The Cancer Conversation

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Hey, it's JJ Virgin and welcome to the JJ Virgin Lifestyle show where I talk nutrition, exercise, mindset and lifesty with some of the coolest people in the world. And I give you tips that you can put into fast action to uplevel.

Your health so that you can go.

Out there and live that big life you're meant to live. Now today's show is all about cancer and especially the link between sugar and cancer. And I have an amazing guest for you, someone I've known for years, gosh, I'm thinking now at least 10 years, maybe longer. And I was sitting in her office five years ago and I said, you know Dr. Nalini, you actually make cancer not scary. She is doing some of the most innovative breakthrough work in cancer and both how to help you if you have it, to turn it around and to not have it reoccur. But more importantly, some of the things she's going to share with you today is how to never get there in the first place. And when you hear her talk about the statistics and what is going on with the cancer rates in this country and actually worldwide, it is just alarming. But I will save that for her when she comes on. So let me tell you a little bit about Dr. Nalini Chilkov. She's the founder of integrativecanceranswers.com and the author of the number one best selling book 32 Ways to Outsmart Cancer how to Create a Body in which Cancer Cannot Thrive. Her Outsmart cancer programs are recognized as the most comprehensive science based, safe natural programs for supporting cancer patients, cancer survivors and those most importantly who do not want to get cancer in the first place to take control of their health and and their destiny so that they can get well, stay well and live well beyond cancer. And I will tell you anytime I get the call or an email about someone who's just gotten diagnosed. The first person that I send them to is always Dr. Nalini. Now, she's been doing this for over 30 years. She's helped thousands of people, many with serious and chronic illnesses, achieve and maintain extraordinary health and longevity. And she's sought out by Hollywood celebrities and insiders. She's appeared as a health expert on NBC TV and has been recognized by WebMD and Dr. Oz as one of of the top 10, I can say it, top 10 online influencers on breast cancer. She has a practice in Santa Monica, California. And again, she is my go to expert on all things related to cancer. And it's an innovative approach that is amazingly successful. So with that, let's do it. Dr. Nalini Chilkov, welcome to the show. I am so excited, excited to have you here with us today.

Thank you so much, J.J. delighted to be here.

I know that everyone is gonna be really interested in what you have to say because I've done other interviews with you and we just get bombarded. So I'm gonna dive right in because this is such an important topic. And I guess the first place I'd like to start is it just seems like there's so much more cancer today than there used to be. Is it just that I'm looking for it? Is it that we now know how to diagnose it, or is it there? Is there really that much more cancer? What's going on?

There really is more cancer going on in the United States. And the stats are similar in Europe. One in two men and one in three women will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. And so that means, yes, there's a lot more cancer. And that's largely due to the toxic environment that we all find ourselves in. All of the chemicals we're exposed to were really not biologically designed to detoxify. And so our DNA gets damaged and that's the beginning of cancer.

Now, are there some people that are going to be more susceptible to cancer than other people?

Absolutely. Think about the canary in the mine. So there are people who have genetics that are really inefficient and are unable to thrive in the environment we are all living in. And so those people with more vulnerable genetics have a perfect storm between toxic exposures or stressors and in the environment or even high blood sugar for sustained periods of time in the development of diabetes or insulin resistance and the development of cancer.

So someone with. Because we've been talking a lot about high blood sugar on these shows, of course, but we haven't talked to it in relationship to cancer. Someone with high blood sugar or high insulin, or they're pre diabetic or they're even like they are now, full blown diabetic. Should they be more worried about getting cancer? Are they at a higher risk? Or say, getting cancer? Again, a reoccurrence.

If you have high blood sugar or high insulin, so you could be pre diabetic or diabetic, you have a 40% increased chance of getting cancer in the first place. And if you've already had cancer and you're a diabetic or a pre diabetic, say you have metabolic syndrome or insulin resistance, you have a 50% higher chance of getting a recurrence of cancer if you've already had cancer in the first place.

Wow. Before you ever get there, of course, there's a big connection between your diet, I'm sure, and cancer. But let's back up to sugar. Cause that's my hot button. And I know I brought you onto one of our live casts to talk about sugar and cancer. The phones and the chat rolls were just lighting up. Let's talk about sugar and cancer and the link between them. How does that work?

So there's two doorways through which this physiology drives the growth of cancer. Number one, cancer cells preferentially use sugar as their fuel. Healthy normal cells do not. And so cancer cells convert to little sugar factories. So the more sugar they have available, the more they can grow and proliferate. So that's one doorway, the sugar doorway. The second doorway is the insulin doorway. And insulin actually is more of a culprit and a driver of tumor growth than sug, because on the outside of cancer cells, there's a lot more insulin receptors than there are on healthy cells. So as your insulin goes up, say you're pre diabetic or you have metabolic syndrome, or you have type 2 diabetes, you'll not only have high blood sugar, but you'll have high blood insulin. And that insulin literally grows cancer cells.

So I'm going to throw a curveball at you as far as looking at fasting insulins. Then what would you see as a number, a risky number for people to look at? Because I'm seeing people coming in with their labs and they've got high insulins and no one's talking about it.

Well, the high insulin kind of comes later. So the cutoff is 10 for a fasting insulin. In conventional medicine, I'd rather see it around 6. But a better measure is hemoglobin A1c, because that tells you that you're becoming insulin. Resistant and that'll shock up before you see elevated fasting insulins.

Okay, so we're going to look at fasting blood sugar, hemoglobin A1C, which tell everyone what hemoglobin A1C is looking at.

It's a protein to which sugar attaches in the blood. And so if the normal physiology, after you eat a meal, your blood sugar will go up because you just ate a meal. And then it's the job of insulin to open the door into the cell and allow that blood sugar to get out of the blood into the cell and be able to fuel. And if that doesn't happen, then that extra sticky blood, that's the sugar in your blood, has to attach somewhere. And one of the places it attaches is to this protein. And that's what hemoglobin A1C is. And it's more accurate over the long term where your blood sugar has been living than a fasting glucose. Fasting blood sugar just tells you that day when you got your blood drawn.

Perfect. So important when you're going to your doc is make sure you're also getting a hemoglobin A1C, because I've heard some doctors say, oh, well, your fasting blood sugar looks fine, you don't need to. But to really get the complete picture, you're going to want to look at.

That hemoglobin A1C and also remember that the normals are the normals of an unhealthy population when you're looking at lab values. So you actually want to know where healthy is, not where the statistical normal of an unhealthy population is. So your doctor might tell you it's fine. So, for example, I like to see hemoglobin A1C is around between 5.2 and 5.5. But most physicians will say, oh, it's okay if it's all the way up to 5.9, but then you're just on the edge of diabetes, so you don't.

Have to worry till it's six to go onto medications. It's like, okay, now you talk a lot. And I think this is so important because we tend to be a reactive society. And this is definitely a case where you need to be massively proactive. And you talk, talk about creating a body in which cancer cannot thrive. So what do you mean by that? How do you do that?

Well, think about the soil in a garden. If we build that soil up and make sure it's full of nutrients and it isn't full of irritants, to the plants we're going to grow beautiful, healthy plants and beautiful fruits and flowers. And similarly, the environment around your cells, kind of like the terrain or the soil around your cells, will influence whether you have healthy cells or cells that tip into disease, such as cancer. And so that environment is, as you say, it's information. It's giving signals for what genes get turned off and on all the time. So that environment, that body where cancer cannot thrive, is going to be an environment that is not supportive of the development, growth, and progression of cancer cells.

So I know that we've kind of hinted around it, but that lowering your sugar and your sugar impact would be key. What are some tips around that that you give to your patients?

Well, I wish I had written the sugar impact diet and called it the cancer impact diet, because it really, if your community follows the sugar impact diet the way your guidelines are, that's really the same guidelines where you want to remove concentrated sweets. You want your diet to be relatively low in foods that trigger insul and raise insulin and blood sugar. So you want to take out a lot of the grains and sugars and sweets and have a diet more emphasizing healthy proteins, healthy fats, and colorful vegetables that grow above the ground, the less starchy vegetables. And so that's pretty close to the guidelines you give your community, I think.

You know, it's so interesting when you look at what low sugar impact diet is. It's an anti cancer diet, it's an anti diabetes diet, it's an anti heart disease diet, it's an anti dementia diet. Yeah.

It's an anti inflammatory diet. So the things that cause health come together in one way. So you have to look at yourself as an individual and say, what are my unique risk factors? And then you tweak those general guidelines and individualize them to the person. Right.

And let's talk about that, about some of the individual things that could put someone at risk for cancer and what specifically they can do, like what tests could they look at? What could they be doing for these things? I know you talk a lot about these things in your book 32 Ways to Outsmart cancer, which is definitely one that everybody wants to have. And again, I'm gonna emphasize here, this is not about being reactive. You just heard the stats. One in three women, one in two men. This is one of those ones. I've always felt like if we treat ourselves as if we're at high risk for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and just live that way, then we won't end up that way. Yes.

What we're actually doing is choosing a lifestyle and choosing foods and herbs and nutrients that actually turn cancer promoter genes off and cancer suppressor genes on. And so you asked about tests. So we want to really see if we're managing our inflammation properly. And so some inexpensive tests that any physician could order might be C reactive protein, crp. That's a nice measure to see in general where your inflammation is. And patients who are prone to cancer have much higher levels of crp. Also you might see that your blood is getting thick and sticky. And we look at two values, fibrinogen activity and D dimer. And these are blood clotting measures. And these will often go up in cardiovascular heart disease as well as diabetes and prediabetes. But this might be the earliest sign of cancer that you have increase clotting in your blood. So that's a good screen. Also we want to make sure that we have plenty of antioxidants and the ability to scavenge free radicals which are lone electrons which pit your DNA like rust gets pitted. And we want to make sure you can look at oxidative stress measures in your blood. Also you can look at your fatty acid ratios between your Omega 3 and Omega 6 to see if you're actually accomplishing an environment that's anti inflammatory by your food choices. So those are some tests that are widely available that really tell us a lot about the tumor environment.

And those are fantastic because they are, they're widely available and they're relatively inexpensive. So, you know, easy ones to see. And I did not know that about looking at those two tests as an early indicator, the blood clotting as an early indicator. So wow. Now what about some of your favorite foods, nutrients? What are some of your favorite things? You talk about turning off and turning on genes. So to turn off the cancer genes, what are some of your favorites?

Well, let's talk about kitchen medicine and refrigerator medicine. So anything in the cabbage family that's high in sulforaphanes, this is a group of plant chemicals that stops the development of cancer at many, many stages, helps you detoxify estrogen and clear it from your body, and also acts as a super antioxidant. And in that cabbage family, kale and broccoli and broccoli sprouts are the most concentrated in those nutrients. Also the onion and garlic family is very, very high in sulfur and other plant chemicals that are protective against cardiovascular disease, heart disease, diabetes and cancer. So you want to eat plenty of garlic and leeks and scallions and onions in your diet. Also berries, Anything that has really deep plant pigments. Any food that has a lot of color. So we could talk about berries, we could talk about tomatoes or persimmons or pomegranates. Anything really deep has a plant chemical in it that will actually enter into the nutrients nucleus of your cells and talk to your genes and turn cancer genes off. And so it's very powerful just to eat a lot of color.

You know, it's so great too, because again, I think we so often, especially since I work in weight loss, people tend to look more at the macronutrient effects. Is this raising insulin?

Is this lowering insulin?

Can I burn fat instead of looking why we're actually eating things and how powerful some of these plants are?

Plant food is amazing. You can even go to your spice shelf. Right? So I think a lot of people know that turmeric, that bright y yellow golden powder that we use in curries, is very powerful against cancer. It actually interacts with over 100 genes related to cancer. There is no drug like that.

Wow. I know. Isn't it crazy when you start to look at some of the plants and some of the herbs and you see what they do, you're like, gosh, this is. If this was a drug, it would be super expensive. And, you know, yeah, you know, so this is definitely the place to start. And I still remember sitting in your office when you were sharing so much of this information with me, thinking, you know, they really with. If with you on the team, like, as the leader of the team, there'd be no reason to be afraid of all this because cancer is such a big, scary word and we tend to operate out of fear instead of being proactive about it, which I just love. I'd love to leave with one success story for you to share so people can see what's possible here.

Well, actually, I just got off the phone today with a patient who had a recurrence of ovarian cancer. And she was actually putting her will together because she really didn't think there was any treatment that would work on her. And one of her problems was she was just looking to oncologists to help her with her cancer, and she didn't have a health model. Right. So you. You also need a plan for your health and to create this environment where cancer can't thrive. And so I hadn't talked to her in several months. Her tumor markers when she was first diagnosed were almost 2000. They were 1900 and something. Today, her tumor markers are 5. So she's in remission wow.

And what's normal for a tumor marker.

For someone listening, this would be CA125, which is a tumor marker for ovarian cancer. Anything under 35 is considered in remission or cancer free.

So she was at 2000 and came down to five.

Today she's at five.

Yeah.

But the big goal again is to start now. And again, I gotta emphasize that this book, your 32 Ways to Outsmart cancer, is just fantastic. Everyone wants to grab that. And I'm going to guide you all to integrativecanceranswers.com because Dr. Nalini has spent and I can attest to this, so much time putting together amazing resources for you. So there's incredible resource information there. So you'll want to go to integrativecanceranswers.com and I want to thank you again, Dr. Nalini Chilkov for joining me today. You're so awesome.

Thanks for inviting me.

Hugely appreciate it. Now, after the break, I'm going to be answering a listener's question. So stay with me.

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Welcome back. This is the time where I answer a listener's question. And today's question is wrapped into an amazing success story. I'm gonna let Alison tell you herself.

Hi jj, this is Alison Meyer. I am so grateful that you took all your passion for health and created the Virgin diet. There is nothing else like it. My success story is I went through your program and I found out six of the seven foods are my triggers. No surprise, but your program helped me be my own research scientist and that has been invaluable. I've told clients for years your body's a chemistry set and I've always known that, but I just didn't have the tools. And when you said that, I knew from my tribe vision for my health is to end my suffering with my gut issues. I've had it since I was five years old. I look at pictures when I was little and my stomach is distended. And it's not that I was a chubby kid, it was because I was bloated since I was 5. My main sticking point now is body fat percentage. But I realize I have to be patient and keep doing the program. So my favorite shake recipe. This is hysterical because it's so simple. It's not really even a recipe. It's basically a cup of coconut milk, two scoops of the chocolate, mix it up, and I microwave it for my dinner at night because I used to drink hot tea and stevia and I always wanted a cookie or a graham cracker and I didn't feel satisfied unless I had that. But now that I switched to your protein shake and the coconut milk, I'm totally satisfied and I feel so much better. So that's been my secret weapon. If I could have a private conversation with you, I'd give you a huge hug and a thank you. I'd ask more questions about gut issues, what tests to take, supplements, something a little more tailor made, dig a little deeper just for my own individual help because I realize we're all individuals. And lastly, I'd ask you how I could help you and your vision and keep reaching out and help other people. I tell everybody, like I said, I give your books out. I'm your biggest fan and cheerleader. I think the work you're doing is groundbreaking and great. And I'm so glad that you're out there. Thank you so much for this opportunity to share with you. And I just think you are awesome. Thanks so much.

Bye.

So, Alison, I love the fact that you get how important it is to be your own personal health detective. Now, one of the ways that you can change your body fat percentage, you know, initially your diet makes the big shift. Changing what's at the end of your fork and really becoming clued into what foods work for you and which foods don't, what you're intolerant to and how much you need to lower your sugar impact. But then the next level to really make sure that you don't become tofi thin outside fat inside is by making sure that you're doing both high intensity interval training or burst style training and resistance training. And I talk about this in both of my online programs, in the Virgin Diet online program and in the Sugar Solution online program. So make sure you're adding that in too. I like people to start with their diet. Focus on dialing that in and customizing it to your personal biochemistry lab and then working into exercise. Next, start with burst Training and then add in resistance training. Now I have to just jump on something I talked about because you talked about microwaving your shake and I just have to take a step back. And I love using shake mix for other stuff. You can make amazing hot chocolate with my JJ virgin shake mix and some coconut milk or so delicious almond milk. So that is a great thing. But let's skip out on the microwave because it can change the molecular structure of the food, make it Frankenfood. And we don't want that. We do not want to make it good thing bad. So instead heat up your coconut milk or your so delicious coconut milk, almond milk, cashew milk, heat that on up, then take it off the heat, whisk on in the protein powder and you are good to go. Now you talked about GI issues and what you would ask me if you were with me. So what I would tell you is if you do want to have something tailor made for you, that's where you work with a functional medicine doc and do some stool testing. I like one called the GI Effect Stool test on DNA testing testing or do organic acid testing. Both of these things can help a bunch with helping you identify what's going on in your gut. Microbiome, but just some basic things. I have a product called Microbiome Balance, that's a bacteria phage which helps eat up the bad stuff in your gut, which actually can make you extract more calories from the food you eat and store that as fat and supports the beneficial bacteria in the gut. And I would say that's one that everyone benefits from one to two a day. Now, digestive enzymes are another one 30, 35 years old or under any stress. I think digestive enzymes are definitely something you want to incorporate into your diet. I don't take them with my shakes because those are easy to digest, but I use my digestive enzymes. I take two with my other meals and one of the things I love so much about them is they're going to help you break down protein, which is what a lot of us have challenges with as we age due to stress and due to not taking enough time with our meals issue or too many fluids at the meals. So they help you break down protein, but these enzymes are specifically created to help you not break down your carbs quickly. And that's something that you want to watch. So it helps you block or not break down your carbs, which is fantastic because for a lot of people if you take enzymes that speed up carbohydrate digestion, you just raise your blood sugar more. You don't want to do that. So that's what I would suggest. Like if you're working looking on working on your gut using digestive enzymes, using the microbiome balance and then using something called leaky gut support and you can throw that into your shake. So it's great. You won't even notice. It actually has a really pleasing like black peach taste. Great to throw in the shake. But what's nice about this is has all these things that are both gut soothing and gut healing. So that's my trifecta for helping you with GI issues. And again, I always like to say test, don't guess. So if you've done the Virgin diet, incorporate next in the Sugar Impact diet and do those products. And if you're still having issues, go to your functional medicine doctor and have them take a look at further with some good functional testing. All right, if you'd like to submit a question, just go to jjvirgin.com ask and you can leave a voicemail for me. I can't wait to hear from you. And one more way, I'd love to hear from you. I would hugely appreciate it if you could jump on Stitcher or itunes and leave a review for me. It helps a bunch and be sure to subscribe and share the show with your friends. This is JJ Virgin signing off and reminding you that you are worth it and you are worthy. Dare to Live a Life that matters.

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