Do NOT Rely on Mammograms Alone — A Breast Cancer Survivor Doctor Explains What to Do Instead

Elizabeth Boham (0:00)

And I think the reason we're seeing all of these increases in cancer in younger people is twofold. One is our microbiome and toxins.

Mark Hyman (0:08)

Every October, you're going to hear the same message everywhere you look. Get your mammogram, know your risk.

Early detection saves lives when it comes to breast cancer. And all that is true, but it's not complete because it treats the breast cancer like something that just happens to you, like weather, it doesn't work like that. Something you can only catch early never actually prevent. So I want to challenge that whole idea today. And my guest has a very different way of thinking about this, not just because she spent her career studying it, but because she's lived it. At 30 years old, in the middle of her medical training, she was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer, no family history, none of the boxes checked that were supposed to put her at risk. She was young, she was healthy, she was fit, she ate well, she studied nutrition, she got the diagnosis anyway. So the bad experience didn't just change her life, it changed how she practiced medicine. So today she's the medical director at my center, UltraWellness Center in Lenox, Massachusetts. You're all welcome to come. And she spent the last two decades asking a question most oncology docs don't ask. Not just how do we find the cancer and how do we cut it out and basically poison it with chemo or burn it with radiation, but why did this body become a place where cancer could grow in the first place? Why is the underlying biological terrain susceptible to cancer? That's a completely different question. And it opens up a completely different set of answers about estrogen, about your immune system, about your microbiome, about toxins, about your everyday exposures that you probably never thought twice about. Liz, welcome to the show.

Elizabeth Boham (1:34)

Thanks, Mark. It's great to be with you again. Thank you for having me.

Mark Hyman (1:39)

My pleasure. All right. Before we get into the science, I want to start with your story because you were diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer at 30 I want you to take me back to that moment when you got the diagnosis. What did that diagnosis change about how you practice medicine and what happened to you in that moment?

Elizabeth Boham (1:53)

Well, in that moment, I was really in denial. I mean, I definitely was like, this is not real. I never thought I was going to get breast cancer. In medical school, you sometimes think you're going to have all sorts of different diseases and you worry about them, but breast cancer was not one of them. So it really took me off my rocker. I was like, okay, what is this?

I was 30, no family history, and as you mentioned, Mark, I was all about wellness and prevention. I was exercising every day. I was eating healthy. I thought I was doing everything right.

I definitely went through those stages of grief, and denial was the first one, and then of course, there's anger, and then you work through it. At some point, you're like, okay, this did happen to me, and I was like, I need to figure out why, just so I could prevent this from coming back for myself. I mean, that was 27 years ago now, so just crazy. I just had my 27th cancerversary.

Mark Hyman (2:56)

This episode is brought to you by Function Health, empowering you to live 100 healthy years with over 160 lab tests for just $365 a year, and use the code MARK2026 to get $50 off your membership. I remember when you still had your short hair from the chemo when I met you.

Elizabeth Boham (3:14)

Right?

Mark Hyman (3:15)

You had like a little red short hair. I was like, wow.

Elizabeth Boham (3:18)

It was kind of cute. It was cute.

Mark Hyman (3:21)

But yeah, I remember that.

That was a long time. For everybody listening, we've worked together for, I don't know, close to 30 years now, and I think you were just coming out of that period, and you got very interested in functional medicine, so it really changed how you practice everything.

Elizabeth Boham (3:35)

Absolutely. When I started working with you at Canyon Ranch in 2004, and I was thinking, why did this happen to me, and Canyon Ranch, you guys sent us to IFM's training, the initial course called AFMCP, and it just blew my mind open. I was like, this is exactly what I'm interested in doing, because in functional medicine, you ask that question why, and I was trying to figure out for me, what got out of balance, where did I need to focus?