22: How To Block Cancer Recurrence by Changing The Tumor Neighbourhood

Most people think of cancer as just a cluster of disorganized and unpredictable cells—but the real story on how cancer cells behave lies in the neighborhood they live in.

In this episode of The Flourish After Cancer Podcast, Dr. Megan Bernard, ND, unpacks one of the most fascinating (and empowering) areas of cancer research: the tumor microenvironment — the community of immune cells, connective tissue, blood vessels, and signals that can either help or hinder cancer’s growth.

You’ll learn how this environment becomes either pro-cancer or anti-cancer, and how lifestyle, nutrition, and medical therapies can help “renovate” it back to health (and you don’t need a science degree to understand it!).

⚠️ This is a must-listen if:

• You’ve finished cancer treatment and want to understand what’s happening inside your body
• You’ve heard about inflammation or “terrain” but want the science behind it
• You’re curious how stress, oxygen levels, and immune function shape your recovery
• You want to learn how food, movement, and mindset literally change your internal environment

💊 In this episode, you’ll learn:

• What the tumor microenvironment actually is — and why it’s more important than the tumor itself
• The cellular players that can either fight or protect cancer (like macrophages, fibroblasts, and immune cells)
• The non-cellular factors — like the extracellular matrix, exosomes, oxygen, and acidity — that control how cancer spreads
• Why the “acidic” environment inside tumors isn’t fixed by alkaline diets (and what really helps)
• The science of “stemness” — how some cells resist treatment and what can help target them
• How both medicine and lifestyle can help shift your internal neighborhood from cancer-promoting to cancer-blocking

💡 You’ll leave this episode with:

• A clear, relatable understanding of the tumor microenvironment
• Hope — because what’s happening inside your body can be changed
• Science-backed next steps you can use today

 

🔗 Episode Relevant Resources:

The First 4 Steps To Staying Cancer Free: https://flourishaftercancer.com/presentation

The Blood Work Clarity Guide For Cancer Survivors: https://flourishaftercancer.com/bloodworkclarity

 

✨ Let's Connect! 

Book a free Roadmap Call and let’s chat about how we can help: https://flourishaftercancer.com/nextsteps

 

Follow me:

• Instagram: @MeganBernardND
• Facebook:  @MeganBernardND
• Website: https://flourishaftercancer.com/

 

Medical Disclaimer: The information provided in these videos and podcasts is for educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Consult with a qualified healthcare provider before making any changes to your diet, medications, or lifestyle. Content is not a substitute for professional medical advice or care.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
If we can start to look at the tumor microenvironment, then that might influence how well someone responds to treatment and influences how well do they do post-treatment in terms of reducing the risk of cancer coming back.

(00:11):
And the thing is, whenever it comes to chemo, radiation surgery, the target is to kill the cancer cells.
The treatments are the same depending on the diagnosis, not necessarily the person.
But when it comes to prevention, we shift from focusing on the cancer cells to focusing on the microenvironment and the whole macroenvironment too, within your whole body.
And that environment differs from person to person because you have different genetics, like you have different body genetics and defenses, you have different immune strengths.

(00:38):
Different types of immune cells circulating, depending on what viruses or bacteria or environmental things you come into contact throughout your whole life.
You have different taste preferences, nutrient needs, um, stress levels, coping strategies.
All these things determine your tumor microenvironment, and that is what makes you unique when it comes to your cancer diagnosis as well. 9 00:01:27,607.643784787 --> 00:01:28,237.643784787 Welcome back. 10 00:01:28,237.643784787 --> 00:01:37,417.643784787 So today I wanna talk about the tumor microenvironment or the TME as I might end up saying it throughout this podcast episode. 11 00:01:37,807.643784787 --> 00:01:44,707.64378479 But this is about the environment that is pretty much microscopically around the tumor cells. 12 00:01:44,917.64378479 --> 00:01:48,217.64378479 So this might not apply as much if you have a blood cancer diagnosis. 13 00:01:48,217.64378479 --> 00:01:51,667.64378479 In terms of just like what I'm gonna describe for the most part, but. 14 00:01:52,312.64378479 --> 00:02:11,332.64378479 If you do have a blood cancer diagnosis, it would be good to still listen, because whenever I'm gonna give you some actionable changes, it's still going to apply to the, to you, even though I'm, I'm specifically pretty much talking about a solid tumor in this case, but we're gonna talk about the tumor microenvironment, which is where most of the information comes from. 15 00:02:11,332.64378479 --> 00:02:18,22.64378479 Whenever you're looking at things like supplements or nutrition, like specific nutrition changes, pretty much any of the research. 16 00:02:18,352.64378479 --> 00:02:25,702.64378479 Is really done in the tumor microenvironment unless you are looking at human research, which is kind of like the whole body. 17 00:02:26,2.64378479 --> 00:02:44,542.64378479 So I just wanted to kind of have that little bit of distinction here where we're gonna be looking more on a molecular level, but my main goal is to show you how can we do things from a macroscopic level? How can we do things day to day in order to influence the microscopic environment? So the tumor micro environment. 18 00:02:45,322.64378479 --> 00:03:01,362.64378479 Okay, so it's gonna seem a little bit complicated, but I have some sort of analogies to help it to be more clear, to make more sense, and hopefully you'll be able to see how your neighborhood, your tumor neighborhood can be influenced by your day-to-day activities whenever we come to the end of this. 19 00:03:01,362.64378479 --> 00:03:02,772.64378479 But I find it very fascinating. 20 00:03:03,162.64378479 --> 00:03:09,602.64378479 And it's very much like a, it's more of a scientific research thing to talk about, but I think you guys will enjoy it as well. 21 00:03:10,232.64378479 --> 00:03:13,352.64378479 So first off, what is the tumor microenvironment? The TME. 22 00:03:13,832.64378479 --> 00:03:17,822.64378479 This is the neighborhood in which the tumor lives. 23 00:03:18,302.64378479 --> 00:03:21,92.64378479 This is, I want you to kind of visualize things here. 24 00:03:21,752.64378479 --> 00:03:26,282.64378479 You've got a suburb perhaps, and you've got a bunch of cells around. 25 00:03:26,672.64378479 --> 00:03:37,622.64378479 And some cells are cancerous, some cells are healthy, and it's about the balance of everything in this neighborhood that is going to determine how strong the cancer is going to be. 26 00:03:37,772.64378479 --> 00:03:40,112.64378479 How, how much cancer is gonna be developed. 27 00:03:40,112.64378479 --> 00:03:49,27.64378479 So if we're looking at this neighborhood where the tumor lives, we've got cells and structures, both of these things make up the tumor microenvironment. 28 00:03:49,802.64378479 --> 00:03:52,772.64378479 The cells that are involved, there could be some good ones. 29 00:03:52,772.64378479 --> 00:03:56,852.64378479 Like you've got your T cells, your B cells, your natural killer cells. 30 00:03:57,212.64378479 --> 00:03:59,732.64378479 These are the cells that are kind of like the police, I guess. 31 00:03:59,732.64378479 --> 00:04:00,692.64378479 They do the patrol. 32 00:04:00,902.64378479 --> 00:04:06,362.64378479 They go and look for any of the bad seeds that might be hanging out in the, in the tumor, in the neighborhood. 33 00:04:07,82.64378479 --> 00:04:08,492.64378479 You've also got macrophages. 34 00:04:08,762.64378479 --> 00:04:10,22.64378479 These are good cells too. 35 00:04:10,82.64378479 --> 00:04:13,922.64378479 They are responsible for going and cleaning up any of the garbage in the neighborhood. 36 00:04:14,192.64378479 --> 00:04:15,662.64378479 So I want you to kind of picture. 37 00:04:15,992.64378479 --> 00:04:23,132.64378479 Circular cells going around the neighborhood and they have little cop hats on and they're just looking for trouble, making sure trouble doesn't happen. 38 00:04:23,432.64378479 --> 00:04:33,242.64378479 They're the good guys and we've got the macrophages who are like the garbage cleanup crew might come over in the mornings and if there was any trouble, people were littering, whatever it might be, the cells were littering to litter. 39 00:04:33,302.64378479 --> 00:04:35,727.64378479 Littering the macrophages will go and clean that. 40 00:04:36,857.64378479 --> 00:04:43,7.64378479 Then we also have the bad seed, so the potential cells that are gonna encourage more of a dangerous neighborhood. 41 00:04:43,457.64378479 --> 00:04:53,92.64378479 We've got cancer associated fibroblasts where fibroblasts are responsible for helping to kind of rebuild, heal tissue, but at the same time, they can get a little bit. 42 00:04:53,972.64378479 --> 00:05:13,562.64378479 They can go to the dark side and they can form scars, and they kind of form like scar fortresses where they don't allow the patrols to come in and the immune system cells can't get by their walls or their fortress walls, and inside they're harboring some bad seeds that are gonna encourage a more cancerous environment, a cancer neighborhood to happen. 43 00:05:14,192.64378479 --> 00:05:19,322.64378479 Then we've got these things called stromal cells, which are like the, the fertilizer, I guess you could say. 44 00:05:19,322.64378479 --> 00:05:21,962.64378479 They are, let's say, call them gossipers. 45 00:05:22,307.64378479 --> 00:05:28,337.64378479 They're the ones that are spreading all this bad news about how the dark side is where you wanna be. 46 00:05:28,337.64378479 --> 00:05:35,507.64378479 And it's kind of recruiting more of the, the normal, healthy, good neighbors to be like, you know what, this does sound good. 47 00:05:35,657.64378479 --> 00:05:37,307.64378479 I wanna go over to the dark side too. 48 00:05:37,577.64378479 --> 00:05:40,217.64378479 And they wanna create more of a cancerous neighborhood. 49 00:05:40,977.64378479 --> 00:05:46,942.64378479 Sometimes even the good cells, the T cells, the B cells, the natural killer cells, the macrophages, the patrols, and the garbage men. 50 00:05:47,502.64378479 --> 00:05:53,142.64378479 They can sometimes be influenced by the gossip that's being spread by things like the stromal cells. 51 00:05:53,472.64378479 --> 00:05:58,362.64378479 And they might even change their mind and be like, you know what? I'm just not enjoying the patrols that I'm doing. 52 00:05:58,362.64378479 --> 00:06:00,552.64378479 And I think I want to go over to the dark side too. 53 00:06:00,552.64378479 --> 00:06:01,902.64378479 It just sounds more fun there. 54 00:06:02,402.64378479 --> 00:06:06,992.64378479 But the, it's usually done by things like the stromal cells, the fibroblasts. 55 00:06:06,992.64378479 --> 00:06:11,402.64378479 They're sending these gossip signals saying like, you know what? It's not so bad over here. 56 00:06:11,402.64378479 --> 00:06:15,452.64378479 Why don't you come join us? There's also structure, so we just talked about cells. 57 00:06:15,452.64378479 --> 00:06:21,392.64378479 So T cells, B cells, natural killer cells, macrophages, the good guys, typically they can be influenced to go to the bad side. 58 00:06:21,782.64378479 --> 00:06:25,472.64378479 And then we got the bad ones, we got the fibroblasts, the stromal cells, and there's a couple others as well. 59 00:06:25,472.64378479 --> 00:06:27,182.64378479 These are just kinda like the main ones. 60 00:06:27,932.64378479 --> 00:06:37,82.64378479 Then we got the structures, so we got the extracellular matrix, which is kind of like if you look at the good neighborhood, it's all neat and organized and made on a grid pattern. 61 00:06:37,607.64378479 --> 00:06:43,997.64378479 Then we've got the extracellular matrix matrix, which is more pro tumor in certain environments, and that's going to be like the twisty roads. 62 00:06:43,997.64378479 --> 00:06:49,107.64378479 It's gonna be just no organization and it looks like it's a maze or something like that. 63 00:06:49,737.64378479 --> 00:06:54,967.64378479 We've also got tumor exosomes, like little things that cancer cells might send signals of. 64 00:06:55,297.64378479 --> 00:06:59,257.64378479 And again, there's just more gossip, more bad gossip saying, Hey, things are great over here. 65 00:06:59,257.64378479 --> 00:07:11,417.64378479 Why don't you join us? And then we've also got the environment created by things like the extracellular matrix, the exosome gossip signals, the stromal cells, the fibroblast fortress, scar fortresses. 66 00:07:11,687.64378479 --> 00:07:17,447.64378479 This is gonna help to create more of an environment that is more low oxygen and more acidic. 67 00:07:17,837.64378479 --> 00:07:26,847.64378479 And in the oxygen, in the acidic environments, they kind of act like, let's say like, brain altering drugs where they're gonna turn the cells and give them more. 68 00:07:27,402.64378479 --> 00:07:29,232.64378479 Feedback saying, yes, you're doing the right thing. 69 00:07:29,232.64378479 --> 00:07:30,882.64378479 Let's be, let's go to the bad side. 70 00:07:31,422.64378479 --> 00:07:38,652.64378479 So we got the neighborhood around all of these cells, and at any given point in time, there's this balance going on. 71 00:07:38,802.64378479 --> 00:07:45,492.64378479 Even in a, a healthy individual who doesn't have a cancer diagnosis of a good neighborhood and a bad neighborhood. 72 00:07:46,482.64378479 --> 00:07:49,482.64378479 We got these cells and signals constantly being sent off. 73 00:07:49,782.64378479 --> 00:07:57,852.64378479 And even in a healthy person, you might have cancer cells at any particular time, but they get taken care of by, by the patrol before they become a problem. 74 00:07:57,852.64378479 --> 00:07:58,692.64378479 They get put in jail. 75 00:07:58,692.64378479 --> 00:08:09,132.64378479 They get, for lack of a better way to say it, they get killed off basically before they become an actual super bad neighborhood where everything is bad and the cancer starts to thrive. 76 00:08:10,182.64378479 --> 00:08:28,82.64378479 And when it comes to actually having a cancer diagnosis, it doesn't mean that we can't switch the neighborhood, which is more on the leaning toward the bad side, the cancerous side, into something that is more grid patterned, picket white fences, white picket fences good, healthy, well-built houses, things like that. 77 00:08:28,322.64378479 --> 00:08:37,112.64378479 We can have the opportunity to try to change the neighborhood from a bad neighborhood to a good neighborhood, even if there's inactive cancer diagnosis going on there. 78 00:08:37,622.64378479 --> 00:08:44,882.64378479 We wanna influence the signals and the gossip and the patrols to be more against cancer and to clean up the environment. 79 00:08:45,302.64378479 --> 00:08:46,592.64378479 And we can do that. 80 00:08:46,622.64378479 --> 00:08:51,692.64378479 We can do that by certain things in our day to day, which is pretty darn cool. 81 00:08:52,712.64378479 --> 00:09:01,862.64378479 The thing, the thing here is that most people think that cancer cells and tumors, they grow because the cancer cells just decide that they want to divide quickly. 82 00:09:02,162.64378479 --> 00:09:06,242.64378479 But often what happens is that the tumor cells are. 83 00:09:07,172.64378479 --> 00:09:19,352.64378479 Are, yes, growing and dividing quickly, but they're also surrounded by non-cancer cells, the different neighbors in in the neighborhood that's gonna be more inducing a pro cancer environment. 84 00:09:19,352.64378479 --> 00:09:25,862.64378479 They kind of talk to other healthy cells and other cells in the neighborhood and encourage them to start working for them. 85 00:09:25,862.64378479 --> 00:09:33,437.64378479 The cancer will encourage other non-cancer cells to start working for them, and that's when the neighborhood starts to turn against. 86 00:09:34,82.64378479 --> 00:09:44,672.64378479 You and your body, and it becomes more pro cancer inducing and more of a pro cancer neighborhood, encouraging cancer to start, grow, and then divide faster spread, things like that. 87 00:09:44,972.64378479 --> 00:09:52,652.64378479 So by changing the tumor microenvironment the whole neighborhood, we are gonna have a great impact on influencing. 88 00:09:53,387.64378479 --> 00:09:56,597.64378479 The cancer cells to be like, I don't wanna be here anymore. 89 00:09:56,847.64378479 --> 00:09:57,987.64378479 There's nothing for me here. 90 00:09:57,987.64378479 --> 00:10:01,737.64378479 And why don't we just stop recruiting? 'cause it's just not the place that I wanna be. 91 00:10:02,7.64378479 --> 00:10:05,577.64378479 So we changed the neighborhood to help to get rid of the cancer. 92 00:10:07,107.64378479 --> 00:10:15,87.64378479 And another kind of quick point here is that often people are searching for the best cancer killing supplement. 93 00:10:15,882.64378479 --> 00:10:28,452.64378479 I think the greatest mindset switch that I can get people to make is to instead, stop looking at killing cancer cells and instead start looking at the environment completely within your body. 94 00:10:28,482.64378479 --> 00:10:41,682.64378479 So the tumor microenvironment, the microscopic neighborhood around the potential cancer cells, as well as the whole environment in your body, because what you're eating, what you're thinking, how your gut health is. 95 00:10:42,117.64378479 --> 00:10:47,37.64378479 How you move your muscles, that is a bigger, like it's your whole body. 96 00:10:47,37.64378479 --> 00:10:53,787.64378479 It's not the microscopic environment, but that is going to influence the tumor microenvironment the greatest. 97 00:10:54,477.64378479 --> 00:11:01,287.64378479 Whereas if you take a supplement to kill cancer cells, there's no guarantee that that supplement's gonna get broken down in an appropriate matter. 98 00:11:01,767.64378479 --> 00:11:10,437.64378479 It's gonna be made into the active components and that it's actually gonna search through the body to find that particular neighborhood where the cancer cells are growing. 99 00:11:10,437.64378479 --> 00:11:26,437.64378479 We don't know if it's actually gonna reach there, but we do know for a fact that whenever you exercise, eat specific nutrient needs, like get your specific nutrient needs, whenever you reduce stress, improve your gut health, like that's changing the whole environment and that will be influenced throughout your whole body. 100 00:11:26,782.64378479 --> 00:11:31,642.64378479 It's gonna be more likely to reach the tumor microenvironment, that tumor tumor neighborhood. 101 00:11:32,332.64378479 --> 00:11:36,322.64378479 I just wanted to kind of put that out there and I think I've said that many times in a lot of my episodes. 102 00:11:36,322.64378479 --> 00:11:37,432.64378479 So you might be getting it by now. 103 00:11:39,52.64378479 --> 00:11:43,282.64378479 Alright, so the overall thing here is that your, your body is an ecosystem. 104 00:11:43,282.64378479 --> 00:11:45,712.64378479 The tumor microenvironment is an ecosystem. 105 00:11:46,582.64378479 --> 00:11:52,942.64378479 If you have cancer, which is kind of like an unwanted guest at a party, it's not enough just to kick them out of the party. 106 00:11:53,527.64378479 --> 00:11:56,797.64378479 You have to make the party undesirable to them. 107 00:11:56,797.64378479 --> 00:12:00,367.64378479 You have to make it so that they don't want to show up to the the party at all. 108 00:12:00,607.64378479 --> 00:12:03,727.64378479 So we gotta make it so that they're not getting the growth signals that they want. 109 00:12:04,27.64378479 --> 00:12:08,17.64378479 They're not getting the, the joy and the hits that they want in order to be there. 110 00:12:08,17.64378479 --> 00:12:16,357.64378479 So we're gonna change the neighborhood, change the environment around the tumor and the whole body in order to say to cancer, you know what? It's just not worth your time. 111 00:12:16,357.64378479 --> 00:12:17,317.64378479 You don't wanna be here. 112 00:12:17,947.64378479 --> 00:12:20,767.64378479 So that's what we're looking at for the tumor microenvironment. 113 00:12:21,412.64378479 --> 00:12:27,822.64378479 A quick thing here is I'm curious if you guys have ever heard of cancer stem cells before CSCs cancer stem cells. 114 00:12:28,422.64378479 --> 00:12:35,892.64378479 What these kind of are, are the they are the cell, they are the cells that are thought to divide and get, give rise to all cancer cells. 115 00:12:36,432.64378479 --> 00:12:43,422.64378479 And what it's thought is that there's a certain processes, the environment becomes conducive to encouraging healthy cells to change into cancer cells. 116 00:12:43,692.64378479 --> 00:12:45,612.64378479 It forms these cancer stem cells. 117 00:12:46,197.64378479 --> 00:12:53,917.64378479 Then these cancer stem cells are the ones that actually give a ri, give rise to all the different cells, the cancer cells in the body. 118 00:12:53,917.64378479 --> 00:12:58,807.64378479 So these are kind of like the mom cells and then they have babies and they create more cancer cells. 119 00:12:58,807.64378479 --> 00:13:02,647.64378479 So the mom, cancer cells, they have babies create more daughter cancer cells. 120 00:13:03,397.64378479 --> 00:13:11,707.64378479 And the cancer stem cells are thought to be the real cells that get left behind after treatment, whether it's chemo or radiation or surgery. 121 00:13:12,22.64378479 --> 00:13:16,672.64378479 They are highly resilient, highly adaptive, and very hard to kill. 122 00:13:16,882.64378479 --> 00:13:21,982.64378479 So even when it comes to chemoradiation surgery, sometimes we can't actually hit the cancer stem cells. 123 00:13:22,432.64378479 --> 00:13:31,102.64378479 And then the cancer stem cells, although the chemo radiation surgery, are gonna kill off all the other cancer cells, the cancer stem cells might remain behind. 124 00:13:31,462.64378479 --> 00:13:32,602.64378479 They start to go to sleep. 125 00:13:32,602.64378479 --> 00:13:37,482.64378479 They become dormant as the treatment takes effect and starts to kill off the rest of the cancer cells. 126 00:13:38,112.64378479 --> 00:13:38,442.64378479 Spot. 127 00:13:38,712.64378479 --> 00:13:45,462.64378479 Sooner or later it's thought that recurrences arise due to these cancer stem cells that are no longer dormant, are no longer sleeping. 128 00:13:45,702.64378479 --> 00:13:56,802.64378479 There's something that changes within the microenvironment, again, microenvironment being influenced by the whole environment in your body that then encourages these cancer stem cells to wake up and become cancer again. 129 00:13:56,802.64378479 --> 00:14:01,572.64378479 So that's where recurrences are thought to arise from, is from these cancer stem cells that have become awake again. 130 00:14:01,572.64378479 --> 00:14:02,652.64378479 They're no longer dormant. 131 00:14:03,282.64378479 --> 00:14:16,842.64378479 So we, this is something that is a huge struggle in, in the realm of cancer oncology, cancer support, and oncology, where we just haven't figured out yet how to target specifically these cancer stem cells. 132 00:14:16,842.64378479 --> 00:14:17,862.64378479 That can be pretty resilient. 133 00:14:17,862.64378479 --> 00:14:20,352.64378479 Some of them will die by chemo regime, surgery, things like that. 134 00:14:20,712.64378479 --> 00:14:22,212.64378479 But the other aspect is too, like. 135 00:14:22,827.64378479 --> 00:14:25,287.64378479 Again, we're at Flourish After Cancer. 136 00:14:25,287.64378479 --> 00:14:27,987.64378479 My, myself, my team, we're a very pro-con conventional treatment. 137 00:14:27,987.64378479 --> 00:14:34,647.64378479 We totally encourage chemo, radiation, surgery, things like that, whenever it's like gonna give people the really good chance of survival. 138 00:14:34,977.64378479 --> 00:14:46,147.64378479 But the unfortunate thing about a lot of those conventional treatments is that sometimes it leaves the environment more conducive to cancer growing with the cancer stem cells being left behind. 139 00:14:46,147.64378479 --> 00:14:47,887.64378479 And again, they're the resilient ones. 140 00:14:47,887.64378479 --> 00:14:51,37.64378479 If we can't kill 'em off, then they're gonna be potentially coming back over time. 141 00:14:51,442.64378479 --> 00:14:57,382.64378479 So since we haven't figured out how to target them yet, we want to look at the environment in your body. 142 00:14:57,412.64378479 --> 00:15:13,552.64378479 Because if we can create this environment where these cancer stem cells are gonna be dormant forever or potentially maybe even die off after like starvation or just not getting what they need in order to survive, then we can improve that environment to not encourage recurrences. 143 00:15:13,552.64378479 --> 00:15:15,262.64378479 And this is kind of the overarching. 144 00:15:16,252.64378479 --> 00:15:38,782.64378479 Theory or theme, I guess, of how we approach every cancer case whenever we're working with our clients is what can we change to just make cancer? So, I hope you don't mind me swearing so pissed off that it just doesn't wanna be there anymore, that we can just make sure that it's, it's tired of being there and it's just gonna die off and move on or whatever. 145 00:15:38,782.64378479 --> 00:15:40,972.64378479 It's just not, not gonna rear its head again. 146 00:15:41,782.64378479 --> 00:15:45,502.64378479 Changing your environment is going to influence the tumor microenvironment. 147 00:15:45,502.64378479 --> 00:15:50,152.64378479 It's gonna influence the environment around these cancer stem cells to be like, I give up. 148 00:15:50,332.64378479 --> 00:15:51,232.64378479 I you win. 149 00:15:51,382.64378479 --> 00:15:52,492.64378479 I can't do this anymore. 150 00:15:53,572.64378479 --> 00:15:58,372.64378479 So what do we do? To target the tumor microenvironment. 151 00:15:58,372.64378479 --> 00:16:07,792.64378479 Like what is with, what are these cells doing? What kind of environment is being created in order to encourage cancer to start, grow, spread, divide, conquer. 152 00:16:08,62.64378479 --> 00:16:22,402.64378479 Because if we know what's encouraging this tumor microenvironment to be what it is to encourage a tumor, then we can counteract that again with certain nutrition, lifestyle, even medication strategies, things like that, in order to make sure that it doesn't wanna be there anymore. 153 00:16:22,762.64378479 --> 00:16:25,342.64378479 So in simpler terms, there are specific. 154 00:16:25,852.64378479 --> 00:16:31,222.64378479 Scientific methods and words for these and pathways and fancy acronyms and things like that. 155 00:16:31,222.64378479 --> 00:16:35,782.64378479 But in simplest terms, what it's gonna come down to is we want to decrease inflammation. 156 00:16:36,442.64378479 --> 00:16:48,922.6437848 Inflammation being part of the gossip signals that are being sent around, part of contributing to the scar fortresses that are blocking the cop patrols from going in and finding and fighting cancer cells before they become a big problem. 157 00:16:49,252.6437848 --> 00:16:53,92.6437848 So if we can decrease inflammation, it's going to decrease scar fortresses. 158 00:16:53,92.6437848 --> 00:16:55,792.6437848 It's going to stop the gossips from spreading. 159 00:16:56,122.6437848 --> 00:17:04,582.6437848 It's going to not supply the tumor cells with the, the food and things that they need in order to continue to go rampant throughout the neighborhood. 160 00:17:04,882.6437848 --> 00:17:08,362.6437848 So decrease inflammation, and I'll get a little bit more specific in a second. 161 00:17:08,887.6437848 --> 00:17:12,187.6437848 But we also want to improve immune recruitment and strength. 162 00:17:12,187.6437848 --> 00:17:14,77.6437848 We want to help to get more patrols. 163 00:17:14,77.6437848 --> 00:17:19,987.6437848 We want to improve your immune cells, the T cells, the B cells, the macrophages, the garbage cleaners basically as well. 164 00:17:20,197.6437848 --> 00:17:28,997.6437848 We wanna make sure that they're working optimally to be able to, I know, keep fear brewing in the tumor cells that are hiding in the neighborhood. 165 00:17:29,657.6437848 --> 00:17:34,157.6437848 Keep them back and to be able to go and find them more too, and get rid of them, put them in jail. 166 00:17:35,162.6437848 --> 00:17:48,92.6437848 We also wanna stop the scar, fortresses and fibroblasts by improving your healing, which is something that is hugely overlooked in conventional support, where we just put people through chemo, radiation surgery, and then it's like, okay, we'll see if it comes back. 167 00:17:48,92.6437848 --> 00:17:49,772.6437848 We'll see at your scans, whatever it might be. 168 00:17:50,72.6437848 --> 00:18:04,412.6437848 But it's like, why aren't you teaching people how to heal their tissues post-treatment, to improve their liver function, to get their blood flow and lymphatic flowing so that it can pump things through your natural detoxification systems to get rid of that outta the body. 169 00:18:04,772.6437848 --> 00:18:08,522.6437848 Why aren't we helping people have good bowel movements every day? 'cause that's how we get rid of the garbage. 170 00:18:09,182.6437848 --> 00:18:17,342.6437848 So if we can improve the delivery of nutrients to your body, to the fibroblasts, to the healing centers, then that is going to prevent more scar formation. 171 00:18:17,582.6437848 --> 00:18:19,712.6437848 It's going to help flush things through your system. 172 00:18:19,712.6437848 --> 00:18:21,422.6437848 It's going to decrease inflammation. 173 00:18:21,632.6437848 --> 00:18:23,702.6437848 It's going to help with immune cell recruitment. 174 00:18:23,837.6437848 --> 00:18:27,422.6437848 All those things are possible whenever we help people to heal better. 175 00:18:28,22.6437848 --> 00:18:32,282.6437848 We also wanna do things like block blood flow to tumors, blood flow. 176 00:18:32,282.6437848 --> 00:18:46,272.6437848 Like you can picture it, like the vascular system is kind of like, hmm, how can I say it? Like the underground male roots, I guess delivering messages and fuel to the potential cancer cells that are hiding throughout the neighborhood. 177 00:18:46,902.6437848 --> 00:18:52,632.6437848 So if we can improve blood flow in healthful ways, then it's gonna flush these things outta the system. 178 00:18:53,397.6437848 --> 00:19:04,677.6437848 The signals may never actually reach the cancer cells or sometimes these cancer cells, these bad seeds in the neighborhood, they set up additional delivery systems because they want more and more messages. 179 00:19:04,677.6437848 --> 00:19:15,927.6437848 But if we can cut off those messages and the mail route, then it's not gonna get to the signals saying like, you need to do this in order to survive, or it's not gonna get the food supplies that are being sent down their way. 180 00:19:15,927.6437848 --> 00:19:19,647.6437848 So they're just going to kind, the cancer cells will go and starve. 181 00:19:20,337.6437848 --> 00:19:29,367.6437848 So by blocking off blood flow to tumors, we're starving them, we're preventing a lot of the prog growth signals from being delivered to the bad seeds in the neighborhood to, to the cancer cells. 182 00:19:30,807.6437848 --> 00:19:33,507.6437848 We can also encourage oxygenation of tissues. 183 00:19:33,567.6437848 --> 00:19:40,57.6437848 And again, in just a minute, I'll go through like some specific interventions that are more natural and more geared towards this. 184 00:19:40,837.6437848 --> 00:19:44,587.6437848 Whenever we encourage oxygenation, it's just going to help. 185 00:19:44,627.6437848 --> 00:19:47,657.6437848 'Cause tumor cells prefer a non oxygenated environment. 186 00:19:47,657.6437848 --> 00:19:51,227.6437848 It encourages certain biochemical processes that feed the tumors. 187 00:19:51,467.6437848 --> 00:19:56,57.6437848 So if we have more oxygen, then it's going to prevent those biochemical processes from happening. 188 00:19:56,357.6437848 --> 00:20:02,117.6437848 Long story short, and then the last thing we wanna look at in the environment, the tumor microenvironment is the acidity. 189 00:20:02,477.6437848 --> 00:20:04,637.6437848 And I hesitated to bring this up because. 190 00:20:05,702.6437848 --> 00:20:11,552.6437848 When people hear acidity, they immediately go, well then I need to do an alkaline diet, or I need to drink alkaline water. 191 00:20:12,62.6437848 --> 00:20:24,872.6437848 And the thing is that the acidity of the tumor micro environment is hugely different from when you eat something or drink something and change the acidity of your. 192 00:20:25,877.6437848 --> 00:20:31,157.6437848 Because, so if you haven't heard of the alkaline diet before, basically it's just a high vegetable diet. 193 00:20:31,187.6437848 --> 00:20:41,867.6437848 Legumes, seeds, nuts, things like that with very little animal products, because the thought is that whenever you have more vegetables, it can change the alkalinity in your blood and your body. 194 00:20:42,137.6437848 --> 00:20:53,447.6437848 And then if tumor cells don't like alkaline environments, if they prefer more acidic environments, then by eating more of these things is going to change the microenvironment and discourage cancer cells to grow in an alkaline environment. 195 00:20:53,447.6437848 --> 00:20:54,197.6437848 'cause they just can't do that. 196 00:20:55,7.6437848 --> 00:21:03,597.6437848 That's from like the acidity alkaline environment thing, like it's somewhat true, tumor cells do prefer an acidic environment and don't like the alkaline environment. 197 00:21:03,957.6437848 --> 00:21:16,917.6437848 But the trouble with this is that your body has tightly regulated systems that whenever you eat and like eat more alkaline things or drink alkaline water, what happens is from the time that it enters your mouth. 198 00:21:17,232.6437848 --> 00:21:23,922.6437848 The alkalinity in the acidity will be adjusted naturally by your body's defense systems. 199 00:21:24,252.6437848 --> 00:21:32,422.6437848 So if you're having, let's say, alkaline water it hits your saliva, it's gonna change it to the little, be a little bit more acidic, it gets into your blood. 200 00:21:32,422.6437848 --> 00:21:34,702.6437848 Again, things will change into your stomach. 201 00:21:35,302.6437848 --> 00:21:37,552.6437848 You've got stomach acid in there, it goes through your kidneys. 202 00:21:37,882.6437848 --> 00:21:46,102.6437848 All these things tightly regulate this thing called a pH, which has to do with your alkalinity and acidity, and it will not allow. 203 00:21:46,522.6437848 --> 00:22:08,462.6437848 A certain change in the pH and it will make it all so that it's just the normal phs of whatever part of your body that you're looking at, and by the time it reaches your blood and is gonna hit any sort of tumor, it's no different than anything else that you've eaten or drank, drinking, drank because the body, it naturally changes the acidity, the alkalinity of whatever you're eating or drinking. 204 00:22:09,2.6437848 --> 00:22:17,612.6437848 So I hear the thought process where people are like, well, if tumors don't like acidity, if I eat more alkaline, then that's going to change the environment and the tumor's not gonna be able to grow. 205 00:22:17,762.6437848 --> 00:22:25,742.6437848 But people forget how whenever you eat things, it gets changed anyway and it gets neutralized in certain ways so that it's not truly reaching the tumor microenvironment. 206 00:22:26,552.6437848 --> 00:22:29,912.6437848 'cause micro being the key, you're eating things on a macro level. 207 00:22:30,827.6437848 --> 00:22:45,347.6437848 There is research showing that things like an alkaline diet can help with cancer, but the reason is that you're eating vegetables, and we all know that vegetables are very beneficial against cancer, and it's not necessarily the alkalinity or acidity that's being impacted. 208 00:22:45,377.6437848 --> 00:22:52,282.6437848 It is more the the nutrients, the vitamins, the fiber, all those kind of compounds are having the anti-cancer impact. 209 00:22:52,917.6437848 --> 00:22:59,967.6437848 So I just want to make that clear that you are correct in thinking that alkaline things will help to kill cancer cells because it changes the acidic environment. 210 00:23:00,267.6437848 --> 00:23:10,407.6437848 But it's also incorrect to think that you can truly change things by eating and drinking because your body will change the pH of all of that before it has any opportunity to reach the tumor and microenvironment. 211 00:23:11,97.6437848 --> 00:23:12,987.6437848 That being said, do I think they're harmful? No. 212 00:23:13,287.6437848 --> 00:23:15,297.6437848 Could there be a slight benefit? Potentially. 213 00:23:15,537.6437848 --> 00:23:22,77.6437848 But in the big scheme of things, it's not where I want you to focus your time, energy, attention, because there's other things we can do that are way more impactful. 214 00:23:23,397.6437848 --> 00:23:28,227.6437848 So just to kind of summarize what I just said, so we're just talking about how can we influence the TME, the tumor microenvironment. 215 00:23:28,437.6437848 --> 00:23:31,407.6437848 We decrease inflammation, we improve immune recruitment. 216 00:23:31,677.6437848 --> 00:23:36,567.6437848 We stop the scar fortresses and improve healing because it just helps with everything. 217 00:23:36,877.6437848 --> 00:23:40,177.6437848 We block blood flow to tumors to cut off their male systems. 218 00:23:40,957.6437848 --> 00:23:44,797.6437848 We encourage oxygenation and we look at the acidity. 219 00:23:45,157.6437848 --> 00:23:51,697.6437848 So a lot of this is meant to be more on like a therapeutic level in terms of how do we deliver drugs to the area of the tumor. 220 00:23:51,697.6437848 --> 00:23:54,577.6437848 So directly by injection or whatever it might be. 221 00:23:54,577.6437848 --> 00:23:58,207.6437848 But there's a lot of ways we can influence this by everything from supplements. 222 00:23:58,207.6437848 --> 00:24:00,637.6437848 So for supplements to nutrition, to exercise. 223 00:24:00,637.6437848 --> 00:24:02,567.6437848 So for example inflammation. 224 00:24:02,567.6437848 --> 00:24:04,517.6437848 One of our favorite things for inflammation is curcumin. 225 00:24:04,547.6437848 --> 00:24:06,917.6437848 'cause it can help block a lot of the inflammatory pathways. 226 00:24:07,312.6437848 --> 00:24:19,22.6437848 If we even manage cholesterol and blood sugar, that helps to decrease inflammation there's something called hyperbaric oxygen therapy and that improves blood flow to the tumors and to the rest of the envi to the environment in your body too. 227 00:24:19,692.6437848 --> 00:24:25,792.6437848 Green tea like components like EGCG and green tea has been shown to block off blood flow through like the vgf. 228 00:24:26,422.6437848 --> 00:24:30,862.6437848 Also optimizing your vitamin D can improve cell healing and fibroblast function. 229 00:24:31,332.6437848 --> 00:24:41,292.6437848 Missile toe injections help with supporting the immune S system and recruiting specific immune cells are gonna be more anti-tumor that help to kill cancer cells. 230 00:24:41,882.6437848 --> 00:24:46,592.6437848 Even just like clean food clean makeup and cleaning products. 231 00:24:46,592.6437848 --> 00:24:49,142.6437848 These are all gonna limit inflammation in your body. 232 00:24:49,472.6437848 --> 00:24:52,442.6437848 If we can support the digestive system, it improves your immune system. 233 00:24:53,42.6437848 --> 00:24:57,332.6437848 So you're gonna get more patrols and you're gonna have decreased inflammation again. 234 00:24:58,142.6437848 --> 00:25:06,512.6437848 All of these things are ways that we can actually have interventions and make changes in order to change things on a macroscopic level. 235 00:25:06,512.6437848 --> 00:25:19,22.6437848 But then it goes and has an influence in the tumor microenvironment too, because we're recruiting immune cells from all over the body, which are then gonna go and be sent to the tumor microenvironment to help fight and find cancer cells before they become a problem. 236 00:25:20,627.6437848 --> 00:25:23,687.6437848 A quick, I'm gonna go into some real life examples in just a second here. 237 00:25:23,687.6437848 --> 00:25:39,887.6437848 And like, how do you understand, where do you focus your attention and what kind of investigations should you be doing in your own particular case? But I think it's important to, to kind of acknowledge here before I go into that, that there is a difference between treating cancer and preventing cancer and keeping cancer from coming back. 238 00:25:40,307.6437848 --> 00:25:42,857.6437848 So the thing is that. 239 00:25:43,667.6437848 --> 00:25:46,787.6437848 N two tumors can have the same pathology. 240 00:25:46,787.6437848 --> 00:25:49,67.6437848 IE like they can be the same diagnosis. 241 00:25:49,367.6437848 --> 00:25:52,877.6437848 Two people can have the same cancer diagnosis. 242 00:25:52,877.6437848 --> 00:25:57,227.6437848 You can both have er PR positive, HER two negative breast cancer diagnosis in two different people. 243 00:25:57,227.6437848 --> 00:26:04,637.6437848 Or you can both have the same type of smell, small cell lung cancer in two different people or colorectal cancer in two different people. 244 00:26:04,637.6437848 --> 00:26:20,927.6437848 Like do you get the same diagnosis? But the way that the treatment works, so your chemo, your radiation surgery, whatever it might be, immunotherapy and the way that the tumor responds to certain things can be different depending on the environment. 245 00:26:21,167.6437848 --> 00:26:24,287.6437848 And if you're looking at two different people, your environments are different. 246 00:26:24,287.6437848 --> 00:26:32,657.6437848 The insides of your body is different, influencing a different tumor microenvironment in your body, even if the same type of cancer diagnosis has happened. 247 00:26:33,377.6437848 --> 00:26:33,677.6437848 So. 248 00:26:34,217.6437848 --> 00:26:52,37.6437848 The, the thing is, whenever we have people who go through treatment, and maybe you've got two people, same diagnosis and one person responds to treatment, but the other one doesn't, despite having the same diagnosis, it is often the microenvironment that is influencing the way that the treatment works or the way that the tumor responds to the treatment. 249 00:26:52,67.6437848 --> 00:26:53,627.6437848 It's the tumor microenvironment. 250 00:26:53,897.6437848 --> 00:26:59,387.6437848 So if we can kind of start to target more, and this is where conventional medicine is, is still looking, has been looking for a long time. 251 00:26:59,987.6437848 --> 00:27:02,717.6437848 But we, this is where we really thrive with functional medicine. 252 00:27:02,717.6437848 --> 00:27:09,47.6437848 If we can start to look at the tumor microenvironment, then that might influence how well someone responds to treatment and influences. 253 00:27:09,147.6437848 --> 00:27:13,167.6437848 Again, like how well do they do post-treatment in terms of reducing the risk of cancer coming back. 254 00:27:14,367.6437848 --> 00:27:19,407.6437848 And the thing is, whenever it comes to chemo radiation surgery, the target is to kill the cancer cells. 255 00:27:20,112.6437848 --> 00:27:34,172.6437848 The treatments are the same just all the same, depending on the diagnosis, not necessarily the person, but when it comes to prevention, we shift from focusing on the cancer cells to focusing on the microenvironment and the whole macro environment too, within your whole body. 256 00:27:34,622.6437848 --> 00:27:42,722.6437848 And that environment differs from person to person because you have different, you genetics, like you have different body genetics and defenses, you have different immune strength. 257 00:27:43,217.6437848 --> 00:27:50,417.6437848 Different types of immune cells circulating depending on what viruses or bacteria or environmental things you come into contact throughout your whole life. 258 00:27:50,847.6437848 --> 00:27:56,77.6437848 You have different taste preferences, nutrient needs stress levels, coping strategies. 259 00:27:56,857.6437848 --> 00:28:03,997.6437848 All these things determine your tumor microenvironment, and that is what makes you unique when it comes to your cancer diagnosis as well. 260 00:28:04,597.6437848 --> 00:28:43,202.6437848 So how do we start to dig into what's most important for you to focus on? Influence when it comes to your microenvironment? 'cause I know a lot of you might still be in treatment and this will still help you throughout treatment because again, it might influence how well your treatment works, your chemo, radiation, surgery, things like that might work or a lot of you typically who we kind of attract are people who have finished cancer treatment and now it's like, well, what do I do to make sure this doesn't come back? You just talked about a, you just talked a lot about a gibberish stuff and science and all these kind of things, but what do I actually do when it comes to my day to day? So I'm gonna give you a couple steps to follow or kind of to dig in further into what's going on in your tumor microenvironment. 261 00:28:43,382.6437848 --> 00:28:47,12.6437848 Mostly by looking at your macroenvironment, the whole environment within your body. 262 00:28:47,162.6437848 --> 00:28:51,362.6437848 And we even look bigger than that, the environment outside your environment and outside your body. 263 00:28:51,722.6437848 --> 00:28:52,937.6437848 So we can look at your air. 264 00:28:53,687.6437848 --> 00:29:04,577.6437848 Your food the water quality, things like that are kinda like what's outside of you, right? And then you put that inside of your body and then it gets absorbed through your skin, or you eat it or drink it or whatever it might be. 265 00:29:04,787.6437848 --> 00:29:07,397.6437848 And then that circulates and then goes to the tumor microenvironment. 266 00:29:07,397.6437848 --> 00:29:14,747.6437848 So how do we look at all these things? We first wanna start by looking at and understanding more about your complete health history. 267 00:29:14,747.6437848 --> 00:29:19,877.6437848 It is not just about what cancer diagnosis you have, it is like. 268 00:29:21,152.6437848 --> 00:29:27,212.6437848 What has happened throughout your entire life? Everything from like, how were you born? Was it vaginal or c-section? Were you breastfed? Things like that. 269 00:29:27,752.6437848 --> 00:29:42,612.6437848 What kind of exposure to medications did you have? Did you have a lot of ear infections and were therefore giving a lot of an antibiotics, for example? What environmental exposures might you have come into contact with throughout your life? Like, did you live on a farm? Did you live on a, a military base or. 270 00:29:43,32.6437848 --> 00:30:07,182.6437848 Do you live in a place with known environmental contaminants and well water or anything like that? Do you have any medical conditions already? And that's why we do very thorough intake with our clients, especially with blood work and things like that, is we wanna look at like, do you have any immune dysregulation or do you have high blood pressure or high cholesterol or high blood sugar, or anything like that? 'cause that can influence your whole environment that then influences your tumor microenvironment. 271 00:30:08,237.6437848 --> 00:30:13,367.6437848 How is your sleep, your stress, your digestion? All things are very, these are very important things to look at. 272 00:30:13,747.6437848 --> 00:30:17,107.6437848 We're basically looking at what I call the six pillars of your health. 273 00:30:17,347.6437848 --> 00:30:21,707.6437848 Everything from nutrition, mindset digestion slash detox. 274 00:30:21,707.6437848 --> 00:30:23,27.6437848 I count them as one. 275 00:30:23,267.6437848 --> 00:30:24,257.6437848 Your movement. 276 00:30:24,662.6437848 --> 00:30:24,992.6437848 Oh my gosh. 277 00:30:24,992.6437848 --> 00:30:28,832.6437848 I can't think of them off the top of my head, even though I talk about them every day, but usually they have them listed in front of me. 278 00:30:28,832.6437848 --> 00:30:29,762.6437848 But there's six pillars. 279 00:30:29,762.6437848 --> 00:30:32,372.6437848 I'll put them in the show notes just to make it Sure it's nice and clear. 280 00:30:32,522.6437848 --> 00:30:33,602.6437848 Environmental contaminants. 281 00:30:33,602.6437848 --> 00:30:35,642.6437848 And then we do functional testing as one of the six pillars. 282 00:30:35,882.6437848 --> 00:30:44,342.6437848 We look at all of these things because this is gonna influence your whole picture of health, right? It's above and beyond just looking at cancer. 283 00:30:44,972.6437848 --> 00:30:52,97.6437848 So how do you start? You start looking at like, what is your past medical history? What is your current medical history and sometimes you might be adopted or anything like that. 284 00:30:52,97.6437848 --> 00:30:53,567.6437848 So we just kind of do the best we can. 285 00:30:53,867.6437848 --> 00:31:10,577.6437848 In fact, if you are adopted, it kind of brings us to one of the next steps, which is where we look at your epigenetic testing, tell us a little bit more about these on, off switches in your body and your environment can influence these on offs, switches to encourage more of a health picture or a disease picture and a simple saliva test. 286 00:31:10,577.6437848 --> 00:31:15,47.6437848 And if you don't have your medical history, then this just kind of gives us us that next level, which is really great. 287 00:31:15,557.6437848 --> 00:31:16,847.6437848 That would be epigenetic testing. 288 00:31:17,27.6437848 --> 00:31:25,637.6437848 If we wanna look at blood work just above and beyond the absence of disease or in, in relativity to cancer, we wanna look at optimal. 289 00:31:25,637.6437848 --> 00:31:29,267.6437848 We wanna look at inflammation, growth factors, nutrients, immune system strength. 290 00:31:29,267.6437848 --> 00:31:32,57.6437848 All of that can be determined on your blood work a lot of the time. 291 00:31:32,297.6437848 --> 00:31:33,527.6437848 And we don't wanna just do it once. 292 00:31:33,527.6437848 --> 00:31:34,787.6437848 We wanna look at trends over time. 293 00:31:34,787.6437848 --> 00:31:36,467.6437848 So if we see anything off, we're gonna retest. 294 00:31:36,467.6437848 --> 00:31:42,657.6437848 We're gonna do someone's blood work like twice a year in order to make sure that we're targeting things before they become big problems. 295 00:31:42,657.6437848 --> 00:31:45,597.6437848 And again, looking at optimal, not just the absence of disease. 296 00:31:46,17.6437848 --> 00:31:59,67.6437848 I do find a lot of times when people do go to their doctor for blood work, the focus really is on cancer as opposed to this like looking at their environment, the total, the total picture of what looks good. 297 00:31:59,97.6437848 --> 00:32:04,377.6437848 So we wanna look just past liver function, kidney function, CB, C, we can do a lot better than that. 298 00:32:05,277.6437848 --> 00:32:10,77.6437848 We can also do additional functional testing as needed based on your health history, your symptoms. 299 00:32:10,77.6437848 --> 00:32:15,717.6437848 So like, if we find that you've had a lot of gut trouble throughout your life, we might wanna do a, a stool test, a comprehensive stool test. 300 00:32:16,137.6437848 --> 00:32:23,797.6437848 Let's say if you had a lot of hormonal troubles throughout your life too, whether it was like PMS or trouble with fertility, anything like that. 301 00:32:23,797.6437848 --> 00:32:28,537.6437848 Then maybe we wanna look a little bit in like deeper into your, your hormone health, things like that. 302 00:32:29,527.6437848 --> 00:32:32,47.6437848 Just to kinda recap so far, we all get your complete medical history. 303 00:32:32,47.6437848 --> 00:32:47,717.6437848 We wanna do blood work, we wanna do epigenetic testing, and we wanna understand your cancer diagnosis as best as we can too, because there are certain types of cancer that have cells that prefer certain pathways or certain cell types might encourage the cancer cells to be a more in a bad neighborhood or not. 304 00:32:48,107.6437848 --> 00:32:54,787.6437848 Maybe certain tumor types prefer vascularity, so maybe targeting those pathways, knowing your cancer diagnosis. 305 00:32:55,402.6437848 --> 00:32:57,532.6437848 Might be a little bit more impactful too. 306 00:32:57,892.6437848 --> 00:33:16,922.6437848 So looking at you, your whole picture of health and then also looking at the cancer is two steps to basically understanding more about where do we want to target our attention? Do we need to look at inflammatory triggers? Do we need to look at specific foods because they target certain pathways? Certain supplements because they target certain pathways. 307 00:33:16,922.6437848 --> 00:33:19,112.6437848 All those kind of things kind of take us to the next level. 308 00:33:19,112.6437848 --> 00:33:23,282.6437848 Just above looking at nutrition, exercise, mindset, things like that. 309 00:33:23,282.6437848 --> 00:33:27,617.6437848 We can get a little bit into the nitty gritty of certain pathways and triggers that might encourage cancer to start and grow. 310 00:33:28,532.6437848 --> 00:33:37,922.6437848 So, again, I know this is still scratching the surface, but honestly like it is something that you learn over decades of working in medicine and science and healthcare and things like that. 311 00:33:38,102.6437848 --> 00:33:46,997.6437848 But I have put together a 60 minute training that's called The First Four Steps to Stay Cancer Free, which again, we'll walk you through this in even a little bit more detail, a little bit more straightforward, a little bit more organized. 312 00:33:48,617.6437848 --> 00:33:51,47.6437848 So if you wanna go listen to that, it's completely free. 313 00:33:51,287.6437848 --> 00:33:55,127.6437848 You can go to flourish after cancer.com/presentation, 314 00:33:55,427.6437848 --> 00:33:58,277.6437848 and it's, again, it's called The First Four Steps of Staying Cancer Free. 315 00:33:58,277.6437848 --> 00:34:05,357.6437848 It just kind of puts together this framework that we want everyone to know how to follow when it comes to finishing or nearly finishing cancer treatment. 316 00:34:05,357.6437848 --> 00:34:11,837.6437848 And you're like, okay, so now what do I do to make sure that I feel better a lot faster? And reduce my risk of cancer coming back. 317 00:34:11,837.6437848 --> 00:34:19,757.6437848 'cause the earlier that we can target someone, if they're just outta treatment or just finishing up treatment, maybe you have a couple more sessions to go of radiation or chemo or whatever it might be. 318 00:34:20,507.6437848 --> 00:34:22,457.6437848 We're gonna be able to help you with healing a lot better. 319 00:34:22,457.6437848 --> 00:34:24,437.6437848 Again, getting rid of those scar fortresses. 320 00:34:25,97.6437848 --> 00:34:35,237.6437848 Helping to balance your immune system, get rid of inflammation as fast as possible in order to target things like the cancer stem cells to create this environment to create a neighborhood where cancer doesn't wanna be. 321 00:34:35,447.6437848 --> 00:34:39,497.6437848 So go over to that website, flourish chapter cancer.com/presentation. 322 00:34:39,677.6437848 --> 00:34:42,917.6437848 It'll walk you through the first four steps to staying cancer free. 323 00:34:44,267.6437848 --> 00:34:50,417.6437848 Alright, so I mostly covered everything I want today, but I'm just gonna summarize 'cause I find summarizing just helps to put it all together for you. 324 00:34:50,447.6437848 --> 00:34:52,787.6437848 'cause I know it's little bits and pieces and let's see if we can put it all together. 325 00:34:53,522.6437848 --> 00:34:58,442.6437848 So key take homes are that the environments are different between different people. 326 00:34:58,442.6437848 --> 00:35:01,352.6437848 The tumor microenvironments, and your entire environment. 327 00:35:01,352.6437848 --> 00:35:05,972.6437848 And your body is different between different people, even if your cancer cell type was the same as someone else's. 328 00:35:06,452.6437848 --> 00:35:10,142.6437848 And whenever it comes to killing or treating cancer, you wanna kill the cancer cells. 329 00:35:10,262.6437848 --> 00:35:13,667.6437848 When it comes to preventing cancer, you wanna treat your whole body and the environment. 330 00:35:14,672.6437848 --> 00:35:18,122.6437848 It's often not just one pathway that gets triggered to encouraging cancer to grow. 331 00:35:18,362.6437848 --> 00:35:20,312.6437848 It's usually multiple triggered pathways. 332 00:35:20,312.6437848 --> 00:35:28,172.6437848 So you've got the gossip, you've got the, the acidity, the the oxygenation, the inflammation, the immune system, recruitment. 333 00:35:28,172.6437848 --> 00:35:39,332.6437848 All of these end up talking to each other, encouraging different processes, and it's like multiple points that either the, it works and we, we quill the dis dis discomfort. 334 00:35:39,997.6437848 --> 00:35:45,547.6437848 All the bad things going on in the neighborhood, or it kind of breaks through that break point and then encourages cancer to start and grow. 335 00:35:45,547.6437848 --> 00:35:47,797.6437848 So there's multiple trigger pathways that we wanna work on. 336 00:35:47,797.6437848 --> 00:35:54,757.6437848 In order to create a good neighborhood, we have to influence the macro environment to influence the tumor microenvironment. 337 00:35:55,427.6437848 --> 00:36:03,107.6437848 We want you to look at the whole picture of your health and not just looking at the small little acidity or killing the cancer cells within the tumor microenvironment. 338 00:36:04,137.6437848 --> 00:36:09,867.6437848 The key targets are inflammation, immune cells, scars, healing, blood flow, oxygenation, acidity. 339 00:36:10,17.6437848 --> 00:36:14,37.6437848 All these things are things we wanna look at when creating a plan to help block cancer. 340 00:36:15,27.6437848 --> 00:36:18,747.6437848 Even things like fatigue, brain fog, inflammation, slow healing. 341 00:36:18,747.6437848 --> 00:36:22,797.6437848 They're not necessarily signs that you are broken or something's wrong. 342 00:36:22,797.6437848 --> 00:36:29,7.6437848 It's just a sign that your neighborhood is recovering and we want to help that neighborhood to recover as best as possible. 343 00:36:30,307.6437848 --> 00:36:30,542.6437848 And then. 344 00:36:31,477.6437848 --> 00:36:40,447.6437848 We, we know that your daily choices can influence the train inside your body, and cancer cells will respond to the train and your environment. 345 00:36:40,477.6437848 --> 00:36:46,657.6437848 And I just want you to know that every good choice that you make throughout your day is gonna be, it's gonna compound. 346 00:36:46,657.6437848 --> 00:36:55,597.6437848 And it's, it's seems like such small changes sometimes, but they have huge influences on your entire body because everything is always talking to every part. 347 00:36:56,77.6437848 --> 00:36:57,667.6437848 And then on the flip side of that. 348 00:36:57,982.6437848 --> 00:37:07,342.6437848 Whenever you have a cookie or if you enjoy more red meat than you potentially would have, or whatever it might be, that is kind of triggering this sense of fear inside of you. 349 00:37:07,762.6437848 --> 00:37:12,442.6437848 It's not really the one thing that's going to break the camel. 350 00:37:12,442.6437848 --> 00:37:14,692.6437848 It's not the one piece of straw that's gonna break the camel's back. 351 00:37:14,842.6437848 --> 00:37:20,332.6437848 You've got a whole system of good signals going on throughout your body as well, and instead of focusing on. 352 00:37:21,112.6437848 --> 00:37:23,32.6437848 Can't have that cookie, it's gonna cause cancer. 353 00:37:23,32.6437848 --> 00:37:27,682.6437848 I want you to focus more on what you can do to create this whole body environment that's healthy. 354 00:37:27,952.6437848 --> 00:37:33,622.6437848 That's a good neighborhood in order to encourage cancer to stop being there or stop growing. 355 00:37:34,72.6437848 --> 00:37:43,942.6437848 It's more about what can you do as opposed to doing things wrong or what can't you do? So you're gonna be putting more good into the neighborhood by focusing on. 356 00:37:44,257.6437848 --> 00:37:50,737.6437848 The think positive things than worrying about the little individual things that might be causing cancer to start and grow. 357 00:37:51,157.6437848 --> 00:37:54,457.6437848 So don't forget to think about the good things, I guess, is what it kind of comes down to. 358 00:37:54,817.6437848 --> 00:37:58,387.6437848 Alright, so thank you so much for hanging out for with me today. 359 00:37:58,387.6437848 --> 00:38:00,547.6437848 Don't forget to go over to flourish after cancer.com, 360 00:38:00,547.6437848 --> 00:38:05,197.6437848 floor forward slash presentation, and check out that first four steps to staying cancer free. 361 00:38:05,227.6437848 --> 00:38:10,747.6437848 I'll also put it into the show notes, which with a bunch of other cool handouts that I think are gonna be very helpful for this episode. 362 00:38:11,377.6437848 --> 00:38:15,297.4953618 Otherwise, I hope to see you next week, and here's to flourishing after cancer.