27 Interview with Chris Wark Chris Beat Cancer.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix
27 Interview with Chris Wark Chris Beat 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. This is your host, Doctor Jonathan Stegall. This is season two and episode number 27. In today's episode, I have a very special guest for us, Chris Walk. Chris is a 15 year cancer survivor who use an integrative approach to heal from cancer. He is the founder of Crispy Cancer, as well as the bestselling author, speaker and podcast host. He's also a husband, father and a Christian. Chris, welcome to the show.
Speaker3:
Dr. SIEGEL. Thanks for having me.
Speaker2:
It's an honor. We're so glad to have you here.
Speaker3:
And it's it's great. I'm excited. Obviously, we met a couple of years ago and I'm just glad we finally getting to chat at length.
Speaker2:
Yes. Yes. And a lot of my patients I know are already familiar with you, so I know they'll enjoy this. And for those who may not be familiar with you, I think they're going to really get a lot from your story today.
Speaker3:
I hope so.
Speaker2:
Well, let's go back to when you were in your twenties and you got those horrible three words. You have cancer, kind of. How did that come about and what was going through your mind at that time?
Speaker3:
Yeah, 26 to December 2003, I was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer, and it was really they thought it was stage two. I'd been having abdominal pain, had a series of tests, x rays, things like that, and they finally were like, Well, we'll send you to a gastroenterologist and they'll maybe they can figure this out. And he did a colonoscopy and there was a golf ball sized tumor in my which is the large intestine. Of course, I didn't know. I thought a colon was a mark. That's how clueless I was about human anatomy. And so I was told, look, they took a biopsy. A couple of days later, I got the phone call and they said, look, you have colon cancer. It's very aggressive in young adults and we've got to get you into surgery right away and get this thing out of your body before it spreads and kills you. And, you know, I mean, what can you even say? It's like at any age, it's like the worst news ever. Sure, but yeah. 26. I mean, it was like it's just, you know, you kind of maybe expected in your fifties or sixties or seventies, but like I'm 26. I mean, I still felt like a teenager, you know, like, I didn't even feel like an adult. And so that was really hard. That was really hard news. And and then I was like most cancer patients in a lot of ways.
Speaker3:
I was completely clueless. I'd never had any friends or family members go through treatment. I knew nothing about the disease. And they're saying, We've got to get you into surgery like immediately. And this was just a few days before Christmas and I'm like, Dang! So I asked them to postpone the surgery for a week or whatever because it was already depressing enough. Sure. Being getting a cancer diagnosis, then being told, well, you're going to be in the hospital on Christmas. I'm like, Please, I would really rather not. So I went in for surgery on December 30th. And they took out. It was supposed to be laparoscopic and when they put the scopes in, the surgeon looked around and he apparently did not like what he saw in there. And so he opted to just open me up the traditional way and took out a third of my large intestine. Of course, that's where the tumor was, took out a bunch of lymph nodes because he saw a number of them were inflamed and potentially cancerous, which were later verified to be cancerous and took out my appendix while I was in there. So anyway, yeah, I woke up from woke up from the surgery and they said, look, it's, it's worse than we thought. Your stage three C. Spread your lymph nodes. We got everything we could see. We think we got it all. And but you're definitely going to need 9 to 12 months of chemotherapy.
Speaker3:
And so, I mean, I was on heavy drugs, man know, like heavy medication. And so I mean, I just remember. Just being like, och, you know, like, this is my life now. And so it kind of went from bad to worse because before that, I was given the impression that you're going to have the surgery, you recover from surgery, and then you just get back to your life, you'll be okay. But this is a whole different ball game, as you know, right? I mean, chemotherapy treatments are tough. They're really tough. And they can be brutal and debilitating. And so but I just accepted. Okay. Well, I guess this is my life now. So but a couple of things happened in the hospital that got me thinking differently. I got the wheels turning. And and before I before I tell that story, I want to point out that one of the biggest, I guess, problems that I see in the cancer industry from the patient side is that so many patients are rushed into treatment before they know what's happening to them. They don't understand the disease. They don't understand the causes of the contributing factors in their life. They don't understand what the treatments are, what what treatments will involve, and they're just rushed in out of fear. And that was definitely me. And it's the story of I mean, I don't know how many cancer patients I've talked to now, thousands, but it's always the same story.
Speaker3:
And so I did create a free download a free guide called 20 Questions for Your Oncologist. And there's some very pointed questions in there. I mean, there's some questions that are you know, I mean, I don't recommend that everybody ask every question. But the point of it is, is like, look, you need to ask some very specific questions. You need to understand exactly what disease you have. You need to understand exactly what the treatments that are recommended are and how how likely they are to be of benefit. So anyway, I'm in the hospital. The first meal that they brought me after cutting out a third of my large intestine was a sloppy joe. Which I know. I don't know why you're laughing because I know this is what you're telling patients to eat. I know this is at the top of the list that when you send home, like, here's what you should be eating, it's like sloppy Joes, beer, you know, ice cream. So it was just strange, right? Like, oh. Gross. Like, why are they serving this terrible cafeteria food? This is like prison food. Why are they serving this to sick people? And, like, did I do something wrong? Did I piss somebody off, like, you know, one of the nurses or something? So so that was strange. And I just I didn't know what to make of it other than, like, I can't believe they're serving this kind of food to sick people.
Speaker3:
And then the other thing that happened was when my surgeon came in to check on me on the day they told me I could go home, I said, Hey, is there any food I need to eat or avoid? Because just instinctively I thought I well, he took out a third of my large intestine. Everything I eat is going to go through there. Right. I don't is hot sauce a problem or whatever. And and he was like, no, just don't lift anything heavier than a beer. That's it, right? That's. I thought maybe he might have some digestive health expertise or something. Like, no, it just. It was just. Look, we cut it out. You just go back to your your normal life. Don't strain yourself. So again, I'm seeing a pattern, right? A pattern of indifference toward nutrition, toward healthy living. And the other thing that is is so tragic in the cancer industry is that so many patients are they're basically turned into victims by the system. Right. And when I say the system, I mean a patient goes and talks to their doctor. And most of them are saying, like, how did I get cancer? What what caused this? Do you have any idea? I mean, they looking for some answers, right? We live in a cause and effect world. And I think most of us, when there's a problem, we kind of would like to get to the root cause of it.
Speaker3:
We want to understand why did this happen? And so many times they're told, well, you know, it's it's nothing you did. And it's probably just bad luck or bad genes. Yeah. So and, you know, I understand why doctors say that because they don't want to have the uncomfortable conversation. Right. They don't want to make the patient feel any worse than they already feel. Right, because being diagnosed with cancer feels terrible, but it's actually doing them a disservice. And it's not just a disservice. That's that's like that's the wrong word for it. It's egregious, in my opinion, because what it does psychologically is it turns them into a powerless victim because they think, well, my doctor said it's nothing I did. I'm just I'm just unlucky or I'm just a victim of my genes and. Not to mention the fact that many hospitals tell patients to go home and eat high calorie junk food like ice cream and milkshakes. The worst health and disease promoting food out there. So. So that's a problem. That's a big problem. And I. You know, I talked to some friends and or family of patients who come to me like lament that like I tried to talk to so-and-so about nutrition and eating healthy and and changing their diet. And they said, well, my doctor said, I can eat whatever I want.
Speaker2:
Yeah. Just don't lose weight. That's what they say. That's what works. That's how we I was trained. Eat whatever you want. Don't lose weight.
Speaker3:
Yeah, keep the weight on because chemo is going to make you sick. You're going to lose your appetite. You need this high calorie food. So. So there we are. I'm it was a rabbit trail. But to my.
Speaker2:
Story, Bobbie Joe.
Speaker3:
Yeah. I'm like, okay, so I got a plan. Go home, sloppy joes. Beer's fine. All right. I'm ready to. Ready to fight this cancer. So I. I got home and. And let me rewind. Because I'm a Christian. I'm a believer. And, I mean, this was faith shaking stuff. Right. I mean, the first thing I'm thinking is, God, why is this happening to me? Why do I have cancer? Like, why isn't the child molester the guy getting cancer? Right. Like, I'm one of the good guys, you know, I'm like going to church. I'm playing on the worship team every Sunday morning. Like, I'm really trying, trying, putting effort into living a godly life, a good moral life. Right. And and serving God. And through my choices, through the way I treat people, my thoughts, my actions, all that, I'm really going for it. And. So I was mad, know I was upset, I was confused. And in the middle of all that emotion, I remembered a verse which is Romans 828, which says, And we know that God works all things for the good of those who love him. And who are called according to according to his purpose. And so I just was like, okay, well. I don't know why this is happening, but this is it's kind of like this is where the rubber meets the road in terms of faith. And I have a choice. Right. And I'm going to choose to believe that God's word is true. And that he's going to work this for my good. This is what I'm choosing to believe.
Speaker3:
That's all faith is. It's choosing to believe. And. You know, I didn't like it, wasn't happy about it. And I'm like, God, I just I don't know. I believe you're going to work this for my good. And then this other verse also came. I kind of stumbled across it because I just was reading the word and trying to get some encouragement, inspiration. And I came across a verse in Psalms. That says the righteous man may suffer many afflictions, but the Lord delivers him from them all. That sounds 34. The whole chapter is amazing. And it's it's really written from the perspective, like, of crying out to God to rescue you from trouble and difficulty. And so it's just, oh, it's like that's my right there. So I wanted to back up a story because I coming into this from a place of faith. And believe God, you know, while still not understanding why I had to go through this. So I get home from surgery and. As I'm sobering up over a few days, you know, the pain medication, I'm taking a little less and less. And I'm thinking about my life and my future and what's what is going to become of me? Am I going to die young? Is that going to be the curse work story? Right? Oh, man, yeah, man. Great guy. You know, like, oh, so sad. You got cancer. He's died in his twenties or early thirties, you know, like like that. It that's my legacy. That's. That's the obituary.
Speaker3:
And. The idea of chemotherapy was scary. It was scary to me and I didn't understand it. And I also. I also was. My instincts and my intuition were telling me like, this is not for you, because I knew how weak I was. I was six to like 130 something pounds. Like I was underweight. I physically, I was so physically vulnerable and I just thought, I can't imagine what this is going to do to me. Like, right. I'm already under I'm already skin and bones. So so I had this just internal resistance to it. And by the way, like disclaimer time, I don't tell people not to do chemotherapy. It's a personal choice and I think you need to be fully informed. There's some cancers that really well, childhood leukemia is intestine cancer. And then there's that, you know, respond as well and don't hardly respond at all. In terms of when I say respond, I mean actually cure people, as you know. So there's a wide range of benefits and. So I prayed about it and I said, God, if there's another way, please show me. I don't know what to do. And I got a book that was called God's Way to Ultimate Health. And this was sent to me from a friend of my dad's who lived in Alaska. And he sent me a book written by another guy who had healed his colon cancer with nutrition. And I started reading the book and I was like, Oh my gosh, this is amazing. And the light bulbs started to go off because this the author, George McComas, was making the case that, you know, most cancers are caused by by our diet and lifestyle.
Speaker3:
It's the major cause of most cancers. And we know now. His book was missing a lot of the science that we have now because it was written a couple of decades ago. But we know now that up to 90% of cancers are caused by three factors diet, lifestyle and environment, up to 90%. It's crazy, right? It's like 10% at most are genetic and a lot of opinions are it's like 5% maybe or less. But the point is, whether it's 90% or 80 or 72, like most cancers, are caused by our choices and our environment. So I had this epiphany that the way I was living was killing me, that maybe I had something to do with my current physical state. Maybe my choices had led me down a path. Now I got colon cancer early as a young adult, so it could have been genetic. But even if I was in that 10% of genetic cancers, it doesn't change the fact that up to 90% of them are genetic. And we also know that genes are influenced by our choices. Our diet, lifestyle and environment influenced gene expression. So they flip cancer promoting genes on they flip cancer and they flip cancer protective genes on. The food you eat can do this. Exercise can do this. Stress can do it. So that book got me on this. It opened my eyes to this sort of exciting world of nutrition.
Speaker3:
And I. I realized that I had been eating the. Cancer promoting. That's what I like. I've been eating the Western diet, the standard American diet, which is a diet that's heavy in animal foods. Meat, dairy and eggs. Cheese. And very low in fruits and vegetables. Also very high in sugar, salt and oils. So meat, dairy, eggs, sugar, salt and oils, processed food, fast food, junk food, stuff everybody eats. And very low and just simple produce fruits and veggies. So the author of this book was was making the case that we should go back to the Garden of Eden. You should go back and start eating fruits and vegetables in large quantities straight from the earth, preferably organic. And and juicing vegetables is awesome, too, and you should do that. So I'm like, this is amazing. This is what I want to do. This excites me, right? That excited me because I thought. What would happen to my body if I started overdosing on nutrition? What would happen. We know what can happen if you overdose on drugs. It's not good. But I thought, man, this is so weird and I love it. This idea of raw food. Because at that time, like no one is talking about the raw food diet, I knew veganism and knew about that. So I had friends that were vegan in high school, but this was a whole nother level. And there weren't any beautiful people on Instagram, you know, posting their raw meals in bikinis or whatever.
Speaker2:
You know, maybe, right.
Speaker3:
Yeah, it was 2000 for man. I don't even think there was there was no MySpace before that.
Speaker2:
That's right.
Speaker3:
Before there was no YouTube. There was no Instagram. There was no Facebook. Like, the Internet was not helpful. I don't know if MySpace was right. It could have been. But the point is, like things were very different and all I had were books. But I went from book to book to book to book. So like, I just got on this sort of rabid quest to learn more. But I, I had this little piece of I had a sort of like it was like the tip of the iceberg. And for me, I'm kind of like a ready fire aim guy. And so I'm an action taker. Some people will spend a lot of time reading and researching and reading and reading and analyzing and thinking and not do anything. But I'm like, This makes sense. I'm doing it, and then we'll figure it out. Like, I'm starting. So literally overnight I was like, Okay, that's it. No more junk food. No more animal food. I'm eating only fruits and vegetables. Where can I get a juicer? Like I'm doing this all the way? And I just thought, I've got it. This is do or die. I've got to take control of my health. So. It wasn't hard. I had the motivation. I wanted to live. And I call my wife and I was like, I got you know, I got this book. This is amazing. I prayed in this book, showed up. This has got to be the answer to my prayer. And I was telling her about it.
Speaker3:
And she's at work like in her little cubicle, you know, and just terrible, like office, like like literally the office type job. And she's like, What? What are you talking about? No, you're still going to do chemo, right? And I'm like, I don't know what I want to do, you know, like and then family members started calling and saying, you have to do exactly what the doctor says. You've got to do chemo. Don't you think if there was something better, they'd know about it? And I'm like, Well, I don't know how to answer those questions. Like, I don't know. I didn't know anything. I just knew. Like, I prayed. I got something and now and it, it just resonated with me so deeply. And now everybody around me is telling me it's wrong. And so I can imagine that's not a great feeling. Going this emotional highs and lows of the disease and everything and. But I'm stubborn, so that that actually worked in my favor. I'm an only child. Okay, good. Yes. So I'm just like, you know what? I got to do this. I've got to do it. I want to do it. I'm doing it. So. I bought a juicer, bought a ton of produce like overnight and started doing that. Now, there was a lot of pressure from family members to go see an oncologist. And of course, they love me. Right? They were on my side, but they didn't understand what I was going through and this sort of epiphany I had had about changing my life and taking control of my health and giving my body everything that it could possibly use to repair and regenerate.
Speaker3:
Detoxify. Like, I was really on this. I was. I just jumped the tracks, you know? But it's not like a jump in, like, flip to the ditch. Like, I jumped onto a new track, and it was like going sort of over here and. I agree to go see the oncologist. And we went and it was we were sitting in the waiting room and the TV's on and out comes Jacqueline. And he starts it was one of the morning shows. He starts going off about nutrition. He's like, The reason we're all so sick is because we're eating all this manmade processed food and junk food. If God know if man made it, don't eat it. And he was really big into raw food and juicing. I can't believe this is on the TV right now. This is crazy. And my wife is like, yeah, that's pretty weird. So we go back and see the oncologist and he. Just a busy guy, you know. And I, he flips through my chart. He says, look, you know, you're 26. You've got stage three colon cancer. It's very aggressive. And young adults, you're trying to do chemotherapy. Can't you do five, a few and leucovorin. Block And you've got about a 60% chance of living five years.
Speaker2:
With the chemotherapy.
Speaker3:
Mm hmm. So, you know, that's not an encouraging stat. That's like, well, 60. Gosh, that's pretty close to 50, which is like a coin toss. And I'm like, Oh, man. Well, so I asked him, what about the raw food diet? And he said, No, you can't do that. It'll fight the chemo. I'm like, okay. Are there any alternative therapies available? And at that point, like, I guess he was just tired of talking to me. I mean, I, you know, and he started to get really impatient, but it's like a flipped a switch and he became very arrogant, condescending, and just started belittling me, basically. But he said, no, if you don't do chemotherapy, you're insane. And proceeded to keep talking, just talking, talking, talking, using all the tools in his tool bag to to to convince me I had to do chemotherapy. And if I didn't, I was going to die and like made me so feel so small and so fearful that it was like deer in the headlights.
Speaker2:
And so it's very much more than a team approach. You didn't feel like it was a partnership at that point?
Speaker3:
No, no, no. He wasn't trying to understand me at all. He was just trying to dictate. And at one point, he said the weirdest thing. He was like, know, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, Look, I'm not saying this because I need your business. Which was so strange, right? I'm like. Why would you say that? I'm not even thinking about that at all. So he effectively used fear to manipulate me, and I walked out of that appointment, went straight to the desk, made the appointment to start chemo, get the port put in in a few weeks. And then we walked to my wife's car and just sat in the car and held hands and just cried and choked out a prayer man like. It was such a low point and. I was fortunate that I had a few weeks before I was supposed to get the port put in. So I just went. I didn't know what to do, but I just went back home and did what I had been doing. I'd been eating this super healthy diet for a week, and so I just went home and just fired up the juicer. Man, it's like, look, it's like me, Jesus and the juicer. It's all I've got at this point. Everybody thinks I'm insane. My mom didn't because she had. She'd always been to health and stuff. And it turns out that my mom had this big library of books on natural health and healing and alternative therapies, like all this stuff.
Speaker3:
Like she's been collecting all these books for years. I've never been sick. And yeah, as soon as I started talking to her about what I was doing, she was like, Oh, no, I know about that. Yeah, no, I think, I think that's a good idea for you. And so she she supported me initially when everybody else thought I was insane. But to my wife's credit, she, you know, after that, the way that appointment went, it just went so badly that she started to think differently about the cancer industry, you know, and just you just saw how I mean, any doctor that treats you that way does not deserve to have you as a patient. It's not worthy of you and. So she started to come around. A couple of days after my appointment at the conventional oncology clinic, I went and saw a naturopathic doctor who was the first person to tell me I was doing the right thing and that was like so huge for me. And then he connected me with an integrative oncologist who was in his seventies, and he had come out of retirement because he didn't like being retired and felt better working. And he had spent a lifetime treating cancer patients conventionally and seeing the results, and they weren't great. And so he had become very interested in integrative therapies and he was doing vitamin C and and some other things for patients and was in a lot of ways a newbie and integrative oncology.
Speaker3:
But he understood how important the immune system is to cancer healing. And so he was really he was just actively looking for therapies that were toxic therapies that he could incorporate into his practice that might help it might make some difference in a patient's survival or at least their quality of life. And so he was a godsend, like it was it was just he he didn't overtly come out and say. That he agreed with my decision, but he was willing to work with me and he supported me. And that really meant a lot. And so for this is something I encourage every cancer patient to do is like, you know, if you get a ton of opposition from the oncologist you're working with, go get a second opinion. Go talk to someone else. There's lots of wonderful oncologists in the world that will work with you on your terms. If you're not comfortable doing one treatment or the other or whatever, you know, it's your life, it's your choice. They understand and they should anyway. It's their obligation to tell you the benefits and risks as they understand them. But beyond that, yeah. So it's important to work with someone who you feel supported and that isn't just bullying you into you don't want to do.
Speaker3:
So that was great. And I started to build this very tiny support system again, no Facebook, no YouTube. There's no social media. I'm sure there were some chat rooms or something, but I didn't get any help on the Internet and and I didn't learn anything on the Internet and I didn't connect with anyone on the Internet. So and I didn't connect with anyone locally either. So I was very much alone. It's so much easier now. It's there's just so much easier to find. Encouraging information, survivor stories, support groups, all kinds of good stuff on the Internet. So I had this little team in place and I was taking tons of nutraceuticals, I was taking herbs, I was going hardcore with nutrition, tons of fruits and vegetables every day. We know that ten servings of fruits and vegetables is now the gold standard for cancer prevention and chronic disease prevention like heart disease and diabetes and things. So ten servings a day is the new standard and I was consuming upwards of 20 servings a day. Because I was eating giant salads for lunch and dinner, fruit smoothies and juicing, drinking 64 ounces of vegetable juice every day like carrot beet celery, ginger root. Like I was just pounding it in, man. You know, it was like I said it earlier, I'm going to I'm going to overdose on nutrition. I'm going to put so much good stuff in my body and trust that it will use what it needs.
Speaker3:
And I was fully aware that some supplements I was taking may not do anything. I was okay with it, right? They might help. Maybe not. I felt fairly confident that they wouldn't hurt me. Could have been wrong about some things, but at the end of the day, I was just really trusting in the body's self healing abilities. And so. What I did write was massive action. And I think a lot of. You know, patients need to understand that there's rarely a magic bullet, right? Pharmaceutically or naturally. And if you have that approach, you're you're setting yourself up for failure and disappointment and you're not in touch with reality. And the reality is, I've I have met more survivors than I can count. Who have healed against the odds. They've healed their disease. Some of them were stage three and four with very little chance of survival that did conventional treatment, but then also changed their whole life. And they were in that tiny percentage, right, of people who survive that everyone wants to be in. And then others were didn't do conventional treatment and then others conventional treatment failed. So it really doesn't matter which group they're in. What matters is that they're alive and the common threads matter. Right. And so I've been often I mean, I'm constantly accused of. I don't know of telling people not to do treatment or which I don't.
Speaker3:
Right. It's like it's a personal choice. And people think because I chose not to do chemotherapy, that I think no one should do it. And that's just not true. What I think people should do is change their whole life. And I know we're the same mindset here. It's like there's a certain amount of benefit you get from medical treatment, and then you have all this other time in your life that you can be doing things that are also promoting health and healing or not. And so healing happens at home. Like that's the big message. And so what are you doing at home to help yourself heal? Because exercise and nutrition can be the difference between life and death, between survival and more disease, right? Between good quality of life and horrible quality of life. So that's that's my big sort of evangelistic message when it comes to the nutrition part. So fruits and vegetables are amazing. They contain all of these potent anticancer compounds. The most potent are the allium family garlic, onions and leeks and cruciferous vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, wasabi, and then even spinach and and beetroot. Carrots, you know, berries are the most potent anti cancer fruit. So I eat berries every single day blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, cherries, amla. The Indian gooseberry, like I was I was just like honed in on the most potent anti cancer foods and trying to get a variety, as much variety as I could, because the average American average American eats like less than 5% of their calories come from fruits and vegetables.
Speaker3:
It's crazy. It's mostly bread, meat and dairy. If you think about breakfast, it's like eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, pancakes, cereal, toast, bagels, lunch, sandwiches, pizza, you know, maybe a salad, but there's a ton of chicken and ranch dressing on it or something. And then dinner is another again, maybe a burger or maybe a steak. It might be more chicken with some pasta or it's just so negligent in fruits and vegetables and. It is incredible when you start looking at the research. There's so much published science like it's not some quack like hippie idea, although it kind of was, you know, 50 years ago. It kind of was right because they didn't have all the research we have now. But all they had then were anecdotes, right? People were getting well. They were adopting a raw food diet or a plant based diet or juicing or doing macrobiotics like all these approaches, doing Gerson therapy, all these approaches really have the same common threads. It's tons of fruits and vegetables and eliminating animal proteins and toxic food and junk food. And and then looking at your environment, like, do you work in a chemical factory? That could be a problem. That could be the reason you have cancer.
Speaker3:
There's a lot of occupations which I talk about in my book that that elevate your risk of cancer. And usually they're the ones where you're around toxic fumes, toxic substances, solvents, even hairdressers. But the truth is simple. The number one cause of cancer smoking. It's crazy when doctors don't tell a cancer patient who smokes to stop smoking. Right. Right. It's crazy. That is so crazy. It's like this is why you have cancer. And guess what? Smokers have much higher rates of death. Their survival is terrible. If you keep smoking through cancer treatment, your odds of living are pretty low. Like This is one change you can make that could save your life. The second leading cause of cancer, which is which, of course, you know. But most people don't. Is obesity obesity being overweight? This is not fat shaming and not don't don't feel judged or shamed. We're just talking about facts then that the fact is, when you're overweight, your your fat cells produce excess hormones. One of them is estrogen. And extra estrogen fuels cancer growth. And those fat cells also produce other compounds that promote inflammation in the body. And there's some amazing research that just came out in the last 12 months where they discovered that in an obese environment, immune cells are also obese. Your immune cells take on extra fatty acids. And they they just become like bloated and sluggish and ineffective.
Speaker3:
And so it's like you think about your if your immune system isn't army right. To fight invaders. And mutants, which are the cancer cells, right? Basically, mutiny. If your immune system is an army, would you rather have an army that's young and fit and healthy and strong? Or an army of obese soldiers? So that's what happens. So you have this perfect storm, right? The environment for cancer to thrive. And that looks like this. Chronic inflammation. Chronic immunosuppression, which obesity promotes as well. And and then a hormone dysregulation. So and a surplus of hormones that fuel cancer growth so obese body tissue adipose tissue produces those hormones that fuel cancer growth but also eating animals raises IGF one, which is insulin like growth factor, a hormone that fuels cancer growth. So when I started to connect all these dots, because the funny thing is I had an integrative oncologist, right? He was doing bloodwork every month. We were doing CT scans about every six months. And as time went by, I was feeling better and better that my blood work was improving. My white, white blood cell count was very low, and it took about a year to get it back into normal range. And so. So there was something he was concerned. He was like, I feel like your immune system is suppressed or something like your white count is too low. He even did leukemia shots and they didn't they didn't help.
Speaker3:
But it started it came back came back online. And the reason I'm telling that bit of it is because the difference between a person with tumors and no tumors is in large part due to their immune system, the environment. That's a bigger, broader scope. Right. The internal environment, is your internal environment permissible to cancer growth or not? And the other word is hospitable, I guess is a better word. Is it hospitable to cancer growth and is it fertile soil for cancer cells? And a body that where cancer can thrive is a body that has a lot of inflammation chronically and immunosuppression and hormone dysregulation, like I said. So those three factors. Right. And then there's a fourth factor, too, which is like nutritional deficiency and an absence of valuable anti cancer nutrition that you get when you eat fruits and vegetables every day. Antioxidants. Isoflavones, flavonoids. Like thousands. I'm not exaggerating. There are thousands of compounds that you get when you eat fruits and vegetables that you do not get when you eat a double cheeseburger, fries and a large coke. You don't get them. So there really is a nutritional deficiency. And I'm not just talking about the major vitamins, I'm talking about what people call micronutrients or phytochemicals or the compounds in plants that your body loves, that it uses in infinite ways that we don't even understand fully. But some of those ways we do understand.
Speaker3:
So like the ways that anticancer compounds like ellagic acid and berries or allicin and garlic or sulforaphane and indole three carbonyl and cruciferous vegetables. Like these compounds, they can kill cancer cells directly. They can block their ability to spread. They can block their ability to form blood vessels that the tumor needs to grow and they interfere with. They can even interfere with cancer cell metabolism. This is awesome. There's all that stuff happens. We need fruits and vegetables. You're getting all these wonderful little anticancer compounds that are hitting it from all these different angles. So that gets me excited. So now that we have all this cool research, so I've learned a ton, you know, and it helped me connect the dots, like, how did I get well, I did it really work. Was I just lucky? You know, was it just a fluke? Was I just lucky or did what I do actually help me? And there's reams of scientific evidence now. Now there is. Unfortunately not. There is. There have not been. I've only been a couple like human clinical trials with nutrition for cancer. And I'm really excited and hoping that there will be more in my lifetime. But we kind of need a benevolent billionaire to come along and fund this stuff because the pharmaceutical industry, you know, there's no money in fruits and vegetables. I get it. I get it.
Speaker3:
The money, the good money is in a brand new drug. There's not even any money in old drugs. And as you know, there's there's a number of drugs that have anticancer benefits in the body that are cheap, generic off label drugs that the industry is not looking at anymore. There's all this published, published studies and evidence, but. It's just kind of like, Yeah, but there's no money in that anymore. So we're on to the next thing we need the next billion dollar blockbuster drug. That's where the research money is going. So again, it's capitalism, right? These are companies. They're for profit. They're trying to make as much money as possible every year. And whether you like that or not, it doesn't really matter what the truth is. They're not looking at nutrition. Right. And so that's why I'm so excited about you and integrative physicians like yourself that see the big picture. Right? There are treatments which have benefits and limitations. And then there's this huge gap that that has not been addressed, and that is diet and lifestyle and environmental factors that can make all the difference between survival and death. So the plant based diet is huge. It's huge for cancer, doesn't have to be all raw. But fruits and vegetables are amazing for cancer prevention and survival and exercise is amazing, too, because it flips on anti cancer genes in the body and it flips off cancer promoting genes.
Speaker3:
There is a brand new study just came out like two days ago about lung cancer and colon cancer survival. I don't know if you've seen this one yet because it literally it's like hot off the presses. But I'm going to summarize the study badly because I wasn't prepared to quote it in this interview. But the gist of it was they they did a study of thousands of people and they measured their level of fitness. Right. And then they track them for years. And some of them got cancer, but they found that the people who were the fittest at the beginning of this study had the lowest rates of colon cancer and lung cancer. And the people who were also in that high level of fitness category, if they did get colon and lung cancer, had the best survival. Even if they got it, it was something like around 80% lower risk. It was it was high. But again, I don't quote me exactly because I'm just coming off of like a cursory read through the other day. But again, it's just another that's just that's not like, oh, this is new information. Like, there's already a ton of studies about exercise in cancer survival. And even just walking just walking every day for about 30 minutes, 20 to 30 minutes flips on those anti cancer genes like it's incredible. So before we run out of time, do we have a few more minutes?
Speaker2:
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Speaker3:
Okay, cool. So I would love to talk about the spiritual and emotional side of it, because my faith journey was huge during this time in my life. I mean, it really cancer really forced me to press into God in a way that I never had before. Because your faith is shaken when something like this happens in life and it's like, why? What is? You know? This is not fair. All right. I don't want to I don't want to deal with this. This was not in my life plan. And I, I felt there was a point in my in the journey where I kind of felt like there was two paths. One of them was like the conventional path that everyone was following, which was the victim's path. Right. You just go show up for treatment and you just hope for the best and cross your fingers and say your prayers. And, you know, that's what everybody else is doing. And, you know, your friends have run little races for you and make some t shirts and bake them, bring you some cupcakes and goodies. Right. And you just you be the victim. And then there was this other path which was like. Into the jungle. Hacking my way through alone with no support. Right. And but it was the opposite of the victim's path, you know what I mean? It was the. I am going to figure this out. I'm going to find I'm going to blaze this trail like I'm going to I'm going to figure this out.
Speaker3:
Like I'm taking full control of my life. I'm taking the wheel and. And that was really scary. Like, both options were really scary, you know, and because, as you know, the conventional option, they can give you all the treatments in the world and then sometimes say, oh, well, we're sorry. You know, there's nothing more we can do. So I made a choice to step out in faith, to step out into the unknown, to take full responsibility for my life. And I had this sense that, like, if I could make it through the jungle that maybe I was I could help other people, right? Maybe I could show. Shine a light in the darkness for other people to encourage them and show them the way. And so I had a little bit of a sense that maybe that's what this was about for me, that I was. That's why I was going through this. But. I definitely wasn't sure about that. So fast forward five years, I had another scan, no cancer. My oncologist said, look, you think you've made it, man. You've prevented this recurrence that we thought was almost by the way, three doctors told me, the oncologist, the surgeon, and this integrative oncologist, like all three of them, told me I needed to do chemo. And all three of them told me, like. My my integrative oncologist even wrote a letter to my naturopath who said his outlook is grim.
Speaker3:
So. So that was a great moment. And that's when I started thinking about. Maybe I should share my story. Like there's got to be somebody out there that needs that needs some encouragement. I know there is. You know, and this was this was 2009. And so I started thinking about it. And then in 2010, I was like, okay, I guess I'll, I guess I'll start a blog or something, you know, so I call my buddy JP and I was like, Hey, man, how do you how do you do a blog? And so he was like, okay, I got a WordPress. Walked me through it. But so I started a blog called Chris Beat Cancer. And it was just sharing my story, sharing what I learned and just trying to encourage and inspire people. And that grew over time. It was my part time passion. Now it's totally consumed my life after five years as a part time thing. And now it's a full time thing for me, but. And that led to the book, right? What you talked about, Chris beat cancer, the book national bestseller. I mean, I cannot believe my whole story turned into that. Right then I have a book that was a national bestselling book, which came out a little more than six months ago, and it's in bookstores. It's like, I just can't believe that this path took me there.
Speaker3:
I never would have guessed it from my life. But so I'm rabbit training. But all that to say, like, God works all things for the good of those who love him. I can look back now. And he did. He worked it for my good and he's like used my story to and just multiplied it out in ways that I never could have imagined. You know, like the little bit of work I did when I could, it was like the harvest was multiplied from the little bit of seed that I sowed. And that just is incomprehensible to me that I've been able to. Reach millions of people. You know, my videos or articles or whatever, it's crazy. You can't even the mind can't even comprehend it. But. But it does feel good to think about. I don't spend too much time thinking about it because it freaks me out, honestly. But. But when I do, I just think. My gosh, like. It's just it's so wonderful to think that you've even inspired two people, right? Or 12 or something. So the faith journey was it was a big a huge for me. I don't know how I could could not have gone through it without just a deep dependence on Jesus. Just like the Bible says, there's a friend that sticks closer than a brother. I'm like, Man, that's that's Jesus for me. And so every day I was dealing with fear. And I learned very quickly, like, I've got to get my fear to God.
Speaker3:
All right, I've got to give him my fear. Fear is not from God. And Jesus said, don't worry about anything. I don't worry about tomorrow. That was like basically a commandment, right? And so I realized, like, anxiety, fear, worry, like these emotions actually suppress your immune system. I didn't know that back then. They suppress your immune system. They make you more vulnerable to cancer. And I know it's kind of like a it can be a negative feedback loop where you're like. Oh. And now I'm worried about worrying. But but what I learned to do is as soon as fear would creep in, I would just have to catch and be like, okay, God, I'm feeling I'm afraid right now I'm feeling this fear and I'm going to give it to you. I trust you. I'm not going to be afraid. I trust you. You're in control. Like, show me what I need to do. Show me what I need to change. I trust you. And I would just pray that way over and over and over, you know, multiple times a day, whenever it would, the fear would try to creep in. I'd give my fear to God and. And ask him to show, to speak to me, to reveal things to me, you know? And part of it's not it's not just like, oh, heal me, but also, like, show me what I need to do.
Speaker3:
What do I need to change? Like, what's in the way of healing, right? And so I meditated on all these healing verses in the Bible, like I just was reading and looking for verses about health and healing. And, you know, I'd heard people say growing up like, Oh, well, it must be God's will if you're sick, you know? And I always thought, that doesn't feel good to me. You know, I, I believe it says clearly that he works all things for our good and sickness is in that category. But I'm like, I don't I don't feel like. That's right. I don't think that it's God's will that I'm sick and suffering. When I see what Jesus did in his ministry, he went around healing the sick. Right. Jesus was a healer. Well, if Jesus is God, then God's will is to heal. And so, man, that was like that kind of that got me excited. I'm like, yes, I, I can put my faith in that. And so of course it doesn't explain everything, like why some people don't get well and all that. Like, I get it, it's complicated. Life's complicated. But that's where I put my faith. And so I, I focused on that. And then I also, as I was reading a lot of books about health and healing and people who had survived cancer and things like that, like there was this other theme that kept coming up. They were all talking about raw food.
Speaker3:
They're all talking about juicing. They're talking about exercise and rebounding. They were talking about supplementation of various types, but they were also talking about stress. And this this root cause connection to cancer and disease being stress. And when I first encountered this idea, I thought, yeah, yeah, no, I don't think that's my problem. Like, because I'm not a worrier by nature. So I thought like, no, I'm, I'm kind of like chill. Like, I don't I don't think that's that's not it. I don't need to worry about that. But it kept coming up, you know, the stress thing kept coming up. Like I kept running into it and I'm like. So I also had enough sense to realize that it would be. Stupid of me. Foolish of me to. Not turn over every stone. And so I was like, okay, well. Maybe if stress is a cause, then maybe I need to to really try to remove stress from my life. And stress is such a vague. People don't even know what it means. Right? People think stress like, oh, I'm stressed, like before I have to take a test. Or like if I have to speak in front of a group, like they think, oh, that's stress, right? Which it is. But the that's not the stress. It's making people sick. What's making people sick is this chronic stress that we get from the worries and anxieties and fears of life that we get from our past in the form of guilt and shame from emotions that we entertain in the present, which are envy and jealousy, and from the the emotions that we pull out of the future.
Speaker3:
And that's worry, fear and worry and anxiety is it's literally it's stress about a future which is not even happened. Right. And I love the quote that worry basically robs is like I'm butchering it, but it robs today of your joy. You know, it doesn't fix tomorrow. It only robs your joy from today. That's a paraphrase and the other stress producer from the past. Guilt and shame, but also bitterness and resentment. Unforgiveness. And. I was entertaining a lot of negative emotions despite my attempts to be like a good person to follow Jesus. Being a Christian like to follow his example. You know, I just man, I had a lot of insecurity. I had a lot of negativity. I was critical and judgmental of other people. And I was carrying some bitterness and resentment and unforgiveness in my in my heart. And I'd never really been taught how to do it. I've been told to do it. Never really been taught. And so I just started to. You know, read and learn how to forgive. And it's not hard. It's very easy. It's very easy. The hard part about forgiveness is that is people don't want to write, right. It's not hard to do. It's that people don't want to forgive.
Speaker3:
They want to hold on to bitterness. They want to hold on to resentment. They want to hold on to pain. And guess what? For unforgiveness and bitterness traps you in a prison of pain. The only way out is forgiveness. There's no other way out. Even if that person gets what they deserve, if you don't forgive them, you're still in jail. And so I made a decision to forgive every person who's ever hurt me. Everyone, every person. And so you can't just do it in a blanket prayer. You can't be like, okay, God, I forgive everybody. I'm done. No, we're done. Everything's good. I, I did the hard work, and the hard work is sitting quietly and letting, thinking through my life and letting those memories come up of when. When I was a little kid and other kids were mean to me on the playground, or when I was a teenager and girls broke my heart or hurt my feelings or friends who I thought were friends betrayed my trust. You know, all these little things that happen to us in life, the big things and the little things. And just one by one, as these memories would come up, I would forgive them. I'd say, God, I'm thinking about this person. I'm remembering this thing they did. And you know what they did? You know how much it hurt me. You know how I feel about it. It's. It still hurts.
Speaker3:
Still. Know. It's amazing that memory can bring you back to that feeling of unworthiness or insecurity or pain or whatever you feel it. Just like I got, I'm choosing to forgive them and I'm giving them to you. They're all yours. Letting it go. I'm not going to carry it anymore. That's it. So that's what forgiveness is. It's just a choice. It's a choice. It's not a feeling. It's not a feeling. Your feelings will change after you make the choice to forgive. That is the biggest epiphany of the whole deal right there. It's not a feeling. And so if you want to forgive someone, you just choose to do it. You choose to let it go. And what happens when you make that choice is that's when God heals your heart. That's when the pain, the healing begins is after you make the choice to forgive. And forgiveness is so important that Jesus talked about it a lot. Mm hmm. I mean, he said, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Mm hmm. And so the way I would kind of. Seal up the forgiveness prayer. Right? Sort of close the loop as I would after I would say, God, I'm giving them to you. I forgive them. They're all yours and I'm asking you to bless them. Jesus said, love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. I don't want you to bless them. I actually don't want you to.
Speaker3:
I'd rather you didn't. I'd rather you strike them with lightning or they'd be like, run over or something. But I'm asking you to bless them. Bless their family, bless their job, bless their business, bless their kids. I'm asking you to bless them. I promise you that is so powerful to the forgive them and bless them prayer. It just changes your heart. I mean, it's just you give God full access to come in and heal it. Jesus said, his disciples said, How many times should we forgive? And he said, 70 times seven. You know, like. It's nobody's going to keep track of that many. You just keep forgiving people keep offending you. They keep hurting your friends. You keep forgiving them. That's the deal. That's the answer. He said something pretty scary. If you don't forgive on Earth, you're Heavenly Father will not forgive you. You don't want to be in that position. Right. Right. That's scary. And so I'm like, okay, yes, let's forgive everybody. Let's just double forgive and make sure we did it right even on the cross, which is like so profound to me and just so amazing. Like Jesus is on the cross. Crucified, innocent, guilty of no crime. Right. On the cross dying. And one of the last things he says on the cross is, father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. That was as an example to us. If I can forgive the people who put me on this cross, who were jeering at me and taunting me and mocking me and enjoying my suffering.
Speaker3:
If I can do that, then you can forgive anyone who has hurt you in life. And so. Wow. Right. I mean, man, that's some powerful stuff. And so I just want to encourage everybody watching or listening to. Forgive. Like today. Like get. Get on it. Let go of the people who've hurt you. Give them to God. And guess what, God? Is it God of justice? So people do get what they deserve. They do. It may not be from you and you may not see it, but you can rest assured, right? That you reap what you sow. What goes around comes around and there will be justice. People do get what they deserve and just let God deal with them and release yourself from the prison of pain by forgiveness. This is so huge. I think you've probably seen this in your practice. You can do everything right. The right therapies, the right nutrition. I mean, you can really just come at it with the perfect strategy. But if you are bitter and angry and resentful, you may not get well. I mean, it keeps people in a state of disease. It can be the one barrier. And I've seen it many times. It just. People that will not forgive just they cannot get well. A lot of times, not always, but I've seen it.
Speaker2:
We spend a lot of time. We broadly call it Mind-Body Medicine, which can mean a lot of things. But as part of the program in my office, we spend time weekly talking about stressors and hurts and pains. And I think forgiveness is just such an important part of that that you brought up. And I'd like to just add to what you said. Not only forgiving others, but forgiving yourself. And I think a lot of people for a wide variety of reasons have a lot of self guilt. And I think a cancer diagnosis can certainly bring about those feelings or amplify them if they've already been there. So I just want to encourage people to not only forgive others, but to forgive themselves because because carrying that that that tendency just to beat yourself up and just really be hard on yourself is is crippling. And so I just I love what you said about forgiveness.
Speaker3:
Thanks for bringing that up. I totally agree. I was really hard on myself, too. I was really insecure. I kind of hated myself in in some ways. And and I guilt and shame. Are those toxic emotions, right, that when you forgive yourself. You release yourself from guilt and shame. And what really helped me was to understand that God loves us so much that if he's willing to forgive you. No matter what you've done, if you repent and turn to him, he's really willing to welcome you in his arms, to forgive you, to love on you, and accept you into the family. Right. Welcome you back into the family no matter what you've done and or welcome you into the family for the first time. And so I'm like, you know, if God is willing to forgive me, there's no reason I can't forgive myself. And so that was really powerful for me is getting right with God, confessing my sins, confessing those things that I that I was carrying guilt and shame about, things that I know I'd done wrong in the past. And and then choosing to see myself the way that God sees me and affirmations are a part of that process to where, you know, if you're in the habit, if your brain is in this pattern, your thoughts, we we develop patterns throughout our life, thought patterns, brain patterns. And if you have patterns of self criticism.
Speaker3:
It's this called self talk. You're constantly talking down to yourself, talking bad about yourself, right? Beating yourself up. You have to break that cycle and you have to start encouraging yourself, right? If start saying, I'm strong, I'm courageous, I'm smart. I can do this, you know, like it's as silly as it sounds, because then it's been made fun of a lot. Affirmations are so powerful and so and you'd be you'll be amazed for anybody that's ever done this. Like you feel better almost immediately, just as you start to talk to yourself like a coach, right? Like think like if you're a coach and you're coaching like a little league team and there's a player who's not doing great, you know, you wouldn't be mean to him, right? Unless you're a jerk. But you'd be like, Hey, you can do this, right? And so, like talking to yourself from that, like, I need to encourage myself because nobody's going to encourage you more than you. Nobody will encourage you more than you. And if you're not doing it, you may not be getting any encouragement. And so. That kind of that kind of reprogramming your brain. The Bible says, take every thought captive. And so that means like catching your thoughts. They call it mindfulness now, like being aware of your thoughts, being aware of how you think and what you think. And especially in this case, what you're thinking about yourself and what you're thinking about others.
Speaker3:
So like what you're thinking about others is a judgmental and critical. You can catch yourself being critical and be like, Okay, I don't have to be critical about them. I apologize. Like, Lord, I'm sorry. I repent. Like I'm going to choose to believe the best about. That person instead of being critical. And if I see a problem, I'm going to pray for them. Right, instead of just judging them. And then the self talk about me is like beating myself up and saying like, wait a minute, I. I've got to stop doing this. I've got to stop beating myself up. I. I'm worthy of love. Right. I'm smart. I'm capable. I'm strong. I can do this. So. You can't fix that overnight. But the more you catch yourself. Catch your thoughts, especially the negative ones. And then just replace it with a positive thought. The quicker things change. And then you develop a new habit, which is positive thinking. Instead of. Yeah, and it just takes time. It's. It's like anything else. It's a practice. It's a discipline. You know, you go to the gym once, you're not going to get any benefit from one trip to the gym. But if you go to the gym daily, guess what? You get stronger, you get more fit. It's the same thing. So it's a it's like I like to say, exercise your forgiveness muscle.
Speaker2:
I love that.
Speaker3:
Yeah. But it really it's the broader application is like exercise your your mindfulness muscle, right. And so that the more you do it, the easier it gets. And especially with forgiveness. And the other part of it that's so important is just to be quick to forgive. You know, people are always going to hurt you. That's life. There's new people in in your future. We're going to let you down. Hurt your feelings, say be mean to you, whatever. And. So I'm just quick to forgive. People say mean things to me on the Internet all the time. All the time. You can't have a big following on any social media page without getting some just getting some mean, nasty little trolls.
Speaker2:
That means you're doing something right, Chris?
Speaker3:
Yeah. So I take I take solace in that. And but again, it's still like, look, I'm I'm not bulletproof. I'm not Iron Man. Like, it hurts when people insult me or criticize me or worse, like, accuse me of things that I'm actually not doing, which is like slander. Yeah, that's bothersome, but I just choose to forgive. I'm like, I see it, I read it or whatever, and I'm like, Oh, man, God, I forgive them. Bless them like they're all yours. Like, I'm just not going to let it take root in my heart and steal my joy. And there's one other factor. Again, look, this is I talk about all this stuff in the book, all this stuff, and probably in a much more, let me just say, a much more organized way instead of like stream of consciousness. But gratitude is so powerful, too. And since we're talking about mindset, it's like. Any time I would start to feel down or discouraged or unhappy, I would remind myself like how much know I would catch myself. Mindfulness. I catch myself in those in that emotion and I would just be like, wait a minute, wait a minute. Like, you have a wife who loves you, you have a home, you have a car, your bills are all paid this week or this month.
Speaker3:
You have a baby girl on the way because we we got pregnant three months after my diagnosis. And I'll tell that story really quick, like my wife is love me so much that she was willing to start a family with me three months after my diagnosis. It wasn't an accident like we talked about it and she said she would like that to me is I mean like so courageous and like what a deep. Act of love, not knowing if I was going to be alive to help raise this. Whatever we were going to get, you know, it turned out to be a girl. And one year after my. Surgery. I was back in the hospital holding this little baby girl. And it was, like, so amazing. But. You know, I would just focus my shift, my focus from anything negative happening in that moment or that day or in my life. I was like, I've got to stop focusing on the negative things. I've got to focus on the positive things.
Speaker2:
It's easy to get overwhelmed.
Speaker3:
It's so easy. And we forget, like we take for granted how much good stuff, how blessed we are. Even in the midst of adversity. We forget how blessed we are, right that we live in the United States or or in a country where we're free, you know. And so as soon as I got in that habit, I was like, I can go on and on. I can I can be practice gratitude all day. You know, I've got all my fingers and toes and my feet. I sat next to a man on a flight yesterday with no legs, you know? And it's like, man, like life is probably kind of difficult. For him compared to me. I don't need help getting on and off an airplane. He has no legs. And it's like, so, boy. The more time you spend counting your blessings, the more your happiness and joy and contentment increases. And those are emotions that produce health. Those are health producing emotions. Gratitude is the secret to happiness. And so I think by this point in the conversation, it's pretty obvious that I'm not a proponent of magic bullets, miracle cures, lotions and potions, you know, like quick fix, a quick fix mentality. I what I encourage people to do is to take massive action and radically change their life and confront their their problems and their fears head on. Like at some point, like, if you want to if you want to change, you have to face your flaws.
Speaker3:
You have to face your failures and your fears head on. You've got to say, like, I've screwed up, all right, I can't keep making this mistake over and over. I can't keep living this way. And I've got to change. I've got to change what I'm eating. I've got to change the way I'm thinking. I've got to change my kind of take care of my physical body. I've got to exercise, you know, I've got to forgive. I need to get close to God, get right with God, all of the above. It's there's a there's a miraculous and wonderful synergy that happens when you take full control and responsibility of your health. It just. You know, it can't really be measured. You know, that can't be measured. But we can see the results in people who've healed, right? You can see the results in people who beat the odds, whose cancers disappear, you know. And so. I'm people reach out to me all the time with sharing those kind of stories and it gets me so excited. I just love it so much. And again, Dr. Segal, I'm just thankful for you. I'm thankful that there are doctors who see the big picture. Right, who aren't. Like Dr. Farid Fattah in Detroit is now incarcerated and falsely diagnosed. Scores of people falsely diagnosed with cancer and then treated them and billed Medicare for millions of dollars.
Speaker2:
Treat them with chemotherapy, I believe, right?
Speaker3:
Yes. I mean, what a scoundrel. And he's not the only one to do that. There have been a number of doctors that have gotten gotten in trouble in jail for Medicare billing schemes and false diagnoses like, oh, it's so terrible, you know? But I really do believe that most doctors are good people and they have good intentions and they're just trapped in a system that just doesn't give them like a full education on health, nutrition, healing prevention, like holistic approach to to health, and then doesn't give them the tools. And so, like, I know how much time. I mean, I don't know. But I am assuming you've spent a lot of your own free time post post graduate, right, to learn the things that they didn't talk about in med school.
Speaker2:
Correct, because I believe you have to do that to be a really good, effective doctor. And that's, of course, the whole nature of integrative oncology is using all the tools we have in a very personalized way for each patient. And your journey really is a wonderful example of that. So I'm glad you're using your your large platform to spread that message because we need more of it. And to know that you're one of many who has used that kind of an approach and just really taken responsibility in action and had a great outcome. It's hopefully very encouraging for people who are listening.
Speaker3:
Well, that's my main goal. My goals are very clear to me, and that's to encourage, to inspire and to empower patients with knowledge. Right. That they can use to help themselves. That's it. And not just patients, obviously, people that are serious about prevention, too. Right. And. I needed that. I mean, what I'm doing now is what I wished I had found when I was sick. Like, I wish I created Krispy Cancer to be the site that didn't exist when I was looking for one. Right. And and so that's still what drives me today. It's like every day there's new people diagnosed. There's new people that need encouragement and support and need to understand that their choices matter, that they're not a victim. They don't have to be a victim, and they can take control of their life. And the decisions they make on a consistent daily basis can change their life, can change their health, can save them right. And can make the difference between life and death. It's like, man, this is some some important stuff, right? Important work. So that's what keeps me going, you know, and and the nice comments help to the thank you's definitely help keep me motivated that I'm making a difference. So anyway, man, thank you so much. Thanks for letting me share my story with your audience. It really means so much to me to be able to do that.
Speaker2:
Oh, well, thank you. I'm honored to have you as a guest and as a as an oncologist to a to a patient. I just want you to know how much I admire what you've done and what you're doing, because there's a lot of bad information out there for people. And you're one of the people that I recommend to my patients and to the public. And because I know it's great science based information that's going to help them. So Chris beat cancer dot com is your website and then I know you have a course and a book and how can how can our listeners and viewers get more information about all that?
Speaker3:
Sure. Yeah. Well, the easiest way is Chris beat cancer dot com. I do have a book which there it is again. Chris beat cancer. It's on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. It's in a lot of bookstores. There we go. So obviously, I hope people will read the book because they'll learn a lot. And then I also have a course that's even more in-depth. It's called Square One, and it's the course is just where I teach. So the book and the course share some information for sure, but the course will I really go deep on just the practical step by step things that I did every day to help my self heal and the same things that I see so many other people's do, people do. It's the common threads. These are the important things that if you're serious about prevention or healing, you should do. So that's what that's what the course and the book are about. They kind of go hand in hand.
Speaker2:
Excellent. So I encourage everyone to do those things. And just before we close it as one, also remind people to subscribe to the Cancer Secrets podcast. The best way to do that is to either go to iTunes or also the cancer secrets dot com. There's a little tab that says podcast. You can click on that and listen to all of our previous episodes. And there's also a place on there where you can click to leave us a voicemail question. And I'd like to also encourage you I haven't done this before, but I feel allowed to today also use that if you want prayer, just leave your prayer request on the voicemail tab and I want to be praying for people. So if it's not a question, even if it's just a prayer request for yourself or a loved one, please do that and just know that that I will be my team and I'll be praying for you. So, Chris, thank you again for being here.
Speaker3:
That's awesome. Thank you so much, Dr. Stegall.
Speaker2:
All right. And we'll have to talk soon. Do it again in the future, hopefully.
Speaker3:
Cool, man.
Speaker2:
All right. Well, thank you so much.
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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