36 Special Edition Q and A.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix
36 Special Edition Q and A.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Speaker1:
Hi and welcome to the Cancer Secrets podcast. I am your host and guide, Dr. Jonathan Stegall. Cancer is like a thief who has come to steal, kill and destroy. I have personally seen it wreak havoc on patients, friends and even my own family. But I am on a mission to change the cancer paradigm. Who? The practice of integrative oncology cancer treatment that integrates the best of conventional medicine with the best of alternative therapies backed by science and personalized to each patient. You need a positive voice you can trust. This podcast will share valuable information to give you practical hope for a better outcome. So I invite you to join me on this journey as we seek to change the cancer paradigm together. Hello and welcome back to the Cancer Secrets podcast. I'm your host, Doctor Jonathan Stegall. This is season three and episode number 36. In today's episode, I'm going to be answering listener questions. As we all know, cancer is complicated, so I like to periodically set aside time for my usual topic focused episodes and answer some of your questions. As always, we encourage you to listen with a loved one or friend. Learning and enjoying the show with a community will be more impactful than doing so alone. Today's show is going to be a great one as we answer your burning questions. Our first question is from Nicole. Nicole writes Hi. In your podcast, you talk about plant based nutrition with lots of fiber for stage four cancer patients, which I totally agree with.
Speaker1:
However, my mother has stage four bowel cancer and has had a stent inserted in her bowel to allow movement to pass. And due to this, she has to be on a very strict low fiber diet. What can you suggest from a nutritional standpoint as there are not many healthy options for her at all. She can't have anything with more than 2 to 3 grams of fiber, otherwise it risks dislodging her stent. I'm at a loss as to what she can eat and which would be helpful for reducing cancer. Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you so much, Nicole. Well, Nicole, this is a great question because you're correct in that a plant based diet is naturally going to be high in fiber. And ideally, patients would be able to always eat high fiber diets because we know they have a lot of benefits, not only in terms of keeping the bowel movements regular, but also we believe that fiber itself does have an anticancer effect. So your mom obviously cannot have a high fiber diet due to the location of her cancer and the resulting stent that she has to have in place. So I definitely would agree for her not to go overboard with the fiber, but I do feel that she could still have a very healthy diet while staying within that low fiber recommendation. This is where I think smoothies can come into play and more specifically, juicing.
Speaker1:
So, of course, the difference between a smoothie which we make with a blender versus juicing, which we would make with a juicer, is that the juice are actually removes the fiber. So I think juicing can really be important for patients such as your mom who who can't have as much fiber because it's going to extract all that fiber. So let's let's talk about a common anticancer juice, which would be, you know, carrots, celery, apple, maybe some ginger thrown in as well. That's a very common sort of basic cancer juice recipe. When all those ingredients are thrown into the juice or the pulp and all the fiber will be extracted, leaving still a very nutritious concoction, but without all the fiber. So I think for someone like your mom, juicing can be extremely important because removing that fiber is going to make that juice extremely easy to digest. In contrast, a smoothie where you're using just a regular blender, such as a Vitamix or a ninja or something like that, is going to leave the fiber in. So, you know, certain things wouldn't be as good to throw in a blender to make a smoothie for her because it's going to contain more fiber for most patients. I do recommend doing smoothies more than juices because we want that fiber. But for her I would say do more of the juices so that that way she's still getting a lot of the the nutrients and things from the from the fruits and vegetables, not the fiber.
Speaker1:
She could still do some smoothies. But again, you just want to be careful with the fiber content in terms of what you're adding. So for for general guidelines, just for everyone out there listening, if you're making something like that, whether it's a smoothie or a juice, certainly try to use organic as much as you can. I do think organic makes a big difference, not only in terms of nutrient quality, but also because we're avoiding the harmful pesticides and herbicides and things like that that are present in non organic fruits and vegetables. And the people often ask about a good base. You know, certainly if you're doing juicing, you know, the, the, the juice itself is that comes out is, is what you're consuming. But with something like a smoothie you're doing in a blender, people often ask, Well, should I use water? Should I use some kind of an almond milk or coconut milk? Should I use cow's milk? I certainly recommend using either almond milk or coconut milk. Ideally, without the carrageenan, there is some concern over carrageenan, which is added as a thickening agent to some formulations of of almond milk and coconut milk. But otherwise, I think, you know, an organic almond or coconut milk is perfect. I prefer that over cow's milk simply because there is some concern over dairy and its ability to to fuel cancer.
Speaker1:
So I would avoid the dairy, therefore avoid the cows milk. Water is certainly fine as well. It's not going to result in quite as creamy a smoothie, but depending on what kind of smoothie you're making, that may be okay. Just to use water, you're certainly going to want to include some ice just for for temperature. So it's nice and cold. And then after that, you can add whatever ingredients you want. There's a lot of variety out there. You can certainly add some berries, even a banana here. And there is OC, you know, certainly you don't want a super high glycemic smoothie, but, you know, half a banana or so is not a big deal. You can certainly do that. And then. There are also some really good protein powders as well. You don't want to go too high on protein. Remember, you don't need a high protein diet, especially when we're talking about cancer. But certainly some protein is indicated, especially if you're following a whole food plant based diet. So I really like or gain or gain, I'm not affiliated with them in any way, but I just think they make a great product. It's actually developed by a physician who was dealing with cancer himself, and he realized that they're just not really a good, healthy protein powder out there for for people like me. So he started a company called Organ, and organ is an organic plant based protein. So it's a good way to add some protein to your smoothies, especially if you're if you're largely relying on those for your nutrition.
Speaker1:
So some healthy fats can be added as well, avocado, something like that. But generally speaking, you're going to want to stick to Whole Foods as close to the earth as possible. So you want to steer clear of the you know, throw in some scoops of ice cream and, you know, sugary things like that in there. But I hope that's helpful. Nicole, I'm so sorry about your mother. I know it's very hard with her diagnosis, especially having the dietary restriction she has. But I really do think relying on a juicer and you can pick one up for $100 or so on Amazon, you don't have to buy one of the super duper masticating juicers that costs $1,000. You can get by with a really good juicer on you can buy on Amazon or somewhere for around $100. So I think she'll get a lot of good use out of that, a lot of benefit from it. Our next question is from an anonymous listener who says, Hi, Dr. Segal, I have stage four breast cancer. I've researched a lot of cancer treatments. I decided not to pursue chemotherapy due to concerns over side effects and instead embarked on a more natural approach. I began receiving intravenous vitamin C 1 to 2 times per week. I also changed my diet and I'm taking a lot of supplements as well as off label medications.
Speaker1:
I incorporate exercise, stress reduction, essential oils and infrared sauna into my routine. Unfortunately, my cancer has worsened based on labs and imaging. I don't understand why these treatments haven't worked like I thought they would. Well, this is a great question. You know, I have a lot of perspective. Patients contact me who have been diagnosed with cancer and sort of tried to take a more natural approach with with understandable concerns over over some of the conventional treatments. There's there's a lot of potential downside to things like chemotherapy. And we've all heard and read and maybe even experience the effects of chemotherapy and loved ones or or for some of you listening, you've experienced yourself with lowered immune system function, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fatigue, neuropathy, you know, rashes, all kinds of things that can happen with sort of the conventional administration of chemotherapy. So I certainly understand the concern over that. Unfortunately, just to be completely honest, I mean, chemotherapy is an extremely powerful tool. And, you know, unfortunately, when we when we just abandon chemotherapy completely and only do a natural approach, you know, even with with things like vitamin C and supplements and good nutrition plan, usually that's not enough. And so this is a good time to actually just illustrate for you exactly why I'm integrative in my philosophy and not not merely holistic or alternative or natural, because, yes, we do need some natural treatments. You know, nutrition is extremely important.
Speaker1:
Intravenous vitamin C can play an important role. Stress reduction, extremely important. Exercise, very important. I think essential oils have a role. I think detoxification through things like infrared sauna can be important, but none of those things are powerful treatments on their own or even in combination as, as we can see, illustrated by this listener question here. I mean, this is a patient who is doing, quote, all the right things. If you read a lot of Internet blogs and articles which say you don't need chemotherapy, all you need to do is take I.V. Vitamin C, you just need to change your diet. And unfortunately, you know, that's really bad advice. You know, we can't completely abandon modern medicine. And I know you maybe have read about people out there who have sort of said, you know, I'm not doing any conventional treatments. I'm going to just do natural treatments. And you supposedly cured their cancer. Honestly, I don't know if that's true. You know, I'd love to know if those people were truly diagnosed with cancer, if those natural therapies are truly all that they did, and if they have real documentation with testing, whether that's labs or imaging or ideally both, to show that their cancer did go away, I'm not doubting that those outcomes can happen, but they're rare. I do know that they're rare because I see so many people, you know, new patients in my office who have tried that and failed.
Speaker1:
And so I think probably when those things do work, it's probably more of a case of of what we call spontaneous remission, where there's this a very small subset of cancer patients who will see their cancer go away. You know, the book called Radical Remission, you know, deals with that and looks at those people who have had what are termed spontaneous remissions. And it looks at kind of what they all have in common. And and they do all have some things in common, like changing their diet, reducing their stress, exercising. So, again, that's not to discount those things. But but if you look at the percentage of people who take that approach and have a good outcome, it's very, very, very, very, very small in comparison to the people who take that approach and fail. And so I think just in terms of putting our our energy into the things that give us the best chance of of having a good outcome, we need an integrated approach. And so that's exactly why, you know, I do think that chemotherapy needs to be a part of just about everyone's treatment program. I just believe that we need to use it in a in a smarter, safer way. And that's why in my office, we we absolutely use chemotherapy and we're proud of that. But we we give lower doses more often rather than the really high doses less often. And I think that's the real key.
Speaker1:
We're taking advantage of of chemotherapies, documented cancer killing effects, but we're doing it in a way to to reduce the incidence of side effects. That's not to say we eliminate side effects. They still happen sometimes. But if we're if we're having some side effects that are temporary and mild and they are accompanied by a significant reduction in cancer, then, then let's do that. I mean, that's a tradeoff we're willing to make. And so, of course, we augment that with a lot of these natural therapies, which I think are wonderful in a supportive role, just not in a. A prominent role. So I think for for this listener's question, that would be my answer. That's why you didn't see those things have the effect you wanted them to is because they're not intended to be primary standalone treatments. They're designed to be supportive treatments because if you look at the literature, we don't have a very good track record of, let's say, intravenous vitamin C, significantly killing cancer. I mean, yes, there are some case reports you can look at. There are some people who have maybe had some temporary improvement with I.V. Vitamin C, but but we don't have a lot of evidence showing that vitamin C on its own is going to be equivalent to or certainly not superior to chemotherapy in terms of having a cancer killing effect. So this is a good a good time to remind you that everything you read on the Internet is not true.
Speaker1:
Take everything you read with a grain of salt. Always question the source whether they have an agenda toward pushing alternative treatments or if they have an agenda toward pushing, you know, standard of care treatments. There's usually always an agenda which is which is one of the main reasons why we have this podcast. The Cancer Secrets podcast is because I want to give you objective information from my own experience as a as a physician, as a cancer specialist, as someone who's in the trenches with patients who read research articles, who is very open to any and everything that's going to help us, I want to bring you that that critical approach, but that open minded approach to to really let you know what works and what doesn't. So that's my answer to that question. I hope that's helpful. Our next question is from Cathy, who writes, I read a lot about sugar feeding cancer. Do I need to be avoiding all sugar in my diet, even naturally occurring sugar? Well, this is a great question. And Cathy, you know, we do read a lot online about sugar feeding cancer and cancer loving sugar. And people people frequently will. We'll talk about PET scans and how PET scans use radio labeled sugar, which which does illustrate that cancer loves sugar as an energy source. I mean, that's that's how we identify cancer on a PET scan. We give a sugar based contrast agent, and we know that cancer is going to preferentially take that up and and light up on the scan as a result of that.
Speaker1:
And so, yes, cancer does love sugar, but the other part of that story you don't hear often enough is cancer also loves protein. It loves fat, it loves cholesterol, it loves iron, it loves hormones. Cancer is highly adaptable. So, yes, like our normal healthy cells, cancer does love sugar. It's a primary energy source, but it's certainly not the only energy source. And so, you know, when we talk about diet, you know, we need to sort of move away from this notion that we can starve cancer nutritionally. You just can't do it. If you take away sugar. Cancer is going to adapt its metabolism to utilize other things in the diet, whether it be fat or protein, to to do its thing and make its energy. So so we can't really approach it that way in terms of diet. So my belief is we need to eat a healthy, balanced diet. And so that doesn't mean you need to avoid naturally occurring sugar sugar found naturally in fruits and vegetables, legumes, grains. Those are great. Those naturally occurring sugars are great. And yes, cancer could theoretically use that for energy, but that's going to be true of anything you eat. So again, stop, stop viewing diet as a method of starving cancer and look at it in more in terms of what do I need to feed my body to optimize its function? What do I need to eat that's going to give my healthy cells what they need to be strong to, what I need for my immune system? What do I need to to upregulate my body's natural defense systems as much as I can and view really the other tools we have in our arsenal to actually kill cancer? Because you're not going to kill cancer just from your diet.
Speaker1:
However, the asterisk or the caveat to that is we do know from studies dating back to the 1970s that the amino acid methionine that spelled M e t io in iron e methionine, the amino acid, which is a component of protein, is needed by cancer. They found that multiple types of cancer, they tested many, many different cancer cell types and they found that all of them without question, have to have methionine. Well, it turns out methionine is highest in animal protein sources. So fish actually has a very high methionine chicken, beef, pork, dairy. They all have very high methionine levels. Well, guess what? Low methionine foods are? Plants, fruits, vegetables, grains, beans. You know, these are the lowest methionine foods. So we talk about a plant based diet. The most important factor in my opinion, for to justify a plant based diet is that it's naturally low and methionine. So if you want to talk about sort of depriving cancer of something we know it needs, well, methionine based on the research is something that cancer needs.
Speaker1:
Normal healthy cells don't need methionine to that extent. So, so, so eating a low defining diet that's still very plant based is very important. That's naturally going to give you some carbohydrates. Actually, a fairly high amount of carbohydrates is going to give you some healthy fats, but not too many. And it's going to give you a kind of low to moderate protein. And not surprisingly, this is the kind of diet that that has been shown in many cultures, many cultures throughout the world to be the most anti aging, the most longevity producing diet in what we believe to be an anti cancer diet, because people who eat a plant based diet get cancer far lower rates than people who eat a more animal protein heavy diet as we tend to in the United States. And so and I believe that a plant based diet is still extremely important if you've already been diagnosed with cancer as well. So that's a great question about sugar. Again, I think we need to kind of flip our thinking away from all sugar be or all carbs being bad and more into thinking about what's the source and naturally occurring sugars. Okay, obviously you don't want to be adding processed sugar, you know, the white stuff to your diet because that's only going to raise blood sugar and create a less favorable environment. So so that I hope that's helpful in terms of the the sugar question.
Speaker1:
Hi, this is Dr. Stegall. Thanks again for being a loyal listener. If you love the Cancer Secrets podcast, I know you're going to love my Cancer Secrets book as well. In the book, I take a comprehensive look at cancer and its history while also digging into the treatment protocol. I wholeheartedly believe in integrative oncology. Integrative oncology uses the best of modern medicine with alternative therapies backed by science and personalized to each patient. I not only focus on common cancer treatments such as chemotherapy, but also on more outside the box treatments such as intravenous vitamin C, mistletoe, nutrition supplementation exercised and repurposed medications. I explain which tests you should have but probably aren't getting. I address the power of mind, body medicine and the importance of our thoughts and our words. I also take a look at common myths about cancer. Some of these will surprise you. I will teach you to be an open minded skeptic and give you the hope you need to fight cancer. Grab your copy today on Amazon in paperback or Kindle format. Our next question is from Sandy, who posted a great question on social media. Her question is this Could detoxing too much reduce the effectiveness of chemotherapy? Sandy, this is an outstanding question, and it's one that I find a lot of people are confused by. You know, with with all of the the information out there now about toxins and how bad they are for us, we naturally hear a lot more about detoxification or detoxing.
Speaker1:
It's especially prominent in in in more natural minded communities. You know, alternative medicine talks a lot about detoxification. And detoxification is extremely important. I mean, think about the body in general. The liver and kidneys are the two main organs that help us detoxify. So any time we're exposed to a toxin, which we are, we can't avoid them in our in our world today, whether it's in our food or in the air or in our environments where we're all exposed to toxins in. So certainly when the body is exposed to toxins, we we rely on on the natural defense systems to help break down those toxins. And so we release those toxins in the form of of our urine and our bowel movements. Sweating is important because we release toxins through our sweat. And then certainly the lymphatic system is important in terms of detoxifying as well. And so our bodies naturally want to get rid of toxins. However, we want to be careful when we're talking about chemotherapy because chemotherapy creates a toxic environment and that's actually good. Another way to think about chemotherapy is it creates oxidative damage. And so oxidative damage is is something we want inside cancer cells because that oxidative damage helps harm cancer cells so that they die. And so there is good evidence out there that too much detoxification can actually counteract or undo the effectiveness of chemotherapy.
Speaker1:
So we're very careful in my practice with patients who are taking high dose antioxidants. So high dose glutathione, high dose alpha lipoic acid, high dose vitamin E CoQ10. These things in supplement form are certainly in the case of glutathione and intravenous form can actually be used by cancer cells to resist the effects of chemotherapy. And so we don't want to do that. We want to make sure we're promoting that oxidative environment during chemotherapy. And then certainly when we're not actively doing chemotherapy, certainly we want to help build back up the the body's defense mechanism in terms of of detoxification, build up those antioxidant systems. And that's that's where some of those things I just mentioned can play a powerful role, things like infrared sauna, so they help detoxify, glutathione, coenzyme Q10 and things like that. But it's all about timing. And so a lot of people are very well intentioned and they say, oh, well, I'm, I'm getting chemotherapy. I want to make sure I really beef up my antioxidants so I can not have as much damage to my healthy cells. That's actually a big mistake because we do know that the cancer has its own protective mechanisms in terms of antioxidants. So we don't want to support that with with additional antioxidants through supplementation and through intravenous treatment. So thank you so much for that question, Sandi. That's an excellent question. Our last listener question is from Steve, who asks I read a lot about cancer occurring as a result of a weak immune system.
Speaker1:
Can you please talk about this? Well, see, this is a great question. There is a lot of talk out there about the immune system being sort of the determining factor as to whether people get cancer or not. And I'm really glad you brought this up because, you know, it's an important topic in that a lot of people feel that if you don't get cancers because your immune system recognized it and eliminated it before it became clinically relevant. Whereas if you did get cancer, then it must mean that your immune system wasn't optimized and isn't strong enough. And so cancer was able to kind of get around your immune system. I think this is one of the biggest myths out there right now in terms of cancer. You know, it's cancer. Remember, cancer originates from from normal, healthy cells. I mean, our our bodies are filled with with trillions of cells. And as these cells get gradually worn down, they're not going to work as well. And most cells are designed to undergo what's known as apoptosis, which is programmed cell death, when they kind of reach the end of their lifespan. Well, in our world today, with with all of the the stressors we have, whether those are chemical stressors or physical stressors or emotional stressors. Our cells are becoming more worn down and inflamed than ever before. And so sometimes that that system doesn't work as well as it should.
Speaker1:
And so for these cells to survive and thrive rather than dying, these cells mutate. And so when that cell mutates, we we know that's cancer. And so the problem is, you know, the immune system is is very, very thoroughly trained to recognize self from non-self. And so what that means is the immune system is is educated in our lymphatic system, which, you know, you can think of a lymphatic system is the basic training for the immune system cells. And so, so as these immune system cells are, are trained and built up and they lymphatic system, they're trained to recognize something that's native to the body, which is self and is instructed not to attack those things because we don't want our bodies attacking healthy parts of our body. So so when the immune system does that, that's what we, we, we know of as autoimmune disease. The body's inappropriately attacking itself and we all know what kind of harm that can cause. In contrast, when the immune system is educated to recognize things that are foreign or non self, these are things like viruses and bacteria and fungus and things that the body wants to get rid of. And so the immune system knows to attack those things so they can be eliminated. So that's when you start to get a cold, your body starts to start to attack it. If you start to get a sinus infection, your body attacks it.
Speaker1:
Cancer is interesting in that it originates from self. It originates from from what was once a normal, healthy cell. It cancer is not a virus or a bacteria. It doesn't look foreign. And so the immune system has a very difficult time recognizing cancer. And yes, cancer does have some mechanisms built in to sort of cloak itself from the immune system. But but rather than viewing cancer as a weakness of the immune system, and therefore, rather than viewing cancer as a need to somehow strengthen or build up the immune system in order to treat it, we need to instead view cancer as a really smart, really stealthy thing that that really hides itself from immune detection and we need to therefore treated in other ways. And so that's not to say we can't still focus on building up the immune system because it's very important. We need to make sure we're optimizing all of those different immune system cells so that when as we do treat cancer, that the immune system can do what it needs to do. But simply viewing cancer as a weakness of the immune system or an immune system that's not strong enough to do its job, I think we need to stop looking at it that way because it's really an oversimplification of what's going on when cancer develops and as cancer grows and thrives. So so again, we need we need a strong immune system.
Speaker1:
We need to make sure that our immune system is working optimally in terms of minimizing the the co-infections that can happen in terms of viruses and bacteria and and fungus and making sure that as we do kill cancer, that the immune system is able to do its job. But but the immune system on its own, generally speaking, is not able to recognize and eliminate cancer by itself. And so this whole notion that all we need to do is build the immune system and that's all we need to do to magically kill our cancers is just simply inaccurate. And so I'm really glad you asked us this question, Steve, because it's something that a lot of people have been educated on in an incorrect way. So. Thank you so much for asking that. So that gets us to the end of our listener questions for this episode. I hope this has been helpful. Like I said, I like to I like to take time periodically to answer questions because I know that we've gotten some great feedback from our our topic based episodes that that are led by me as well as our hour interview episodes where we're interviewing experts in other fields. But I think it's really important to take time and answer some of these questions that we receive regularly. So if you have a question, please remember that you can easily submit a question. The easiest way to do that is to go to our website, Cancer Secrets.
Speaker1:
Click on the podcast heading at the top of the page. And when you do that, I'll take you to our podcast page where you you can see all of our previous episodes they're available to listen to. But on the right hand side of that page, there's a little tab you can click on that, allow you to leave a voicemail and ask a question via voicemail so you'll actually leave an audio message with your question. That's the easiest way to submit a question. We're happy to address that question the next time we do a listener Q&A episode. So please remember to do that. If you have any questions that that have not been answered through the course of our podcast, I'm always happy to help whoever I can. As always, I encourage you to subscribe to the Cancer Secrets podcast, to be notified when new episodes are released. And if you're enjoying these podcasts, please take a minute and provide a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. We've gotten some wonderful feedback. I'm proud of our of our high rating from you guys saying that you're loving the podcast and finding it helpful. It really means a lot. And finally, share this podcast with your family and friends. As I mentioned earlier, all previous episodes are available for free on our website at Cancer Secrets dot com. We have many more great episodes coming your way and season three I look forward to next time. Bye bye.
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