Trust Your Gut: How to Advocate for Your Health and Make Smarter Decisions

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually help you discover and then live your why. You see, we believe that knowing your why, that driving force behind every decision you make and every action you take, is the essential first step to really knowing yourself. It allows you to move forward faster and have a bigger impact. If you're already a fan of the show, then you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we introduce you to somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. This show will be more powerful for you if you've already discovered your why. If you still need to do that, head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. It'll only take you about five minutes. Now let's meet today's guest.

This week we're going to be talking about the why of make sense to make sense of the complex and challenging. So if this is your why, then you are driven to solve problems and resolve challenging or complex situations. You have an uncanny ability to take in lots of data and information. You tend to observe situations and circumstances around you and then sort through them quickly to create solutions that are sensible and easy to implement. You are often viewed as an expert because of your unique ability to find solutions quickly. You also have the gift for articulating solutions and summarizing them clearly in an understandable language. You believe that many people are stuck and if they could just make sense of their situation, they could develop simple solutions and move forward. In essence, you help people get unstuck and move progress. So today I've got a great guest for you. Her name is Dr. Denise Worden. She is an award winning physician and researcher known for bridging conventional and advanced alternative medicine. A board certified physician, she has expertise in integrative primary care, oncology, pain management and mental health. Dr. Worden is celebrated as a pioneer voice in integrative medicine, introducing innovative therapies for from around the world. She also holds a Master's in Communications, adding depth to her roles as a talk show host and health educator. Recognized as one of the nation's leading health speakers, she captivates audiences across corporate and medical settings. Currently, Dr. Worden is on tour with motivational icon Les Brown and is set to launch her own network TV shows, Health Hot Seat. Additionally, she co founded Pruvit, a clinical research company focused on enhancing wellness standards and her groundbreaking research on geoblastoma is shaping new possibilities in treatment. Dr. Denise welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, Gary. It's great to be here.

This is going to be fun. So you and I know each other a couple different ways, one through the Genius Network. And you're kind of one of the reasons that I'm in the Genius Network, because I met you before I was even part of it.

Yeah. Yeah. I think we're at a dinner and we said, gary, you. They've got to know. All these entrepreneurs have to know their. Why this is important. So sorry.

Yeah. You've cost me a lot of money.

I know.

We've had a great time with it. So let's go. Let's let our audience get to know you. Let's go back in your life. Take us back, Dr. Dunny, to when you were in high school. What were you like? In high school?

I was considered the talented one. I played violin, piano, guitar. I was in musical theater. I loved broadcasting. I loved debating and speech and all those things. Science, I loved. But my thing was, you know, now it's turned into education, but it was really about. I always thought I wanted to be an actress, honestly. But then I said, no, it wasn't deep enough for me. And when I got into the television business right out of high school and when I was in college, still getting my master's degree, even television had its downsides. I like that feedback of real people in front of me. So high school, I was funny. I was the girl that would sit at the popular table and the nerd table. I was the only one that would kind of float between both. I was just friends with everybody, and I didn't have the identity where I was stuck.

Yeah. Were you always at that time, somebody that people came to when they needed help with things, when they needed to solve a problem?

Problem.

Were you already solving problems back in those days?

Yeah, I'd say I was. You know, whatever. Whatever it was that I was doing in the moment, I would be the one that would come up with a solution. And to my. Why. I know sometimes I spat it out. Maybe they didn't want to hear it, but I would usually have a solution to something and not afraid to share it, obviously, because of your. Your. Your program that describes me to a T. It really. Yeah.

Well, you were probably gonna give an answer whether it was right or not, but at least you had one.

Well, I would say I don't know, but here's what I think. And I. And you know what's funny now, Gary, is that. Still do that. And this is with oncology patients now, when I'm working with people that have had, you know, there's stage four terminal cancer patients, you know, all, all stages of cancer, but especially those that are at the end stages, they've exhausted things. Their life is right in front of them. They're looking for someone who's going to tell them the truth, at least the truth that they know it to be and not be afraid to give them the truth. And my job is to educate them to understand all their options in treatment. And when I know that they really understand it, help them make those decisions. And so now that strength has turned into something that's really making a big difference in people's lives.

Yeah, I could see that. And so let's go back. When you graduated, where, where did you grow up?

Grew up all over. I'm an army brat. My dad was in the military. I was born and raised on military braces. Military braces. On military camps, you know, or, or what are they? Military bases. There you go. Military bases. And, you know, I learned early, you know, kind of a regimented here, you know, here's the way we do things. And, and I enjoyed it and I enjoyed moving every six months and meeting new people. So. So when I was in sixth grade, we moved to Louisiana, and that's where this accent came from that stuck like glue. Even though I've been in Arizona now longer than Louisiana. But I've lived many different places and enjoyed it. Some military brats didn't. They just started making friends and then they had to move. I was like, I'm not losing those friends. I'm going to go get some more. So thank goodness I had that personality.

So you graduate from high school in Louisiana, then off to college. Where did you go to college?

Yeah, a couple different places. Had my master's degree and then, you know, and that, that's continued. Now it's called the University of Louisiana in Monroe. And I got my master's degree there and then eventually got my medical degree. You know, there are four different accredited naturopathic medical schools where you can become an nmd naturopathic medical doctor and really be licensed in both systems of medicine. And one of those was in Arizona, actually.

And so that's how you got to Arizona.

No, no. Got to Arizona from a former husband. He wanted to get involved in politics and he did. And that, that's a long story of why that is a former husband. Everything is. Is great. You know, we, we learn a lot as we go through life and have experiences that make us who we are today. And I, I'm I'm grateful for everything that I have been through.

Okay, so graduate from high school, off to college. What did you get your degrees in? What was your interest at that time?

Yeah, my undergraduate was in speech in. In communications, and I was getting my. I had an undergraduate in psychology, and I thought I was going into the master's program in psychology, wanted to do that. But I remember sitting in front of the dean of the psychology department, going into my master's degree and listening to him and thinking, this person is the most unselfish person. And then I started noticing that most of the people, and I don't want to say most, but it just started feeling not like, not a fit. These aren't the people that I wanted to listen or hear from. I read the old philosophers. I still do. I gravitate there. And it just seemed that, like, there was a lot of emotional unrest even within the department itself. And I said, all right, what do I want? I want to get my master's. I was Miss Louis. I was Miss Louisiana at the time. I don't tell many people that, but I'll. You might have already going to be going to bring it up, but. And, you know, I was in that and had my own talk show for NBC. So I was already in the television business when I was starting into my master's program. And I said I might as well get it in that. So that's how it all happened. It, my life pulled me into that master's degree, into a different way that psychology was very interested in and still am today. That's, you know, kind of makes us what we. How we tick and how we.

Okay, so then when you were done, did you. Were you in the broadcasting world for how long were you in that world?

A few years? Yeah. Four foot. Well, if you look at the whole time, I was either in theater and then I went into broadcasting. I had my own television talk shows and was an anchor and actually even a weather person for a while, but I was a news anchor. Yes, I was the weather girl and did that for a while and then my own talk shows and got started getting more serious into the news section of it and this and that. So did that and then moved to Arizona to get involved in politics and Which I did. Learned a lot there and then. So it's been a long journey. I've had many kind of lifetimes and careers, Gary, but I've been in medicine for, you know.

Yeah. So then how did you get in from. From doing that? How did you get into medicine? What became that Thing that says, hey, I got to go into medicine.

You know, science was always near and dear to my heart. It was one of my favorite subjects, always. And I was working with a person that was doing the. He was working with Phoenix Suns and working with others on nutrition and exercise. I was helping him with his marketing and things at the time. And I thought, well, this is interesting because I'd always been into that. I was kind of a competitive athlete myself always, and thought, this is interesting. And he asked me to look into him getting at a degree and, and becoming a naturopathic medical doctor. And I said, well, that sounds fun. And at the same time, my little son, who was five years old at the time, was at Arizona State University getting college credit. I was going to take him to his classes while he was getting college credit. Brilliant, obviously. And I thought, well, I'm sitting here and I like education, I want to do that. So I, that's how I really got into it. It was like again, something outside of myself pulled it all together and put me right there and put those, put it right in front of me and it just felt right. I used my intuition and said, I, this sounds right. I want to do it. My mom had. She was kind of a naturopath without being one my whole life. We were the first in the neighborhood to eat yogurt. We were the first. I mean, she was always reading, always on the leading edge of health and wellness. So it was, it all came to play together. I just trusted that I was being directed in the right direction and was.

And so, okay, off in that direction, you went through naturopathic school. How long did that take?

How long was it? Four years. So you have to have a pre med degree. So it's, you know, a six. You know, you'd have to have eight years in total, just like regular medical school. But it's a four year long program.

Okay, after.

After college.

Yeah, after college, yeah. And so then did you specialize in.

Something within that you don't generally as a naturopath? Because that's the whole concept of being holistic and looking at the body from head to toe. But I gravitated at the time more into physical medicine and into pain management. I had a mentor and several mentors at the time that had a big pain management group. And I was into frequency medicine, cold lasers and red lights and all these things. So that I gravitated and really specialized in pain management for several years and went to Europe and became an expert injector and taught many doctors over the years. In these regenerative injections that everybody's doing now and taught it. And I like the needle. I liked working with that, doing the physical medicine piece. But cancer kept coming in, Gary. And I'm like, no, no, no, I'm not going to do anything with God. You know, my colleagues. Somebody else will deal with the patients that have cancer now. You know, one in two people, you might have cancer. And it was like, it just kept coming and it kept coming. And then I heard about a new way, a new thought, a new way of how to look at cancer. And I said, okay, that's it. There's my new direction. So I've been doing that for many, many years now. The metabolic therapies for cancer and part of research groups. We just got published, by the way, the British Journal of Medicine. We were trying to get it published in America, and the American journals weren't wanting to publish it because it really is taking the paradigm and standing on it on its head. But we got published there at the major journals. So now I think we'll start seeing some more play in America with it. But we've got some great researchers and great clinicians behind it.

When you, when you talk about metabolic for the listeners, what does that mean?

So generally, we think of cancer. When you go, if you have cancer, your oncologist looks at and they run your genetics and they say, okay, here are the drugs or the chemos or the things that will work with the genes that you have or your cancer has, and this is how we're going to treat it. The problem, Gary, is that the minority, like less than 5% of cancers are actually genetically driven. So then you got to say, well, what's causing it? The metabolism inside the cell. Remember that mitochondria, the ATP? I know you do because you're a physician, right? Is that. That. That little organelle inside the cell that gives ATP energy for repair, for detox, for all the things the body needs to do that gets damaged when the mitochondria gets damaged. Now we've got DNA damage, now we've got these downstream things, and we treat the mitochondrial damage. When we are working with cancer patients, it's very different. We're. We're looking at it differently. And it doesn't mean they throw out traditional medicine. I work with oncologists all over the world. Sometimes it's a combination of both. We have different ways of looking at it now, Gary, to know whether even a chemo. How effective it's really going to be, instead of throwing you into a Database saying, you've got this type of cancer, here's what you're going to do. Cookbook. I get very, very precise and does this make sense? Does this. What percentage of your cancer cells is going to be killed by this? How toxic is it going to be? And what else is there? Do we do it together? Do we do it one or the other? I just. My job is to educate the patient so they really understand all the options and then help them come up with a plan that they believe in. Because, Gary, my belief system is whatever you believe is going to be your best bet, that's your best medicine. Because you take a breath and you say, I got it. I've made the decision. Now your own immune system, your own body gets involved because you're not in this stress of somebody, please save me, you've made the decision. And those are the patients that thrive, not just survive.

So traditional treatment is describe for the listeners the difference between traditional cancer treatment and what currently they're doing.

Yeah, it depends on the type of cancer. You know, there are four types of cancers that can be cured by chemotherapy, but most can't be cured. And those chemotherapies sometimes leave the cancer stem cells, which means you've killed off a few cells, and the tumors shrink, and everybody gets all excited, but those stem cells are just waiting to grow back out. They have three main things, right? They have chemotherapy, which is toxic to the cancer cells, but also to the human body, have radiation, which is shrinking that tumor size, and surgery. There is immunotherapy also, which it's hard for it to have a good chance to work because usually they have to fail chemotherapy before they're allowed to do go into immunotherapy. And by then they've destroyed the immune system. So those are the big buckets. That is. So it's surgery, radiation, or drugs. And in our world, treating it a little differently. We generally agree if we've got a tumor, you take it out surgically, take out the bulk of that tumor in those cells, get that out of there. I'm generally in agreement with, with that. If it's metastasized, that means it's spread throughout the body. That changes everybody's viewpoint of what needs to be done next. Why even start cutting up and doing surgeries if we've got it throughout the body? And that's when we help say, okay, let's look at the whole picture. But we do hyperbaric oxygen, and we do ketogenic diet and repurposed medications. And that could be vitamin C, IVs, it could resveratrol, it could be a statin, it could be metformin. There are many things that we can test for now to see how many cancer cells can be killed, your cancer cells specifically, by these different things. So the pillars are exercise and usually interval training. We've gotta go fast, slow, fast, slow. Right. Interval, intermittent fasting, ketogenic diet, hyperbaric oxygen and stress reduction. Because there's two big pathways that feed cancer. One is glucose. One is glucose. The other is glutamine and glutamate. And guess what feeds that stress. So you can do the ketogenic diet. You can do all the right things and still be having trouble in dumping sugar because the body's gonna get it from the muscles. It's going to find it somewhere. So we have to address those pieces. And when we do, we see amazing things. We're beating the odds, we're beating the price prognosis of you've got this long to live or how fast is cancer is going to be. So it's very exciting. We have great data. And when you mentioned the study at the beginning on glioblastoma, that's a brain tumor, it's the hardest one, it's fast, it's the most aggressive. And if you can make changes in any way to glioblastomas, that's when everybody takes up, sits up and says, okay, we need to listen. That's why we did the paper on glioblastoma. Even though we treat all cancers with these kinds of therapies, you know what.

Popped into my head? And I don't know if this is accurate or not, but the treatment that you're doing, what does that do to the healthy cells?

So this is the fun part of the story. Whenever I read this book and everybody's interested in this read Tripping over the Truth, Truth by Travis Christofferson. When I read that book, I said, okay, I'm getting involved in this. Bye bye pain management. I'm in. It's the same therapies that are still being studied by Dr. Dominic D'. Agostino. He's at the University of Southern Florida. He's funded by DARPA, the Defense Department, NASA. He's studying the super soldiers, he's studying our Navy SEALs and the astronauts. What are the therapies that allow them to have immense emotional and physical stress and still be strong and healthy? Guess what? It's the therapies I just mentioned. And what he found was when he was studying that and seeing what it was doing with all the healthy cells and the healthy guys. He saw apoptosis, that's cancer cells bursting under the microscope. And he then found Dr. Thomas Seyfried at Boston College. He's kind of our leader in metabolic therapies and saw the work that he was doing. So now there's a whole movement, a lot of physicians, a lot of researchers, but, but the same therapies for neurological diseases, Parkinson's, MS, ALS, many other things. If you type in ketogenic diet or hyperbaric oxygen with most diseases, you're gonna find a paper and if it's not there, it's in progress probably. So we're excited because it makes the healthy cells stronger and faster and better, helps you hold onto your muscles when you have cancer. Sometimes you have cachexia. That's one of the ways it kills you. It's muscle wasting. And with age, sarcopenia, hyperbaric keeps that muscle on you and it increases your stem cells by eight and a half fold. Gary, you know, all this anti aging, all these things everybody's doing, get stem cells, do all these, these things that are not proven yet, by the way, but if you want to increase your own stem cells, hyperbaric oxygen, and that's a study out of Harvard, within just a few weeks, eight and a half fold. So those therapies are healthy for us. They make us stronger, faster, better help our brain. Ketogenic diet with the brain, amazing. So it's great because we feel good because the therapies that we're doing are non toxic, in fact, very beneficial to a healthy body.

What crossed my mind was if that's the treatment that somebody goes through when they have cancer, why not just always go through that? Why not just live that way?

And that's right. I've got a hyperbaric chamber in my house, a soft shell, right. And I'll go through ketogenic diet maybe a couple times a year, just in case there. And we all have cancer cells floating around, let's just say just to kill off whatever might be there. Lose a few pounds from all the fun that you've been having in between. But Mediterranean diet, very healthy, pretty much stick to that, do ketogenic once in a while. And if you have cancer in the family or if you've had cancer or you have cancer, getting the kinds of specialty testing that we've got now to be able to say, you know what, I should be on resveratrol all the time or I should do vitamin C or maybe it's Quercetin. Know what would kill the most cancerous cells? That's worth looking at. So that's called prevention, which is far easier than treatment. But we're, we're excited about how far we're getting with treatment. We have a lot to learn, but so does traditional medicine because chemo has not, has not. We, we are not winning the war on cancer. We are not. We are not.

You and I are both friends with JJ Virgin, and I think you've spoken at her. I know you've been, you've spoken at or been at her events. And I wish there was a truth. Like, what is the truth? Like, so you go to her event and you've got your keto group, your paleo group, your vegan group, your vegetarian group, your carnivore group, your every group is there.

Yeah, yeah.

And everybody's so sure that they're right.

I hear you, I hear you. And so that, that, that's, that was, that's my newsletter, the Truth in Medicine. Right. At least for I will tell you to say, here's the science as we know it as such now there's a lot of anti aging, a lot of biohacking things out there that just, I have real problems with because we don't know enough about stem cell therapy or Peptides, in my opinion. I was talking about peptides, lecturing cme, teaching doctors about it. Fifteen or more years ago, I was working in Mexico at a clinic down there. We were looking at it from, you know, mouse studies and this and that. They have great potential and benefit, but they also have potential to grow cancer cells and propagate cancer. So everybody's saying everybody should go get stem cells. And Peptide, I'm, I'm not in favor of that. We don't know enough about it. So sometimes I'm the one in the group. Everybody's all excited about something new. And I'm saying, wait just a minute, wait just a minute. Here's what we don't know, which is a lot, and here's what we do know that we're concerned about. And people need to hear that piece to make their decision. If you're you, if you're an athlete and you've got a, you know, a joint that's really, really in trouble, and it's not surgically, can be, you know, worked on or whatever, then you weigh it. Stem cell versus not. It may or may not even help, but it might. But if you've got cancer history or family history, I, I, I would be wary of it. So I'M very much what to your point, Gary, we've got to be truthful. We gotta be honest. We can't just get excited. Everybody jump on the bandwagon. Everybody's clinics are doing all these IVs and all these things. And it's like, wait, wait, wait a minute, guys. There's a lot to be concerned about here.

One of the things I'm hearing more and more about is the Enemy.

Yeah. So David Sinclair wrote his book and I read it probably, you know, as soon as it came out, but nobody read the first, the last chapter. Nobody read the last chapter. I'm going to challenge anybody who's read it, said, okay, you read the first two chapters, went, oh my gosh, this is amazing. I want to be on it. I'm going to be on it. I was ready. I'm like, okay, where I'm going to find the good source of good, because you can get bad quality, right? So I'm on it. And I kept reading, kept reading. And then I started looking in the mechanism and I started going to my hard scientists and I said, why do we know? As far as I can see right now, this looks like this might potentiate cancer growth. And they go, yeah, we have the same concern. So here we are. That is another one. Until we know more, I say no, just because I'm working with cancer patients. I know the devastation that that disease takes. And to say, could it help me live two years longer, maybe, but. Or whatever it may end up being, we're not sure. It's very promising and it's exciting, but if it's going to cause a cancer that will kill me, then that's no longer helpful. So I, I'm excited for the future, for a lot of this medicine, but I think we've got to be very careful. And I say a million times to my patients, they kind of laugh about it. I always say, more is not better. You want to do. What do you really need? What are the few things that make sense for you as an individual? Those are the things from prevention and treatment that makes sense. But just throwing a bunch of things together, you don't know how they interact. No one does a lot of supplements. All this, it's hard on the kidney and the liver and poor quality supplements, That's a whole nother story. It's more is not better. The, the right dosage of the right thing. That's. That's the best. When we. And. And how much do we know? And sometimes I have a conversation, Gary, we don't know Yet I'm going to let you use your intuition on this one. And they're like, wait, wait, a doctor is telling me to use my intuition. I said, I'm going to say that's because here's what we know and don't know. That's all we know. That's all I can tell you. You got to use your gut to make this decision because we don't know it all in medicine.

So based on what we know today, if you could tell our audience three things to do that would give them the best chance of having a healthy life for as long as they can do it, what would those three things be?

You know, the basics. Diet, good food, good air, exercise, you've got to move. Diet, exercise, and your mindset. If you are stressed, if you're anxious, if you're not sleeping, those things wear on that mitochondria like I'm talking about. Stress is one of the main things. So it's learning how to meditate, pray, breathe, walk in nature, whatever it is. But it's finding that thing that allows you to go. It's all okay. And I have this conversation with my cancer patients and I tell them that, the survivors tell me that. And not just survivors, but thrivers. Again, they're doing extremely well. They say cancer was the best thing that ever happened to them because it woke them up to what was important in life. And they realized every breath being in gratitude for that. The people that they love, the causes or the things that they wanted to be involved in for bettering the planet or community, whatever it was, that's what matters. And they quit stressing the small things. And so they see it as a wake up call. And instead of floating through their life just being this person that everybody thought they were, wanted them to be, they finally got to know who they really were. Because facing death, to say, now I know who I am, now I know what is important to me and it's a blessing no matter how long they live. So I think that those three things, finding that spiritual peace, very, very important, which is stress reduction and exercise and, and your diet and what we eat, what we put in our mouth every day, it is our medicine or our worst poison.

Oh, yeah, it's so funny. It always ends up going back to just basics. I know people don't want to hear that, right?

I want a magic bullet. Give me an nmm. You know, give me a iv. Give me a. I'm going to go do this, I'm going to do all that. You know, I've Got, I love red light, red lights. I work with lasers, this and that. I love the hyperbaric because I know what it does. Those are added little benefits, but those I know if you're still stressing you're eating junk and you're not moving, your body can only do so much. It's back to the basics. Prevention are the three that we just talked about. Then if you have a disease, we've got some amazing things that are non toxic, that have a lot of science behind it and still more science coming. A lot of research going on that's quite exciting. So that's where I sit. I want to sit on the research side as much as I can. But sometimes, Gary, as you know, there's traditional medicine that's been used for millennia, traditional Chinese medicine. Did we really have to have studies to know that acupuncture could work? Well, some people's brain, we had to have the science to show that it worked. But it's around for thousands of years for a reason. There are some things anecdotally, if there's no side effects, then why are we saying no to that? We should be looking back. In fact, a lot of the plant medicines are coming back and becoming beneficial. When I say that I'm talking botanicals.

Like an example would be any of the herbs.

I will tell you 80% of the medications came from a plant, from an herb or from a natural substance. You know, aspirin is white willow bark. Pretty much 80% came from nature anyway. So, you know, some of them are biosynthetic because they've got to make it so they can patent it. And there's reasons why they have to patent it and they can make it, you know, where it's more, the dosage is the same and these things, but closer to nature is usually better. But then there's the, the, the problem with that is making sure the dosage is the same all the time. And that's back to the companies and how they manufacture things and all that.

So you kind of are bringing up something that's. I don't know if it's controversial or not, but. Big pharma, right? Yeah, big pharma. How do you feel about what's happened with big pharma and the food industry and how, who owns what and controls what?

You know, I don't think anybody. It's hard to find anybody who'll just say that they don't think it's corrupt. There's some bad players there. There's players that don't belong There they have vested interest. If, if, if I own stock in something, how in the world can I be unbiased to, to make decisions for the betterment of mankind when I think it's just we're too close? So I think the current regime or no matter what your politics are, if RFK or any of these guys get in there and are able to start shaking the boat, I think it needs to up. You know, do we want to talk about conspiracy theories and all that? That's not my area of expertise. But what my area is common sense. Some of these people do not belong in the positions that they're in because as a researcher, I know they can't be unbiased. There's no way. So clean it up. Get unbiased people in there with the right intentions and let's see where it goes. But there are bad nutraceutical players. A lot of the supplement industry is corrupt too, Gary. It's not just Big Pharma. So I'm not going to place the blame on one side or the other. I'm going to say the whole darn thing. In health and wellness, we've taken advantage of people and it's time for them to ask and know the questions to ask. Certificate of ANALYSIS if you're taking a supplement, ask about the quality, know about it, and then ask the questions are, do I really want to take a pharmaceutical for a symptom or do I want to try to find the root of the cause of why I'm having this problem and let me fix the problem and not take a pharmaceutical to mask a, you know, a symptom. We've been told for a long time that really the body does the healing and it's physicians just trying to kind of keep the brain active on the person who has the disease until they get better. All the other stuff we're doing, it's just to try to keep them thinking that we're trying to help. Now, that's not a hundred percent, but there's a lot of truth in that. If your people that work with you, trust you, and they know that you're not trying to sell them a bunch of stuff and that you're not trying to write a script and say, go away, hope it gets better, only come back if it doesn't. And really the body just healed with or without that drug anyway, if they want to be able to know that they're heard. And back to my why?

Because as you can tell, I like to talk, I like to educate, and I do have a Lot of knowledge in my head from a lot of different things. Things is that learning to listen. It's the cancer patients and the pain patients, too. The patients have taught me to work with my challenge of not being a naturally being a great listener. But they've taught me that because, you know, when they say, they go to the oncologist and the oncologist has the hand on the door when they're saying hello, they don't know their name, they can't remember their name. And they just say, you have stage four terminal cancer. You work with the nurse after this and we're going to start chemo, radiation, surgery, and they walk out the door. That's not good. They weren't heard. They don't. They don't even understand their disease. It's a terrible way to be doing medicine. But in the defense of the doctors, Gary, they don't have time. They're worn out. They're in a broken system. They have to stick within that box. They can't step outside of it. It's terrible for everyone involved. The system is completely broken. That's why we are being proponents of there's a better way to do this and treat this. So, you know, my why, my challenge on the why of listening has been honed and taught to me. When I'm in front of a patient, when I'm talking to everybody else I'm talking to, when I'm in front of a patient, I'm listening. People say, Dr. Warden, you do so many things. What, what do you do for relaxation? I say sit in front of a patient. That calms me down. I listen, I put the pieces together with the puzzle and come up with a plan. That is what I do to relax besides meditate, do other things.

Well, for those of you listening, Dr. Denise's why, like we talked about, is to make sense of the complex and challenging. And you can see that coming through loud and clear. Right? She is. Can solve problems like nobody's business. How she does that is by constantly looking for better ways. She's always on the hunt for what is better, what's going to make this, what's innovative, what's truly going to work. But ultimately what she brings are outside the box, non traditional, non typical solutions that are going to work for you because she's done the research, she's found something better, and now she's bringing you something that's going to work for you. Does that feel right to you?

It does feel right. You know, I mean, I don't. There are traditional therapies that make sense, as long as it makes sense. And I'll say, okay, this one sounds good. This chemo for you is not that toxic. I can help you with the side effects. And it's going to kill 90% of your cancer cells. Let's think about it. Even though there may leave some cancer stem cells, Gary. But if I'm doing hyperbaric and these other things, then hopefully getting to those, then that makes me and the patient feel better.

You know, let's talk about one other thing since. Since I got you here, we're hearing a lot about Ozembic.

What. What's your thoughts on that?

Well, as with any of the drugs, the longer it's out, the more we hear. In the last few days, it's been that it's working, it's doing something with the eyes. Now that there's a problem with some people with their eyesight, with the. Actually, I think the retina might be the optic nerve. I'm not sure. But also that it's. It's destroying the brown fat, not just the white fat. And the brown fat's healthy, and we need that. And people that have to stop it for whatever reason, it not only comes back, but they gain more weight afterwards, just like any diet. Now, is it good that people are losing weight? Yay. Is it helping diabetes? Yeah. But so would diet and exercise. The things that we're talking about. Ketogenic diet has no side effects and can do the same things. And you can lose a lot of weight if you're doing it correctly. You can't just try to do it yourself and hope you're getting the nutrition and all the things that you should be. You have to do it right. When you do, it's healthy. So I'm not a fan, Gary. I'm not. I'm not a fan. Because we don't know all the negatives of it yet. And the positives that you can get other ways that are far, far more healthy in the.

You know, I was the dentist for 32 years, and like you, when you're in something that long, you see all the big deals that come on that last for X amount of time.

Right?

Yeah, that's right. Oh, this is the best thing ever. And then two months later, it's gone.

Yeah. Yeah.

So it's hard to filter out what's the truth and what's not. So I love the name of your.

Of your.

Yeah, that. Yeah. Truth and medicine. Yeah. And then, you know, Gary, the show where we'll have a debate format that's held hot seat, right? It's that. Let's hear from the Ozempic doctor and let's hear from this doctor over here that's doing a different way so everybody can hear it at the same time. That's what I do all day, every day is give both sides. But people, most people don't get to hear both sides at once. They hear from traditional doctor, they hear from alternative. They don't tell them about each other and then they're all confused. I want it out in the open. What do we know and what do we not know? And put it in terms where people can understand it and not let the doctors talk over the heads say tell, you know, and that's my job is to interpret it. If they keep doing that of, of saying this is what this really means.

Well, let's talk about that for a minute because you're right now out on speaking with, with Les Brown. How did that happen and what are you talking about? And then I'd love to you for you to also talk about your new show.

Yeah, I mean, Les Brown met me actually from Genius Network as that's an entrepreneur group that you and I belong to. He was speaking, somebody said something to him about me. I went up and said hi, and he said, I have to know you. And so now he's been a patient of mine for over, you know, over a year now. And he's telling everybody I'm keeping him alive, that I'm his doctor and he's got a big thing. I can't, you know, I'm just beside myself how he's introducing me, working with him personally, but also as a speaker. But my, my talk that he had me talk about is advocacy. It's one of the talks, but one of is being an advocate for yourself, for your own health, not being afraid to tell a doctor. I don't understand what you just said. Sit back down and explain this to me so I understand it. Or you have a family member that can't do it and not be told. Just do what we say. To be able to stand up and say that doesn't seem right. I say no. And having the determination to be able to be an advocate for yourself and your loved ones so that I have a whole story about my mother and how I was an advocate when I was just my first semester in medical school and if I hadn't been, she wouldn't have been with us. So learning to stand up to any authority, if something doesn't seem right, you have the right to question it and challenge it in a respectful way, but that's that taught. And so I'm excited to be on the stage with Les and he's going to do a lot more with me. Apparently on Christmas Day, he called and left me a message and said, I'm. You're going to. I'm going to introduce you to the world.

We'll see. So, you know, it's just fun. He. He's a. He's amazing, amazing human being in so many ways. So I'm just grateful to have him. And the show, it was signed by PBS health Hot seat show, my show, it was signed by PBS right before COVID and then Covid hit and then the general managers and the, The PBS show here in Arizona has gone back and forth and back and forth. Now it's in some hands of some big filmmakers and documentarians. And I'm not quite sure what we're going to end up doing with it, where it needs to be, but I don't want it filtered if it goes to the big networks, which is where it was going to be. It was actually going to discover. Cass Warner of Warner Brothers was taking it to discover. There's a whole long story here, Gary. But it was like one thing. It was almost there. Cass was literally the next week going to take it to discover Discovery Channel. And she's Warner Brothers. They would. And she decided that she didn't want to. She. She had a health challenge. And so we lost Cass. And so I'm like, good grief. There was Covid this. And now I know maybe it's because if I had it in a network and they tried to edit it the first time that some alternative medicine person sounded better or got the leg up on a traditional, and it's all being funded by pharmaceuticals, that probably would have been a problem. So I finally let go of the big network idea because I think it can't be what it needs to be. So whether it's going to be some video podcast or something or a documentary, we're not sure. But I've got some really great people behind me right now, and we're going to figure it out.

That's awesome. And you know, back to the advocacy part, I, I got to experience that firsthand when I was in the hospital myself for nine days. And, you know, with a, with a. With a pretty serious health challenge. And then I also got to experience that as a friend. One day in my dental practice, I get a call from a doctor patient of mine that was the head of nephrology. He's the guy who started telemedicine. He lectures all over the world. He calls me one day, and I come to the phone and he says, hey, Gary, you don't know this, but I'm in the hospital right now, and they're running all these tests on me, and they think that I need to have a heart transplant. And I wanted to get your opinion.

And I'm thinking, this is gonna go. The dentist, my specialty.

Do you realize you just called your dentist? He said, yeah, I know you were. I know you were in the hospital recently, and I wanted to see what you think. Well, you know, so, yeah, he's working on no sleep for like five days. So in his mind, it makes sense to call his dentist about his heart. And I went through that when I was there. I was in the ICU for nine days, and by the end of nine days, you can't even put two words together, much less make life choices, right?

But Gary, he didn't call his dentist. He called somebody he knew that could connect the dots, make sense of it, and not be afraid to challenge what was being going on if it didn't make sense. That's who he called. He called you as an advocate, right? And so it's. I tell. It's in my talk is that you do not have to have a medical degree to have common sense. And how many times have we not trusted our gut, not listen to that little voice and look back and gone, oh, my gosh, I wished I'd listened. Because, you know, something happened untowards because you didn't listen to your gut instinct. So when we learn to do that for ourselves and for others, it's quite powerful. There's a lot of information there. Even dare to doubt's the name of the talk. Dare to doubt, doubt authority, doubt anything that doesn't seem right. It doesn't mean you're contentious. It doesn't mean you're a negative person. It means you have the right to dare to doubt something that doesn't quite feel right. It's our duty to flush it out and help as much as we can.

Well, you and I could talk forever. And I know I might have to have you on again. But before we go, I have one last question for you. And you might have just answered it, but the last question I wanted to ask you is, Dr. Denise, what's the best piece of advice you've ever given or the best piece of advice you've ever gotten?

Probably came from my daddy. Remember military man before he was a land man, which now, that big series, we can't wait to watch it. It was always trust your instincts and then prioritize. And that's exactly what I do. That's exactly what I do with my cancer patients. That what I teach them to do. Trust your instincts of what sounds right, because remember, we don't have all the answers. Trust it and then prioritize what's important. So it's interesting, the same thing that, you know, dad was telling me growing up, now I'm getting to impart with people that are literally facing a life, a death sentence. And, and that's an honor to be in that space. I mean, we lose patience, and it's heartbreaking. But they. You. They go knowing that they have chosen for themselves, they've chosen their route. And it's usually a beautiful experience for themselves and their families if you do it right, if it's not in fear, and oh, what if. And I should have and could have and would have. It's like you went out valiantly your way. You chose.

Yeah, I love that. I love that. So, Dr. Darnese, if there are people that are listening that want to follow you, work with you, bring you in to speak at their events, what's the best way for them to follow you and connect with you?

Probably the website, Dr. Warden, d r w o r d e n dot com and get to me there. The office phone number is 480-588-2233. But I love to speak. I love to be on podcasts. This is fun, especially somebody like you, Gary. I mean, you dig, you're digging in deep. You're not saying, here, let me give you the questions ahead of time. And I'm always like, don't give me questions. I don't want to be canned. Answer, please don't send me questions. So I love, I love this speaking. I love, you know, I want to do more of that. I really do. And taking a few patients, if they. If I think that I can't find somebody else that would be able to work with them as well at this point as I can. And so I am still taking selectively some cancer patients and some neurological Parkinson's, that kind of thing, because it's the same therapies, remember?

So I put them on the plan. I don't have to see them a lot and do a lot more with them after that. And there's. And they have, you know, I'm along that ride. I go on the entire ride with them all the way through. Either they're cured, they're in remission or they're living with their cancer but living well with it, or it's their time and we're, we're walking that path to cross over with them. And I'm there in whatever capacity, but I still do enjoy that piece, Gary. It's a privilege to be there with people in that space. Yeah.

Wow.

Well, thank you so much for spending an hour with us and totally enjoyed our conversation. And I know we're going to stay in touch for many years.

Thank you, Gary. Great. And your work, your program, it's amazing. It's just amazing. And I think everybody can tell. Spot on to watch me for five minutes.

Awesome. Thanks, Denise.

Thank you. Thank you.

I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and that through today's guest, you heard how important it is to know your why and how impactful it can be in your life and the lives of those around you. Be sure to head over to why institute.com and discover your why today. Remember, the more you know about yourself, the more you'll know about others. I'm Dr. Gary Sanchez, and I'll see you on the next episode.