22 Interview with Dr. Jim Roach Americas Healer.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix
22 Interview with Dr. Jim Roach Americas Healer.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, Doctor Jonathan Segall. And this is a special episode. Today it's season two and episode number 22. And I have a wonderful treat for all of you. Our special guest is Dr. Jim Roach. Dr. Roach is a medical doctor practicing in Midway, Kentucky. He's known as America's healer. And his comprehensive integrative cancer treatment strategies have been successfully used in his office for 12 years, and he has an international clientele. In addition, his integrative cancer presentations have a wide following among physicians, as well as the general public. Dr. Roach is a graduate of Duke University in the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. Dr. Roach is also the bestselling author of God's House Calls and recently published another book, Vital Strategies in Cancer, just released earlier this month. I consider Dr. Roach a colleague, mentor and friend, and I'm honored to have him on today's show. Dr. Roach, welcome.
Speaker3:
Thank you for the invitation. I'm happy to be here.
Speaker2:
I'm so glad we can do this today. I know our listeners are going to get a lot of value out of this. I'd like to just jump right in and and talk about how you got into integrative cancer, what kind of got you into the field, and and how has that been?
Speaker3:
Well, in 2000, I was taking my family medicine boards, and afterwards my kids were out of the nest. So I thought this was fun studying for the exams. I think I'll just keep reading journals. I was approaching 50 years of age, wanted to see how long and how well I could live. So I started going to national conferences not associated with pharmaceutical companies, went to Andrew Weil, nutrition and health conferences. Then he had a conference in New York City on botanical medicine with Columbia University. And I thought, I don't want to go to New York City. This is 2004. It was not attractive place at that time, and I thought I would never use herbs in my practice. Why would I do this? But my intuition said Go hoarsely, I'll listen to my intuition. And that conference I learned about herbs. One was Rhodiola Rosea, which was the one that convinced me that herbs are not placebos. And then later on a chat line associated with that conference. Wendy Warner, Dr. Warners up in Philadelphia, mentioned the conference in Black Mountain, North Carolina, called Medicines from the Earth. So I decided to go that conference. I heard Donnie Yance speak, and he was head and shoulders above everyone else at that conference. In terms of his knowledge about cancer and botanicals, there is a man that I met there, Robert Ziv. Dr. Ziv and I both decided we would go together out to Ashland, Oregon, to study under Don ants. And we ended up going out there three different times to study under Donnie, and that has taken me a step forward.
Speaker3:
Donnie, the second time we were out there, described a melanoma case where using the botanical approaches, primarily this patient had melanoma involving almost their entire lot. But after these botanical approaches over 6 to 12 months, that all disappeared, that all converted to scar tissue. I came back home from that. My sister had heard about my cousin's daughter, who had melanoma involving her liver, lungs in her bone and wrapped around her spine. And I remember her saying, I guess nothing could be done. And I thought, well, maybe I almost surprised myself with that answer. So I called her up and invited her to come. She was several hours away. She had terrible nutrition, a classic junk food diet. So we got her nutrition cleared up. We got her in a strong botanical program, included some chaga, some coenzyme Q10 and bigger doses as part of that program. She also went to Vanderbilt where she got interleukin two and after a month on the combination, what we were doing on her skin, everything had shrunk to about half and that sounded very encouraging. She had another scan. A month later, it looked identical in a third skin looked identical. That was all scar tissue. One month she was completely cured for her melanoma, which was reportedly the biggest turnaround melanoma in Vanderbilt's history. Wow. So that was a good introduction to, for me, a big confidence builder in terms of what integrative approaches, in combination with conventional approaches can accomplish.
Speaker2:
Excellent. Wow. And then so was it soon thereafter that you started to incorporate some of those therapies into your own practice?
Speaker3:
Yeah. And I actually my first case was was very interesting. Then the oncologist had said this in stage prostate cancer, patient home. This was maybe around 2007, 2008. And he PSA, I think was maybe 90. And we train him on some integrative strategies. This PSA came down some the first month. What was interesting was his vitamin D level was 17. I put him on 4000 units. We checked it in a month and it was 17, 6000 units, 18, putting him on 10,000 units. And finally, after about four months, I got him as blood level up to 65. At that point is PSA was to 25 and then dropped it to 20 and then just to 15 the subsequent month. That in combination with a few of the things we were doing. So and then he heard about this doctor in Texas and decided to go down there and the doctor said, Get off all those supplements, which you did. Two weeks later, his PSA zoomed up 100 points and then the cat was out of the bag with him. But that was very first experience. And help me appreciate the role of vitamin D, especially plays with cancer. Sure.
Speaker2:
Absolutely. And as our listeners know, from from a previous episode, we talked about vitamin D and, you know, a lot of people think that's just for bone health, but obviously it's important for the immune system as well. Extremely important. So. So that's a great good example you had just with vitamin D and what a difference it made.
Speaker3:
With vitamin D blocks, testosterone and or conversion to estrogen. So that's associated with an excess, with inflammation and with angiogenesis. You can visualize that as the mechanism with cancer.
Speaker2:
Mm hmm. Very well said. So then you started. You kept learning more. More about herbs and nutraceuticals and. And some of these integrative approaches. You obviously put people on vitamin D and you started to dip your toes in the water more and more, I'm guessing.
Speaker3:
Yeah. So since that point, I have altogether since 2000, since I made that decision to go a different direction, I put in maybe 13000 hours of study in front of the computer, while other people might go out and to soccer games and so forth. I was in front of the computer or doing research. So I've been 44 national conferences, generally integrative conferences, and so that's transformed totally how I do things. So I hate sore throats now. I want challenging cases autism, ALS, cancer, those are the types of cases I really enjoy treating in my practice. And we see some good outcomes with all of those types of practices. But cancer right at the moment is my big focus and I'm seeing better and better outcomes all the time. There's so much that can be done that is not being done, which is why I felt compelled to write the book. And the book is crammed with information 630 references, 458 pages. So it's comprehensive as I can make it.
Speaker2:
Well, and I've read it, you sent me an advance copy and I can vouch for the fact that you have put in tens of thousands of hours of research, because I can I can tell our listeners it is extremely informative and power packed. And I actually went to your conference, your integrative cancer conference recently. And and it really shows all the all the research and learning. You've done just an outstanding book. And that book was just released earlier this month, correct?
Speaker3:
Right. It was just released. It's available on Amazon right now. So just a few days ago, it was released and I'm just very excited about it. It's already getting some reviews and comments and that was the In Holistic Health. It was the best newcomer in that category. So I'm excited about that as well.
Speaker2:
Excellent. I know it's going to bless a lot of people. So I'm really glad you wrote the book and shared your knowledge with the rest of us.
Speaker3:
And I honestly feel that it's the most important book because it addresses so many areas. And that said, I'm on your show. You've got an excellent book yourself out there. So but this is also it covers even more territory and you need to write another book as you learn more and more knowledge as well in this. But it's so exciting and I've got some really good endorsements behind it as well.
Speaker2:
Well, it brings up an important point. You know, there's just so much information out there. And I know you encounter the same thing that I do with with new patients. They're just so overwhelmed because they've they've gotten a diagnosis and they may or may not know what that means from their conventional doctors. And then they go online and they start reading more and more and they get confused and overwhelmed because there's so much advice and a lot of it's conflicting and some of it's just downright bad and people don't know which way to turn. And so I think there's just a. Real opportunity for for books like ours, if I may say so, to really give people information that's science based and effective.
Speaker3:
It's really important right at the start to find a practitioner, an integrative practitioner who can who has knowledge about cancer, to get you off to the right direction. Right. It's hard to find those and I think fall in that category. And there are few other scattered around the country. But but that's so critical. That first visit is huge pointing to you and helping, but also getting your situation stabilized so you have time to research and identify what the best outcomes are. A lot of times it's considered a psychological emergency, but it's not a medical emergency because cancer evolves gradually over, say, seven years of time. But that said, we need maybe the single most important thing is to get into peaceful, spiritual place 24/7 at the time of diagnosis. And so my office is geared towards achieving that with patients, and we'll talk more about that here shortly. But peacefulness is the most important thing. But there are other key factors to get started on right away. Circulation is vital when you're diagnosed with cancer, a fourfold higher risk for heart attack and stroke, ten fold higher risk for thrombus phlebitis. So I had a patient that was dragged in by his wife. He was on a famous education committee here in Kentucky, so it was well regarded individual. And he politely listened to everything I suggested, but then ignored all of my advice. One year later, he died from a heart attack. Excuse me. One month later, he died from a heart attack. I had in my office a farmer from within the county who had pancreatic cancer.
Speaker3:
And once again he came in every month, but he didn't do anything that I recommended. So it was it was horrific in terms of what evolved because he developed ropes for veins in his lower extremities. I'd never seen anything like that. Pancreatic cancer is particularly associated with high propensity for clotting. There was such a horrific thing, but the patients that I've treated using integrative approaches over the last 12 years, I can't recall a single patient that's had a heart attack. I can't recall a single patient that's had a stroke, may have had a few with mild thrombosis. Maybe there was another case I want to mention as well, because I checked d-dimer levels as far as clotting risk. This patient had stomach cancer and I checked his d-dimer normal is up to about 0.5. His level was over four, so immediately starting on injectable heparin Lovenox on a daily basis. But then his local doctor a week later, since he had stomach cancer, the doctor was worried about him bleeding out from the stomach cancer. He stopped the Lovenox one day later. This gentleman had a massive stroke, paralyzing him on one side of his body. So it's critical to address circulation quickly. And if you do so, again, not having heart attacks for 10 to 12 years in your healthy patients, being able to achieve, that's a good thing. But especially with cancer patients, the good news, even if you don't have cancer, they're terrific ways to prevent heart attack and stroke.
Speaker2:
Absolutely. So that's an important point. A lot of a lot of doctors, especially oncologists, don't bring up in terms of what you just said.
Speaker3:
Chemotherapy and radiation both increase that risk even further. So it's even more important at those times.
Speaker2:
Absolutely. So, Dr. Roach, let's talk a little bit about your just general approach to treating cancer. I know we've kind of thrown around some buzzwords like integrative and things like that, but what's your your sort of philosophy on on cancer treatment?
Speaker3:
Well, so I would say comprehensive would be an important word. I use the term integrative as well. And holistic is a third term that I particularly like to incorporate as part of that. On the comprehensive side, we certainly want to focus on nutrition. Nutrition is huge in this process. You know, I tell my patients, even my healthy patients, I'll say nowadays you want to gain weight, have bloating, flatulence, brain fog, aches and pains and joints and muscles, eat sugar, processed foods, grains, potatoes, too much fruit. You'll get your wish, your raise, your estrogen level. You get a high pitched squeaky voice. If that's your pleasure, I'm going to say, well, whether or not you eat that way, but tumors love sugar. So addressing sugar obviously is critical in that process. Tumors love ion. So you want to be careful about the iron in the food that you eat. But lifestyle issues, exercise in research with breast cancer, with colon cancer, with prostate cancer has been more effective than chemotherapy. So getting out and exercising and you don't want to walk your dog. Exercise. We want to exercise at a pace where you can get one sentence out, but not too soon. But on the flip side, I had a triple negative breast cancer patient who is doing well, but then she started training for many marathon and she pushed it too far. Exercise up to zero points healthy. If you are strenuous, if you are excessive in what you do, that becomes inflammatory. And with an inflammatory cancer like triple negative breast cancer that set her into a relapse.
Speaker2:
If exercise could be a patented drug, it would be worth worth billions, I think.
Speaker3:
And we also, at our practice, look at many different blood tests. We'd like to look along with the regular blood count. We look at platelet count. We look at the neutrophil lymphocyte ratio. We look at in a chemistry profile, we look at albumin. We like to be sure that stays up. We look at C-reactive protein in terms of inflammation, which promotes angiogenesis and platelets. By the way, a growth factors that when they arrive at the tumor site actually promote growth of the tumors. And we look at clotting factors through d-dimer fibrinogen and copper zinc because that modulates hormones, zinc blocks estrogen. Copper promotes estrogen. So we want copper as low as possible, zinc as high as possible. We look at LDH for lactic acid because we know the tumors generate lactic acid from sugar because the mitochondria aren't functioning at all. That lactic acid breaks down the surrounding structures and then we can look further beyond that. But those are all kind of key tests that initially I like to do maybe every month, every six weeks to see how things are going. And if you're doing that routinely, then you don't have to get imaging studies every two months or three months. You can spread that up maybe to four or six months and double that and reduce the amount of radiation exposure that you get. Ideally, we want to know about tissue markers when possible to help us to personalize the management of that.
Speaker3:
If we know your general genetics or you see on T or your CBZ or GFR as far as your genetics because those impact detoxification pathways, I ask, are you dreaming every night? Because that's a key transcription pathway, both in terms of cancer prevention and in terms of cancer management. So vitamin B six, I find the research I review shows it's very helpful in prevention and in management because it's doing what it's helping get rid of not only toxins but estrogen metabolites, and it's converting glutamate and excited toxin like MSG and sodium in Chinese foods into the relaxant gaba. We lead our patients peaceful so the active b6 i use pyridoxine phosphate PCP with supper start with 50 milligrams every couple of nights, increase the dose up to 200 until my patients are dreaming every night. If they get a little bit too much, they get vivid dreams. So that's part of what I do. But we use a lot of botanicals in our management, a broad range. We're not treating cold air, so we need to use lots of things. And some patients complain, well, say this is a lot of pills. That's it. You know, there are some people six feet under that might not mind taking a few extra pills. Right. So comprehensive is key.
Speaker2:
Well said. And I also have a lot of a lot of nutraceuticals I try to put on board in some of the repurposed pharmaceuticals as well. And it does get to be a lot of pills. And I have those same complaints sometimes from patients about a lot of pills. And my response is similar to yours. I might have to borrow yours, though, because yours is even better. So.
Speaker3:
Right. Thanks.
Speaker2:
So you hit on this a little bit in your your explanation of your floss. But. But how do you think we can better personalize cancer treatment?
Speaker3:
So. Being looking at the bloodwork thoroughly, looking at tissue markers thoroughly, but also incorporating the emotional side of things. That first week, there's 12 and one half times greater risk of suicide. So and I've had 60 patients at my office who've had spiritual near-death experiences, and 58 of those said that those were blissful experiences. They were not so blissful. An alcoholic was one. And Dr. Sam Parnia, up in New York, resuscitation specialist, wrote the book Erasing Death. He said, do not attempt suicide because most of those individuals have negative near-death experiences. So we need to immediately get those patients grounded. And so often, as you realize, in the two or three years prior to the diagnosis with cancer, some traumatic event typically has happened in their life because I think a lot of us have a few cancer cells lurking in our system, just sitting there dormant. But when a major crisis happens in your life, then that can set forth the processes to promoting growth of those previously dormant tumor cells. And interestingly is that the individuals that get cancer, in my experience, and also the other patients that I see in my practice, are what I call estrogen dominant patients. That is, they've had higher estrogen levels their whole life tied in with impaired detoxification due to some of these gene mutations that I was mentioning. And it's very fascinating because they have an on switch and not a good off switch. So they've been very vulnerable their whole life. In other words, they may have been in fight or flight every single day because don't they don't break down epinephrine and they can't metabolize it with the gene mutation. They can't convert glutamate to GABA. And those are both associated with high aggression and with overstimulation tied in with that.
Speaker3:
So going up that higher estrogen that they have being estrogen dominant because they can't get rid of it attracts negative energy into the life. And when negative energy arrives, they panic instead of running away, they just freeze and panic and then they experience a trauma. And then because they can't break down adrenaline, they get PTSD and they harbor that around for decades. So with that first visit, I point out to them forgiveness in the religion I'm a part of is not an option. In order to be forgiven, we have to forgive. So I strongly emphasize forgiveness, not because we forgive themselves and everyone, but forgive the others, not because the other deserves that. But you have to get rid of that yoke of unforgiveness for healing to occur, for your immune system, to get back on all cylinders, for you to live in the present and get out of the past. The blessing of cancer, of course, is that you are living in the present. You're not living in the future worried about what's going to happen down the road. You're focused on your relationships right now, and it's an opportunity for metamorphosis, for change into a new person. Instead of calling myself Jim, I can call myself Jimmy, right, like Jimmy Carter and personalize that self. And you can choose more carefully who you want to be around. Choose only positive energy people to associate with. So it really is a blessing and we'll get into that more as we talk about this next section about I want to talk about my spiritual near-death patients a little bit more and how that reflects with this process.
Speaker2:
Well, sure, I love to do that now, if that's okay.
Speaker3:
Right. So again, these patients taught me that the other side is more real than this side and they're not afraid of death anymore. In fact, they're mad about coming back and they become very mission oriented. Focused. And I thought about that and I thought, you mean I've dedicated my life to saving people's lives? You don't care whether you live or die? And then I thought, well, actually, that that would be nice to be able to get on a plane and not worry about whether it's going to crash or not. And then I thought, what if I could teach my patients? They did not need to worry about death. So I wrote my first book was God's House Calls, talking about these spiritual near-death experiences. And I was giving a talk in Philadelphia a little over a week ago, spoke for 5 hours and. These estrogen dominant individuals are the ones, again, that get cancer and get other disorders. On the one hand, they're very vulnerable, but on the flip side, they are very intuitive and they have a spiritual antenna. In other words, being intuitive. They may have had premonitions, intuitions, out-of-body experiences or voices or visions not to go out and shoot someone. If you get that message, go to the psychiatrist. You need to get help. But these are positive messages and structural messages. So it's these same individuals, these same vulnerable individuals, estuarine, dominant individuals also that are very intuitive and have a spiritual antenna where it's not just a faith in a higher power, like they shook hands with God.
Speaker3:
So it's a package deal. The vulnerability, their impasse, they absorb negative energy. So they have to teach them to put on an invisible diamond studded suit to protect them, their caregiver personalities. They give and give and give don't feel appreciated, have any resentment tied in with that. So I encourage them to set a boundary. You're the goose that lays the golden eggs you in order to take care of others, you have to take care of yourself first, get yourself well and healthy. So educating patients in that way is helpful. But in Philadelphia, when I was giving this presentation, I like to do this, I said, How many of you have had a paranormal spiritual experience? And I talked with one or two prior to that. At work and out of this group of 43, about 20 held up their hands. This is common paranormal spiritual experiences. Half of my serene, upbeat female patients have had those experiences. They won't tell their husband because they don't want to be scoffed at. They don't want to be sent to psychiatrists or locked up in a mental institution. But women are due to and I find it's directly correlated with the estrogen levels. So higher your estimate. The more intuitive you are. So the way I incorporate that with my cancer patients is I point out, if you're in your spiritual pathway, if you're giving love to the world, if if you're doing what you love, that you lose track of time doing that keeps a roof over your head.
Speaker3:
Then if I do everything wrong, if you as the patient, do everything wrong. What my near-death patients report is the downside is often bliss. That's the worst that can happen to you. It's also my bliss. Now, your family may not be so happy, but you're going to be in great shape. Now, on the other hand, if you're like that alcoholic and if you've been generating negative energy, contributing that to wealth, this is a wake up call. You need to turn your life around. You need to find that spiritual pathway. And if you have been saying, well, one more year at this terrible job, I have my pension, I'll be set. Guess what? Maybe this moment, maybe that's what this cancer is telling you is you don't want to wait one year. You want to live your life now. You can't give up a year of your life to try to get just a little bit more money. So I think those types of strategies are key because once they realize there's nothing to fear, then they can get in that peaceful, spiritual place. And your research was done in mice where they implanted tumors and they stressed one group of mice. And those that group had a dramatically higher risk of metastasis. But when they gave the drug a propranolol, which blocks adrenaline, that largely neutralized that impact. So peacefulness is huge. And achieving that spiritually, I think, is key.
Speaker2:
I think that's excellent. And do you in addition to sort of just the general mindset and approach that you recommend for your patients, are there any any daily habits or strategies, whether it be prayer or meditation or exercise or any sort of strategies you like to recommend to help them with this?
Speaker3:
I have a progress report sheet that I hand them to in terms of incorporating mind body strategies, it's important to visualize. There are different ways to visualize, but some people might visualize Pacman eating the tumor cells. Or if you're a gardener, you're out in the garden. Every time you pull up a weed, you're weeding out cancer cells from your system. Or if you're a Quaker, then you might visualize your immune system gently carving out the tumor cells. But fascinating story I heard in Orlando at a conference, a Japanese researcher who had cancer and he had a spiritual experience where the tumor cells said, we don't want to be delinquent, we want to be healthy again. But if all the mitochondria are dead, you don't have any energy source, you don't have any choice but to break down that glucose to lactic acid. So it may be that if you nurse these cells back to the mitochondria, back to health, to where they don't have to depend on that other pathway, that they could not feel the compulsion to multiply and become dormant. And it's fine. We don't have to eradicate tumors if we just get into dormant state and tell them we make peace, not war. As long as you aren't up to mischief, it's okay for you just to hang out.
Speaker3:
All right. So also simple strategies like don't put anything on your skin that you wouldn't put in your mouth are important. Don't put cortisone cream. Don't use cortisone because it suppresses the immune system. It's kind of a tragic story, as my sister, who had a rare type of tumor and she was having some back pain and the doctor was not her cancer doctor and he wasn't thinking so much of the cancer, but he gave her a shot of cortisone. And I just kind of held my head when I heard that because I knew that was going to substantially promote a risk. Now, that said, there are scenarios where cortisone treatments in cancer appropriate right before taxane treatment, it's appropriate. And actually it can help because it may rev up growth in the tumor cells. But the faster they're growing, the more effective the chemo is. So certainly for Taxane, it's okay to use steroids. So there are scenarios, but by and large, you want to avoid steroids, you want to use mind body strategies, you want to use energy medicine strategies. Reiki gentle detoxification strategies are important. There's a whole slew of things. My book mentions a lot in this category and there are other books out there as well. You want to transform your life. You want to nurse and take care of yourself and find that spiritual pathway where you're giving loved one another way.
Speaker3:
I like to think of things is God saying to you, okay, this is an opportunity to graduate. So you graduate now and you can say, Well, God, thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. However, I have these things. I've got this grandchild. I want to be sure they're taken care of in one story in relation to that is I actually had a cancer patient who God said, you can check out now. Those were the words she heard audibly, as you can check out now. And she said, God, well, thank you for that opportunity. However, in her case, it was a grandchild that I've got to take care of, so I want to stay around. Subsequently, she had two terrible surgeries, lots of side effects, lots of problems, other financial and family issues developed. And after that experience she realized, okay, God, I understand why you offer me an opportunity to check out. So sometimes it's a blessing to go ahead and for your life to end at that moment because you may be spared a lot of we don't have perfect intelligence to know what's going to happen. It's my belief that that intelligence is out there. So these stories we hear are just so fascinating.
Speaker2:
Are you feeling overwhelmed by all the information you've received from your oncologist, chiropractor, nutritionist, herbalist, acupuncturist, guru and friends as well as what you've read online? If you're like most people, you are more confused than ever when it comes to cancer. Hi, this is Dr. Jonathan Stegall, 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. I'm an open minded skeptic, which means that I'm open to any potential treatment, but also have a healthy level of skepticism when it comes to the latest greatest treatments in cancer secrets. I've applied my clinical experience with patients, as well as a scientific knowledge I've obtained over the years to share the tests and treatments. You should be focusing on treatments which are most likely to work. Everyone needs an expert in their corner and with this book I can be yours. Please go to Cancer Secrets now and buy your copy today. On in getting back to your your previous book, God's House Calls. I'm so glad that you wrote that book because as you said, these spiritual experiences are are quite common. But it's not something that, you know, we're conditioned to to bring up at a dinner party or amongst friends, even. So, I think it's good that that you're you're giving some of these examples today, because I'm sure many of our listeners have had some of those experiences as well and maybe wondered if they were the only ones.
Speaker3:
So yeah, because they don't tell anyone. So they may have said only told one or two other people.
Speaker2:
Right, exactly.
Speaker3:
The 60th story yesterday, as a matter of fact, she was a woman that she was on Catalina Island, off of California. They were going to do a little bike trip. And she said, where are the helmets? And they said, no helmets. And she felt compelled to go on the bike trip. And she's going down a big hill and suddenly your bike locked up and she went and tumbled over. Her bike landed right in front of a fire station where six paramedics were having a meeting and she was unconscious and they came out and then they put her in the ambulance. Three weeks later, she was someone was talking with her about this experience and said and was describing about the paramedics putting her in the ambulance. And she said, Yeah, I remember all that. They said, No, you can't remember. You are unconscious. You said, Oh, yeah, I remember. Well, I was up above watching the whole thing and then I came back and body when they were shoving me in the ambulance, that kind of jolt brought me back in body. And just three or four weeks later, she was in a tragic car accident where her husband died. And she became very depressed. And it was a rainy day. She was out on the road. She knew there was a cliff that she could just what if I just went over that cliff in my car? What would happen? That morning she had done her Bible reading out of Deuteronomy, and she read that you can choose life or you can choose death. Choose life. That was the verse she read. And all of a sudden that verse came back to her. She realized, I'm going to choose life. She's a delightful individual. That was absolutely the right decision.
Speaker2:
That's great. So we've kind of talked about a few things, your general approach to cancer treatment. We touched on nutrition, we touched on personalizing treatment. We talked about the extreme importance of emotional and mental and spiritual health. Is there anything else you'd like to to touch on that we didn't talk about?
Speaker3:
Well, one thing I think that's really key that's had a dramatic effect was my patients is fasting prior and after chemotherapy. That is huge because that basically reduces side effects by half. With chemotherapy and improves outcomes as well. In fact, there's a nurse at the University of Kentucky excuse me, oncology suite who asked a patient, are your patient a doctor? And she said, We ask you that. She said, Well, there's a patient's always do so much better than other patients. So when you fast for the 24 hours prior to chemotherapy that means eliminating supplements and anything else that you're doing because you don't want your blood sugar to crash from the supplements that put your healthy cells into a dormant state. Remember, chemotherapy and even radiation goes after the rapidly multiplying cells. So if you're healthy cells in their dormant state, they're much less likely to be damaged and killed by that. And then after you get chemotherapy, radiation, and you often are encouraged to eat, sometimes Little Debbie snacks or things like that, but if you choose to, some of the tumor cells have died, some of the tumor cells are halfway dead. And if you eat, the tumor cells are going to say, well, thank you, I was almost dead. You fed me. I'm able to revive now. Right. So if you fast for the 24 hours, those half dead cells can go ahead and die. And you may even do some gentle hypothermia at that time because the tumor cells are adapted. So they don't handle that heat quite as well. And so strategies like that can have a substantial effect on your quality of life on side effects associated with that and then improved outcomes with the chemotherapy.
Speaker2:
Excellent. We're big proponents in my practice of fasting as well. It's as you said, there's good studies on on the effectiveness of chemotherapy being improved with that. And then also, of course, just the the immune and detoxification benefits as well.
Speaker3:
So one part of the story with that that I love, that's in my book, I have small cell lung cancer patient that we've been treating and said she's doing so well in combination with immunotherapy that the oncologist has never seen an outcome like this. She's 18 months out and has been tumor free when they tried to her ex-husband, who's a Vietnam vet, was with her at the time. She was getting chemotherapy. And the oncology nurse is trying to give you things like little nappies and snacks. And he said, no, that's poison. And then the patient is getting chemo in the next year. Said, That's poison. Don't you give me that. Why are you trying to give me? And it was kind of contagious. And so other chemo recipients were kind of revolting against that conventional approach.
Speaker2:
Well, that's great. Yeah. It's amazing to me how many pretty much all conventional cancer practices will have a candy bowl or something like that, or this horrible nutrition for patients when they finish chemotherapy. It's just amazing to me. You're not could change in one office at least. So this is a start, right?
Speaker3:
Absolutely.
Speaker2:
Well, Dr. Roach, how can listeners learn more about you and connect with you?
Speaker3:
Well, my website is Vital Strategies and cancer dot com. It's just been upgraded and it's a great website right at the moment. It has references for my book. The book is available through Amazon. Amazon.com would be in God's house, cause you can go to that website to order God's calls book as well. My conference, of which I'm so happy to have you attend and so honored to have you there. That's Dr. Drew a.k.a Dr. Roach, dot net net. You can go there to sign up for the conference. That's in November for three days. And I love to have you join us. Also, I do send out a monthly newsletter. You can sign up for that through M.S.. I am. That stands for Midway Center for Integrative Medicine. That's my office MCI supplements dot com. We'll get you learn who will get you signed up for the newsletter, which goes out to thousands of individuals around the country. I also do one on one consults with in relation to micronutrients. So for practitioners out there who are interested in micronutrient testing, which we also do. That's another way to interact and communicate with me.
Speaker2:
Excellent. Well, Dr. Roach, thank you so much. It's been an honor to have you today. And we've had a lot of great information shared today. And I know our listeners learned a lot.
Speaker3:
Yeah. I mean, what you're doing in Atlanta, you're a beacon for what integrative oncology can become. So thanks to you for pioneering all of that, all the great things you accomplish.
Speaker2:
Oh, well, thank you so much. And just to close, I want to remind our listeners, if you haven't already, please subscribe to the Cancer Secrets podcast to be notified whenever new episodes are released. We try to release one every two weeks or so, and then certainly if you're enjoying the podcast, please go onto iTunes and leave us a really nice review. We appreciate the reviews and the feedback and we take it very seriously. And as you all know, previous episodes are all available for free on cancer secrets dot com. There's a little tab at the top. You can click on podcasts and you can listen to all 20 something episodes so far on there, and we'll continue to add those to that. So. Dr. Roach, again, thank you so much for being here today. It's been a real honor.
Speaker3:
And I really appreciate the invitation.
Speaker2:
All right. We'll talk soon.
Speaker3:
Okay.
Speaker2:
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 DRS Dotcom. The Cancer Secrets Podcast. Changing the Cancer Paradigm.
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