Conquering Cancer 102 (Intro)

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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to the Optimal Living 101 Masterclass Series. Today, I'm excited to chat about Conquering Cancer 102. This is the first time we've done a 102 to our 101 classes. The last class, Conquering Cancer 101, I filmed two weeks after my brother was diagnosed with cancer. I had a heavy heart and we were working hard to get him in a good spot. The diagnosis and prognosis was not good, and I am extraordinarily happy to report that over the six weeks since he was diagnosed to now when I'm creating this class, we've made huge strides to put it in perspective. His oncologist said that if he was diagnosed with Rick's cancer, which is pancreatic stage 2B, he'd be following the protocol that we've created for Rick and that we're following. So with that, I am excited to share some of the ideas that we've been learning. Obviously not an oncologist, not a cancer specialist per se, but I am absolutely committed to doing everything I can for my brother and helping him conquer his cancer. And I consider me, I consider myself part of. Consider you part of our extended family. And to the extent the comparison resonates, I'd be honored to play the role of your brother, your friend, your coach, if you and or someone in your family is going through cancer. One of the things I learned as I went deeper into this and the conquering Cancer 101, the main source of wisdom for that was Anti Cancer by David Sirvan Schreiber and dozens of references in our other philosopher's notes. And I view that class as kind of an 80:20. Here are the main things you need to do to 180 your life if you were in a situation like my brother, of just living the traditional lifestyle 8020 to 180. Since that time, I've read a number of other great books, a handful of them, in fact. I went from Anti cancer David Srivon Schreiber sir von Schreiber again diagnosed with a very short period of time to live. Nineteen years later, he passed away, he says, because he stopped following his own advice. Now, he wrote that book over a decade ago, and since then we've learned a lot about how to conquer cancer. So the next book I read was called Tripping over the Truth by Travis Kristofferson, a science writer. I highly recommend that. That's an intellectual look at, at the theory and therapy of cancer, which is gonna be a big theme of our class today. We'll lean on a lot of his wisdom. Then I read a book called the Metabolic Approach to Cancer by Naysha Winters. I reached out to a couple of friends when my brother was diagnosed and I became obsessed about understanding cancer. Pilar Gerasimo was one. She recommended anticancer. Ben Greenfield, a friend and coach, was another guy who I reached out to, to whom I reached out. He said, you've got to read the Metabolic Approach to Cancer and follow it to the T. Which of course I immediately got the book and immediately started following. And I said, hey, Ben, do you know Naysha? Because I'd love to connect with her. I'd love to bring her onto our team. Long story short introduces us. Naysha and I have spent some time on the phone a couple times now. I feel like I met a long lost sister. She is amazing and we're gonna talk about a lot of her wisdom and her story. She's a stage four terminal cancer thriver. 25 years later, she was told she had three to six months to live. 25 years later, she's worked with thousands of cancer patients. She's now a naturopathic oncologist. She's the consulting lead oncologist on my brother's team. We're gonna talk about some of the wisdom from her book. And then I read a journal article called Cancer as a Metabolic Disease by the leading scientist in in the field establishing the fact that cancer is a metabolic disease versus what versus a genetic disease. We're going to talk about that a lot. Thomas Seyfried is the researcher who wrote that journal article. Then we have Keto for Cancer by a woman named Miriam Kalamn, who is Rick's day to day nutritional consultant. So we've put together an amazing team for Rick. He's unbelievably supportive. We're going to talk about our approach nutritionally. Her book is called Keto for Cancer. That's our approach in a nutshell. We'll talk about why we're so excited about that and why it's working so well so quickly. And then finally we have Radical Remission by Kelly Turner, who got her PhD studying people who live at the Long Tail. Over 1000 case studies of people who were told they had X period of time to live and who lived a lot longer. She actually got a PhD studying that radical remission. We're going to talk about that as well. So that's the quick overview, context. Another thing that made me do this class is realizing the fact that one in two men and one in three women will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetimes. So the fact is, if you or a loved one haven't experienced cancer yet, you'd be a statistical anomaly if you don't over the course of your life. Hence conquering cancer 102. And I'm spending a ton of energy on this beyond just these classes, talking to Pat Solomon, the director of finding Joe, about doing a documentary and a ton of other conversations about what we can do to contribute to this dialogue. With that very long preamble, let's look at the top 10 big ideas and then we'll jump in. All right, so the top 10 big ideas to conquering cancer 102 rethinking cancer theory plus therapy. So our first big idea, bad math. 100 billion plus 100 billion equals zero. Richard Nixon declared war on cancer in 1971, two days before Christmas. We've spent $100 billion researching it. We spend $100 billion annually on cancer medications, and we've seen effectively zero improvement in the real death rates since the 1950s. We're going to talk about that. How is that possible? We're going to talk about how that's possible and, and what we want to do about it so we don't show up as a statistic. Our second big idea. Genes versus metabolism. Genes versus metabolism. What's the ultimate cause of cancer? Is it genetic or is it energy metabolism? Well, that $100 billion and the hundred billion dollars has been spent on the theory and the therapy that follows that theory that cancer is caused by genetic mutations. But what is it? We're going to talk about an alternative theory known as the metabolic theory to cancer. It matters which approach you look at. Your theory is going to drive your therapy. And we're going to talk about where we wind up on that equation in terms of our family, what we're doing, the research underlying it, and why. There's a lot of compelling evidence that it's not a genetic issue. Primarily, of course, genetics play a role, but those are a downstream effect. Genetic mutations, genetic instability, which are hallmarks of cancer, are downstream effects to metabolic dysfunction. We'll talk about that compelling theory. The third big idea is a study that brings that to life. Recon cells plus cybrids. Fascinating stuff, looking at what happens when you take a cancerous nucleus, put it inside an otherwise healthy cell. Does that cell get cancer. Or take a cancerous cytoplasm, which produces the energy for your cell, and put that in an otherwise healthy cell. Does that cell get cancer? The results of that study are pretty compelling. They're not what you think they would be if you believe in the genetic approach. But they make sense from a metabolic approach. We'll talk about that in detail. The fourth big idea is Otto Warburg plus PET scans. Otto Warburg won the Nobel Prize in 1931 for discovering one of the hallmarks of cancer, the fact that cancer feeds preferentially on sugar. We're going to connect that to PET scans. If you've ever been through cancer, you know that PET scans are used to measure the metastasis of cancer. Has it spread? Guess what? PET scans measure glucose metabolism. Cancer cells feed on sugar. So if you have cancer throughout your body, it's going to light up. Interesting, isn't it? Hmm. How might that relate to how we want to approach therapy for cancer? We'll talk about that. The fifth big idea, Good gardeners plus ice cubes plus systems versus symptoms all leads us to the realization that we need to treat the terrain, not just the tumor. We'll talk about slashing, burning, poisoning, which is kind of how surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy are known, and some other tools we may want to bring to our therapeutic tool shed. We're going to talk about good gardeners looking at the systems of the situation rather than just the symptoms. Our sixth big idea. Cancers Achilles heal. What is it? It's its metabolic inflexibility we're going to talk about again and again throughout this class. The metabolic theory basically says, look, look at the hallmark of cancer. Cancer cells preferentially feed on sugar, the fermentation of sugar. But guess what? They're metabolically inflexible. They can only feed essentially on glucose. Some cases of glutamine, which we'll talk about. But your number one therapeutical protocol follows that realization. It's cancer's Achilles heel, right? You get rid of the constant sugar feast and you can starve cancer. We're going to talk about keto for cancer in that context. The seventh big idea is something called cachexia. We're going to talk about that and weight loss and make a differentiation between therapeutic weight loss, which is good, and pathological weight loss, which is not, which is what your oncologist is going to be concerned about when they tell you not to lose weight, which is associated with cachexia. We're going to talk about the fact that it's very important to distinguish between Therapeutic weight loss, which you will have if you are following a ketogenic therapeutic diet and pathological weight loss. And the last thing we want to do is to use, boost or ensure or other sugar packed, caloric, dense food like substances to keep on weight that accelerates, that fuels cancer's growth. We're going to talk about that really important distinction. And then our 8th big idea is radical remission plus self efficacy 101 plus you as a case study. As I said in the prelude, Kelly Turner got her PhD studying over 1,000 people. That defied the odds. That's pretty cool. We're going to look at how to become an exemplar, look at the science of self efficacy or self confidence and put together the roadmap for you and or a loved one to be a case study. There are a lot of people out there that have done extraordinary things and you can reverse engineer what has been done via this metabolic approach to cancer. Our ninth big idea is the future of cancer clinics. What would that look like? Creating your own optimized oasis. We're going to talk about what my brother Rick has done, which is extraordinarily inspiring. Then we're going to talk about Dr. Pepper versus dandelion greens. Why is it that a Dr. Pepper is cheaper than a bunch of dandelion greens? Worth considering. We're going to talk about the public policy issues there. We're also going to talk about some lab tests you may want to consider getting, I highly recommend you consider getting, which for some weird reason aren't part of the normal assessments. And also some of the stuff that the metabolic approach recommends you do in order to complement whatever other treatments you're doing. And then finally, our 10th big idea is you as the CEO of a billion dollar project. You gotta remember, as Naysha Winters says, and I've coached my brother throughout his process, you're in charge. You're the boss. You're the CEO of your own life, of your healthcare process. Your doctors work for you and act like that, have deep respect and appreciation for the hard work they've put in. But ultimately you are the one running this priceless project that is your life. We're gonna talk about some ways to approach that. Sitting in a chair versus on the table, right? Little things like that matter. We want you to act with that power, with that autonomy, with that creative empowerment as you create your optimal terrain such that you can navigate this crisis with as much grace and power as possible. And from my brother's perspective, thread the needle of the threat that is Cancer. We're far from out of the woods yet. We've got another couple years and frankly the rest of his life of really monitoring this and doing our best. But we want him to be 10 times healthier on the other end of this than he was before he got diagnosed. You as the CEO of a billion dollar project. That's a quick look. Let's jump in.

Isn't it a bit odd that we went from math to science to history, but somehow missed the class on how to live? For some wacky reason, optimal living 101 never made the schedule.

Of course it's too late to go.

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