I Stopped Getting Mammograms. Here's Why.

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]One mammogram changed my life forever, but not in the way you might be thinking. A few years back, I went for my usual mammogram. No big deal, right?

[00:00:08]But this time, they found something. I got a call. They told me it was urgent.

[00:00:12]Wouldn't get off the phone until I had my next appointment scheduled, and it was in 2 days. It felt like emergency level. They treated me like I had cancer. I was rushed into a procedure, a biopsy taken from my breast with a giant needle. It was extremely painful and I could see how much flesh they took out.

[00:00:31]I'm surprised I don't have a dent in this area. Days later when I got the results, nothing. No cancer. All that panic, the pain, the trauma for nothing.

[00:00:42]If I had skipped that mamogram, I would have avoided the whole ordeal. But if I truly had breast cancer, it would have saved my life, right? In this video, I'm going over exactly what I would do had I had breast cancer. how to prevent breast cancer and even thrive with it, the exact lifestyle I follow to keep myself protected, and then I'll pull it all together in a simple six-step plan you can follow to crush your fears about breast cancer and live your best life.

[00:01:13]But first, I want to expose the ugly truth about mammograms and why the slogan early detection saves lives is one of the biggest scams pushed on women over 50. I'm Jill Richie. I'm a longevity expert with a research team and I'm on a mission to help 10,000 women reclaim their health and get their mojo back. I never looked forward to my regular mamograms and after the scare I had a few years ago, I did not want to go back, but I did. It seemed like a crazy idea to even question the value of mamogs. Still, I had my research team look into it and I was really surprised by what we found. To understand the data about mammograms, you first need to know the basics of how cancer grows. There are two types of breast cancer. Breast cancer you die from and breast cancer you die with. It sounds counterintuitive, but yeah, most breast cancers won't actually kill you because they grow too slowly. So instead of dying from it, you'll die from another cause and your cancer will just be along for the ride. So now, do you see the problem with breast cancer screening? A mamogram can't tell the difference between fatal and nonfatal breast cancer. So guess what? You have to get treated anyway. Your doctor has to air on the side of caution and treat every case like it's a life or death situation, even if it's not. That means you might have a masectomy, radiation, and chemo for no good reason. But hold on, because I haven't gotten to the craziest part yet. Consider this. You go in for a routine mammogram and they find a tumor. You never would have known about it if you didn't get the mammogram. But now you officially have breast cancer. So you go through hell, a mistctomy, chemo, and radiation. After all that, technically you're a breast cancer survivor. You're proud to tell every woman you know breast cancer screening saved my life. The ugly truth is that the whole thing was completely unnecessary. you're stuck with the choices your doctor made for you. Sadly, this is an extremely common scenario.

[00:03:24]The women who are harmed the most by unnecessary breast cancer treatments are the ones who believe they got the most help. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed 1.3 million women over 40 were overdiagnosed in the United States between the mid70s and the late 2000s. This means they found tumors that never would have affected these women. Women that get unnecessary treatment end up with more deaths from heart disease, lung cancer, and even fatal breast cancer after all that radiation. Mamograms cause a lot of stress, too. If you get all the mammograms you're supposed to in your lifetime, your overall risk of a false positive is about 50%.

[00:04:07]That's huge. In fact, if 2,000 women get routine mammograms for a decade, this is how the numbers shake out. One woman will benefit from the screening. Yes, one in 2,000. If that was all, I would say it's worth it to save just one woman. At the same time, 10 women will unnecessarily become breast cancer patients, and they will forever be emotionally and physically scarred from the treatment. 10 is the conservative estimate, but it could be up to 50 unnecessary cancer patients. That's 50 women who can't get life or health insurance live worried that they might die, mutilate their breast, and constantly feel guilty that they didn't catch their cancer early enough, and might even die as a result of their treatment. On top of that, between 200 and 1,000 women will get false positives, creating panic for them and the people who love them. I don't know about you, but I would never bet my life on these odds. And the biggest blind spot of screening is that it distracts women from lifestyle changes. There's a lot you can do to prevent and survive breast cancer, but you never hear about it during breast cancer month. Breast Cancer Awareness Month was created by the pharmaceutical company Astroenica so they could promote their breast cancer drug tomoxifen. The key word here is awareness. It's always awareness but never prevention. And the sad truth is the industry funding is all over the breast cancer messaging. But you're probably wondering if I really have a dangerous form of breast cancer, what should I do? And how will I know? I'm not going to tell you. Positive affirmations are the answer. The solution is actually simple and way less stressful than mammograms. Of course, I'm not your doctor and I can't tell you what to do with your body. But based on my research, here's what I would do for me. Knowing what I know now, I won't have a mammogram ever again. But let's say I organically discover a lump in my breast while taking a shower. I would 100% go to the doctor and have them biopsy it to make sure it's cancer. And I would make sure my surgeon gets clear margins around the tumor to prevent it from coming back. In addition to the lumpctomy, I would keep following an anti-cancer diet and lifestyle, which I'll explain more about soon. But what if it comes back? I personally would have another lumpctomy with clear margins, and potentially add radiation depending on the risks and benefits of my unique situation. And here's what's on the menu for treatments which are all designed to lower your body's estrogen levels because estrogen is the main driver of breast cancer growth. Number one, estrogen lowering drugs like tmoxifen and aromatase inhibitors.

[00:06:56]Number two is chemotherapy, which is also a way to lower estrogen. And number three is a laparoscopy removal of your ovaries. Again, all designed to lower estrogen in your body, slowing the growth of breast cancer. Personally, I would go with the laparoscopy because again, it's the most conservative, minimally invasive surgery for the least amount of side effects and it gets you the same results. No need to lose your hair and all that comes with it. And tmoxifen increases your risk of uterine cancer. The point is when it comes to breast cancer treatments, you want to do the most conservative treatment possible that gets you the same results. A radical mistctomy sounds like a great idea, but the survival rate is the same compared to a lumpctomy, which is a million times less invasive. And if you're worried about talking to your doctor, here's how I would approach it.

[00:07:54]First, you should know where they're coming from. Some doctors need to do mammogs to pay their bills. They've been told it saves lives and they're not going to give it up. But that doesn't mean they're bad people. Most doctors are grossly misinformed and they're doing their absolute best with the information they have. Plus, the number one reason doctors in the United States get sued is failure to diagnose breast cancer. So, you can see how doctors would rather heir on the side of diagnosis and treatment. So, it's our job to take control of our health and inform our doctors. Thankfully, there's an excellent research on this subject. I put a link to the paper you can bring to your doctor for backup, and it's in the description below. Today, the world's most respected medical research organization, the Cochran Collaboration itself, recommends against the use of mammograms, and many other unbiased sources like the Switzerland National Medical Board, the Canadian Task Force on Preventative Medicine, and more are against mammograms and breast examinations as well. As for breast cancer treatments, I would just have an open discussion with my doctor. I would ask him to give me a clear overview of all my options. My central question would be, which treatment will give me the best quality of life for the longest time? Actually, all 50 states have laws that require your doctor to fully inform you. When it comes to a terrifying diagnosis like breast cancer, I speak for myself when I say our instinct is to just blindly take the doctor's advice and do everything they say. But now I know decisions like this are extremely important for both the quality and length of your life. So instead of making an emotional decision, it's better to pretend you're buying a house or creating a retirement plan. The panic around breast cancer makes it easy to put women on the mastctomy train, but slowing down and doing your research is the best thing you can do for you. And of course, breast cancer screenings do nothing to actually prevent you from getting breast cancer in the first place. What will really save your life though is becoming cancer proof. So, let's dive into the exact steps to prevent and slow breast cancer over 50.

[00:10:04]The popular news media and social media all site genetics, family history, and dense breast as a major risk for breast cancer. Okay. 80% of women diagnosed with breast cancer have no family history of it. And only 5 to 10% of breast cancers are from BA genetic mutation. It looks like from our research it might be as low as 2%. So, there's all this fuss about bracket genines, but it's a complete waste of time. The biggest secret about breast cancer is this. Breast cancer is mostly preventable. So, what do I do? Here's how I keep myself protected in these top seven ways. So, I'm just not afraid of breast cancer anymore. Going from the least to the most important. Number seven is exercise. The more exercise you do, the lower your estrogen levels tend to be. The more exercise you can do, the better. And if you have breast cancer, don't be afraid to work out. Any exercise is better than none. Next up for an anti-cancer lifestyle, we have melatonin. When it's dark at night, your brain secretes the hormone melatonin to make you sleepy. As soon as it gets light, melatonin production shuts off so you feel awake throughout the day. But melatonin doesn't just help you sleep.

[00:11:19]The hormone itself actually suppresses breast cancer growth. Blind women have half the odds of breast cancer compared to sighted women because they never get enough light exposure to fully shut off melatonin production. Another study found the darker your room is at night, the lower your risk of breast cancer.

[00:11:37]Thankfully, the solution is simple. Just make sure it's really dark in your room at night. I have a red nightlight because red light is the least destructive to melatonin production. But what if you were able to actually reverse cancer in your own body? Well, that's the full-time job of your immune system. Your immune system identifies and destroys abnormal cells, including cancer cells. Ironically, common breast cancer treatments suppress your immune system, including radiation, major surgery like mistctomy, and chemotherapy, just to name a few. To really to really boost your immune system, there are a few key things you can do. First, you should get a lot of exercise. Exercise really increases lymphatic flow, which is how your white blood cells travel around looking for cancer. Better lymphatic flow means your immune system can more quickly and easily dispose of cancer cells. Next, too much salt can be inflammatory to your immune system. So, watch out for that. And finally, good sleep is critical for immune function. Everyone seems to agree on sleep, but when it comes to alcohol, tensions are high.

[00:12:42]There's one big lie the media is telling to women, and I believed it for most of my life. Red wine will protect me from breast cancer. Jill Cabernet wishes this was true, but unfortunately, alcohol is a leading cause. When you drink any alcohol, whether it's beer, wine, or vodka, your body turns it into aceta aldahhide, a cancercausing toxic byproduct. So, any amount of alcohol above zero, is carcinogenic. Yes, that includes red wine. Just one glass of wine three times a week increases your breast cancer risk. The healthiest amount of alcohol is zero, but you can get big benefits just by cutting back.

[00:13:22]The next lifestyle change you can make to shut down breast cancer is to stop feeding it. For my whole life, I thought breast cancer was just a genetic disease. I had no idea that it's mainly driven by estrogen. It turns out there are tons of chemicals in our environment that have a similar structure to estrogen. These estrogenic chemicals bind with the estrogen receptors in your body and make breast cancer grow faster.

[00:13:48]Due to their chemical structure, estrogenic chemicals happen to make great preservatives. And because of this, estrogenic chemicals are in most personal care products, sunscreens, cleaning supplies, and ultrarocessed foods. What you need to know is that any ingredient with benz or fen are estrogenic. The most well-known example is BPA, bisphenol A. Anything scented or with fragrance is also estrogenic. And watch out for aluminum and your deodorant because aluminum is a metalloestrogen.

[00:14:21]Aluminum is also found in ant acids, cookware, baking powder, and weirdly processed cheese. My team and I have curated estrogen-free personal care products that I love. I'll put a link to that below. Besides their use as a preservative, estrogenic chemicals are also in the municipal water supply. So, I recommend at least getting a whole house carbon filter, plus a reverse osmosis filter in your kitchen. But there's one source of estrogen that's much more common and deadly than all those chemicals. It's a whole unprocessed food that everybody thinks is healthy. The worst food you can eat for breast cancer is milk. Milk comes straight from pregnant cows. Pregnant cows have a lot of estrogen. Estrogen is a main driver of breast cancer growth.

[00:15:09]It's really that simple. Dairy also increases IGF-1, another hormone that makes cancer grow faster. Before taking hormone therapy, which comes with a ton of side effects, see if you can make these changes to lower your estrogen levels. I already touched on this a little, but weight loss is extremely important for breast cancer. Every fat cell in your body is a hormone factory that pumps out estrogen 24/7. When you're at a healthy weight, this isn't a problem. But being overweight floods your system with too much estrogen, and breast cancer loves estrogen. If you don't want your breast cancer to have a party, you should maintain a healthy weight. Thankfully, losing weight will quickly lower your estrogen levels. You can find your healthy weight by using this simple formula. Losing weight seems like an obvious decision, but doctors mistakenly tell women not to lose weight when they have breast cancer. Rapid weight loss is common during final stages of life. So, doctors associate weight loss with death from breast cancer. But this is completely false. Losing weight is the number two most important thing you do to stand up to breast cancer right after breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Rule number one is fiber, fiber, fiber.

[00:16:21]Breast cancer growth is largely driven by estrogen. And fiber is extremely good at pulling estrogen out of your body and dumping it out. Literally, fiber doesn't just clear out estrogen. It also binds with toxins like lead and mercury and even lowers your cholesterol. Fiber is especially good at estrogen negative tumors, which are the hardest to treat.

[00:16:42]Based on all the available evidence, you need to eat at least 25 grams of fiber a day to get the benefits for breast cancer. But the optimal amount of fiber to really become breast cancer approved is around 70 gram a day. We evolved eating 100 g of fiber every day. So 70 might seem like a lot, but our bodies thrive on it. When my clients ask me about the bloat, here's what I say.

[00:17:04]Congratulations. Your microbiome is changing and evolving. The bad gut bacteria are dying and the good ones are growing. This is a transition period. So now when I eat an optimal fiber diet, my body runs like a race car. no bloat. The reason that fiber is so good for breast cancer is because it's not just the fiber. When you eat foods with fiber, you're getting all the bonus nutrients along for the ride like vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. The top anti-cancer superfoods like white button mushrooms, strawberries, pomegranates, cruciferous vegetables, leafy greens, and purple seedated grapes are all high in fiber, too. These foods are also anti-inflammatory and high in antioxidants. Plus, high-fiber foods tend to be anti-angioenic, meaning they cut off blood supply to the tumor. All this fiber is going to fill you up, edging out cancerpromoting foods. Because fiber is so filling, eating a high-fiber diet is the easiest way to lose weight. If you eat this way for a couple of weeks, you'll be amazed at how the weight just comes right off.

[00:18:09]Eating a high-fiber diet is how I lost 60 lbs in my late 50s. So you can see how it's all working together to create an environment in your body that's good for you and bad for cancer. If you just focus on one thing, fiber, then it's really easy to eat a cancer fighting diet. You don't need to have a complicated eating plan. Fiber is the answer. A review from the Journal of National Cancer Institute found every 20 grams of fiber you eat daily reduces your risk of breast cancer by 15%. This has been proven over and over again in many different studies. So, keep it simple just by getting as much fiber as you can. So, now you know everything I would do if I had breast cancer. It's also everything I'm doing right now. And it's why I'm not afraid anymore. If you put all these diets and lifestyle changes together, you're going to have very strong protection. Another study found that you can lower your breast cancer risk by 80% just by doing four things. Avoiding tobacco, avoiding alcohol, daily exercise, and a high fiber diet. And women diagnosed with breast cancer who did these four things had a four times better survival odds.

[00:19:26]That's 300% better. If you put all these steps together, you're going to have the best possible chance of preventing breast cancer and even thriving for decades after a diagnosis. This is why I'm no longer afraid of breast cancer.

[00:19:40]See you in the next video because your health is the ultimate luxury.