Start the New Year With Facts, Not Fiction

Dorothy: [00:00:00] Today we have with this Dr. Raz, who is our lead interpreting physician, and he is going to bust some myths about mammograms, breast cancer, and what actually causes breast cancer and what doesn’t.

Let’s Talk About Your Breast, a different kind of podcast presented to you by The Rose, a breast center of excellence, and a Texas treasure. You’re gonna hear frank discussions about tough topics. And you’re gonna learn why knowing about your breast could save your life.

Dr. Raz, thank you so much for being with us today and you know, you’re one of our favorite guests, and I promise not to get into an argument with you today.

Dr. Raz: It’s always fun to be here, Dorothy.

Dorothy: Ah, thank you. So explain your role here at The Rose.

Dr. Raz: Yes, I’m the chief radiologist here. That means that I’m the one who reads a lot of studies and also I’m the one who [00:01:00] sets the protocols. So anything new that comes up, new technology or new way to screen or diagnose breast cancer, I’m the one who’s responsible to implement it. So for example, we had MR mri and the next step is MR MRI biopsy. So I’ll be the one spearheading that. Um, so yeah, so I’m the Lean interpreting phys physician and love to do what I do here at The Rose.

Dorothy: And we love having you, your patients love having you.

Dr. Raz: Uh, thank you.

Dorothy: Uh. So today we wanna do some, something a little different.

Dr. Raz: Okay.

Dorothy: And some of these myths that we have about mammograms, about breast cancer, about early detection.

Dr. Raz: Right.

Dorothy: You know, I’ve been around a long time.

Dr. Raz: You look fabulous.

Dorothy: Oh, thank you. Thank you. But I, I think that was directed to me directly because I could remember that when they first came out. But, but seriously, right now, Freddy just sent me something on Instagram going, that’s going around thousands, [00:02:00] thousands of comments. Saying, well, you know, they keep telling you mammograms are good for early protect, early prevention. But, and for early detection. But that very machine could give you cancer.

Dr. Raz: Right. So I think the crux of that is that they think, a lot of people think that radiation from mammogram can cause the very thing it’s trying to find or screen for, which is cancer. So just straight numbers. It every American just living here for one year, we all get three milli seavers of radiation. Now, you don’t have to remember the units, but it’s a unit of radiation.

Dorothy: Okay.

Dr. Raz: How we measure ourselves in pounds and, uh, distance in feet.

Dorothy: Okay.

Dr. Raz: The measurement of radiation exposure here is milli seavers. You know, you may forget that, but remember we get three milli seavers. If you get a mammogram maximum, you get one milli seaver. Usually it’s between 0.5 to one, depending on the number of images we do. So. All of us, [00:03:00] even if we weren’t to do screening mammogram, get, receive three mammograms a year. So it’s very low radiation.

Dorothy: Right.

Dr. Raz: So this amount of low radiation, the amount of risk and reward that we measure, you know, we have to wait. It’s completely worth it. Screening for a cancer with this amount of low radiation, if you could fly from here to San Francisco, come back, you also receive like around two, about like one or two milli seavers worth of radiation.

Dorothy: Mm.

Dr. Raz: So just taking flights, it will give you that, that much cosmic back background radiation and just living here on Earth for one year will give you that much, three times as much radiation as a mammogram. So absolutely not, I think. Uh, this sort of thing gets propagated because, well, it is x-ray, it is penetrating, you know, energy, um, mag magnetic electromagnetic wave, but we need that so we can see inside the breast. But no, it’s not, um, it’s not energetic enough to cause DNA displacement and cause cancer. There has been no [00:04:00] studies proving that.

Dorothy: Yeah.

Dr. Raz: So.

Dorothy: I think it’s always, uh, interesting how that conversation almost automatically goes to and look at how much money those radiologists make and look, look at how they’re pro bonies. You know, there’s not another, and, and I truly believe this, I’ve always believed this, this is a, a women’s do problem, a women’s do.

Dr. Raz: Right.

Dorothy: It’s always gonna be exaggerated in some way. There’s, you know, if you have heart disease, we don’t sit there and going, look at all the money those cardiologists, cardiologist are making.

Dr. Raz: Right. That’s a great point.

Dorothy: I mean, you know, it’s, it’s like a great point. What, what is the difference here? Is it because it’s primarily for women? Is it because it was something that said, we might find a way to keep you from dying? Is it because it was so, oh, just unique and, and new. What is it that is that driving force around that?

Dr. Raz: I, I think the controversy comes from the fact [00:05:00] that we do not have many national screening programs and many countries don’t. You know, a lot of Western World has. One of them is breast cancer screening. The other big one that we have is colonoscopy. Now if we were doing colonoscopies every year, we’ll have the same controversy there. We don’t, thankfully.

Dorothy: Yeah.

Dr. Raz: Yeah. Um, you do it every 10 years. Um, and that’s, you know, we’ve studied it and FDA and all National Cancer Institute and all these big bodies have decided that 10 years sufficient. You know, there’s some nuances to it based on risk you do every five years, ulcerative, colitis, et cetera.

Dorothy: Right.

Dr. Raz: But that’s the thing. Mammograms every year. Which is about the only screening nationally recognized and done program that does this like one year screening every year. Right? We sort of had, if you search Instagram long enough, flu shots, same thing. People will come up with lots of things, oh, I took flu shot, didn’t do anything. We should stop, ban flu shots, et cetera, et cetera. Right? Vaccines, we have similar controversies. [00:06:00] Because they do it every year. Mammograms suffers from the same thing where you’re screening every year since you’re screening every year, and there are lots of women. All of this controversy comes, right?

So that’s what it is. Partly that’s the reason. The other reason is breast cancer is actually like top three. Like in terms of, you know, killer, killer cancer, right? So the number one is lung cancer in the United States. Between both sexists. After that it’s um, it’s, uh, colon cancer, and then after that it’s breast cancer for women and for men it’s prostate cancer. Unfortunately, there’s no screening for prostate cancer also, but this part is fortunate. A lot of men die from other causes like heart disease, other things. Then prostate cancer and prostate cancer tends to be not very aggressive, majority of the kind.

Dorothy: Right.

Dr. Raz: Unfortunately, breast cancer is not just one disease. It’s very different. So that’s also playing into like a lot of these controversies. But I do believe it’s [00:07:00] because it’s a national program. It’s done every year. It comes in.

Dorothy: It has nothing to do with being part of women’s health.

Dr. Raz: It it, it has and also is that, that’s also a fact, right? Because it’s, it’s a woman thing. And then remember before 1970s, eighties, nobody really cared. You know, we didn’t have anything, we didn’t have any screening programs. It’s so, you know, and so as we’ve advanced and, and this all gets into politics and women’s rights and everything, this is all amalgamated into this one focal point. And then, yes, you know, there are lots of people who just talk a lot and slinging mud at this.

Dorothy: And this was one of the first myths that we had to overcome in the beginning.

Dr. Raz: Right.

Dorothy: I mean, we’re talking 40 years. Plus.

Dr. Raz: 40 years. Yes.

Dorothy: Yeah. And it’s still out there.

Dr. Raz: It’s still out there despite very hard and strong evidence. That is because of screening, national screening program or screening program, or you know, being an advocate, you know, pick the rules or you that [00:08:00] we’ve had like decreased in terms of like disease burden.

Dorothy: Right.

Dr. Raz: Now, incidence is unfortunately still high.

Dorothy: Right.

Dr. Raz: But the disease burden, like the deaths, the has been on the downward, you know, downward trend because you’ve, you are catching it early. You get rid of screening. Let’s, let’s say you start doing every two years. I guarantee you a lot of these deaths that we’ve been preventing is gonna start going up the graph.

Dorothy: We saw that we, when they change the recommendations, remember?

Dr. Raz: Exactly.

Dorothy: It was only like four years and all of a sudden you started seeing that increase.

Dr. Raz: Exactly.

Dorothy: Yeah. So.

Dr. Raz: So despite this hard evidence, you know, people talk a lot about this.

Dorothy: People talk a lot.

Dr. Raz: So.

Dorothy: Alright, let’s go to the next one. Uh, and, and maybe you have another one that’s more important, but to me it is that one about, well, I don’t have family history. Why do I even have to worry about it?

Dr. Raz: Right. Great question. So unfortunately, majority of breast cancer, only about 10 to 15% is genetic [00:09:00] based.

Dorothy: That the woman even knows about.

Dr. Raz: Correct.

Dorothy: Yes.

Dr. Raz: Um, majority of breast cancer, we use the word acquired, meaning you just get it just being a woman and as you age, those are the two biggest factors. Um, you can get breast cancer, so it’s statistic, pretty much everybody on this podcast by memorized by now, but you know, one in eight women will get breast cancer during their lifetime. We define lifetime, roughly as around 85 to 90 years old in the United States. Again, breast cancer is not one disease. It’s multitude of different types of cancer or diseases if you wanna call it. Um, so yes, it’s um, you know, because of this incidence, one in eight, um, it’s, it’s important to screen very, I cannot stress this enough.

Dorothy: Yeah.

Dr. Raz: Family history or not. And family history is a just, but one part, if you do not have family history, you’re still at risk of developing breast cancer. Right? Because majority of breast cancer, as I said, is [00:10:00] acquired, is not genetic abnormality causing it.

Dorothy: Okay.

Dr. Raz: Unfortunately, the risks are many, there are environmental factors, there’s certain genetic factors, obviously genetic abnormality like VRCN mutation mutations is what we’re talking about here. Can increase your risk, you know, BRCA one mutation has like 80% risk. Very high.

Dorothy: Yeah.

Dr. Raz: You know, guaranteed almost breast cancer, but that’s not majority of breast cancer, small percentage of breast cancers that we find. Just being a woman and your age gives you the highest risk. Then obviously their family history outside of genetic factors.

Dorothy: Right.

Dr. Raz: Um. But then your breast density, you know, the way you eat actually, obesity, all these things, environmental factors, they all play a role.

Dorothy: Yeah.

Dr. Raz: Um, it’s not just genetics. It’s not just DNA or gene abnormality.

Dorothy: Okay. Touch upon, and yes, we all know it’s “Old” woman’s disease.

Dr. Raz: Yes.

Dorothy: But.

Dr. Raz: But a younger woman can also get it. [00:11:00] Yes.

Dorothy: Right. So, so we don’t want to ever, ever say this is just for.

Dr. Raz: No.

Dorothy: That older women need to be concerned. Younger women are, are diagnosed with breast cancer.

Dr. Raz: Correct. So like around 10 to 15% of women that we diagnosed with breast cancer, they’re actually under 40. So that’s significant amount.

Dorothy: Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Raz: So 115, a hundred women with breast cancer, 15 or under 40. Under 40 is young. Um, you know, and some studies will say between like under 45, but bottom line, younger women, premenopausal women. No, it’s absolutely not just an older woman’s disease. No.

Dorothy: And you know, one time, and, and we’re gonna get back to the, the current miss also, but one time you pointed out that, that younger woman loses more years of life.

Dr. Raz: That’s right.

Dorothy: When it’s not detected, not treated, or not successful in treating.

Dr. Raz: Right. So, yeah, so number of years lived, and there are many versions of this. Um, or li, number of li, year lives saved is what we use in papers. [00:12:00] But what it means is that if we treat the disease, how many more years can a woman live?

Dorothy: Right.

Dr. Raz: So if it’s a younger woman, obviously she has much longer to live. You change the course of her life. And actually, this goes back to the first point you made is because it’s a woman’s disease woman really is when we’re not going to 1950s, like the old family, you know, nucleus thing. But still it. Yeah. A lot of, I see this, and you can call it anecdotal, but I meet plenty of women that skip screening mammogram. Their reason is because I was too busy, because I didn’t have time for myself. You know, I was taking care of my family, taking care of my kids. I was working a job, helping my husband, et cetera. It really changes the whole, you know, messes up with the whole family, if you wanna call that. Right. If a woman doesn’t take care of her health, her kids suffer. Family suffers. Everybody suffers. That’s one of the other reasons is so much in focus. The first question you’re asking me about the controversy, but yeah. Bottom line, um, it’s, [00:13:00] I mean, it’s something that’s still underappreciated. Um, the screening mammogram, right? I don’t know why that is, but every year, October, that’s why we dedicate so much time to it. Um, but it’s unequivocal. There’s no controversy here. Gotta get screening mammograms in.

Dorothy: All right, so now let’s go to some of those that I’ve heard all my life.

Dr. Raz: Sure.

Dorothy: Or, you know, wearing an underwire brawl wearing a bra at night, wearing a bra, period, causes breast cancer.

Dr. Raz: Breast cancer. Right. So, um, I think this is like, there was an old study in 1980s, 1990. Somebody studied with the underwire bra and, um, there, what ends up happening is if you wear underwire bra, um, there’s lymphatics in, in the breast tissue. Um, their job is to clean, you know, it’s, it’s like garbage cleaning. Think of it that way. And, you know, underwear, bra can prevent it from happening, but there’s no link between wearing a bra and not wearing a [00:14:00] bra and causing cancer. None. Not wearing bra isn’t gonna prevent cancer. Wearing underwater bra is not gonna cause any, cause, any breast cancer, but it can cause breast pain. Because then those lymphatics can clean up as efficiently and you retain some fluid causes swelling, could cause some cellulitis, some breast pain.

Dorothy: Right.

Dr. Raz: So that’s really about it. They’ve done multiple studies on this. No direct connection to breast cancer.

Dorothy: Deodorant.

Dr. Raz: Okay, great. So deodorant, I think the, uh, the element in there that’s the most controversial is aluminum. So, again, NCI and uh, FDA have studied it actually in case control studies and they’ve tried to figure out, hey, how much aluminum does when absorbed in the skin, it’s very minimum. Um, and even, even whatever amounts gets absorbed doesn’t get to cells or penetrate into cells. So no connection has been found between [00:15:00] aluminum causing direct breast cancer or cancer.

Dorothy: Okay.

Dr. Raz: So deodorant. No, don’t worry about it. They’ve done case control studies. Nobody has done cohort studies, but. No direct correlation with breast cancer. I mean, causation.

Dorothy: Okay.

Dr. Raz: With breast cancer. So please put on deodorant.

Dorothy: Alright. What about cell phones and carrying your cell phone in your bra.

Dr. Raz: Right.

Dorothy: Now. I know that sounds weird to some of our listeners, but it’s a logical place.

Dr. Raz: Right.

Dorothy: If you’re, if you’re not carrying a purse or, or whatever.

Dr. Raz: Right. Right. Um, my grandmother actually, I remember she used to carry her small wallet in her bra. She used to, to take out the wallet from her bra. Um. I’d say that’s very uncomfortable to carry it. But if you are, um, cell phone, they’re radio frequency, so they’re very low energy electromagnetic waves.

Dorothy: Okay.

Dr. Raz: So these are big words, but we’re all surrounded by energy. The light in front of my face, that’s also energy. It’s not causing me cancer ’cause it’s [00:16:00] low energy. Cell phones the same way. These are low energy and you know, more so than breast cancer. Think about it. We’re always using it on our head.

Dorothy: Right?

Dr. Raz: People have studied it for neurological disease or neuro, you know, brain-based cancer.

Dorothy: Brain cancer. Is there anything to that?

Dr. Raz: There’s been no connection.

Dorothy: Okay.

Dr. Raz: It’s just not strong enough now compared to one of the first questions we ask about mammogram. Remember causing, now x-rays are higher energy because we need that higher energy to actually penetrate the tissue. But again, they’re not high energy enough to cause cancer.

Dorothy: Right.

Dr. Raz: So definitely cell phone signals and cell phone is not.

Dorothy: Alright. Hey, there’s a lot of these. What about dyeing one’s hair?

Dr. Raz: Dyeing one’s hair. Again, it’s sort of similar to like, you know, antiperspirant or.

Dorothy: Okay.

Dr. Raz: Deodorant, uh, the chemicals and think a lot of talk about parabens and, You know, usage of that. But again, while these are found to be caustic on, [00:17:00] on a, on a preclinical data, meaning like in lab, uh, no connection has been found for causing breast cancer. Again, we’re looking for causing, uh, causation.

Dorothy: Okay.

Dr. Raz: So none. So yeah, if you feel like you need.

Dorothy: Is that the same?

Dr. Raz: The hair color, the please dye your hair?

Dorothy: Is that, is that kind of the same as the water bottles or is that a different, you know, if you use.

Dr. Raz: The plastic.

Dorothy: Yes. The plastic.

Dr. Raz: Yeah.

Dorothy: Water bottle.

Dr. Raz: So again, you know, it’s, um, it has to do with the fact that a lot of these are plastic and can cause inflammatory conditions in our body. Actually, one of the topics that that’s relevant in breast imaging is silicone implants.

Dorothy: Right.

Dr. Raz: Silicone implants back in the day, what would they do? Could they cause an, you know, there’s actually an active study that’s happening for inflammatory condition being caused by silicone implants. Now, the old implants, there’s some correlation, not causation found.

Dorothy: Okay.

Dr. Raz: That’s still been happening. Um, so [00:18:00] meaning like joint pain, lymph nodes getting swollen. So a lot of women have come out and said, you know this, I’m talking about 1980s, 1990s.

Dorothy: Right.

Dr. Raz: So sort of inflammatory conditions can happen, you know, if you use chemicals, right? This is why there’s this whole talk about, you know, eating healthy organic food, right?

Dorothy: Right.

Dr. Raz: It’s ’cause whatever we ingest can cause some reaction, inflammatory reaction from a body. But is it leading to cancer? No.

Dorothy: Okay.

Dr. Raz: Yeah.

Dorothy: Hormones.

Dr. Raz: Okay, so hormones, HRT in particular. Right? Now, that does increase your risk of breast cancer, hormone replacement therapy. So.

Dorothy: If you’re using both estrogen and progesterone or?

Dr. Raz: So, estrogen is the main culprit.

Dorothy: Okay.

Dr. Raz: Now remember why we do HRT is, you know, when a woman hits menopause, there’s, there’s severe symptoms. Some women feel, right? So headache, brittle hair, mood swings, headache. And those are affecting quality of life. So a lot of OBGYNs do start on HRT, but [00:19:00] again, they’re not, they will not be keeping you on it forever.

Dorothy: Okay.

Dr. Raz: So they taper you off when your symptoms become more under control. You if hit menopause and you kind of get in control of all these symptoms. They taper you off. If you’re permanently gonna stay on HRT, that does increase your risk of two cancers. One, it’s breast cancer, then one it’s uterine cancer.

And again, why? Because HRT are estrogen analogs. Remember, one of the medications that we use to treat breast cancer is, you know, tamoxifen or aromatase. These are anti-estrogen. So they actually block the effect of estrogen because cancer cells love estrogen the more they get certain cancer cells. Um, so again, you can think of estrogen in postmenopausal women as a detrimental force. You don’t, do not wanna be staying it on too long. But again, OBGYNs are very smart and they taper you off. They don’t keep you from many years. And again, it’s, it’s an cumulative effect. You don’t just take it, you have risk. You keep [00:20:00] taking it as when the risk accumulates, if you will.

Dorothy: Of course, there’s some menopausal symptoms that you don’t wanna go through.

Dr. Raz: Right.

Dorothy: And, and it. You know, I said I wasn’t gonna get into any arguments, but it’s amazing to me that we can find, uh, medicines and therapies for men.

Dr. Raz: Right?

Dorothy: But we have yet to find anything for menopause.

Dr. Raz: Right.

Dorothy: We have yet, I don’t care. The same things they’re recommending right now, we recommended 20 years ago.

Dr. Raz: Right?

Dorothy: There is no relief.

Dr. Raz: Right.

Dorothy: And yet we’re supposed to act normal. When we’re going through that.

Dr. Raz: I feel you, which is why a lot of patients come in. They tell me, should I stop? I say, no, just talk with the OBGYN. Continue our HRT. Just monitor it and then taper off. You know, I wouldn’t want any woman to go through like terrible menopause symptoms. So like they do ask me, like, I’ve heard it causes cancer. It doesn’t cause cancer. Increase your risk for breast cancer, right? So be on it, you know, [00:21:00] symptoms are severe, you don’t wanna live, you know, a horrible experience, horrible life.

Dorothy: Right.

Dr. Raz: But it does, there is science behind that. It, it increases risk, unfortunately.

Dorothy: Okay.

Dr. Raz: Yeah.

Dorothy: So surveillance, monitoring.

Dr. Raz: Correct.

Dorothy: All of that.

Dr. Raz: Correct. Monitoring, yeah, that’s right. Doesn’t mean you don’t take it, but just watch it.

Dorothy: So it does soy fall in that same hormonal?

Dr. Raz: No, I haven’t read much about soy. To my knowledge, it hasn’t shown any direct correlate causation to breast cancer.

Dorothy: Right.

Dr. Raz: Um, but again, because it modulates your internal hormones, I believe that’s one of the topics with soy.

Dorothy: Yeah.

Dr. Raz: Um.

Dorothy: Too much caffeine?

Dr. Raz: So too much caffeine can cause breast pain.

Dorothy: Okay.

Dr. Raz: Um. But again, does not cause breast cancer. If you injure your breast, again, does not lead to breast cancer. What ends up happening is when you injure your breast, you come for breast screening. Hey, I injured it. I feel a lump. ’cause one of the ways that breast heals is you, [00:22:00] it couldn’t cause hematoma. So if, if I slam my head really hard. Hand really hard against the door. I’ll cause some bruising.

Dorothy: Right.

Dr. Raz: That bruising gets resolved. But because a lot of breast tissue is made of fat, fat resolves, fat heals itself in a peculiar way. It’s called fat necrosis. Again, it’s a fancy word you don’t have to remember, but occasionally can form a mass or a cyst. It’s called oil cyst, right? And that’s how fat heals. But it can feel like a mass and body can deposit some calcium in there. And calcium’s hard so you can feel the hard mass. Now that happens. So everybody freaks out obviously they come in and be like, Hey, it’s a mass, it’s cancer, but it’s really fat necrosis, which is a benign thing. It’s just how fat heals from a trauma. And trauma doesn’t even have to be like an accident. It could just be from surgery too.

Dorothy: Oh.

Dr. Raz: Yeah. So surgery is manmade trauma.

Dorothy: Right.

Dr. Raz: Or woman made trauma, uh, when you’re doing breast lift or breast reduction or implants. [00:23:00] These breasts can have calcification. They can feel like masses. But again, I’m gonna put an umbrella term and call it trauma. If you had trauma or injury to breast, doesn’t mean you have, you’ll get breast cancer. In fact, there is no correlation to, uh, causation to breast cancer. But because you feel that mass, you come in and we may find breast cancer.

Dorothy: Right.

Dr. Raz: That’s why these, these are sort of anecdotes come on Instagram. Like, Hey, I injured my breast. Turned into cancer. It for sure wasn’t the injury that caused the breast cancer, but you came in and we found breast cancer.

Dorothy: Right.

Dr. Raz: Does that make sense?

Dorothy: So, yeah. Yeah. Animals can sense breast cancer.

Dr. Raz: I mean, if animals can sense breast cancer, I suggest we stop compressing the breast and doing mammograms. We’ll just get that animal the.

Dorothy: I mean, there’s been cases where someone says, my, cat, dog kept pointing to this place on my breast.

Dr. Raz: Yeah. We should bring the animal as an advocate on breast [00:24:00] cancer awareness month because that will, like that woman came in for breast screening and we probably found cancer as an anecdote.

Dorothy: Yes.

Dr. Raz: We’ll get many more women together, but no animals have no 10th, sixth, seventh, eighth ability to find breast cancer. See through you. There’s no such thing. One other thing I wanted to cover is ivermectin or offend. Any kind of azo drug. These are used. I’ve seen Instagram posts on these, and again, you know, these are anecdotes. Uh, you know, people have found you could, I could say, and you can even look this up, bleach even cause cures cancer. I could make that statement, but it does so in a Petri dish, in a preclinical, in a lab. See what I’m saying? Like.

Dorothy: But that’s where there’s so many things.

Dr. Raz: Exactly.

Dorothy: Can happen. Yeah.

Dr. Raz: Right. So one thing I want all the listeners to understand how a scientific method works or how these medications come that we all use in US or around the world. It’s a very [00:25:00] rigorous process. You try lots of compounds in preclinical data in mice and everything. That’s all preclinical. Meaning in the lab setting. In the lab setting. Yes. There have been some papers talking about ivermectin being helpful. But again, in the clinical setting, you go through phase 1, 2, 3 trial before you submit the drug to FDA. Phase one, we check for if it’s safe or not. Phase two, we actually expand it and see if it’s actually efficacious or not in a select group of people. And then phase three is when we do something called double blind control trial. Now it’s a big word, but that’s the gold standard of checking.

Dorothy: Go through that, that list again.

Dr. Raz: Right. So phase one is, yeah, phase one, we check if a drug is harmful to humans or not.

Dorothy: Okay.

Dr. Raz: So it’s safety.

Dorothy: Okay.

Dr. Raz: So when the drugs make it through there, they go to phase two. Now. Within the same sort of small group, 300, 400 patients, is the drug in that for that given condition, beneficial or not. Now, it proved itself in preclinical trials is [00:26:00] approved in human.

Dorothy: Trial.

Dr. Raz: Trial. So a lot of drugs fail here where they don’t show any efficacy. Like, Hey, it was great in the lab, ivermectin was great there. Here it kills people because it’s actually used for deworming in livestock. So don’t go out there consuming lots of Ivermectin. Um. And then phase three is where we do double blind randomized control trial. What does that mean? These are usually giant trials. Many hospitals, many, many thousands of patients get involved. And there are control groups, meaning one group of patients are given the current medications, the other group’s giving this new medications.

Dorothy: Okay.

Dr. Raz: And then the doctor doesn’t know which one is going to, so the doctor’s line assigning these medications and the patient doesn’t know which one they’re getting. And then we directly compare this medication to the gold standard to see how it does. So it makes sense. So it’s a very rigorous way of proving that conclusively, it does, right. It helps. Now, as I said, you know, a lot of these [00:27:00] ivermectin or femazole type of medications, these are anecdotes. A lot of these patients probably are in chemotherapy, and then they tried ivermectin and it worked.

Maybe there was some synergy, but it was the chemotherapy that did the work, not the ivermectin. Does that make sense? Then? Then they came on and say, oh, help me. There have been no clinical trials proving any efficacy.

Dorothy: Okay.

Dr. Raz: For it, helping with breast cancer. So please consult with your doctor before trying anything that you hear on Instagram or anywhere on social media.

Dorothy: Alright. Alright. The other one floating around today is about Bee.

Dr. Raz: Bees?

Dorothy: Bees.

Dr. Raz: So.

Dorothy: What, what is that?

Dr. Raz: There’s a compound in it. I believe it’s called Melittin. Um, now again in Petri dish, preclinical trials, lots of compounds, show lots of promises. As I said, if you stick bleach into cancer cells, they all die. Doesn’t mean I’m about to run out and inject, you know.

Dorothy: No.

Dr. Raz: Drink the washer bleach. Um. [00:28:00] Again, you know, these type of compounds, flower based, venom based, they show a lot of promise in preclinical. No studies have been done that have proven any efficacy on human trials. So again, somebody can re rewind this podcast and listen to what I said about phase one, phase two, phase three. We have to go through these processes before FDA approves.

Dorothy: Right.

Dr. Raz: And we’ve seen it so no. It has not shown any clinical data on, on humans. And please don’t go out there getting stung by bees.

Dorothy: No, no.

Dr. Raz: It’s not gonna help you.

Dorothy: Alright, so I, so one of the things that we often hear is, I didn’t trust my doctor. I didn’t believe what the doctor was telling me.

Dr. Raz: Sure.

Dorothy: I didn’t. Uh, it is that just as important to recovery as some of our meds.

Dr. Raz: Yes.

Dorothy: Trusting your doctor.

Dr. Raz: Trusting, trusting the process, um, believing in it. Yes. It’s a big, it’s a big thing and you know, every time I give the cancer [00:29:00] diagnosis to my patients, I, I verify and double check they have strong family, like support.

Dorothy: Uhhuh.

Dr. Raz: All of this matters. Right? And since we’re talking, going on the topic, a lot of patients also ask me, what about diet? And it helps. Right? Obesity has shown correlation. Again, no direct causation to breast cancer, but correlation. And it will make sense, like living healthy, having a stable emotional context. All of this helps because, again, as humans, we haven’t figured out every nook and cranny of our genetics or molecular changes that happen in US daily.

Dorothy: Right.

Dr. Raz: Right? Any being healthy is a, is a very big thing in terms of mental health, emotional health, physical health. Believing in the process you’re going through. Very important. Again, because it’s a mental thing. You do that, it does help. You’re gonna follow through on these tough protocols. And I don’t make mince mi about the fact that [00:30:00] chemotherapy is tough.

Dorothy: Right.

Dr. Raz: Every woman knows it. Everybody that’s gone through cancer knows it.

Dorothy: Right.

Dr. Raz: But it’s a necessary thing. It is poison, even the oncologist will tell you. But it’s poison to cancer cells as well. Right? So.

Dorothy: Right.

Dr. Raz: Job is to kill cancer. Unfortunately, you have to go through that process. Uh, a lot of patients talk about like Ayurvedic, like process other things outside of homeopathic medications. I have no issues with it, but if you’re gonna detract and not do standard protocols that have been tried on millions of patients that have all made recovery and are in remission, I think you’re doing yourself a disservice. So. It matters.

Dorothy: It matters.

Dr. Raz: Any other listener questions coming, I’m happy to answer.

Dorothy: Oh, yes, yes. We would be happy and we’d add ’em to our, our quarterly review of myth busters, is that what we’re calling this?

Dr. Raz: Yeah, that’s right. Let’s call it.

Dorothy: Okay. Alright. Thank you Dr. Raz, for clearing up the air once again on what is [00:31:00] true and what is not true. Great way for us to start 2026.

Dr. Raz: Alright. Be healthy, everybody out there. Take care.

Dorothy: Yes.

Post-Credits: Thank you for joining us today on Let’s Talk About Your Breasts. This podcast is produced by Speke Podcasting and brought to you by The Rose. Visit therose.org to learn more about our organization. Subscribe to our podcast, share episodes with friends, and join the conversation on social media using #LetsTalkAboutYourBreasts. We welcome your feedback and suggestions. Consider supporting The Rose. Your gift can make the difference to a person in need. And remember, self care is not selfish. It’s essential.