When it comes to her health, actress, anti-aging expert and best-selling author Suzanne Somers doesn’t hesitate to reject conventional treatments. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer 11 years ago she chose alternative therapies that stunned the mainstream medical community.  Once again, she’s taken the revolutionary route by undergoing an experimental procedure using her own stem cells and body fat to rebuild her withered breast.

Somers detailed her alternative journey and boasted about her quality of life to Dr. Oz on his show last Friday.

“Look at me,” she told Dr. Oz. “Eleven years later, I am so healthy. I’ve had this incredible quality of life all of these years.”

After she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000 it took about two days for her to recover from the shocking news.

“I woke up, looked at my husband and said, ‘I can handle this.’ And then it was like I went to war and I was going to do it my way,” she said.

And so she did. She was offered the standard of care: a lumpectomy, radiation, chemotherapy and after-care drugs and told to give up bioidentical hormones, which she refused to do despite her doctor telling her she would die if she didn’t. She believed keeping her hormones balanced would help her prevent a cancer recurrence following the lumpectomy.

But she did agree to radiation, which she was told would be a “walk in the park.” Hardly. She vomited daily throughout each day and spent much of the time curled in a fetal position. The radiation eventually left her with a “withered, nearly pancake breast on the right side (barely a B cup) and my full natural breast on the left side (a D cup),” she writes on her website.

“Here I am a sex symbol and I have one and one-third breasts,” she said to Dr. Oz. “…I could write a book, What They Don’t Tell You about Radiation.
After researching chemotherapy and being dissatisfied with its success rate, or lack thereof, she rejected that treatment. “Looking back, it was the best thing I ever did,” she said.

To help prevent a recurrence of cancer, she was injected with Iscador, which is extracted from mistletoe, for eight years. She also “ate as if my life depended on it” and still does. She grows her own food, buys organic and when she can’t get organic she loads up on antioxidants to kill free radicals.  She also continued taking her bioidentical hormones and opted against reconstruction because she didn’t want an implant.

“As an avid participant in anti-aging and alternative medicine, I instead searched for another option. I heard about Dr. Kotaro Yoshimura who has been performing stem cell breast reconstruction in Japan, but it was not legally available to women in this country. After years of research and international travel, I was able to assist a remarkable group of doctors in having an IRB (International Review Board) set up at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital in California. I considered going to Japan for the surgery, but I wanted to help open the door for women in America. I am proud to say I am the first person in this country to initiate the clinical trial for a stem cell breast reconstruction at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Joel Aronowitz (who trained with Yoshimura in Japan) was the lead surgeon, along with Dr. James Watson. This procedure used my own adult stem cells, harvested from my fat, then reinjected into my breast to “regrow” my breast to its original size. While I don’t yet have long-term results, I can say the initial results are nothing short of miraculous.”

If ever there was a poster child for alternative therapies and being in control of your own health, it is Somers, who says, “It is so wonderful for all people to know how your body works and to understand the fuel, which is in good nutrition, and to know the questions to ask when you are having any kind of procedure so that you can be in charge of your body because nobody will care as much about your body as you.”

Mistletoe Extract as Cancer Therapy

Benefits of Stem Cell Breast Reconstruction

Joan Valentine - A Foundation for Natural Cures, Inc. - Provides education and integrative medicine solutions to those suffering from cancer and their families.

By Joel A. Aronowitz, MD
Clinical Professor Plastic Surgery
USC Keck School of Medicine
Cedars Sinai Medical Center
University Stem Cell Center

Our fat tissue contains a lot more than just fat. It’s been known for many years that the fat that makes our jeans tight and skin loose contains large numbers of small cells with the potential to grow into many types of the tissue and play a central role in healing and regeneration. Only recently though have doctors been able to apply these exciting laboratory findings to help patients in clinical practice.

A study underway by doctors at the Breast Preservation Foundation in Los Angeles exemplifies this new trend in clinical use of Adipose Derived Stem Cell. Women in the study are offered use of their own stem cells to regrow their breast marred by prior surgery and even radiation to treat breast cancer.

Treatment of breast cancer usually involves removal of the tumor itself along with all or part of the surrounding normal breast to ensure that a complete removal is accomplished. After the surgery, the breast is frequently treated with radiation which further shrinks the breast and turns the soft breast tissue to a hard, woody texture. For years, the only options available to reconstruct the breast were highly invasive flap procedures such as the lat dorsi or TRAM flaps or an implant. The flaps require a donor site scar and extended healing, and implants are associated with the problems of any large foreign body. They are especially problematic after radiation treatment.

Stem cell treatment has the advantage of producing a natural regrowth of fat tissue within the breast, giving it a soft, natural appearance and feel using the woman’s own fat stored in the abdomen, hips and thighs. The Los Angeles study uses fat harvested with liposuction from the hip, abdomen or thighs. The fat, usually 400 to 600 cc, is treated in a special biologic laboratory right in the operating room to isolate the tiny stem cells from the larger mature adipocyte (fat) cells and other components in the lipoaspirate (obtained during liposuction). The process takes about 1.5 hours while the patient remains in the operating room. The tedious process involves a complex series of washings and high-speed centrifugations but no additional chemicals or growth factors are added to change the biology or genetics of the cells.

Almost a million cells on average are isolated from each 1 cc drop of liposuction fat. The stem cells are then added to additional lipoaspirate to inject into the disfigured breast. The stem-cell-enhanced fat grafts are placed with a blunt hollow needle in small aliquots so no surgical scars are placed on the treated breasts. Postoperative healing is usually limited to swelling and bruising both in the breast and the liposuction harvest area. Patients usually complain of more discomfort in the liposuction areas then the treated breast. Of course, no one complains about the improved contour of the hips and abdomen which comes with the needed liposuction; it’s an added bonus.

Improved breast size is immediate, but the improved skin quality and regeneration or regrowth of fat takes about 3 to 6 months as the larger fat cells that do not survive the transfer process are replaced by new tissue regenerated by the large numbers of tiny stem cells. Improvement in the texture, quality and skin color of the breast damaged by surgery and radiation begins immediately and begins to show clinically in about 2 months.

Women who have a breast damaged by breast cancer treatment, especially lumpectomy and radiation are generally good candidates for this treatment. The study requires a waiting period after cancer treatment, but some doctors feel that soon the treatment will be offered in concert with cancer treatment as there is no evidence that normal fat-derived stem cells interfere with treatment. Women seeking an alternative to breast enlargement with implants will be happy to know that this option is available to them as well. Stem-cell-enhanced fat grafting can produce about 1 to 2 cup sizes of enlargement on average and can be repeated every 3-4 months as long as sufficient donor fat is available.

Suzanne Somers’ alternative battle against breast cancer

Mistletoe Extract as Cancer Therapy

Joan Valentine - A Foundation for Natural Cures, Inc. - Provides education and integrative medicine solutions to those suffering from cancer and their families.