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Keeping Abreast with Dr. Jenn

Keeping Abreast with Dr. Jenn

By: Dr. Jenn Simmons
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Keeping Abreast with Dr. Jenn is a podcast dedicated to empowering women and promoting breast health through a functional medicine lens. Dr. Jenn is a leading functional medicine practitioner specializing in restoring health to the breast cancer population. She explores a range of topics related to breast health, including prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and holistic approaches to support overall well-being.

Whether you're a breast cancer survivor, a woman seeking to improve your breast health, a caregiver supporting a loved one, or you are just looking to thrive in this complicated world, this podcast is designed to meet your needs. Discover how functional medicine approaches can complement conventional treatments, support hormone balance, enhance nutrition, manage stress, optimize lifestyle choices, and promote overall well-being. Tune into Keeping Abreast with Dr. Jenn to gain the knowledge, tools, and resources to take control of your breast health journey. Remember, at the end of the day, breast health is health!


Note: The Keeping Abreast with Dr. Jenn podcast is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always consult with your healthcare provider for personalized guidance and treatment recommendations.

© 2026 Keeping Abreast with Dr. Jenn Alternative & Complementary Medicine Hygiene & Healthy Living Physical Illness & Disease
Episodes
  • 152: Part 2 | The Mammogram Is Off the Table, Here Is What a Former Breast Surgeon Recommends Instead with Ivy Harris

    152: Part 2 | The Mammogram Is Off the Table, Here Is What a Former Breast Surgeon Recommends Instead with Ivy Harris
    Jul 20 2026

    In this episode of Keeping Abreast, Dr. Jenn Simmons returns for part two of her conversation with Ivy Harris, the homeschool mom and researcher behind Done with Diligence, to answer the question Part 1 left open: if not a mammogram, then what? Dr. Jenn makes her most direct case yet that screening healthy, asymptomatic women with mammography is unethical and unsupported by science, and she lays out the alternative she built her practice around. This is the episode where she stops critiquing the old model and hands women a new one.

    Ivy asks the question every listener is thinking after Part 1: is there ever a situation where Dr. Jenn recommends a mammogram? Her answer draws the one line that matters most in this whole conversation, the line between screening a woman who feels fine and diagnosing a woman who has a symptom. One of those saves lives. The other, she argues, has been quietly manufacturing cancer for sixty years. This is the episode you'll want to send to every woman who's ever been told she has no choice but to start at 40 and repeat every year.

    What You'll Learn

    • Why Dr. Jenn recommends no screening mammogram for any asymptomatic woman.
    • What the difference between FDA cleared and FDA approved really means, and why mammography would never pass the FDA today
    • How QT compares to mammography and why it was built for dense breasts and implants first
    • Why screening a 30 year old with a mammogram isn't avoided because it can't be done, but because it would reliably cause cancer
    • Why the WISDOM trial showed more screening produces more biopsies and more diagnoses without saving a single additional life
    • What women should actually screen for instead, the metabolic dysfunction and inflammatory markers that point to prevention
    • The daily, no-cost practices Dr. Jenn says do more for breast health than any scan, from fasting to bone-loading movement to detoxification
    • Why a biopsy does not spread cancer, and why stage one breast cancer is 99% survivable
    • Why the difference between surviving breast cancer and thriving after it usually comes down to who gets a health plan, not just a treatment plan

    Episode Timeline:
    01:29 Do mammograms save lives or save breasts
    01:50 Why finding cancer early doesn't change the outcome
    02:20 How QT imaging and doubling time work
    05:01 The difference between screening and diagnosis
    07:14 Thermography, ultrasound, and the tears test
    12:32 FDA cleared versus FDA approved, explained
    18:06 QT versus mammogram sensitivity, 91% versus 71%
    20:47 QT for dense breasts and implants
    23:51 QT insurance coverage, cost, and access
    26:11 What age to start screening, and why not mammograms
    28:20 Responding to Peter Attia and the WISDOM trial
    34:21 Diet, fasting, movement, and prevention basics
    38:53 What to do after a breast cancer diagnosis
    39:44 Whether biopsies spread cancer, and the estrogen myth
    43:30 Dr. Jenn's credentials and qualifications

    Guest: Ivy Harris
    Where to find her: donewithdiligence.com & @donewithdiligence

    To talk to a member of Dr. Jenn's team and learn more about working privately with Dr. Jenn visit: https://calendly.com/stephanie-1031/clarity-call

    To get your copy of Dr. Jenn's book, The Smart Woman's Guide to Breast Cancer, visit: https://tinyurl.com/SmartWomansBreastCancerGuide

    To purchase the auria breast cancer screening test go here https://auria.care/ and use the code DRJENN20 for 20% Off.

    Connect with Dr. Jenn:
    Website: https://www.jennsimmonsmd.com/
    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrJennSimmons
    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjennsimmons/
    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dr.jennsimmons
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    48 mins
  • 151: Part 1 | Early Detection Was the Promise, but Overdiagnosis and Harmful Radiation is the Reality with Ivy Harris

    151: Part 1 | Early Detection Was the Promise, but Overdiagnosis and Harmful Radiation is the Reality with Ivy Harris
    Jul 10 2026
    In this episode of Keeping Abreast, Dr. Jenn Simmons sits down with Ivy Harris, a homeschool mom of four, researcher, and soon-to-be certified homeopath behind the blog Done with Diligence, for part one of a two-part conversation on the hidden risks of mammograms and breast cancer screening. Ivy is not a doctor. She's a mom who decided she wasn't going to walk into her first mammogram without doing her own homework first, and what she found is the reason this episode exists.It started with one post, Ivy broke down what she'd learned about mammograms into five parts, shared it, and watched it split her audience in half, with some women thanking her and others telling her she was going to get people killed. Dr. Jenn picks up exactly where Ivy left off and does the math no one does at check-in: 40 million screening mammograms a year, and by the numbers in the study Ivy found, the radiation alone works out to tens of thousands of cancers and over a thousand deaths a year. This is the episode you'll want to send to every woman who's ever been told a mammogram is simply safe, simply necessary, and not worth questioning.What You'll LearnThe naming decision behind "mammogram" that Dr. Jenn says was never an accidentIonizing radiation is a classified carcinogen, and why radiologists won't apply that logic to their own testThe cross-country flight radiation comparison doctors use to reassure you, and why it doesn't hold upHow breast density and size can mean 10x more radiation for one woman than another in the same mammogramWhy younger breast tissue takes more damage from radiation as screening age keeps getting pushed lowerOverdiagnosis: the NIH's own number is as high as 1 in 2 women screenedWhy DCIS, diagnosed in 90,000 women a year, has no physical route to become life-threatening breast cancerHow standard DCIS treatment can raise heart failure and fracture risk higher than the diagnosis itselfFalse positives and the 80% benign biopsy rate hiding behind every mammogram callbackWhat a 2026 American College of Physicians paper found on mammograms and breast cancer mortality, at every ageWhy decades of mammography have increased mastectomies by 20%, the opposite of what screening promisedLead time bias: how a screening test can look life-saving on paper without changing when anyone actually diesThe UK surgeon forced to resign for telling women the truth about mammogram screeningEpisode Timeline:00:00 Introducing Ivy Harris and Done with Diligence02:27 Why Ivy researched mammogram safety before her first screening03:00 Going past the rumors to the actual breast cancer research04:13 Her viral mammogram post and the backlash that followed05:32 Standing firm on breast cancer screening controversy07:39 Radiation risks: why a mammogram is a breast x-ray09:12 The studies linking mammogram radiation to breast cancer11:14 How radiation damages younger breast tissue13:36 The math: 40 million mammograms and radiation-induced cancer deaths17:59 Overdiagnosis and unnecessary breast cancer treatment26:14 The train analogy for mammogram overdiagnosis28:12 How breast cancer actually progresses versus the screening myth32:29 The real harm of overdiagnosis and overtreatment34:54 Why mammograms don't reduce all-cause breast cancer mortality50:15 Lead time bias and misleading screening survival statistics52:04 Michael Baum, saving breasts, and a Part 2 previewResources Mentioned:American College of Physicians, Annals of Internal Medicine, April 2026: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M22-3424Guest: Ivy HarrisWhere to find her: Done with Diligence & @donewithdiligenceTo talk to a member of Dr. Jenn's team and learn more about working privately with Dr. Jenn visit: https://calendly.com/stephanie-1031/clarity-callTo get your copy of Dr. Jenn's book, The Smart Woman's Guide to Breast Cancer, visit: https://tinyurl.com/SmartWomansBreastCancerGuideTo purchase the auria breast cancer screening test go here https://auria.care/ and use the code DRJENN20 for 20% Off.Connect with Dr. Jenn:Website: https://www.jennsimmonsmd.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrJennSimmonsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjennsimmons/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dr.jennsimmons
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • 150: The Trauma You Carried for Decades Could Be the Root of Your Disease with Dr. Aimie Apigian

    150: The Trauma You Carried for Decades Could Be the Root of Your Disease with Dr. Aimie Apigian
    Jun 27 2026

    In this episode of Keeping Abreast, Dr. Jenn Simmons sits down with Dr. Aimie Apigian, a physician with a master's in biochemistry who left surgical training to study the biology of trauma after her own health collapsed. Together they make the case that unresolved trauma, including the kind you'd never check a box for, is not a side note to breast cancer but part of the terrain it grows in. This is the conversation conventional oncology skips entirely.

    Dr. Aimie didn't recognize her own trauma until it nearly destroyed her health. Raised to be her adopted father's emotional stability, she carried a burden she never named as trauma, until a failed adoption after six years left her with chronic fatigue she couldn't get out of bed from one month later. She knew the research linking adversity to disease. She still didn't see it in herself. If you've ever told yourself your childhood "wasn't that bad," this episode will give language to what your body already knows.

    What You'll Learn

    • Why the women most likely to carry hidden trauma are the ones who'd swear they had a happy childhood
    • What the famous ACE study found when it looked at wealthy women, and why it shocked the medical world
    • Why trauma isn't a feeling you can think your way out of, but a physical loop your body keeps running
    • What a review revealed about childhood adversity and breast cancer risk
    • Why the state you were in before your diagnosis matters more than the diagnosis itself
    • How to tell if your body is still holding trauma, without digging into your past
    • Why feeling safe feels terrifying to a nervous system that survived on control
    • How healing can start with just two seconds at a time
    • Why no retreat or single psychedelic trip will do what small daily habits can
    • Why most people start their trauma work in the wrong place, and pay for it


    Guest Dr. Aimie Apigian
    Where to find her: biologyoftrauma.com
    Instagram: www.instagram.com/draimie/

    To talk to a member of Dr. Jenn's team and learn more about working privately with Dr. Jenn visit: https://calendly.com/stephanie-1031/clarity-call

    To get your copy of Dr. Jenn's book, The Smart Woman's Guide to Breast Cancer, visit: https://tinyurl.com/SmartWomansBreastCancerGuide

    To purchase the auria breast cancer screening test go here https://auria.care/ and use the code DRJENN20 for 20% Off.

    Connect with Dr. Jenn:
    Website: https://www.jennsimmonsmd.com/
    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrJennSimmons
    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjennsimmons/
    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dr.jennsimmons
    Show more Show less
    59 mins
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