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Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
Who Do You Trust When The Stakes Are Life Or Death with Dr Robert Hoffman
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If you’ve ever thought, “It’s natural, so it can’t hurt me,” this conversation will challenge that assumption fast. Joe Grumbine sits down again with Dr. Robert Hoffman to unpack a scary reality in cancer care: some of the biggest risks don’t come from the hospital, they come from overconfidence, weak evidence, and missing warnings.
We break down a simple, listener-friendly “levels of evidence” ladder, from hearsay and anecdotes to in vitro studies, mouse research, and then phase 1, phase 2, and randomized phase 3 clinical trials. That framework becomes a survival tool for evaluating supplements, repurposed drugs, and bold claims you see online. We also tackle ethics head-on: FDA-regulated cancer treatments disclose pages of side effects, but many non-FDA supplements and protocols never mention what can go wrong, even when the risk is real.
A major warning story centers on sodium selenite, a substance often treated like a harmless supplement despite signs of serious toxicity, including nails falling out and hair loss. From there, we pivot to difficult treatment decisions, including why some cancers can recur more aggressively after surgery and how post-surgical healing signals and growth factors may fuel what’s left behind. We end with practical patient advocacy: get a second opinion, ask better questions, and don’t navigate life-or-death choices alone.
If this helped you think more clearly, subscribe, share the episode with someone who needs it, and leave a review with the question you want us to tackle next.
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Welcome And Why This Matters
SPEAKER_01Well, hello, and welcome back to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and once again we have with us Dr. Robert Hoffman. Robert, welcome to the show. Well, always really great to be on your show. You know, we we have conversation, you know, at our Sunday Zoom call. And sometimes, you know, you've been accompanying me with it to Dr. Song's appointments, and we talk a little more. And there's just so much to talk about with regards to this subject of you know cancer and research, finding answers, being patients, being an advocate, and all of these things that we talk about. Yeah, yeah. And each time that we have a Zoom call, it seems like we get really some interesting and and noteworthy topics. And you know, we were talking about this last week, um, we were talking about some people that were working with the diet and not staying with it, and some of the problems that come from that. And one of the things that we talked about, and and it kind of caught me off guard a little bit because one of our members of the call is a guy been around for a long time. He's been keeping his cancer at bay for what 17 years? And we're talking about a supplement that some of the some of the clients have worked with, and turns out it can have some really nasty side effects and even toxic levels. And all of a sudden he started talking about you know fingernails falling out, and then I didn't bother to mention this before, and I was like, whoa, that's a giant red flag. And we were toenails, toenails too. Yeah, yeah, we're talking about this, and it's like people need to realize that because something is quote unquote natural or quote unquote herbal or quote unquote mineral, or you know, somebody gets on an infomercial and tells you all about how it's helped all these people, or a guy writes a book about how he cured his cancer. None of that means anything necessarily. It could, but it doesn't necessarily mean anything. And one of the things that we talk about a lot on this show over and over again is evidence-based research and peer-reviewed studies, and there's reasons for that. You know, a lot of the times, and and I see this happen everywhere I go in all aspects of life, not just with the cancer world, people will either be looking for a thing, and then they'll notice a thing and they will see the thing they're looking for, or they will do one thing and experience another thing, and they will assume, or yeah, they'll assume that because they did the one thing, the other thing happened, and those are like major problems with real life and truth and science. Is that not true?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, one of the uh great people on our Sunday call, he was a
Levels Of Evidence Explained
SPEAKER_00surgeon for 32 years, Dr. Xame. Oh, yeah, we emphasize levels of evidence. Okay, you start with hearsay, hey Peter over there told me this must be good. Then you can go up a little bit more. There'd be some let's say some something comes from the literature that maybe is consistent with something that they're saying. That's number two. Number three would be a direct experiment, right? Even in vitro that shows what the person is that confirms what the person is claiming.
SPEAKER_01Can you explain for the audience? Because we get all levels of listeners, and what does in vitro mean?
SPEAKER_00Uh, literally, it means in glass. It's Latin glass. So in the old days we used to do cell culture in glass. Now we do it in plastic. I don't know the Latin for plastic.
SPEAKER_01I don't know if there is one.
SPEAKER_00Right. So it's in glass. You do it in a dish in a lab. Okay. Good science, you grow on the cancer cells, you're testing the drug. Great. But it, you know, it's we can learn something. It's good science, but it's still not even a mouse. Got you. So thank you. So the next level, we do it in a mouse. Good. But the mouse is not a human. Right. It's probably it's genetically, it's about 95%, but okay. You wouldn't realize it, but so and then the next level would be maybe like a phase one clinical trial where we're not looking for efficacy, but we may find it. And then a next level would be a phase two trial where we're comparing the results to what's let's say we're testing drug C, we compare it to drug A, which has been published and used. So it's a kind of like a historical control. And the next level of evidence would be a randomized phase three trial, where you get one set of patients on the drug, another patient not on the drug, and they're not supposed to know it.
SPEAKER_01Right. Not even people that are delivering the drug are supposed to know it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Nobody knows it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's like six levels of evidence, right? You know, Willie, next door. That's you know, that's just bull scatter. It's it's just not, and there's too much of that.
SPEAKER_01It's a lot of it, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So this is uh an issue levels of evidence. So somebody says something, okay, pal, what's the level of evidence? Right. This is we we need to know that before we can kind of get as we go up the level, we get more evidence. We have a lot of evidence on the sort of third step in vitro with ivermectin combined with the thin andase, looks very effective in combination. We haven't even done it yet in a mouse. So okay. I mean, we we gotta say what it is. Now let's go back to what uh the patient revealed yesterday or Sunday or whenever it was. Taking this, I wouldn't even call it a supplement,
Sodium Selenite And Toxic Side Effects
SPEAKER_00it's a chemical. It's called sodium selenite. Right. And in Pennsylvania, it's on a hazardous materials list. You gotta pack it in a certain, you can't throw it out, it has to be picked up by the hazmat man. Wow. So what does that tell you? And so apparently this patient, along with many others, I guess, have been taking very large amounts of this material. They've been told to do it, and they've been poisoned. And what if you just you go on the internet, you go on AI, and you see in five seconds when your fingernails turn the color, they fall out, the toenails, the hair falls out. That's selenite poisoning. Poisoning. So and if it's doing that to your nails, what's or your hair, what's it doing to your liver? So I say this, you know, you want to give that out, you want to sell it, isn't it ethical to tell what the bad things it could do? For example, okay, I'm I wanna I wanna I'm considering on going on on uh K Truda, like you. Right. Okay, there's an ad for K Truda in the New England Journal of Medicine. Right. First page, all slick, tells you all the great things it does, right? Page after page after page of every possible side effect.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's a lot of them.
SPEAKER_00It's all kind of declared in there. Yeah, that's what the FDA makes you do. So when you're when you're doing a non-fDA thing, which is a supplement, there's certain rules, you're not supposed to claim efficacy, third party can claim, but but you kind of have to go by ethics and morals, right? Hey, wait a minute, you know, when you're taking this, some bad things may happen. Better know about it now, right? So giving somebody a toxic chemical, let's say, like probably the level of cisplatinum or doxotaxal or worse, which is pretty darn toxic.
SPEAKER_01I know I was ticking them.
SPEAKER_00I I don't know what the level of evidence is, it's maybe three, I don't know, four, maybe some animal. And not telling the patient this the here's here's a list of what could happen. I don't think it'll happen to you, but here's what could happen. And be aware, and if you start your nails, start doing this and that, and you better get off it. Right. Okay, they don't do that. And so this is an issue. So I mean, we're talking about levels of evidence, and we're also talking about disclosure, right?
SPEAKER_01Well, and and it when you're doing something that's theoretically dangerous, like chemotherapy, you're aware of what these side effects are likely to be. So many clinical trials, and and a million dollars has been spent on it, right?
SPEAKER_00And you can prepare for it, and you have it to you. You have a physician right giving it to you. Something happens to you, he's trained to take care of you, right?
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And you're not just taking pills at whatever random amount that you're taking, you're you're you're having a very very specific dose administered in a very specific way. Right. Yeah, it's a big difference, a big, big difference, and I I think that's really important for people to realize because you know, I I've been around the block both in my herbal studies that go back 40 years to my two years of of you know studying cancer and and all of the I was my own lab rat. I mean, I I experimented, I injected myself with cannabis oil at one point to see if maybe that would answer, but it didn't do well. And I says, well, I did a little spot on my arm and it got all weird. I go, I'm not putting that in the tumor. I don't I don't trust it. So these are things that I was willing to take a little chance, but when I started taking that sodium selenite, and I was part of that group that was talking about it, it never was mentioned that it was possibly dangerous. It was, they talked about, you know, this feroptosis and all these things that it did, and all these anecdotal stories of people that were keeping cancer gone. But when I did my own research, I came up with some things that were troubling. And then I went to you and you gave me some more troubling information, and I said, Wow, I I I need to not be taking that anymore. And I I took a whole bottle that I had just bought and I put it away. I said, I'm not taking that anymore. And it was the evidence that I saw that told me it wasn't worth the risk, even if it might work, it wasn't worth the risk, and not everything is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, I mean, that's a personal decision, right? 100% absolutely personal decision, but I mean you know, when the patient is in the hospital and you want to use some of his his, her tissue or blood, they have to sign a form. Right. That form is called informed
Informed Consent For Non-FDA Treatments
SPEAKER_00consent. It isn't sign here, pal. It's right, you know, this is this and this and this and this and this. Are you still okay? Okay, then he uh please sign. All right. Called informed consent.
SPEAKER_01And that's huge. It's it's it's I know, you know, in 40 years of working with these herbs that I've been working with, I've met a few people along the way that ran into serious trouble because people think, oh, it's natural, so I can take all I want. And nothing's further from the truth. Natural ingredients have the same chemicals in them than the pharmaceutical chemicals do. They're just in different proportions, and but they're the same chemicals, they're just as dangerous. Yeah, and and I know people that have had liver damage, kidney damage, irreparable damage, just from taking supplements. Not and they they they were like, I never took a single pharmaceutical.
SPEAKER_00Supplements, it's in a gray world, right? And some people might say, Hey, there ain't no such thing, and it everything should be regulated by the FDA, but that was so much trouble, so few things you can do. Right. It's it's a it's a gray world, and um and some people take advantage of that.
SPEAKER_01I I think a point is like I have a lot of different guests on the show, and some are you know researchers like you who are trying to solve a problem in a real way. Many of them are people like me who have experiences and we're sharing our experience. I'm never selling you anything on this show. And now sometimes we have people who run a company and they're talk about their company, and and you know, they're pitching the virtues of the company. I try to be very careful. I don't really let anybody come on and make medical claims about any product because I don't know what their level of evidence is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean their own product and it's and it's going out as a supplement. That's that's disobeying the rules of the FDA.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. So I I'm very careful. I let people talk about their products, but we don't get to tell people that this product is gonna help you in a particular way, and it's and it's not harmful. I I you know it's important, I think it's important that everybody has the freedom to choose what they want to do. And I love that the information out there is so much that you could experiment on yourself the way I did. I mean, I made chlorine dioxide.
SPEAKER_00I mean freedom too,
Mexico, Access, And Buyer Beware
SPEAKER_00Joe. You you know, you go down to Tijuana, right? You go to the any drugstore. I there's a particular one I like. It's it's called Muibata or Borata. And almost everything you can get is over the counter, right? That are not over the counter. You go upstairs to a doc, you pay him five bucks, and he prescribes it to you. Yeah, they might say, ooh, bad. Uh I get that, but I say, ooh, good, I can get what I want. Right. Um, you know, you know, the the the buyer be aware.
SPEAKER_01That's it, correct.
SPEAKER_00There's not really they don't Mexico doesn't have an FDA, and you might say, ooh, that's bad. And but other people say we trust our doctors, right?
SPEAKER_01You don't hear of huge amounts of overdose.
SPEAKER_00The FDA I think is good, but if when it's overreaching, it it's not so good. So I don't know. I mean, I'm glad I live near Mexico.
SPEAKER_01Um the best of both worlds. You got all the regulation here, think what you want, but you can go right around. In fact, you and I should go on a day trip one time and head down there. I can get some ivermectin. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Uh well, yeah, we'll do it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, maybe in the next month or two. We'll uh we'll let it cool off a little bit. It's pretty hot down there right now. Well, it's takes three or four hours to get back. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we'll we'll we'll go when it cools off a bit. A medical pass.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Go in a good lane. I I I don't know. Anyway, we gotta talk and get those Zavala brothers back on board, whatever.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So like that. So yeah, there's where we are. So that was one of the things. I've been very troubled recently by patients. So I have two patients now
When Cancer Surgery Comes Back Worse
SPEAKER_00that got cancer surgery. If I would have known about it, I I would have argued don't do it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And they got it, and uh cancer came back much worse than it was before the surgery. That's so troublesome for me. Uh I agree. You know that geez, I mean, talk about not informing the patient. Right. Those surgeons and the uh the medical oncologists know it's gonna recur in most cases. And not only it's gonna recur, it's gonna be much worse. But the patient, there's this one poor man in Finland, such a nice man. He took chemo, he took methionase, he did everything good to shrink his pancreatic cancer. Neil Adjun. Joe, you're the world's expert on I love that word, yeah. Doing good, shrinking. Yeah, you know what? Do we do? We go to Germany and we get the surgery, and within a couple months, the tumors all over his dad, uh all over his abdomen. Wow, it's it's just it's just and it's horrible. This is the other fella, he had a little tiny little tumor or whatever that was apparently removed by colonoscopy. Uh-huh. Hey, enough already, right? But no, we had to have a colectomy, they took out a couple feet of right, yeah.
SPEAKER_01They took a chunk of his colon out.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's normal. And oh, yeah, man. I mean, we got so much colon. I mean, there's no way it's gonna come back, yeah. So far away from the original tumor, there's no way, no way, no way. Yeah, and it came back with such vengeance, yeah. And that's what seems to happen when it comes back. And this poor guy for a totally unnecessary oncological surgery. I mean, if you're shrinking the tumor, you're shrinking the tumor. Why, yeah. Let it keep shrinking.
SPEAKER_01What why would you stop that process? I yeah, I I I'm still blown away.
SPEAKER_00I'm shrinking and and see how far you can go, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and if it stops responding, then you look at something else. I mean, that was what and and to go under the knife has such danger.
SPEAKER_00I'm not saying, oh, you can't, you know, you can't do any cancer surgery. That's stupid, right? Times when you're you're you're obstructed or whatever, or it's a million reasons not to do it, and there's a few reasons to do it. Whatever. I mean, there's good reasons to do oncological surgery, absolutely. Right. If you don't gotta do it, don't do it because there's such a huge probability that it's gonna recur and become a different it recurs at a different level.
SPEAKER_01Now explain to me, like in my studies and my research, it seemed to me that when you go and you start cutting into a cancerous tumor, you're severely disrupting the environment, and you're creating an environment where it can release a lot of cells into your bloodstream and they can move around. And but when you're talking about the guy who had a chunk of his colon taken out, that was Joe.
SPEAKER_00We should we should avoid at all costs cutting the tumor. Agreed, okay. Sometimes that happens, and like you said, all those things could happen. But what we need to do. Is why why why does surgery sometimes, maybe a lot of times, stimulate the cancer? Well, after surgery, the body goes into this healing phase, right? All these growth factors, the body has to grow back all the stuff that was cut around.
How Healing Signals Can Feed Tumors
SPEAKER_00So all those growth factors, whatever, they're stimulating the cancer too, because you never get it all out. Oh I got it all out. Oh, yeah. And and so whatever's left gets so stimulated, and they apparently, in many instances, can go to a next they get upgraded, they get to a higher grade. Wow. And so this is a huge risk. So I mean neo adjuvant chemo. I mean, it's I couldn't agree more. I I would have to lose. Try it, try it, go as hard as you can. And you know, take whatever else you think is gonna help you out. Anyway, this I wanted to tell you these two patients.
SPEAKER_01I'm very troubled by I had two experiences with surgeons, and both of them looking back, were extremely troubling. The first one was the ENT who diagnosed me as having cancer. He suggested that he thought I did, but he said the only way we're gonna know is if I do a biopsy. There's no other way to know for sure. Surgery is surgery. I know, but but the biopsy that I took was a chunk. He he went in and took a chunk out. And the reason why he did that was because I wanted to make sure we had enough tissue that we could study it, we could, we could know for sure. And and but I I told him what my concerns were, just what you were saying. I said, I am deeply concerned that when you disrupt this tumor, it's gonna cause it to spread. And I don't want that. He says, There is no evidence in the world that would suggest that. He says, I says, Well, what about all the people who had surgery and then their cancer spread shortly after? He says, How do we know it wouldn't have spread anyways? And that's what he said to me.
SPEAKER_00I didn't get the last sentence.
SPEAKER_01What he said, how do we know it wouldn't have spread anyways? And and I I was taken aback by that.
SPEAKER_00This this guy's a you know, he he's a nutcase.
SPEAKER_01I told him he was a total jerk, you know. I I he was he was not a good guy.
SPEAKER_00He's telling the truth, but he's a nutcase. And then the second surgeon lucky out of there was very dangerous. I know, and and I was concerned, a fine needle, that's enough for the diagnosis. Just remember that.
SPEAKER_01Well, hopefully, I'll never have to deal with that again. But yes, I I I I went against my better judgment when I had that tumor biopsied that way, but I believe that it would give if I not a cancer.
SPEAKER_00Oh no, that's not a cancer. Like you can't get a cancer.
SPEAKER_01That was it, yeah. That was the first doctor. I had a whole load of great doctors. So then when I went to UCI, the first oncologist I saw was a surgical oncologist. And what he said just in line, yeah, he was the first one, and so the first thing he said to me was, Well, your tumor's too big to operate on as it is, because we'll send a robot up there and we'll start taking all the tissue out, but it's likely we're not gonna get it all. He told me that straight up.
SPEAKER_00He was an honest man, yes.
SPEAKER_01So then he said, Well, we're gonna give you some radiation and chemo first, and it we'll shrink it down, and then we'll go in with our robot and we'll get it. And I and I said to him even then pancreatic cancer patient, right? I said to him even then, I said, So given where this tumor is, and you it was right there in a highway of of nerves and and and blood vessels and lymphatic tissue, and I everything is right there in your neck. And I said, There's no way you're gonna get it all out. It's not like why would you even? And he said, That's what we do.
SPEAKER_00That's that's that's that's that was an honest answer, too. That's that's the guideline. Yeah, we're gonna give you chemo and radiation because your tumor is not refectable. Then after chemo and radiation, we're gonna resect it, and then when it comes back, it's tough shit. Yes, um sorry for the no, it's true. So, you know, I I say so many times the enemy of the cancer patient's the oncologist. I'm telling you. Unless he's Dr. Song. And you know, you have Dr. Song, he's a saint. Yes, anyway.
SPEAKER_01Dr. Castro's helping a lot of people as well.
SPEAKER_00Dr. Xume.
SPEAKER_01Dr. Xume, yeah.
SPEAKER_00We've met a few of the saints.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00But the rest of them they mean well.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00So ignorant.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Well, what's your what's your advice to the to the person who's dealing with cancer, whether it's themselves or a loved one, as to how to navigate this? Because these people, they get told by doctors, the very doctor that they're supposed to trust, they're getting told to do a thing that's not correct.
SPEAKER_00Hang on one second, sir.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00You know, spam. Spam. Okay, so I don't know what to tell people. If they're local, go see Dr. Song, go see Dr. Castro, for gosh sake. Get a second opinion. And in Japan, we tell everybody go see Dr.
Second Opinions And The Sunday Call
SPEAKER_00Sato or go see Professor Tsunoda. Yes, get a second opinion, yes, or a third or a fourth. And I know though those people will give a great second opinion.
SPEAKER_01Come on to the four o'clock Sunday call and talk about what they told you, and and and get 15 or 20 opinions from people who have been through it and survived.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, you're talking to a lot most of the people on that call have got a lot of opinions and they're uh they're surviving.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And they've done a lot of research and they've experimented on themselves, so diligent. Joe, can we maybe start winding down a little bit? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, actually, that was really what I wanted to get to. Was that was was that message to the listener?
SPEAKER_00I mean, this is so what we're talking about is so life on the line information. Life on the line.
SPEAKER_01It is absolutely well, Robert, I I appreciate so much your passion with the work that you're doing. And you know, I think if we do these episodes and we reach even one person that goes, wow, you know what? Maybe I should think again. Well, Joe, you're doing you're doing God's work.
SPEAKER_00That's I am, and so are you. It says you save one person, you save the world.
SPEAKER_01I love that. I love that. Well, we're gonna keep going down this road. We're gonna save as many people as we can along their way. And I want to thank you for joining us today, as always.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Joe. Thank you for having me on.
SPEAKER_01You bet. Well, this has been another episode of the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and I want to thank all the listeners for making this show possible. And we will see you next time.
