Complexity of Cancer.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix
Complexity of Cancer.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Speaker1:
Welcome to the Cancer Secrets podcast. Changing the Cancer Paradigm. Hosted by Dr. Jonathan Steagall, a medical doctor and cancer specialist practicing in Atlanta, Georgia, deeply affected by his grandmother's death from stomach cancer, as well as patients he cared for in medical training, he realized there has to be a better way to treat cancer. Dr. Stegall has a unique and innovative approach to treating cancer called integrative oncology, combining modern medicine with alternative therapies personalized to each patient. This podcast is designed to educate, support and give you a positive voice you can trust. We invite you to join us on this journey as we seek to change the cancer paradigm.
Speaker2:
Hi. This is Dr. Stegall. I'm so glad you're enjoying the Cancer Secrets podcast. Do you have a question you would like answered in a future episode? If so, please go to Cancer Secrets dot com and click on podcast at the top of the page. Look for the tab on the right side of the page that says Send voice mail. You can record your question straight from your smartphone or computer with your question. Be sure to tell us your first name, where you're from, and why you listen to the show. I will choose from the best questions and answer them on the air. I look forward to hearing from you soon. Hello and welcome back to the Cancer Secrets Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Jonathan Stegall. This is season two and episode number 17. In today's episode, I'm going to discuss the complexity of cancer. This is an extremely important topic because understanding what cancer is and what it is not is vital if we want to treat it in the best way possible. If you're new to the show, please go back and listen to my introductory episode to learn more about me and my vision for this podcast. 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 alone.
Speaker2:
Today's show is going to be a great one as we tackle the details about cancer. There's a lot of mystery surrounding cancer. Everyone seems to view it a bit differently. If I were to ask you what cancer is, what would you say? Perhaps you would tell me that it's a tumor that has attacked the body. Or maybe you would say that it is a series of genetic mutations which cause cells to act in an abnormal way. Or perhaps you'd say it's a result of a polluted world we live in. All of these definitions are right, but they're also incomplete. In a broad sense, cancer is an umbrella term which covers over 100 different diseases. This is because cancer can attack many different parts of the body, including various organs, glands, bones, blood and even the lymphatic system. Generally speaking, cancer forms due to a disruption in how cells function. Most commonly, these disruptions are due to environmental insults, including chemicals, toxins and stressors. Affected cells become worn down and aren't able to do their jobs as well. These repeated insults over time lead to changes in the genetic structure, which results in abnormal cellular behavior. Rather than continuing to behave like normal cells and undergoing apoptosis, which is programmed cell death. At the end of their normal lifespan, they stay alive. They're able to grow much faster, divide into new cells and invade other structures.
Speaker2:
Once this process has occurred for long enough, we will see evidence of cancer in the body in the form of a tumor, which then results in dysfunction inside the body, including pain, abnormal lab values, etc.. It makes sense that we're seeing more cancer now than ever before. Many scientists attribute this to improve diagnostic methods. However, there are a growing number of experts who believe that these rising cancer rates are due to the increasingly toxic environments in which we live and work. Think about it the quality of our food, water and air is not nearly what it used to be. Even 30 or 40 years ago. The number of chemicals, additives, dyes and preservatives present in our food and in the products we consume has never been greater. Common items in our homes, including carpet, furniture, bedding and cosmetics, contain known carcinogens as well as many likely carcinogens. In addition, we're bombarded by a significant number of electromagnetic waves, including those from microwaves, cell phones, power lines and wireless Internet routers. We tend to forget about these exposures since we cannot see them. However, there is research showing that these electromagnetic waves can cause significant harm to our bodies. As you can see, our cells are bathing in a toxic soup. Our bodies are quite resilient and can withstand a lot of damage.
Speaker2:
However, at some point our bodies become so overwhelmed, and that is when diseases such as cancer develop. The lifetime risk of cancer is currently one in three, and that number is quickly approaching one and two. Many epidemiologists now state that cancer will soon overtake heart disease as the number one killer of Americans. It's safe to say that cancer truly is an epidemic. Getting back to the abnormal behavior we see in cancer cells, it's important to realize that cancer will live forever inside the body unless we kill it. Ultimately, it steals resources from the body to the point that it overtakes the body. This is why we see very late stage terminal cancer patients wasting away. Cancer truly is the ugliest, most dangerous parasite. It's important to emphasize just how serious cancer is because you're being exposed to a significant amount of bad advice regarding cancer treatment. We simply cannot afford to utilize ineffective treatments, not only because they are a waste of time and money, but also because these treatments allow cancer to continue to take over the body and cause untold damage and destruction. How like normal cells, the first thing cancer needs is a supply of nourishment. Without fuel, cancer cannot continue to grow and spread. One popular axiom, frequently repeated on line is the cancer love sugar.
Speaker2:
The thought is that by reducing sugar in the diet, cancer will be starved and will die. This is an overly simplistic view of how cancer operates and is a great example of how people with little to no understanding of cancer are causing untold harm. Yes, cancer does use sugar for energy, but it also uses protein, fat, iron, copper hormones and even ketones for energy. It's not possible to starve cancer by withholding specific substances from the diet. If it were that simple. Cancer would not be the epidemic it is today. Hi, this is Dr. Jonathan Segal, medical doctor and specialist in integrative oncology. And I want to tell you about my new best selling book, Cancer Secrets. This book is packed with valuable information you need to know about whether you're searching for information for yourself or for a loved one. In my book, you'll learn what cancer is and what it is not, as well as which treatments you should be focusing on from both modern medicine as well as alternative medicine. You'll also learn the ins and outs of nutrition and supplementation, as well as important information about having the proper mindset. I'm in the trenches every day with patients and I've shared my secrets in this book with you. Please go to Cancer Secrets and buy your copy now.
Armed with this.
Speaker2:
Knowledge, the cancer is highly adaptable and can use a wide variety of things for its growth. We must ask ourselves, What do we eat? After all, our healthy cells need nourishment too. Despite all of the radical anti-cancer diets you've probably seen promoted, there aren't any weird tricks or diet hacks or any other crazy tactics that you need to employ. Quite simply, you need to eat as close to the earth as possible. This means focusing on unprocessed or at least very minimally processed foods. A plant based diet should be the cornerstone of our approach, including vegetables, fruits, beans and grains. Studies involving nutrition and cancer back up this approach. You don't have to count calories or carbs or any of that. Just eat clean. Some animal protein is allowable, but it should be as humanely sourced as possible with no added growth hormones, antibiotics or additives. However, even the healthy animal protein sources should be approached with caution, since there is mounting evidence that the amino acid methionine, which is found in high amounts in all animal protein, including fish, beef, chicken and pork, is required by cancer cells but not by healthy cells. Thus, methionine restriction is a potentially vital approach that I strongly encourage my patients to utilize. It's helpful for many people to stop viewing nutrition as an anti cancer treatment, but rather as a treatment which best supports the body while battling cancer.
Speaker2:
We know that good nutrition enhances the health of the body's normal cells and helps ensure that the body is functioning optimally. It also helps keep normal cells from veering off course in becoming cancerous. By viewing nutrition in this way, we still recognise its importance, but resist the temptation to view it as the be all, end all when it comes to cancer treatment. I see a lot of patients who major in the minors, and by that I mean they focus on minute details, especially relating to nutrition and supplementation that honestly aren't important. By doing this, they risk missing out on other important areas of the treatment protocol, which, to be honest, are much more powerful when it comes to actually killing cancer. Okay. So now we understand nutrition and how it isn't possible to starve cancer by eating overly restrictive diets. We also understand that nutrition is a very important aspect of our treatment protocol, since it provides valuable support to the body. One of your questions at this point might be this Are we fueling cancer even when we eat a healthy diet? The answer to that is possibly. But thankfully, there are some novel strategies we can use to reduce the ability of cancer to utilize sugar, protein and fat, or at least reduce cancer's ability to use them as easily. This approach uses prescription medications, but you probably haven't heard about them from your oncologist.
Speaker2:
These medications are considered off label use, which means that they were approved for another indication but have been found since then to have an anticancer effect. There are several of these off label or repurposed medications which impede the way cancer uses sugar. These include the diabetes drug metformin, as well as the cholesterol lowering drugs known as statins. In addition, intravenous vitamin C addresses one of the sugar utilization pathways employed by cancer. Finally, the natural compound of Berberine addresses some of these pathways as well. In addition to the carbohydrate usage by cancer, we must also target cancer's use of proteins in fats metformin as well as the antibiotic doxycycline and the antimalarial drug chloroquine. Address some of these pathways. Natural substances such as curcumin, green tea, extract, resveratrol and berberine play a role here as well. I mention these various substances? Not because I want you to rush out and try to obtain them, but to illustrate that, we must be aggressive about targeting these pathways. You should only embark on this strategy with the help of a trained cancer expert, ideally an integrative oncologist. Because each pathway must be carefully addressed. A shotgun approach is not appropriate here, especially since we have to make sure that none of these components interact with each other in a negative way or with other treatments within the protocol.
Speaker2:
Now is a great time to mention another point, and that is the resistance some patients have to taking prescription medications. There is this false belief out there on the Internet that prescriptions are bad and that there are natural alternatives which are better and safer. This is a very risky way to think of it, and I'm amazed by the people who play such significant restrictions on what they won't do. Remember, this is cancer. We're dealing with literally a life or death situation. If you have cancer and you want to give yourself the best chance at having a good outcome, you aren't in a position to play such restrictions on what you will and won't do. Certainly, we should choose treatments carefully and with regard to safety and tolerability. But this idea that there are all of these perfect treatments which are natural and have no side effects is just ridiculous. People who peddle this nonsense online are causing undue harm to people. Remember any substance, whether it be found in nature or manufactured in a lab which has a potential to have an effect in the body, also has a potential to cause harm. Our goal with any treatment is to use enough of that substance so that we see a benefit, but not so much that it causes side effects. Ideally, there's a sweet spot where we can see the positive treatment benefit but not see a side effect.
Speaker2:
But this is not always the case. Sometimes, in order to avoid side effects, the dose of a substance must be too low, so low that we won't see any positive benefit from it. Other times, the amount of a substance needed to see a benefit also causes some side effects. Part of the science and art of medicine is carefully choosing substances where the good outweighs the bad. This isn't always possible, and sometimes we have to make trade offs. Needless to say, we must weigh our options carefully. I wanted to mention this because you're probably exposed to people telling you that there are all these great treatments out there which kill cancer. Naturally, of course. And they do so within 48 hours and they never cause any harm. And I'm here to tell you that there aren't any of these such treatments. If they existed, I would be telling you about them, how I'd be using them with my patients. Now we must understand how cancer functions once it obtains energy, whether it be from a carbohydrate, a protein or fat, or from a hormone or from iron or copper or any other substance, it must grow. Part of the genetic mutations we see in cancer involve what are known as growth factors. These growth factors account for cancers, rapid and aggressive growth. There are several ways to attack these growth factors, and chemotherapy is one such way.
Speaker2:
But chemotherapy alone isn't usually enough. We must use other medications in substances to help us. These include the antiparasitic drug bedazzle, the blood pressure, medication, propranolol, aspirin and the cardiovascular drug die per animal. Now we must discuss another important point. Cancer cells are not on an island by themselves. Rather, they're regularly communicating with other cancer cells, as well as the body's normal cells. We could spend hours talking about this elaborate communication network, but suffice to say, there are at least a dozen pathways cancer cells use in this communication method. We can target them with several substances, as with the other pathways. Some of these treatments are natural compounds and others are prescriptions which we're using in off label fashion. Several of my favorite natural substances for this purpose are Berberine, Melatonin, Quercetin, and Vitamin D. Several medications I routinely use in off label fashion for this purpose are the diabetes drug metformin, the Anti-parasitic, drug MTB and diesel, and the anti-inflammatory drug Celebrex. Next, we must discuss the immune system. A common statement you might have heard is that cancer is an immune system problem. This is extremely misleading because cancer does not occur due to a weak immune system and no amount of strengthening the immune system, whatever that means, will result in a cure for cancer. This is because cancer cells develop from the body's normal cells.
Speaker2:
The immune system undergoes significant training so that it recognizes self from non self. This is vitally important because we don't want our immune systems attacking aspects of our bodies which are supposed to be there. When it does, we have what's known as autoimmune disease. So the immune system isn't trained to kill cancer like it would a foreign invader, like a virus or a bacteria, because cancer is seen by the body as self. It comes from normal, healthy cells or what were at least once normal healthy cells. Nonetheless, it is important to optimize immune system function to support the body as much as we can. We do this in several ways, including vitamin D, supplementation, probiotics to address gut health, as well as other novel strategies like mistletoe. And of course, eating a good, healthy diet and getting regular exercise have been shown to improve immune system function as well. Finally, we must look for underlying infections, including fungal, viral and bacterial infections, and address them as necessary so that the body can fight cancer using as many resources as possible. Finally, our discussion of cancer would not be complete without mentioning the vital role our thoughts, emotions and words play. If you've listened to other podcast episodes, you'll recall the importance of our minds when it comes to fighting cancer. We have significant research showing that patients with a positive mindset who know that they will beat cancer, who regularly say positive words over themselves and their bodies have better treatment outcomes.
Speaker2:
This is because our thoughts and our words actually change our physiology. Employing these strategies is another important aspect of how we treat cancer. You might be feeling overwhelmed right now, and if so, that's okay. In fact, I want you to feel a little overwhelmed. I want you to have a healthy respect for cancer and get to the point if you aren't already there, of being willing to do any and everything you can to treat your cancer. Any tool to kill cancer or to support the body as it fights cancer should be used. The key isn't coffee enemas or Epsom salt baths or a rare plant from the rainforest or essential oils. There isn't a magical cure for cancer that they are hiding from you, whoever they are. The key is to use a wide variety of treatments from both sides of medicine, including surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, repurposed medications, supplementation, nutrition, intravenous vitamin C, intravenous mistletoe, pulsed, electromagnetic field therapy, prayer, meditation, acupuncture. Positive confessions. A great medical team and a strong support system. Among others. By doing so, you're giving cancer more than it can withstand. Remember, knowledge is power, so you have no reason to feel scared or fearful. The tools are out there and I want to see you have success on your journey.
Speaker2:
I hope you found this information helpful. To be honest, this is probably the most important episode we've done so far. This should be required listening for all of our cancer patients as well as their families. If you are a cancer patient, I encourage you to listen to this episode again, take notes and share it with your family and friends so that they can better understand what you're doing. If you're a patient advocate who's listening, please share this episode with a cancer patient you're supporting so that he or she will have more insight into the diagnosis and hopefully some exciting new ideas they didn't know about. Also, please subscribe to our podcast to be notified of future episodes. If you're enjoying this podcast, we would really appreciate it if you'd leave a five star review of the Cancer Secrets podcast on iTunes. This way others can know how beneficial this information can be to them. And finally, if you haven't read my bestselling book, Cancer Secrets, please get a copy. It's available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats. You can learn more about it on our website, Cancer Secrets dot com. We'll continue bringing you more outstanding information that's true and reliable and that you can hopefully utilize in your cancer treatment journey. Until next time. Bye bye.
Speaker1:
Thank you for listening to the Cancer Secrets podcast. If you were encouraged by this show, please share it with a loved one or friend. Help support the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. The more reviews, the more friends like you can find the show. Finally, to learn more, visit us online at Doctor Stay Google.com. The Cancer Secrets Podcast. Changing the Cancer Paradigm.
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