August 13, 2025 • 30 mins
You’ve probably asked yourself: “How did this even happen?” In this episode of The Flourish After Cancer Podcast, we’re diving into the complex, emotional, and often overwhelming question of what causes cancer—and how you can identify and reduce your personal risk factors without spiraling into fear or blame.
⚠️ This is a must-listen if: • You’ve finished treatment and want to go deeper than vague advice like “just be healthy.” • You feel stuck in the question of why this happened to you and want a science-backed, compassionate answer. • You’re curious how testing—like blood work or epigenetics—can reveal your personal cancer contributors and help you heal smarter.
🧬 In this episode, we’ll cover: • The Real-World Roots of Cancer – From inflammation and immune suppression to hormonal imbalances and environmental contaminants, we break down how cancer really gets started. • What You Can (and Can’t) Control – Learn what science says about your power to change your internal environment—and where to release the need for perfection. • The Role of Blood Work and Epigenetics – Discover how simple, targeted tests can identify your health vulnerabilities and strengths. • Your Next Step – A sneak peek into my upcoming Blood Work Bootcamp and how it can help you personalize your recovery plan.
💡 You’ll walk away with: • A clear understanding of how cancer develops (without the doom spiral) • Empowering tools to make small changes with a big impact • A framework to move forward focused on thriving, not just surviving
📚 This episode isn’t about blaming yourself or chasing one “root cause.” It’s about compassionate clarity—so you can support your health from the inside out, one smart step at a time.
🎧 Listen in now, and don’t forget to leave a kind review and subscribe so you don’t miss upcoming episodes of The Flourish After Cancer Podcast.
As a thank-you for your kind review, here’s what you’ll receive: ✅ 60 Days of Meals: 30-day plans for both vegetarian & omnivore lifestyles — includes grocery lists, nutrition facts & delicious photos
✅ Giveaway Entry (DRAW ON AUGUST 15, 2025)! 🎁 Epigenetic Test + 1:1 Personalized Review ($500 value) 🎁 Supplement Bundle curated by me ($200 value) 🎁 Ear Seed Kit for sleep, calm & stress support ($30 value) (Giveaway open to U.S. & Canada only)
How to Enter: 1️⃣ Leave a 5-star review on your favorite podcast app 2️⃣ DM me “5 STARS” + a screenshot of your review on Instagram (@MeganBernardND) 3️⃣ I’ll send your meal plan + you can enter into the draw!
I’m Dr Megan, a licensed naturopathic doctor. My team and I have worked with thousands of women globally to rebuild their health after cancer and reduce recurrence risk using science-backed nutrition, lifestyle, and targeted supplement strategies—so they can feel confident, strong, and free to enjoy life again.
Join my upcoming Blood Work Clarity LIVE Bootcamp for Cancer Survivors! How to Use Your Labs to Take the Guesswork Out of Nutrition, Supplements, and Reducing Recurrence Risk.
Sign Up At: www.FlourishAfterCancer.com/bootcamp
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• The First 4 Steps To Staying Cancer-Free: HERE
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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.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
I got a comment back from a woman who was so upset with me, and I'll never forget when I wrote a social media post a couple years ago and I was just explaining what can cause cancer to start and what can cause it to grow.
(00:12):
She thought that I was blaming her for getting cancer, and that's absolutely not true.
I fully believe that we have responsibility in our lives, in our, in our health, but we can't control everything. 4 00:00:26,910.969727517 --> 00:00:31,830.969727517 I just wanna be clear that this episode is not about blame at all. 5 00:00:32,130.969727517 --> 00:00:33,450.969727517 Not, not whatsoever. 6 00:00:33,450.969727517 --> 00:00:35,190.969727517 This is not my jam. 7 00:00:36,90.969727517 --> 00:00:37,650.969727517 This is more about empowerment. 8 00:00:37,680.969727517 --> 00:00:49,260.969727517 'cause whenever you start to understand more about your health, more about your body, in focused research backed ways, with a holistic spin, you start to understand what you can do in order to make a difference. 9 00:00:49,470.969727517 --> 00:00:52,500.969727517 Things that you can control and things that you can't control as well. 10 00:01:21,354.80088368 --> 00:01:28,904.80088368 Today's topic is on what caused my cancer diagnosis, and this is a common question that we get from a lot of our clients. 11 00:01:28,904.80088368 --> 00:01:31,814.80088368 A lot of you out there on my social media and things like that. 12 00:01:32,234.80088368 --> 00:01:39,344.80088368 You are wondering how the heck did this happen? And it makes total sense after walking through something as life changing as cancer. 13 00:01:39,344.80088368 --> 00:01:48,434.80088368 You just wanna understand, you wanna understand how did the cancer start and what is causing it to grow or what would cause it to grow. 14 00:01:48,884.80088368 --> 00:01:54,224.80088368 And I just wanna be clear that this episode is not about blame at all. 15 00:01:54,284.80088368 --> 00:01:55,724.80088368 Not, not whatsoever. 16 00:01:55,724.80088368 --> 00:01:56,384.80088368 This is not. 17 00:01:56,749.80088368 --> 00:01:57,559.80088368 My jam. 18 00:01:57,929.80088368 --> 00:01:59,459.80088368 This is more about empowerment. 19 00:01:59,489.80088368 --> 00:02:11,129.80088368 'cause whenever you start to understand more about your health, more about your body in focused research backed ways, with a holistic spin, you start to understand what you can do in order to make a difference. 20 00:02:11,279.80088368 --> 00:02:14,279.80088368 Things that you can control and things that you can't control as well. 21 00:02:15,24.80088368 --> 00:02:22,104.80088368 And I'll never forget when I wrote a social media post a couple years ago now where I was talking about some of the things we're gonna talk about today. 22 00:02:22,404.80088368 --> 00:02:28,704.80088368 And I was just explaining underlying contributors to cancer and, and what can cause cancer to start and what can cause it to grow. 23 00:02:28,974.80088368 --> 00:02:32,694.80088368 And I got a comment back from a woman who was so upset with me. 24 00:02:32,904.80088368 --> 00:02:39,774.80088368 She thought that I was blaming her for getting the cancer, and that's absolutely not true. 25 00:02:40,464.80088368 --> 00:02:47,244.80088368 I fully believe that we have responsibility in our lives and our, and our health, but we can't control everything. 26 00:02:47,544.80088368 --> 00:02:50,844.80088368 And this is really coming from a source of education and empowerment. 27 00:02:50,844.80088368 --> 00:02:56,154.80088368 And I know a lot of you already know that for sure, but I just want to point that out, that with every episode I do, you take what you. 28 00:02:56,534.80088368 --> 00:03:07,424.80088368 Feel is right and you leave what doesn't? And I hope that you feel that I'm giving you more empowering suggestions and ideas and conversational pieces and thoughts as opposed to saying it's all your fault. 29 00:03:07,454.80088368 --> 00:03:10,64.80088368 'cause definitely it is not your fault whatsoever. 30 00:03:10,364.80088368 --> 00:03:12,14.80088368 I know a lot of you come to us and. 31 00:03:12,579.80088368 --> 00:03:13,959.80088368 You're already very healthy. 32 00:03:14,149.80088368 --> 00:03:16,399.80088368 You are very much knowledge seekers. 33 00:03:16,399.80088368 --> 00:03:21,379.80088368 You're extremely intelligent people, you're brilliant, you're hardworking, and I'm not just buttering you up. 34 00:03:21,379.80088368 --> 00:03:22,729.80088368 This is truly what we see. 35 00:03:22,759.80088368 --> 00:03:24,409.80088368 Whenever people reach out to us. 36 00:03:24,499.80088368 --> 00:03:26,449.80088368 You're just really on a quest for answers. 37 00:03:26,449.80088368 --> 00:03:31,699.80088368 And one of them is, how did this happen? Because you wanna see what can you do in order to make sure that it doesn't come back again. 38 00:03:31,879.80088368 --> 00:03:32,719.80088368 It's a very. 39 00:03:33,49.80088368 --> 00:03:34,609.80088368 Wise question to ask. 40 00:03:35,149.80088368 --> 00:03:42,369.80088368 And a lot of the diagnoses that our clients have had, they come outta the blue because they have never been on medications before. 41 00:03:42,369.80088368 --> 00:03:48,489.80088368 They maybe have no to very like distant relatives who have ever had a cancer diagnosis. 42 00:03:48,819.80088368 --> 00:03:50,739.80088368 You were also potentially eating fairly well. 43 00:03:50,739.80088368 --> 00:03:52,809.80088368 You weren't really into McDonald's and things like that. 44 00:03:52,809.80088368 --> 00:03:56,529.80088368 You, you chose good foods and then boom, cancer happens. 45 00:03:56,829.80088368 --> 00:04:08,619.80088368 And now you're wondering how did this happen and what can you do to make sure that you don't have to go through any of this again? And before we jump into a lot of the underlying causes of cancer, I do want to make it. 46 00:04:08,944.80088368 --> 00:04:14,254.80088368 Certain and and known that we don't a hundred percent know what causes cancer still. 47 00:04:14,374.80088368 --> 00:04:20,284.80088368 We know that there are things that cancer cells end up having that qualify them as cancerous cells. 48 00:04:20,584.80088368 --> 00:04:26,359.80088368 We know that sometimes there are certain genetic mutations that some of you may be may have that are listening to me and just a little. 49 00:04:27,129.80088368 --> 00:04:31,989.80088368 Caveat here is that if you do have some of those genetic mutations, it doesn't mean that these aren't still gonna be impactful for you. 50 00:04:31,989.80088368 --> 00:04:49,969.80088368 For sure, you might have an increased risk of having cancer, but in the end, if we can still make a lot of these lifestyle changes, you don't have a hundred percent risk of cancer, you have a lower risk of cancer coming back too, right? So we wanna make sure that even if you have a genetic predisposition, you're still following along the information that I'm gonna be sharing today. 51 00:04:50,149.80088368 --> 00:04:56,719.80088368 And if you don't have a genetic predis predisposition and this kind of just came outta the blue for you, then again, same information applies. 52 00:04:56,719.80088368 --> 00:05:01,669.80088368 We can definitely make a difference with what's going to move the needle on reducing risk cancer coming back over time. 53 00:05:01,699.80088368 --> 00:05:02,899.80088368 And that's what we're gonna talk about today. 54 00:05:03,534.80088368 --> 00:05:07,194.80088368 And yeah, there's never just one cause of cancer either. 55 00:05:07,524.80088368 --> 00:05:20,134.80088368 I like to think of it more like cancer contributors, not cancer causes, because there are a series of hits typically that will happen to your cells that will cause mutations. 56 00:05:20,829.80088368 --> 00:05:23,109.80088368 Damage, missed repairs. 57 00:05:23,389.80088368 --> 00:05:24,559.80088368 Immune invasion. 58 00:05:24,679.80088368 --> 00:05:31,759.80088368 So your normal cells, they receive hits and these things happen and then they become cancerous cells and it's a series of hits. 59 00:05:31,759.80088368 --> 00:05:41,239.80088368 It's kind of the key saying here, it's not just one thing happens and boom, cancer, it's usually some mutation happens and then your, your cell is unable to repair itself. 60 00:05:41,469.80088368 --> 00:05:46,959.80088368 And then also the immune system was unable to see that that cell was damaged and kill it off before it became full-blown cancer. 61 00:05:47,59.80088368 --> 00:05:56,419.80088368 And this is usually a bunch of different hits, a bunch of different processes that happen in order for that cancer cell to escape all of the quality control checks basically, that it should be going through. 62 00:05:56,959.80088368 --> 00:06:08,537.87388368 So our goal and our desire supporting people who are wanting to reduce the risk of cancer coming back is to go through all of these quality control checks and to make them as strong as possible so that they don't get bypassed again. 63 00:06:08,927.87388368 --> 00:06:16,883.54288368 Going through all these quality assurance, quality control checks in order to make sure that your body is optimally functioning in order to find and fight cancer cells before they become an issue. 64 00:06:17,393.54288368 --> 00:06:21,23.54288368 So we're gonna talk about that and I just really wanna hammer home. 65 00:06:21,53.54288368 --> 00:06:23,543.54288368 It's never just one cause it's multiple contributors. 66 00:06:23,543.54288368 --> 00:06:26,218.54288368 That's why I have my six pillars of cancer prevention where we go through. 67 00:06:26,813.54288368 --> 00:06:29,663.54288368 Nutrition mindset, exercise and movement. 68 00:06:29,783.54288368 --> 00:06:32,933.54288368 We go through detoxification and digestion. 69 00:06:33,53.54288368 --> 00:06:38,693.54288368 We go through, uh, environmental contaminants, and we go through functional testing, epigenetic testing, things like that. 70 00:06:38,843.54288368 --> 00:06:45,143.54288368 Because we're coming at this, through all the quality controls in order to make sure that the body's functioning optimally, we're not just saying. 71 00:06:45,743.54288368 --> 00:06:56,213.54288368 Avoid this toxin we're saying, avoid this toxin, but also let's work on your detoxification processes so that if it does come into contact with it, one, it can fight it off better, it can repair quicker, and it can eliminate it from the body quicker. 72 00:06:56,363.54288368 --> 00:07:02,993.54288368 So we wanna look at all the different processes involved in helping to find and fight cancer and make sure that doesn't come back again. 73 00:07:03,848.54288368 --> 00:07:06,218.54288368 All right, so let's dive into this. 74 00:07:06,248.54288368 --> 00:07:06,908.54288368 Let me check my notes. 75 00:07:06,908.54288368 --> 00:07:08,18.54288368 I think I have a couple. 76 00:07:08,18.54288368 --> 00:07:13,228.54288368 How many do I have to go through? I have four specific themes to go on for today. 77 00:07:13,468.54288368 --> 00:07:16,498.54288368 Four specific underlying causes that I wanna go through with you. 78 00:07:17,188.54288368 --> 00:07:19,168.54288368 Start with, let's start with the first one, of course. 79 00:07:19,268.54288368 --> 00:07:26,408.54288368 And the first one is a big one, and it's kind of like a catchall, I would say, and it is chronic low lying inflammation. 80 00:07:27,428.54288368 --> 00:07:31,388.54288368 Just inflammation in general is a known cancer starter, a cancer growth factor. 81 00:07:31,388.54288368 --> 00:07:51,548.54288368 So it encourages cancer to grow, but, and also like there's a lot of different sources that are leading to inflammation, so that's why I say it's a catchall is like everyone's probably gonna have a little bit of inflammation in their body at certain points, but really our goals are to limit the amount of inflammation being made and to help the inflammation to be cleaned up as fast as possible. 82 00:07:52,118.54288368 --> 00:08:04,388.54288368 So in this kind of catchall category of chronic inflammation, I wanna discuss some potential sources and a lot of 'em you might already know about and things that you're already working on, such as avoiding highly processed foods. 83 00:08:04,418.54288368 --> 00:08:09,748.54288368 'cause we know that it can encourage inflammatory markers to be released in our body causing inflammation. 84 00:08:10,348.54288368 --> 00:08:12,658.54288368 Uh, also things like a lack of movement. 85 00:08:12,688.54288368 --> 00:08:15,208.54288368 If we've got gut health issues, we've got a lot of like. 86 00:08:15,603.54288368 --> 00:08:24,18.54288368 Constipation, bloating, digestive, upset with, it's, if it's like heartburn or something like that those are all gonna be causing inflammation in the body. 87 00:08:25,43.54288368 --> 00:08:28,523.54288368 We can also think about chronic infl infections, chronic infections. 88 00:08:28,823.54288368 --> 00:08:42,473.54288368 We often will test our clients for EBV and whether it is a active or just like a past infection and CMV cytomegalovirus because these might be impacting the inflammatory processes in the immune system. 89 00:08:43,23.54288368 --> 00:08:43,623.54288368 Also on managed stress. 90 00:08:44,403.54288368 --> 00:08:52,83.54288368 Will encourage more inflammation, high blood sugar, and I won't go into all the unique pathways by which these things trigger inflammation. 91 00:08:52,263.54288368 --> 00:08:57,123.54288368 'cause there's just so many different biochemical processes involved that I get bored for by it. 92 00:08:57,123.54288368 --> 00:09:11,463.54288368 I'm sure you'll get bored as well, but just generally speaking, common sources of chronic inflammation, low lying inflammation, typically that might just hang out in the body with no major diagnoses or issues popping up until cancer pops up, would be like high eating a lot of highly processed foods. 93 00:09:12,123.54288368 --> 00:09:17,843.54288368 Lack of movement, gut health issues, chronic stress chronic infections, and high blood sugar as well. 94 00:09:17,993.54288368 --> 00:09:19,313.54288368 So high, high blood sugar. 95 00:09:19,313.54288368 --> 00:09:20,333.54288368 I love talking about this. 96 00:09:20,333.54288368 --> 00:09:28,993.54288368 So I will do specific episodes on it, but high blood sugar can dampen the immune response and it also creates more inflammatory signaling causing more of those. 97 00:09:29,288.54288368 --> 00:09:40,118.54288368 Pro-inflammatory pro cancer causing messenger signals to be released from certain cells and also it encourages high blood sugar, can encourage a lot of insulin too, which is a pro-growth hormone. 98 00:09:40,118.54288368 --> 00:09:46,988.54288368 So that combination of inflammation damaged cells along with a pro-growth hormone is not a great combination and that can lead to more cancer. 99 00:09:48,118.54288368 --> 00:10:00,368.54288368 The another quick thing I wanna go into with chronic inflammation is gut dysbiosis, because it is a common thing that we see when it comes to the people we work with, when we work with is they've got a lot of constipation or even sometimes diarrhea. 100 00:10:00,548.54288368 --> 00:10:06,838.54288368 IBS like issues, heartburn and the gut is very central to your health. 101 00:10:06,838.54288368 --> 00:10:10,678.54288368 And also reducing inflammation because if we are not adequately. 102 00:10:11,218.54288368 --> 00:10:15,778.54288368 We're moving things through gut, so through in, in your intestines and bowel movements. 103 00:10:16,48.54288368 --> 00:10:23,368.54288368 Then we're gonna be reabsorbing certain things back into the system, whether it's like environmental contaminants or hormones that we don't want, like estrogen. 104 00:10:23,428.54288368 --> 00:10:28,138.54288368 They get recirculated and have more of an opportunity to cause more trouble again in the body. 105 00:10:28,348.54288368 --> 00:10:32,728.54288368 So if we can improve someone's gut and improve their microflora, their gut lining. 106 00:10:32,773.54288368 --> 00:10:35,333.54288368 The the tone and the vagal tone. 107 00:10:35,363.54288368 --> 00:10:43,613.54288368 Basically the movement of things through their system, making sure that they're having regular daily bowel movements, and that's a big part of reducing inflammation in, in the long run. 108 00:10:44,583.54288368 --> 00:10:50,103.54288368 Not to mention that your gut is responsible for absorbing a lot of your vitamins, nutrients, minerals, things like that. 109 00:10:50,283.54288368 --> 00:11:02,363.54288368 So if we're doing all these great things and trying to support your lowering inflammation and just support your body in general, we wanna make sure the gut is making the best use of the food you're putting into it and absorbing a lot of those nutrients that you are giving it. 110 00:11:02,573.54288368 --> 00:11:07,253.54288368 We wanna make sure that you're getting your, your vitamins and your antioxidants and your minerals and things like that. 111 00:11:07,448.54288368 --> 00:11:09,398.54288368 Through proper absorption into the gut. 112 00:11:09,698.54288368 --> 00:11:12,608.54288368 Alright, so one, we don't wanna absorb the things we don't want there. 113 00:11:12,608.54288368 --> 00:11:14,348.54288368 We wanna get rid of those through bowel movements. 114 00:11:14,528.54288368 --> 00:11:20,723.54288368 And two, we wanna make sure that we're absorbing the things we do want to be there, such as your vitamins, minerals, antioxidants good, good stuff from food, basically. 115 00:11:22,288.54288368 --> 00:11:36,658.54288368 So whenever we're going to look at inflammation and what can we do to control inflammation? Inflammation being this cancer initiator, 'cause it causes mutations and also cancer growth factor because it creates all the inflammatory signals and things like that that the cancer loves to grow in. 116 00:11:37,18.54288368 --> 00:11:45,688.54288368 So what can we do to control this? Well, one, everyone's going to have a little bit of inflammation in the body, so we're not looking to a hundred percent eliminate any of this for sure. 117 00:11:46,48.54288368 --> 00:11:52,828.54288368 The goal is really to set the body up to be able to handle this, and also just limit the amount of inflammation that happens in the body. 118 00:11:53,368.54288368 --> 00:12:00,28.54288368 We just, we just think about how when people go through life, there's a lot of inflammation that's gonna accumulate that might even be worth it. 119 00:12:00,28.54288368 --> 00:12:02,758.54288368 Sometimes, certain experiences, certain times. 120 00:12:02,788.54288368 --> 00:12:07,378.54288368 And there's a balance there that we can find, like hanging out with your friends and going for your favorite food. 121 00:12:07,378.54288368 --> 00:12:14,863.54288368 Sometimes with the infl inflammation that might come from maybe the, the sea oils that they potentially might be using in some of the cooking you have when you go to a restaurant with their friend. 122 00:12:15,693.54288368 --> 00:12:21,273.54288368 That might be counteracted by a lot of the joy and the social surroundings that you experience by being with that friend. 123 00:12:21,633.54288368 --> 00:12:23,433.54288368 So there's a give and a take. 124 00:12:23,673.54288368 --> 00:12:30,243.54288368 There's always gonna be a little bit of inflammation now and then, but we want to tackle the ones that are quite blatant and obvious we want. 125 00:12:30,423.54288368 --> 00:12:37,203.54288368 We also wanna know what are the levels like in your body so we can do some blood work in order to determine what are inflammatory markers. 126 00:12:37,273.54288368 --> 00:12:39,343.54288368 That might be heightened on your blood work. 127 00:12:39,683.54288368 --> 00:12:44,993.54288368 And we can use those to track over time too, to make sure that whatever we're applying is gonna reduce those inflammatory markers too. 128 00:12:46,463.54288368 --> 00:12:49,943.54288368 But overall, like we're all gonna experience some inflammation. 129 00:12:49,943.54288368 --> 00:12:56,393.54288368 And how can inflammation kind of lead to cancer? Well, a lot of people drink in their twenties and that's pro-inflammatory when we go through alcohol. 130 00:12:56,393.54288368 --> 00:13:02,593.54288368 Maybe you're using Tide in your past, the tide laundry detergent, whereas now you might be switching to something cleaner. 131 00:13:02,593.54288368 --> 00:13:05,203.54288368 So we can do that to control some things with inflammation. 132 00:13:05,563.54288368 --> 00:13:06,913.54288368 Switch to a cleaner detergent. 133 00:13:07,363.54288368 --> 00:13:16,103.54288368 Even things like stress, financial stress, fast food between soccer practices sitting at a desk, job, all these things we've probably done in our life. 134 00:13:16,523.54288368 --> 00:13:21,203.54288368 Uh, and they can all be contributing to cancer and through inflammatory processes. 135 00:13:21,203.54288368 --> 00:13:24,203.54288368 So our goal is to like slow and steady make changes. 136 00:13:24,203.54288368 --> 00:13:33,713.54288368 What can we do to create these lifestyles in order to reduce our risk of cancer coming back over time by reducing inflammation? So one, you're never gonna get rid of it a hundred percent. 137 00:13:33,863.54288368 --> 00:13:36,293.54288368 Some inflammation is actually helpful for healing tissues. 138 00:13:36,893.54288368 --> 00:13:43,943.54288368 Two, some of it is actually worth it because there's a trade off where we get some benefits in, in terms of our health and overall wellbeing as well. 139 00:13:44,363.54288368 --> 00:13:48,443.54288368 And then basically three, we wanna go through it step by step in order to reduce inflammation. 140 00:13:48,443.54288368 --> 00:13:56,693.54288368 Not necessarily a hundred percent, be afraid and eliminate it, but just to see what can we do, what can we control? And slow, steady, simple changes will make a difference over time. 141 00:13:58,208.54288368 --> 00:14:03,998.54288368 Alright, so that was just the blanket catchall statement of chronic low lying inflammation. 142 00:14:04,28.54288368 --> 00:14:08,738.54288368 Pretty much anything can cause inflammation and it's just like what we say is inflammation is pro cancer. 143 00:14:08,918.54288368 --> 00:14:11,918.54288368 Let's get a little bit more specific into what might be contributing cancer. 144 00:14:12,308.54288368 --> 00:14:16,988.54288368 The next thing I wanna talk about is immune suppression, which is very highly linked to inflammation. 145 00:14:17,288.54288368 --> 00:14:23,648.54288368 Your inflammatory system is basically make made up of immune cells and other factors as well, but immune suppression. 146 00:14:24,23.54288368 --> 00:14:30,713.54288368 Because basically at any given moment, anyone can have pre-cancer or, or even like a few cancer cells hanging out in their body. 147 00:14:30,923.54288368 --> 00:14:52,403.54288368 But this doesn't mean that they have cancer because before these pre-cancer or cancer cells, before they take off and develop into full cancer, the immune system, when it's strong enough, when it's kind of primed and activated, it can find these pre-cancer and cancer cells before they get an opportunity to grow and thrive and change into full-blown cancer. 148 00:14:53,273.54288368 --> 00:15:08,633.54288368 But if the immune system is dampened by things like viruses, I kind of alluded to E-B-V-C-M-V-H-P-V, these kind of viruses have some links to certain types of cancer, especially HPV and cervical cancer, for example, or EBV and certain types of blood cancers. 149 00:15:09,123.54288368 --> 00:15:14,973.54288368 That's going to kind of suppress your immune system and not making it make it as strong to go and find and fight cancer cells. 150 00:15:15,423.54288368 --> 00:15:17,313.54288368 Also mold mycotoxins. 151 00:15:17,523.54288368 --> 00:15:19,803.54288368 These can also dampen your immune response. 152 00:15:20,113.54288368 --> 00:15:22,3.54288368 Stress dampens your immune response. 153 00:15:22,3.54288368 --> 00:15:24,463.54288368 Certain medications can dampen your immune response. 154 00:15:24,743.54288368 --> 00:15:26,783.54288368 Of course I love talking about sugar and blood. 155 00:15:26,783.54288368 --> 00:15:28,193.54288368 Sugar and blood sugar. 156 00:15:28,193.54288368 --> 00:15:43,353.54288368 Excessive sugar intake can dampen your immune response too and have certain impacts on inflammatory markers and whether certain cells are activated to go and find a high cancer cells or if they're just like overburdened or not activated, they're not really doing their job to go and find a fight. 157 00:15:43,353.54288368 --> 00:15:44,43.54288368 Cancer cells. 158 00:15:44,768.54288368 --> 00:15:55,628.54288368 So if we can look a little bit more into maybe some chronic infections look into mold mycotoxins if necessary, reduce stress and then basically just help people with their nutrition. 159 00:15:55,838.54288368 --> 00:15:58,688.54288368 These things can all help your immune system to function optimally. 160 00:15:58,928.54288368 --> 00:16:02,498.54288368 And if we wanna throw in additional things like we love missile toe injection therapy for. 161 00:16:03,543.54288368 --> 00:16:05,703.54288368 Helping to boost the immune response. 162 00:16:06,13.54288368 --> 00:16:16,573.54288368 We love certain types of mushroom supplements and astragalus and herbs and things like that for helping to boost the immune response, but it's not like everyone should go out and take, uh, astragalus. 163 00:16:16,873.54288368 --> 00:16:27,483.54288368 Uh, we really wanna see is there an underlying cause that we can identify first, are you even immune suppressed just looking at your blood work again? And just basically kind of dig a little bit further as opposed to a surface level. 164 00:16:27,483.54288368 --> 00:16:28,113.54288368 Everyone should have. 165 00:16:28,443.54288368 --> 00:16:31,233.54288368 Heightened immune responses to keep cancer from coming back. 166 00:16:31,293.54288368 --> 00:16:42,313.5428837 Let's actually see, see, do you need it? And is there something specific that we can apply in order to support your immune response? Because strong immune response goes and fines and fight cancer cells before they actually become an issue down the road. 167 00:16:42,883.5428837 --> 00:16:43,813.5428837 Very, very important. 168 00:16:44,833.5428837 --> 00:16:51,853.5428837 The third thing I wanna talk about are environmental contaminants and how a lot of us have overburdened detox pathways. 169 00:16:52,303.5428837 --> 00:16:55,963.5428837 There's this, it's really hard to determine if we're living in a more. 170 00:16:56,703.5428837 --> 00:17:08,303.5428837 Overexposed dirtier environment these days because in a lot of ways we have ways to reduce it and where you have bigger health regulation rules and things like that, work regulation rules, but at the same time. 171 00:17:08,753.5428837 --> 00:17:14,603.5428837 It can sometimes feel like we're constantly exposed to like a chemical soup at risk of sounding dramatic. 172 00:17:14,983.5428837 --> 00:17:24,893.5428837 But whenever we're in this, and I'm just gonna keep going with the dramatic effect here, the chemical soup things that we're gonna be exposed to in our day to day, what's gonna happen is it's gonna build up in our body. 173 00:17:25,208.5428837 --> 00:17:28,208.5428837 It's gonna dampen our detoxification pathways. 174 00:17:28,238.5428837 --> 00:17:43,628.5428837 They're gonna become overburdened, overwhelmed, and then these things kinda just hang out in the body, and that gives us more opportunity to be exposed to cells that can encourage cancer mutations or just be DNA damage d like disrepair, things like that. 175 00:17:43,688.5428837 --> 00:17:44,768.5428837 Those hallmarks of cancer. 176 00:17:45,8.5428837 --> 00:17:48,968.5428837 Those things can happen when we have higher exposure to a lot of these environmental contaminants. 177 00:17:49,683.5428837 --> 00:18:00,663.5428837 So we're looking at things like pesticides and microplastics, heavy metals, xenoestrogens, which are like the fake estrogens that our body can become exposed to. 178 00:18:01,83.5428837 --> 00:18:08,863.5428837 And these can be from exposures in things like our water, our air that we breathing are the food that we eat. 179 00:18:09,133.5428837 --> 00:18:14,743.5428837 But what we can control is just looking at like, can we do proper water filtrations? Can we consider. 180 00:18:15,308.5428837 --> 00:18:17,918.5428837 Organic food in certain times as opposed to not. 181 00:18:17,918.5428837 --> 00:18:25,658.5428837 And I would encourage you to go listen to, I think I did an episode already on the best nutrition and I talked a little bit about organic versus non-organic. 182 00:18:25,658.5428837 --> 00:18:27,728.5428837 I'll, I'll put that link into the show notes there too. 183 00:18:28,128.5428837 --> 00:18:29,958.5428837 So organic versus non-organic food. 184 00:18:29,958.5428837 --> 00:18:31,98.5428837 So cleaner food choices. 185 00:18:31,763.5428837 --> 00:18:41,3.5428837 Mostly we focus in here with our, our people, with our women, our clients, our flourishers on the makeup that they're wearing, or the lotions. 186 00:18:41,3.5428837 --> 00:18:46,733.5428837 The shampoo, things like that, that are on, are exposed to our skin and making sure that they're cleaner products. 187 00:18:46,973.5428837 --> 00:18:50,3.5428837 We also want to look at even like kitchen utensils sometimes. 188 00:18:50,3.5428837 --> 00:18:50,928.5428837 This is something I looked into. 189 00:18:51,453.5428837 --> 00:18:58,563.5428837 My, for myself and started working on more recently is I did get rid of like my, my plastic spoons and spatulas and things like that. 190 00:18:58,563.5428837 --> 00:19:00,783.5428837 Now we're using more wooden spoons in our kitchen. 191 00:19:01,423.5428837 --> 00:19:03,673.5428837 Our measuring cups are now all stainless steel. 192 00:19:03,773.5428837 --> 00:19:08,273.5428837 Our, like, whenever I boil water, I usually like, like for tea or something like that. 193 00:19:08,423.5428837 --> 00:19:14,503.5428837 I usually just use like, my stainless steel pot, or we would probably get a glass kettle if we could. 194 00:19:14,753.5428837 --> 00:19:17,483.5428837 But I just use my stainless steel pot to, to make tea. 195 00:19:17,953.5428837 --> 00:19:26,203.5428837 And you don't need to go do all this overnight and be completely afraid of this because honestly, we're not gonna a hundred percent be able to avoid a lot of this stuff. 196 00:19:26,673.5428837 --> 00:19:30,213.5428837 We really wanna work on strengthening our detoxification pathway. 197 00:19:30,213.5428837 --> 00:19:31,533.5428837 So going back to. 198 00:19:31,908.5428837 --> 00:19:38,338.5428837 Good gut health liver function, lymphatic flow, blood vessels move-in pumping. 199 00:19:38,338.5428837 --> 00:19:40,888.5428837 That comes through exercise a lot of the times as well. 200 00:19:41,68.5428837 --> 00:19:43,948.5428837 We wanna work on our detoxification processes for sure. 201 00:19:44,38.5428837 --> 00:19:47,998.5428837 We also wanna limit our exposure, but we wanna live in the real world too. 202 00:19:48,178.5428837 --> 00:19:50,53.5428837 Like, I still wanna go camping and have. 203 00:19:50,718.5428837 --> 00:19:52,233.5428837 A a s'more. 204 00:19:53,8.5428837 --> 00:19:57,958.5428837 Sometimes I'm gonna go to a hotel and I'm gonna forget my shampoo and I'm just gonna use their shampoo. 205 00:19:58,238.5428837 --> 00:20:00,368.5428837 I truly believe that if we focus more on. 206 00:20:01,403.5428837 --> 00:20:07,343.5428837 Like an 80 20 rule where we're doing 80% of the time, we're controlling what we can control. 207 00:20:07,343.5428837 --> 00:20:10,703.5428837 We're making a big difference, especially in our homes or where we spend the most time. 208 00:20:11,3.5428837 --> 00:20:14,183.5428837 Then our body is, is so cool. 209 00:20:14,363.5428837 --> 00:20:15,893.5428837 It can handle so much. 210 00:20:15,923.5428837 --> 00:20:19,883.5428837 It is so smart and it can take care of a. 211 00:20:20,518.5428837 --> 00:20:28,768.5428837 Tune a sandwich that you're having at your, your, your friend's house or the shampoo from the hotel that maybe isn't as clean as you want it to be. 212 00:20:29,188.5428837 --> 00:20:43,678.5428837 So I truly believe we don't need to be overwhelmed and overburdened with constantly being afraid of everything because we also need to trust and rely on our body, know that we're doing what we can to support it and its functions, but also enjoy life. 213 00:20:44,213.5428837 --> 00:20:50,633.5428837 I think the stress that people get from worrying about using the hotel shampoo is often worse than the actual hotel shampoo. 214 00:20:50,723.5428837 --> 00:20:57,83.5428837 And there's always that fine balance of where do, where do you find the, where do you find what works for you basically in real life. 215 00:20:57,773.5428837 --> 00:21:01,43.5428837 So basically, no, we don't a hundred percent avoid a lot of these things. 216 00:21:01,263.5428837 --> 00:21:04,413.5428837 If we can work on strengthening our body is also as well as limiting. 217 00:21:04,703.5428837 --> 00:21:16,193.5428837 A lot of exposures and that's where the sweet spot is, and we can make a big difference when it comes to improving the health of ourselves so that they're not gonna be turned into cancerous cells and, and fed into cancerous processes. 218 00:21:16,933.5428837 --> 00:21:21,283.5428837 So we wanna limit that chemical soup exposure and we wanna work on building up the body. 219 00:21:22,343.5428837 --> 00:21:28,613.5428837 My last one here is about methylation issues, which is one of the my favorite things to talk about. 220 00:21:28,613.5428837 --> 00:21:33,923.5428837 It's really hard to understand sometimes, and it comes down to the epigenetic testing that we often do with our clients. 221 00:21:34,193.5428837 --> 00:21:40,373.5428837 And methylation is it has to do with activating and inactivating pathways in the body. 222 00:21:40,633.5428837 --> 00:21:52,793.5428837 So it's kind of like talking about methylation can turn on cancer promoting pathways or messengers, or it can turn off cancer protective pathways and processes so it can do things that are good or bad. 223 00:21:52,973.5428837 --> 00:22:09,163.5428837 And most of the time we can test what we want to improve in someone's body doing this epigenetic testing so that we can encourage the processes to be less pro less pro cancer by giving them certain foods and supplements to ideally support the pathways in healthy methylation processes. 224 00:22:09,938.5428837 --> 00:22:13,718.5428837 So methylation can influence the making of less harmful and more protective estrogens. 225 00:22:13,718.5428837 --> 00:22:16,368.5428837 For example estrogen is not just estrogen. 226 00:22:16,368.5428837 --> 00:22:19,758.5428837 It's a bunch of different forms and metabolites of estrogen and things like that. 227 00:22:19,998.5428837 --> 00:22:39,18.5428837 So we can test someone on epigenetics and see, do you have a predisposition? Like basically, does your body have a blueprint to want to create more harmful types of estrogens? And if so, if that's the case, we can identify that and then apply certain things to kind of bypass those pathways in order to encourage more healthy types of estrogens being made. 228 00:22:39,408.5428837 --> 00:22:42,168.5428837 Same thing when it comes to repairing cells that are damaged. 229 00:22:42,348.5428837 --> 00:22:46,98.5428837 Methylation can have to do with whether the cells are more easily repaired or not. 230 00:22:46,458.5428837 --> 00:22:58,528.5428837 So, if we have repair processes that are damaged and methyl leaf processes that are not working optimally, then that's gonna increase someone's risk of cancer cells being formed and hanging out and then developing more into more cancer. 231 00:22:59,158.5428837 --> 00:23:07,408.5428837 And then in, in that case, then we apply again certain foods and supplements potentially in order to encourage more helpful processes to happen. 232 00:23:07,528.5428837 --> 00:23:14,848.5428837 And not only that, it can just kind of give us a better, a better, uh, idea of how to cancer start in the first place. 233 00:23:14,848.5428837 --> 00:23:20,38.5428837 So was methylation a big issue? And that was potentially contributing to cancer starting? So one, we can tackle it too. 234 00:23:20,38.5428837 --> 00:23:27,593.5428837 It kind of gives you that little bit of information that you're seeking when it comes to like, how the heck did this happen? How did cancer start? So it's nice for our clients to see that sometimes where they're like. 235 00:23:28,288.5428837 --> 00:23:28,558.5428837 Alright. 236 00:23:28,558.5428837 --> 00:23:35,848.5428837 I know this isn't just the one thing that caused the cancer, but in the big scheme of things, this was probably a big contributing cause I can see it now. 237 00:23:35,848.5428837 --> 00:23:40,168.5428837 I can make a difference and I can make some changes in order to encourage healthier processes to happen. 238 00:23:41,398.5428837 --> 00:23:45,658.5428837 So overall, all of this isn't about fear, it's about awareness. 239 00:23:45,868.5428837 --> 00:23:49,408.5428837 You can reduce all of the exposures to cancer promoting substances. 240 00:23:49,408.5428837 --> 00:23:54,328.5428837 If we can kind of put our finger on what might've been some of the contributors, you honestly, you can't control everything. 241 00:23:54,328.5428837 --> 00:23:57,88.5428837 But there's a lot that we can do above and beyond the standard. 242 00:23:57,523.5428837 --> 00:24:14,773.5428837 Care, the conventional protocols when it comes to identifying how did cancer start, how was it encouraged to grow? And then what are the actionable changes that I can take in order to push things in the right direction so that we're not having to go through treatment again? And some of the things that it often comes down to when we're tackling. 243 00:24:15,48.5428837 --> 00:24:26,738.5428837 The inflammatory processes, immune regulation, when we're looking at methylation, whenever we're looking at di di detoxification processes is we change a lot of this with things we can control, like nutrition. 244 00:24:26,738.5428837 --> 00:24:28,388.5428837 So we're focus focusing on. 245 00:24:28,493.5428837 --> 00:24:30,713.5428837 Anti-inflammatory, antioxidant rich foods. 246 00:24:30,713.5428837 --> 00:24:33,983.5428837 Fiber rich foods, diversity for microbiome health. 247 00:24:34,213.5428837 --> 00:24:42,163.5428837 Increasing your folate rich foods for methylation processes, decreasing your, your fortified folic acid foods for methylation processes that can actually make it worse. 248 00:24:42,223.5428837 --> 00:24:44,443.5428837 So folate versus folic acid could be different. 249 00:24:44,713.5428837 --> 00:24:47,563.5428837 So we can choose certain foods based on these things. 250 00:24:47,993.5428837 --> 00:24:56,303.5428837 We can also do more movement and you can see like, okay, I can see that my immune count counts on blood work are actually quite low and I know that movement's gonna help me. 251 00:24:56,463.5428837 --> 00:25:05,513.5428837 It can be motivational to see your numbers sometimes and have have a focus and start exercising because you can see that it will make an impact on your white blood cells over time. 252 00:25:06,373.5428837 --> 00:25:19,493.5428837 Even just like we can swap slowly, we don't need to completely go and throw out all of your plastic spoons overnight, as well as your shampoos and soaps and laundry detergents and things like that, and cleaners swap slowly over time. 253 00:25:19,493.5428837 --> 00:25:21,173.5428837 Start with what you use the most often. 254 00:25:21,643.5428837 --> 00:25:25,783.5428837 Those tend to po potentially have the greatest impact on you if you're using it more regularly. 255 00:25:26,383.5428837 --> 00:25:31,963.5428837 And then, like restorative practices like sleep, joy, nervous system regulation, all help to reduce inflammation. 256 00:25:32,393.5428837 --> 00:25:34,763.5428837 All that chronic stress can lead to inflammation. 257 00:25:35,33.5428837 --> 00:25:49,243.5428837 And then again, if we have more data points, if we're looking at your epigenetics, we can see what is your estrogen detox pathways, what are your cell repair pathways? And then we can apply like glutathione or melatonin or dim or. 258 00:25:49,938.5428837 --> 00:25:58,878.5428837 Omegas or whatever it might be based on some of this epigenetic information in order to encourage more anti-cancer processes to happen in the body, and then blood work. 259 00:25:59,673.5428837 --> 00:26:06,43.5428837 We can measure everything from like inflammatory levels to vitamin deficiencies, to improve inflammation to improve cell healing. 260 00:26:06,43.5428837 --> 00:26:13,693.5428837 We can look at something like your neutrophil de lymphocyte ratio on your white blood cell count to tell us a little bit more about what is the strength of your immune system right now. 261 00:26:13,813.5428837 --> 00:26:21,193.5428837 And we can use it to monitor over time whenever we start initiating some changes in order to see are we making a difference when we're, are we applying the right things? Basically. 262 00:26:22,93.5428837 --> 00:26:24,343.5428837 Speaking of blood work, I will put a quick. 263 00:26:24,708.5428837 --> 00:26:27,528.5428837 Uh, pin in here that I do have a bootcamp coming up. 264 00:26:27,528.5428837 --> 00:26:29,748.5428837 I'll put the link in the show notes to join. 265 00:26:30,18.5428837 --> 00:26:31,608.5428837 I am so excited about this. 266 00:26:31,608.5428837 --> 00:26:43,968.5428837 I'm actually filming this episode pretty early, so I haven't even narrowed down the actual name of the bootcamp yet, but I know that this episode will be coming out, out around the time that we will be holding the bootcamp and holding the registration for it. 267 00:26:44,178.5428837 --> 00:26:48,558.5428837 So keep an eye, whether it's joining our emails or on my social media, uh, at Megan Bernard. 268 00:26:49,38.5428837 --> 00:26:50,838.5428837 And d on Instagram. 269 00:26:51,218.5428837 --> 00:26:56,288.5428837 I have a bootcamp coming up where I'm gonna explain everything I can about blood work for cancer survivors. 270 00:26:56,288.5428837 --> 00:27:00,38.5428837 So going a little bit above and beyond, like your white blood cell count looks good. 271 00:27:00,38.5428837 --> 00:27:03,98.5428837 And your liver and kidney function tests look fine. 272 00:27:03,228.5428837 --> 00:27:06,108.5428837 I'm gonna pick it apart a little bit more and we're gonna go above fine. 273 00:27:06,288.5428837 --> 00:27:10,278.5428837 I wanna know what is more optimal as opposed to like, that's fine. 274 00:27:10,793.5428837 --> 00:27:22,103.5428837 Also, we're gonna go into other tests that could be ordered as well, whether it's coming down to how to measure inflammation and how to measure your blood sugar above and beyond just an HBA one c or fasting glucose. 275 00:27:22,413.5428837 --> 00:27:27,243.5428837 We're gonna talk about how to pick apart your white blood cell counts, your, your complete blood cell panel. 276 00:27:27,293.5428837 --> 00:27:35,3.5428837 Basically, uh, I'm gonna go through all of that in this blood work bootcamp, which I might rename or I might call it something else, but it's gonna be something like that. 277 00:27:35,43.5428837 --> 00:27:36,333.5428837 Coming up very soon. 278 00:27:36,573.5428837 --> 00:27:51,213.5428837 And if you wanna learn more about these focused areas that you can make a difference when it comes to understanding what's going on in your body, what might be contributing to cancer starting or growing, or potentially what might even look good so you can give yourself a pat in the back and not feel so bad about it. 279 00:27:51,423.5428837 --> 00:27:57,363.5428837 That'll be covered in this bootcamp that I have coming up, so I hope you take a look into the notes there and, and sign up and, and meet me over there. 280 00:27:58,648.5428837 --> 00:28:00,208.5428837 But just a quick closing here. 281 00:28:00,268.5428837 --> 00:28:02,368.5428837 A reminder that you're not broken. 282 00:28:02,648.5428837 --> 00:28:08,828.5428837 You didn't cause your cancer, but there's definitely some things we can do in order to support the body and fix it. 283 00:28:08,828.5428837 --> 00:28:11,288.5428837 Like our, our society is very hard to understand sometimes. 284 00:28:11,288.5428837 --> 00:28:13,808.5428837 It's totally not set up, especially in North America. 285 00:28:14,108.5428837 --> 00:28:18,198.5428837 For overarching optimal health we are busy. 286 00:28:18,198.5428837 --> 00:28:24,208.5428837 We have different schedules and taste buds different social norms and all these are sometimes hard to sift through. 287 00:28:24,208.5428837 --> 00:28:31,108.5428837 Sometimes in order to create a lifestyle that's really gonna be supportive, but about a supportive for anti-cancer processes. 288 00:28:31,108.5428837 --> 00:28:32,998.5428837 So I just wanna say you're not broken. 289 00:28:32,998.5428837 --> 00:28:41,218.5428837 There are some things that your body might have been struggling with, but we can definitely give it the strength that it needs in order to carry these processes out more effectively. 290 00:28:42,243.5428837 --> 00:28:44,913.5428837 You do deserve clarity and confidence. 291 00:28:44,913.5428837 --> 00:28:49,563.5428837 Like I'm not saying that we can point out exactly what caused cancer starting, but we can start to. 292 00:28:49,948.5428837 --> 00:28:55,558.5428837 Have an idea around what are the biggest risk factors for you above and beyond the conventional known norms. 293 00:28:55,558.5428837 --> 00:29:01,978.5428837 I think it's about high time that we go a little bit deeper than smoking and alcohol and things like that. 294 00:29:01,978.5428837 --> 00:29:07,288.5428837 I think we can get a little bit deeper into like the blueprints of people's bodies now looking at your medical history. 295 00:29:07,288.5428837 --> 00:29:13,49.5428837 Health history and more importantly, taking that information, applying to what can we do right now to support you. 296 00:29:14,508.5428837 --> 00:29:16,368.5428837 So that's pretty much what I have for you today. 297 00:29:16,698.5428837 --> 00:29:30,678.5428837 I want you to come at this as a last mindset thought from an area of a thought, process of curiosity and compassion and data, and not from a fa place of fear and lack. 298 00:29:30,678.5428837 --> 00:29:31,248.5428837 Basically. 299 00:29:31,248.5428837 --> 00:29:36,648.5428837 We can totally look at this as, now I've got this information, I'm gonna start working on this and it's gonna be fun. 300 00:29:36,678.5428837 --> 00:29:37,488.5428837 It's gonna be. 301 00:29:37,803.5428837 --> 00:29:44,343.5428837 Important and fun, and I'm going to be curious about it as opposed to completely afraid of everything. 302 00:29:44,343.5428837 --> 00:29:49,83.5428837 I think curiosity and fear are very, are very highly linked. 303 00:29:49,203.5428837 --> 00:29:57,573.5428837 So if we can change that fear into curiosity, I think you're gonna see a world of difference in the changes you're gonna make and how you're gonna feel, because we truly just want you to. 304 00:29:57,923.5428837 --> 00:29:59,513.5428837 Thrive after cancer. 305 00:29:59,513.5428837 --> 00:30:04,133.5428837 We don't want you to just go through cancer treatment and then be always afraid of cancer coming back. 306 00:30:04,343.5428837 --> 00:30:08,453.5428837 We wanna start putting cancer in the past, and I think one of the greatest ways to do that is our mindset shifts. 307 00:30:08,453.5428837 --> 00:30:15,383.5428837 One of them being to think about curiosity as opposed to fear, and to focus on being healthy as opposed to not having cancer. 308 00:30:15,593.5428837 --> 00:30:18,803.5428837 I wanna let that simmer in your brain for a little bit and. 309 00:30:19,398.5428837 --> 00:30:20,898.5428837 That is all I have for you today. 310 00:30:21,198.5428837 --> 00:30:29,148.5428837 I hope that you are enjoying the information so far, and I hope that you're not just surviving now that you're beginning to flourish after cancer. 311 00:30:41,118.9255042 --> 00:30:41,148.9255042 I.
I got a comment back from a woman who was so upset with me, and I'll never forget when I wrote a social media post a couple years ago and I was just explaining what can cause cancer to start and what can cause it to grow.
(00:12):
She thought that I was blaming her for getting cancer, and that's absolutely not true.
I fully believe that we have responsibility in our lives, in our, in our health, but we can't control everything. 4 00:00:26,910.969727517 --> 00:00:31,830.969727517 I just wanna be clear that this episode is not about blame at all. 5 00:00:32,130.969727517 --> 00:00:33,450.969727517 Not, not whatsoever. 6 00:00:33,450.969727517 --> 00:00:35,190.969727517 This is not my jam. 7 00:00:36,90.969727517 --> 00:00:37,650.969727517 This is more about empowerment. 8 00:00:37,680.969727517 --> 00:00:49,260.969727517 'cause whenever you start to understand more about your health, more about your body, in focused research backed ways, with a holistic spin, you start to understand what you can do in order to make a difference. 9 00:00:49,470.969727517 --> 00:00:52,500.969727517 Things that you can control and things that you can't control as well. 10 00:01:21,354.80088368 --> 00:01:28,904.80088368 Today's topic is on what caused my cancer diagnosis, and this is a common question that we get from a lot of our clients. 11 00:01:28,904.80088368 --> 00:01:31,814.80088368 A lot of you out there on my social media and things like that. 12 00:01:32,234.80088368 --> 00:01:39,344.80088368 You are wondering how the heck did this happen? And it makes total sense after walking through something as life changing as cancer. 13 00:01:39,344.80088368 --> 00:01:48,434.80088368 You just wanna understand, you wanna understand how did the cancer start and what is causing it to grow or what would cause it to grow. 14 00:01:48,884.80088368 --> 00:01:54,224.80088368 And I just wanna be clear that this episode is not about blame at all. 15 00:01:54,284.80088368 --> 00:01:55,724.80088368 Not, not whatsoever. 16 00:01:55,724.80088368 --> 00:01:56,384.80088368 This is not. 17 00:01:56,749.80088368 --> 00:01:57,559.80088368 My jam. 18 00:01:57,929.80088368 --> 00:01:59,459.80088368 This is more about empowerment. 19 00:01:59,489.80088368 --> 00:02:11,129.80088368 'cause whenever you start to understand more about your health, more about your body in focused research backed ways, with a holistic spin, you start to understand what you can do in order to make a difference. 20 00:02:11,279.80088368 --> 00:02:14,279.80088368 Things that you can control and things that you can't control as well. 21 00:02:15,24.80088368 --> 00:02:22,104.80088368 And I'll never forget when I wrote a social media post a couple years ago now where I was talking about some of the things we're gonna talk about today. 22 00:02:22,404.80088368 --> 00:02:28,704.80088368 And I was just explaining underlying contributors to cancer and, and what can cause cancer to start and what can cause it to grow. 23 00:02:28,974.80088368 --> 00:02:32,694.80088368 And I got a comment back from a woman who was so upset with me. 24 00:02:32,904.80088368 --> 00:02:39,774.80088368 She thought that I was blaming her for getting the cancer, and that's absolutely not true. 25 00:02:40,464.80088368 --> 00:02:47,244.80088368 I fully believe that we have responsibility in our lives and our, and our health, but we can't control everything. 26 00:02:47,544.80088368 --> 00:02:50,844.80088368 And this is really coming from a source of education and empowerment. 27 00:02:50,844.80088368 --> 00:02:56,154.80088368 And I know a lot of you already know that for sure, but I just want to point that out, that with every episode I do, you take what you. 28 00:02:56,534.80088368 --> 00:03:07,424.80088368 Feel is right and you leave what doesn't? And I hope that you feel that I'm giving you more empowering suggestions and ideas and conversational pieces and thoughts as opposed to saying it's all your fault. 29 00:03:07,454.80088368 --> 00:03:10,64.80088368 'cause definitely it is not your fault whatsoever. 30 00:03:10,364.80088368 --> 00:03:12,14.80088368 I know a lot of you come to us and. 31 00:03:12,579.80088368 --> 00:03:13,959.80088368 You're already very healthy. 32 00:03:14,149.80088368 --> 00:03:16,399.80088368 You are very much knowledge seekers. 33 00:03:16,399.80088368 --> 00:03:21,379.80088368 You're extremely intelligent people, you're brilliant, you're hardworking, and I'm not just buttering you up. 34 00:03:21,379.80088368 --> 00:03:22,729.80088368 This is truly what we see. 35 00:03:22,759.80088368 --> 00:03:24,409.80088368 Whenever people reach out to us. 36 00:03:24,499.80088368 --> 00:03:26,449.80088368 You're just really on a quest for answers. 37 00:03:26,449.80088368 --> 00:03:31,699.80088368 And one of them is, how did this happen? Because you wanna see what can you do in order to make sure that it doesn't come back again. 38 00:03:31,879.80088368 --> 00:03:32,719.80088368 It's a very. 39 00:03:33,49.80088368 --> 00:03:34,609.80088368 Wise question to ask. 40 00:03:35,149.80088368 --> 00:03:42,369.80088368 And a lot of the diagnoses that our clients have had, they come outta the blue because they have never been on medications before. 41 00:03:42,369.80088368 --> 00:03:48,489.80088368 They maybe have no to very like distant relatives who have ever had a cancer diagnosis. 42 00:03:48,819.80088368 --> 00:03:50,739.80088368 You were also potentially eating fairly well. 43 00:03:50,739.80088368 --> 00:03:52,809.80088368 You weren't really into McDonald's and things like that. 44 00:03:52,809.80088368 --> 00:03:56,529.80088368 You, you chose good foods and then boom, cancer happens. 45 00:03:56,829.80088368 --> 00:04:08,619.80088368 And now you're wondering how did this happen and what can you do to make sure that you don't have to go through any of this again? And before we jump into a lot of the underlying causes of cancer, I do want to make it. 46 00:04:08,944.80088368 --> 00:04:14,254.80088368 Certain and and known that we don't a hundred percent know what causes cancer still. 47 00:04:14,374.80088368 --> 00:04:20,284.80088368 We know that there are things that cancer cells end up having that qualify them as cancerous cells. 48 00:04:20,584.80088368 --> 00:04:26,359.80088368 We know that sometimes there are certain genetic mutations that some of you may be may have that are listening to me and just a little. 49 00:04:27,129.80088368 --> 00:04:31,989.80088368 Caveat here is that if you do have some of those genetic mutations, it doesn't mean that these aren't still gonna be impactful for you. 50 00:04:31,989.80088368 --> 00:04:49,969.80088368 For sure, you might have an increased risk of having cancer, but in the end, if we can still make a lot of these lifestyle changes, you don't have a hundred percent risk of cancer, you have a lower risk of cancer coming back too, right? So we wanna make sure that even if you have a genetic predisposition, you're still following along the information that I'm gonna be sharing today. 51 00:04:50,149.80088368 --> 00:04:56,719.80088368 And if you don't have a genetic predis predisposition and this kind of just came outta the blue for you, then again, same information applies. 52 00:04:56,719.80088368 --> 00:05:01,669.80088368 We can definitely make a difference with what's going to move the needle on reducing risk cancer coming back over time. 53 00:05:01,699.80088368 --> 00:05:02,899.80088368 And that's what we're gonna talk about today. 54 00:05:03,534.80088368 --> 00:05:07,194.80088368 And yeah, there's never just one cause of cancer either. 55 00:05:07,524.80088368 --> 00:05:20,134.80088368 I like to think of it more like cancer contributors, not cancer causes, because there are a series of hits typically that will happen to your cells that will cause mutations. 56 00:05:20,829.80088368 --> 00:05:23,109.80088368 Damage, missed repairs. 57 00:05:23,389.80088368 --> 00:05:24,559.80088368 Immune invasion. 58 00:05:24,679.80088368 --> 00:05:31,759.80088368 So your normal cells, they receive hits and these things happen and then they become cancerous cells and it's a series of hits. 59 00:05:31,759.80088368 --> 00:05:41,239.80088368 It's kind of the key saying here, it's not just one thing happens and boom, cancer, it's usually some mutation happens and then your, your cell is unable to repair itself. 60 00:05:41,469.80088368 --> 00:05:46,959.80088368 And then also the immune system was unable to see that that cell was damaged and kill it off before it became full-blown cancer. 61 00:05:47,59.80088368 --> 00:05:56,419.80088368 And this is usually a bunch of different hits, a bunch of different processes that happen in order for that cancer cell to escape all of the quality control checks basically, that it should be going through. 62 00:05:56,959.80088368 --> 00:06:08,537.87388368 So our goal and our desire supporting people who are wanting to reduce the risk of cancer coming back is to go through all of these quality control checks and to make them as strong as possible so that they don't get bypassed again. 63 00:06:08,927.87388368 --> 00:06:16,883.54288368 Going through all these quality assurance, quality control checks in order to make sure that your body is optimally functioning in order to find and fight cancer cells before they become an issue. 64 00:06:17,393.54288368 --> 00:06:21,23.54288368 So we're gonna talk about that and I just really wanna hammer home. 65 00:06:21,53.54288368 --> 00:06:23,543.54288368 It's never just one cause it's multiple contributors. 66 00:06:23,543.54288368 --> 00:06:26,218.54288368 That's why I have my six pillars of cancer prevention where we go through. 67 00:06:26,813.54288368 --> 00:06:29,663.54288368 Nutrition mindset, exercise and movement. 68 00:06:29,783.54288368 --> 00:06:32,933.54288368 We go through detoxification and digestion. 69 00:06:33,53.54288368 --> 00:06:38,693.54288368 We go through, uh, environmental contaminants, and we go through functional testing, epigenetic testing, things like that. 70 00:06:38,843.54288368 --> 00:06:45,143.54288368 Because we're coming at this, through all the quality controls in order to make sure that the body's functioning optimally, we're not just saying. 71 00:06:45,743.54288368 --> 00:06:56,213.54288368 Avoid this toxin we're saying, avoid this toxin, but also let's work on your detoxification processes so that if it does come into contact with it, one, it can fight it off better, it can repair quicker, and it can eliminate it from the body quicker. 72 00:06:56,363.54288368 --> 00:07:02,993.54288368 So we wanna look at all the different processes involved in helping to find and fight cancer and make sure that doesn't come back again. 73 00:07:03,848.54288368 --> 00:07:06,218.54288368 All right, so let's dive into this. 74 00:07:06,248.54288368 --> 00:07:06,908.54288368 Let me check my notes. 75 00:07:06,908.54288368 --> 00:07:08,18.54288368 I think I have a couple. 76 00:07:08,18.54288368 --> 00:07:13,228.54288368 How many do I have to go through? I have four specific themes to go on for today. 77 00:07:13,468.54288368 --> 00:07:16,498.54288368 Four specific underlying causes that I wanna go through with you. 78 00:07:17,188.54288368 --> 00:07:19,168.54288368 Start with, let's start with the first one, of course. 79 00:07:19,268.54288368 --> 00:07:26,408.54288368 And the first one is a big one, and it's kind of like a catchall, I would say, and it is chronic low lying inflammation. 80 00:07:27,428.54288368 --> 00:07:31,388.54288368 Just inflammation in general is a known cancer starter, a cancer growth factor. 81 00:07:31,388.54288368 --> 00:07:51,548.54288368 So it encourages cancer to grow, but, and also like there's a lot of different sources that are leading to inflammation, so that's why I say it's a catchall is like everyone's probably gonna have a little bit of inflammation in their body at certain points, but really our goals are to limit the amount of inflammation being made and to help the inflammation to be cleaned up as fast as possible. 82 00:07:52,118.54288368 --> 00:08:04,388.54288368 So in this kind of catchall category of chronic inflammation, I wanna discuss some potential sources and a lot of 'em you might already know about and things that you're already working on, such as avoiding highly processed foods. 83 00:08:04,418.54288368 --> 00:08:09,748.54288368 'cause we know that it can encourage inflammatory markers to be released in our body causing inflammation. 84 00:08:10,348.54288368 --> 00:08:12,658.54288368 Uh, also things like a lack of movement. 85 00:08:12,688.54288368 --> 00:08:15,208.54288368 If we've got gut health issues, we've got a lot of like. 86 00:08:15,603.54288368 --> 00:08:24,18.54288368 Constipation, bloating, digestive, upset with, it's, if it's like heartburn or something like that those are all gonna be causing inflammation in the body. 87 00:08:25,43.54288368 --> 00:08:28,523.54288368 We can also think about chronic infl infections, chronic infections. 88 00:08:28,823.54288368 --> 00:08:42,473.54288368 We often will test our clients for EBV and whether it is a active or just like a past infection and CMV cytomegalovirus because these might be impacting the inflammatory processes in the immune system. 89 00:08:43,23.54288368 --> 00:08:43,623.54288368 Also on managed stress. 90 00:08:44,403.54288368 --> 00:08:52,83.54288368 Will encourage more inflammation, high blood sugar, and I won't go into all the unique pathways by which these things trigger inflammation. 91 00:08:52,263.54288368 --> 00:08:57,123.54288368 'cause there's just so many different biochemical processes involved that I get bored for by it. 92 00:08:57,123.54288368 --> 00:09:11,463.54288368 I'm sure you'll get bored as well, but just generally speaking, common sources of chronic inflammation, low lying inflammation, typically that might just hang out in the body with no major diagnoses or issues popping up until cancer pops up, would be like high eating a lot of highly processed foods. 93 00:09:12,123.54288368 --> 00:09:17,843.54288368 Lack of movement, gut health issues, chronic stress chronic infections, and high blood sugar as well. 94 00:09:17,993.54288368 --> 00:09:19,313.54288368 So high, high blood sugar. 95 00:09:19,313.54288368 --> 00:09:20,333.54288368 I love talking about this. 96 00:09:20,333.54288368 --> 00:09:28,993.54288368 So I will do specific episodes on it, but high blood sugar can dampen the immune response and it also creates more inflammatory signaling causing more of those. 97 00:09:29,288.54288368 --> 00:09:40,118.54288368 Pro-inflammatory pro cancer causing messenger signals to be released from certain cells and also it encourages high blood sugar, can encourage a lot of insulin too, which is a pro-growth hormone. 98 00:09:40,118.54288368 --> 00:09:46,988.54288368 So that combination of inflammation damaged cells along with a pro-growth hormone is not a great combination and that can lead to more cancer. 99 00:09:48,118.54288368 --> 00:10:00,368.54288368 The another quick thing I wanna go into with chronic inflammation is gut dysbiosis, because it is a common thing that we see when it comes to the people we work with, when we work with is they've got a lot of constipation or even sometimes diarrhea. 100 00:10:00,548.54288368 --> 00:10:06,838.54288368 IBS like issues, heartburn and the gut is very central to your health. 101 00:10:06,838.54288368 --> 00:10:10,678.54288368 And also reducing inflammation because if we are not adequately. 102 00:10:11,218.54288368 --> 00:10:15,778.54288368 We're moving things through gut, so through in, in your intestines and bowel movements. 103 00:10:16,48.54288368 --> 00:10:23,368.54288368 Then we're gonna be reabsorbing certain things back into the system, whether it's like environmental contaminants or hormones that we don't want, like estrogen. 104 00:10:23,428.54288368 --> 00:10:28,138.54288368 They get recirculated and have more of an opportunity to cause more trouble again in the body. 105 00:10:28,348.54288368 --> 00:10:32,728.54288368 So if we can improve someone's gut and improve their microflora, their gut lining. 106 00:10:32,773.54288368 --> 00:10:35,333.54288368 The the tone and the vagal tone. 107 00:10:35,363.54288368 --> 00:10:43,613.54288368 Basically the movement of things through their system, making sure that they're having regular daily bowel movements, and that's a big part of reducing inflammation in, in the long run. 108 00:10:44,583.54288368 --> 00:10:50,103.54288368 Not to mention that your gut is responsible for absorbing a lot of your vitamins, nutrients, minerals, things like that. 109 00:10:50,283.54288368 --> 00:11:02,363.54288368 So if we're doing all these great things and trying to support your lowering inflammation and just support your body in general, we wanna make sure the gut is making the best use of the food you're putting into it and absorbing a lot of those nutrients that you are giving it. 110 00:11:02,573.54288368 --> 00:11:07,253.54288368 We wanna make sure that you're getting your, your vitamins and your antioxidants and your minerals and things like that. 111 00:11:07,448.54288368 --> 00:11:09,398.54288368 Through proper absorption into the gut. 112 00:11:09,698.54288368 --> 00:11:12,608.54288368 Alright, so one, we don't wanna absorb the things we don't want there. 113 00:11:12,608.54288368 --> 00:11:14,348.54288368 We wanna get rid of those through bowel movements. 114 00:11:14,528.54288368 --> 00:11:20,723.54288368 And two, we wanna make sure that we're absorbing the things we do want to be there, such as your vitamins, minerals, antioxidants good, good stuff from food, basically. 115 00:11:22,288.54288368 --> 00:11:36,658.54288368 So whenever we're going to look at inflammation and what can we do to control inflammation? Inflammation being this cancer initiator, 'cause it causes mutations and also cancer growth factor because it creates all the inflammatory signals and things like that that the cancer loves to grow in. 116 00:11:37,18.54288368 --> 00:11:45,688.54288368 So what can we do to control this? Well, one, everyone's going to have a little bit of inflammation in the body, so we're not looking to a hundred percent eliminate any of this for sure. 117 00:11:46,48.54288368 --> 00:11:52,828.54288368 The goal is really to set the body up to be able to handle this, and also just limit the amount of inflammation that happens in the body. 118 00:11:53,368.54288368 --> 00:12:00,28.54288368 We just, we just think about how when people go through life, there's a lot of inflammation that's gonna accumulate that might even be worth it. 119 00:12:00,28.54288368 --> 00:12:02,758.54288368 Sometimes, certain experiences, certain times. 120 00:12:02,788.54288368 --> 00:12:07,378.54288368 And there's a balance there that we can find, like hanging out with your friends and going for your favorite food. 121 00:12:07,378.54288368 --> 00:12:14,863.54288368 Sometimes with the infl inflammation that might come from maybe the, the sea oils that they potentially might be using in some of the cooking you have when you go to a restaurant with their friend. 122 00:12:15,693.54288368 --> 00:12:21,273.54288368 That might be counteracted by a lot of the joy and the social surroundings that you experience by being with that friend. 123 00:12:21,633.54288368 --> 00:12:23,433.54288368 So there's a give and a take. 124 00:12:23,673.54288368 --> 00:12:30,243.54288368 There's always gonna be a little bit of inflammation now and then, but we want to tackle the ones that are quite blatant and obvious we want. 125 00:12:30,423.54288368 --> 00:12:37,203.54288368 We also wanna know what are the levels like in your body so we can do some blood work in order to determine what are inflammatory markers. 126 00:12:37,273.54288368 --> 00:12:39,343.54288368 That might be heightened on your blood work. 127 00:12:39,683.54288368 --> 00:12:44,993.54288368 And we can use those to track over time too, to make sure that whatever we're applying is gonna reduce those inflammatory markers too. 128 00:12:46,463.54288368 --> 00:12:49,943.54288368 But overall, like we're all gonna experience some inflammation. 129 00:12:49,943.54288368 --> 00:12:56,393.54288368 And how can inflammation kind of lead to cancer? Well, a lot of people drink in their twenties and that's pro-inflammatory when we go through alcohol. 130 00:12:56,393.54288368 --> 00:13:02,593.54288368 Maybe you're using Tide in your past, the tide laundry detergent, whereas now you might be switching to something cleaner. 131 00:13:02,593.54288368 --> 00:13:05,203.54288368 So we can do that to control some things with inflammation. 132 00:13:05,563.54288368 --> 00:13:06,913.54288368 Switch to a cleaner detergent. 133 00:13:07,363.54288368 --> 00:13:16,103.54288368 Even things like stress, financial stress, fast food between soccer practices sitting at a desk, job, all these things we've probably done in our life. 134 00:13:16,523.54288368 --> 00:13:21,203.54288368 Uh, and they can all be contributing to cancer and through inflammatory processes. 135 00:13:21,203.54288368 --> 00:13:24,203.54288368 So our goal is to like slow and steady make changes. 136 00:13:24,203.54288368 --> 00:13:33,713.54288368 What can we do to create these lifestyles in order to reduce our risk of cancer coming back over time by reducing inflammation? So one, you're never gonna get rid of it a hundred percent. 137 00:13:33,863.54288368 --> 00:13:36,293.54288368 Some inflammation is actually helpful for healing tissues. 138 00:13:36,893.54288368 --> 00:13:43,943.54288368 Two, some of it is actually worth it because there's a trade off where we get some benefits in, in terms of our health and overall wellbeing as well. 139 00:13:44,363.54288368 --> 00:13:48,443.54288368 And then basically three, we wanna go through it step by step in order to reduce inflammation. 140 00:13:48,443.54288368 --> 00:13:56,693.54288368 Not necessarily a hundred percent, be afraid and eliminate it, but just to see what can we do, what can we control? And slow, steady, simple changes will make a difference over time. 141 00:13:58,208.54288368 --> 00:14:03,998.54288368 Alright, so that was just the blanket catchall statement of chronic low lying inflammation. 142 00:14:04,28.54288368 --> 00:14:08,738.54288368 Pretty much anything can cause inflammation and it's just like what we say is inflammation is pro cancer. 143 00:14:08,918.54288368 --> 00:14:11,918.54288368 Let's get a little bit more specific into what might be contributing cancer. 144 00:14:12,308.54288368 --> 00:14:16,988.54288368 The next thing I wanna talk about is immune suppression, which is very highly linked to inflammation. 145 00:14:17,288.54288368 --> 00:14:23,648.54288368 Your inflammatory system is basically make made up of immune cells and other factors as well, but immune suppression. 146 00:14:24,23.54288368 --> 00:14:30,713.54288368 Because basically at any given moment, anyone can have pre-cancer or, or even like a few cancer cells hanging out in their body. 147 00:14:30,923.54288368 --> 00:14:52,403.54288368 But this doesn't mean that they have cancer because before these pre-cancer or cancer cells, before they take off and develop into full cancer, the immune system, when it's strong enough, when it's kind of primed and activated, it can find these pre-cancer and cancer cells before they get an opportunity to grow and thrive and change into full-blown cancer. 148 00:14:53,273.54288368 --> 00:15:08,633.54288368 But if the immune system is dampened by things like viruses, I kind of alluded to E-B-V-C-M-V-H-P-V, these kind of viruses have some links to certain types of cancer, especially HPV and cervical cancer, for example, or EBV and certain types of blood cancers. 149 00:15:09,123.54288368 --> 00:15:14,973.54288368 That's going to kind of suppress your immune system and not making it make it as strong to go and find and fight cancer cells. 150 00:15:15,423.54288368 --> 00:15:17,313.54288368 Also mold mycotoxins. 151 00:15:17,523.54288368 --> 00:15:19,803.54288368 These can also dampen your immune response. 152 00:15:20,113.54288368 --> 00:15:22,3.54288368 Stress dampens your immune response. 153 00:15:22,3.54288368 --> 00:15:24,463.54288368 Certain medications can dampen your immune response. 154 00:15:24,743.54288368 --> 00:15:26,783.54288368 Of course I love talking about sugar and blood. 155 00:15:26,783.54288368 --> 00:15:28,193.54288368 Sugar and blood sugar. 156 00:15:28,193.54288368 --> 00:15:43,353.54288368 Excessive sugar intake can dampen your immune response too and have certain impacts on inflammatory markers and whether certain cells are activated to go and find a high cancer cells or if they're just like overburdened or not activated, they're not really doing their job to go and find a fight. 157 00:15:43,353.54288368 --> 00:15:44,43.54288368 Cancer cells. 158 00:15:44,768.54288368 --> 00:15:55,628.54288368 So if we can look a little bit more into maybe some chronic infections look into mold mycotoxins if necessary, reduce stress and then basically just help people with their nutrition. 159 00:15:55,838.54288368 --> 00:15:58,688.54288368 These things can all help your immune system to function optimally. 160 00:15:58,928.54288368 --> 00:16:02,498.54288368 And if we wanna throw in additional things like we love missile toe injection therapy for. 161 00:16:03,543.54288368 --> 00:16:05,703.54288368 Helping to boost the immune response. 162 00:16:06,13.54288368 --> 00:16:16,573.54288368 We love certain types of mushroom supplements and astragalus and herbs and things like that for helping to boost the immune response, but it's not like everyone should go out and take, uh, astragalus. 163 00:16:16,873.54288368 --> 00:16:27,483.54288368 Uh, we really wanna see is there an underlying cause that we can identify first, are you even immune suppressed just looking at your blood work again? And just basically kind of dig a little bit further as opposed to a surface level. 164 00:16:27,483.54288368 --> 00:16:28,113.54288368 Everyone should have. 165 00:16:28,443.54288368 --> 00:16:31,233.54288368 Heightened immune responses to keep cancer from coming back. 166 00:16:31,293.54288368 --> 00:16:42,313.5428837 Let's actually see, see, do you need it? And is there something specific that we can apply in order to support your immune response? Because strong immune response goes and fines and fight cancer cells before they actually become an issue down the road. 167 00:16:42,883.5428837 --> 00:16:43,813.5428837 Very, very important. 168 00:16:44,833.5428837 --> 00:16:51,853.5428837 The third thing I wanna talk about are environmental contaminants and how a lot of us have overburdened detox pathways. 169 00:16:52,303.5428837 --> 00:16:55,963.5428837 There's this, it's really hard to determine if we're living in a more. 170 00:16:56,703.5428837 --> 00:17:08,303.5428837 Overexposed dirtier environment these days because in a lot of ways we have ways to reduce it and where you have bigger health regulation rules and things like that, work regulation rules, but at the same time. 171 00:17:08,753.5428837 --> 00:17:14,603.5428837 It can sometimes feel like we're constantly exposed to like a chemical soup at risk of sounding dramatic. 172 00:17:14,983.5428837 --> 00:17:24,893.5428837 But whenever we're in this, and I'm just gonna keep going with the dramatic effect here, the chemical soup things that we're gonna be exposed to in our day to day, what's gonna happen is it's gonna build up in our body. 173 00:17:25,208.5428837 --> 00:17:28,208.5428837 It's gonna dampen our detoxification pathways. 174 00:17:28,238.5428837 --> 00:17:43,628.5428837 They're gonna become overburdened, overwhelmed, and then these things kinda just hang out in the body, and that gives us more opportunity to be exposed to cells that can encourage cancer mutations or just be DNA damage d like disrepair, things like that. 175 00:17:43,688.5428837 --> 00:17:44,768.5428837 Those hallmarks of cancer. 176 00:17:45,8.5428837 --> 00:17:48,968.5428837 Those things can happen when we have higher exposure to a lot of these environmental contaminants. 177 00:17:49,683.5428837 --> 00:18:00,663.5428837 So we're looking at things like pesticides and microplastics, heavy metals, xenoestrogens, which are like the fake estrogens that our body can become exposed to. 178 00:18:01,83.5428837 --> 00:18:08,863.5428837 And these can be from exposures in things like our water, our air that we breathing are the food that we eat. 179 00:18:09,133.5428837 --> 00:18:14,743.5428837 But what we can control is just looking at like, can we do proper water filtrations? Can we consider. 180 00:18:15,308.5428837 --> 00:18:17,918.5428837 Organic food in certain times as opposed to not. 181 00:18:17,918.5428837 --> 00:18:25,658.5428837 And I would encourage you to go listen to, I think I did an episode already on the best nutrition and I talked a little bit about organic versus non-organic. 182 00:18:25,658.5428837 --> 00:18:27,728.5428837 I'll, I'll put that link into the show notes there too. 183 00:18:28,128.5428837 --> 00:18:29,958.5428837 So organic versus non-organic food. 184 00:18:29,958.5428837 --> 00:18:31,98.5428837 So cleaner food choices. 185 00:18:31,763.5428837 --> 00:18:41,3.5428837 Mostly we focus in here with our, our people, with our women, our clients, our flourishers on the makeup that they're wearing, or the lotions. 186 00:18:41,3.5428837 --> 00:18:46,733.5428837 The shampoo, things like that, that are on, are exposed to our skin and making sure that they're cleaner products. 187 00:18:46,973.5428837 --> 00:18:50,3.5428837 We also want to look at even like kitchen utensils sometimes. 188 00:18:50,3.5428837 --> 00:18:50,928.5428837 This is something I looked into. 189 00:18:51,453.5428837 --> 00:18:58,563.5428837 My, for myself and started working on more recently is I did get rid of like my, my plastic spoons and spatulas and things like that. 190 00:18:58,563.5428837 --> 00:19:00,783.5428837 Now we're using more wooden spoons in our kitchen. 191 00:19:01,423.5428837 --> 00:19:03,673.5428837 Our measuring cups are now all stainless steel. 192 00:19:03,773.5428837 --> 00:19:08,273.5428837 Our, like, whenever I boil water, I usually like, like for tea or something like that. 193 00:19:08,423.5428837 --> 00:19:14,503.5428837 I usually just use like, my stainless steel pot, or we would probably get a glass kettle if we could. 194 00:19:14,753.5428837 --> 00:19:17,483.5428837 But I just use my stainless steel pot to, to make tea. 195 00:19:17,953.5428837 --> 00:19:26,203.5428837 And you don't need to go do all this overnight and be completely afraid of this because honestly, we're not gonna a hundred percent be able to avoid a lot of this stuff. 196 00:19:26,673.5428837 --> 00:19:30,213.5428837 We really wanna work on strengthening our detoxification pathway. 197 00:19:30,213.5428837 --> 00:19:31,533.5428837 So going back to. 198 00:19:31,908.5428837 --> 00:19:38,338.5428837 Good gut health liver function, lymphatic flow, blood vessels move-in pumping. 199 00:19:38,338.5428837 --> 00:19:40,888.5428837 That comes through exercise a lot of the times as well. 200 00:19:41,68.5428837 --> 00:19:43,948.5428837 We wanna work on our detoxification processes for sure. 201 00:19:44,38.5428837 --> 00:19:47,998.5428837 We also wanna limit our exposure, but we wanna live in the real world too. 202 00:19:48,178.5428837 --> 00:19:50,53.5428837 Like, I still wanna go camping and have. 203 00:19:50,718.5428837 --> 00:19:52,233.5428837 A a s'more. 204 00:19:53,8.5428837 --> 00:19:57,958.5428837 Sometimes I'm gonna go to a hotel and I'm gonna forget my shampoo and I'm just gonna use their shampoo. 205 00:19:58,238.5428837 --> 00:20:00,368.5428837 I truly believe that if we focus more on. 206 00:20:01,403.5428837 --> 00:20:07,343.5428837 Like an 80 20 rule where we're doing 80% of the time, we're controlling what we can control. 207 00:20:07,343.5428837 --> 00:20:10,703.5428837 We're making a big difference, especially in our homes or where we spend the most time. 208 00:20:11,3.5428837 --> 00:20:14,183.5428837 Then our body is, is so cool. 209 00:20:14,363.5428837 --> 00:20:15,893.5428837 It can handle so much. 210 00:20:15,923.5428837 --> 00:20:19,883.5428837 It is so smart and it can take care of a. 211 00:20:20,518.5428837 --> 00:20:28,768.5428837 Tune a sandwich that you're having at your, your, your friend's house or the shampoo from the hotel that maybe isn't as clean as you want it to be. 212 00:20:29,188.5428837 --> 00:20:43,678.5428837 So I truly believe we don't need to be overwhelmed and overburdened with constantly being afraid of everything because we also need to trust and rely on our body, know that we're doing what we can to support it and its functions, but also enjoy life. 213 00:20:44,213.5428837 --> 00:20:50,633.5428837 I think the stress that people get from worrying about using the hotel shampoo is often worse than the actual hotel shampoo. 214 00:20:50,723.5428837 --> 00:20:57,83.5428837 And there's always that fine balance of where do, where do you find the, where do you find what works for you basically in real life. 215 00:20:57,773.5428837 --> 00:21:01,43.5428837 So basically, no, we don't a hundred percent avoid a lot of these things. 216 00:21:01,263.5428837 --> 00:21:04,413.5428837 If we can work on strengthening our body is also as well as limiting. 217 00:21:04,703.5428837 --> 00:21:16,193.5428837 A lot of exposures and that's where the sweet spot is, and we can make a big difference when it comes to improving the health of ourselves so that they're not gonna be turned into cancerous cells and, and fed into cancerous processes. 218 00:21:16,933.5428837 --> 00:21:21,283.5428837 So we wanna limit that chemical soup exposure and we wanna work on building up the body. 219 00:21:22,343.5428837 --> 00:21:28,613.5428837 My last one here is about methylation issues, which is one of the my favorite things to talk about. 220 00:21:28,613.5428837 --> 00:21:33,923.5428837 It's really hard to understand sometimes, and it comes down to the epigenetic testing that we often do with our clients. 221 00:21:34,193.5428837 --> 00:21:40,373.5428837 And methylation is it has to do with activating and inactivating pathways in the body. 222 00:21:40,633.5428837 --> 00:21:52,793.5428837 So it's kind of like talking about methylation can turn on cancer promoting pathways or messengers, or it can turn off cancer protective pathways and processes so it can do things that are good or bad. 223 00:21:52,973.5428837 --> 00:22:09,163.5428837 And most of the time we can test what we want to improve in someone's body doing this epigenetic testing so that we can encourage the processes to be less pro less pro cancer by giving them certain foods and supplements to ideally support the pathways in healthy methylation processes. 224 00:22:09,938.5428837 --> 00:22:13,718.5428837 So methylation can influence the making of less harmful and more protective estrogens. 225 00:22:13,718.5428837 --> 00:22:16,368.5428837 For example estrogen is not just estrogen. 226 00:22:16,368.5428837 --> 00:22:19,758.5428837 It's a bunch of different forms and metabolites of estrogen and things like that. 227 00:22:19,998.5428837 --> 00:22:39,18.5428837 So we can test someone on epigenetics and see, do you have a predisposition? Like basically, does your body have a blueprint to want to create more harmful types of estrogens? And if so, if that's the case, we can identify that and then apply certain things to kind of bypass those pathways in order to encourage more healthy types of estrogens being made. 228 00:22:39,408.5428837 --> 00:22:42,168.5428837 Same thing when it comes to repairing cells that are damaged. 229 00:22:42,348.5428837 --> 00:22:46,98.5428837 Methylation can have to do with whether the cells are more easily repaired or not. 230 00:22:46,458.5428837 --> 00:22:58,528.5428837 So, if we have repair processes that are damaged and methyl leaf processes that are not working optimally, then that's gonna increase someone's risk of cancer cells being formed and hanging out and then developing more into more cancer. 231 00:22:59,158.5428837 --> 00:23:07,408.5428837 And then in, in that case, then we apply again certain foods and supplements potentially in order to encourage more helpful processes to happen. 232 00:23:07,528.5428837 --> 00:23:14,848.5428837 And not only that, it can just kind of give us a better, a better, uh, idea of how to cancer start in the first place. 233 00:23:14,848.5428837 --> 00:23:20,38.5428837 So was methylation a big issue? And that was potentially contributing to cancer starting? So one, we can tackle it too. 234 00:23:20,38.5428837 --> 00:23:27,593.5428837 It kind of gives you that little bit of information that you're seeking when it comes to like, how the heck did this happen? How did cancer start? So it's nice for our clients to see that sometimes where they're like. 235 00:23:28,288.5428837 --> 00:23:28,558.5428837 Alright. 236 00:23:28,558.5428837 --> 00:23:35,848.5428837 I know this isn't just the one thing that caused the cancer, but in the big scheme of things, this was probably a big contributing cause I can see it now. 237 00:23:35,848.5428837 --> 00:23:40,168.5428837 I can make a difference and I can make some changes in order to encourage healthier processes to happen. 238 00:23:41,398.5428837 --> 00:23:45,658.5428837 So overall, all of this isn't about fear, it's about awareness. 239 00:23:45,868.5428837 --> 00:23:49,408.5428837 You can reduce all of the exposures to cancer promoting substances. 240 00:23:49,408.5428837 --> 00:23:54,328.5428837 If we can kind of put our finger on what might've been some of the contributors, you honestly, you can't control everything. 241 00:23:54,328.5428837 --> 00:23:57,88.5428837 But there's a lot that we can do above and beyond the standard. 242 00:23:57,523.5428837 --> 00:24:14,773.5428837 Care, the conventional protocols when it comes to identifying how did cancer start, how was it encouraged to grow? And then what are the actionable changes that I can take in order to push things in the right direction so that we're not having to go through treatment again? And some of the things that it often comes down to when we're tackling. 243 00:24:15,48.5428837 --> 00:24:26,738.5428837 The inflammatory processes, immune regulation, when we're looking at methylation, whenever we're looking at di di detoxification processes is we change a lot of this with things we can control, like nutrition. 244 00:24:26,738.5428837 --> 00:24:28,388.5428837 So we're focus focusing on. 245 00:24:28,493.5428837 --> 00:24:30,713.5428837 Anti-inflammatory, antioxidant rich foods. 246 00:24:30,713.5428837 --> 00:24:33,983.5428837 Fiber rich foods, diversity for microbiome health. 247 00:24:34,213.5428837 --> 00:24:42,163.5428837 Increasing your folate rich foods for methylation processes, decreasing your, your fortified folic acid foods for methylation processes that can actually make it worse. 248 00:24:42,223.5428837 --> 00:24:44,443.5428837 So folate versus folic acid could be different. 249 00:24:44,713.5428837 --> 00:24:47,563.5428837 So we can choose certain foods based on these things. 250 00:24:47,993.5428837 --> 00:24:56,303.5428837 We can also do more movement and you can see like, okay, I can see that my immune count counts on blood work are actually quite low and I know that movement's gonna help me. 251 00:24:56,463.5428837 --> 00:25:05,513.5428837 It can be motivational to see your numbers sometimes and have have a focus and start exercising because you can see that it will make an impact on your white blood cells over time. 252 00:25:06,373.5428837 --> 00:25:19,493.5428837 Even just like we can swap slowly, we don't need to completely go and throw out all of your plastic spoons overnight, as well as your shampoos and soaps and laundry detergents and things like that, and cleaners swap slowly over time. 253 00:25:19,493.5428837 --> 00:25:21,173.5428837 Start with what you use the most often. 254 00:25:21,643.5428837 --> 00:25:25,783.5428837 Those tend to po potentially have the greatest impact on you if you're using it more regularly. 255 00:25:26,383.5428837 --> 00:25:31,963.5428837 And then, like restorative practices like sleep, joy, nervous system regulation, all help to reduce inflammation. 256 00:25:32,393.5428837 --> 00:25:34,763.5428837 All that chronic stress can lead to inflammation. 257 00:25:35,33.5428837 --> 00:25:49,243.5428837 And then again, if we have more data points, if we're looking at your epigenetics, we can see what is your estrogen detox pathways, what are your cell repair pathways? And then we can apply like glutathione or melatonin or dim or. 258 00:25:49,938.5428837 --> 00:25:58,878.5428837 Omegas or whatever it might be based on some of this epigenetic information in order to encourage more anti-cancer processes to happen in the body, and then blood work. 259 00:25:59,673.5428837 --> 00:26:06,43.5428837 We can measure everything from like inflammatory levels to vitamin deficiencies, to improve inflammation to improve cell healing. 260 00:26:06,43.5428837 --> 00:26:13,693.5428837 We can look at something like your neutrophil de lymphocyte ratio on your white blood cell count to tell us a little bit more about what is the strength of your immune system right now. 261 00:26:13,813.5428837 --> 00:26:21,193.5428837 And we can use it to monitor over time whenever we start initiating some changes in order to see are we making a difference when we're, are we applying the right things? Basically. 262 00:26:22,93.5428837 --> 00:26:24,343.5428837 Speaking of blood work, I will put a quick. 263 00:26:24,708.5428837 --> 00:26:27,528.5428837 Uh, pin in here that I do have a bootcamp coming up. 264 00:26:27,528.5428837 --> 00:26:29,748.5428837 I'll put the link in the show notes to join. 265 00:26:30,18.5428837 --> 00:26:31,608.5428837 I am so excited about this. 266 00:26:31,608.5428837 --> 00:26:43,968.5428837 I'm actually filming this episode pretty early, so I haven't even narrowed down the actual name of the bootcamp yet, but I know that this episode will be coming out, out around the time that we will be holding the bootcamp and holding the registration for it. 267 00:26:44,178.5428837 --> 00:26:48,558.5428837 So keep an eye, whether it's joining our emails or on my social media, uh, at Megan Bernard. 268 00:26:49,38.5428837 --> 00:26:50,838.5428837 And d on Instagram. 269 00:26:51,218.5428837 --> 00:26:56,288.5428837 I have a bootcamp coming up where I'm gonna explain everything I can about blood work for cancer survivors. 270 00:26:56,288.5428837 --> 00:27:00,38.5428837 So going a little bit above and beyond, like your white blood cell count looks good. 271 00:27:00,38.5428837 --> 00:27:03,98.5428837 And your liver and kidney function tests look fine. 272 00:27:03,228.5428837 --> 00:27:06,108.5428837 I'm gonna pick it apart a little bit more and we're gonna go above fine. 273 00:27:06,288.5428837 --> 00:27:10,278.5428837 I wanna know what is more optimal as opposed to like, that's fine. 274 00:27:10,793.5428837 --> 00:27:22,103.5428837 Also, we're gonna go into other tests that could be ordered as well, whether it's coming down to how to measure inflammation and how to measure your blood sugar above and beyond just an HBA one c or fasting glucose. 275 00:27:22,413.5428837 --> 00:27:27,243.5428837 We're gonna talk about how to pick apart your white blood cell counts, your, your complete blood cell panel. 276 00:27:27,293.5428837 --> 00:27:35,3.5428837 Basically, uh, I'm gonna go through all of that in this blood work bootcamp, which I might rename or I might call it something else, but it's gonna be something like that. 277 00:27:35,43.5428837 --> 00:27:36,333.5428837 Coming up very soon. 278 00:27:36,573.5428837 --> 00:27:51,213.5428837 And if you wanna learn more about these focused areas that you can make a difference when it comes to understanding what's going on in your body, what might be contributing to cancer starting or growing, or potentially what might even look good so you can give yourself a pat in the back and not feel so bad about it. 279 00:27:51,423.5428837 --> 00:27:57,363.5428837 That'll be covered in this bootcamp that I have coming up, so I hope you take a look into the notes there and, and sign up and, and meet me over there. 280 00:27:58,648.5428837 --> 00:28:00,208.5428837 But just a quick closing here. 281 00:28:00,268.5428837 --> 00:28:02,368.5428837 A reminder that you're not broken. 282 00:28:02,648.5428837 --> 00:28:08,828.5428837 You didn't cause your cancer, but there's definitely some things we can do in order to support the body and fix it. 283 00:28:08,828.5428837 --> 00:28:11,288.5428837 Like our, our society is very hard to understand sometimes. 284 00:28:11,288.5428837 --> 00:28:13,808.5428837 It's totally not set up, especially in North America. 285 00:28:14,108.5428837 --> 00:28:18,198.5428837 For overarching optimal health we are busy. 286 00:28:18,198.5428837 --> 00:28:24,208.5428837 We have different schedules and taste buds different social norms and all these are sometimes hard to sift through. 287 00:28:24,208.5428837 --> 00:28:31,108.5428837 Sometimes in order to create a lifestyle that's really gonna be supportive, but about a supportive for anti-cancer processes. 288 00:28:31,108.5428837 --> 00:28:32,998.5428837 So I just wanna say you're not broken. 289 00:28:32,998.5428837 --> 00:28:41,218.5428837 There are some things that your body might have been struggling with, but we can definitely give it the strength that it needs in order to carry these processes out more effectively. 290 00:28:42,243.5428837 --> 00:28:44,913.5428837 You do deserve clarity and confidence. 291 00:28:44,913.5428837 --> 00:28:49,563.5428837 Like I'm not saying that we can point out exactly what caused cancer starting, but we can start to. 292 00:28:49,948.5428837 --> 00:28:55,558.5428837 Have an idea around what are the biggest risk factors for you above and beyond the conventional known norms. 293 00:28:55,558.5428837 --> 00:29:01,978.5428837 I think it's about high time that we go a little bit deeper than smoking and alcohol and things like that. 294 00:29:01,978.5428837 --> 00:29:07,288.5428837 I think we can get a little bit deeper into like the blueprints of people's bodies now looking at your medical history. 295 00:29:07,288.5428837 --> 00:29:13,49.5428837 Health history and more importantly, taking that information, applying to what can we do right now to support you. 296 00:29:14,508.5428837 --> 00:29:16,368.5428837 So that's pretty much what I have for you today. 297 00:29:16,698.5428837 --> 00:29:30,678.5428837 I want you to come at this as a last mindset thought from an area of a thought, process of curiosity and compassion and data, and not from a fa place of fear and lack. 298 00:29:30,678.5428837 --> 00:29:31,248.5428837 Basically. 299 00:29:31,248.5428837 --> 00:29:36,648.5428837 We can totally look at this as, now I've got this information, I'm gonna start working on this and it's gonna be fun. 300 00:29:36,678.5428837 --> 00:29:37,488.5428837 It's gonna be. 301 00:29:37,803.5428837 --> 00:29:44,343.5428837 Important and fun, and I'm going to be curious about it as opposed to completely afraid of everything. 302 00:29:44,343.5428837 --> 00:29:49,83.5428837 I think curiosity and fear are very, are very highly linked. 303 00:29:49,203.5428837 --> 00:29:57,573.5428837 So if we can change that fear into curiosity, I think you're gonna see a world of difference in the changes you're gonna make and how you're gonna feel, because we truly just want you to. 304 00:29:57,923.5428837 --> 00:29:59,513.5428837 Thrive after cancer. 305 00:29:59,513.5428837 --> 00:30:04,133.5428837 We don't want you to just go through cancer treatment and then be always afraid of cancer coming back. 306 00:30:04,343.5428837 --> 00:30:08,453.5428837 We wanna start putting cancer in the past, and I think one of the greatest ways to do that is our mindset shifts. 307 00:30:08,453.5428837 --> 00:30:15,383.5428837 One of them being to think about curiosity as opposed to fear, and to focus on being healthy as opposed to not having cancer. 308 00:30:15,593.5428837 --> 00:30:18,803.5428837 I wanna let that simmer in your brain for a little bit and. 309 00:30:19,398.5428837 --> 00:30:20,898.5428837 That is all I have for you today. 310 00:30:21,198.5428837 --> 00:30:29,148.5428837 I hope that you are enjoying the information so far, and I hope that you're not just surviving now that you're beginning to flourish after cancer. 311 00:30:41,118.9255042 --> 00:30:41,148.9255042 I.
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