25 Interview with Jane McLelland How to Starve Cancer.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix
25 Interview with Jane McLelland How to Starve 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:
Hello and welcome back to the Cancer Secrets podcast. I'm your host, Doctor Jonathan Stegall. This is season two and episode number 25. In today's episode, I have a very special guest for you, Jane McClelland. Jane is a best selling author, speaker, cancer advocate and stage four cancer survivor. In 1994, she was diagnosed with stage four cervical cancer at the age of 30. And after being given few treatment options by her conventional oncologists, she took matters into her own hands based on extensive scientific research. She developed her own integrative protocol, focused on diet, lifestyle, supplementation and repurposed medications, and is now cancer free. Jane is the author of How to Starve Cancer, released in 2018 and is passionate about changing the way cancer is viewed and treated. Welcome, Jane.
Speaker3:
Hi, Jonathan. Hi.
Speaker2:
So great to have you on our show. We're honored to have you.
Speaker3:
For having me. Thanks.
Speaker2:
I'd like to start by going back to 1994 when when you were diagnosed with cancer. Can you tell us more about how that happened and kind of what you were thinking at the time, all the emotions going through your head?
Speaker3:
Oh, it was it was pretty awful because I was only 30, as you said. And really at that point, I'd only just started a new relationship with my now husband. But it put us under an enormous amount of pressure. You know, I had a hysterectomy. I was infertile because of all the radiotherapy, the chemotherapy, not to mention the the surgery. And it was. Really hard emotionally. And I was more focused really on trying to deal with that side of things. I wasn't really focused on the potential that I might actually it might be as life threatening as I as I was later to realize that it was at the time it had spread to my lymph nodes. So it was quite aggressive, but it didn't. It spread to my lungs in 1999. But in 94, it was it was more a case of just trying to deal with all the the emotions that went with it, because most people, when they have cancer, for many people, it's just, you know, it's a stage one or two. It's just a lump gets cut out and you deal with it. You carry on with life. And for me, it was a completely different scenario. This impacted every single facet of my life, you know, from my relationship, right the way through to to everything, really. It really put my whole life in complete turmoil. So it was a very hard time. A very hard time.
Speaker2:
So once you sort of process the diagnosis and sort of what that meant, what what kind of guidance did you get from your your doctors at the time? Was it pretty much just the standard of care, as we would call it, and not much else?
Speaker3:
Yeah, I was not advised to do anything other than the standard of care and I was under the impression that I would be fine. You know, in 94 when they first I mean, she did give me very high doses of both chemo and radiotherapy at the time. And I, you know, looking back, that probably caused a later problem where I had my low dysplasia in 2003. That was kind of a development on from the initial problem. So it was as a result of all of the chemo and radiotherapy, but it's certainly when I was first diagnosed, I certainly wasn't given any advice to do any lifestyle modifications, nothing, nothing different to to what most people actually are going through right now. If they have cancer, chemo, radio, surgery, that's it. No advice to do anything else. So anything that I did was really off my own, back in sort of my own research that follow that. It really wasn't anything that any doctors were advising at that particular time. But I had to go out and seek when I got the stage four in my lungs. That was the point at which I then sought the help of integrative doctors as well, so that I could put together a more comprehensive plan.
Speaker2:
Okay. So basically the first the first five years or so, you kind of just did the standard of care, didn't really do anything else or really think to do anything else, probably. But then in 1999, when you had the spread to the lungs, that's when you got a little more.
Speaker3:
Well, actually was 1996, actually was when my mother got cancer. And she well, she got stage four at that point and she'd previously had cancer. To me having cancer, it was a knock on kind of effect. But actually when she died in 96, that was the wake up call for me to start looking at my diet a little bit harder. I started to research because of her, and so I. I was kind of. On my way to changing my whole lifestyle when it sort of developed into stage four. And I kind of thought there was a problem in my lungs and I suspected that I had that lung tumor for quite some time. I'd been coughing for an awfully long time and been told that it was just an infection. You know, time, time again, I went back and it was missed. You know, when I was first diagnosed, it was misdiagnosed because they hadn't done the screening properly. The colposcopy clinic had been at fault. They were doing it in the wrong place, wrong, etc. But anyway, the second time around with my lungs again, the it was completely missed on X-rays. So, you know, I had it for quite some time, I think, before it was finally diagnosed and mean survival when you have stage four for cervical is about 12 weeks so I was pretty lucky that I was still going and actually I think luck was only part of it because I'd already started to change my diet and drink green tea and take out lots of things in my diet. So the normal classical things I'd stopped red meat, taking out dairy, taking out wheat. You know, I was doing low glycemic diet, so, you know, no sugar. That was that was the classic kind of and in fact, actually, for three months after I was first diagnosed with stage four, I tried a macrobiotic diet, which was really tough.
Speaker2:
Sure. Absolutely.
Speaker3:
Yeah. So so I was feeling my way through at the time and not you know, I was a bit rudderless, frankly, for a long time. And I you know, I employed several doctors to try and glean as much information as I possibly could at the time, because the Internet was not particularly full of info. You know, I was only getting my information from word of mouth, direct from the doctors and also from published medical articles as well. So and books I have huge library of books, so and I can see some of the same ones behind you. So, so that's, that's where I was, you know, I was really gleaning as much information from every possible avenue that I could, but I was desperate for survivor stories because these seem to be very, very thin on the ground. You know, nowadays you can look on the Internet and you find loads, loads of survivor stories. But I was I really was scratching around trying to find anybody that was surviving stage four. It was almost seemed an almost impossible task. But, you know, I was heartened by the fact that most people. The ones that I read and they weren't that funny, but the ones that that I did read about had actually changed their diet to some extent, and that made quite a significant difference. So that to me was obviously the key to start with. But that that that worked for a long time alongside a lot of the supplements that I took. And I took a huge number and I also did intravenous vitamin C, lots of, you know, lots of these kind of I had ozone with it and so things like that and something called ultraviolet blood irradiation, which I don't think anybody does much of anymore.
Speaker3:
But it's quite an interesting technique where they withdraw your blood and then they pass it under ultraviolet. And this kind of is a sterilizing process, so it kills off pathogens in your blood. And it's a bit like sterilizing a swimming pool. That's exactly how they sterilize pools and things by passing the water under UV light. And it was a similar process. And this actually kind of is like a cheap way of activating your blood to produce antibodies and things. So it's like a vaccine like almost. And I have that actually before I had a dendritic vaccine in 2000 and probably about 2000 actually. So shortly after I finished my second big dose of chemo in 2000, I had a huge dose of intravenous vitamin C ozone. And I also have this ultraviolet radiation. And I think all of that helped kick start my immune system a little bit. I had a kind of a partial response to a dendritic vaccine, but it wasn't going to be enough because my markers and the cancer seemed to come back a few years later. So it was it worked for a while. And maybe if I'd repeated the dendritic vaccine, I don't know, maybe that would have helped again. But I only had it the once and they gave up on it anyway because it didn't help anybody else. I was the only one to get any kind of reaction, but I suspect it was everything else I was doing prior to having that that probably really made it work.
Speaker2:
Sure. Absolutely. So you really you really took an integrative approach. I mean, you didn't completely turn your back on on conventional treatments, but you also certainly embraced some some more natural alternative remedies as well. And that's, of course, what I always promote to my patients and to our listeners of the podcast as well as we really need the best of both worlds. I mean, we have a lot of patients I think tend to start off doing one or the other and then they realize they really to give themselves the best chance they need to incorporate both.
Speaker3:
So and what I've come to realize is that the conventional treatments favor treating the fast dividing cell, which is kind of the bulk of the tumor, but it doesn't get the stem cell, which is the dangerous cell, which is harder to treat and to access. And I think if you're going to try and access the cancer stem cell, you need to kind of clear the path to get to it. And this is where the chemo or the radiotherapy can help. It can sort of clear and access to some of those cancer stem cells. And then you use kind of some of the things that I most of the things I talk about in my book are really directed at the cancer stem cell. So the concept is really to starve it a bit like a parasite. And because it does, the the stem cell really does seem to behave much more like a parasite and it adapts its it's feeding behavior. But so what I suggest to patients is they take and obviously this is not medical advice, but this is just suggestion that they try and access if they can, low dose chemo so that they can clear away some of the fast dividing cells, allow, you know, some of these off label drugs that I came to use to overcome my cancer and some of the supplements as well, which will also help starve the cancer stem cell as well as the diet.
Speaker3:
And exercise, of course, is in there, too. But all of these things will actually help to starve these stem cells. So the combination of both conventional and the the the the more complementary off label drugs and supplements. And that side can certainly work very well together. And I think the integrative approach is, is most definitely something that I would would favor above everything else. And I think it's a mistake to completely rule out chemo or radio or any of these things. I don't think we're ever going to get rid of the toxic chemo forever, but I think we could certainly make it less toxic by giving it much lower doses. Metronomic really, and allowing the body to sort of clear away any of the toxic waste that's created so that it can allow the body to heal and not destroy the immune system at the same time, which is terribly damaging. So.
Speaker2:
Absolutely. And I'm glad you mentioned the idea of of the rapidly dividing cancer cells versus stem cells, because we have talked about this in previous episodes. So this may be a review for people who have already heard that episode, but for people who are new to our show or hearing this for the first time, I do want to kind of review that a little bit and please feel free to interject if you have more to add. But chemotherapy, as you said, especially full dose chemotherapy, is only going to target those rapidly dividing cancer cells. And cells are cancer cells are always in a different stage of their of their life cycle. So some are going to be dividing and growing very rapidly. Others are going to be more dormant. And so whatever is happening when you give the chemotherapy is is really going to dictate the outcome you get. And so with with conventional chemotherapy, it's very high doses. And then you have to wait a week or two or three before you can give another dose because you have to let the body recover. But the problem with that is you missed a lot of those cancer cells that weren't rapidly dividing then.
Speaker2:
And you've also given the cells that survive a chance to potentially mutate so that that treatment doesn't keep working. So I'm glad you mentioned that, because as you mentioned, the fractionated or low dose chemotherapy is really advantageous. And that's what I do in my office, because you really have to be able to give the chemo more often to hit the cancer more often. And obviously a nice byproduct of that is you get fewer side effects, but you're actually helping to prevent or greatly reduce at least the chance of resistance, plus you actually stimulate the immune system that way. So I'm glad you mentioned that, because conventional cancer treatment really just focuses on those rapidly dividing cells, which which is important. But if you don't get to those stem cells, which are kind of in the background, waiting for an opportunity to jump in and cause a problem, then you're missing the boat. So let's talk more about about the idea of getting to those stem cells.
Speaker3:
Yeah. And can I just say that actually trying to get those fast dividing cells, in fact, I didn't realize at the time, but berberine is a calcium channel blocker and it actually helps to hold the chemo inside the cell that little bit longer. So you have an extra chance to kill some of those fast dividing cells. And I don't know whether you've read Survive, Survive Surviving Terminal Cancer by Ben Williams. I've got it here. But he's he actually you. Yeah he used Verapamil for that particular reason and to actually hold the chemo inside the cell and actually creates a much bigger kill. So in fact, there are some parallels with what we both did in terms of using old drugs in different ways and, you know, looking at all sorts of different aspects of the cancer and trying to make it work that little bit better. But I didn't know that about Berberine until much later. But Berberine was one of the supplements that I took at the time. It was in a tincture called Mahoney Aqua Folsom, which contains quite high levels of the Berberine and Oxy campaign. And some of that and Berberine mean, all of these things have really quite potent anti-cancer effects, not just on glucose.
Speaker3:
They actually affect the fat, some of the fat pathways as well. And fat is actually something that people kind of ignore in terms of cancer. They think fat is fine not to worry about it. But actually my experience and what I've I've seen that fat can really stimulate and lots of research that I've read, you know, fat can be as damaging as as the glucose and the glutamine to some extent. And I know there are some. Researchers out there that are doing a lot of work with brain cancer that have kind of ignored their side. And I think it's a mistake. Statines have huge effects and quite clearly have big effects both for brain cancers as well as every other cancer, frankly, because they affect some of these pathways that the cancer uses. So yeah, so there are lots of different aspects obviously to how I got my job better. But did you want to roll back to the to my diagnosis and then the mala dysplasia or the any more of my treatment story or.
Speaker2:
Yes. Let's jump back and talk about that a little bit. Let's let's talk about the milo dysplasia, if you'll just kind of quickly just summarize what that means for people who may not be familiar with it and then and then kind of talk about what you did from there.
Speaker3:
Okay. Well, it's kind of you get mutated red blood cells and then they can't they can't deliver oxygen. And then you get you then get this development of acute myeloid leukemia. And this is as a result of prior treatment. And this was I was classic, you know, it was four years after my second treatment dose and nine years after my first I was quite young. All of these are kind of classic. And I'd had huge doses, not just chemo, radiotherapy. I'd had the wrong type of chemo for sort of kind of simulating the problems. So it all added up to, you know, potential disaster. And when you have therapy related to leukemia, it is deemed to be fatal because there's nothing you can do in terms of treatment. They can't give you stem cell, and that certainly was never on offer. Anyway, back in my day, I think retinoic acid might help, but it's not something that I was offered, although I did use high dose of vitamin A at the time actually. So that probably helped alongside some of the other things I did. But it was off label drugs that really delivered the sort of the punch to the cancer at the time, because everything else I was doing just wasn't touching. You know, my I had an abnormal marker called the TM to PK, which shows up abnormal glycolysis in my blood. And this is a classic, classic pathway that cancer uses this abnormal fermentation process rather than the normal process of making energy in the mitochondria.
Speaker3:
So it was a completely it was it was a hard I was really exhausted at the time and it was just hard, even just researching and just trying to get myself. Well, was it a real tough battle? You know, it's much harder than I probably even wrote in my book. It was it was it was tough, you know, that I didn't even tell my husband at the time, actually, that I had this thing because I didn't I didn't really want to upset things at the time. He was travelling a lot and I just thought, you know what, I'm just going to try and deal with this bit on my own. And then when it gets to the point where I can't deal with it, then I'll let you know. And to be honest, I was also trying to have kids by surrogacy and I thought that's going to and that was taking a whole load of extra time up as well. And I didn't really want to distract from that. I wanted to keep my hopes up. I wasn't going to let them know that I had this other issue. I was sure I was going to deal with it somehow. So I was juggling, juggling many balls at the same time. You know, it was really tough time, really tough. But I'm here. I did it.
Speaker2:
Wow. Well, God bless you. What a story. Yeah.
Speaker3:
Yeah, well, it is quite a story. And the the drugs that I use, I used them all in a stat in those two have been shown there's a lady called Linda Penn who did some work in Ontario, in Canada, looking at that combination. In fact, she looked at statins initially and then in 2014, she added them all and realized they both target the cholesterol pathways in different ways. So one, the the the statins will affect the Mennonite pathway and the dynamo affect the therapy too. And both of these are cholesterol pathways and all cancer cells, all human cancer cells will need blobs of cholesterol on it to form its daughters. It needs that cholesterol. So this is overactive in every single type of cancer. But it's particularly important for the bone marrow is fatty. And the the whole the whole fat pathways are actually quite critical. And I didn't know that at the time. But, you know, different cancers have different fingerprints, but leukemias are very much more they also are driven by sugar, but they're very much more driven by protein and fat. But glycolysis obviously comes into it, too. But, you know, it was whatever I was doing for my first cancer and my my other markers were sort of in normal range. So they were all being kept under control. But my is milo dysplasia and this leukemia thing was kind of a different difference in. So yeah.
Speaker3:
And it was just a matter of praying that I could get some doctors to prescribe these drugs to me because I come across the research in different journals, different, you know, all sorts of different places. And, you know, I got my oncologist to prescribe to the statin, which was lovastatin and a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory by the name of Todd, like which is normally given for arthritis. Right. And I had to have that high dose because it very high dose and that was a thousand milligrams, which is the max I could take a day. But that at that level it triggers apoptosis. So the cancer is killed at that level. So, you know, it acts more like a chemo rather than the cancer stem cell killing drugs, the other drugs that are sort of killing the cancer stem cells. But the non-steroidal was kind of hitting the fast dividing cells. So I was kind of doing that combo with what I was doing with these off label drugs because I couldn't take any more chemo at this point. And if I could have done, I would have done, but I just felt I'd had enough. I'd been up to here with chemo, and that's why I had the problem in the first place. So I certainly wasn't going to have any more. It was kind of a way to try and circumnavigate the problem of chemo. But thank the Lord, it worked.
Speaker2:
Yeah. Makes sense. Makes sense. So. So you mentioned a few things. You've mentioned targeting fat and protein and things like that. And for maybe some of our listeners who have just heard the adage, cancer, love sugar, I'm not really sure where that originated. I mean, I know Dr. Warburg did a lot of research on on sort of cancer using a lot of sugar for its energy. And we know that's true. We know cancer cells have more sugar or glucose receptors and insulin receptors on their surface. But I think a lot of people hear that and they think, okay, well, I'll just cut out sugar, I'll eat a ketogenic diet and I don't need to worry about it beyond that. But but as you alluded to, we know that cancer is going to take energy from a lot of sources, whether that be carbohydrates or fat or protein or even ketones. Some research is now showing that cancer can use ketones for energy, not to mention things inside the body like iron and copper and all those things. So let's talk a little bit about that. I mean, that's getting into what we we know is cancer metabolism. So let's talk a little bit about that.
Speaker3:
Great good science. Love it.
Speaker2:
So, so, so. So when we talk.
Speaker3:
Yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah. No, that's okay. I've done quite a lot of research in trying to work out the pathways that the cancer stem cell in particular. In fact, they all use these pathways, all the even fast dividing cells. So you're getting both the dividing cells and the cancer stem cells by this treatment. But I've kind of laid out what I call my sort of metro map, and this kind of runs through. Can you see that property there?
Speaker2:
Yes, we can. And so so for those who are just listening, this is all in Jane's book. And we'll talk more later about how to get that. And for those who are watching on video, you'll see that she's holding it up right now.
Speaker3:
Okay. So, yes, sorry for those of you without the video. So I have three sides to this triangle and on one side I have glucose. The other side is glutamine, which is a protein. And along the bottom I have fatty acids and they've all got different pathways that they use to kind of feed themselves. So on my glucose side, for example, I've, I put the insulin receptors and the glucose one in particular receptor, but there are other receptors that are upregulated as well in some cancers and I put the Pinto's phosphate pathway there, ox post is kind of the the normal way that normal cells will produce energy and the glycolysis is kind of this fermentation process that cancer cells switch to using. But then after a while they kind of regulate the exposed pathway as well. So you get extra mitochondria being made in the cancer stem cells and the cancer cells themselves to to fuel this eva, this, this factory need for all this energy that it needs to create all its daughter cells. So it's an ongoing, voracious appetite to fuel this this cancer stem cell and the cancer cells themselves. And they can use both glucose, they can use lactate, and they can use pyruvate and glutamine to fuel the the ox boss. So it can be all sorts of different substrates.
Speaker3:
But there are there are obviously off label drugs that can be used such as metformin and doxy cyclin work very well because dogs are cyclin is an antibiotic in mitochondria, which is where all of this takes place, a like ancient bacteria, which is why it works very well in curbing this mitochondrial biogenesis, this creation of all these extra mitochondria. It slows down its ability to supercharge itself. So that's why it works from Berberine being a natural antibiotic is is very good at helping to curb this extra ox post that the cancer stem cell and the cancer cells create. So, you know, that's just one side of my triangle, but I've got know the fat pathways where I've got all the, the potential for blocking off its way of creating its membrane because that's where the fat is mostly used, is in creating membranes for its daughter cells. So both cholesterol and phospholipids as well. And then you've got the glutamine and and there are some other proteins, other amino acids, which are also involved in creating the daughter cells as well. Glutamine is mostly what it uses to try and create all these organelles that it contains inside. So you've got nucleic acids that it needs to make more DNA for the daughter cells. So it needs to make all these enzymes.
Speaker3:
It's got lots of lots of protein. It's tenacious things it needs to make to to to create the daughter cells. So protein is, is something that it can either scoop up. And this is unfortunately something that cancer stem cells, when they become very aggressive, turn to using this process of autophagy, of being able to scoop up any fat and protein in its sort of immediate area to feed itself as well as other. There are other ways of accumulating the fat, the protein as well. There are receptors and I haven't put everything in my in my book. I've got a slightly more detailed metro map at home here on my computer. So but there are lots of different ways that the cancer stem cell will will grab protein or make, you know, make it make all the necessary components for making the the daughter cells. So it's what I've tried to do is create a cocktail because it's very wily. And if it can't use glucose, it will switch to using glutamine. And this is kind of what happens in most cancers that they start off using glucose and as they become more aggressive, they use more of these protein pathways. And in particular, the more aggressive ones seem to be using these salvage pathways of scooping up and something called macro pinnacle ketosis, which is a sort of a ruffling of the membrane and causing these little sacs on the outside where they pull in this protein and the fat.
Speaker3:
And this is something that pancreatic cancer uses quite heavily, this particular pathway, but it can be targeted with a drug called chloroquine, which is an anti-malarial. And in fact, I have there's a patient I know on my site, on my Facebook group who cured himself of stage four pancreatic with high doses of hydrochloric hydrochloride, hydroxychloroquine, sorry, of gosh, just completely get rid of that bad hydroxychloroquine. Hydroxychloroquine. So this is this is this slightly less aggressive form of chloroquine. And this targets this sac, this vesicle that that's formed. And it will stop it being the protein being digested by the cancer stem cell. And so he cured himself as stage four pancreatic with a high dose of hydroxychloroquine, intravenous vitamin C Percocet, which is a vitamin D analogue, which actually targets glycolysis. So he was kind of getting he was starving the cancer cell in in different ways to sort of target different areas of cancer stem cell. He didn't have a map like I have in my book to work out how to do it. He kind of just did it and he struck on gold through lots of research. A bit like I did when I did it, I kind of knew a cocktail was critical and that just targeting one or two things was never going to be enough and that you needed, you know, cancer is a very complex disease and there's no way that we can target cancer with just chemo or radiotherapy.
Speaker3:
It's a complete nonsense to think that we can cure cancer just by doing that. So and people who come back to me and say, oh, yes, but look at acute lymphoblastic leukemia in kids so they can kill that. Well, my answer to that is actually they use something called asparaginase, and that is actually starving the cancer stem cell of glutamine. So it's actually an anti metabolite. So it's not really chemotherapy that they use in there at all. And that's the reason we have very high cure rates with that particular childhood cancer, whereas we don't with other cancers because we are starving the cancer, not just the fast dividing cells, the stem cells at the same time as we're treating the whole cancer. So, you know, that kind of proves that my my method, if you know what I mean. My method works and that that starving the cancer alongside using other conventional treatments is really the way that we should be progressing and moving forward.
Speaker2:
Absolutely. And I'm just I'm so glad you mentioned the fact that the cancer is so smart. I mean, I think it's easy to say, well, cancer is very predictable and it's easy. And all you have to do is one or two things. But we really do need to start embracing in oncology this cocktail approach, because cancer is smart, it's adaptive. It's going to figure out things. If we're doing just one or two things, we have to come at it from different angles, using all the all the tools that we have that we think will be safe and effective. 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.
Speaker3:
Yeah. And I described that in my book as kind of my Piccadilly Circus analogy, where if you're looking down at Piccadilly Circus at night, you see all this, you see lots of activity and lights everywhere flashing and the size of the building. And it's a bit like this electrical activity in the the fast dividing nature of the cancer stem, the cancer cell and the fast dividing cells and the kind of the people going off in different directions is kind of like the genetic mutations that can head off in all sorts of different, different directions. And actually what you don't see is the metabolism, which is underneath.
Speaker2:
And.
Speaker3:
That's kind of the that's the metro. And there are fewer fuel lines that kind of go in compared to the genetics, which can be thousands of different mutations by whereas actually the the targets for the metabolism are far fewer. And this is actually really where I see cancers. Achilles heel is by targeting the metabolism as opposed to trying to target constantly chasing genetic targets, which can we take. And this is why genetic treatments really. On average lasts, I think about two months or something or maybe a bit longer now. But, you know, they're effectively they don't have long lasting effects on their own. And we could really improve survival overall survival rates enormously by targeting the metabolism at the same time. So that's kind of where I come at it. Getting the underground system and this these fuel lines that can come in. And of course, if you block one fuel line, it just reroutes and comes back in another way, which is a bit how I've sort of structured my my design of my metro map in my book so that you can kind of see what happens. And ovarian, for example, it starts off being heavily driven by glucose because as it gets more aggressive, it starts to use glutamine more heavily. And this macro Pinus ketosis pathway seems to be something it seems to use as well. And same with lung cancer. There are many cancers that kind of seem to use this autophagy process, which is the scooping up or macro macro psychosis and nucleoside salvage are both autophagy pathways ways of sort of feeding itself from the outside.
Speaker2:
And I know you mentioned in your book that you really encourage people to to research their cancer and really discover what what metabolic pathways it it likely is is prioritizing and using more. But but generally speaking, because I know we have have listeners with a wide range of cancers who are listening in. We really need to view it as, as a cocktail approach to block multiple pathways regardless. Right. So I know you mentioned this.
Speaker3:
Exactly. Exactly. I think people yeah, I think people get a little bit bogged down as to, ooh, should I be doing more of this or more of that? But actually, just frankly, I would try and target as many of them as you feasibly can without that, as long as you're not got side effects with some of these, maybe you can't take chloroquine, for example, or you can't take oxy cycling or you have a problem with statins. You know, a lot of people don't even like to take they have this you know, they've been painted as evil by the media, some aspects of media. So a lot of people are very wary about even just taking a satin. But there are good statins and bad statins, you know, so ones that ones that work and ones that don't. And it's the fact loving statins that actually are important for the majority of cancers. Actually, blood cancers are slightly different and liver cancer slightly different as well, where the hydrophilic ones actually help those. But generally speaking, the fat loving ones are the ones to be using if you want the anti-cancer effects. But certainly, you know, I would advise people to have a comprehensive cocktail and autophagy kind of seems to be left out.
Speaker3:
I mean, there's there's this clinic called the Care Ecology Clinic, which does this cocktail of four drugs. But, you know, I kind of feel that we're still not targeting glycolysis and autophagy enough even even with that cocktail of four my my combination tackles. All of these pathways. So I'm kind of giving a people a far more comprehensive approach and not just with the with trying to starve it. I talk about growth factors, matrix metallic maps, matrix metallic proteases as well. A little bit of touch on the immune system because my immune system was absolutely shocking for years after the chemo and the treatments. You know, I it stayed very bad for many years and I didn't quite know how to address that. And it was only having a drug called Cimetidine, which is over the counter in the US called Tagamet. And I had that quite high dose. I took 400 milligrams twice a day for three months and that really helped to turn around my immune system, which was very heavily reliant on the th2, which is kind of you're more of your allergy kind of response. And I hadn't really got my anti-cancer response back up and my pathogen yet my th1 side.
Speaker3:
So it was trying to reverse that as well, which kind of came further down the line. But yeah, so trying to get my body back in balance and to get my health back has been quite balance and battle. And it still is. You know, I still I still can't completely relax. You know, I've still got lymphedema. I've still had recurrent lung infections and things. So it's it's it's constantly trying to keep on top of my health still. And I would never have had all those issues if I hadn't have received such high doses of chemo and radiotherapy in the first place, you know, so it all goes down to sort of trying to manage and trying to improve. My big focus now is just trying to improve the way that patients are treated overall and not just trying to encourage the use of these off label drugs and supplements and this integrative approach. But it's actually just trying to encourage a cocktail that isn't toxic and damaging to the body. Right. And that's why guys like you are so important, because that's what you can that's what you offer patients, which is fabulous.
Speaker2:
Right. Right. And I want to just say one more thing about about the whole idea of of using some of these pharmaceuticals. I mean, we call them, you know, off label medications or repurposed medications. But I know some people listening are probably hesitant. There may be a little distrustful of anything from from pharmaceutical world or from modern medicine. But the nice thing about these medications is they've been around a very long time. I mean, almost all of these we're talking about have been around for decades. They were approved for another indication and subsequent research has has uncovered an anti cancer mechanism. So we're using things with a really long track record of of safety. So I want to kind of underscore that, because this is not just about haphazardly putting people on medications and not being aware of potential side effects interactions. It does need to be carefully done. Of course, I don't want people going out there trying to buy these things themselves and do it without a qualified physician, ideally integrative oncologist, to help them with this. But but these aren't drugs that we consider dangerous at all. And I use, gosh, at least six or eight and many times ten or 12 different of these repurposed medications with my patients. And of course, it's different for your patient, but I think it's needed. And so I'm glad you're bringing awareness to this.
Speaker3:
Good, good, good, good. Okay, great. Yeah. No, I think I think people are a little bit scared of using medication, particularly if they've had lots of chemo and radiotherapy. And the last thing they want to do is put more drugs in their system. And they're a little bit wary about doing that. But I think that people should be more concerned about the fact that the cancer is potentially continuing to rampage in the body. And that's what you need to target. And that just using supplements and diet alone, mostly if you have an advanced cancer, won't be enough. You know, there are instances where people can overcome cancer with with diet and, you know, supplements alone. But really, it's not worth the risk, in my opinion. I think if we have the option to use these drugs, we know why they work now. And I've kind of put out the the reasons how and why they work in my book. And and I think it's crazy to sort of turn your back on them completely, you know, when they have very few side effects, relatively speaking, when you compare them to the conventional treatments that are being used. So I really feel that people should explore those benefits a bit more and if they feel uncomfortable about it to begin with, to go to my Facebook group and to to to look at that and see what other people are doing, how they're using it, how they're getting on. Yes, people can have pretty strong gut reactions sometimes to start with.
Speaker3:
That's not uncommon with metformin. Sometimes it happens with Berberine, which is a supplement, you know, and because they are very similar. But this normally passes after a few weeks, normally for a few weeks. So, you know, and that's as your body adjusts. And I find that people with gut problems tend to be the ones that have more of a dysbiosis, you know, a problem in the gut anyway. And in fact, metformin that one of the reasons it works is because it's improving the gut flora and fauna anyway. So it's encouraging a commensal there, which is a very beneficial bacteria in the gut for controlling blood glucose and things. So it's a part of it. Part of its action is to, you know, to to improve the gut as well as reducing more systemically glucose and gluconeogenesis and also to to control actions in the cancer itself. So this pathway. M tours and lots of other things inside. That's all gushing and scientific, and people can read up about that and learn about my book. But it's it's a multifaceted way of approaching cancers to to try and incorporate as many different aspects and drugs that will target different things as well in the body. So you're not just going for cell signaling or or a bit of abnormal metabolism, but you're going for growth factors. You're trying to improve the immune system at the same time, as well as kill off those fast dividing cells.
Speaker3:
So it's it's kind of doing lots of steps and using drugs that have many targets, which is kind of the key. And many of these old drugs, because they're known as dirty, that they're called dirty because they have these other targets. They weren't designed to be as targeted as the new drugs that are developed nowadays. The the pharmaceutical industry has become obsessed with trying to get targeted drugs. And it actually that that in a way, it's actually not good for the patient. You want drugs that were less toxic than have a wide ranging effect and target more things. And this is where the old ones are you know they seem to come up trumps compared to a lot of these new ones. You've got some great new drugs out there. But, you know, the key is to try and use synergistic ones, ones that really enhanced each other. And target different pathways. So you're not constantly trying to target the same thing. There's no point having loads of entry inhibitors and rapamycin or something like that, you know, and then have and then add metformin and things on top without targeting everything else. Rapamycin is a drug that's used by, you know, it's being used a bit more heavily now, but that has quite devastating effects on the immune system. Right. And that is, you know, it's not a drug that I think people should be going to is a first of call. It's something that should be held in reserve. Really?
Speaker2:
I agree. Same. Same idea. I looked into rapamycin a few years ago and I thought, you know, I really just don't want to go there. I think we have other things that are probably better and safer. Yeah, totally agree. Yeah. 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. Well, I'd like to talk about your your book more typically where people can get it. It's called How to Starve Cancer. And we eat in there. And I got mine on Amazon. I don't know if if that's where you recommend people go or your website or what.
Speaker3:
I supply Amazon through various different distributors. So Rotary and there are lots of different places out there that you can get it. I suggest getting the paperback as the more up to date version than the hardback. The hardback came out first and I've kind of updated a little bit with my paperback, so you get a cheaper book and it's also more up to date. So I would suggest going for that. And you know, even if it comes up saying delivery is going to be and sometimes it does this on Amazon, it says delivery is going to be two months away. Don't you know, don't not order it because actually it tends to come much quicker than that. And I try and keep stock available as much as I can. We haven't run out yet, so I've had to do some rapid reprints, which is great because it's the number one bestseller in several sections. So I'm really pleased with that. And this is having having self-published it myself, you know, it's it's fantastic the way it's been received. And I'm really pleased at how patients are really grasping the whole science and getting involved with trying to research because frankly, the oncology profession hasn't. As a general rule, the oncology profession hasn't really embraced the metabolic approach yet, so they're missing a trick. But the patients, fortunately, are not. They're catching on to this, and fortunately they're realizing all these pathways that they need to block as well.
Speaker2:
Well, I know your book was a labor of love, and it shows I mean, it's it's an outstanding book. And I'm saying this because I read a lot of books. I try to read everything that comes out. And it's one of the best books I've ever read on the topic of cancer. And I just commend you for writing the book for, for sharing all of your years of research experience, because it's, it's truly an outstanding book. And I really recommend that everyone go to Amazon or wherever and get it because it's just outstanding. So thank you for writing it.
Speaker3:
Thank you. Thank you. That's really kind of you to say so because it took it was it did take an awful lot out of me. You know, my story in the first part was quite emotionally draining, just having to relive the whole of that again whilst I wrote it. And then obviously all the research that went into part two, it did take an awful you know, I sat there doing a lot of research for it probably took me about two and a half years, to be honest, of research and that trying to deal with two lively kids and live a life and deal with my Facebook group and and learn from my patients as well. I've learnt an awful lot from, say, my patients, the members of my my Facebook group. I shouldn't call them patients because I'm not obviously a doctor. And I although I used to be a physio, I'm not practising now. So it's a learning process. I gleaned information from them, I glean information from lots of different areas and the more I look, the more everything fell into place. And I just this metro map just came to me as, wow, you know, I started this concept of this triangle years ago with sort of the fat, the protein and the carb as being the three macros and the diet that the cancer will use. And then it kind of. It just evolved from that. And I just thought, yeah, I can see it happening in different and different cancers using different patterns and how and how it all fitted together. It just, it all fell into place. It was, it was, it was fantastic. It was just a sort of so many aha moments as I wrote it. It was terrific, terrific learning experience for me. And I'm now it's great that I can actually pass on all this knowledge that I've acquired to to to patients and doctors as well. So I'm you know, it's good.
Speaker2:
Well, and let's talk about one more way people can connect with you. You mentioned a few times about your Facebook group. How can people find you on Facebook?
Speaker3:
Yes, I have this one. I have a Facebook page for my book, which is very simple just how to starve cancer. If you type that into the into Facebook, you'll find you'll find that. And then slightly more complicated is my off label drugs group where we discuss not just things I've written in the book, we discuss all sorts of other drug potentials as well. So other anti-parasitic works, although, you know, there are lots of different things out there that can help cancer patients. And you mentioned yourself that you can use quite, quite a large cocktail of drugs sometimes to target cancer. So, you know, there are many other potential drugs that may be useful that your doctor may not know about, that you can research. And that's my Facebook group for that is Jane McClelland off labelled drugs for cancer. Long name but I mean people got to spell my surname correctly and that's something that most people don't do. It's Michelle and McClelland so they type Jane McClelland and then hopefully the links for the page will probably come up. I've got over 8000 members now, so it'll probably come up once you type that in.
Speaker2:
It's a very active group I'm in, I'm in both groups and it's very active, a lot of daily posts, a lot of good information. I know you spend a lot of time answering people's questions. I don't I don't know how you ever get anything else done because you're so generous.
Speaker3:
I don't that's a problem I probably spend waiting. You know, I'm kind of thinking I've created a bit of a monster with it, really, because I need to keep a little bit of an eye on it and just check that people aren't going off track with with things and try and keep them focused. And I try I'm a bit of a control freak with it, but I do like to make sure the posts are on topic and and everything is based around science and proper published medical articles. Because the problem with Facebook is that you can get lots of people coming up with all sorts of weird suggestions and potentially dangerous options as well. And, you know, I'm medically trained and so I, I like to make sure that everything does have proper science behind it. And to me, that's that's critically important. And if it doesn't have a published medical article written about it or something which really backs up the what's being said, then I try and delete things. Or sometimes I'll remove members. I do remove members if they start saying dangerous things, they're gone.
Speaker2:
So and it happens. I mean, as you know, there's a lot of stuff online that's just simply not true or it's it's based on half truth or partial truth. And it's dangerous because a lot of people are making important life or death decisions based on these things. So I'm glad you're vigilant about that.
Speaker3:
Well, yeah, but I can only be vigilant up to a point, you know, I mean, it's so active now that I can't be monitoring absolutely everything. So yeah, I do what I can and I keep it as clean. I mean, you know, the more people I have on there, the harder it gets. But and I rather suspect it'll top 10,000 in the not too distant future. It's growing quite quickly at the moment, particularly since my book came out. It's it's really catching on. It's in my book anyway, so people can't remember where to find it. I have got it written in the book so they can find it there.
Speaker2:
So if you're listening and you haven't joined the Facebook group, go join it. Let's get Jane to 10,000 and certainly by the book as well.
Speaker3:
Yeah, and I've got a website as well. And I'm going to have lists of practitioners such as yourself on there who will provide some of these off label cocktails that people need to incorporate into their into their treatment protocols, because people need to know where to go because, you know, there are very few doctors out there at the moment who can provide this. So congratulations to you for embracing this. And I'm sure you've been doing it for years, long before you met me or knew of me. But, you know, I. I applaud doctors who look at the bigger picture and fully grasp the metabolic approach instead of just going through all these genetic targets and keep an open mind about everything.
Speaker2:
Yeah, yeah. It's what it takes. It's what it takes. Yeah. Well, thank you again for being with us. Is there anything any final comments you wanted to share or anything? We haven't discussed that you wanted to.
Speaker3:
Probably loads, but right now I can't think of anything off the top of my head, just that I just think people should not give up if they have stage four, they really shouldn't give up. I had stage four, you know, and I'm still here. Brian Williams, he had stage four. That was glioblastoma. He's still here. And we you know, the survivors use predominantly cocktails. And I have a lot of survivors now who are doing very well in my group. And I think people need to take heart from that and actually really not be depressed. If you have stage four, keep that hope alive and it's not false hope. You know, I'm accused of giving people false hope. And I think that's entirely a nonsense. You know, you only have to look at my group to see that there are lots of people doing very well. And I'm so pleased I'm pleased that that my revolution is going that way because that's what I really want. I want to cause the cancer industry to sort of embrace these off label drugs, which are frankly so cheap. And that's why they're not embraced and they're not research because they are so cheap. You know, metformin only cost something like $0.05 a pill, you know, so, so big pharma because they they're more interested in developing patents for new drugs. They're not going to be investigating these old drugs which are so cheap. So so really people need to look at my group and, and even even really advanced cancers, you know, the longer you leave it to embrace this approach, the harder it is.
Speaker3:
So, you know, don't wait. That's the other thing I would say and I see that so often actually with people going, oh, I don't want to add drugs, I don't want to do it. And then it progresses and I just tear my hair out. Why didn't they add them in before? But you know, so do it. Sitting around, doing nothing is not going not going to help you. You really have got to nowadays you've got to be proactive with the cancer. And that's what I would make a big, big point of saying you have to be proactive. You have to go out there, you have to find the doctors and you have to embrace the diet, embrace all of these different aspects and really go for it. I live now, I live a pretty normal life apart from, you know, I've got these residual issues, but frankly, I'm living, I'm healthy, I can exercise. I've just been skiing. You know, I have a fantastic I have a fantastic life. And I have now I've got a family through surrogacy. I have amazing surrogate. You know, you can get your life back on track. It's not it's not necessarily going to be a hard job forever. And for me, it was for several years. You know, it was a really hard graft, getting myself back back on track. But you can get there. It's entirely possible. So keep that hope alive, is what I'd say.
Speaker2:
I love it. I totally agree. Yeah. Jane, thank you so much. I'm glad we could coordinate our busy schedules and make this happen today. I know our listeners have enjoyed it. It's great. Thanks so much for having me on. Oh, well, thank you. And I'll just close. I always like to encourage people to subscribe to the Cancer Secrets podcast if they haven't already. That will notify people when we have new episodes released. And certainly if you're enjoying the episode, please in the podcast, please go. Leave us a good review on iTunes. We thrive on positive reviews. We want to spread our message, including great topics like we discussed today. And then certainly people can also visit cancer secrets to learn more about the podcast as well as my book. So by Jane's book, go join the Facebook group and we'll keep fighting the good fight together.
Speaker3:
Yeah. Great. Good job.
Speaker2:
Thank you. Till next time.
Speaker3:
Okay. Thanks.
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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