Innovations, Breakthroughs and Insights

[00:00:00] Tina: And I mean, admittedly, you, you tell, you tell yourself, I'm just gonna do this for three seconds and I'm gonna hold my breath. I'm gonna run, you know, like, but I'm exposed. And I was like, I probably should be better about my own,

[00:00:09] Leah: Yeah.

[00:00:10] Tina: own. Exposure. 

[00:00:44] Tina: Well, hello Tina.

Hello, Leah.

[00:00:47] Leah: How you doing?

[00:00:49] Tina: I'm doing well. Long time no see.

[00:00:51] Leah: I know, I was just gonna say that it has been a long time. Um, welcome back to the Cancer Pod.

[00:00:58] Tina: Well, I appreciate you holding the down the fort while I've been gone and, uh, yes, I've enjoyed your interviews.

[00:01:04] Leah: Oh, I'm glad. Me too. It's actually been a lot of fun. You know, I was really afraid of all of that stuff. I was really nervous about doing interviews, but, you know, I'm figuring it out now. I'm a pro.

[00:01:15] Tina: you're a pro. It's

[00:01:16] Leah: I am a pro. Yeah. It's,

[00:01:19] Tina: You're a natural.

[00:01:20] Leah: I'm a natural. So, um, for this, this last episode of the year.

[00:01:27] Tina: Oh yeah.

[00:01:29] Leah: This, this is gonna be our, this is our December episode.

Um, we're gonna do something slightly different for our Decembers. We're gonna talk about, advances in, in medicine related to cancer, right? Is that what we're doing?

[00:01:43] Tina: Yeah. I just wanted to price people of some findings that have been in the last few months. Certainly everything in 2025, some of it just came out this month,

[00:01:51] Leah: Crazy.

[00:01:52] Tina: And so, yeah, so this is late breaking things, some early diagnosis stuff, as well as some things people can do just to their overall health and hopefully prevent recurrence of their cancer if they've had it.

[00:02:05] Leah: Nice. So what do you got?

[00:02:07] Tina: ai AI change the world, as we all know,

[00:02:12] Leah: Yeah, well, only if it in certain areas it's gonna change it for good and for bad. And unfortunately we're seeing a lot of the bad right now.

[00:02:20] Tina: Not in medicine though?

[00:02:23] Leah: I'm just saying across the board, it's not that great. I want AI out of my Google.

[00:02:32] Tina: Oh,

[00:02:32] Leah: want it out of my, my social media. I wanna choose.

[00:02:37] Tina: there are.

[00:02:38] Leah: I wanna choose. When I have ai, I don't want it

[00:02:40] Tina: Okay.

[00:02:40] Leah: forced on me. apparently now in Microsoft Word, like I can't figure out how to turn off copilot.

[00:02:47] Tina: Oh yeah. You know, I gotta say I'm not a huge fan of the co-pilot. I have it. I've been doing PowerPoints and I'm like, no, no, no. Like

[00:02:53] Leah: Go away. If I want you, I will find you, but just go away.

[00:02:57] Tina: just bring the paperclip back. I'll just click on the paperclip. If I want a

[00:03:00] Leah: Gimme clippy. I want clippy. Yeah. So anyway, so yeah. So I see AI as an evil, not even a necessary evil, but you are bringing.

[00:03:13] Tina: I,

[00:03:14] Leah: To the table, the good part of ai,

[00:03:16] Tina: I use AI a lot right now 'cause I mine a lot of information and it can read stuff faster than I can. So I'm actually using some dedicated literature research, ai, and it's really helpful.

[00:03:31] Leah: do you go back and check to make sure that it's, it's correct.

[00:03:34] Tina: Well, it's just pulling the papers for me and

[00:03:36] Leah: Okay.

[00:03:36] Tina: and then I could see, like, this paper cited 32 other papers, and it, it goes right down to the phrase in those 32 papers where that paper was cited. So then I can dig, you know what I mean? Like I can just keep hop skipping and jumping and down and finding more information a lot faster than reading all 32 papers to see where this paper was cited and how it was cited and, and even brings up like agreements and disagreements with that current paper that I'm looking at. And the one I'm thinking of right now is called Site S-C-I-T-E. I do I use a paid version and maybe some of these other ais that are free can do this kind of stuff. But I just trust when it's a dedicated literature type that it has a little more rigor to it. It's not gonna hallucinate,

[00:04:16] Leah: Oh,

[00:04:17] Tina: yeah.

[00:04:17] Leah: hallucinate. That's just, that's absolutely what I want out of my computer Hallucinations.

[00:04:23] Tina: I don't need more

[00:04:24] Leah: I don't need any more hallucinations in my life. Okay. So tell me the, tell me the stuff that you've been learning.

[00:04:29] Tina: Well, some of it, like you sent this one from Medscape a little while back. I thought this was interesting. What is happening in, uh, is something called PancreaSure. Which can differentiate benign from cancer tumors in the pancreas.

[00:04:45] Leah: So it's a test, it's a, it's a test that people,

[00:04:48] Tina: test.

[00:04:49] Leah: okay.

[00:04:50] Tina: So without having to have surgery. Or even a biopsy for that matter. You see something at the head of the pancreas, it's sitting there at the duct. I'll tell you now, they usually go in and take it because you can't risk. Right? Um, or at least they biopsy at the very least. So they did a study looking at people who did have biopsy. Proven.Stages one and two. Um, primary, let me, let me make sure I get the verbiage right. Pancreatic ductal a dental carcinoma, stages one and two, they look to see can we differentiate these folks from people who have a benign lesion in their pancreas. I'm just gonna go cut to the short of it. They used a biomarker signature that combines a bunch of genes. and they saw that if they do, they look for these genes that are specific to pancreatic cancer. If they see this panel of genes, then yes, it was pancreatic cancer. If they don't see those genes. Then it wasn't, it's called pancreas. Sure. And I, this is great because the surgery for pancreatic cancer, as you well know, is intense. So anything that can spare people over treatment is a good thing. So this was a, this was exciting and it's very nerve wracking. Pancreatic cancer is one of those that we don't wanna catch later. So this affords people an earlier diagnosis. So that they can identify it. And if it is pancreatic cancer, get it out stage one or two, hopefully. Um, what's happening with a lot of these blood tests, slowly but surely, they're gonna make it to screening risk screening. So for example, if somebody has a parent who had pancreatic cancer, or they know they have genetic predisposition towards pancreatic cancer, and this will happen for ovarian cancer too. These tests that are now using DNA in the blood, it's called free DNA or tumor, DNA. or cell-free, DNA depends how, what paper you're reading. They will be able to just draw the blood and check. Um, and it's much different than looking for just the tumor marker. So in pancreatic cancer, you've got marker called CA 19 nine, and it usually is high people have pancreatic cancer, but it's not always high. So it's not as definitive as running a whole. DNA screen like this, so this is much, much more, more reliable. So that was exciting. I think that's anything that prevents overtreatment, I think everyone agrees, and I think this is kind of a, easiest use of some of the technology out there is to say, okay, let's spare people overtreatment.

[00:07:12] Leah: And I think any, yeah, anything that contributes to early detection. before we turned on the, the record button. I had talked to you about, there were some teenagers in who did a project for, like a science competition in Richmond, Virginia, who came up with an app for actually using ai. Um, so AI for Good, and it was an, it's an app that detects melanoma, so I guess it looks at moles.

They like put in a whole bunch of images of moles for the ai. To study?

[00:07:48] Tina: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:49] Leah: Is that what I don't know. The ai, I sound like an old person with the internets, but, um, so, AI studies, all of these images, and then I guess you scan in your own mole or something or take a picture and upload it and it's able to tell you whether or not, um, it's concerning for melanoma.

So that's, you know, anything that you can do to. Detect things early and catch it before it becomes, um, you know, harder to treat is

[00:08:16] Tina: Second best thing to preventing it completely.

[00:08:18] Leah: Right.

[00:08:20] Tina: I mean,

[00:08:20] Leah: And, and you can't always prevent things completely. I mean, especially like pancreatic cancer, there are things you could do to reduce your risk, but

[00:08:26] Tina: right.

[00:08:27] Leah: do you prevent it?

I mean, even melanoma, there are melanomas that you can, get that aren't related to the sun. So even though you avoid the sun,

[00:08:34] Tina: Oh yeah.

[00:08:35] Leah: you know.

[00:08:36] Tina: Yes. And so they probably the A, B, C, D, and E of melanomas, which I'm gonna remind our listeners for their own knowledge, asymmetry of a mole. You look at the border for irregularities, and if it's cauliflower looking in, that kind of stuff. The color, if it's more than one color, if it's, and then D is diameter or darkness. all melanomas have pigment. That's really important to realize. And then evolving, is it growing quickly? Is

[00:09:03] Leah: Changing over or changing over time. Right? It's like, oh, well this was always like one color and flat and all of a sudden it's like raised in several colors. So, yeah. But yeah, so, so that's kind of a cool, we, and we'll put links in our show notes to all of the things that we're talking about today.

[00:09:19] Tina: there's been a few apps out there that like Scan was one of the first ones that you could hold your phone up to any mall and it would tell you the percentage of it. Likely being a certain skin cancer. Um, scan's been around for many years, but I bet the AI the accuracy. That's my guess.

[00:09:35] Leah: Interesting.

[00:09:36] Tina: Yeah, because, you know, AI does something better than us, so we

[00:09:42] Leah: It hallucinates better than I do.

[00:09:45] Tina: for now. Hard to compare, but yeah.

[00:09:51] Leah: All right, so what else do you, what else you got?

[00:09:53] Tina: Um, I wanted to touch on some information that's come out this year that is very specific to environmental that we inevitably exposed to, but we can avoid. So I don't wanna be a downer and say the world is a toxic soup, so we're all screwed. That's not where I'm going. I wanna say we should all make an effort. Nothing is perfect because our food sometimes comes wrapped in plastic. I'm thinking of cheese for example. Or you know, sometimes you go to the deli, the meats, the whatever, you know, um, it's plastic. Wrapping plastic is hard to avoid. But microplastics is one of the things that has gotten a lot of attention the last few years. Um,

[00:10:33] Leah: We have a whole episode about it.

[00:10:35] Tina: and we do have a whole episode on microplastics and a recent study showed that. When they looked at people who died of various causes, this doesn't have to do with cancer, specifically in this case, various causes. they showed over time, like 2016 versus 2020 versus 2024. They looked at the brain tissue, the liver tissue, and the kidney tissue. of them have increasing amounts of microplastics over those years. In other words, if you died in 2016, you died with less plastic in your body than if you died in 2024. And of those tissues, the brain tissue had the highest concentrations of microplastics. Now the good news is, as long as you stay hydrated and you sleep well, you should be washing them out pretty regularly.

You shouldn't end up with too much in your system, but really, exposure is where we should, you know, really cut it off at the pass. Right? So. Ideally store things in glass, use silicone instead of zippy Ziploc bags, use re resealable silicone bags, or just, you know, Pyrex glass is

[00:11:34] Leah: But it, but it's hard, you know, it's hard because when you buy cheese,

[00:11:39] Tina: I agree.

[00:11:40] Leah: even if you buy it in the deli and you're getting it sliced and it's coming to you in butcher paper, it's wrapped in, I mean, so, so I mean, what do you do? You buy your own cow. You, I mean,

[00:11:50] Tina: best

[00:11:50] Leah: I mean, even locally. Like locally, people are gonna like wrap.

[00:11:54] Tina: Yeah,

[00:11:55] Leah: the cheese, I mean,

[00:11:56] Tina: that's why I say it's impossible to be perfect, but you can do a few things. You can say, saran Wrap doesn't exist in my kitchen, for example. Or, you know, try not to put, especially things that are fatty and, uh, that against plastic. So don't store in, in, uh, glad you know, reusables or something.

[00:12:15] Leah: yeah. And you know, taking care not to microwave

[00:12:18] Tina: Yeah.

[00:12:19] Leah: and.

[00:12:19] Tina: And you know, we don't know how much comes in our water. These are, these are nanoparticles. Some of 'em are probably making it through our municipal filters

[00:12:26] Leah: And our air. And the air. Oh, and I wanna clarify, I wanna clarify what I said. making sure, you know, making sure you don't microwave in plastic, I think is important.

[00:12:33] Tina: Huge. So, I mean, yes, you can't control it everywhere, but you can say, okay, I'll, I'll do what I can. And then if you sleep well. and you hydrate. You should be detoxing really well in the night. And, and even your brain has g lymphatics that are washing your brain of particles. and they did show that in mice, you know, when they, when they actually intentionally gave nanoparticles to mice.

Of course they, they do a lot of things to mice that. You know, they, they, they exposed them to a bunch of it and then they watched over time how long it took to get outta their brain tissue. and it took my 72 hours to release the nanoparticles that they were exposed to. So 

that's good. That means that there

[00:13:13] Leah: but, but mice

[00:13:15] Tina: to get them out.

[00:13:15] Leah: and mice metabolism is different than human metabolism. I mean, mice don't live that long. They got those.

[00:13:20] Tina: No, they don't.

[00:13:21] Leah: Quick little metabolism, you know, the speedy little heart rate and all of that stuff. So,

[00:13:25] Tina: But their glymphatic in their brain are very similar to ours. So they do wash their brain with a lymphatic system that looks a whole lot like ours.

[00:13:32] Leah: well, I think just being hydrated and getting good sleep is, you know, that's foundational anyways. So here's one more reason to make sure that you are hydrating and getting good sleep.

[00:13:42] Tina: Yeah. Just give, add that to the list. So another thing that came out that was kind of an environmental thing that got my attention was, um, you know how dry cleaners that we've always known, that they've been kind of nasty chemicals and dry cleaning and. Mm-hmm. Tet Trichloroethylene, um, which is abbreviated PCE. There was a study that came out showing that exposure to that, which is not just dry cleaning, it just happens to be concentrated in dry cleaning, but it's in adhesives and glues. It's in paint removers, metal greasers, spot removers, water. I don't know what water repellents, but water repellent was on a list. anyways, what it led to was liver damage. So the liver actually can be damaged and lead to fibrosis of the liver which then can lead to liver cancer. So the rate was triple the person's risk for liver fibrosis when they were exposed to these chemicals, dry cleaning chemicals.

[00:14:35] Leah: Are you talking like you get your clothes dry cleaned and you're wearing them, or you're working in that industry, or you're.

[00:14:42] Tina: it is mostly industry workers.

[00:14:43] Leah: Okay. So, or contaminants. 'cause I know, uh, when I lived in New York, uh, there was a dry cleaner on the corner. Now it's like a cafe. I mean, I lived there over 20 years ago, but yeah, now it's like a cafe.

And I was always like, Hmm, I don't know.

[00:14:58] Tina: Well,

[00:14:59] Leah: dunno about that.

[00:15:00] Tina: Like they're known for contaminating kind of the surrounding water and

[00:15:03] Leah: Yeah.

[00:15:04] Tina: yeah, that is, it's, it's a concern. so I mean, basically just take precautions when you're using chemicals, whether you're using a silicone lubricant. Like, you know, we do a lot of DIY fixes.

I'm thinking of like, you might not spray

[00:15:17] Leah: You do, you do a lot of DIY fixes,

[00:15:21] Tina: I do. It's true.

[00:15:22] Leah: which is cool. But yeah, you have to be really careful and, um, practice,

[00:15:27] Tina: It's,

[00:15:27] Leah: safety measures and stuff.

[00:15:29] Tina: it's true. And I mean, admittedly, you, you tell, you tell yourself, I'm just gonna do this for three seconds and I'm gonna hold my breath. I'm gonna run, you know, like, but I'm exposed. And I was like, I probably should be better about my own,

[00:15:39] Leah: Yeah.

[00:15:40] Tina: own. Exposure. Sometimes I'm a little lax, so just seeing this makes me go, yeah, right.

This is really serious stuff. Um, the other thing that I wanna say with exposures or, and this has to do with cancer, this one ultra processed foods are back on the map, to early colorectal cancer, early meaning young people, 50 years old, ultra-processed foods. Um, there was a recent article in jama, I don't think that's news to our listeners. but the JAMA Ultra Process food consumption and risk of early onset colorectal Cancer Precursors among Women was the title, and it just came out November 13th. So that is more fodder for our proof that we really shouldn't be eating that stuff.

[00:16:27] Leah: Right, and I mean ultra-processed food would not be something like a processed food, which would be like canned beans or frozen vegetables or you know, things like that. Or you know, pasta, even as, you know, dried pasta. It would be something like, I don't wanna say brands, but all I could think of is like Ho Hos and Ding Dongs,

[00:16:46] Tina: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:47] Leah: cracker jack.

Like these are things from my childhood that I was never allowed to eat. 'cause my mom was not into buying that stuff. But yeah, all the stuff that I wanted to eat when I was a kid. Yeah,

[00:16:58] Tina: Yeah. They're non-food.

[00:17:00] Leah: they're incredibly shelf stable. They're not like shelf stable, like white rice is shelf stable. They're like, you know, you can get a Twinkie that's been at a, you know, bomb shelter since the 1950s and it's

[00:17:11] Tina: Yes.

[00:17:11] Leah: still intact.

[00:17:13] Tina: yes. So their ultra process, meaning they have additives, they have preservatives, and they also have probably gone, undergone a process to make them very different than where they started, if they're from any natural food. Um, I think of like even a Pringle like versus a potato chip. a potato chip.

Could be called a processed food, but an a Pringle's, an ultra processed food because they, I don't even know what that is,

[00:17:34] Leah: They mash. They mash the potatoes, they add things in 'cause Pringles are not gluten-free. So I know they add like some sort of wheat product in there.

[00:17:41] Tina: make it look like a chip

[00:17:42] Leah: Well, they make it look like something cool that fits in a tall can so that it's not crushable. Yeah,

[00:17:49] Tina: and you can drum with it after. So

[00:17:51] Leah: you can,

[00:17:52] Tina: yeah. Pringles cans.

[00:17:53] Leah: oh, I never did that.

[00:17:54] Tina: Oh,

[00:17:55] Leah: Well, 'cause you know Lucy, well Lucy was not a big fan of, I think she bought Pringles for a while and then was like, no, I'm not gonna buy Pringles.

Well, 'cause she would eat them. That's the whole thing with my mom. Right. Like no junk food in the house. 'cause she would eat it.

[00:18:09] Tina: so let's talk about exposures in general. Like, I grew up kind of that way too. We really didn't have a lot of processed food at all. I do remember potato chips and ranch dressing in the fridge, but I don't, I had to go to friend's houses to get Doritos or even. Fritos for that matter, which isn't, I, I, I kind of grip the similar, like not a lot of processed food. There was a study, and I didn't put this on the sheet that I was gonna talk about today, but this reminds me that some of our exposures now and some of the colorectal cancer, and certainly leukemias and other cancers are linked to exposures in utero. And so what they just did in this study was in mice, yes, but. I think it was informative. They exposed, I think it was rats in this particular study to glyphosate, Roundup, and saw that the offspring were more likely to have various types of cancers in mostly leukemia, but other cancers as well. And they were a lot of rare cancer sarcoma was on the list. 

[00:19:05] Leah: Would they ha would they get it? Well, I mean, it's hard with a mouse, right? A mouse is always at a young age until, you know, it's not. But um, were they, were they,

[00:19:14] Tina: 52 days.

[00:19:16] Leah: okay, so, so it was like, like, like baby mice.

[00:19:20] Tina: Yes. Juvenile and, and baby.

[00:19:23] Leah: Okay.

[00:19:23] Tina: Um, it was, it's an interesting, and, and what they did, what was interesting about the study that they exposed them to levels that are found in the eu. So the study was done in Europe and they show, they show that real world exposure caused cancer in the, in the offspring. 

[00:19:41] Leah: they were directly exposing them. So it would be like somebody who worked in a.

[00:19:45] Tina: No,

[00:19:46] Leah: On a farm,

[00:19:47] Tina: food willy-nilly. Not paying attention to glyphosate.

[00:19:50] Leah: did they, so they didn't like load the food up with extra glyphosate.

[00:19:55] Tina: No, this was regular amounts. This was like amounts that the eu, not the US but the EU has determined as safe. I didn't compare it to the us but my guess is it's either the same or, or less because they generally are tighter regulated over there. but I thought that was interesting 'cause when you start using real world amounts of chemicals, like an average amount that someone who's not paying any attention to, it would be exposed to. The reason this caught my attention too is the rate of colorectal cancers in people under the age of 50 has been growing since the 1990s. glyphosate hit the market here in the US about the same time. Um, should say glyphosate hit the market earlier, but GMO crops that allowed you to drench the fields with with glyphosate. Roundup, Roundup ready soy roundup Ready crops really hit the market in the mid 1990s. They got approved. The first approval was 1996, so. It does correlate. Doesn't mean it's causative, but it correlates to our rising, incidents of young people with colorectal cancer and other cancers actually are on the rise in young people. Coincidence? 

[00:20:59] Leah: We don't know.

[00:21:00] Tina: But we, possible, avoiding anything that has glyphosate on it is ideal. So that means the really la crops like soy and corn. Those are the big ones. Um, there's gonna be residual glyphosate if it's not organic.

[00:21:16] Leah: And then, but isn't the thing with sweet corn, like that's before they spray it or something? That's like young corn that's not sprayed.

[00:21:23] Tina: I honestly don't know.

[00:21:24] Leah: I don't either. I thought, I thought I learned that in Indiana. I'm not sure. I'm sure we'll have people comment if we leave this in. Uh, but yeah, for some reason I felt that sweet corn,

[00:21:33] Tina: don't know.

[00:21:34] Leah: I don't either.

[00:21:35] Tina: I don't know. But I don't know if people realize the reason for the rates being so high is because they made crops that don't die. These are herbicides glyphosate or Roundup is an herbicide and that they made corn that won't die with that particular toxicant. So now you can use as much as you want on the crop and that our usage went way up. So that's why we have so much exposure now. It didn't grow like in as a normal chemical usage would grow. I mean, it was an exponential growth in the NI mid 1990s, and we jumped in our usage. I mean, I had those numbers, but I don't remember now how many tons of glyphosate are used on our crops a lot.

is why I wanted to mention this, because it's not just what we do in our lifetime. It's what happened in utero. 

It's what our grandparents did, and we're not in control of all of that, right? So. You, you do what you can and then you let go. And that's true of all, of, all of risk reduction in all of, um, healthcare. I think, you know, you don't stress out. You try to do what you can and then let go.

[00:22:32] Leah: all right, so what do you got next? 

[00:22:34] Tina: Well, something just came out about using hypnosis just before surgery for breast cancer. Um, a 15 minute live hypnosis session before breast cancer surgery reduced postoperative fatigue, emotional distress, and fentanyl use compared with a recorded mindfulness session. it was 203 women and it was perspective randomized clinical trial.

It was in Norway. Um, they were going undergoing either lumpectomy or mastectomy, they two hours preoperatively underwent either live hypnosis, which involved relaxation imagery and symptom reduction suggestions, or 15 minutes of mindfulness, which was breathing relaxation via headphones. So assessed them afterwards.

And yeah, outcomes for pain, fatigue, nausea, discomfort, and emotional distress. Were all. out and analgesic use as well. And like I said, they had less fatigue, emotional distress, and they used less fentanyl, um,

[00:23:38] Leah: the mindfulness

[00:23:39] Tina: than the mindfulness group. And

[00:23:40] Leah: Interesting.

[00:23:41] Tina: live hypnosis recorded mindfulness. So what I mean, you can't, those are not apples to apples. maybe if they did a live mindfulness, it would be a better control, but. It's an, there was a single center, it was just one place in Norway and it was 203 women. So it wasn't a large population, but it was just kind of a cool thing that something as simple as 15 minutes of hypnosis, a couple hours before surgery could really statistically significantly affect the outcomes.

[00:24:10] Leah: Yeah. No, that's really cool. I wonder if they've checked it out with other, um, other surgeries as well.

[00:24:15] Tina: I know. I think that's the probably the next thing they're gonna do. And there was no control control group, right? They

[00:24:21] Leah: Someone Yeah. Right. People. Yeah. The people who like got nothing.

[00:24:25] Tina: right? There should have been a

[00:24:26] Leah: They were just wheeled on in.

[00:24:28] Tina: Yeah. But you know what happens in all of these studies is the ideal study gets displaced by the study you can afford to do. Because it takes money. The more people you recruit, the more data you collect. It all comes down to dollars. 'cause studies could be better. And even the people who design them admit that usually. But you know, they only have so many dollars on their, on their grant or their, whatever their gift is. So yeah, I thought that was pretty cool. And then maybe the last thing to talk about is that, that what you had mentioned was that bar of soap. I.

[00:25:02] Leah: Oh right. It was another young kid who entered some sort of science competition. And, um, yeah, he came up with a skin cancer reducing bar of soap.

[00:25:15] Tina: Yeah, I looked that up quickly and And you were right, it was couple years ago. And if I'm saying it correctly, Emad is something that is used, I know for other skin cancers as a drug, like it's prescribed. 

[00:25:30] Leah: Topically, it's topically.

[00:25:33] Tina: yes, it's actually an immune directed treatment. but the cool thing is a bar of soap.

I mean, a lot of these things. What is interesting is like if you can bring that to maybe cultures in the world that can't afford. Right to have surgery early on, like using the soap early. And there's, I guess, very little downside risk, um, of using it. I mean, that'd be kind of cool. Anything that we could use in places that don't have affordable care or even access to any medical care in some places.

[00:26:04] Leah: Or even just you've been diagnosed with, you know, an early stage skin cancer, squamous or basal cell, and then you're. You know, prescribed or given the soap and like, okay, let's reduce your risk of others,

[00:26:19] Tina: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:20] Leah: right?

[00:26:21] Tina: Yeah. Yeah. And I actually, you know, there's, there are some people who have a very high risk of repeat skin cancers. I mean, anyone who's had a skin cancer has higher risk of more skin cancers. But some people have immune glitches, we'll call them, that doesn't recognize squamous cell carcinoma, for example.

So they'll end up with a lot of them. So this kind of thing could be really useful for people who have repeat skin cancers that you have to keep going back and having them taken off Actinic keratosis and basal cell. And, there is something I looked at it just be, just before we started talking and skin cancer SOAP website is out there, so you can look at it. can find this by just putting in skincancersoap.org and just see where they're at with it. I think they're doing, it's in clinical trials now or something.

[00:27:05] Leah: And what I've, what I've found especially cool is I think, isn't that the young man who I told you went to my high school, was that the study.

[00:27:12] Tina: Yeah.

[00:27:13] Leah: So he's a graduate of the same high school that I went to in Fairfax, Virginia. So go Cavaliers. There you go. Like I ever would've said that when I was in high school.

But no, I think that's kind of cool. It's the same with the, you know, the, the young students, um, who did the melanoma app. You know, I think, um, you know, I just, I think it's really cool when you have just younger people doing these for their, you know, their. School research projects or you know, local science competitions.

There was something else where there were, um, some students who were coming up with an oral cancer detection app. I mean, it's just, it's, it's such a, I dunno, it's kind of amazing to see like just young people, you know, it's probably from their own family experience. Maybe they had a relative, you know, who had this cancer.

And then I think that was the case with the melanoma app is that one of the students had, um. A relative who had had, um, melanoma. And so just creating these, these apps or programs or whatever it is, you know, soaps,

[00:28:18] Tina: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:19] Leah: I don't know, just, just, you know, if you've got kids, encourage them to go into science 'cause.

[00:28:24] Tina: Yeah, did you know most scientists make their massive discoveries before the age of 25? Like the vast majority of science discoveries are made in people who are young because that's the way the brain works when you're young, just more creative, and even scientifically, most discoveries are made by young scientists, breakthrough discoveries. So it's kind of cool.

[00:28:47] Leah: Yeah, and hopefully they're getting the credit for it.

[00:28:49] Tina: Depends who writes the history.

[00:28:51] Leah: I know.

[00:28:52] Tina: I'm gonna stay outta that one. There's a lot of, there's a lot of mud in

[00:28:57] Leah: a

[00:28:58] Tina: history.

[00:28:58] Leah: episode.

[00:29:00] Tina: a whole different topic. There are podcasts based on that though.

[00:29:05] Leah: So let's just do a little recap of the stuff that we've covered.

[00:29:09] Tina: Sure. So we have differentiation now through blood of a tumor in the pancreas so that you can differentiate between benign and cancerous more easily through a blood test. That's a new discovery. We have, unfortunately, microplastics growing in our society and, and our exposure in our bodies. So doing whatever you can to limit your exposure to micro. Plastics is a good idea. Um, just for your overall health.

[00:29:38] Leah: And just in general, just 'cause I've seen it, like if you have a campfire or something and you've got a plastic bottle, don't be throwing that in there,

[00:29:45] Tina: Yes. It's, it,

[00:29:46] Leah: you know?

[00:29:46] Tina: of it has to do with just being mindful.

[00:29:48] Leah: Yeah. So it's.

[00:29:48] Tina: that's true of the, of the cleaning chemical too, of the Tet Trichloroethylene. You know, be mindful of your chemical exposures and know that your skin, your largest organ. very good at absorbing a lot of nasty chemicals. So protect your skin, protect your lungs.

[00:30:07] Leah: And then also dispose of those properly. So I know that in different cities or towns there are specific. Places to dispose of,

[00:30:14] Tina: yeah,

[00:30:15] Leah: um, more hazardous chemicals. And so just make sure you use, make use of that and just don't chuck it in your, your trash..

[00:30:22] Tina: Absolutely. And then the other like. Limit your exposure to ultra processed foods, not just because they're ultra processed and not all that nutritious, but because they add crap to it that your body really doesn't need. It's probably gonna mess with your biome, the whole ultra processed food thing.

And glyphosates as well, I think. I think we're gonna find out that glyphosates have really, really changed our, our entire way of being on the planet until we get them out. 

[00:30:49] Leah: and the last couple things were just some, um, inventions, the, uh, from younger people. it was the skin cancer reducing soap and the melanoma app.

[00:31:01] Tina: That's right. I gotta check out that. Me? No, my app. I looked at one before. There's a few that were competing, but I bet this one's better than what was out there already. I'll have to check it.

[00:31:10] Leah: Yeah, I mean, they're using AI for good like I mentioned. So

[00:31:13] Tina: See, you know why I always say that? It's Wonder Woman's Line. Seems to me you can put your powers to good use somehow. Linda Carter,

[00:31:22] Leah: on that note, on that note, I'm Dr. Leah Sherman,

[00:31:26] Tina: and I'm Dr. Tina Kaczor.

[00:31:27] Leah: And this is the Cancer Pod.

[00:31:29] Tina: Until next time.

[00:31:30] Leah: Until next year.

[00:31:33] Tina: Until next year.

[00:32:05] Leah: ​ 

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