Women In Wellness: Judith Smith of UTHealth McGovern Medical School on the Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Get adequate sleep. It seems most of us think of sleep as an “expendable resource” that we can “make up on weekends” and or use caffeine-related products to overcome fatigue. Sleep is important for cell repair and mental refresh.
As a part of my series about women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Judith A. Smith.
Dr. Judith A. Smith is a Professor and Director of the WHIM Research Program in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at UTHealth McGovern Medical School and an oncology clinical pharmacy specialist at the UTHealth-Memorial Hermann Cancer Center and at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital. She received a Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy and Doctor of Pharmacy from Union University Albany College of Pharmacy. She completed residency in Pharmacy Practice and Oncology Pharmacy Practice at National Institutes of Health (NIH) followed by a fellowship in Clinical Pharmacology at UT M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (UTMDACC). Previously she was a Faculty member in the Department of Gynecologic Oncology at UTMDACC and provided oncology clinical pharmacy services in their Gynecologic Oncology Center for over 15 years. Dr. Smith is an active member of many national and international professional organizations. She is currently serving as the inaugural chair of the NRG Oncology Pharmacy Subcommittee that she was instrumental in making it come to fruition. She is Board Certified in Oncology Pharmacy and Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
I am a professor and lead the Women’s Health Integrative Medicine (WHIM) Research Program at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston. I completed my Bachelor’s in Pharmacy followed by my Doctorate in Pharmacy from Albany College of Pharmacy. I completed my pharmacy practice and oncology pharmacy residencies at the National Institutes of Health and then moved to Houston, TX to complete a clinical pharmacology fellowship at The UT MD Anderson Cancer Center (UTMDACC). After my fellowship, I joined the faculty at UTMDACC. In 2003, I was invited to join McGovern Medical School as an adjunct assistant professor. In 2014, as we completed our preclinical studies on the benefits of AHCC® for clearance of HPV infections, I left UTMDACC and McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston became my primary academic appointment because we were ready to evaluate AHCC® in humans.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
Honestly, this one: When I first proposed evaluating AHCC® to clear HPV infections, a majority of my colleagues told me it wouldn’t work or you can’t clear persistent HPV infections. However, I trusted my gut and convinced the manufacturer of AHCC® to provide initial funding for preclinical studies. Over the years, I have read enough cancer treatment studies done in animals that failed to show a benefit in humans. So, I remained a healthy skeptic of my own research and luckily, I have a very patient research team that repeated studies just to be sure. I really did not publish our preclinical data until we had data that suggested AHCC® was helping clear HPV infections in humans. There were challenges along the way and what I learned was keeping myself focused on my goal to eliminate HPV is what keeps me going. This study is a big milestone, but we still have a long way to go to reach my ultimate goal.
Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
My biggest mistake when I first started my career was, as I left for Houston for my fellowship, being adamant that “I will never stay in Texas. Two years from now I am moving back to New York.” That was 23 years ago. I learned that none of us knows what tomorrow will bring and life will surprise you. Go into everything with an open mind.
Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?
The research I have been working on for over 16 years has been to determine the benefits of AHCC® supplementation to support the immune system to clear persistent high-risk HPV infections. While a majority of patients do clear HPV infections on their own within 18 to 24 months, those that have persistent infections have a higher risk of going on to develop HPV-related cancers. Our research has shown that AHCC® supplementation may help to decrease this risk.
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.
#1: Get adequate sleep. It seems most of us think of sleep as an “expendable resource” that we can “make up on weekends” and or use caffeine-related products to overcome fatigue. Sleep is important for cell repair and mental refresh.
#2: Eat a well-balanced diet and watch portion control. I have seen a wide variety of “fad diets” and programs for weight loss and at the end of the day, very few are sustainable. It is important to keep portion control in perspective.
#3: See health care providers regularly and keep up with cancer screening. We all get busy with work, taking care of family, helping friends and more. It is important to remember that if you do not take care of you, then you might not be here to take care of everyone else. I believe the best chance for beating any cancer is finding it early and getting it out. Most health conditions with early intervention will have better outcomes.
#4: Regular physical activity. Yes, ideally regular exercise would be my recommendation. But those who just do not have enough hours in the day, building in exercise is stressful. Incorporating regular physical activity is a compromise — take the stairs rather than the elevator, park in the spot furthest from door. Set small goals and keep working to increase/improve over time.
#5: Compliment diet with use of nutritional supplements to support immune function and wellness. Today most of us lead very active lives that are both physically and mentally stressful. Nutritional supplements can be used to make up for deficits that occur due to “expending more energy” than we take in from diet and sleep alone. Speak with your physician about any supplements you are considering taking.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
An area I am very passionate about, that probably could bring the most impact on wellness, would be sustainable weight loss/weight management because a decreasing incidence of obesity could have the biggest impact on cancer prevention here in the US.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
I have had some amazing mentors who definitely helped prepare me for most things in my career. Here’s what I wish someone told me before I started:
Look in the mirror: that’s your competition. It took me a long time to learn to not worry about what everyone else was doing/achieving — just worry about doing my best.
There are moments that will seem impossible to overcome, but you will overcome them and come out stronger each time.
Do not be afraid to ask for more, value yourself and your contributions. It is important to remember your own self-worth.
You don’t fail when you fall down, you only fail when you do not get back up. There have been setbacks and once I accepted the failure and learned from it, moving forward was easier.
You are more than enough. I learned this a little later in my career from a mentor, but it was gamechanger to get rid of all those moments of self-doubt.
Sustainability, veganism, mental health and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?
It is tough to pick just one, but if I can only pick one, it would be mental health. I think mental health is gaining attention, but we have a long way to go. Why I picked mental health is because it can impact immune function, triggering a litany of health problems, including risk of persistent HPV infections. Mental health wellness is a priority and essential to achieve physical wellness — it’s all connected.
What is the best way for our readers to further follow your work online?
One option is to follow my faculty webpage at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston. As we open any new clinical study, it will be posted on clinicaltrials.gov.
Thank you for these fantastic insights! We wish you continued success and good health.
Thank you for opportunity to share my perspectives and our exciting progress on the journey to eliminate HPV.
Women In Wellness: Judith Smith of UTHealth McGovern Medical School on the Five Lifestyle Tweaks… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.