In this podcast, Dr. Martin Katz and Dr. John Gildea share from their experience in cancer prevention and treatment. They highlight what they do to prevent cancer was well as alternative treatments they would do take if they were diagnosed with cancer.
1:30 - Efficacy of Vitamin C IVs
3:30 - Chemotherapy in a Nutshell
6:00 - Epigenetics & Cancer
11:01 - Local Vitamin C IV Providers
13:45 - Importance & Balance of Omega 3 & Omega 6 Fatty Acids
17:12 - Effects of Nutrition Deficiency
22:35 - Superfoods & Mindful, Practical Eating
27:01 - Benefits of Bone Broth & Metastasis Inhibition
31:10 - Cancer Preventative Takeaways w/ Hosts
Transcript:
David Roberts:
Hey everybody. It's David Roberts and John Gildea and Martin Katz.
Martin Katz:
Hi.
John Gildea:
Hello.
David Roberts:
And today we're going to talk about a subject near and dear to our hearts, which is cancer and cancer prevention, and also cancer treatment. Something you don't hear us talk a lot about because we can't really talk about cancer treatment with our supplements because it's illegal, but we're not going to talk about that. We're going to talk about the plethora of other things that you can do for prevention and treatment of cancer that are natural and nutritional, things that we don't sell. It's the fourth anniversary of Mara, my late wife's death was yesterday. And because that's how John and I actually met, Martin and I actually met through treating her cancer. And so it's sort of in memory of her, but also as we want to get good quality information out there, because there are a lot of people who either are sick or really need the prevention message that Martin really beats the drum on.
David Roberts:
So let's dive in. One of the things that we did lots of with Mara was Vitamin C IVs. I definitely want to touch on that because I think I've said this a lot, that if there's only one therapy, which there's not, but if there was only one therapy that you could do, vitamin C IV would be it because it's so efficacious and it's old actually. I think of the guy who talked about Vitamin C and cancer, Linus Pauling was the only guy to win the Nobel Prize in Science twice. Is that right?
John Gildea:
Yeah, I think that's true.
David Roberts:
Yeah. Who wants that? F or sure.
John Gildea:
Yeah, Vitamin C, I love that topic. It was funny, I think this is an unknown piece of information about that, what the first study was. When Linus Pauling did his initial study, he did IV Vitamin C followed up by oral Vitamin C. And the Mayo Clinic that tried to replicate his data didn't replicate the IV part of the study. And so a lot of people are left with the idea that Vitamin C doesn't work at all, but they didn't really do the same study. Linus Pauling found out that in multiple cancers, this much smaller study, but saw about 50% reduction in cancer deaths was super substantial.
John Gildea:
In my hands where I'm doing in vitro stuff with cancer cells, it's really one of the only maneuvers that you can do in the dish where you get a certain level of Vitamin C in the dish. If you get the dose of Vitamin C above one to two millimolar it's really high, but you can get that by an IV with 50 grams infused quickly. That's the key is to get over a certain concentration. A normal cell right next to a cancer cell, the cancer cells killed the normal cells.
David Roberts:
Yeah. That's sort of the holy grail because if it's traditional chemotherapy, it kills everything. It's like bleach. It kills normal cells and cancer cells. And the idea is because cancer cells are more quickly replicating, you're killing the cancer cells slightly faster than your normal cells, specifically kidney cells. And so having no cell death is amazing.
John Gildea:
Yeah. And one of the things we always talk about in chemotherapy because that's a topic that's very taboo, but basically, chemotherapy does shrink tumors. That's why you can never convince an oncologist that that's not the best thing for you to do. Because every day they see people with tumors and they infuse chemotherapy and the tumors shrink. And some of that I think is also selective vasculature leaks. Like a vascular bed around a tumor is much more leaky than the vascular bed where a normal tissue sits. So when you infuse chemotherapy therapy, the right chemotherapy that will actually work for your tumor, more of it'll go to that tumor site than the rest of your body. So there's some selectivity there.
John Gildea:
The problem I have is all of the chemotherapies are percentages. It seems like exploiting that weird phenomenon of a cancer cell that doesn't repair its DNA very well. Whereas a normal cell does repair its DNA well. You add it to both of them and the normal cell will stop dividing and then repair its DNA. The cancer cell gets a carcinogen and makes more and more and still divides until finally that cell is so messed up, that it dies. That's the principle of how chemotherapy works when it does work. But yeah.
David Roberts:
And John, it sounds like you know a lot about cancer and maybe it might be good just to back up and have you just share briefly about your CV and what you have done with cancer study. And maybe more like, what haven't you done, but yeah, just give us a brief background of how you came to be a cancer expert.
John Gildea:
I was really interested in it during my PhD where we studied epigenetics, so the control mechanisms that are outside of frank mutation. And in our case, it was chromatin regulation and how gene expression is remembered over time during development. And we knew that that's a problem with cancer. And so we set up model systems in fruit flies for cancer. And at that time, that was a really controversial topic, but we were doing it in our lab and found really amazing stuff. We actually had a postdoc in the lab that was, we cloned the Drosophila [inaudible 00:06:45], the gene that's necessary for invading through basement membrane that's necessary for metastasis. I got interested in metastasis during my PhD, really good models there, you could block metastasis. It was an awesome model system that didn't take off too well because the human cancer people didn't think it was a very good model. So I went and studied metastasis during my postdoc specifically, in bladder cancer and prostate cancer.
John Gildea:
And then I was looking for metastasis suppressor genes and found some pathways that were unique and really enjoyed my postdoc. Studying that I found some famous genes during that time, wrote highly referenced papers on metastasis suppression. And during my postdoc, my wife got cancer and that was how I realized that the only thing that was being offered to her was chemotherapy radiation. And that was 2002. And those modalities have been around since the fifties and sixties. They weren't really doing anything more.
Martin Katz:
And the surgery.
John Gildea:
And surgery. And so that's kind of how I got interested in other ways to fight cancer through nutritional means and so I've been really super interested in that ever since.
David Roberts:
When and in which way did they come across about seeing clients wanting to research Vitamin C IVs? And when did that happen?
John Gildea:
Very soon after that, there is... The first thing that you run into in Vitamin C research that is striking, I think, I actually can't believe that's not a more well-known fact is that primates and guinea pigs are the only animals that don't make Vitamin C. So all humans are Vitamin C deficient. You'd have to get your Vitamin C from outside. And for a normal human...
PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:09:04]
John Gildea:
You'd have to get your vitamin C from outside and for a normal human, you would normally make 18 grams of vitamin C a day. And so it's interesting that all you have to do with an IV is replace that common IV concentration is 25 grams, so it's a little bit extra than that. And so the problem with taking it orally is that you saturate those receptors, so vitamin C is trafficked in your body like glucose. And so there's only so many glucose transporters in your intestines. And if you exceed, that vitamin C that's not imported into your bloodstream, goes down into your colon and that's an [inaudible 00:09:47] that you get diarrhea. So, you know, walking that line is not very fun when you're actually still not getting enough to get to a therapeutic dose.
David Roberts:
And what's the max you can take without getting the diarrhea?
John Gildea:
Usually around four grams. I think it's different for each person, but
Martin:
You generally tell people to split it up throughout the day or take one to four grams?
John Gildea:
Yeah. Normally say split the doses into two to four grams, or if someone's really going after something, do the IVs or do liposomal.
David Roberts:
So liposomal vitamin C is another way to get the bypass that that mechanism John was talking about that gives you diarrhea you get up to how much?
John Gildea:
Probably 25 grams.
David Roberts:
So it goes four grams to 25 grams of Liposomal. We'll below this video should be liposomal vitamin C recipe that we can do at home. It's very easy. And then for locals in Charlottesville, Martin, your clinic does, you still do vitamin C IVs?
Martin:
Yeah, we do. Obviously you need to be part of the clinic to come in and do the vitamin C so you can sign up. And there are the clinicians now in the neighborhood that are doing it just because of its benefits so they've realized that they're offering IV vitamin too.
David Roberts:
Who else?
Martin:
So Meldorian at , I believe the Wellness Room is also offering it. Health and Wellness 360. A couple, Dr. Schwartz and Paul Meyer--- ] I'm not sure where his status currently lies, but there are a few certainly offering IV vitamin C.
David Roberts:
And Mitch Flescher.
David Roberts:
But that's just Charlottesville. And so in your local area, they're likely folks that offer vitamin C. So ask around. And so vitamin C is important. And then, John, what else, as far as cancer, in your experience, is important to kind of consider again, not talking about specifics.
Martin:
Tread carefully young Padawan.
John Gildea:
Yeah. Another one I think is a really unrecognized nutrition hero of mine is Johanna Budwig. So I have her in this really interesting place in my mind where she was pretty much rejected by conventional science. She was working in a time when females worked as often recognized.
David Roberts:
So early 1930s or late 1920s?
John Gildea:
Thirties to fifties, I think.
David Roberts:
I think fifties.
John Gildea:
Yeah, amazing researcher. She's the one that developed the test for Omega-3s in plasma. And she also figured out a way to get Omega-3s very high into the blood. So there's a thing called Budwig Protocol. And so having really high Omega-3 fatty acids, she found out that cancer patients have very low Omega-3 fatty acids. And it was a very simple idea is try and increase the amount of Omega-3 fatty acids and a lot of people really respond well to that.
John Gildea:
I think another component of that that is underutilized is that you also want your Omega-6 fatty acids to be low. So in the normal, SAD diet,
Martin Katz:
SAD is "standard American diet"?
John Gildea:
Yeah, SAD diet is high Omega-6 and low Omega-3. And you it to flip the other way with Omega-3s about one part for every Omega-6 two parts. And then there's two parts of Omega-6, you want to be non-oxidized. So that's a big part of
David Roberts:
Why are there so many Omega-6s that are the people's diets?
John Gildea:
You want to take that? You're talking to your patients all the time about how you change your diet.
Martin:
So, so Omega-3-6-9. There are some companies out there that do offer the ability to give you an idea of your Omega-3-6-9 ratio. And in a nutshell, I would say that the biggest reasons are that process to American diet, certainly that relates probably most significantly to animal protein and how our animal protein is grown. And so when you take a cow who's supposed to be out there enjoying life out on the field, eating the grass that that cow or chicken or pig tends to enjoy, and you put it into a feedlot where it's now fed very specific diet designed to increase the taste, increase the fat ratio, you now significantly increasing Omega-6-9 versus -3 ratio, which is going down precipitously. And so that's likely the biggest factor.
Martin:
But we also have an unfortunate, significantly processed diet from foods. And if you don't eat enough vegetables, and depending on the type of oil you cook with, that can have a fairly significant effect as well. And so it's certainly no wonder that we see so much cancer in this country and despite all the massive amounts of money that we pour into it, we've made very little progress in treating cancer.
David Roberts:
So the KPOs, the feedlots,
Martin:
Sad places.
David Roberts:
Yeah. That basically, unless you're buying organic or local beefs, that you buy beef, conventional beef, and that comes from a feedlot where the cows are fed corn, basically, that gives the fat layer that we've come to appreciate as tasty, but it comes as a cost with the cost, and so that is the high Omega-6 fatty acids because the corn is high in Omega-6. And so I've heard it say, actually, we are mostly made up of most people are mostly made up of corn.
Martin Katz:
Right, right.
David Roberts :
Cause there's so much...
Martin:
Corn syrup.
David :
...corn in our diet. But that said, so going back high in Omega-6 is pro-inflammatory, high Omega-3 anti-inflammatory, Johanna Budwig had the Budwig Protocol. We'll have a link to that, how to make that as well, below. What else do you got for us, John? Martin?
John Gildea:
I think another topic that I think goes well along with those two that we talked about is basically nutrition deficiency. So I think that one of the principles there that is really widespread is that if you have any nutrition deficiency of any of the major nutrients that you need, your body responds the same way. And it's sad that the nutrient density of all our food is decreasing over time. And so you only have so many calories that you can eat in a given day. And so that's why you want to eat nutrient-dense food so that you have excess of these nutrients as opposed to riding a razor's edge at all times. So that's how you become hardy is you eat nutrient-dense food and you're exercising so you can take in a little bit more calorie
PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:18:04]
John Gildea:
... and you're exercising, so you can take in a little bit more calories than an average person, and then you deposit all this... You'll have excess of all these nutrients. That makes you stress-resistant. There's a lot of nutrients that are increased more under stress, and... So those ones are particularly important. So that's why stress, infection, lack of sleep, all these things that are common to all the chronic diseases, they use up nutrients, specific nutrients more than if someone is less stressed, less affected.
David:
So nutrient-dense food? What like... So my boys grow microgreens. They're nutrient-dense food. What are some other... Are there other nutrient-dense food, which I've also heard called... Would that be synonymous with superfoods?
John Gildea:
Yes... Well, this is again, you're battling them here. You're convincing people to eat stuff that don't often taste great.
Martin:
I mean, I personally think you can make almost anything taste great just knowing how you enjoy it, just putting it in those things. But I mean, this goes back to what I tout as the most important aspect of cancer and that is preventing it. If you get to cancer, I mean, remember the cancer cell, Siddhartha Mukherjee's book, "The Emperor of All Maladies", was just brilliant in stating the cell is a very, very difficult cell to treat. It has figured out how to evade most things that should kill the cell yet it is evading those things and perpetuating, and under all these circumstances, it's growing the cancer cells. So this is, this is a cell not to be trifled with. A very difficult cell to treat. So would make sense to therefore prevent it. And just before we go to prevention in this treatment, if you don't think, cancer treatment, and being told you have cancer, and all the things that go along with that is not stressful, you're mistaken, and you bet your body absolutely increases nutrient needs and need for stress control need for sleep during these periods.
Martin:
And, John and David, I think we all have heard many physicians tout the fact, and these are oncologists who even say this, that it doesn't really matter what you eat and what you take in, and what you do. What's most important is the chemotherapeutics and the radiation and the surgery. And while I'm not saying some of those are not important, it is very important that you are absolutely understanding that during these time of stress you are taking in things that can help you with that. Certainly that includes stress control, meditations, breathing. Breath work is very important. James Nestor wrote a book on breath that I think most people should read. Patrick McKeown wrote a book called "Oxygen Advantage". I think most people should read, but Whim Hoff, thank you. If you haven't, if you're not familiar with Whim Hoff, you certainly should become familiar with them.
Martin:
And so you, again, stress, sleep, nutrient intake. You look at that on exercise, and the secondary prevention of further cancers. That is pretty rich on prostate cancer and it's only breast cancer, but most cancers in general. But again, we, or certainly, I am a huge believer in prevention and knowing. So we all have these, this genome, but as John used that word, it's the epigenome that is most important when it comes to that. And that's how you're bathing your cells. And what are you bathing your cells in that become very important as to what is going to be expressed in your genes and so best supporting those genes in a really help be soup is going to be important. And so you, you better believe what you take in what you eat, how you sleep, how well you deal with stress and your spirituality, what you believe, what you think, how you deal with your emotions is all very, very important. And so again, please continue to prevent these diseases before they become a problem, cause they're hard to deal with much after .
John Gildea:
So Martin, what's your favorite super food? This nutrient dense food? Or, It'd be plural.
Martin:
Yeah. I mean it's hard to sort look to any one. Obviously I'm a huge fan of sprouts and broccoli sprouts being a big factor there, but I'm a huge fan of herbs and spices. I'd say bang for the buck. You know, John was saying, there's only so much calorie you can take in, in a fairly easy way. That's low in calorie to really improve your nutrient densities by herbs and spices can be very, very beneficial. Kale. I mean, I would say if you look at the data, I don't think there's any stronger family of food that have a ton of data behind it in that cruciferous vegetable group. And so I'm a really big fan of those. And again, what we love here at BrocElite is that whole concept of synergy. And that's you take in one super food, you add it to another, in one plus one night plus five, rather than two.
Martin:
And so continuing to incorporate that. But you know, David, I'd say variety is, is certainly extraordinarily important. Making sure you're getting a variety of foods, different colors, different food groups, different families of foods. And there there's no reason to stay away from fruits even. Fruits can be extraordinarily beneficial in high phytonutrients, and certainly way better than the junk that we put in. So if somebody has a sweet tooth, so to say, getting away from that junk that all these chemical companies or, or corporations are encouraging us to phase in; phase those out and phase in more fruits. And again, variety is key. So what I tell my patients, especially at the current practice, we have a mission to serve those who can't necessarily afford to pay for these really fancy functional mat or concierge practices. We see them. And what we encourage them is, you know, often go into the grocery store and buy what's on sale. And generally that's what's in that season. Exactly. And so you you're then getting a fairly good variety of foods.
John Gildea:
Yeah. That's awesome.
David :
Do you have a favorite super food you love ?
John Gildea:
Yes, but it'll be weird.
Martin:
Oh, You are.
John Gildea:
So I have three, I have this strange obsession with, cause I'm always looking up like the highest source of some nutrient whatever. And so I think the combination of a really well nurtured egg is really up there.
Martin:
Why do you like egg so much, John ?
John Gildea:
Yeah.
Martin:
Something about shelf life or?
John Gildea:
Well, I have this, another weird notion in the back of my brain is that the faster a food goes bad, the more nutrient dense it is because bacteria and things like to grow on it. Sustains life. So all those things that go bad fast, what do you think?
Martin:
Milk.
John Gildea:
Milk, fish, eggs, you know, things that go bad are really nasty. So anyways, I think, I think some of the organ meats, liver comes to mind, obviously from any animal that's been treated really well. So, so that's my favorite combination is egg yolks. I just throw the whites away. And liver from a healthy animal.
Martin:
Liver, really? How do you like to prepare that liver, John?
David:
A lot of funny things you could do.
John Gildea:
But if you, if you don't like the taste, if it's really cold, you can haggle it down. So sometimes we, we, we take that the liver and freeze it and then chop it into pill size pieces and just swallow it whole.
Martin:
Yeah. That's, that's so funny. You know, as growing up as in the Jewish religion, we'd often have chopped liver, which had an egg topping with the liver underneath.
John Gildea:
Wow.
Martin:
Yeah. I mean you wouldn't mind.
John Gildea:
Yeah. (laughter).
Martin:
You would've loved my grandmother. It was one of her favorite things to make was chopped liver. And it wasn't one of my favorite things to eat, but we definitely had a serving every, you know, major holiday.
John Gildea:
You don't need to have that every day, obviously.
Martin:
No, it wasn't something we eat every day. No.
John Gildea:
And John, I know your family, and I've done this. I think Martin's done this, but not as frequently. And faith ways, you guys choose, make bone drop...
PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [00:27:04]
David:
And basically what you guys do is make bone broth. Tell us about why you guys do that so faithfully.
John Gildea:
Electrolytes and minerals are something that I have a passionate about. And traditionally, one of the best ways to do that is through bone broth. So with beef and chicken. We help get around cows and chickens. And say, for instance, after you have your chicken, you take the chicken carcass and put it in a big pot of boiling water and add acidic acid, you add vinegar, and it'll leach the minerals out of the bones and it creates an amazing broth. And so we do that for whenever we have a chicken or when we do, pretty routinely, make bone broth from our beef. And we were talking about Vitamin C earlier. There is a guy who became famous for, it's actually a friend of Lance Calling , who did a number of studies where he combined Vitamin C with proline-rich peptides that are found in bone broth. And that was a really strong inhibitor of metastasis.
David:
Say that again. What are the peptides?
John Gildea:
Proline-rich peptides.
David:
Proline-rich.
John Gildea:
Yeah. Some people call them RGD peptides, but they're big. They're very rich in bone broth, and they tend to inhibit collagenases, which is a necessarily component of cell migration. Bone broth also is, as opposed to muscle meat, muscle meat induces your insulin like growth factors. And if there is bad component to meat it's because you're eating too much of the skeletal muscle, not the rest. The bones and bone broth is low in the fining and other ones than induce IGF. Yeah. So when you combine bone broth, if you're going to have some skeletal muscle, it turns it back into the correct ratio of not inducing too much growth factor. Yeah. Bone broth. It's really important and soups made from it traditionally.
David:
So when you're talking about cell migration, is that cancer cell migration? So that's how a cancer cell becomes metastatic?
Martin:
I think he was referring to that early as well. Way to bring it all back together. I like that.
John Gildea:
So in the case of... I think another, later, this the same researcher found that green tea was an additional factor that worked to stop that process. So BGCG is the active ingredient in green tea. We all love that.
John:
Pectins.
John Gildea:
In here too, yeah. That works along with the Vitamin C in bone broth as a natural inhibitor of metastasis.
David:
So-
Martin :
And additionally, just real quick, we won't get into it, but just to help with... that got...Yeah, certainly [crosstalk 00:30:43].
David:
It improves the microbiome.
Martin :
And works on the tight junctions .
David:
Just let's wrap it up. One thing. Just your passion, like say cancer and want one treatment or one preventative measure. What would you say? If you could do one thing, what's your-
Martin:
Really positive energy. Really working on where you are in life, what you're doing, giving yourself a real reason to live.
David:
Great. Is that one of the-
Martin:
A lady wrote a book on-
David:
The turner factors?
Martin:
Something like that.
John:
I like to bracket. We've talked a lot about nutrient density and I think it's just as important to remove the things that you know are bad for you. So it's a combination. So ultra processed foods, we were talking about that earlier. Mark was saying that. And all those ultra processed foods are made from large farms of monoculture, so corn, soy, beets, wheat. So as much as you can avoid that, along with the omega six fatty acids, and then combined with your nutrient dense food, I think is a great way to make you resistant to all disease. Makes you more likely to go out and exercise hard too. More likely to hug your kids, all the things that are-
Martin:
Yeah, I think Michael Pollan said it best, eat foods made by a plant, not in a plant, as in a big commercial plant. And he said, eat foods, not too much, mostly plants. So, Michael Pollan.
David:
Michael Pollan also said, if you can buy it at a gas station, don't eat it.
Martin:
Well, if your grandmother doesn't recognize this food, don't eat it.
David:
And I will just throw in my 2 cents there-
Martin:
Yeah, David, what about you?
David:
High-fructose corn syrup. So that's in most things. Hal, you'd be surprised. And at close second is soybean oil, which is disguised often as vegetable oil. Those two things are deadly and modified and we won't go into that today, but those impact your gut bacteria, impact climatory levels. And then also, I'm very much a fan of Vitamin C IV s. And then again, the , you can get high doses through. Vitamin C is awesome.
David Roberts:
All right, well, thanks for sharing your wisdom and the school of hard knocks. And we'll see you guys later. We have a link below. If you like our videos, you can subscribe. And then also, if you like the topic, let us know.
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