all of these things.
[00:20:31] Dr. Katie Deming: Of course, like the natural progression as we get older, menopause is a natural process and that shifts for women and you, you know, experience menopausal symptoms going through those changes, but also many women are struggling with menopause today. And a lot of that is related to our lifestyle. Again, we're eating the wrong foods.
[00:20:52] Dr. Katie Deming: We're exposed to environmental toxins. All of these things are causing hormonal dysregulation. [00:21:00] And so if we can start to get that right, by eliminating the toxins in our life, through the products that we use through eating clean and then eating the right foods, You can start to shift that without using any medications and I think this is one thing that I've said on the episode where I talked about, you know, what I learned in my first year of practice, but my approach is not to.
[00:21:29] Dr. Katie Deming: Address things with more chemicals. I think we are in the position that we are in ~here in 2024 ~because of chemicals, because of the way that we're living. And so. It's like Einstein said, you can't solve a problem at the same level that it was created. And we have this idea that we just need to, you know, test all these things and then throw all these chemicals at it.
[00:21:57] Dr. Katie Deming: But the truth is, is that if you can help the body [00:22:00] detoxify itself and really clean itself out and learn how to take care of yourself in the way that your body was designed, you don't have to use chemicals for these things. And that is. You know, now my practice is doing more of this holistic approach and really helping your body do what it knows how to do.
[00:22:21] Dr. Katie Deming: Right. And it's not an accident that this podcast is dialed born to heal. And I titled it way before I left Western medicine. So I started this podcast when I was still practicing radiation oncology, but it's like, that is really the foundation. We are born, our bodies are designed to do this. Our bodies are designed to heal.
[00:22:43] Dr. Katie Deming: But you need to have a plan and you need to know how to do this, but getting caught up in these subtypes and number one, being afraid of your body. If you have an estrogen receptor, positive breast cancer is just not helpful because
[00:22:58] Dr. Katie Deming: you don't have to be afraid of your body. [00:23:00] And in fact, maybe that's a, a good thing having those estrogen receptors because it suggests that the cancer is not as aggressive, right? So I want people to. Get out of the fear and start to have the information that can empower them to understand what these things mean and how to interpret it.
[00:23:18] Dr. Katie Deming: And then the other piece is like the flip side of that is I don't want women who have triple negative breast cancer to be afraid. Oh, no, my cancer is so aggressive that there's nothing that I can do. I have to rush into treatment. I have to do all of these things. And so it's. It's a game to be honest and I'm becoming so disillusioned with the way that I was trained and the information that I learned because I really believe that we've been taught incorrectly about all of this because It's an industry and it's designed to sell medications.
[00:23:59] Dr. Katie Deming: And if [00:24:00] you know what this all means and how to address the underlying problem, maybe you don't need those medications. So let's address, you know, because the other thing is, Women come to me and they say, well, if I don't do this, you know, my doctor says it's going to come back. And actually I just had this happen the other day where an oncologist said to one of my clients, she had,~ um,~ a.
[00:24:28] Dr. Katie Deming: Basically, she was considering not doing anti estrogen therapy and the risk of recurrence was, let's just say it was, I think it was 15 percent in this particular setting. And the,~ um,~ anti estrogen was going to reduce that by half. So from 15 down to a seven and a half percent risk of recurrence. And the woman was.
[00:24:53] Dr. Katie Deming: You know, not sure. And she said, I, I don't know that I want to do this. And the [00:25:00] oncologist said to her, you're a mom, you have four kids. Don't you want to live for your children? And number one, if you have a doctor who says this to you, I would leave that office. That is not okay. Because if you take those numbers and you flip them around, even if you just use their model, that means 85 percent chance that you do nothing else.
[00:25:26] Dr. Katie Deming: And this cancer is not coming back and you're going to live a normal life. And then by adding the anti estrogen. you're going to increase that from 85 percent to 92 and a half percent, right? But you're buying a lot of side effects with those medications. And to say to someone, don't you love your children?
[00:25:49] Dr. Katie Deming: Don't you want to be around for your children? When you understand those numbers, it's like, Yes, of course. I mean, it's just a ridiculous [00:26:00] statement in the first place, but it's like, it's a 7. 5 percent absolute, you know, percentage increase by doing this medication. But then, oh, but meanwhile, I'm going to be angry at my children because I've got moodiness and I can't sleep and I'm going to gain weight and I have bone loss and you're going to suppress my ovaries.
[00:26:21] Dr. Katie Deming: And just to me, Some of these conversations are really upsetting now that I'm hearing them on the other side. And so when you hear those numbers, one of the ways that you can flip around and see, okay, how am I gonna do if I don't do them? It's like without, and this is assuming you're not doing any of the things that I just talked about from a lifestyle style perspective.
[00:26:41] Dr. Katie Deming: But so say it was an 85 percent chance that it's not coming back. That's pretty good, you know, and that's, it's, When you understand those numbers, it starts to help you make better decisions about your body, but those numbers do not [00:27:00] assume any other changes. And if you're listening to my podcast, I know you guys are doing other things because you're learning so many other things to do.
[00:27:09] Dr. Katie Deming: ~Um, ~so. Unfortunately, we don't have the data and that's the thing that is frustrating, but I think also something that you need to get comfortable with. We're not going to have data on, you know, what the percentage is that is going to change with changing your diet, with doing emotional work, with improving your water, with detoxifying your body, because there is just no money in doing large scale studies.
[00:27:36] Dr. Katie Deming: These studies cost millions of dollars to do. And the reason why the pharmaceutical companies. Do the studies is because they're going to make billions of dollars off these medications. So you have to understand that those doctors, if you said, well, what if I changed my diet? What if I do, you know, emotionally, they would have no idea about emotional work.
[00:27:55] Dr. Katie Deming: They'd probably think that you're crazy if you said that, but you can send them to my podcast, [00:28:00] but the, they are not going to know what the numbers are going to be with these other Items and I think this is one of the big things that's hard to say, but even if you just said, okay, well, I'm comfortable with an 85 percent you know, disease free survival that the 85 percent chance I'm gonna live in it.
[00:28:20] Dr. Katie Deming: Everything's gonna be fine. That's without doing anything else. But if you do these other things, then to be honest, I think you're going to be in a better place because you're going to be dealing with the underlying problem that led to the cancer in the first place. And so my big takeaway is I want you to not be scared.
[00:28:44] Dr. Katie Deming: By your doctors. And I don't think the doctors want to scare you. I actually think the doctors are trapped. And I don't know if you know this, that the suicide rate among physicians is twice that of the normal population. It is [00:29:00] very high. Doctors are trapped in a system. Many of them know something's wrong.
[00:29:05] Dr. Katie Deming: They just can't get out of it. You know, enough distance to see, and they've just been trained in this way. And so you have to think about your doctor as someone who has been trained in a very specific system without any of this other information about how the body works in terms of healing. And also what is the crisis that we are experiencing as a population?
[00:29:31] Dr. Katie Deming: And so. Instead of going into the office thinking, oh, these people are gods and they know everything and they're the experts in this. They are experts in chemotherapy, in, you know, giving anti-estrogen these specific targeted drugs or radiation or surgery. That is what they are experts in, but actually why we are getting sick.
[00:29:54] Dr. Katie Deming: And what is the underlying cause of why you have this in the first place? They are not [00:30:00] experts and I will tell you just because I was one of them and I know many of them and I know that they are not intentionally doing harm. They are trapped by the limitations of the system. And so for you, take the information.
[00:30:16] Dr. Katie Deming: Get the numbers. I think that's the most important thing. When you go in to see a doctor, you can get the numbers. Okay. Like what is my risk of recurrence without doing the anti estrogen or if it's chemotherapy, whatever treatment and what is my risk with having it so you can understand the risk benefit like the,~ um,~ The statistics without and then with that treatment, and then you want a full list of the potential side effects, which are basically like symptoms that can happen from the, from the treatments that don't happen in everyone.
[00:30:51] Dr. Katie Deming: But if they happen, they basically can alter your kind of quality of life. And then what are the potential long term [00:31:00] complications that can happen as a result of that treatment? Those are the things that you want to understand. And I wouldn't make a decision in that appointment. I would take all of that information.
[00:31:12] Dr. Katie Deming: I would go home. I would talk with someone who you trust, who's grounded, who can help you think through this. Because there's a lot of emotional strings that are pulled in all this. Well, don't you want to live? Don't you want to be here for your kids? Are you're not thinking about everyone else? This is not just you.
[00:31:30] Dr. Katie Deming: This is, you know, your family. And all of those things are not good for making grounded decisions. You want to get out of that. And so if you have family members who are also saying those things to you, you need to find other people to talk to just so that you can really black and white, understand the numbers so that you can really understand what those mean.
[00:31:56] Dr. Katie Deming: You can understand the risks and side effects so that you are well [00:32:00] informed before you ever consent to taking any kind of treatment. And then think about all of the other things that you can be doing and understanding, you're not going to get those same numbers with the dealing with the root cause of the cancer and doing all these lifestyle changes, but those are going to have an impact.
[00:32:20] Dr. Katie Deming: And I can tell you, just because I'm watching that, I'm seeing that, that doing all of these other things. really make a difference. And I wish I could say these are the numbers specifically, but I also am a realist to say, this is the world that we live in and the world that we live in is not incentivized by teaching people or, you know, studying the benefits of diet in some large randomized trial for breast cancer so that you're going to get great statistics.
[00:32:49] Dr. Katie Deming: You're just not going to get that. But knowing that if you don't do those conventional therapies that you can do these other things to really [00:33:00] change the biology in your body of what's happening and why you got sick in the first place. And even if you do those therapies, you want to do these other things because those therapies don't address the underlying problem.
[00:33:16] Dr. Katie Deming: Those therapies are just dealing with, you know, cancer cells and stopping them. And then one other thing to know about anti estrogen that is super important is that anti estrogen is something called a cytostatic drug rather than cytotoxic. Chemotherapy is cytotoxic means it kills the cancer cells. Anti estrogen just puts the cells to sleep.
[00:33:41] Dr. Katie Deming: So that's why when women come off the anti estrogen five years, 10 years down the road, you can have a recurrence. These drugs are not Eliminating the, you know, basically the cancer cells, they're suppressing them. And so [00:34:00] you can have these later recurrences and that is super important to know because they make you think, Oh, this is eliminating.
[00:34:09] Dr. Katie Deming: It's like, no. It's basically stopping that growth during the time that you're on the medication and then when you go off it, those cells are still there. And then if there's estrogen, then, you know, the idea is that then that can cause a recurrence after you come off them. And that's what we see. Two. ~So I wanted to make sure that you guys understood this so that you can make the best decisions for yourself and not make decisions out of fear.~
[00:34:30] Dr. Katie Deming: ~Marvin, I'm going to come back because someone's at my door. So hang on. Okay, Marvin, I'm not sure exactly where you're gonna have to cut that out because of the barking, but ~I want you to understand all this information, not because I'm absolutely anti anti estrogen therapy, but I want you to understand this so that you're not made to feel like. You have to do something you are going to collect information so that you can make a decision grounded in factual information and then [00:35:00] decide what to do based on your values and what is best for you.
[00:35:05] Dr. Katie Deming: And if you have a doctor who tries to push you into doing these things and using some of the language that I said, that's very manipulative. Find another doctor because This is not as cut and dry as they will make it sound like you have to do this, and that this is the only way for you to Be alive for your children or whatever it is.
[00:35:29] Dr. Katie Deming: So I hope this is helpful and I would love it if you guys have other questions. So this episode really came from the questions that we got on Instagram. I had a ton of questions about anti estrogen, so feel free to send us DMS on Instagram with your questions and I will do my best to answer them. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week, and I will see you next week.
[00:35:56] Dr. Katie Deming: Take care.
[00:36:00]
DISCLAIMER:
The Born to Heal Podcast is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for seeking professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Individual medical histories are unique; therefore, this episode should not be used to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease without consulting your healthcare provider.