39 The Magic Bullet and Cancer.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix
39 The Magic Bullet and Cancer.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Speaker1:
Hi and welcome to the Cancer Secrets podcast. I am your host and guide, Dr. Jonathan Stegall. Cancer is like a thief who has come to steal, kill and destroy. I have personally seen it wreak havoc on patients, friends and even my own family. But I am on a mission to change the cancer paradigm. Who? The practice of integrative oncology cancer treatment that integrates the best of conventional medicine with the best of alternative therapies backed by science and personalized to each patient. You need a positive voice you can trust. This podcast will share valuable information to give you practical hope for a better outcome. So I invite you to join me on this journey as we seek to change the cancer paradigm together. Hello and welcome back to the Cancer Secrets podcast. I'm your host, Doctor Jonathan Seagal. This is season three and episode number 39. In today's episode, we'll be discussing the search for the magic bullet. Does it exist? If so, where do we find it? And if not, why doesn't it exist? As always, we encourage you to listen with a loved one or friend. Learning and enjoying the show with a community will be more impactful than doing so alone. In today's show, we're going to be discussing the elusive magic bullet when it comes to cancer treatment. Is there a pill for that? As a society, we are accustomed to having easy fixes to our problems. This is certainly true in medicine, where we treat a problem with a pill more often than not.
Speaker1:
High blood pressure. Here's a pill to lower it. Low mood. Here's a pill to raise it. The list goes on and on. Our search for a magic bullet applies to cancer treatment as well. If we look back at the billions of dollars spent on cancer research over the years, we'll see that there has been a calculated search for that one magic treatment to cure cancer. Drug companies would love to find such a remedy as a cure for cancer is estimated to be worth many billions of dollars. The thought 15 to 20 years ago was that advances in genetic testing would lead to bona fide cures for cancer. But that has turned out to be a mostly failed idea. The reality is that researchers are no closer to a cure. Interestingly, the search for a magic bullet extends beyond the confines of cancer research labs and drug development teams. If you spend any length of time on the Internet, you will see the promises of a cure for cancer can be yours with a simple purchase of a diet, supplement, gadget or gizmo usually purported to be hidden from public view due to a conspiracy by someone or something who desires to suppress the truth. In each of these cases, the company, entity or individual is hoping to make a profit by seizing on our desire to find a problem which we are so desperately wanting to be solved. In this case, our problem is cancer. And as we all know, it's a significant problem. Unfortunately, unlike most other health issues, cancer is not a simple and straightforward problem, but rather a very complex one.
Speaker1:
Loyal listeners to this podcast have heard me say that cancer is complex. Recall that cancer cells were once normal, healthy cells which have mutated. This process of mutation starts with damage to cellular DNA, genetic material, which occurs due to a combination of harmful exposures. These exposures can include substances in our food, toxins in our environment, and as research shows us, even in our own emotions. People who smoke, people who are overweight and people who live in certain areas are more likely to get cancer. We're basically swimming in a toxic soup, and that soup is becoming more toxic as the years go by. I believe this is why we are seeing more cancer now than ever before. That's the bird's eye view of cancer. But when we really jump into the details. Cancer is even more complex than we thought. It's not just about some genetic mutations that lead to cancer. Once cancer is present, it takes on a life of its own. In a landmark study published in the year 2000 in the journal Cell, DRS, Shanahan and Weinberg identified the hallmarks of cancer. These six characteristics of cancer are what distinguishes it from normal, healthy cells. These six hallmarks include, number one, sustained, proliferative signaling. This means that cancer cells stimulate their own growth. Number two, evading growth suppressors. This means that they resist signals that normally inhibit or slow growth. Number three, evading apoptosis. This means that they resist programmed cell death.
Speaker1:
Number four, enabling replicative immortality. This means that they can multiply indefinitely. Number five inducing angiogenesis. This means that they stimulate the growth of blood vessels to ensure a supply of nutrients. And number six, activating invasion and metastasis. This means that they invade tissue in and around the area of the tumor and also spread to distant sites. These hallmarks were updated in 2011 to include two new hallmarks number one, abnormal metabolic pathways. This means that cancer alters its metabolism in order to accommodate its fast growth. And number two, evading the immune system. We know that cancer cells have ways of avoiding detection by the body's immune response. So we have in total eight hallmarks of cancer and in addition to characteristics have been recently added as well. These are number one, genome instability. This means that the genetic material within cancer cells can continue mutating. This explains why no two cancers are exactly alike. And number two, inflammation. Cancer can be thought of as a wound that doesn't heal due to its chronic inflammatory nature. So as you can see, cancer is not a simple problem. And I'm here to tell you that this solution is not a simple one either. There is no magic bullet, and there likely never will be. I believe that the cure for cancer will never be found in a pill or a potion or any single treatment. But thankfully, all hope is not lost. There are many things we can and should do in order to treat cancer better.
Speaker1:
The approach must be multifaceted and all encompassing. When we approach cancer in this way, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Once you come to terms with the fact that the one big thing you're missing is not an elusive pill, potion or therapy, but rather the correct treatment cocktail designed precisely for you and your cancer. You are then free to truly start down the path toward healing and not be distracted by a fruitless search for a cure. Our cocktail should typically include the following number one treatment directed toward removing the current source of the problem. For example, the tumor. This is best achieved by surgery. When we can't do surgery, for whatever reason, there are other modalities that can be very helpful. One example is radiation therapy. Another example, which we use in our office is called Sono Photodynamic Therapy, where we target certain locations, whether they be tumors or lymph nodes or even bone with specific frequencies of therapeutic ultrasound and light therapy. We found this to be very effective. Number two in our cocktail is treatment directed toward the unique genetics of a cancer cell. This is best achieved by chemotherapy. We know that chemotherapy targets specific aspects of cancer cell genes, as well as the cell cycle where cells grow and make energy. Number three, treatment directed toward the unique behavior of the mitochondria within cancer cells. The mitochondria of your recall is the area where energy is made within cells and cancer cells have extremely active mitochondria.
Speaker1:
This is best achieved by specific dietary strategies. For example, methionine restriction, which you've heard me talk about on previous episodes, as well as select repurposed medications. We can use medications that were originally approved for another indication which have subsequently been found to have an anticancer effect to target some of these specific aspects of cancer cell mitochondria. Number four, treatment directed toward the body's internal environment, which has allowed cancer to develop and flourish. This has turned the terrain in its best address through a combination of nutrition, supplementation, medications and stress reduction. Number five, treatment directed toward cancer's various growth factors, which are numerous and can include hormones copper, iron, sugar, fat, protein and ketones, just to name a few. And this is also best achieved with a combination of specific medications, supplements and nutritional strategies. Number six treatment directed toward the factors which likely caused or allowed cancer to develop in the first place. This is best addressed through a careful analysis of the patient's home environment, work environment, relationships, nutrition and stress levels, with specific steps taken to remedy those factors as quickly and easily as possible. The way we address each of these six main treatment targets will vary from person to person. This is the essence of personalized cancer treatment and is a radical departure from the one size fits all approach so common in oncology today. When we reduce our desire or ability to address all six of these issues, we also reduce our likelihood of success significantly. Patients who are unwilling to consider some of these therapies out of concern for their appropriateness or potential benefit, whether it be surgery, chemotherapy, nutrition or stress reduction are those who tend to have worse outcomes.
Speaker1:
These tend to be patients who claim to be willing to do anything and everything I can. But in reality, they're only willing to do what fits within their narrow scope of preferences. Please don't be one of these patients. Effectively treating your cancer involves a combination of taking control while also relinquishing it. You can and should control the research you do and the oncologists you choose. But once you've made those big decisions, you must relinquish some of the control. As we tell our patients here, you've done the research, you've made your decision. Now let us do the worrying for you. By the time you get to us, you've made the important decisions and we think you've made a great decision. Now you must trust the process and let the experts do their thing. Our goal is to use an integrative approach which embraces all branches of medicine, drawing from a variety of healing modalities, provided that there is evidence for that therapy's potential benefit as well as its compatibility with other treatments. This holistic philosophy is, without fail, optimal when it comes to treating cancer. Now I'd like to get into some listener questions. Our first question is from Mary Jo from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who has a question about mistletoe being administered along with immunotherapy and if there are any studies on that.
Speaker2:
My name is Mary Jo from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I'm calling about any studies looking at mistletoe therapy alongside immunotherapy. For someone that has melanoma, which immunotherapy I think is is more of the standard of care. Appreciate any feedback that you have.
Speaker1:
Mary Jo That's a great question, and it's one I've certainly explored in my own research. I wanted to let you know about a couple of studies that I that I think are especially applicable here. The first is actually a pretty recent study from 2019. It was published in the journal Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine on April 17th of 2019. The study is titled Mistletoe and Immuno Modulation Insights and Implications for Anti Cancer Therapies. So this is a general study, a journal, an article examining mistletoe, which is under the genus vis a vis QM. It's especially looking at a species of mistletoe, a Viking album, which we use in my office, and we give it intravenously. But it's talking about how Vikram album has a really long history of use as a complimentary cancer treatment, especially in in Germany, in German speaking countries. But we know from research since then that the album does have an anti tumor effect, has also been shown to extend life, but it also does have what we call an immunomodulatory effect, meaning that it does alter the way the immune system responds to cancer. And that's good from an anti cancer perspective because it actually helps turn on the immune system. We've known that for a while about mistletoe and there's obviously other species of mistletoe as well, which have varying degrees of immunomodulatory activity. But all mistletoe in general, whether it's physical album or risk of Molly or whatever other type, tends to affect the immune system. But it's become an interesting question in research, especially in the integrative world over the last decade or so with with the release of a lot of these new immunotherapy agents, which are, of course, pharmaceuticals that are designed to target the immune system to certain types of cancer, question has become, well, how does mistletoe fit into that? Do they interact? Do they enhance one another? And so the other research piece of research I wanted to mention is, is from 2016, it is from it's from a journal called BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
Speaker1:
It's from the August 4th, 2016 issue, and it's entitled Interaction of a Standardized Mistletoe Preparation with Anti Tumor Effects of Trastuzumab in vitro. So what that means in plain English is they're looking at mistletoe and how it interacts with the drug trastuzumab, which is also known as Herceptin. Herceptin, of course, is an immunotherapy drug used to treat a certain type of breast cancer that has the HER2 new expression and it's in its genome. And so this is of particular interest to me because I have patients all the time who have her to new breast cancer and we'd like to use Herceptin. And so the question is, well, how, how does that work with mistletoe? Because we certainly use mistletoe here in my practice as well. So this study was very interesting and it was a cell line study, meaning it was done on cancer cells in the lab. We don't have any long term research on humans. However, this study was interesting. They were looking for any sort of interaction between the mistletoe preparation and Herceptin because they both, of course, are working on the immune system.
Speaker1:
Researchers wondered if there could be an interaction there, but actually they found that there was no interaction and actually that these two medications seem to work really well together. The conclusion to the study, it says, Our results suggest that no risk of safety by herb drug interactions is to be expected from cancer cells being exposed to both trastuzumab and mistletoe. And in contrast, mistletoe and Herceptin seem to exhibit complementary anticancer effects. And again, this is an in vitro study that was done on a cell line, cancer cell line I thought was very interesting because at least in the lab, these two substances seem to help each other work better. So just to let you know, in my practice, what I have done is, is we do give both Herceptin and mistletoe. Within the same treatment protocol within within the same not on the same day, but with within a day or two of each other. And we found this to work very well with with no signs of any sort of interaction at all. So so what we've seen clinically in our patients is certainly consistent with what this research study found in the lab. Mary Jo, I hope that answer is helpful for you, and I don't know if this is a question that you asking for yourself personally or for a friend or family member or just because you were curious. But if you have or if whoever you're asking for has a an integrative oncologist that's willing to provide both immunotherapy, such as Herceptin, as well as mistletoe, I would encourage encourage that to be pursued.
Speaker1:
Again, that was only on Herceptin. We don't know with some of the other immunotherapy drugs like KEYTRUDA and Opdivo and some of the other immunotherapy drugs, how they may interact with mistletoe. But my suspicion is that because they're working via different mechanisms that there should not be an issue with them interacting. I'm not a physician of the of the patient in question. This is not medical advice. But just generally speaking, I'm not aware of any research showing that there's any sort of dangerous interaction between these things. So I hope that was helpful. So I hope you found this information today to be helpful. I know that there is a lot of information out there about cancer, but there's also a lot of misinformation out there as well. So I felt that somebody needed to hear this today. And so if that's you, I'm really glad you listened. As and as always, I encourage everyone to subscribe to the Cancer Secrets podcast to be notified when new episodes are released. If you're enjoying these podcasts, please take a minute and provide a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. And finally, please share this podcast with your family and friends. All previous episodes are available for free on our website at Cancer Secrets dot com. We have more great episodes coming your way, including some excellent interviews you won't want to miss. I look forward to next time. Bye bye. Oh.
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