You probably remember Ananda Lewis as the vibrant, bubbly BET and MTV on-air personality who guided us through some of the most popular artists and songs of the 90’s.
Fast-forward to today, Lewis is a mother and has been open about battling breast cancer. While she has been on many media outlets sharing her story, she recently sat down exclusively with us at BlackDoctor.org to share her truth and the whole truth about what she’s dealing with Stage IV breast cancer.
In the exclusive BDO interview, Lewis clarified she was elevated to stage IV last October and was very ill at that time. Today, after much trial and error and a combination of conventional and integrative treatment methods, she’s doing “fantastic.”
She also shares how her family, friends and the sheer beauty of life fuels her into a place of “gratitude” and love. The rousing interview was infused with a host of “Amens” and shouts of praise for the timely and genuine advice she shared. Watch the video in its entirety by clicking the image below.
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Breast Cancer and Young Black Women
A 2017 study looking at women between the ages of 18 to 64 who were diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer found that four key factors accounted for 76.3 percent of the total excess mortality risk in Black patients: 37 percent of Black women’s excess mortality risk could be explained by a lack of private health insurance; tumor characteristics explained 23.2 percent; comorbidities 11.3 percent; and treatment differences (when it started or stopped, what was given) 4.8 percent.
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According to the National Cancer Institute, disparities in cancer care can be improved in several ways. These include creating statewide cancer screening programs that are accessible to underserved populations and by addressing the biological differences in breast cancer across racial and ethnic groups. A 2019 study that analyzed characteristics of breast cancer patients on a city level showed that women with more resources (such as education and income) may be better equipped to take advantage of healthcare advances. Indeed, cities that have confronted this problem by increasing access to state-of-the art mammography facilities made significant progress in narrowing the breast cancer mortality gap between Black and white women.
The biology of breast cancer is inherently complex, which is why we often hear the phrase, “Every woman’s breast cancer is unique.” While we have made significant progress in understanding the molecular drivers of breast cancer, most studies and clinical trials are conducted in white women. Expanding Black women’s participation in research is critical.
We have only recently been able to decipher some of the underlying biology to explain the higher incidence of aggressive tumors in Black women and to identify biomarkers that could ultimately inform personalized therapies and improve outcomes for Black women diagnosed with breast cancer.
Ananda’s Inspirational Journey Before Breast Cancer
Before beginning her television career in the ‘90s hosting BET’s “Teen Summit” and before becoming a VJ at MTV, Lewis had an inspirational childhood.
Lewis was born on March 21, 1973, in Los Angeles. She is of African American and Native American descent, specifically of the Creek and Blackfoot tribes. Her first name means “bliss” in Sanskrit. Lewis’s mother worked as an account manager for Pacific Bell, and her father as a computer-animation specialist. Her sister, Lakshmi, is a physician.[4] Lewis’s parents divorced when Ananda was two years old, and her mother moved with her daughters to San Diego, California, to be near her own mother. Her mother took an extended trip to Europe to escape the pain of her failed marriage, leaving Ananda and Lakshmi with their grandmother. During her absence which lasted less than a year, Lewis felt abandoned. She states: It was like she nurtured me and carried me in her womb and then completely left. Lewis often fought with her mother while growing up and rarely saw her father, who had remarried. Lewis and her grandmother also frequently “locked horns” while she was growing up.
Lewis struggled with a speech impediment, stuttering until she was eight years old. In grade school she earned a reputation for outspokenness. In 1981 Lewis entered herself in the Little Miss San Diego Contest, a beauty pageant, and won. During the talent portion of the competition, Lewis performed a dance routine, which she had choreographed herself, to Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney’s ballad “Ebony and Ivory”. After her win, Lewis attracted the attention of a talent agent and began working in local theater productions and on television. In fourth grade she enrolled at the San Diego School of Creative and Performance Arts (SCPA), a public magnet school, where she remained for nine years.[4] At the age of thirteen, Lewis began volunteering as a tutor and counselor at a Head Start facility. Lewis was inspired by the work and decided to become a teacher or a psychologist, with the goal of helping young people. However, Lewis’s family urged her to follow a more lucrative career path, specifically law. She majored in history at Howard University, in Washington, D.C., from which she graduated cum laude in 1995.
While a student at Howard University in 1993, Lewis was featured prominently in the hit R&B video by fellow HU alumni Shai, “Baby, I’m Yours”, filmed on campus. She portrayed the love interest of vocalist Carl “Groove” Martin.
Throughout college Lewis had volunteered as a mentor with the group Youth at Risk and at the Youth Leadership Institute. She was considering attending graduate school to pursue a master’s degree in education when she learned that auditions were going to be held for the job of on-screen host of BET’s Teen Summit. She states that the children she was working with that summer were the main ones pushing her to go to the auditions.
Lewis’s audition would be a success and she became the host of Teen Summit. For three seasons she discussed serious issues affecting teenagers for a television audience of several million. The show’s topical, debate-driven format enabled Lewis to follow her passion for helping young people, and use her skills she had acquired at the performing-arts school in San Diego. In 1996, on an installment of the show entitled “It Takes a Village”, Lewis interviewed then-First Lady Hillary Clinton, whose book with that title had been published earlier in the year. Also in 1996 Teen Summit was nominated for a CableACE Award, and the next year the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) presented Lewis with an Image Award for her work on Black Entertainment Television (BET). Soon afterward the cable network MTV offered Lewis a position as a program host and video jockey. The thought of leaving Teen Summit was painful for her; indeed, several sources quoted her as recalling that she “cried for three weeks” while pondering her choices. In opting to move to MTV, the deciding factor was the possibility of greatly increasing the size of her viewing audience and the potential for influencing America’s youth.
Lewis hosted and VJed a variety of shows includingTotal Request Live, a daily top ten video-countdown show, and Hot Zone, which offered both music videos and Lewis’s interviews of musicians and others.
