Brian Johnson contrasts two cancer theories: the dominant genetic mutation model versus Thomas Seyfried's metabolic theory, which argues dysfunctional energy metabolism drives cancer. Despite massive spending on genetic research, death rates haven't improved much. Johnson's brother with stage 2B pancreatic cancer showed marked improvement on an intensive nutritional protocol.
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You're listening to the Optymyze with Brian Johnson podcast. Unlock the full Optymyze experience and join over 10,000 premium members at Optimize Me. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Optimize plus one. So, on one hand, as per our last one, science shows that genes play a surprisingly small role in in the cause of cancer. Yet guess where nearly all of that hundred billion dollars of research money has been spent? Yup. We've spent $100 billion on research, and we spend $100 billion on cancer medications every year. Operating under the assumption that cancer is primarily a genetic issue. To put it directly, that appears to be the essence of why we've failed to win the war on cancer. We've been looking at it from the wrong perspective. Result, no improvements in the real death rates since the 1950s. Here's the short story on the two conflicting theories regarding the origin of cancer. The dominant theoretical orientation within western medicine is something called the somatic mutation theory, or SMT, of cancer. It basically says that cancer is caused by genetic mutations. Now, there's no question that cancer cells are pretty wacky genetically. In fact, the sheer complexity of mutations that exist even within one individual with cancer, let alone across individuals with various types of cancers, is why it's so hard to treat cancer from this paradigm. But the question we need to ask is, is cancer caused by genetic mutations? Or are those mutations a downstream effect of some other cause? Thankfully, researchers have been asking this question. Enter the metabolic theory of cancer. The metabolic theory of cancer versus the genetic theory of cancer says it's dysfunctional energy metabolism that precedes the genetic instability and all the other hallmarks of cancer. And guess what? That's a huge distinction. Why? Because your theory drives your therapy. Get the theory wrong, and you get the therapy wrong. You just might spend an awful lot of money on research and treatment and get no real benefits. To put it directly, when a loved one's life is on the line, that's no longer an abstract statistic. It's a matter of life and death. We have a P.S. with this one. It's going to be a bit of a longer plus one. Did you know that some cancer medications cost $100,000 for a year's worth of treatment? That only extends life by three months. That's shockingly true. There has to be a better way, right? Yes, there does. And the good news? There is a better way. Little P.P.S. we're going to set some records here. Thomas Seyfried is one of the world's Leading researchers who is persuasively arguing for the metabolic theory of cancer. His 15 page plus 7 pages of reference is peer reviewed article in the scientific journal Nutrition and metabolism called Cancer as a metabolic disease. We've got a link to the journal article or you can google that. Cancer as a metabolic disease I think is a must read. We also have my notes on that journal article. Print it out, read it, bring a copy with you to your next appointment with your oncologist and team. If you're currently dealing with cancer, this is the scientific foundation for the theoretical framework we will be using to inform our metabolic approach to therapy. And we're going to have a PPPs here. It's essential that we understand the fact that we're not talking about a cleanse or a detox or anything along those lines. Although many inspiring anecdotal stories exist out there on the Internet about various juicing and cleansing and detoxing protocols, that's not what we're talking about here. And with blessings to all those who have benefited from and swear by them. I would never bet my life or my brother's life or your life on those approaches. What we're talking about here is a scientifically grounded look at an alternative theory of cancer supported by a growing body of peer reviewed, empirically sound data. There's a big difference between that and the cancer cures that we can find on the Internet. And that's one of the reasons why most primary care physicians and oncologists freak out when they hear you're doing something other than the traditional approaches. Now, we've shared all this research with our traditional team and we've gotten smart about how to communicate our approach, which, along with the astonishing therapeutic benefits my brother has experienced thus far, has led our oncologist to say to my brother, if I were diagnosed with what you have, which is stage 2B pancreatic cancer, I do what you're doing. Now, why would he say that? Because pancreatic cancer is notoriously hard to treat from a traditional Reid genetic origin perspective. And you know when he said that, it wasn't in our first meeting, in that initial meeting, when he delivered the prognosis, he literally didn't look at my brother once. He had the very difficult job of communicating a very heavy prognosis. And all my brother could see from the table was, was the side of his doctor's face as he described what was going on to Rick's wife, Kristen. It wasn't a good day, to say the least. Now he changed his tone after he looked at my brother's PET scan that showed no signs of cancer after five weeks of super intense nutritional and lifestyle therapeutic intervention that we'll discuss now. Although we didn't have a before PET scan to compare it to, that's not supposed to happen with stage 2B pancreatic cancer. He and the other doctor who reviewed the PET and CT scan said if we didn't know you had cancer, we wouldn't know you had cancer after looking at those scans. Now, there are a lot of variables at play and again, we didn't have a baseline to compare it to and this is a sample size of 1. And we have a long way to go in our optimizing journey, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But I am extremely confident that our metabolic approach to my brother's cancer helps helped halt his cancer's growth. And I know we're not alone as there are so many exemplars with similar results following a similar approach out there. I'm excited to share some of the practical steps we've taken in line with the metabolic approach to cancer. But first I want to spend a little more time establishing the theoretical framework as it's important we get it on a high level, which we'll do in our next plus one. Hey, this is Brian with a quick question for you. Do you know what the word optimize literally means? It's from the Latin optimus, which means the best. In our case, we're talking about helping you create the best version of you. So another quick question. What's the best version of you look like? How does that version of you show up in the world? Helping you be that version of yourself all day, every day is what our Optimize membership program is all about. Now, we obviously give away a ton of content for free and we give our 10,000 premium members a ton. More members get hundreds of Philosopher's notes, which are 20 minute book summaries that help you apply the best big ideas. From the best optimal living books to your life to today plus members get dozens of hour long optimal living 101 masterclasses, more wisdom in less time for your busy life on everything from the science of setting and achieving goals, how to optimize your energy via the fundamentals of nutrition, movement, sleep and meditation, and how to be super productive day in and day out. While of course enjoying the whole process, every facet of your life optimized equals you at your absolute best.
