← The Dr. Josh Axe Show
The Dr. Josh Axe Show
How to Prevent CANCER: 15 Proven Ways to Lower Your Risk
00:58:13
What if the key to lowering your cancer risk isn’t found in a breakthrough drug, but in the daily habits you practice? After watching his mom battle cancer, Dr. Josh Axe shares a powerful, science backed framework for building a body that’s far less hospitable to disease. In this episode, he walks through 15 proven strategies: from balancing blood sugar to strengthening your immune system, to help you take control of your long term health.
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I've walked hundreds and hundreds of men and women through cancer helping them recover, helping them heal. And on today's episode what I want to share with you are the most important things you need to know and do when you when it comes to beating cancer. You know I'm gonna walk you through today 15 science backed habits that reduce cancer. And sometimes it's simple. Listen, most people think today that it's all about genetics. Did you know according to medical studies 90% of cancer is from lifestyle and from environment and metabolic health. So it's your habits 90% you have control of when it comes to preventing and fighting cancer. And today I'll walk you through everything from the diet, the supplements and the root causes of cancer and how to address those directly. Welcome to the Dr. Josh Yak Show. And also I want to mention, hey, the number one thing you can do to support the show is subscribe. I want to thank all of you subscribers out there. Make sure to subscribe here on YouTube. Also follow here on Apple Podcasts. The podcast continues to make a difference, have an impact and if you're not subscribed you may miss out on some of our biggest and best episodes coming up. We have so many really high level doctors and celebrities and people who have a lot of important things to say about how to heal naturally. So don't forget to subscribe and thank you so much for all of you do because Again, it's the number one thing you could do to support the show, allowing me to bring on more high profile guests, put out better content. Thank you so much for doing so. Over 30 years ago, my mom was diagnosed with cancer for the first time, about 20 years. My mom was then diagnosed with cancer for the second time. The first time she went all conventional approach. She had a mastectomy. She went through rounds and rounds of chemotherapy. She almost died from the treatments, yet she was able to survive. But after that, she was diagnosed with so many other health problems. My mom had hypothyroidism, chronic fatigue syndrome. She got put on antidepressant, anti anxiety medications. My mom was sick and tired of all the time with her immune system in the tank. And the second time she was diagnosed with cancer, we took an all natural approach. She started juicing vegetables. She started using turmeric and medicinal mushrooms and doing advanced therapies. And she healed completely naturally without drugs, without chemotherapy, without radiation, without surgery. And today, my mom is in her mid-70s, thriving, healthy, and doing incredibly well. And so let's dive into the number one thing you need to do to prevent and fight cancer. And it is keep your blood sugar and insulin balanced and low. Okay. Most people think cancer is some genetic glitch, and they were predetermined to have it. That's not what the studies show. In reality, many studies show that the main cause of cancer is metabolic disease. And one of the strongest growth signals is chronically elevated insulin, which usually arises due to a diet high in sugar. And. And when it comes to insulin, it's important to know that insulin is a hormone that helps regulate blood sugar levels and promotes cell growth and division. And when blood sugar levels are consistently high, the pancreas releases more insulin to manage these levels. Now, over time, your cells become less responsive to insulin. Imagine somebody had a big megaphone or you had a speaker, and it was constantly, you know, blaring music in your ear. Eventually, you go deaf. That's what happens to the insulin receptor site. So you have your cells and they have receptor sites that sort of have insulin attached to the cell. Then that brings sugar into the cell, right? And so what happens is these receptor sites for insulin, it's like when you're eating a lot of sugar, it's like you're constantly blaring music, and they actually get damaged in deaf, so they can't hear anymore. So what happens is insulin levels elevate. We call that things like insulin resistance or prediabetes. And this stimulates several signaling Pathways, notably the MPK pathway. And some of these pathways, like mapk, are known to promote cell survival, growth and division, even when they shouldn't be. Right. So part of what cancer is, it's cell replication happening where cancer cells are starting to replicate and take over your body. When cells divide uncontrollably, they can accumulate these mutations and ultimately form tumors, statistically speaking. By the way, people with insulin resistance have a significantly higher rate of multiple cancers, including breast cancer, colorectal, pancreatic and liver cancers. And according to NIH, they report that an estimated 40 to 50% of US adults have insulin resistance. The exact number is 44.8%, often without knowing it, even if their blood sugar appears normal. So there are so many people out there today that have not had the right advanced blood work and, or haven't had blood work at all, and they literally have no idea that they have insulin resistance. And again, 45% of people have this issue and it's driving cancer in their body. So here's some things you can do immediately to fight insulin resistance. Up your protein intake and up your fiber. Those are the biggest needle movers right there. Okay, 30 to 40 grams of fiber for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You want to get about 10 to 15 grams of fiber for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So protein and fiber. Protein balances insulin. Fiber also helps balance insulin. A little bit of healthy fat there, like a little bit of extra virgin olive oil, that would be helpful as well. But those balance insulin and then of course, avoid the ultra processed carbohydrates, the breads, the pastas, the rolls, the desserts. And of course, this should go without saying, any sugar, including natural sugars from things like fruit juice, you want to get away from those. So again, you want to consume a diet high in protein, high in fiber, moderate healthy fat and high in nutrients, of course, that's the diet you want to follow. Now here's another great thing for insulin, walking after meals, even a 10 to 20 minute walk a couple times a day, according to studies, helps balance insulin. And if you want to watch a full episode on this, I'll link it in the show. Notes. In terms of the full template for balancing insulin, which is also very important for weight loss, number two thing that's incredibly helpful in order at fighting cancer is building more muscle. Muscle is really one of your strongest anti cancer organs, muscle building. And I'm not talking about, you know, for women. If you're listening to this, getting bulky, but looking lean and fit, you know, looking at someone like, you know, Jennifer Garner or someone like that, that's sort of, you know, that's, that's lean and toned. You want to put on some good muscle. And muscle building improves glucose disposal. Muscle contractions activate something called GLUT4Transporters. And what this does is it allows glucose to be pulled into the muscle without needing as much insulin, resulting in lower blood sugar and insulin exposure. Really, the more muscle you have, the more your insulin is typically balanced. So putting on muscle can be key. Now, here's another thing that's really important. There's something called myokines in cancer. So we're going to dive into this. Strength training also releases, again, myokines. These are anti cancer signaling molecules. Myokines allow your muscle to function as an endocrine organ. So again, what that means is your muscles. Myokines allow your muscles to function as hormone organs that communicate with other organs and tissues throughout your body, including your body fat, your liver, your brain, and even your immune system. So your muscles actually give off these hormonal signals, helping insulin be balanced so that hormone be balanced in your body, helping burn body fat, detoxify the liver, fuel your brain, and strengthen your immune system. Your muscles do all of those things in working with other organs. They are incredibly powerful. One key myokine, by the way, that some of you have heard of if you're into really advanced nutrition. It's called interleukin 6, okay. It helps reduce abdominal fat, particularly by browning white adipose tissue, which has a strong correlation with several different cancers. So it's helping also get rid of some of this visceral fat around your organs, helping change that type of fat into muscle in some cases, or changing that type of fat into a different type of fat, which is less deadly and easier to burn for energy. And here's something else resistance training does. Weight training activates the sympathetic nervous system to release catecholamines like adrenaline and muscle derived myokines, which help mobilize natural killer cells in your body. One of the greatest things you can do to fight cancer is activate these natural killer cells, your natural killer cells. And this was important when my mom had cancer. We were studying this more for looking at what herbals and foods could actually go and create more NK cells. Okay? NK cells, natural killer cells are almost like Navy seals in your body. Okay? They are like an overt operation. They're going to seek out cancer cells and actually destroy them. Incredibly powerful. And another thing happens as well. So you have your natural killer cells. That's a very important immune cell. You also have what are called your T cells, okay? And these signals are important for strengthening your immune system. As I mentioned before, they're also important for surveillance and helping your body better detect cancer cells and eliminate them early on. Okay? People who engage in regular strength training, now listen, this could be weights, it could be machines, it could be bands. But people who engage in training that helps build muscle have about a 36% lower all cause mortality risk. Weight training saves your life. This is according to the Journal of American Medical association with one of the largest medical journals in the world. So here's what you want to do. You want to incorporate strength training two to four days per week, okay? You want to keep your workouts anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes and focus on your big muscle groups, squats, hinges, pushes, poles, carries. You know, if you think about like this, you really want to work your butt and your legs primarily, that's the most important group. Followed by your back and then your chest and shoulders, pushing movements and then doing some core in there, okay? But you want them to be functional movements with large muscle groups. And if you can do that, you'll put on the most muscle in the least amount of time. Do you have hormone imbalance, weight loss resistance, low energy and sleep problems, and you're tired of being told your labs are normal when you know something isn't right? I'm currently offering a simple at home blood test that actually tests for the right things. Targeted biomarkers including hormones, thyroid and metabolism. Plus a full hour with one of my senior health advisors to review your results and discover ways that you can work with the health institute to finally find lasting healing. If you want to check it out and grab one before they're gone, just go to mybloodwork.com now. Number three thing you can start to do right now to fight cancer is walking daily. I mentioned this earlier, but especially after meals. Walking goes a long way to improve blood sugar control and insulin sensitivity. As we talked about earlier, here's another thing it does though. It improves lymphatic flow. It supports gut motility. You know, one of the things I want to mention my mom struggled with and I look back and I thought, you know what? This should have been a big warning sign that cancer was building. This second time in her body, my mom struggled with major constipation. Like she probably had a bowel movement three, three days of seven days a week. So three days a week she was having a bowel movement, suffered with major constipation. And so when she got that second cancer diagnosis and we really dove into all of her symptoms and what she was dealing with. Fixing the constipation was one of the first things we did. And we had her do a couple things for that. Nutritionally, we had her do things like high dose magnesium and flax oil and probiotics. But then we had her start doing a lot more walking. My mom would walk 30 minutes, three times a day. And then we also got a mini trampoline and rebounder doing everything we could to move the lymph and support gut motility. Very important. In fact, did you know in Chinese medicine, they believe that the root cause of cancer is stagnation? Okay. So basically, where blood and nutrients stop kind of going to an area and movement stops happening, they kind of talk about it like a swamp. Your body should be this stream of living water constantly moving. And they actually call this qi stagnation and blood stagnation. But basically it's like, you know, your mitochondrial energy, vitamins, minerals, blood, oxygen, they're not getting in and out of your cell, they're not getting in and out of an organ in your body. So you develop cancer in that area. But to my point there, movement is key. We talked about strength training, walking, mini rebounder, those types of things do wonders. And walking around meals is one of the most powerful forms of medicine on the planet because it helps lower insulin while at the same time supporting movement of your lymphatics and your gut. Incredibly important. So most studies show that your benefits start around 7,000 steps. Okay, around that 7,000 step mark or 10,000 step mark, that's what you want. And if you can go on a 10 to 20 minute walk after your meals, that's the biggest needle mover. Okay? And then I would also say, you know, every 30 to 60 minutes, you know, at least every hour, get up and walk for two to five minutes and then sit back down. But you want to go and you want to be able to move and sort of break up your day and keep your body and blood and oxygen moving. Number four, you want to eat 30 to 45 grams of fiber daily. Okay, Now, I mentioned fiber early on when it comes to balancing insulin. And it's great for that, but it has numerous other benefits as well. Fiber is cancer protective. Here's one big reason why is specific types of fiber, like prebiotic fiber feed, good bacteria in your gut. So your probiotics have to eat something. They eat soluble fiber, they eat prebiotic fiber. And it also, I want to mention this, there's other forms of fiber with that, that Also help bind to hormones like excess estrogen in your body. You know, there's a lot of cancers like breast cancer that are tied to excess estrogen. And so if you can eat the right type of fiber, it's going to help feed good bacteria, it's going to balance insulin, and it's going to bind to things like excess estrogen and remove it from your body. The way this works is in the digestive tract. Certain types of fiber bind to estrogen in your bile, which is created by the liver, released by the gallbladder, reducing its reabsorption and promoting its excretion in your stool. Also, certain types of fiber, they act as natural binders. They'll also bind to things like mold and parasites. By the way, if you have other types of infections in your body, like mold, parasites especially, that would be the highest on the list. Other viruses, they take up a lot of the energy of your immune system and will also increase your cancer risk. So doing these mild binders, like modified citrus pectin, or, you know, even doing flax and chia, doing, you know, good vegetable fiber, apple fiber is amazing as well, and from berries. But this type of fiber can lightly bind to some of these toxins, Almost like if you're familiar with activated charcoal. The problem there, it's such a strong binder that it's going to pull minerals from your body. Okay, that's a problem. Versus these more mild binders will just daily, it's like a natural daily detox, Bind to estrogen, bind to toxins and heavy metals and infections and help get them out of your body. If you're not getting enough fiber, what happens is some of these toxins will continue to recirculate in your body because nothing is bound to them and they're not excreted in your stool. So you really want to make sure that you're not only killing the thing that's dangerous, that you're also binding to it as well. One other thing that's really unique about fiber is, is it fuels the production of a type of fatty acid in your gut called butyrate or butyric acid. And this is a short chain fatty acid that protects the lining of the colon. And according to research out of the British medical journal, it suggests that each additional 10 grams of fiber per day is linked to a 10% reduction in colorectal cancer risk. So if you want to reduce your risk of colorectal cancer, Fiber, fiber, and more fiber. Now, by the way, there's a limit you can reach. You really don't typically want to go over 50 grams a day because it can start to be too much fiber. But you do want to aim for that at least 30. And I would say that 40 grams or so a day, again, that 10 to 15 grams per meal is what you want to be focused on. And for your fiber, you want to prioritize things like steamed vegetables. You want to do berries, apples, pomegranates, lentils and beans, Chia flax, artichokes. Okay. And I mentioned steamed vegetables earlier. A lot of those like cabbage and broccoli are great as well. So prioritize those types of fiber and ensure, by the way, pumpkin's also pretty good. I would put on that list. And if you are consuming grains, you want to ensure they are 100% organic and also have, again, good fiber, because if not, they're going to spike your blood sugar. And. And a lot of those grains also are sprayed with things like glyphosate. We want to be chemical free. The number five factor that will make a huge difference in you, preventing and fighting cancer is consuming more cruciferous vegetables. Cruciferous vegetables help your body safely process and eliminate toxins and excess hormones. Listen, so many cancers today, especially breast cancer, ovarian cancer, testicular cancer. There's a major hormonal component, okay? And so we want to balance hormones in order to prevent cancer. And cruciferous vegetables contain compounds that activate detoxification enzymes and support DNA protection. So they detox and they also are protecting your cells from that excess replication and becoming cancerous. So some of my favorite cruciferous vegetables include broccoli. Broccoli sprouts. I do want to highlight this for a minute. Sprouts are incredible. They are the highest of all vegetables or foods in something called sulforaphane. And this compound probably is the most powerful anti cancer compound in food. It's absolutely incredible. For detoxification of the liver, for cellular detoxification. So buying sprouts or microgreens, loads of benefits there. So again, sprouts of all types, including broccoli sprouts, brussels sprouts, kale, cabbage, arugula, radishes, and watercress bok choy. Those are some of the best cruciferous vegetables. And I highly recommend that you steam them. I think that's the best. Get a big vegetable steamer, steam big batches of these. Or you may also consider taking them and putting a little olive oil on them and baking them in the oven with some sea salt and olive oil. That's sort of the next Best option. But really, most of your cruciferous vegetables, you want to consume them steamed. Now I go into a lot of detail about this, by the way, in my cellular healing program at the Health Institute. If you want to learn more about that, you can go to thehealthinstitute.com and learn more about exactly how to heal your cells with food based medicine. All right, number six step to fight and kill cancer is cut ultra processed foods. I know I'm being obvious here, but but I just want to talk about some of the foods that might also surprise you. Okay, so ultra processed foods make up nearly 60% of American daily calories. They increase inflammation, they disrupt hormones, they cause major weight gain, they impair your immune function. They do all of that and so much more. And of course, they greatly increase your risk of cancer. I recently had a friend of mine, Courtney Swan, on the podcast and she shared a really good rule for buying health foods. She said if you can't buy one of the ingredients at the store, like guar gum or diglycerides, then just don't buy it. Okay. I thought she was a really great guest in sort of digging into just really practical and simple ways you can shop and eat healthy and more organically. And you can find the link to that podcast I did in the description. Okay, so stay away from processed foods. I do want to mention there is a great study and in the British Medical Journal and they found that adding just 10% more ultra processed foods to your diet was associated with a more than 10% higher risk of cancer overall. Okay. Some of the ways to cut down on this, you know, I used to teach shopping classes. I recently opened a clinic here in Nashville called the Longevity Clinic. And so we're doing some workshops now. But I would teach a class with my patients and I would go around and I would say what the number one rule was. When you're shopping at the grocery store, the number one area you should be spending your time, almost the only area is in the perimeter of the store. Okay. It's where the produce is. It's where the meat is. It's where again, it's where. It's where you're getting fruits and vegetables and meat. Okay? That's where you want to be spending most of your time. Okay. And when you're building your meals, you want to build your meals around protein and fresh produce. Okay. Meat and vegetables. Meat and vegetables. Meat and vegetables. A little bit of fruit, right? Maybe some sweet potato, things like that. I mean, that is your meal. If you can do that it's going to help you heal in such a profound way and fight cancer. I can remember when my mom was diagnosed with cancer. That second time I got the news on the phone, I was in Florida. And I immediately flew back to Ohio where I grew up. And first thing we did is we prayed. I spent time with my mom, we talked about it, and then we started going through her kitchen. And I went through. We got out. We literally took the garbage can out of the, you know, out of the. Out of the area. It was. We put it next to the pantry and we just started throwing things away. Out of the pantry, out of the refrigerator. We cleaned house of all the junk, and then we went to the store and we bought pretty much fruits and vegetables. Okay. And wild salmon. I mean, that was kind of like the diet for the most part that she followed. And we did that. We did a whole kitchen makeover. And here's something I've shared with people over the years. I eat like I have cancer every day, so I never get it. Okay? So right now, being able to go into your pantry, right now, into your refrigerator, I encourage you to do this. Get out the garbage can, get rid of all of those processed foods, and then go restock with the things that are going to fight cancer and help you heal. All right? Number seven, eat antioxidant rich foods daily. Okay. Studies show that a high intake of antioxidant rich foods is inversely related to cancer risk, especially stomach cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, as well as lower overall cancer mortality, according to a major medical journal. Okay. So getting more antioxidants is something you really want to focus on. So we've talked about, you want to get protein, you want to get fiber, you want to get healthy fats. You also want to have a lot of foods that are very high in colors, in purple, in red, in green and orange, in those colors, right. You know, antioxidants from foods like fruits and vegetables and herbs, of course they don't completely eliminate all risk of cancer, but they do reduce cellular damage and decrease risk of cancer over time. And of course, many of them have powerful anti cancer properties. I remember when I was digging into the medical research when my mom had cancer. And of course, I've done so much more reading and studying since then, but I spent so much time looking at medical journals of what herbs had the greatest anti cancer properties. Right. What foods, what diets historically, like what, what countries, what areas of the world were. Was cancer the lowest? And I remember reading specifically about Okinawa, Japan. Right. How low Their cancer was in some of these areas, like that area of the world. And so I said, okay, what are they getting in their diet that's maybe so unique that's preventing cancer? And I started noticing a lot of herbal tea consumption. In fact, we don't really drink as much tea in America. We drink a lot of coffee, but we don't drink as much herbal tea. They drink a lot of tea over there, and green tea is their tea of choice. Secondarily, they drink a lot of ginger tea. So it's like green tea and ginger tea. The cancer benefits of those two herbs are so incredibly powerful. I also started looking at. They eat a fair amount of fruit. They do a lot of seaweed. They do a lot of actually purple sweet potatoes. There's a lot of those types of foods that they have in their diet. But what I've seen from the clinical research is you want to do a lot of vegetables, moderate amount of fruit, but you want to do ones that are high in antioxidants. So you want to do some that are dark blue and black, like blueberries. And blackberries. Get the red fruits like. And vegetables like pomegranates, beets, and raspberries. The dark green ones, right? The dark green leafy vegetables like spinach, cruciferous vegetables, and herbals that are green like basil, white like onions and garlic. In fact, I remember reading probably the herb at the time that had the most anti cancer properties was garlic. And then you want to do things that are orange, right? Like turmeric and like pumpkin and then foods that are brown, like dark chocolate. But you want to do a lot of these different colored superfoods and get more antioxidants in your diet. Because what antioxidants really do is they protect your cells from damage. Okay? Part of the reasons why your cells become cancerous is something called oxidative stress. Your cells get stressed and damaged over time. And I've talked about this many times before, but the best example I can always think of is an apple, right? An apple, the highest antioxidant content is on the skin. And when you break that antioxidant threshold and you bite into an apple, the flesh that's under it has less antioxidants and immediately starts to turn brown. So if your cells lose that antioxidant protection, they start to age, they start to turn brown, they start to become diseased and decay and rot. That's what happens. This is why you want to make sure you have a high antioxidant diet via fruits, vegetables, and herbals to protect you. And so with my mom practically, you know, we started adding in things like pomegranates and raspberries and blueberries. And we started doing, you know, a, you know, lots of these steamed green, leafy vegetables and cruciferous vegetables and lots of herbs like turmeric. As I, as I mentioned before. All right, the number eight thing we want to focus on when it comes to fighting cancer are key. Immune, boosting, nutrients. Right. When I look at blood work today, I do really advanced blood panels in my clinic, and I'm able to see with patients both extracellular and intracellular nutrients. And there are major deficiencies in a lot of people that they don't know about. Listen, if you have one major nutritional deficiency, your risk of cancer can go up dramatically. You know, as reported by the clinical nutrition Journal, low nutrient intake accounts for at least 10% of all cancers. But it might be a lot more than that, at least be a big contributing factor. And nutrients, especially like vitamin D, vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium, zinc, carotenoids, and polyphenols, if you're deficient in any one of those nutrients, your chance of cancer can go up dramatically. You know, According to study, 40 to 60% of adults are deficient in those nutrients. Think about that. At least half of people are deficient in one or many of those nutrients right now. And the problem is that most doctors do not test you for nutrients. They're doing kind of the same old blood work they were doing back in the 1970s. Right? CBC, CMP. What are your cholesterol levels? They're not looking at. What are your levels of zinc and selenium and magnesium? Do you know right now what your numbers of those are? Most people don't. Right. And vitamin D may be the most important, but all of them are important. And vitamin D in particular is a critical nutrient, maybe the most critical for immune regulation. Now, zinc is a really big deal as well, and all the others. But vitamin D is incredibly important. And the medical literature proves this time and time again. And I want to say something, generally speaking, something like 94% of people are, are not getting enough vitamin D. Okay? And there are other statistics saying maybe 40 to 60% of adults are vitamin D deficient. But overall, and let me, let me say this as well. You know, I think these numbers are off the 40 to 60% from this standpoint. I think they're true in terms of the modern blood work, that many people are deficient. But blood work today, when it looks at most nutrients and values. It tells you what's normal, not what's optimal for healing or fighting cancer. Right. You typically want to be, according to. Most doctors of functional medicine will agree that you want to be around 50 to 80 nanograms per milliliter. That's what you want to be, that 50 to 80. And a lot of people are in the 20s, teens. But your doctor, if you go in and you're at 30, they may say you're normal and fine, but that is absolutely not optimal for fighting cancer and beating cancer. I mean, this is one in particular. When I look at my mom, what her levels are, it was low. And. And we really focused on her getting more sunshine. We also focused on this, her supplementation. You know, when you're taking vitamin D, here's a few things I just want to mention too. You want to take a vitamin D supplement at least 5,000 I use daily. If you're low. Most people, if you're low, I recommend 5,000 I use twice daily. You want to take it with a little bit of fat, it should be combined with vitamin K2. And I also think nutrients like magnesium may also support the absorption of to a degree. So again, you want to get sunlight, you don't want to ever get burnt, but you want to get sunlight regularly. And by the way, I do want to mention the darker your skin is, typically the more sunlight you need to get optimal levels. Okay? So you don't want to get burnt, but you do want to get a good amount of sun as much as you can on your full body. Okay? So again, really focus on vitamin D3 in your diet, getting lots of sunshine. Now, I want to mention this, and as I look at blood work, when people come in the office, I've had some people, many people who were getting some sunshine, they were supplementing with vitamin D and their levels still weren't optimal after supplementation. Now, here's what's happening with those people. They are not producing enough bile. They don't have enough bile flow from their liver and gallbladder. And that's important for the breakdown in absorption and utilization of vitamin D. So if your liver and gallbladder aren't healthy and active and working properly, you can have poor absorption of vitamin D. And then to fix that, you can take supplements like tudka. Of course, stress reduction is huge there as well, doing everything you can to support liver and bile flow. You know, doing things like artichoke and burdock, rote and turmeric tea and dandelion. So there are things so if you keep over time, you really want to start with sunshine and vitamin D supplementation, okay? But if it's still not getting high enough, then we need to work on the liver, gallbladder and bile flow, and that will fix the low vitamin D levels. Now, I want to mention, as we talked about, all these other nutrients. That's where, in addition, listen, you want to get most of your vitamins and minerals from whole organic food, right? Organic celery, organic beets, right? Organic spinach. You want to get organic produce, fruits and vegetables. That's where most of your nutrients can be coming from. But many of you need to fill in the gaps if you know there's a deficiency. And so going and supplementing with a zinc and copper combo and selenium, if you definitely have autoimmune disease or hypothyroidism, that's another indicator that you definitely need selenium. So doing everything you can to make sure you're filling those nutrient gaps. And one of the things, again, I've done is I encourage people to get cellular blood work to look at the vitamin and mineral deficiencies. And that can help tremendously. By the way, at the Health Institute, we do basic cellular blood work and we can look at things like B12 and CRP and other things that put people at risk. We're also putting together an even more robust panel. So if you want to get on that list, make sure to join the email list for the advanced blood work panel, which we'll be coming out with really, really soon. Number nine is this. Eat medicinal mushrooms. Now, listen, I don't care what anyone says about you, you're not weird and crazy for using medicinal mushrooms, okay? In fact, one of the first things I was shocked to find out when I started studying and reading up on how can my mom beat cancer was how in all of Asia, one of the number one therapies they were utilizing even 20 years ago to fight cancer was consuming more medicinal mushrooms like shiitake and maitake mushroom and reishi and cordyceps. They're not woo woo. They are science. In fact, they've been approved as an adjunctive to standard cancer treatment in Japan and China for more than 30 years. They stimulate cytokine production and contain a compound called beta glucans, which improves cellular communication, boosting NK cells and T killer cells. Mushrooms are amazing at fighting cancer. One of my favorites is turkey tail mushroom. In fact, according to the National Cancer Institute, turkey tail mushroom extracts are especially helpful and supporting immune therapy in an oncology setting. And so a Lot of people are using these both doing it all natural or combined with traditional cancer therapies. The mushrooms that tend to have the most research in anti cancer benefits include reishi mushroom, turkey tail, maitake, shiitake and lion's mane. In Asia, what they encourage you to do is consume mushrooms three to five days per week, use a high quality extract or blend as a supplementation or even do them as a tea or coffee, right? But however you can get mushrooms in your diet is a great way to go. Like for my mom at the time we were having her do this immune blend that I think had reishi and cordyceps and maybe maitake in it. And that's what she was doing on a regular basis. By the way, turkey tail has great antiviral properties. If you're dealing with a virus, in addition to wanting to prevent, turkey tail has just amazing benefits. Number 10 way to combat cancer is protect your sleep. Sleep is one of the most powerful cancer protective tools that you already have. During sleep, your body repairs DNA, it resets your immune cells and it regulates inflammation. This is where your mitochondria and your cells get recharged. So now they can go in and fight a battle. Think about this for your immune system, okay? If you are not getting sleep, your soldiers in your immune system, these cells are not getting sleep, okay? So they go out. Just like if you're groggy and tired all day and not thinking clearly, your cells are kind of doing the same thing. They're fatigued, they're tired, they get worn out more easily fighting off the Epstein Barr virus or long Covid or cancer or whatever immune pathogen it's having to deal with, right? Sleep is crucial for repair and healing. In fact, I remember reading a study years ago where if somebody slept less than seven hours of sleep a night, their chance of getting a cold or flu went up like three times and the duration was so much longer versus someone who got more than seven hours a night, their immune system was so much stronger and robust. So sleep makes a major, major impact in your overall health and fighting cancer, right? Because again, if you're tired, then your cells are also likely tired. And so biggest action steps here, number one, put your phone down. I really think that, listen, once you have dinner and do an earlier dinner, five o', clock, ideally, if not six o', clock, but just as early as you can do an earlier dinner and then afterwards, no phone at all, there should be no phone rule after that. And then it's just connecting with family, playing games with the family. It's reading a book, listening to an audiobook. If you do a TV show for an hour right after, that's fine. Put on those blue blocker sunglasses, but start to prep your body for winding down. The blue light, the screen time, all that is probably the biggest destroyer of sleep today. You want to aim for 7 1/2 to 9 hours per night. Keep your room dark, keep it cold, keep it quiet, and maintain those good sleep wake times. Right? Be in bed long enough in order to get good deep sleep. Hey, guys, I'm here with my good friend, Dr. Dave Jockers. In fact, we've been friends for more than 20 years. He runs the podcast, the Dr. Dave Jockers Functional Nutrition Podcast. Dr. Dave, tell us a little bit about what your podcast is about.
- [38:57]
D
Yeah, absolutely. We dive deep on functional nutrition, really how to personalize your nutrition plan for better energy, mental clarity, better hormone balance, and we talk a lot about cellular health, mitochondrial function, cell membrane. We do a deep dive on every major nutrition topic and natural health topic. So everything you need right there at your fingertips. Dr. Jocker's Functional Nutrition podcast.
- [39:20]
B
I want to encourage you, run out and listen to the Do Jocker show again. I'm a big fan of it. I think you will be as well. Number 11, way to fight cancer. This one might surprise you a little bit. Prioritize omega 3 fatty acids and other healthy fatty acids in your diet. Omega 3 fats regulate inflammation, which actually is a major driver of cancer risk. Research from the Nutrition and Cancer journal foundation, that 1 gram a day of omega 3 fats significantly reduced inflammatory markers that were linked to cancer. Okay, so what you want to do there is eat more wild caught fish. Salmon, sardines, mackerel, halibut, tuna. But get more of these omega 3s, okay? And then use a high quality fish oil, right? So, so do those things to get what I do if I'm, if I'm eating salmon that day because I, by the way, I eat a lot of salmon, right? I don't always take an omega fish oil every day, but the days where I don't eat wild caught fish, every single one of those days, I do a wild caught cod liver oil or fish oil or some sort of really high quality fish oil. By the way, you get what you pay for with these fish oil supplements or omega 3 supplements. A lot of them are not in the right form. So you tend to want to spend more money getting one that may have astaxanthin in it or might have what we call the triglyceride form there Are forms that are less processed, easier to digest. Let me say this. If you, have you ever taken a fish oil supplement, you get like fish burps, like you can kind of taste it later. That the problem there is you're probably not fully digesting it well. Okay? And some of it might do with your liver and gallbladder not producing enough bile or bile flow. That could be the issue there. But some of it, there's a lot of bad fish oil. Do not go to your local drugstore and pick up the cheapest fish oil on the shelf. You really want to get a high quality omega 3 fish oil if you want to get the right bang for your buck and get the results. Okay, now I want to mention as well, in addition to fish oil, you want to use extra virgin olive oil, okay? It should be the oil you kind of use for almost everything. If you're doing more high heat cooking for a long time, you know, you may consider using an avocado oil. If you want to kind of mix it up and have something to where maybe you feel like you tolerate coconut oil, well, that's okay too. But really, extra virgin olive oil should be the oil you're using predominantly there with those omega 9 fatty acids. So you want to focus on the omega 3 fish oil and things like extra virgin olive oil for the greatest anti cancer benefits. Number 12. When it comes to fighting cancer, you want to optimize the health of your gut microbiome. 70% of your immune cells live in your gut. So think about this again, okay? Just how important this is. One of the biggest drivers of cancer is a weak immune system and your immune system not being able to handle it. Okay? So, so that's. That is a. Your gut and your liver, your detoxification system and your immune system are the main systems responsible for dealing with cancer. Okay? And then 70% of your immune system lives in your gut. According to research published in the Frontiers medical Journal. They said the gut microbiome and its metabolites can act as a cancer inhibitor or promoter. Approximately 20% of cancers are believed to be caused by the effects of microorganisms in your gut microbiome. And I've seen numbers way higher than this in other studies. Two people can be exposed to the same risk and have very different outcomes based on the microbes in their gut. And think about this. In your gut, you've got bifidobacterium, you've got, you know, Lactobacillus plantarum. You've got all of these different bacteria akkermansia all these different bacteria living in your gut. You know what else is living in there though for most people, low grade funguses and yeast and parasites and, and all of these things are in there together. If you have enough of the good guys, right, the type of bacteria that helps strengthen and bolster your immune system, they'll keep the parasites away. Pretty much everyone has a parasite. Some of you just have so few that your immune system's controlling them and dealing with them all the time. Some of you, your body, it's a low grade parasite or it's long Covid, it's a virus or something, or Lyme, it's just constantly sort of beating you up, it's constantly harming your cells and then it's taking the focus off cancer cells because your body's having to deal with those. So then cancer can proliferate, right? There's a study in a medical journal, several medical journals that found that if you have a parasitic infection, your chance of getting brain tumors specifically goes up dramatically. You know, I had a cousin and one of my best friends and he did, he's a missionary and he did a lot of mission trips to India and Pakistan and he was diagnosed with glioblastoma. Now, praise God, he's still alive. He went on an all keto diet and did really advanced natural therapies. But again, but we believe that the reason why he was diagnosed with that is that he had a parasite for many years because of all of these mission trips that he had gone on to India and Pakistan over the years. And so he got on even things like ivermectin and other things. So part of his anti cancer protocol was a anti parasite protocol, first of wormwood and black walnut and ivermectin, all those things to kill the parasite. Because we knew if his immune system's gonna fight and beat cancer, we also have to get rid of the parasitic infection. Okay, but your gut microbiome is key to this. So one thing you wanna do is you really wanna up your intake of the good type of fiber we talked about earlier. Onions, garlic. By the way, the great things about onions and garlic is they have anti parasite properties, anti cancer properties, and they promote the growth of good bacteria. So a lot of onions and garlic and leeks, asparagus, lentils, berries, pomegranates, apples, papaya, these things are fantastic, right? So they're going to help your gut microbiome get rid of the sugar, the refined grains. Those are going to feed the wrong bacteria, right? That's going to cause overgrowth of things like yeast. We don't want that also include fermented foods. A little bit of coconut, yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi, kava. Some of those fermented vegetables have great benefits as well of supporting the gut microbiome. And then I would say doing a high dose probiotic supplement, like a soil based organism, like I put patients on a probiotic that has a trillion probiotics, literally. I mean, very, very high dose probiotics and soil based organisms, because those can help clear out the bad. And then I tend to do, I'll actually do two probiotics and alternate and do more of a larger multi strain probiotic to help re establish some of the good along with the right diet. But optimizing the health of the gut microbiome has been shown to Prevent cancer because 70% of your immune system is there. Number 13. We just have a couple more to go. In order to fight cancer, you need to reduce your toxin exposure and anything that's gonna disrupt your endocrine system. Right. According to the Asian Pacific organization for cancer prevention, they said environmental and occupational toxin exposure contributes to an estimated 7 to 19% of cancers worldwide. Right. We've all seen this before. You know, somebody lived in an area where there was great toxin exposure. By the way, one of the things we're seeing now is golf courses are so heavily sprayed with chemicals and glyphosate. We're seeing now some evidence that people live closely to places like golf courses or certain types of industries that are creating toxins in the environment that is causing cancer in people. Okay. And it's really, I think it's a higher amount than people realize. What many of these toxins do is they're endocrine disruptors. Right? So endocrine, that's hormonal, they disrupt your hormones, they block your hormones, they disrupt estrogen and insulin signaling. Right. And so this could be everything from glyphosate on your food supply. So pesticides, heated plastic. Right. So eating out of plastic stuff all the time, Synthetic fragrances, harsh cleaners, and just of course, heavy metals, environmental toxins. Right. These things add up. So here's a few things you can do to get rid of the toxins in your life. Number one, get a water filter for at least your drinking water. Okay. There are so many toxins in our drinking water. So just get a reverse osmosis filter for the tap water, your sink in your kitchen. That alone will do wonders. Okay? So that's one thing. Switch to Glass or stainless steel. Get rid of all the plastic stuff. Choose fragrances or cleaning products and anything that's using essential oils and vinegar and baking soda and things that are natural. Right. Avoid non stick cookware. Right. All the chemicals there on things like Teflon. And then you also want to make sure you ventilate your home. Well, you know, I read a study saying that indoor air is at least two times, but sometimes ten times more toxic than our outdoor air. So making sure that you just your air is filtered well in your home. Open up the doors and windows if the weather's nice, do things to get more fresh air and get outdoors more. All right, two more here I want to dive into. And then we'll wrap up number 14. Heal emotional trauma and what we call stuck stress. According to Chinese medicine, we're talking about what Japan and a lot of these areas still follow as part of their medical treatment, why disease is so low there. But according to tcm, unresolved stress creates what we call stagnation. I talked about this earlier, right. So stagnation is where blood and oxygen stop going to an area as much. Okay. There's kind of this stagnation there where it stops happening. Right. And I think there's a Christian view here that's really in alignment with this lack of peace, lack of spiritual growth, lack of purpose that's also going to cause issues with emotional healing. I just had a guest on here, by the way, and he was fantastic. It was so good. We talked about the connection between confessing your sins and being healed. And he went through the multiple verses throughout the Old Testament and New Testament, all of scripture that went through. And I was actually surprised because I had known a few verses, but then he started saying how many of them were in terms of if it talks about if you want to be healed from any disease, the number one thing that it really talks about in the Bible is, and especially when we're looking at the Old Testament moving into the new, is confessing your sins to the Lord, confessing your sins to God, to Jesus, confessing your sins to others, to a pastor, to a priest, to a spiritual mentor, but confessing your sins. Think about this. It's like if you have, if you're harboring in your heart unforgiveness and resentment, but also things like fear and worry. Like if you're harboring those in your heart, those actually live in organs, according to ancient medicine, they would say that fear lives in your adrenals and reproductive organs. By the way, we know this is true. Because if you get really fearful, your adrenal glands start putting out way more cortisol and stress hormones. So we know that different emotions impact organs differently. We know worry, you could say, oh, my stomach's tied nuts. That affects your digestive system. But different emotions, by the way, unforgiveness impacts your detoxification system and your immune system. Those are the two systems, and those are the two systems most connected to cancer. All right, so going through a process of confessing all your sins to God, confessing all your sins to somebody who is spiritually qualified to deal with this again, a pastor, a priest, a spiritual mentor, someone in your life, by the way. I did this process when I was in my 20s and again around 30. And it was so healing and freeing for me to be able to confess to a man that was older than me, associate pastor at a church, and go through that. It was so healing. And we did that with my mom, by the way. My mom went through a practice of forgiving everyone that wronged her, giving all of those things over to God. And it was freeing to her. And I believe it's why she's alive today. Because I think it is a critical part of healing from cancer. Just like a parasite or a cancer cell could live in an area causing disease in an organ, causing it to die. Think about fear, think about worry, think about unforgiveness or resentment towards someone else, it's doing the very same thing in that organ, and it just lives there, stuck in that area, causing disease. And so you can release that by going to the Bible and confessing your sins and then asking Jesus to heal your heart. And when you do that, now, all of a sudden, your organs, it's like they've been freed as well. And now they can function at the highest level, killing cancer cells and helping you heal. And once we release and let go of those. Those things that are negative, now we can start filling our body with the positive, right? Spending more time in prayer, doing a gratitude practice, building inner peace. You know, chronic stress raises inflammation and weakens your immune surveillance. And there are several studies that link spirituality, right? Spending more time in prayer and meditation and gratitude and building peace with better outcomes. You know, there's a study in the Journal of Medicine and Life, and here's what they found. Practices like gratitude, prayer and calm reflection can lower stress hormones, improve nervous system balance, and create positive feelings and buffer against disease progression, including cancer. In 83% of studies, spirituality was linked to improved physical health outcomes. And then listen to this. In 92% of studies, spiritual practices such as prayer, participation in religious services such as worship, social support, and belief in a higher power was associated with better mental health. I mentioned this when my mom was diagnosed with cancer. The first thing we did is we got down on our hands and knees as a family and we prayed for healing and asked for God to intervene and walk us through a healing process. It's the first thing we did when she was diagnosed with cancer. And I really believe it is the single most important thing you can do to heal. As we talked about, confess all of your sins, let them go and do that to somebody as well. There's something about doing it yourself, direct to God, and you should do that. And in combination, you should do that to a pastor, to a priest, someone in your life. And I think James 5 talks about this. Go and read James 5 and you'll see it says, you know, go and confess your sins and have an elder of the church lay their hands on you and have them pray for you for healing. Right? So it talks about that directly. What to do for healing in the Bible. And then what does Jesus say to be healed? Have faith in me. Believe. Hey, your faith or your belief that's healed you, right? So confess, repent, let go, and then believe. And know that Jesus died for your sins and you can be healed. Right? That's. So the Bible has the formula for. For healing. And so I believe that's the core principle. Now I also believe, and it's interesting. One of the things Jesus does oftentimes the Bible is he also says once he heals somebody, he says, you know, repent and then sin no more. Okay? He says, sin no more. All right. So there's an element too, I think there, of honoring God with your body and staying away from being gluttonous and starting to know your body is a temple. In fact, feeding it that way, doing everything you can to eat healthy and move right and have these good spiritual practices to take care of your temple. And if you can do that, your body can heal and prevent cancer. So here's what I encourage you to do moving forward. Spend three minutes of prayer each morning. Okay? Then write down three things you're grateful for. And then I'd spend three minutes reading your Bible. But just spend three minutes, 10 minutes. That's all it takes, 10 minutes a day doing that spiritual triathlon, those three practices, and you'll be amazed at what it does for your spiritual health. So in closing, here's what I wanna encourage you to do. Or just remember this principle I'm gonna eat and act like I have cancer every day so I never get it right. So even if you don't have cancer, most of you don't. But start taking this action now. Balance your blood sugar, start moving more, increase your fiber intake, increase your antioxidant intake, consume more real foods, get better sleep, reduce toxin exposure and make building your faith and peace a daily practice. And if you do that, you're gonna be better able to fight cancer. Hey, if this episode has resonated with you, I wanna encourage you to subscribe and follow this podcast. Subscribe on YouTube, follow on Apple. And I also wanna mention, think about one person. Is there someone you know who's had cancer in the past or they have it now, or that you just know is gonna enjoy this episode? And I wanna encourage you to share it with them. I'm thinking about one person now that I'm going to. Once this episode release, I'm gonna text them this episode and then of course I'm gonna share on social media. But by the way, it means so much to me. I know it even means so much to my family. Like I wish my mom and all our whole family knew this years before. Cause we could have prevented her from cancer and in the first place. So thank you to all of you that are subscribing and sharing the show. I am so, so grateful for you. I just want to say thanks so much for tuning into the show each and every week. We're diving deep into how to heal your body physically, mentally and spiritually and take your health and your life to the next level. So thanks so much for watching. Thanks for subscribing and thanks for sharing and I'll see you on the next episode.