Slowing Cancer & The Cancer Conflict

Tina 0:00

Welcome to episode 49 of the Cancer Pod. Tune in as Lei and I tackle some tough topics head on, including are there any natural agents that can cure cancer? What is the abscopal effect and how is it linked to curing cancer? How can a natural substance at high dose have the opposite effect of the same substance at low dose? stay tuned and we'll answer these questions and so much more. I'm Dr Tina Kaczor and as Leah likes to say I'm the science-y one

Leah 0:26

and I'm Dr Leah Sherman and on the cancer inside

Tina 0:29

And we're two naturopathic doctors who practice integrative cancer care

Leah 0:33

But we're not your doctors

Tina 0:36

This is for education entertainment and informational purposes only

Leah 0:40

do not apply any of this information without first speaking to your doctor

Tina 0:44

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast by the hosts and their guests are solely their own

Leah 0:50

Welcome to the cancer pod

Introduction

Leah 1:08

Hello, Tina.

Tina 1:09

Hello, Leah?

Leah 1:10

We're back.

Tina 1:11

this is our third installment in the Cancer Conflict, uh, series.

Leah 1:16

Yes, it's a documentary where they follow two people who have been diagnosed with cancer, different cancers, and just kind of how alternative medicine kind of intertwines with what they do for their treatment. Is that a good way to recap it?

Tina 1:30

Yeah, yeah. Basically we meet these two people. they are not in any way connected, but each of them has to make choices about treatment, And, uh, yeah, it inspired us with a lot of different questions and you don't need to see this film in order to understand this conversation today. It just was something that helped spur conversation for us. This is what our patients need to do every day in our practice is, Do I go this way or that?

Leah 1:54

Yeah. I think for me the movie kind of brought up the, the conversations that you do have with patients where they don't wanna do conventional treatment, they only wanna do alternative or they wanna do integrative, you know, that kind of thing. So, um, yeah, we talk more about it in. previous two episodes, so make sure you go back and listen to those if you haven't already. And then the other thing that we talked about, at least in the last episode, were like kind of the things that you can do to reduce your risk of getting cancer and reducing your risk of recurrence, or just kind of one of the things, you can do to stabilize cancer, you know, wherever you are at in your cancer continuum. We don't, we try not to say journey on this show.

Tina 2:38

Yeah, one Leia really hates the word

Leah 2:43

I'm, I'm iffy about the band. but yeah, the, the, the, the word, I don't know, it's kind of like journey.

Tina 2:51

You know what? There are things that can be just nails on a chalkboard for some folks and I don't even try to figure it out. I totally understand why the word journey can be something that is nails on a chalkboard to people who have had a diagnosis with cancer. I get that. I happen to understand this one, but if I didn't understand it, I'd still accept it and avoid it.

Leah 3:08

Yeah. You know, like, cuz I always think about, you know, when people talk about life in general, like, oh, it's not about the destination, it's about the journey.

Tina 3:15

What's your response to that?

Leah 3:16

Um, no, I think in some ways I think, I think it's true just in like general life. Like, you know, don't, always kind of go for your, the end goal. but then when it comes to like cancer, I just think that it is just, no, there is, we really want an end goal. I know not everybody. Yeah. I don't know any who. I'm surprised you didn't react to my reaction about the band, but we'll move on. so

The foundations of health

Leah 3:38

yeah, so what we talked about were the, what is known in our world as the foundations of health.

Tina 3:42

Yeah. And so one of the things this movie did was have us question like what is appropriate during treatment? What is appropriate after treatment? Are they the same thing? Can you extrapolate what's good for you during treatment to what's good for you after treatment, or vice versa. And there really is the foundations of health are those things that you can do for prevention of a primary diagnosis. So before you even get cancer, you can do during treatment and you can apply for prevention of recurrence or longevity in wellness after treatment for cancer. So those foundations quickly, cuz we talked about them at length in our last episode, those foundations include. Nutrition and diet, which I would wrap the microbiome and the microbiota, which is a fancy word for all those bacteria and other organisms in your gut. Keeping them healthy, having a diverse plant-based diet in general. Controlling blood sugar, getting good, sound, restorative, sleep.

Leah 4:40

and so, yeah, and these things all tie together, right? Because controlling your blood sugar not only involves diet, but it also involves sleep, and it also involves the next one, which is exercise. So, you know, they, it's sleep. You need good blood sugar, you need exercise. So they're like us. They all, you know, they're very holistic with a w. Holistic.

Tina 5:03

Yeah. And then finally, stress management and stress reduction if needed. And there's a lot of different ways of going about that, including the exercise. Like you just said, it's connected. Exercise reduces stress. Good sleep helps with stress in the next day. So those are the foundations, and we did talk at length about those and how to go about instituting some of that and why it's good for you. And in each episode that we do, when we talk about this stuff, I should remind listeners that we always put extensive links on in our show notes so that you can find more information and see where we're getting this. We're not just pulling it out of the air or basing it on our own, I don't know, philosophies or something. So there's always evidence behind what we're talking about. So you can look at those links.

Leah 5:46

I saw there was a letter, somebody wasn't able to see the links in whatever the streaming app they were using. So if whatever streaming app you're using, you don't see the links, then go check us out on our website, the cancer pod.com.

Tina 6:02

Yes. Cuz they'll always be there as well.

Leah 6:04

And also there'll be like, maybe I'll throw in a fun video or something too. So,

Tina 6:07

Oh yeah. There's little bonus things on there, isn't there?

Leah 6:10

yeah, you know, I like to.

Tina 6:12

Yes. And every podcast platform is a little different in what it can put up. So we also have chapters I should remind people, there's chapters. So if you wanna skip down to certain sections that look interesting to you, apple Podcast now supports chapters, along with some other platforms out there. So yeah, other little tools that people should know about that they may not.

Leah 6:31

So we kind of left off with the question, you know, what is there that's natural that has known to cure cancer? And that's kind of, I mean, we could, yeah, we could talk a lot about the things that patients come to us, you know, asking about, like, oh, I've heard that this uh, this cures cancer. I know someone who took this product and, you know, cured their cancer. So we're gonna delve into that a little bit. And we got a letter that I think also kind of ties in with all of this that we're gonna read in the last, I was gonna say in the last half, in the third half of this podcast.

Tina 7:10

All right, so let's take a quick break and we'll come back.

Leah 7:19

All right, we ready? We're back. Right? Are we back? Every time I say something goofy, I think it's gonna end up at the end.

Tina 7:25

right? Yeah. Our little, our little, uh, bonus at the end for those who. Continue listening to the very last second. There's always a little something hopefully to make you laugh or amuse

What natural agents cure cancer, naturally?

Tina 7:36

you at the very least.

Leah 7:37

So, Tina, what natural products are known to cure cancer? in humans. I think that's, you know, I think that's the really big, big add-on to that comment because as we've discussed before, a lot of things can kill cancer in the lab. Doesn't seem too hard. Kill cancer in a Petri dish.

Tina 7:58

Sure. That I totally agree with that.

Leah 8:01

I think of like that, that like, there's like a little, a meme of a stick figure with a gun pointing it towards like a Petri dish.

Tina 8:08

Yes, I know exactly the meme you're talking about.

Track 1 8:10

for those who don't, I might try to find it and we'll include it in our show.

Tina 8:15

All right, so first of all, natural agents that cure cancer can be found, as you mentioned in the literature, if you're looking at, in vit. which is a fancy word for saying in a dish or in a cellular model. So we have more than a dish now, right? It used to be that we used to always be on this flat dish. Now we can make what are called organoids. So you can actually make a cluster of tissue that looks a lot like breast tissue. You can make a cluster of tissue that looks like a kidney or a lung or whatever. So it's more spherical, I know that's a funny word, organoid, like organ, like any organ in the body, an O i D on it. So that's a new term that's out there and bantered about. but it's still a cell model. So I just wanna put that out there because people will see that and think that it has more validity than a dish. Not really, it's still not an organism, a whole being with circulation and lymph and an immune system that is interacting with the cancer. So we need that. Being, in many cases, that's a rodent at the very, very least to make any kind of beginning of understanding of how any natural agent or drug for that matter, works in a biological system. So first off, throw all in vitro studies, boom. Done. That alone will narrow down what has even been studied as a natural agent that can have an effect on cancer or the immune system. After that, when you look at the animal studies dose makes the difference. So what we can do, and I'm sorry because this is considered pretty harsh, but we take rodents and we put a large amount of natural agents into them by basically taking a syringe and pushing it down. Their mouth, or we inject it under their skin. We give them basically sometimes half their body weight and a natural substance, and that might have a biological effect, but we can't give half of our body weight. We can't, you and I cannot do 50 pounds of something.

Leah 10:14

Right. And I think that's, that's like the big one is when people do show like, this natural agent cured cancer. but you, yeah, you can't extrapolate what happened in a tiny little mouse. If you look at the dosages that they do give them, know, it's always like, how many milligrams per kilogram? And yeah, the dosages are super high. The one that I think of the most, um, is cannabis.

Tina 10:41

Oh.

Leah 10:42

And I don't know if they studied it in rodents, but I know that at least in vitro to translate the studies into a human, like the doses are ridiculous. And we kind of covered this before.

Cells are dynamic, not static

Tina 10:54

Yeah. And that also calls into mind. There's something called an adaptive response. So cannabis is a good example. When our bodies see any chemical compound that interacts with a receptor on the cell, so let's just take T H C or C B D, for example, and any cell in our body has receptors for that, right? So you take a cell with a, I'm just gonna use an arbitrary number, a thousand receptors where C B D can bind.. If we give a large dose into the body, the cell responds by saying, that's too much. I don't want that much inside. I don't wanna receive that much c b d inside my cell. So if I had a thousand receptors, I'm gonna stop making so many, I'm gonna put 300 up or 100 up. Our cells respond to each dose and the exposure to any compound that has receptors on the outside of the cell by down regulating them, basically making less of them. So the cell is dynamic. It's not a static thing, it's dynamic. It's responding to its environment, we often use the word microenvironment. It responds to it. So if there's lots of CBD D coming through or lots of THC coming through, and those receptors were whatever number you start with, and it gets bathed by that substance, the cell will just say, I don't want so much of that, and it'll, it'll take down those receptors and that way it can control the amount inside the cell. So I'm just saying that because that's a, the whole dynamic nature of our bodies is part of why the in vitro studies don't work. we have systems to control, Dosage within cells, and the cells themselves can monitor that and change how much they take in of anything.

Leah 12:21

Yeah. So you just can't flood cells in a living, being with a substance is what you're saying, because eventually the body's gonna adjust for that.

Tina 12:30

Right? This is why some of the models out there that we use for dosing things are pulsed. So the pulse it, so you, you do flood it when it's not looking right. Basically you flood the receptors with a substance and then you stop taking it and the cell can go back to its homeostasis, its balanced state and say, okay, I'm not being flooded by C B, D, so now I can put those receptors back, and then you flood it again you know, so it might be something like that where pulse dosing can overcome this tendency to some extent, rather than a consistent dose of a high dose of anything.

Leah 13:03

Is that why you don't take herbal medicine all the time?

Tina 13:06

It is one of the theories, particularly behind immune stimulation, um, and immune herbs, that there is an adaptation to the presence of the plant substances such that you no longer are stimulating. It just acclimate to the, to the steady dose. Yeah. Now that's not true of all substances, but it is for things that are immunostimulatory. So it depends what we're doing and what part of the immune system, for example.

Why are some natural agents so popular?

Tina 13:31

So anyways, back to what we were talking about, in the in vitro versus rodent versus human models. The reason things like curcumin, resveratrol, quercetin, green tea extract. The reason some of these natural substances are really talked about a lot in cancer care is these are. A few of the substances in which the difference between low dose and high dose can be achieved in a human being. We can achieve the high dose for curcumin, for example, or quercetin. We can, because it's in grams, not kilograms. So we can actually get there. Now, it's still a lot. So for curcumin, straight curcumin, dry curcumin, 95% curcuminoids, that would be something like eight grams a day.

Leah 14:20

which is 16 capsules. Capsules come in 500 milligrams, so that's 16 capsules a day.

Tina 14:28

So it's a lot, but it's not, not doable. So a lot of the natural agents out there are simply not doable. You can't achieve the dose that they put in an animal. And there is a translation, just for the record, it's not a linear. Milligram per kilogram kind of translation from rodent to human. I have a couple papers on people who have looked at this closely and how to translate the dosage, in such a way that it makes sense given the difference in physiology between rodents and humans. So I can, I can put a link to those, to at least a paper that would be explained that system in any case. the hurdle here is getting those high doses in a human, and applying it to a particular cancer where it's got some evidence.

Leah 15:11

and are you using, like, not, are you, would one use those even by themselves have, I mean that's the, that's the other thing because I think when we talk about things like curcumin, it is used in conjunction with conventional treatment, not as a stand.

Tina 15:26

Yeah. I, yeah, I agree. the high doses of any of these substances, just for the record, could very well be a very, very different mechanism than just taking curcumin at low dose. So Curcumin's a good example. So at high doses it has one effect, and that effect is basically the antithesis of what it does at low dose in some

High dose versus low dose

Tina 15:47

scenarios. So there is a dose at which many polyphenols, and polyphenols is a large group of plant compounds. Many of them have one effect at low dose and essentially the opposite effect at high dose.

Leah 16:02

So they're antioxidant at low dose.

Tina 16:05

Mm-hmm.

Leah 16:05

and then at High Dose, they're prooxidant.

Tina 16:08

Yes, they're actually oxidative, um, another classic example of that is intravenous vitamin C. Which vitamin C we all know as an antioxidant, right? You take an vitamin C as an antioxidant in an oral form. All oral forms are antioxidant. liposomal oral forms. Anything fancy out there, it's still the Esther C, which is Esterified, vitamin C. That's still an antioxidant only when you do very large doses intravenously. Does vitamin C become prooxidant or we just call it an oxidative? The and that often compliments other oxidative therapies like radiation. So you're actually doing two oxidative therapies if you do radiation and IV vitamin C at the same time, which is not commonly known. Just for the record, I have a lot of even radiation oncologists who don't realize that that's oxidative, it's not used as an antioxidant at that point. So any protests they may have for the use of vitamin C during radiation due to it being an antioxidant, once they look at it closer and we have a relationship in which there's mutual trust, um, and I send 'em the information, radiation oncologists are like, okay, I'm okay with it now.

Track 1 17:19

Oh,

Tina 17:19

there's one trial where it's literally given alongside, like they get the vitamin C right at the same time. So they're peaking in the oxidative, um, dose of vitamin C circulating while they get the radiation.

Leah 17:30

I know that there's, there was a clinical trial looking at I V C with patients with pancreatic cancer getting a certain chemotherapy regimen. I don't remember seeing the radiation one, but, I don't necessarily stay on top of IV vitamin C It's not something that I do. I mean, I, I know enough about it to kind of guide patients questions, but yeah, it's not something that I actually do. So, so yeah, so some of the natural things that, you know, they all kind, kind of come up in trends, like, like there's like the apricot kernel trend and, there was bitter melon for a while. Uh, soursop or graviola. These are things that like we commonly hear, you know, our patients will come in taking these things.

Tina 18:15

Yeah. I, I'll tell you, I, I do work with patients, what I would call off the map, you know, meaning they're not doing the conventional route and just adding a few things on. They're looking for something

What's the goal of your treatment?

Tina 18:28

more. What I always wanna tell people is don't forget you need a 40,000 foot view. What is the, what's the goal here? You know, if, if oxidative treatment is something you're doing to pursue oxidative treatment without countering it with antioxidants during those time periods where you wanna be oxidated, in other words, you, you need a gestalt to this. You can't just put a laundry list together of natural agents, take them all and expect something to happen.

Leah 18:53

And I think that's what you see, that's what you see a lot of, is that people will be taking multiple alleged cancer cures trying to like hit it, you know, as hard as they can. without really knowing. Yeah, I mean, I'm going to assume cure is the ultimate goal. but yeah, not realizing that the dosage they are taking might not be what correlates to a study. If there even was a study, has this even been looked at in humans? You know, there are a lot of different factors that go.

Tina 19:25

And, and why you're taking something. So, so I'll tell you a few heretical things that I do on a regular basis. One of them is as a naturopath, and you will hear this over and over again. anti-inflammatory. This anti-inflammatory, you know, inflammation is your enemy. Well, that's not a hundred percent true when you are getting an immune therapy or you're pursuing an immune control of your cancer. I don't care how you're doing it. If you are pursuing an immune control of the cancer, what's controlling it ultimately at the interface between the tumor and the immune system. is an inflammatory reaction. You still need, you want the immune system to have a certain amount of inflammation, even though inflammation can fuel cancer growth. So there's a balance here. You can't be completely anti-inflammatory and have your immune system, you know, attacking a cancer at the same time because that whole process is somewhat inflammatory in, its in its mechanism. Just think about this. You get a cut, you get a cut, it gets swollen, it might get red. You're looking at an inflammatory state to heal that wound, right? So you have to have a certain amount of inflammation to fight the cancer itself. You don't want too much inflammation You want it at the right time and place. Do you wanna add the tumor interface with the immune system? Obviously not in your joints. At the same time, if you can help it or you know where you're gonna feel it.

Leah 20:46

right? So, so like diet would be a great way to control or to manage inflammation because you're not going to completely put every cell on alert, you know, hunting down that inflammation. I mean, you're just kind of creating an overall less inflammatory state through plant-based, you know?

Tina 21:07

right? And when you do the foundational stuff, like just those foundations that we just cover, when you do all of that, you are putting the body in its most ideal state to do what it wants to do and what it needs to do. Okay? So you're not shoving anything anywhere. You're not just just doing foundations. Let's let take all medications and supplements out. You are supporting the system, the biological system, your, your body, and giving it everything it needs. To be at its utmost balance. Now, if you add medications, supplements in high dose, now you're trying to push the physiology around, you're trying to accomplish something. You're trying to make more natural killer cells with, mushrooms or you're trying to limit your production of estrogen with an aromatase inhibitor, you're changing the physiology. And I, I consider that more of a shove than support. Like, everything that's foundational is supportive. Once we start doing things in high dose and we start shoving the physiology around, we're trying to manipulate it in a way and control something. And so those are two different. Goals really. And so doing those foundations and supportive stuff, that's why they're never a bad thing. There's never a time that bring your body all the nutrition it needs and the movement and the sleep it needs is a bad idea. You're always supporting your systems. Now, is there a time that shoving, inflammation way down is a, is a bad idea? I would argue there's probably times that that's a bad idea. Is there a time that taking a lot of antioxidants in, in the form of, say, glutathione, n a c, you know, lipoic acid, these sulfur containing antioxidants, is there a time that that's a bad idea? Yes. I think there is a time that, that's a bad idea. cuz we're now shoving the physiology around, we're not just supporting it, we're actually trying to accomplish something. So that's a, that's a big, that's a big line right there in my mind of you. Each substance, whether it's a drug or a natural agent, should be considered as a singular substance and whether or not it's appropriate. And if so, at what dose? So this is the precision that's really hard to pin down if you're just kind of swimming around in the literature.

Is there anything natural proven to change an outcome?

Leah 23:13

So for patients who do come in taking these natural cancer cures with the hopes that that is going to either kill the cancer on its own or, you know, along with whatever conventional treatment that they're getting, help their body to fight the cancer. is there anything that has evidence to show that in addition to conventional treatment, it can support the immune system enough to, to change an outcome?

Tina 23:43

the, the keyword has evidenced, the way to go about this is to understand what the conventional treatment is doing. What's the goal of the treatment, even if it's chemotherapy, some chemo. Kill cells in one way. Some chemo, drugs kill in another way. So knowing the mechanism of action of the particular agent that they're taking, or if it's an oral agent or a biological agent, and then looking at that mechanism and then making sure you don't do anything to thwart the mechanism that they're already ascribing to. Right? So if it's radiation, you don't take strong antioxidant promoting substances during radiation. It's just not a good idea, cuz radiation always uses high oxidation to stress the cells out enough to, to kill themselves. What you might do alongside radiation is try to stimulate immune function without using antioxidants because stimulating immune function during radiation is something that could be useful for the patient in that radiation creates a an area of damage. and the immune system gets called in when there's damage. So we can take advantage of the immune stimulation of the radiation, assuming that the bone marrow is intact and that there's good immune system, at the same time. I would look at that. That's how I would approach it. I'd be like, okay, what's the goal of this particular treatment? Well, how does it work? And how do we make sure first to stay out of its way, second to compliment it alongside whatever it's doing? So taking immune agents alongside radiation is attempting to compliment immune function in such a way that if the immune system is on high alert and there are some new proteins being seen because there's destruction in the area, these new proteins are called neoantigens. So an antigen is what the immune system reacts to. Neo means new. So sometimes cancer cells can have these neoantigens and if that's being spilled at the time of treatment, anything we do alongside that treatment that augments the immune effect can be useful. that's why I say the 40,000 foot view over and over. It's like, what's the goal here? What are we doing? Let's keep everything on the same page in the same direction and not have, you know, the left hand undo with the right hand is doing.

Leah 26:00

So

Quelling inflammation-always good?

Leah 26:01

you also would look at, for somebody who is undergoing radiation, you wouldn't want them to do high dose anti-inflammatories because inflammation would also be a signal to your body. Because I think of that with surgery, right? People take, you know, anti-inflammatories to heal after a, after any injury, really. And by doing that, you're actually. Potentially reducing that healing response because you need a certain level of inflammation in, like you were saying, with the cut on your finger. but this is definitely something because taking natural anti-inflammatories like bromine and there are different post-surgical nutrition formulas that people take. and everybody thinks about that reducing inflammation, reducing pain, but you do want that inflammatory response for a period of time. It's when that inflammatory response gets kind of outta control, you know, and lasts longer than in theory it should, that the problem comes in. But you do want that initial inflammation. So I would think with radiation that plays a part as well.

Tina 27:04

Yes. Like I said, number one, stay out of the way. That's always the number one thing we have to do, because even when we look at the statistics, you're looking at statistics for the radiation or the chemo and the response rates and that kind of thing. let's just assume those people did nothing else but that treatment, cuz that's how it was done in a clinical trial. So stay outta the way because whatever stats are coming out the other side of that study, I consider those the worst case scenario stats. And our job is to augment that response rate, to augment the effect of that particular treatment that has been chosen. And so, you're right, I, I totally agree. Like after surgery, you don't start pumping curcumin when you come out of the recovery room. You wait, uh, depending on the extent of the surgery, it's usually at least a week, if not two weeks after surgery, before you start to do anti-inflammatories because your first job is to clot properly and not get in the way of blood clot formation, which has to happen post-surgery and to just support your systems and not get in the way of the first stages of surgical recovery. Now this is why, how you go into surgery. is more important, like on the flip side, pre-surgery, getting Redding, making sure you have adequate zinc, adequate vitamin A, adequate, omega-3 fatty acids integrated into all of your cells. Going in completely replete in all of the nutrients is really the goal, so that when you come out the other side, there are no needs for a little while. You might just make sure that people have their daily doses of vitamin C and B vitamins and things like that, but not mega doses, just adequate doses, no deficiencies on the other side, and some surgeries are pretty extensive. So the timing of that and when to bring in supplements for recovery of surgery depends on the extent of the surgery and where it was done in someone's body. All right, so can I just say, referring back to that movie, you know, we're talking about all of these things about stabilizing disease and getting the most outta treatment. I wanna say

Is your conventional treatment meant to cure you?

Tina 28:58

that one of the things everyone has to do when they're gonna go for treatment is be very wide-eyed about whether they are in fact pursuing a cure for their cancer or control of its growth. Those are two different paths to take. You know, when we talk about a why in the road and you have to go left or right, I think you need to know this right out of the gates. I mean, this is one of the things in that movie that was ultimately tragic and that was that one of the people that was followed was a woman with early stage pea sized when it was first found breast cancer, assuming that was stage one. she refused surgery. the documentary and in real life. And she ultimately succumbed to her disease 10 years later. And statistically, that wouldn't have happened had she just had surgery for stage one and, and follow up care, and the surgery being the primary treatment for that particular stage. she was philosophically opposed to conventional treatment for many reasons, but I feel like it's tragic in that I don't know if she quite understood the difference between taking definitive, likely curative treatment versus not doing it. I don't know if she ever fully understood it, and if she did and then was still still philosophically opposed, then so be it. But I, I wasn't convinced that she truly understood the risk she was taking by not getting surgery.

Leah 30:24

and the treatment plan that either was given to her by a naturopath or, the things that she picked up being on, you know, in these online groups, it was a very hodgepodge combination.

Tina 30:37

Mm-hmm.

Leah 30:38

of things, and I don't think she knew what was in some of the things like that, that, I can't remember the name of it, that herbal formula that she was drinking. You know, it's just, it was just this whole, like throwing the, the natural kitchen sink at the cancer.

Tina 30:51

Yeah. Yeah. And so I, I think. If someone is gonna pursue that and they're philosophically opposed to conventional medicine for whatever reason, um, it could be philosophy, it could be religion, it could be whatever. Then knowing the goal of treatment and how the treatment is supposed to kill the cancer is important. I mean, it it, and how it's going to get your body ultimately to take care of the cancer. I don't see anything out there that is so tried and true that you can continue to do it over and over and over again to cure a cancer. certainly no singular natural product. I can say that for sure. gra is not gonna cure everyone's cancer. Cannabis will not cure everyone's cancer. Apricot's, kernels are not gonna do it. if you're gonna pursue this, your best shot is to do it with someone who's doing treatments that are at least all on the same page. I mean, are we, are we stimulating immune effect? I'll give you an example. There's a gentleman down in Mexico doing, what he calls atavistic therapy, and I don't know anything about this guy. I need to look him up and look at it better, but at least he has some, a thought process around what he's doing. He's doing something where he's going after the onco biome. He's going after the organisms that are inside the cancer and you know, he's going after it with conventional agents and not just natural agents. He's using antibiotics, He's doing all sorts of other things, but there's at least a system of thought around it. Or someone who's doing immunotherapies in Germany, they're doing dentured cell therapy. Most of these. These alternative therapies are not just using natural agents, they're combining it with conventional, even in the alternative realm. So they might be using one of these PD one PDL one inhibitors like KT truder, Opdivo alongside hyperthermia, which is high temperature, you know, basically putting your, your entire body under. Yeah, basically. I always think of the French, the thing that keeps the french fries warm.

Leah 32:43

Yes,

Tina 32:44

I guess those infrared lamps that keep food warm. It's basically what it is. A glorified and medically

Leah 32:51

food warmer.

Tina 32:52

it's a Yeah. You go under infrared lamps and you get your body temperature, core, body temperature up, hyperthermia. But in these instances, when there is success, they're generally combining low-dose chemotherapy, immune therapies, off-label use like Keytruda, Obdivo, hyperthermia, intravenous vitamin C and other nutrients. Nutrition, hydrotherapy, sometimes homeopathy, you know, they're doing a basket of things, but at all times there is a goal in mind. They're not put together in a hodgepodge kind of way where they're just going down a list. They're actually saying, okay, when you get this, we're going to be immune stimulating. Why we increase your core body temperature and we give you these other like mushrooms or other immune stimulating agents. So I'm saying this because a lot of times when people self, self prescribe, they're lacking the goal of a a, a gestalt to the whole thing. Like what is, what is the goal of this treatment? It's not just to take a bunch of things that. A reputed anti-cancer effect. You really need to be mindful of creating oxidation, antioxidation inflammation, not so much inflammation. You're like, what are we doing? How are we doing it? Are we harming the cells? If so, how? How are we doing it? So I think that's what was lacking in the cancer conflict. The gentleman who was a scientist by nature and by profession, I think he was capable of doing this if someone kind of guided him better. Um, I think some of the choices he made was because of a misinterpretation, of what was doing what in his body. And he didn't have that 40,000 foot view that said, okay, this is direction we're gonna go in right now. Here's what we're gonna do. Here's what we want your body to accomplish and how we're gonna control the cancer growth. Cuz he had stage four cancer. Control is really control stability while living a, A life without symptoms is really the goal of stage four.

Leah 34:47

I think that's a really good, time for us to take a break and then come back and We'll, we're gonna read a, I'm gonna read a letter, I'll read the letter and then you get to answer

Tina 34:56

Okay.

Leah 34:57

but yeah, so we got a letter from, a listener who brought up some points, regarding the film and, you know, how we responded to it. So, yeah, we'll be back and I'll read the letter and Tina's gonna answer it. Mm-hmm. tag.

Tina 35:15

Sounds good.

A listener writes us... we respond.

Leah 35:25

All right, we're back and we're going to read and answer questions, from a listener's letter. So this is a letter from Tim and he starts off with, I've only listened to a couple episodes of your podcast. I really like it as you casually discussed different topics. The latest episode had some assertions you both made that I think you might wanna look into a revisit. I like that. I like I like being called out.

Tina 35:52

Well, we're revisiting it now, so this is good.

Leah 35:55

Yes. This is our revisit. Okay, so here's one example. This is about the movie and um, oh, you talk about a patient who had targeted therapy and then attributed that targeted therapy to tumor shrinkage in other places in his body. Yeah. So this is, grant. Who we referred to in the movie and then he goes on. Um, you both thought that the simple, oh, that the simply does not happen and would be impossible. While it probably was not happening in his case, this is something that has been documented. It is just rare. Sometimes ablation and S B R T radiation on a single tumor can cause tumor shrinking in remote locations. Evidently the tumor damage cause the immune system to be able to see the tumor cells as foreign and kick them into action.

The Abscopal effect

Leah 36:40

So, okay, so Tina, that is what is known as the Abscopal effect, correct?

Tina 36:49

Mm-hmm. Abscopal literally translates to off-target. So the abscopal effect is well known in oncology, and the abscopal effect is when you are treating one area, and he's right. This is something that is rare and does happen, but a good example of this is people who were getting radiation, spot radiation to the bones for melanoma, and there were cases that when they were getting spot radiation to the bone from melanoma in the bone, they would have a disappearance of the melanoma in other parts of the body that were far outside the radiation field, that is the off target or abscopal effect. So the immune system is clearly being triggered and controlling the cancer in other parts of the body. In these instances, we now are combining checkpoint inhibitor drugs. With radiation to actually try to achieve this effect in melanoma. So these checkpoint inhibitors are already used for melanoma and if someone gets radiation and is getting a checkpoint inhibitor, you have a much better chance of achieving an Abscopal effect. So what the patient did in the movie grant, he got chemotherapy to the liver.

Leah 38:02

Well, he got, yeah, he got, both like chemotherapy directly into his liver as well as he was getting, radiofrequency ablation. So he was getting RFA and attributing his overall good response throughout his body, more to the treatment in Germany, which was the rfa.

Tina 38:21

In that scenario, we did say that it was more likely to be the oral targeted agent that was controlling his disease. But that was based on the fact that when he stopped the oral agent, he had progression of his disease. He continued the, uh, ablative therapy, the radiofrequency ablation, and the chemotherapy to his liver. He had continued that and stopped the oral agent that his UK doctor, his head medical oncologist had prescribed. He progressed and on basis of the result of progression is why we said that, what we said. But this. Writer, Tim has a valid point. Sometimes ablation, and ablation is a fancy word for destruction. Ablative therapies, and that could be in this case, in the movie it was radiation, it could be cryo ablation where they take liquid nitrogen and destroy a tumor with that by you literally freeze the tumor. it could be any type of ablation, but any destruction of the tumor can elicit an Abscopal effect because I call it sloppy cell death. When you ablate a tumor in any form, ablation itself is very destructive and it's a sloppy cell death, meaning the cells basically just get destroyed. They are obliterated. They spill their contents. Just think of like a, a water balloon bursting, right? So that's what it looks like. Boo boo boo. You have this like destructive. Sloppy cell death. That's a good thing cuz sloppy cell death is stimulating to the immune system, especially if anything inside that cell is new to the immune system. These are the neoantigens new proteins that's can stimulate immune function. Now if it's s stimulated in this case, in his liver, then yeah you can go and have that immune reaction, target cancer cells elsewhere in the body and achieve an Episcopal effect. And I actually do this with patients all the time, alongside any therapy that is destructive. Could be a biopsy, could be ablation, therapy of some kind. Could just be spot radiation, could, could be chemotherapy or some targeted therapies. If it's something that's going to be destructive in such a way that the cells are going to possibly spill their contents. I

Herbal adjuvants: astragalus, ginseng, echinacea

Tina 40:32

will use herbs that augment the immune system during that time. So there are some plants that are known to have substances that are adjuvants to the immune system. Now, an adjuvant is a fancy word for helper. It's a helper molecule. So when we get any kind of vaccine in our arm, you don't just get the protein of the whatever you're gonna get, I don't know, whatever vaccine it is. Okay. Flu or, or, yeah, whatever the MM M R vaccine, whatever you're gonna get. When you, when a vaccine works in a human being, it comes with an adjuvant. You can't just give a little protein and expect an immune response. You have to have an adjuvant and nearly all cases, and that adjuvant is necessary to achieve an immune response. So I'm doing something similar but different, right? So if there's already something that might be spilling these neoantigens, well, I'm gonna give an adjuvant alongside that. So plants that contain adjuvants, I can tell you the ones I use every time. Elderberry, gin, sing, astragalus and eia. Very simple. And I do it on a routine basis because why not? There's no reason not to do them. Those are not plants that are gonna interfere with the treatment. astragalus and eia and a gin sing in particular. Elderberry is case by case basis.

Leah 41:50

Do you, but like with immunotherapy, you would use these with immunotherapy.

Tina 41:55

not if they're on a PD one inhibitor or a checkpoint inhibitor. No, I probably wouldn't because I'd be afraid to stimulate the immune system too.

Leah 42:02

Right, right,

Tina 42:04

Yeah. And, and, and for the listeners, a common side effect of these checkpoint inhibitors, is that the immune system, basically due to unmasking the cancer, you can unmask other tissues cuz that's what these checkpoint inhibitors do. They, they expose the cancer to the immune system. When someone's on a checkpoint inhibitor, I'm very careful about immune stimulation because autoimmunity is a common side effect

Leah 42:28

right, right.

Tina 42:30

Yeah. We don't wanna, we don't wanna increase the autoimmunity effect.

Leah 42:32

So these things that you named, these aren't things that people take. Here comes the word willy-nilly. for any cancer, for any treatment.

Tina 42:42

No, no. Again, it's always about not getting in the way first and making sure someone's safe. So if someone has a melanoma and they're getting radiation and they're already on a checkpoint inhibitor. I probably would not do it in that scenario. The vast majority of my patients are not on any kind of prescribed immunotherapy. So if it was just someone getting ablation to the liver for their colon cancer, metastasis to the liver and they're gonna get radio ablation as a treatment, then I would use these plants cuz there's no other immune augmentation going on.

Leah 43:10

Right. Whereas in the setting where I work, everybody's on some form of treatment, and so I need to be a little bit more, what's the word? Conservative and aware. Yeah.

Tina 43:22

Yeah, that makes sense. So, yeah, and, and that brings up the point of everything is case by case basis. Right.

Track 1 43:28

So don't go running out and buying these herbs and taking them thinking like, oh, well this is what Tina does. Don't do that. She's not your doctor. Haven't said that in a while.

Tina 43:38

Yeah, you're due, you're due for that reminder. And chemotherapy is not an ablation. Chemotherapy is not an ablative therapy. most therapies are not ablation. If you'll see ablation in the title of the treatment. Cryotherapy ablation, radiotherapy,

What's apoptosis?

Tina 43:52

ablation. So in, for the most part, most treatments are not. And when cells die by apoptosis, you know that word that comes up a lot in natural, alternative cancer circles, apoptosis, A P O P T O S I S, that is not it's not sloppy cell death. It's a very neat and clean way of cells dying. Cause right now, as we sit here, we have lots of cells in our body that are undergoing apoptosis as a routine matter of life and death. Think of apoptosis like the cell folding in on itself like a pup tent, you know, just it's very clean. Does not stimulate any immune system, recognition at all. Apoptosis is a normal process throughout all cells in the, nearly all cells in the body, I should say. And it does not stimulate immune, uh, recognition in any way, shape, or form. So apoptosis is something that, when I started back in late nineties, 2000 apoptosis was our goal. and now creating more immune stimulation is our goal. Ultimately, if you wanna get rid of cancer, you have to engage the immune system unless you can cut all of it out with surgery. So that's basically it. I mean, there is no, no other way. I guess you could say testicular cancer and some germ cell tumors can be cured with chemotherapy. so I should say there are some few and far between that can be eradicated through toxicity with chemo and or radiation. But that's a small list. Most of them are eradicated through immune system involvement.

Track 1 45:17

which is why we're seeing more and more immunotherapies being incorporated into. treatment regimens that previously weren't, you know, being used. So yeah, no, it's all, it's all very exciting, field and that's part of why we do it. Okay. So let's move on to, um, I'm gonna skip a little bit and then Okay. Here's the next part. So, okay, Tina.

And, another thing...

Track 1 45:40

Okay, this is Tim talking, not me. Another thing that I should think should have been called out is the irresponsibility of the doctor who refused to do scans if he or she has not done so, the woman might have been able to realize her alternative treatments were not working and been convinced to combine surgery or standard of care options.

Leah 45:58

Oncologists offer this type of watch and wait service to patients. In many cases, they should at least offer it when life circumstances, finances, or fear are causing someone to run away from standard care options. Instead, she was thrown to the wolves. That's pretty harsh. I think like, first off, both of the patients in the movie were being treated in, in the United Kingdom, and so their standards of care are different. I think because of, I'm guessing because of the national health, system that they have there in terms of not paying for care. they probably have very like, rigid guidelines as to what we saw that in the movie. Right? I mean, they do, they're, they're very like specific guidelines as to if you're gonna get certain treatments. So, um, I don't, we're watching an edited documentary. Right. We don't know necessarily what happened.

Tina 46:50

totally agree. And, and whether she walked away or whether they dismissed her, I don't know if we know that for a fact.

Leah 46:56

And I'm, I'm trying to remember back. I feel like I need to watch that movie again. I'm trying to remember exactly where was it, was she saying that they wouldn't follow her,

Tina 47:06

If she didn't say it explicitly, she implied it. But yes, that's how I, I did get that impression. Yes.

Leah 47:11

but because did we meet her oncologist?

Tina 47:16

I don't believe so. Mm-hmm.

Leah 47:18

Cause I know, I know. We, we saw, we met Grant's oncologist for because there was that part that we called out in the first one where, Grant comes back from Germany and it was like, oh yeah, my scans were good. And the oncologist was like, okay, here, let's get you Avastin. And we were like, wait a minute. They didn't look at the scan. They just took the guy's word for it. Like that part was like weird,

Tina 47:40

Yeah. You know, this calls to mind something though, and that is she chose to do alternative and objective evidence needs to be weighed, right? it needs to be done. You need the scans, you need the objective evidence. Even if you feel better and you have an internal tumor that you can't palpate, you can't feel it in any way, shape or form. You have improved symptoms. Let's just say you. A mass in your colon and you're constipated, and then you do this alternative therapy and look at that. Now I'm pooping. I must be better. No, you need an image to show what your tumor is doing. My point to this is I have seen this happen unfortunately, where people are placated by a clinic that is completely unscrupulous unethical, that says, oh yeah, your scans look better. Your scans look better. They come back to the United States, cuz this might be in another country, come back to the United States and get a scan done. And they're like, oh wait, wow. How has it gotten bigger? They told me it was getting smaller and they were feeling better cuz you can help people feel better So they equated feeling better with improvement in their cancer state and there wasn't an objective improvement on the imaging. So to me, this calls to mind the importance of objective evidence. You need to not just feel better, you need to actually have shrinkage of the tumor, as proven by an image to carry on with a given.

Leah 48:59

Yeah. But I think, like I had brought up with not knowing how it goes, if you're treated in the, in the UK for cancer, but in the US there are patients who choose alternative therapies and there are oncologists who refuse to follow them if that's what they're gonna do. And you can go and you can get. Opinions you can go find another oncologist. there are options for that. There are patients who will see multiple oncologists until they find someone who is okay with just following them as they choose to do, an alternative treatment. I don't know what if that's, maybe it is an option in the uk. I don't know why she didn't pursue that. She did find that woman who was doing the thermograms and that's the imaging she was using.

Tina 49:46

And those thermograms are what gave her a false sense of the cancer being controlled.

Leah 49:53

So, yeah, I mean, I remember that when I first, graduated from naturopathic school and we were told like, if you are seeing a patient with cancer and they refuse conventional treatment, you need to make sure that they're being followed by an oncologist still. And if not, you know, it's like

Track 1 50:13

illegal

Leah 50:13

issue. So again, I don't know what the, and maybe someone can answer that. Maybe someone who's listening, from overseas can tell us like, how easy is it to just kind of find another oncologist, you know? So, I think that, yeah, we didn't call it out, but I definitely. About Grant and his oncologist, his oncologist, for not requesting copies of the records and just taking somebody's word for it because Grant knew that his tumor wasn't better. So that, that part I called out. But yes, um, I didn't think of it, it just wasn't something that I just assumed like, okay, national health, you're not gonna have a lot of options for the doctors you get, but maybe I'm wrong. So someone let us know. Write us a letter. Okay.

Curcumin only does good? Or...?

Leah 50:55

So the next part, uh, in a different podcast you talked about avoiding curcumin when someone is having chemo, but the science is out there studying curcumin and also a lot of antioxidants with chemotherapy. In every case, there was a beneficial effect. yet most people don't know this. I think the definitive study was done in 2012 on this published, but without much impact. No study has ever shown bad effects yet these types of things will never reach stage three clinical trials as there is no one going to spend millions on this or any other natural therapy, even if it is just something that could aid traditional therapy. But it'd be nice if big Pharma would invest into these things. that could help reduce side effects or enhance the effectiveness of their drugs. So do we, talk about the definitive study done in 2012?

Tina 51:41

do you know which one he's referring?

Leah 51:43

No, but when I did initially search for curcumin studies in 2012, Agarwal study came up.

Tina 51:49

Mm-hmm. Yes. Barra, Agarwal, PhD. And you know, unfortunately, probably just had so many scientists running around that he didn't, I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt. He didn't know how much was being falsified in the day that he was actually using for his publications. I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt, because that's what I do.

Leah 52:08

So we cover this in the curcumin episode. We talk about how to look for, retractions in studies. There was that, um, pub Pier app. that we discussed, that Tina, that you use. So, yeah. A lot of the more recent, studies looking at curcumin do refer back to these other studies. It's like this whole wormhole of curcumin studies. So, um, where, where Tim points out in every case there was a beneficial effect using curcumin and antioxidants with chemotherapy.

Tina 52:48

Yeah. where do I start with this one? So, we'll put a link to Retraction Watch and the 30 publications by Bar Agarwal that have been retracted or corrected. I, again, I'm gonna give him benefit of it out and that he didn't know this was going on. He's not, you know, a flyby night scientist. He was down at MD Anderson. He's spoken at our conferences at the on a and P with our, our National Conference for naturopathic physicians who specialize in oncology. He's spoken at our events. a lot of his data has been literally falsified, cut and paste, duplicate images, those kind of things. Not just statistical shenanigans, actual falsification of data. So, so let's just put that paper aside because we don't know if it's valid or not. I'll just assume. Not if it's been retracted.

Leah 53:31

and we don't know if this is the definitive study that's being referred to, but this is the one that came up.

Tina 53:35

No. And he is, he's the big curcumin researcher. in the last 20 years. In any case, um, let's just talk about this, taking it one substance by one substance. Chemotherapy has different mechanisms of action. And so just saying no antioxidants interfering with chemotherapy. chemotherapy may be oxidative, maybe it's not. It depends on the mechanism for that particular chemotherapy drug and, It's not always an issue. Antioxidants with every single chemotherapy. that said, I don't know if it's true that we can say any definitive study has ever been done on curcumin in chemotherapy. I, I don't think there is actually. I, I think I would know though, if I've come across that I've been, I, I think I've told you this in the curcumin episode, when I first looked up to curcumin, I watched all of the papers coming through PubMed. There was 33 papers when I was my first year of residency. So I read all of them and now there's like 33 papers a day. So there's no way to keep up with every single one. But I do have a screen that says clinical trials, specifically only clinical trials now. Not animal data when it comes to curcumin, cuz we're beyond that now. The whole antioxidant thing is again, a matter of dosage. When something like curcumin has been found to be useful, it's been in such high doses that it's no longer acting as an antioxidant. So we, we have to be mindful of mechanism at all times. So in answer to the question, I still would say there are many times that antioxidants are not a good idea and it has to do with what happens in cancer cells as a matter of being under a stress of chemotherapy. So regardless of the mechanism, let's just say this cancer cell is being stressed out enough to decide whether to kill itself, cuz that's often how they do it, self-destruction or turn on its survival pathways, which is the other option when something is under duressed, when something is being stressed out, biologic. in this case it's a cancer cell, a cell has an option, right? So it's like, imagine it being beat up It's getting the one two punch of the chemotherapy, maybe radiation alongside it. It's got two choices. It either folds and goes down and kills itself. And that's usually an apoptosis process, maybe autophagy, in any case, it either kills itself or it says, wait a second, you're not doing that to me. I'm gonna turn on all my survival pathways at once and I'm gonna make it past this stressor I'm gonna live. And you don't wanna support that particular direction right? So you don't want survival pathways, you don't want the cell to dig down deep in survive through your otherwise toxic biological stress, whatever we wanna call it, So that is my argument for the internal antioxidant production like glutathione or superoxide dismutase, all these antioxidants that we can produce inside our cells. Powerful antioxidants that can do things. that help the cell survive, like putting pumps on the outside of the cell to pump the chemicals back out so that as fast as you're giving it to 'em, they're like, ah. And they just make a bunch more exits and literally use their energy to pump the chemo out of their cell cuz they don't wanna die. They're deciding to go the path of a survival mechanism. We would be supporting such decision by that cell if we give, all of these things like glutathione, n a c, lipoic acid, and other, other things that increase our production of antioxidant inside the cell. For the record And for those who are steeped in the science, this is usually done through NRF two. Nerf two is what we call it. And that stimulates a special section on the DNA N called the antioxidant response element. And if you stimulate the antioxidant response element, that's how we get the production of all of these intracellular inside the cell. antioxidant enzymes that are very powerful and help the cell survive. And so what we don't want when we have a cell under duress trying to kill it is to stimulate its survival pathways. And that is why I don't give things that do that, that support Nerf two. Um, and that's a lot of antioxidants,

Leah 57:41

and that's a supplement. Like you can find supplements that say that specifically on there. And you know, that's a question. Patients are like, oh, I saw this and it, you know, it's supposed to be awesome to, to fight cancer. And it's like, well, not while you're getting your treatment, that's fighting cancer.

Tina 57:58

right? Right now, now these systems are great pre-cancer before a primary diagnosis, especially because assuming there's no cancer in the body and there's chemical compounds inside the cell or something, Diesel fumes or whatever's down the road from you, or poor air quality or whatever you ingested, and your cells are being toxified in a, in a way that's not healthy. It's actually getting, you know, damaged from it. That is what the system is for. And when people are, you know, trying to detox, I'm putting that in air quotes cuz I don't know if I like the word detox, but the cell is detoxifying itself through this Nerf a r e, system. So, we just need to know time and place and mechanism of what we're doing for each thing that we do. I mean, I keep saying that, but that's really ultimately what it is. It's like, what is our goal? Is our goal to pump the chemo back outta the cell? No, it's, it's not really our goal during the time that we're trying to kill the cell through toxifying it. So, so that's my long answer to his question or statement about antioxidants with chemotherapy. In every case there was a beneficial effect. I would refute that statement. I would don't think that in every case there was a beneficial.

Leah 59:02

and I mean, I don't know if he's referring to, you know, were there studies. Looking at humans or is this another in vitro, study or studies that, that he's talking

Interactions that are more relevant

Leah 59:12

about? I do know that, there are certain chemotherapies or there's certain, yeah, I mean, I count tamoxifen as a chemotherapy, not in like the iv, you know, chemo kind of a way. But there are systemic therapies that curcumin would be contraindicated with because of curcumin's action of keeping things around in the body longer.

Tina 59:37

Mm-hmm. Mm.

Leah 59:38

So because of the way it's metabolized, it can hold onto certain drugs. longer, which can then affect how those drugs work in terms of like increasing toxicity or in the case of Tamoxifen, it has two steps to get to the effective drug. And so if you alter the way that a drug is hanging out in the body, you're gonna alter the way that it converts to the active form. Am I making sense in my head? I.

Tina 1:00:07

You're making perfect sense, and I think that people should know that when they're taking, you know, the technical term is a pro-drug, Tamoxifen is a drug because that's how we dispense it. But in reality, it's a pro-drug when it comes to the actual effect on cells, because pro-drugs need to be metabolized to their active agent.

Leah 1:00:25

So you don't wanna mess with that. And it doesn't mean that somebody on Tamoxifen can't eat curry or drink golden milk or, you know, take turmeric. But in terms of taking the supplement high dose, it's not something you wanna do with that. It's not something you wanna do if you are on Adriamycin or Cytoxin, you know, there, there are specific, tacrolimus I think is another one. But yeah, there are, um, specific drugs that it has been shown to interact with. So I'm not gonna say it's not ever shown any bad effects, because I mean, it has been shown at the high doses to cause stomach upset, which is a bad effect. But I think interacting with your chemotherapy is a really bad effect.

Tina 1:01:04

Yeah. You know, and that reminds me, I dislike the term antioxidant You know why?

Track 1 1:01:11

After all this talk about antioxidants.

Tina 1:01:14

No, you know what, it's, you know why, because we use it as if that is a noun, but it's actually describing what the molecule does. Like it's acting as an antioxidant. It's an antioxidant action. So, so to even say that a compound is an antioxidant makes it sound like it's all of that. It is. When in fact it's just one of the things that it is, it's like saying, you know, I'm someone's sister I'm also someone's daughter. I'm also like, there's other things that I am just like the curcumin, it, it, it can act as an antioxidant. It can also act as something that interferes with the drugs. That's not an antioxidant effect that's happening. As you know, it's interfering with enzymes called Cytochrome P four 50. So I also think that we oversimplify it to an extent that's not biologically relevant when we just call something an antioxidant. So maybe something accident antioxidant, but it also promotes. Natural killer cell function. And that effect is much more profound than it's very, very mild antioxidant effect that happens to, you know, be something similar to vitamin C, which isn't as powerful as glutathione. So what I'm saying is it's all contextual and it's all, it's much more complicated than any blanket statements. There's nothing we can say like all antioxidants. All chemotherapies. As soon as we start to simplify it that much, then we're probably not taking into account all the data. It's just a given cuz each molecule has to be looked at separately and ev every chemotherapy and every type of cancer has to be looked at as its own entity. And even subtypes within the cancer, as you well know. And everyone who has had breast cancer knows there's many different subtypes of breast cancer, so, so I think the oversimplification gets us in trouble is basically my take home.

Leah 1:02:57

All right, so wrapping up the letter,

One last point...

Leah 1:03:00

um, he continues. I know in my case my oncologist was scratching his head how well chemo was working in me, given my type and stage of cancer. Usually has very little hope for chemo to work. He said there was nothing typical about my response. He just said, I don't understand all the extra stuff you're doing with your integrative doctor, but I would keep doing it if I.

Tina 1:03:19

So one That's awesome. So I'm happy to hear that. And although the snippets we have in this letter are one thing I'm guessing that the integrative doctor you're working with is fully aware of what's evidence to compliment the chemotherapy for you in your particular scenario with your particular drug, they're looking at the evidence and saying, okay, this has been shown to complement it, or this has been shown to lessen the side effect and not interfere with it. and that's how we do our, work, right? So we, we look at the particular drug and it would change if it was a different drug, it probably what you're doing alongside it would. shift accordingly. And so your integrative practitioner is probably mindful of everything I've, that we've talked about in this episode, is my guess.

Leah 1:04:02

Yeah, no, I think it's great. I think like whatever Tim has been doing as prescribed by his, um, integrative doctor, I mean, isn't, that's, that's the dream, right? I mean that's, that's, that's, that's truly what the goal is. of, you know, the, the, it's why we do what we do. so I think that's wonderful. And I think his, you know, his questions and his calling us out and I, I love it. I mean, I think because we're not able to have this, this dialogue with our listeners, um, I think letter letters are really great and they're starting to come in more, which is really nice. And so we'll have more to address in the future. So thank you, Tim, for, for writing to us. And I hope we addressed the points that you made.

Tina 1:04:43

Yeah. Yeah. I, I totally agree. I. More letters, especially if we are saying something, you know, we have each other and we know what the other person is intending to say sometimes. And so maybe being held accountable in case we say things ambiguously or come across saying something we didn't mean to say, I suppose we should be called out on all of that.

Leah 1:05:03

We try to catch each other, we each edit a couple times. Um, so try to catch each other. But sometimes, like you were saying, like. What we're actually saying may not be what we think we hear, we're what we're hearing us say

Tina 1:05:17

Exactly.

Leah 1:05:18

like now. It's not necessarily what the, the mouth is not saying what the brain is thinking. So, yeah. So we don't always catch each other. So, no, this is great. I mean, we, again, like these are our opinions. This is not, um, I don't know. What am I saying? What am I trying to say? It's late

Tina 1:05:38

Yeah. And, um, yeah, these are our opinions. So as, as in all medicine, it's all opinion based. And, uh, you've been doing this, what, 15 years? I've been doing it 22 years. So they're educated opinions. and we do work with patients. These are not, uh, abstract opinions. We do realize the practicality of, of a lot of what we talk about and instituting it. Um, and first do no harm is always top of mind. so I, I keep that in mind. And we go from there.

Track 1 1:06:03

Well, I think, I think we've covered a heck of a lot in

Winding down

Track 1 1:06:07

this episode. Um, This wraps up the last part of the Cancer Conflict Series. Uh, we kind of touched on maybe we will do some sort of, whether through YouTube or Patreon, we'll do some sort of a live where we can watch it and get like, real time feedback from people.

Tina 1:06:24

Mm-hmm. Mm.

Track 1 1:06:25

Um, I think that would be really good. I think trying to bring back, we did some of those Instagram lives for a while and, and I don't know, it didn't seem to really get a lot of a big audience, but I, I do like getting feedback from people. So yeah, keep those letters coming. if you like the information in this episode, make sure that you share it. Share it with friends, share it with family, share it with strangers,

Tina 1:06:53

Well, statistically most people do find, indie podcasts by sharing. I mean, because we are not, um, produced by a large media company. Um, it tends to be word of mouth that people find. Little indie podcast like ours. Hopefully someone entertaining, hopefully very useful. And, um, you know, it's just a conversation that keeps happening. we're just re we'll revisit some of our older topics and if we are ambiguous, and I know the antioxidant episode is, is one to listen to. if you're curious on more in depth, talking about the antioxidants and, and antioxidant action of many different compounds and what that means. Otherwise we'll put a bunch of links underneath that will be useful for folks to pursue if they wanna understand what we're talking about a little bit better or where we're coming from. Oh, and Leia, it's, it's the end of the year. This is our 49th episode.

Leah 1:07:40

Oh, that's right. That's right. Yes. It's almost our 50th anniversary.

Tina 1:07:45

Yeah. our and I, I called it our golden. That'll be our golden, episode.

Leah 1:07:52

Yeah. So we'll come up with something, we'll, we'll come up with something special and then maybe that's gonna be it for the year, maybe. And then,

Tina 1:07:58

I'd like that. Yeah.

Leah 1:07:59

yeah, cuz it's holidays and there's gonna be like more travel and, and whatnot. So, um, sometime in December will surprise you with our 50th anniversary and or anniversary, our 50th episode,

Tina 1:08:14

I don't, it just seems like we've been together 50 years.

Leah 1:08:16

years. It really does, it does and I love you as much as the day that we first my gosh. Um,

Tina 1:08:29

getting punchy. We're hungry.

Leah 1:08:31

okay. Yeah, yeah. I, I, I, I've got a day ahead of me, so. Okay. Um, rate, review, subscribe, all of those good things.

Tina 1:08:40

Use that fancy little three buttons on your Apple Podcast to go ahead and forward an episode to someone that you know and love and you think would be helped by our conversations. And so, uh, yeah, share the love.

Leah 1:08:53

And on that note, I'm Dr. Leia Sherman,

Tina 1:08:55

And I'm Dr. Tina Kaser.

Leah 1:08:57

and this is the Cancer.

Tina 1:08:59

Until next time.

1:09:00

Thanks for listening to the cancer pod. Remember to subscribe, review and rate us wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us on social media for updates, and as always, this is not medical advice. These are our opinions. Talk to your doctor before changing anything related to your treatment plan. The cancer pod is hosted by me, Dr. Lea Sherman. And by Dr. Tina Caer music is by Kevin McLeod. See you next time.