Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
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Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
Science Advances One Funeral at a Time: Cancer's Shifting Paradigm
Navigating the complex world of cancer treatment requires more than just medical expertise—it demands a willingness to question established paradigms and seek out cutting-edge information. In this deeply personal episode, host Joe Grumbine shares the latest developments in his cancer journey, including a setback with his port installation and his preparations for beginning chemotherapy.
Dr. Robert Hoffman of the Anti-Cancer Organization returns to discuss his recent trip to Japan, where he met with Dr. Sato and his groundbreaking MetPet imaging center. Together, they explore the scientific revolution happening in cancer treatment—specifically the shift from viewing cancer primarily through the lens of glucose addiction (the Warburg effect) to understanding the critical role of methionine addiction.
Drawing insights from Thomas Kuhn's landmark book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," they examine why medical paradigms are so resistant to change despite compelling evidence. As Dr. Hoffman notes, "Science progresses one funeral at a time," reflecting how established viewpoints often only give way when their most ardent defenders are no longer dominant in the field.
The conversation takes a passionate turn when addressing the misinformation surrounding cancer treatments. Both men emphasize the importance of evidence-based approaches, noting that chemotherapy has successfully treated millions of patients over 75+ years, despite what internet videos might claim. They stress the need to evaluate sources based on the strength of evidence—from anecdotes (weak) to large clinical trials (strong).
Perhaps most powerfully, they discuss how patients themselves are driving the methionine revolution by educating themselves through scientific literature. As Dr. Hoffman advises, those facing cancer must "study like crazy" and become experts on their own condition, spending hours on PubMed and similar resources to make informed decisions about their treatment.
If you're battling cancer or supporting someone who is, don't miss the weekly support group meeting every Sunday at 4pm Pacific time, where patients and medical professionals share knowledge and experiences in a supportive environment. Join us to learn why taking charge of your cancer journey might be the most important step you can take toward recovery.
Intro for podcast
Here is the link for Sunday's 4 pm Pacific time Zoom meeting
Well, hello and welcome back to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, joe Grumbine, and today I have back with me Dr Robert Hoffman with the Anti-Cancer Organization. And Robert man, you've been traveling the world the last little while, huh let's see.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was in Japan for a few days, not quite the world, but well, the other side of it and you were able to meet with some doctors over there and I met with the key person, dr Sato, who's our most important collaborator. He has the unique who's our most important collaborator. He has the unique MetPet imaging center and he's got lots of patients getting the best imaging you can for cancer methionine PET, metp-pet.
Speaker 1:I love it. I want to. I'm looking forward to hearing more about that and I want to continue our discussion about information and the structure of scientific revolution as it applies. I think it's a really important as I'm getting close to finishing the read on that. It's a powerful read and I think it's important that people who have opinions about things consider where those opinions come from.
Speaker 1:I did want to bring a little update, so I had a little mishap at the plant, if you will. I was scheduled to have my port installed last week, or well, no, I was waiting to get clearance. They finally gave me clearance earlier this week and everything was fast-tracked. I went in on Tuesday, I got my blood work done, but prior to that last week I have been sort of tinkering around with this thing and you know I've been dealing with this thing for a while and it's getting oppressive and I am trying to do everything I can to put things in my favor prior to. You know this first line treatment I'm going to be doing, because waiting for me just isn't a good idea. You know I'm doing my diet, I'm doing my methioninease, I'm doing oxygen therapy and I was doing this chlorine dioxide where I was spraying it topically on my skin and then putting a little DMSO over it so it would penetrate, thinking that you know that was going to maybe start making some things happen in there. And it started to. It actually started to raise up these little white spots and it almost looked like a whitehead, but it didn't seem to be filled with fluid. And as I continued doing this and I do it three, four times a day just a little spritz of the chlorine dioxide, which is a very safe material, and the DMSO, which causes it to go through the skin, seemed safe as well. And it started to, you know, raise these things and then they would kind of peel away just a little bit and I thought, wow, this is good, something's happening. At the same time, dr Castro had recognized that I was zinc deficient. I was put on a zinc acetate supplement and all of this activity was happening shortly afterwards. So I was under the assumption that you know, my immune system starting to work and recognize the tumor, maybe it was going to go and start to attack it a little bit. I'm thinking this is a good idea. It's continuing to happen a little bit more aggressively and I'm like, okay, well, I'm just going to keep going and see what happens.
Speaker 1:I wake up Thursday morning a week ago that's one of the reasons we didn't do the show this last week and I must have scratched it. You know, this thing's getting big and I can't move around without bumping into it and sleeping's real difficult and you don't know what you do when you're sleeping. And I woke up in the morning and I had a little nick and there was a little blood and another little nick and there was a little like plasma leaking out, just a little, and I thought, well, let me make sure this doesn't get a problem. So I sprayed a little peroxide on it and it bubbled up and I was like, oh OK, well, let me just keep doing that. And throughout the course of the day I kept spraying peroxide on it and it kept bubbling and I didn't think much about it, I just said, well, it'll go away, you know. And it continued. The part that was bleeding went away, but the part that was oozing a little it turned more into like white blood cells, like a little pus, not really thick or anything, but it was just a slow, very, very slow drain.
Speaker 1:And I had a friend come over on Friday and it continued. It was and I was. I had gotten pretty aggressive, putting that peroxide on after a while and my friend was kind of intuitive and she says, you know you got. You gotta watch out you're not going to get an infection. I was like, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1:And I reached out to Emil and I said I told him what happened. I said you know, I don't know, maybe you've got some insight on is this going to get in my way? I'm supposed to be getting a port put in and you know, in the next few days and I don't want you know anything to get in my way of this chemo. And he said, well, you need to make sure you don't have a sore, an exposed sore, or they may not give you the chemo because you know your immune system's going to get trashed while you're going through the therapy and it wouldn't heal right, heal right. So he said you need to make sure that thing gets cleared up. So I start treating it a little bit, just kind of.
Speaker 1:And it just continued, it didn't? I kind of messed it up pretty bad with that peroxide. I didn't realize how bad the peroxide was, but it was pretty strong peroxide and I I went too far and far and it ulcerated the area pretty badly. And you know I just messed up, you know, in an attempt to do something good. Sometimes pioneers make mistakes, and that's what I did. And anyways, I let it go.
Speaker 1:It was drying up, it seemed like it was going to be OK and I went in on Tuesday to go get my port installed and they said, well, we need you to do lab work first, so you go in an hour early, get your lab work done and then we'll go get the port. I go ahead and get my lab work. It was real quick, it was just like one or two tests. And then I'm sitting there in the surgery prep and they're going over everything, what they're going to do. They shaved me down. We're all ready. I'm minutes away from getting rolled in there. I'm excited. My wife's already gone off to go get something to eat. And then all of a sudden they come back and they say we just got your blood work back. Your white blood cell count is up high. We're not going to be able to do the port today. And I was just like you're kidding me. And so they sent me home and I was just like frustrated as all get out.
Speaker 1:As you can imagine, I've been pushing on this thing for a couple of months now and we're finally right there and so waiting, going back and forth with the doctor's assistant, and they're like well, I told him what happened and I said you know, there's a, it's a, it's a little bit of weeping. And she says well, you know, your blood cell or your white blood cell count is generally going to be elevated, just simply because you have cancer. That's a, that's a normal thing to happen. And I said but I know this is probably a part of it. And so they put me on an antibiotic. I got on it yesterday afternoon. I'm taking it every six hours. I'm clockwork. As soon as I got the prescription, I ran down, got it and today the weeping has stopped and they got me set, scheduled, to go back tomorrow. So I'm set to get the port put in tomorrow. I'm on the antibiotics, so I'm confident they're going to go forward with it, and Monday I'm set to have my first round of chemo. Fantastic. So it's been a bumpy road.
Speaker 1:But you know, as we're talking about information and science and pioneers you had said something about, you know, science is advanced one funeral at a time, and that's Max Planck. Yeah, and historically, scientists have experimented on themselves before they've, you know. I mean, they're experimenting on everything, but you know, generally the more dangerous stuff that they test on themselves and many, many scientists has died in the in the quest for knowledge. And that certainly is never going to be my, my ambition. But when it comes down to things, you sometimes you think something safe and you think you know my body, I know my body, I think I know what's going to happen, but we don't realize sometimes how delicate and your, your body can be and sometimes just a little imbalance, going one side or another, can set off a chain of events that you really can't stop easily. What's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:Well, you've had a few bumps, but it seems that your trajectory is good. You've got a good set of doctors. Hopefully the port will go in tomorrow. If you have to wait another couple of days, no biggie, but I think it'll go in tomorrow. Yeah, I feel good about it. I think all is good Joe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel good. You know, the hardest thing is not having a target that I can focus on. You know that keeps getting pushed out, pushed out.
Speaker 2:Well, your focus is to get chemo right, and it's a big event. Chemo is not trivial. They want you to be in good shape for it, right. They want you to have a port. Um, they're worried about the high blood, high white cell count, so they want to get you down to baseline. It's all normal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like they're doing a good job. I feel you know, yeah, you're doing a great job.
Speaker 2:Your attitude is really really good. The attitude is the most important thing in cancer for getting better. More than the medicine, more than anything, the attitude is the most important.
Speaker 1:That's the only thing I control, so I'm certainly not going to let that one slip through me.
Speaker 2:No no, you'll be okay. You let me know tomorrow about the port.
Speaker 1:Oh, I will for sure. You're on a very short list of people I share information with. Thank you, joe. You know it's important. I think we're good. Yeah, I feel that too. I feel like this time we're through it. I was a little like underneath my breath. I was thinking to myself I hope this isn't gonna mess this up thinking, you know, somewhere in my in my heart I'm like I I might have overdone it and uh, you know, sure enough, I was right a little bit.
Speaker 2:And it's okay. It's okay, no big deal.
Speaker 1:Well, the doctor team is really great. They're very communicative, they're very supportive. They've been very quick to respond. I can send a message to any of the team and they get back with me within a few hours. It's been really. This UCI Medical Center team has been really incredible.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm really glad to hear that. Yeah, I couldn't be more pleased, and previously the negative experience I had with some of these doctors was, you know, putting me in a kind of a defensive spot. But these guys have just been really. They really seem like they have my interest in mind, not just pushing their agenda.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a really good medical school there.
Speaker 1:Cutting edge so, yeah, I feel I feel good about it, so I I'm gonna keep pushing forward and, uh, tomorrow, uh, at one o'clock, I should be going under the knife. So let's, uh, let's see a good thing going on there. They're gonna put it on your wrist, no, no, right on my shoulder. Okay, are they?
Speaker 1:gonna give you a general anesthetic or a local uh, it's gonna be be local, but they're giving me an IV drip. They've got some little cocktail they have planned. They said they're going to hit a big good with the local and then they're going to give me some kind of intravenous pain stuff and anti-anxiety stuff.
Speaker 2:I just said Okay, that's great, and I can see why they want you to be in good condition to do that.
Speaker 1:It's not a trivial thing, right, right, yeah. They say they're putting the port kind of near my heart and then it's got this little pouch that ends up being right underneath the skin and then when they go to hit me with the chemo, they just pinch it and put the thing right in there and instead of, you know, tearing my veins up, up every time, it just goes right into this little bladder. Yeah, so I'm good, very pleased about that. The way I understand, this sounds like a state-of-the-art port too. Yeah, yeah, it looked like it was. Um, you know, they, they laid out how it was going to be. It was about a week, about a week recovery before I can lift things up again, and you know, I'll walk right out of there. Right out of there. I just can't shower for 24 hours, but after that it's no problem. Don't lift anything heavy for a week and you'll be good to go. Sounds good, joe, I never would think that I'd be excited to put a poison cocktail in my body, but I tell you what I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 2:Well, it's going to help you.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:You might have to grit your teeth a bit sometimes, but it's going to help.
Speaker 1:No, I agree and I'm as prepared as I can be. I'm now over almost three months into this low methionine diet and I have not wavered. I haven't touched any meat or dairy or anything. I've been on a real low methionine diet. I've taken the methionine aids. I'm even upping the methionine aids to three times a day now as I'm getting closer to the chemo. I just want to make everything on. I'll be fasting two days before, one day after, to maximize everything, All the right things. I feel like it's going to be as good.
Speaker 2:You know it's not going to be a miracle, the thing's not going to go away in a day, no, and there might even be a lag phase before it starts to shrink, but we're going to be good.
Speaker 1:But it will begin. And you know the doctor said that this cocktail is usually very quickly responsive and she has the highest hopes for that. So I said, well, we're all systems go. So I'm looking forward to that Good, good show. You know, one of the things that kind of gets me. You know it's a crazy ride because you know sleep is so important and this thing has got me where I'm having a difficult time sleeping a lot, just simply because of where it's at and trying to find a comfortable position and all that and you know it gets at you, sometimes wears at you.
Speaker 1:And I always have people. You know I have a wonderful support team, not just the group on Sunday, but I have wonderful people surrounding me. I'm surrounded with a lot of love and care and also a lot of people who, you know, have their own thoughts about medicine and their own thoughts about cancer and their own thoughts about things. And you know, I know you hear this all the time and I'm sure everybody goes through it. But in your best interest, people are constantly or my best interest, people are constantly giving me advice or tips or things that they've heard and it's really wild, as you know, I tell them over and over again I says listen, I am on this. I am the world's expert on my cancer right now. There isn't anybody who knows more about my cancer than I do right now.
Speaker 1:And I am doing everything, that I can do everything and I guarantee you, if it's good, I'm doing it and I appreciate do Everything. And I guarantee you, if it's good, I'm doing it and I appreciate everybody's input. But you know, trust me, I've either seen it, done it or chosen not to. And it's wild how you know people, they receive information from all these sources. You know they look on the internet. Somebody puts out a video the truth about chemotherapy, the truth about this, the truth about that, and it's a bunch of crap.
Speaker 2:If you were, on our Zoom call a few weeks ago, or maybe a little longer ago, dr Exame Emil said there's levels of evidence, right, it's some video that has no basis whatever On the one hand, or I heard this or I heard that on the other hand, and then you get, for example, on the other hand, and then you get, for example, on the other extreme, a phase three clinical trial of a couple thousand people. That's huge level of evidence, right, these people? Oh, I heard the video. My friend told me this or chemos know this. No good, joe. Uh, chemotherapy has been given to cancer patients since the late 40s, believe it or not. One of the first patients was Babe Ruth.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And he had an initial response. It was so primitive back then. Millions of people have been helped by chemotherapy, millions and millions and millions for more than 75 years. So somebody just says chemo is no good, this has no meaning, and just take it for that. Levels of evidence. You tell me something, okay. Can you tell me about a clinical trial? Can you tell me about animal studies? Can you? What scientific publications can you tell me about? You know there's too much of this crap going on, not only about chemo, about a lot of other things. People talking without any factual basis of what they're talking about. People talking without any factual basis of what they're talking about, and you know that stuff deserves to go in one ear and out the other.
Speaker 1:Well, and the other side of it is is I have been touting that book to a lot of people and I've got some people to buy it and some people that are reading it, and I think a lot of it is just simple ignorance. People believe that they're on the right path, they believe in something they you know, they've seen evidence of something. This is not religion, Joe.
Speaker 2:It's science. Oh, I know Exactly what I believe in. I believe in data, right. So you know. Just, you'll see that many of the patients on the Zoom have had a similar experience. Sure, sometimes the spouse has been so against what they're doing. On and on and on People saying things that have no basis and then a lot of them talking about conspiracy theories. If they read Kuhn they'd understand why things take so long to change. And it's not about conspiracy theory, it's about how science progresses and Kuhn makes that very clear. So I hope a lot of people read Kuhn.
Speaker 2:But remember, chemotherapy has been around for 75, more than 75 years. Has been around for 75, more than 75 years. All those children who would automatically die with the childhood cancers probably 80%, 90% live now. Why? Chemo? Head and neck cancer, as you have, is one of the most chemo responsive. Some of the cancers just don't make it with chemo alone, like pancreatic cancer, and that's why we're trying to improve it with methionine A's, low methionine diet, ivermectin. We're trying to improve what's out there, not replace it with no basis. Trying to improve it.
Speaker 1:So, as we're talking about paradigms and the changing of paradigms, you know we've gone through this, you know it's really not been that long. It's only been a few hundred years really, if you get down to it, a few thousand years at most, you know science as we know it really started maybe in the 1600s with Galileo or those guys, or with Copernicus.
Speaker 2:Science is pretty new and so it's still a young endeavor and it takes I mean, people had the sun going around the earth for hundreds of years, exactly Hundreds of years to shift the paradigm that the earth goes around the sun, and in cancer the main paradigm is the Warburg effect. Oh, the cancers are all addicted to glucose, right, and so much is built around that. And for the paradigm to change that cancers are really much more addicted to methionine, even though there's tons of data that show it is, kuhn explains why it's hard to get that paradigm shift.
Speaker 2:It's like moving a mountain.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Well, there's certain stressors that can cause change, but a lot of times it's when there's a massive anomaly that shows up and it doesn't.
Speaker 2:Once in a while. That's not going to be the case with cancer. No, once in a while that's not going to be the case with cancer. Max Planck's adage about science progresses one funeral at a time. That fits in right. With Kuhn, right, the paradigm leader leaves the scene. That makes room for the next revolution, right, which results in the next paradigm. We're in the middle of that right now. We're in a revolution that's showing methionine is a very important part of cancer and we have to attack it. We're in the middle of a revolution right now. We haven't reached where it's the dominant paradigm. It probably won't happen in my lifetime, but it's okay. One patient at a time.
Speaker 1:No, I agree and I think that, as we're. Every time that there's evidence gathered, every time another one of these papers gets published, every time another physician opens their eyes and entertains the notion, I think it just it does it. It it's a very slow moving wheel, but I think it's, I think it's moving.
Speaker 2:It's definitely, definitely moving and I'm getting so many inquiries from patients all over the world oh good, all over the world. So, as I've said many times, the big force now in moving that wheel, getting to this methionine paradigm to be the dominant one, it's the patients, and eventually they're going to win.
Speaker 1:And you know you've said something a couple of times in these meetings and for anybody who's listening, there's a meeting at four o'clock on Sunday, pacific time. Every Sunday it goes on for a couple of hours. If you're listening to this and you either have had cancer, have cancer or know somebody who has, I encourage you to participate in this meeting. We share the link. If you're, it's, everybody can attend. You can show up for a minute an hour. The whole time you can speak or listen whatever you want. It's a beautiful group, very educated people sharing their experiences. Usually there's four or five physicians on. At least Many of them are dealing with their own cancers.
Speaker 2:All the physicians on are dealing with their own cancer cancers.
Speaker 1:All the physicians on are dealing with their own cancer. It's just one of the most powerful groups I've ever met, simply because everybody's sharing their truths as they're experiencing them. And I think the most important thing people need to remember about cancer is we don't know anything about cancer as a whole because every cancer is unique. We don't know anything about cancer as a whole because every cancer is unique and we can learn things about how things happen, mechanisms and switches and types of cancers and things that they do, but the one thing cancer does so quickly and easily is it changes, and so we'll never probably know it as well as we would want to, because it's never going to be the same for very long. And I think that that understanding that we're starting to gather with just these general rules, like methionine, addiction, like these different things that we're learning, I think, no matter what cancer adapts to, these are going to be tools that we'll be able to use. What's your thoughts?
Speaker 2:Totally agree.
Speaker 1:So when people come along and they have these opinions about cancer as a big word a big word, you know there's only, I think, a handful of things that we can even categorize all cancers as really. I mean, there's just so few things that they all share in common other than you know, they want to live and they want to grow. Short of that, they want to spread.
Speaker 1:They want to spread. Yeah, that's it Just like every living thing, right? They want to spread. They want to spread. Yeah, that's it Just like every living thing, right? Yep, so you know the genetic makeup. You know I have Dr Castro working on my biopsy, getting genetic work on, so I'm hoping that we're going to uncover some tools with that. But there's not any one silver bullet in all of this. It's always going to be a layered solution and it's always going to be a lifelong solution. This is another thing people need to remember. In my best case scenario, I go into full remission, I have zero tumor markers and I get to live the rest of my life knowing that if I went back to doing what I was doing before, it will probably come back, and if I can keep myself in a good one second for me, joe, I'm sorry, hang on just one second.
Speaker 2:Oh, no problem, no problem one second. Yeah, no worries I'm on joe's zoom. I'll call you back in a few minutes. Thank you, bye.
Speaker 1:Sorry, joe that was jihiro. Oh, okay, no worries, no worries. And then for everybody who, who you know, doesn't know much about dr hoffman, he's one of the busiest guys I've known and he deals with people all over the world and you know, we're just really blessed that you spend your time with us having these conversations and you know, I really just wanted to really focus on that sort of tidbit that, as cutting edge as we are and the procedures and technologies that are developing the imaging procedures and technologies that are developing the imaging um, we're still so far away from really knowing the things that we wish we knew and and for there being um. You know, these blanket answers, these blanket cures, um are just no blanket answers are cured exactly, but we know more than we used to.
Speaker 2:We've learned so much from all our and we think we have a good chance with each patient to improve their chance of a good outcome what your situation is if you find yourself diagnosed with cancer or a loved one.
Speaker 1:You need to spend the rest of your time learning and meeting people who are willing to share information, and openly. You know, and reading books is great, but these personal experiences, people that are dealing with it one-on-one- critical, dealing with it one-on-one critical.
Speaker 2:You know, I think the what one of the main things we've learned on our zoom group you've got to be in charge of yourself, absolutely. Oh, my doctor didn't tell me this, didn't tell me that. Okay, go learn, go study 12 hours a day. Your life depends on it. We can't depend on somebody that's going to do it for us. The doc, he, she can offer us a lot, but only we can take full responsibility for ourself and get on PubMed and learn and learn and learn.
Speaker 1:Yes, 100%. That is the best advice anybody could get, and we live in a world where we have access to the latest science at our fingertips.
Speaker 2:We've got 40 million papers on PubMed. Yes, it is. The PubMed basically contains the current knowledge of science.
Speaker 1:It's there the current knowledge of science. It's there.
Speaker 2:Yes, so people with cancer have to study like crazy to learn as much as they can, to help themselves as much as they can. Like you, you went in and had such an intelligent conversation with the doctor and she agreed with what you wanted, because you came to her with facts and she respects my opinion.
Speaker 1:through this and now we communicate on a different level and it changes that little paradigm. When you go to a doctor and you're submissive or just don't have much to say. They were going to give you what they think that you need.
Speaker 2:But when you get your three minutes and the next patient comes in. But if you go in there and you're prepared and you're asking a lot of important questions, the doc's not going to kick you out of that room so fast.
Speaker 1:Not at all, and you know they want you to do well, they want you to recover.
Speaker 2:You wouldn't be a doctor if you didn't want your patient to do well, exactly so that's for sure.
Speaker 1:So I think that's another piece of it. When a patient is actively working on their own behalf, I think it shows the doctor their willingness to do what it takes.
Speaker 2:And so the doc says I'm going to do extra for you because you're going out of your way to do extra for yourself.
Speaker 1:Exactly A hundred percent. I'm running a little bit low on juice, and that's okay. We're running a little bit out of time, so we're going to call it a day. I appreciate you being here today. We had a great discussion Every time.
Speaker 2:And let me know tomorrow about the port. I will. I expect it to be in. If you gotta wait a couple more days, it's okay, but we're hoping to get it in tomorrow. But if not, we'll get it in on monday or tuesday, you bet all right. Well, we'll see you on sunday, for sure I'll call you and see you next thursday and see any other time in between, absolutely All right.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining the.
Speaker 2:Healthy Living Podcast. Thank you, Joe.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me. You bet.
