The Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous Podcast - Protecting Your Boobies with Dr. Amani Jambhekar

Episode Date: February 20, 2025

Dr. Amani Jambhekar is here to share why there's an uptick in cancer in young patients and what you can do to get ahead of it. She also shares why "Bachelor" contestant Katie Thurston, who recently revealed her own diagnosis, is taking the action she is.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. My boyfriend's professor is way too friendly, and now I'm seriously suspicious. Wait a minute, Sam. Maybe her boyfriend's just looking for extra credit. Well, Dakota, luckily, it's back to school week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, my boyfriend's been hanging out with his young professor a lot. He doesn't think it's a problem, but I don't trust her. Now he's insisting we get to know each other, but I just want her gone.

Hold up. Isn't that against school policy? That seems inappropriate. Maybe find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast and the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's start with a quick puzzle. The answer is Ken Jennings' appearance on The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs. The question is, what is the most entertaining listening experience in podcast land? Jeopardy Truthers believe in... I guess they would be Kenspiracy theorists. That's right.

To give you the answers and you still blitzers. The Puzzler. Listen on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, my name is Enya Humanzor. And I'm Drew Phillips. And we run a podcast called Emergency Intercom. If you're a crime junkie and you love crimes, we're not the podcast for you. But if you have unmedicated ADHD... Oh my God, perfect. And want to hear people with mental illness. Psychobabble. Yes, yes. Then Emergency Intercom is the podcast for you.

Open your free IHeartRadio app. Search Emergency Intercom and listen now. Hi, I'm Jennifer Lopez and in the new season of the Overcomfort Podcast, I'm even more honest, more vulnerable, and more real than ever. Am I ready to enter this new part of my life? Like, am I ready to be in a relationship? Am I ready to have kids and to really just devote myself and my time? Join me for conversations about healing and growth,

all from one of my favorite. Spaces, The Kitchen. Listen to the new season of the Overcombered podcast on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is the Ben and Ashley I, Almost Famous Podcast with IHeart Radio. Hey, guys, welcome to the Almost Famous Podcast. This week, we got, you know, very sad news that Katie Thurston has been diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 34. And she sent her Instagram post that she wants to. share her story to help others. So we hope that we are supporting her in doing that by having

on Dr. Amani Jambekar. Thank you so much for coming on our podcast. You guys, she is a board certified surgeon who first got her Bachelor of Arts in English, which I'm interested about your switchover, and then a bachelor's in science and psychology. And then you went over to the biology side and you ended up getting your doctor of medicine at the University of Texas Health Center, and you have been on, you know, you speak a lot about breast cancer. And you were on Shannon Doherty's podcast, who, of course, sadly passed away this year. And you spoke with her about breast cancer. She was part of the I-Heart family.

So we just want to thank you for coming on and talking to the almost famous Bachelor audience about something that has affected one of our favorites. So sadly. So first off, I would kind of want to ask the, to me, it's obvious. Why is it that we're hearing more women in their 30s being diagnosed with breast cancer? And should we, I think we should start getting mammograms earlier? Earlier than 40 or earlier? Earlier than 40.

Yeah, so that's an interesting question. And I do, I have quite a few patients that are in their 30s. I've seen patients in their 20s, and the youngest patient I've had with breast cancer is 19, actually. Holy moly. Yes. So it is definitely something that impacts younger women as well. I think that overall we're seeing cancer incidents go up in younger people, which is why ages for things like colonoscopies are going down. I think that everyone who has a family history of breast cancer, pancreatic, ovarian, really

any kind of cancer does need some kind of risk assessment. And some people, yeah, should start getting mammograms and potentially MRIs as well earlier, you know, in their 20s and 30s, because they are high risk for developing a future breast cancer. When we say family, are we talking parent-grandparent? Does it go further back than that? Does it should be two grandparents? So I'll share a little bit of a personal story in a bit, but my paternal grandmother, had breast cancer in her 70s. Okay. She's totally fine.

But the doctors say that I'm much more at high risk because of that. Yeah. So when we're talking about a family history, we're talking about first degree relatives, which is like your mom, or if you're older, your daughter, or one of your sisters, or second degree relatives, which include grandparents as well as aunts and uncles or half sisters, half brothers. And, yeah, to speak to your family history, generally people who are high risk

have family members who have been diagnosed at a younger age, usually before menopause. So that's usually like in their 40s, 30s, et cetera. Usually being diagnosed in your 70s is not something that particularly increases, you know, you as the granddaughter, your risk of a future breast cancer. But it is something that I think

everyone who has a family history needs to have a conversation with either their primary care doctor, their OB-2-Y-N, or with a breast surgical oncologist like me, just to figure out where you are in the spectrum of risk, especially if you've also previously had a lump, you've had a biopsy for some reason, all of those things matter. So you are a breast-oncologist surgeon. So this is basically what you're doing all day long, is taking out cancer out of breasts. Yeah. So I'm a breast surgical oncologist. I did my fellowship in breast surgical oncology at Columbia. And there I also did a lot of melanoma. So my practice is a mix of taking out breast cancers, also counseling patients about their risk in our high risk breast clinic, and also quite a bit of melanoma as well. What inspired you to go into that department? That's an interesting story. So I was the only, I was one. I was one.

of a handful of women who chose the surgery route from my medical school class. And then I was the only woman in my graduating class in general surgery. And I really wanted to be in a field that I thought would enable me to empower women. And I also wanted to be in a field that I thought was really evidence-based. And for that, you know, doing both breast cancer and melanoma fit the bill for me. And then I was lucky to get into my fellowship at Columbia. And I'm now in my sixth year of practice and I absolutely love it. It's definitely what I was meant to do. Congratulations. That's amazing. Thank you. You're doing so much good, obviously. All right. So we're all told to do our examinations at home. Starting at what age? So it's kind of like, you know, this is going to be a little bit controversial,

but I'm kind of like, you know, a lot of times I'll see people in the office and they'll have been diagnosed with a breast cancer and it might have been a breast cancer that they felt but they will say something to me like oh you know dr jambacar i i i know i'm supposed to doing like monthly self breast exams and i just haven't done them i've i've missed a few so this is my fault because i didn't do them and i always have to tell them like actually really like self breast exams don't make as much of a difference as breast imaging and so i recommend breast awareness to my patients like generally just knowing you know especially when you're in the shower you're soaping up knowing what your breasts feel like especially for younger women that may mean that your

breasts are kind of lumpy because they're dense and that's okay um and then really the thing i hammer home all the time and literally all the content i put out there on social media is if you have a lump it needs to have some kind of imaging follow up so you have a lump you go and see you exactly like Katie did. You know, you go and see your doctor and then you get an ultrasound or a mammogram or both ordered, not just a doctor saying, oh, you're too young to have breast cancer. So this is probably nothing. So when I was 22, I was just, you know, I've always had a pretty dense breast. Yeah. I don't know that you would call them cystic. I mean, I think that word gets used a lot, but I think that like really virtually everyone who's in their

20s has dense breasts that are lumpy. Okay. So there was one spot where it was like particularly like it was a lump okay but it was smooth and it moved

and it was very marble like which is all all good signs but still signs of course that it should probably be checked out yeah so I did I got a mammogram at 22 and a um an ultrasound and then they biopsied it okay they tagged it and they said and then it was fine and then i got a checked up probably probably too late i mean probably

later uh than i may have should have but like around 30 i did it i got it checked out again and my doctor knowing that history and then knowing my um grandmother had to at it. She was like, okay, well, I want to just send you in for another ultrasound and mammogram. Did that. Found some calcifications that they ended up biopsying again. That biopsy, I like basically fainted during. Yeah, those are rough. The mammogram biopsies are rough. Yeah. It was crazy. I was like, there is an instrument inside my body right now. And then just last month, I went and I got my check like four years later on all of that again ultrasound and mammogram and I'm all good but there's all there's like a lot of women out there that are young and like things are floating around

and it's it's best that they take action right it's definitely best that they take action and I mean I see it all the time like lots of young women like you have you know these kinds of benign findings or a lump that moves around and is something that doesn't really need to be removed. But I also see, you know, as a cancer surgeon, I also see the other side of that, women who went to some doctor or an urgent care or something like that and said, hey, I've got this new lump and it's not going away and it's not changing with my periods. It's just there all the time. I don't know what to do with that. And then someone examines them and says, well, it's probably just a cyst. It's probably nothing because you're too young

to have breast cancer. And then the thing keeps growing. They go, see another doctor and someone says the same thing and then by the time they they finally get breast imaging ordered at that point it sometimes isn't early stage anymore and so just very very important that if you feel something or you see skin changes you have new nipple discharge yeah anything that concerns you that you you take it to your regular doctor your obiGYN and ask them you know hey can you order some breast imaging for me mm-hmm My boyfriend's professor is way too friendly, and now I'm seriously suspicious. Oh, wait a minute, Sam.

Maybe her boyfriend's just looking for extra credit. Well, Dakota, it's back to school week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, my boyfriend has been hanging out with his young professor a lot. He doesn't think it's a problem, but I don't trust her. Now, he's insisting we get to know each other, but I just want her gone. Now, hold up. Isn't that against school policy? That sounds totally inappropriate.

Well, according to this person, this is her boyfriend's former professor. and they're the same age. And it's even more likely that they're cheating. He insists there's nothing between them. I mean, do you believe him? Well, he's certainly trying to get this person to believe him because he now wants them both to meet. So, do we find out if this person's boyfriend really cheated with his professor or not?

To hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. The U.S. Open is here. And on my podcast, Good Game with Sarah Spain, I'm breaking down the players from rising stars to legends chasing history. The predictions, well, we see a first-time winner and the pressure. Billy Jean King says pressure is a privilege, you know. Plus, the stories and events off the court and, of course, the honey deuses, the signature cocktail of the U.S. Open.

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Listen to this episode with Whitney Cummings and check out new episodes of bananas every Tuesday on the exactly right network. Listen to bananas on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So when you're checking, like mine was, as I said, a little bit less alarming because it was smooth, marble-like, and moved around. It's basically the opposite that you're really looking out for, correct? Like, edged, and then discharged, and then it kind of stays in one spot. Yeah, it stays in one spot. Now, it kind of depends on the depth of, you know, the thing, the lump in the breast.

Like, there are some that could be deeper in there that do move around. because there's a lot of breast tissue in front of it. And there's some that, you know, I've even seen patients say, this feels hard like a marble, but the edges aren't like a marble. And so, you know, I think what you're looking for really is something that is there and it's hard and it's not going away on its own after a week or so. And if it's not going away on its own after a week, then, you know, it needs to be checked out.

And sometimes people tell me something like, you know, I fell or, you know, my dog bit or something like that. You know, I had some kind of trauma here and it started after that, but then it never went away and now here we are. Interesting. Okay. And then what's the proper pose when you're checking yourself out?

Isn't it with your arm up like over your head? Yeah, your arm up and then just kind of going in circles, starting from the nipple, going working your way out. But with your arm up or down, it doesn't really matter. You know, I think it's kind of whatever's comfortable for you just sort of be aware of what your breasts feel like. Everyone should be aware of what their breasts feel like. But I do see the ones that are lumps of either the cancerous kind or the benign kind. I see a lot like that they found it when they were in the shower. You know, they are soaping up and

they were like, oh, this is, this is new. I haven't felt this before. And so that kind of vigilance, I definitely recommend, you know, doing a monthly self-rest exam or setting, you know, a calendar appointment for yourself to make sure that you check them. I don't think women should be held to that because it's so hard to do life as a woman as it is. There's so many extra responsibilities on our plates. And so, you know, I don't want anyone coming into my office and feeling some kind of guilt or shame that like, oh, I should have checked myself earlier and this would have, you know, solved the problem. Right. I want to pick your brain about what you think is maybe a correlation. So lots of people are thinking that maybe birth control increases your odds.

What's your opinion? So birth control, like hormonal birth control is kind of interesting. Yeah, it's kind of interesting because it's like it does slightly increase the risk for breast cancer, but it also decreases the risk for ovarian cancer. Which, you know, if you have it, too. Right. So it's kind of like, yeah. So like in terms of.

of modifiable risk factors for breast cancer. I mean, I would say like not drinking in excess is one of them. And that's kind of it. You know, most of the time breast cancer boils down to bad luck. That's what I tell my patients all the time. Because I have patients who, you know, have never taken hormonal birth control, who have no family history, who are super healthy, never drink, never smoke, exercise, you know, 40 minutes a day, every single day. And they can still end up with breast cancer. Conversely, I've had patients that have all those risk factors that never end up with breast cancer. And so it's really, the most important thing is, like, if you do have a family history to get that checked out and to figure out what your future breast cancer

risk is, so you could see if you do need to start your imaging earlier than 40. But then if you are 40, you need to be getting a mammogram every single year. It might be a mammogram plus an ultrasound, it might just be a mammogram by itself, could be a mammogram and an MRI, but a mammogram has to be in there and definitely, definitely, definitely not a thermogram because those are not evidence-based and cancers get really missed on those. What about soy? I know people are concerned about soy, even deodorants. yeah there's a lot of stuff out there about those soy like it's kind of there's not a very strong study that says like if we cut out soy from our diets it means that you won't develop you know an estrogen responsive breast cancer and so there's not really like there's really no preventing it so to speak you know i think it's just living a healthy lifestyle and you know minimizing drinking i think is important

but you know any people who avoid all of those things who kind of see any study that has sort of a weak link to breast cancer and you know there was a study that talked about hair dye for example recently and people who are like okay I'm going to stop dying my hair like in the end like that amount of difference is so small compared to the biggest risk factors for breast cancer which is being a woman and having breasts and getting older this is maybe a little bit off of the breast cancer question, but you did mention that younger women have denser breasts

in their 20s. So I had two kids over the past three and a half years. One is literally screaming his head off right now. So if I seem a little elsewhere, I don't know what's going on. But I didn't even breastfeed.

And my breasts are now not at all dense. They're like squishy. What happened? Yeah, that happens. You know, I've seen that before as well. That does happen. You know, it's breastfeeding, that's one of those things that I think they really don't tell women before they, like, choose to breastfeed or choose not to breastfeed.

I didn't breastfeed, though. Yeah, so breastfeeding definitely does make your breast less dense. Interesting. And pregnancy also, like, you know, hormones impacting the breast, the breast expanding, filling, and then unfilling, filling and then unfilling. Yeah. So a lot of women tell me that, you know, and I can even tell, you know, at this point, because I see a lot of patients in my office and do a lot of breast exams, I can tell, you know, who has breastfed and who hasn't. And that's something that really they should tell a lot more women that like, hey, your breasts are going to be changed after this. And sometimes that can be a little bit surprising to people. But in general, breasts also get less dense as you get older. It's very uncommon to see people with very, very dense breasts, you know, in their 70s and 80s, although rarely I do see it. I'm reading Katie's caption right now.

Yeah. So she has invasive ductal carcinoma. What's invasive ductal? There's two parts of the breast. There's the ducts that deliver the milk out the nipple because the breasts were the whole function of breasts is to breast feed. That's what they were

designed for, right? And so there's two parts of the breast. The duct that leads the milk out the nipple, in order to do breastfeeding and the lobules which actually make the milk and that what she's saying is that her cancer started in the ducts of her breast and not the lobules it's that's the more common type of breast cancer rather than the lobules and that that's it's invasive meaning that it is now forming a mass outside of that duct okay i don't want to speculate on what stage she's at or, you know, the intensity that she's going to have to go through.

I just want to say that, again, we're thinking about her and we're sending, like, all of our love out to her. Is there anything that I missed in this conversation that you think is critical for women out there to know? I think we pretty much covered it. You know, I think she is doing women such a service by putting all of this out there and really, almost in real time, being so transparent about, you know, I know that she had a biopsy of the breast, a biopsy of the lymph node. And that's probably why you mentioned chemotherapy. That's probably why she's getting chemotherapy is because the cancer has spread from the breast to the lymph nodes. Yeah. And so I really commend her for putting this information out there for women, especially for other young women to see and to know that, you know, there's steps ahead. These are the steps ahead and that, you know, she's a strong person who can get through it. And if, God forbid, that happens to them, they will also be able to get through it. So it's really what she's doing is so incredible because it can be such a terrifying time for people. So I really commend her. Me too. Well, Dr. Jan Bacar, thank you so much for being here and answering all these questions. Thank you for what you do. You're incredible. And, you know, if we ever encounter anything like this again or if Katie has any more updates, we'd love to have you back. Yeah, absolutely. We'd be happy to share it. Thank you so much for having me on today.

Follow the Ben and Ashley I, almost famous podcasts on IHartRadio or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. My boyfriend's professor is way too friendly And now I'm seriously suspicious Wait a minute Sam Maybe her boyfriend's just looking for extra credit Well Dakota, luckily It's back to school week on the okay story time podcast So we'll find out soon

This person writes My boyfriend's been hanging out with his young professor A lot He doesn't think it's a problem But I don't trust her Now he's insisting we get to know each other But I just want her gone Oh hold up isn't that against school policy

That seems inappropriate Maybe find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast and the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's start with a quick puzzle. The answer is Ken Jennings' appearance on The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs.

The question is, what is the most entertaining listening experience in podcast land? Jeopardy Truthers believe in... I guess they would be conspiracy theorists. That's right. They give you the answers and you still blew it. The puzzler.

Listen on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, my name is Enya Emanzor. And I'm Drew Phillips. And we run a podcast called Emergency Intercom. If you're a crime junkie and you love crimes, we're not the podcast for you. But if you have unmedicated ADHD... Oh my God, perfect. And want to hear people with mental illness, psychobabble.

Yes, yes. Then Emergency Intercom is the podcast for you. Open your free IHeartRadio app. Search Emergency Intercom and listen now. Do we really need another podcast with a condescending finance brof trying to tell us how to spend our own money? No thank you. Instead, check out Brown Ambition. Each week, I, your host, Mandy Money, gives you real talk, real advice with a heavy dose of I-feel uses.

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