Suzanne Somers has a simple motto: If you’ve got it, flaunt it. Especially if the “it” is a breast you’d previously been missing. The 71-year-old Three’s Company alum, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000, underwent an alternative treatment years ago that helped her regenerate her breast — and she’s never looked back.
“Do you know what’s interesting about this?” the breast cancer survivor asked Us while gesturing toward her cleavage at the Carousel of Hope Ball in Beverly Hills on Saturday, October 6. “This is a regrown breast. This is really mine. I went 11 years without a breast on this side.”
As an advocate of alternative health methods, the New York Times bestselling author refused chemotherapy at the time of her diagnosis. She did, however, have a lumpectomy and radiation. So, when it came time to think about reconstruction, she wasn’t about to settle for conventional methods. Instead, she says, she found a doctor at the University of Tokyo who was leading a clinical trial on regeneration using stem cells. Eventually, she became one of the first women in the U.S. to legally undergo what is known as cell-assisted lipotransfer.
As Somers explains, “They took fat from my stomach, spun out the stem cells, discarded the weak ones, took the strong ones, injected them into this breast with, like, a turkey baster, and for a year I felt, like, electrical zippers growing the blood vessels.”
The results, she says, are real… and they’re spectacular. Since 2012, “I have two breasts again that are mine,” she gushes. “No implants, no foreign objects in my body.” And she just couldn’t help but show off the goods. “The first two weeks after I had it done, I was showing everybody. I’d whip it out — ‘cause I was so used to not having it,” she says. “And then after two weeks, my husband [Alan Hamel] said to me, ‘You gotta stop showing people your breast!’”
While the actress has faced criticism from the medical community for her controversial statements in the past, she still swears by the alternative methods she chose to treat her breast cancer — and even says her breast cancer diagnosis changed her life for the better. “I have a new standard of care,” she explains. “I didn’t want chemical poison, I changed my diet, I eat real food, organic food only — if you can pick it, pluck it, milk it or shoot it.”
Her new habits have her feeling more confident than ever about her health. “I eat buttercream, sour cream, cream cheese, all organic, no hormones. I sleep eight hours a night and I don’t take any drugs,” the actress tells Us. “I am in optimal life. I don’t even worry about cancer. It’s never coming back.”
With reporting by Taylor Ferber
