S01 | E08 Is Your IGF-1 Fueling or Fighting Cancer? - The Flourish After Cancer Podcast

Episode Transcript
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So in this respect, IGF one is actually pretty essential for healing.
.6666666667So just day-to-day healing. 3 00:00:05,911.6666666667 --> 00:00:09,887.8847958486 It's important for also building your muscle, especially if you're doing a lot of strength training and things like that. 4 00:00:09,907.8847958486 --> 00:00:15,487.884795849 We want more IGF one or we want an adequate amount of IGF one in order to encourage more muscles to be built. 5 00:00:15,707.884795849 --> 00:00:30,927.884795849 But IGF one can also stimulate the growth of unwanted cells or damaged cells or pre-cancer or cancerous cells, and we want to make sure that we're not having too high of an IGF one level in the blood to encourage excessive growth of a lot of these precancer cancerous cells. 6 00:00:31,926.218129182 --> 00:00:38,132.884795849 basically IGF one can act like a fuel source where more IGF one can mean more growth signals for these cancer cells. 7 00:00:38,392.884795849 --> 00:00:40,452.884795849 So there's a bit of like a Goldilocks effect here. 8 00:00:40,472.884795849 --> 00:00:45,92.884795849 We want just enough to encourage some healthy processes to go on the body, but we don't want too much. 9 00:00:45,92.884795849 --> 00:00:48,238.401032813 That's going to encourage a lot of pro cancer growth going on in the body. 10 00:01:16,589.496373745 --> 00:01:22,914.496373745 Alright, so today we are going to be diving into a lab marker that I find often flies under the radar. 11 00:01:23,134.496373745 --> 00:01:31,314.496373745 We are specifically gonna be talking about IGF one insulin like growth factor one, which has a role to play in cancer growth and recurrence prevention. 12 00:01:31,774.496373745 --> 00:01:42,274.49637374 And you might already have gathered this by now, but I am a huge nerd when it comes to numbers and data points and understanding more about what is going on for the person in front of me. 13 00:01:43,239.49637374 --> 00:01:51,809.49637374 Alongside the general population evidence, but I really wanna get into the nitty gritty of people in front of us and what is, what is going on within their body. 14 00:01:52,509.49637374 --> 00:02:09,169.49637374 And I find that blood work is one of these things, uh, that we really overlook in terms of health and as well as cancer prevention because we can't just, we can't just ignore all the different factors on A CBC, for example, when we can look at all the different types of white blood cells and look at the ratios. 15 00:02:09,169.49637374 --> 00:02:11,129.49637374 And that gives us more information as a, as to the strength. 16 00:02:11,759.49637374 --> 00:02:29,429.49637374 Often whenever we, someone looks at a CBC panel, like a white blood cell count, they're just looking at the total white blood cell counts and they're saying, is that high? Is it low? But we can also look a little bit further and it's pretty much always included when we see at the, we see the level of all the different types of white blood cells that are there and just looking at those can give us even more information. 17 00:02:30,379.49637374 --> 00:02:40,329.49637374 Also, blood workers helps us to get a little bit more I dunno gets, it allows us to get at things faster so we can either rule things in or rule things out if we do a more full panel. 18 00:02:41,424.49637374 --> 00:02:52,244.49637374 We can look at everything from your vitamins, minerals, things like that, and quickly see are you tired because your iron's low? Is it B12 or is there something else that might be a little bit harder to identify going on? So it's just a quick rule in rule out. 19 00:02:52,244.49637374 --> 00:02:54,444.49637374 Our numbers can tell us that very easily on blood work. 20 00:02:54,904.49637374 --> 00:02:57,404.49637374 It gives us a little bit more information on like what's going on internally. 21 00:02:58,494.49637374 --> 00:02:59,834.49637374 Anyway, I won't go too much into that. 22 00:02:59,834.49637374 --> 00:03:01,659.49637374 Like I'm a huge nerd when it comes to blood work. 23 00:03:01,799.49637374 --> 00:03:08,99.49637374 All of our coaches are huge nerds now that we've, we've taught them in all of our processes and how to interpret and analyze blood work. 24 00:03:08,319.49637374 --> 00:03:12,59.49637374 We all love numbers and data points, and we can't get enough of it. 25 00:03:12,59.49637374 --> 00:03:14,339.49637374 And the other part of it is that it's often kind of cheap to get these done. 26 00:03:15,274.49637374 --> 00:03:21,314.49637374 I know in the big schema things these are in these costs can add up in terms of the total healthcare burden. 27 00:03:21,494.49637374 --> 00:03:26,794.49637374 But from an individualized level, like to get a vitamin D done is like 20, 25 bucks sometimes to kinda get that done. 28 00:03:26,794.49637374 --> 00:03:29,234.49637374 Whereas we know some other functional tests can be in the hundreds of dollars. 29 00:03:29,574.49637374 --> 00:03:32,554.49637374 So just getting some good comprehensive blood work can be very helpful. 30 00:03:33,54.49637374 --> 00:03:44,354.49637374 And in particular, looking at insulin growth factor one, which again is often overlooked even in functional medicine, gave us a little bit in of insight into maybe some potential growth factors when it comes to encouraging cancer to grow. 31 00:03:45,654.49637374 --> 00:03:50,914.49637374 So basically what is insulin growth factor one? It is kind of exactly what it sounds like. 32 00:03:51,14.49637374 --> 00:03:59,154.49637374 It is a growth promoting hormone that acts a lot like insulin and it's growth promoting in the way that it can be both good and bad. 33 00:03:59,891.16304041 --> 00:04:01,951.16304041 bad if it comes to cancer, but good in other ways. 34 00:04:02,651.16304041 --> 00:04:13,591.16304041 And I'll go into that in just a minute, but I just wanna let you know that this episode is gonna be helpful for you if you're wondering what or why blood sugar balance is important when it comes to cancer prevention, re recurrence prevention. 35 00:04:14,506.16304041 --> 00:04:32,956.16304041 If you've never had your IGF one, or maybe you've never even heard of it done, you've never had it tested before, and you're wondering like, is this something that you should really look into for yourself? And you wanna know kind of what is it? How does it pertain to you? And if you want to look at coming at a cancer recurrence prevention plan from a place of evidence and. 36 00:04:33,901.16304041 --> 00:04:37,351.16304041 Numbers as opposed to just kind of guesswork and throwing spaghetti at the wall. 37 00:04:37,501.16304041 --> 00:04:42,911.16304041 This is one part that you can add to your plan in order to give you that data point to say like, yes, I need to focus here. 38 00:04:43,101.16304041 --> 00:04:48,791.16304041 Well, I can definitely see this is a problem or not a problem in my body, and let's go at this and see what we can do to fix it. 39 00:04:49,331.16304041 --> 00:04:50,891.16304041 So let's go into this even more. 40 00:04:51,61.16304041 --> 00:04:55,971.16304041 Let's start with what is IGF one in a little bit more comprehensive, uh, points here. 41 00:04:56,191.16304041 --> 00:04:59,291.16304041 So, IGF one, it is a hormone produced by the liver. 42 00:05:00,476.16304041 --> 00:05:13,456.16304041 It is stimulated by another type of growth hormone, hormone, just kind of just called growth hormone, and basically IGF one, it helps cells to grow, to divide and make new healthy cells sometimes, and also to repair. 43 00:05:13,516.16304041 --> 00:05:23,496.16304041 So if there's any just low level damage that are going on with in cells, which happens to us every day, the the IGF one will go and help to repair those cells so that they become nice and healthy and full functioning again. 44 00:05:24,366.16304041 --> 00:05:28,706.16304041 So in this respect, IGF one is actually pretty essential for healing. 45 00:05:28,886.16304041 --> 00:05:30,306.16304041 So just day, day-to-day healing. 46 00:05:30,759.49637374 --> 00:05:34,792.82970708 it's important for also building your muscle, especially if you're doing a lot of strength training and things like that. 47 00:05:34,812.82970708 --> 00:05:40,832.82970708 We want more IGF one, or we want an adequate amount of IGF one in order to encourage more muscles to be built, built. 48 00:05:41,857.82970708 --> 00:05:44,187.82970708 Also it's, uh, good in terms of development. 49 00:05:44,247.82970708 --> 00:05:52,867.82970708 So everything from whenever you're just first being developed in the womb to potentially less encouraging your liver cells and is a part of brain function and things like that. 50 00:05:52,927.82970708 --> 00:05:57,27.82970708 So, IGF one has a lot of positive roles to play in the overall health of your body. 51 00:05:59,117.82970708 --> 00:06:04,817.82970708 IGF one can also stimulate the growth of on what cells or damaged cells or precancer or cancerous cells. 52 00:06:05,237.82970708 --> 00:06:13,697.82970708 And we want to make sure that we're not having too high of an IGF one level in the blood to encourage excessive growth of a lot of these precancer cancerous cells. 53 00:06:14,961.16304041 --> 00:06:20,501.16304041 IGF one can act like a fuel source where more IGF one can mean more growth signals for these cancer cells. 54 00:06:21,61.16304041 --> 00:06:23,81.16304041 So there's a bit of like a Goldilocks effect here. 55 00:06:23,81.16304041 --> 00:06:27,666.16304041 We want just enough to encourage some healthy processes to go on the body, but we don't want too much. 56 00:06:27,666.16304041 --> 00:06:31,546.16304041 That's going to encourage a lot of pro cancer cancer growth going on in the body. 57 00:06:31,816.16304041 --> 00:06:32,986.16304041 It's, it's complicated. 58 00:06:33,606.16304041 --> 00:06:34,26.16304041 IGF one. 59 00:06:34,26.16304041 --> 00:06:35,786.16304041 This relationship with the body is complicated. 60 00:06:37,66.16304041 --> 00:06:45,46.16304041 So why does it matter for cancer? You might have already put that together a little bit, but cancer is at its core, uncontrolled cell growth. 61 00:06:45,841.16304041 --> 00:06:51,781.16304041 It is when our normal cells have gotten multiple hits to them, which have turned them kind of muteness. 62 00:06:52,162.82970708 --> 00:06:58,157.82970708 there's a lot of mutations in there, and they have gone rogue and then the cells are unable to be repaired. 63 00:06:58,157.82970708 --> 00:06:59,917.82970708 There's, they're evading the immune system. 64 00:07:00,57.82970708 --> 00:07:06,557.82970708 And then if we're gonna throw IGF one into it, it's like gasoline on the fire where it's gonna encourage these cells to grow and grow and grow. 65 00:07:07,217.82970708 --> 00:07:08,877.82970708 So, high levels of IGF one. 66 00:07:09,607.82970708 --> 00:07:14,557.82970708 Human research have been shown to be associated with increased risks for several types of cancer. 67 00:07:15,17.82970708 --> 00:07:19,917.82970708 In particular, um, breast, prostate, colorectal cancers, as well as a couple others as well. 68 00:07:19,917.82970708 --> 00:07:23,377.82970708 But these are like the main ones that have been researched the other side. 69 00:07:23,377.82970708 --> 00:07:34,697.82970708 So not only can IGF one encourage the uncontrolled cell growth of these cancer cells, it can also prevent apoptosis, which is the definition, like the definition of it, is programmed cell death. 70 00:07:35,337.82970708 --> 00:07:50,207.82970708 Which means that it's gonna allow some damaged or abnormal cells to survive and multiply when our natural body's mechanisms, our protective mechanism should have been that that cell should have died off and been removed from the body and then replaced with another healthy cell. 71 00:07:50,707.82970708 --> 00:07:53,758.05179662 So instead of this damaged, like to call them mutinous. 72 00:07:53,988.05179662 --> 00:07:56,998.05179662 They have mutations, but they're also like, they're going against the grain. 73 00:07:56,998.05179662 --> 00:07:57,798.05179662 They're, they're being bad. 74 00:07:58,383.05179662 --> 00:08:06,453.05179662 These cells that are abnormal, they are being prevented from dying, and a lot of that can be due to high IGF one levels, like it's only one factor. 75 00:08:06,453.05179662 --> 00:08:21,823.05179662 There's a lot of different factors going on, but it is an important factor that potentially we can even make a difference with when it comes to nutrition lifestyle choices, which we'll get into in just a few minutes here before we get into like how do we manage IGF one? Let's figure out first if it is even something that you need to manage. 76 00:08:23,83.05179662 --> 00:08:28,303.05179662 And it's so simple just to do a blood test that you can literally measure your IGF one levels. 77 00:08:29,43.05179662 --> 00:08:33,303.05179662 And, uh, we don't really wanna look at IGF one necessarily in I Isolation. 78 00:08:33,603.05179662 --> 00:08:44,273.05179662 We do wanna consider a bunch of other markers alongside it, but if we could only ever get an IGF one and we couldn't get the other markers that'll mention in a sec here, it would still be a helpful number to have. 79 00:08:44,743.05179662 --> 00:08:48,136.38512995 but we, I don't like looking at things in isolation. 80 00:08:48,136.38512995 --> 00:08:48,696.38512995 We have to look at. 81 00:08:49,306.38512995 --> 00:08:56,511.38512995 Each of these data points and what they mean to one another and what they mean to your big picture and what do they mean to even a bigger picture outside of you. 82 00:08:56,511.38512995 --> 00:08:58,751.38512995 With regards to the general population research. 83 00:08:59,11.38512995 --> 00:09:00,631.38512995 So there's a lot of factors in place here. 84 00:09:00,871.38512995 --> 00:09:07,231.38512995 Whenever we determine is something truly important or is it less important, but from a base level, we first look at your IGF one. 85 00:09:08,91.38512995 --> 00:09:16,531.38512995 Then we're gonna look at other MA markers that are on the blood work that are gonna kind of feed into IGF one two, which would be something like your fasting insulin, your fasting glucose. 86 00:09:16,871.38512995 --> 00:09:20,451.38512995 We can also use your fasting insulin, fasting glucose to co to calculate a. 87 00:09:21,299.71846328 --> 00:09:40,659.71846328 a, I dunno, a calculation called Homa ir, which tests for insulin resistance and can kind kind of give you an idea of are you completely not insulin resistance? Are you kind of like pre-insulin resistant or are you flat out in insulin resistance? So that gives us even more information than just looking at your insulin or glucose in isolation. 88 00:09:41,289.71846328 --> 00:09:43,606.38512995 even more than looking at just your hba one c. 89 00:09:44,316.38512995 --> 00:09:54,496.38512995 Hba one C being a reflection of your blood sugar regulation over the past like three months, where fasting glucose is more like what's going on within the last 12 to potentially 48 hours with your blood sugar regulation. 90 00:09:55,76.38512995 --> 00:10:00,736.38512995 So if we look at your IGF one, we also wanna get your fasting insulin, your fasting glucose. 91 00:10:00,756.38512995 --> 00:10:06,176.38512995 We can calculate your Homa IR from the fasting insulin, fasting glucose, and also look at your hba one C. 92 00:10:06,306.38512995 --> 00:10:10,616.38512995 These are kind of like your personal markers here that give us an idea of what's going on in your body currently. 93 00:10:13,227.92760898 --> 00:10:22,527.92760898 If you are a cancer survivor and you've ever looked at your blood work and thought, okay, but what does this actually mean for me? You're not alone, and I've created something just for you. 94 00:10:23,37.92760898 --> 00:10:26,247.92760898 It's called The Blood Work Clarity Live Bootcamp for Cancer survivors. 95 00:10:26,427.92760898 --> 00:10:39,847.92760898 And in this virtual four part training, I'll walk you through how to actually use your labs, not just understand the numbers, but translate them into clear decisions about the best foods, supplements, and next steps to help reduce your risk of cancer coming back. 96 00:10:40,707.92760898 --> 00:10:48,77.92760898 This isn't about what's within range, it's about what's optimal because for survivors, fine is just not good enough. 97 00:10:48,617.92760898 --> 00:11:09,557.92760898 In this bootcamp, I'll walk you through which blood markers actually matter, how to order the right blood work, even if you're having a little trouble with your medical team, what labs can tell you about inflammation, insulin, nutrient absorption, hormone shifts and more, and how to use those results to make clear, confident decisions about food, supplements, and your next best steps to feeling better and staying cancer free. 98 00:11:10,472.92760898 --> 00:11:11,612.92760898 No more Googling symptoms. 99 00:11:12,192.92760898 --> 00:11:19,12.92760898 No more wondering if that new supplement is actually helping just straight answers backed by science and personalized to your body. 100 00:11:19,552.92760898 --> 00:11:25,452.92760898 If you're ready to feel more in control of your health and to stop guessing, join me for the Blood Work Clarity Live bootcamp. 101 00:11:25,792.92760898 --> 00:11:29,292.92760898 We start soon and you can grab your spot@flourishaftercancer.com 102 00:11:29,942.92760898 --> 00:11:30,812.92760898 slash bootcamp. 103 00:11:31,302.92760898 --> 00:11:36,772.92760898 Let's get you clear and confident on your next best steps to feeling great and staying cancer free after cancer. 104 00:11:37,497.92760898 --> 00:11:40,627.92760898 Head to flourish after cancer.com/bootcamp 105 00:11:40,767.92760898 --> 00:11:42,27.92760898 to learn more and sign up. 106 00:11:42,387.92760898 --> 00:11:43,387.92760898 I can't wait to see you there. 107 00:11:45,105.17250694 --> 00:11:55,45.17250694 Then we wanna look outside of that to like, what is your typical dietary habits, your exercise, like what is your overall metabolic health? 'cause a lot of this is feeding into your metabolic health. 108 00:11:55,495.17250694 --> 00:12:10,735.17250694 And then overall we wanna look at the big general research of like, what is the role of IGF one in cancer? And then with all that information we determine like, yes, your IGF one being high even despite your insulin and glucose being normal or low, or whatever it might be is something that we wanna tackle. 109 00:12:11,925.17250694 --> 00:12:13,685.17250694 I hope that kind of gives you a little bit of an idea here. 110 00:12:13,685.17250694 --> 00:12:19,405.17250694 But basically I just wanna point out that just having a high IGF one is not cause for panic. 111 00:12:19,655.17250694 --> 00:12:27,725.17250694 There are other things that your body is really good at compensating with when it comes to other markers, other parts of your plan, other parts of research, things like that that can pertain to cancer. 112 00:12:27,745.17250694 --> 00:12:35,165.17250694 So I don't want anyone to get super overwhelmed if they were to get their IGF one done and it's high and they're like, oh my gosh, this is like, this is it. 113 00:12:35,165.17250694 --> 00:12:36,965.17250694 This is what's feeling fueling my cancer. 114 00:12:37,345.17250694 --> 00:12:39,765.17250694 The cancer, I just really gotta get on this. 115 00:12:40,695.17250694 --> 00:12:41,145.17250694 It's okay. 116 00:12:41,295.17250694 --> 00:12:42,65.17250694 Take a deep breath. 117 00:12:42,325.17250694 --> 00:12:44,465.17250694 We can move through this and check other factors as well. 118 00:12:44,465.17250694 --> 00:12:48,465.17250694 We definitely wanna work on it, but I don't want any, anyone to go into full panic mode for sure. 119 00:12:49,725.17250694 --> 00:12:51,185.17250694 So just a simple test. 120 00:12:51,185.17250694 --> 00:12:56,905.17250694 We can do IGF one, we can do those other blood work parameters too, when it comes to blood sugar regulation and some potential growth factors. 121 00:12:56,905.17250694 --> 00:13:02,905.17250694 There's a bunch more, I won't get into them too much today, but that's kinda like the core parts of the blood sugar insulin balance. 122 00:13:03,725.17250694 --> 00:13:11,340.17250694 And why are we not typically testing this from an oncologist standpoint? Honestly, it's not conventionally recommended. 123 00:13:11,530.17250694 --> 00:13:22,660.17250694 It's not really seen to test IGF one outside of growth disorders because my, my true feelings are that your medical team is so focused on making sure that you don't have a disease. 124 00:13:22,810.17250694 --> 00:13:34,500.17250694 That looking a little bit further in terms of what can we do for the environment in order to not create a recurrence or to create overall optimal health in order to not get disease again, is really like above and beyond their brain power. 125 00:13:34,700.17250694 --> 00:13:35,380.17250694 I could not imagine. 126 00:13:36,145.17250694 --> 00:13:48,805.17250694 Working as an oncologist and knowing all of those medication doses and treatment, pathways based on specifics with regards to everything from their, the person's gender to their age, to their blood work like liver functions. 127 00:13:49,855.17250694 --> 00:13:51,995.17250694 To their other medications that they might be taking. 128 00:13:52,65.17250694 --> 00:14:02,355.17250694 Like that is a lot for any human to understand and then to have to go and figure out like what can we do to change their nutrition, their stress levels, their sleep, their inflammatory levels, all of these things. 129 00:14:02,545.17250694 --> 00:14:03,475.17250694 That is a lot of work. 130 00:14:03,495.17250694 --> 00:14:06,675.17250694 So I truly don't believe that it should fall within the realm of conventional medicine. 131 00:14:06,785.17250694 --> 00:14:14,595.17250694 This is truly where functional medicine can pick up the pieces and really focus in on the next stage, which is of course, the recovery and recurrence prevention aspect. 132 00:14:15,245.17250694 --> 00:14:25,218.23229611 So we are seeing a lot of more emerging risk research in integrative oncology showing that it might be a valuable bio biomarker to assess for like someone's cancer recurrence risk. 133 00:14:25,724.89896278 --> 00:14:37,924.89896278 if we see people come in with high IGF ones, then there's a lot that we can do from a nutrition lifestyle perspective as an integrative practitioner to help to create this environment where cancer doesn't wanna come back over time. 134 00:14:38,304.89896278 --> 00:14:42,324.89896278 So, again, I truly don't feel like it, it should fall within the realm of conventional medicine. 135 00:14:43,129.89896278 --> 00:14:53,449.89896278 I do feel like it is more something that us functional doctors have more brain space to learn all of this and keep on top of the evidence and dig a little bit deeper with the person in front of us, more time, things like that. 136 00:14:54,489.89896278 --> 00:14:59,589.89896278 But not only can you test IGF one on blood work, there's also different types of IGF one. 137 00:15:00,29.89896278 --> 00:15:06,869.89896278 I have to say, it's pretty rare that we see the, what's called isoforms of IGF one get done on people's blood work. 138 00:15:07,333.15319626 --> 00:15:11,506.36990913 mostly it's used in research, but we have had a couple clients come in, maybe just a handful. 139 00:15:12,246.36990913 --> 00:15:17,596.36990913 Where they had their IGF one, but then they also have it broken down in the different isoforms, which is pretty cool. 140 00:15:18,136.36990913 --> 00:15:25,356.36990913 So I will run through them, but I don't expect, we never even recommend or ask that our clients go and get this I the isoforms done at the IGF one. 141 00:15:25,906.36990913 --> 00:15:30,356.36990913 It's mostly just that we're looking at the total IGF one, but I'm gonna go through it 'cause I think it's pretty cool. 142 00:15:31,8.26013406 --> 00:15:39,91.36835336 there's just like, there's certain parts of it, so certain forms, isoforms that can pertain to different parts of your health and your body that we'll run through right now. 143 00:15:40,616.36835336 --> 00:15:49,261.36835336 There's this thing called IGF one ea, which is the most common, the the one that's in your blood in the most amount, the highest amount. 144 00:15:49,721.36835336 --> 00:15:54,661.36835336 And IGF one EA is involved in muscle repair and general growth. 145 00:15:55,121.36835336 --> 00:16:04,661.36835336 So I'll tell you a little story of someone I knew who she was very much into CrossFit and she would exercise every day and she had gone through a cancer. 146 00:16:06,181.36835336 --> 00:16:16,274.7016867 I'm, I'm not gonna go through too many details, but we asked her to get her IGF one done and it was always high and we figured because, we'll again, we'll go through in just a minute here. 147 00:16:16,454.7016867 --> 00:16:23,484.7016867 We did know that your IGF one can be raised because of exercise in excessive muscle turnover and things like that, because. 148 00:16:24,524.7016867 --> 00:16:28,664.7016867 One, if you're going through a lot of exercise, you're damaging your muscle tissues and we gotta build that back up. 149 00:16:28,764.7016867 --> 00:16:33,784.7016867 And as I mentioned earlier, IGF one is one of those things that goes in and helps to build muscle. 150 00:16:34,364.7016867 --> 00:16:37,24.7016867 So we anticipated her IGF one actually being high. 151 00:16:37,224.7016867 --> 00:16:43,46.3683534 I actually said to the coach who was her, who, who was her coach that don't be worried about her IGF one being high. 152 00:16:43,56.3683534 --> 00:16:45,446.3683534 Let's just see where it's at and then we'll go from there. 153 00:16:45,446.3683534 --> 00:16:48,246.3683534 But it was like super high and we didn't love it. 154 00:16:48,546.3683534 --> 00:16:48,766.3683534 Um. 155 00:16:48,766.3683534 --> 00:16:52,506.3683534 We figured and we couldn't get the isoforms done for her, but we did figure it was because of the exercise. 156 00:16:52,846.3683534 --> 00:17:03,966.3683534 So if this is you, if you are someone who's a very avid exerciser and you're wondering if potentially maybe you've gotten it done already, you had your IGF one measured and you're like, perhaps it's because I've been exercising so much. 157 00:17:04,346.3683534 --> 00:17:10,726.3683534 We did have to recommend that she stopped exercise for about three days to get her IGF one redone again, and it did go down. 158 00:17:10,826.3683534 --> 00:17:12,846.3683534 It didn't go down into the normal ranges that we loved. 159 00:17:12,866.3683534 --> 00:17:13,406.3683534 It did go down. 160 00:17:14,141.3683534 --> 00:17:18,1.3683534 We just had a conversation around the balance of what you can manage outside of exercise. 161 00:17:18,161.3683534 --> 00:17:20,881.3683534 'cause she loved her exercise and we didn't necessarily wanna take it away from her. 162 00:17:21,61.3683534 --> 00:17:40,601.3683534 We did have a conversation around the roles of IGF one and the growth factor impact of it, how most likely it's high because of the exercise she was doing potentially that she might want to look at the total exercise that she is doing and what would be her thoughts around reducing that or trying different forms of exercise in order to get her IGF one down down. 163 00:17:41,231.3683534 --> 00:17:44,916.3683534 Which is super rare that we have to ask someone to kind of reduce their exercise. 164 00:17:44,916.3683534 --> 00:17:48,796.3683534 It's usually about us encouraging people to do more exercise, but everyone's very unique. 165 00:17:49,416.3683534 --> 00:17:57,576.3683534 So we had a conversation around it and I think she did decide that her exercise routine was a little bit hardcore and she was no longer doing competitions and things like that, so it was more just a habit for her. 166 00:17:58,156.3683534 --> 00:18:02,63.03502 And, so we, we looked at, we just followed up with her numbers over time. 167 00:18:02,123.03502 --> 00:18:09,63.03502 But anyway, I went a little bit off course there, but I just think it's nice to hear some stories of other people and some approaches that we can take for those situations, but. 168 00:18:09,883.03502 --> 00:18:10,888.03502 So that's IGF one. 169 00:18:11,668.03502 --> 00:18:14,88.03502 Ea, which is involved in muscle repair and general growth. 170 00:18:14,278.03502 --> 00:18:20,594.7016867 There's also IGF one, ec, it's also called MGF, or Mechano Growth Factor. 171 00:18:21,174.7016867 --> 00:18:25,114.7016867 And this one in particular is something that has been shown in research potentially. 172 00:18:25,114.7016867 --> 00:18:29,714.7016867 If, if it's higher, then it might be something that's gonna be promoting cancer cells, survival and proliferation. 173 00:18:29,714.7016867 --> 00:18:33,994.7016867 So it might be encouraging the cancer cells not to die, and it might be encouraging them to grow more. 174 00:18:34,214.7016867 --> 00:18:35,554.7016867 So that's the IGF one. 175 00:18:35,894.7016867 --> 00:18:38,514.7016867 EEC or MGF or mechanical growth factor. 176 00:18:39,644.7016867 --> 00:18:44,294.7016867 Isoform and then we've got IGF one eb, which is still being researched. 177 00:18:44,514.7016867 --> 00:18:50,184.7016867 It may influence immune signaling and regeneration, but again, it's still kind of being researched there. 178 00:18:50,184.7016867 --> 00:18:57,624.7016867 We're trying to figure out what is its role exactly, and honestly we, we, again, we've always seen the isoforms in a couple of of clients. 179 00:18:58,364.7016867 --> 00:19:00,534.7016867 Generally looking at IGF one is good. 180 00:19:00,534.7016867 --> 00:19:07,294.7016867 Potentially if I had the opportunity in that person who is exercising excessively, I would've loved to see the isoforms, but it just wasn't possible for us to get ordered. 181 00:19:08,344.7016867 --> 00:19:13,684.7016867 So her IGF one being high, we could potentially assume that it was the IGF one ea, the muscle growth one. 182 00:19:14,94.7016867 --> 00:19:23,574.7016867 Ideally we would've wanted to see was IGF one EC impacted too? And it might've been even a little bit high just because they're, they're very much related to one another and one being high might bounce off and increase another one. 183 00:19:23,874.7016867 --> 00:19:27,174.7016867 But in general, we just wanted to get her IGF one lower over time. 184 00:19:27,394.7016867 --> 00:19:34,334.7016867 And same for you guys listening to is we wanna see where are your levels at, just your IGF one level in general, and try to reduce that over time. 185 00:19:35,454.7016867 --> 00:19:39,434.7016867 So, yeah, most standard labs don't necessarily go into the isoforms of the IGF one. 186 00:19:39,734.7016867 --> 00:19:46,34.7016867 But we, we are fine with just looking at someone's IGF one in general, and it's just in the research where they're starting to break that down a little bit more. 187 00:19:46,34.7016867 --> 00:19:51,181.3683534 So you might read some papers where they're looking at the different forms, for many different reasons is why they're, they're looking at that. 188 00:19:51,961.3683534 --> 00:19:59,231.3683534 So what does high or low? 'cause we've seen some low, uh, IGF one levels as well. 189 00:19:59,291.3683534 --> 00:20:03,266.3683534 So what are the high or low levels mean? High IGF one levels. 190 00:20:03,456.3683534 --> 00:20:07,386.3683534 What it could often mean is that someone might have an increased risk of recurrence. 191 00:20:07,726.3683534 --> 00:20:13,106.3683534 So this is kind of like in our mind, this is our job, is we wanna look at what can we do to reduce someone's risk of recurrence. 192 00:20:13,106.3683534 --> 00:20:17,346.3683534 We're gonna look at their IGF one and see, let's get that lowered basically. 193 00:20:18,496.3683534 --> 00:20:25,396.3683534 But really IGF one can be linked to a couple different things and the reason it might be high, which is increasing recurrence risk, might be due to other factors. 194 00:20:25,496.3683534 --> 00:20:28,396.3683534 And we can look at those other factors and see what are the root contributors. 195 00:20:28,656.3683534 --> 00:20:31,636.3683534 And some of the root contributors might be that you might be insulin resistant. 196 00:20:31,816.3683534 --> 00:20:38,596.3683534 So we need to look at what can we do to make your, your insulin resistance go away or make your make body less resistant to insulin. 197 00:20:39,176.3683534 --> 00:20:42,596.3683534 I'm looking at your blood sugar regulation and there's a lot of different things we can do for that from. 198 00:20:43,266.3683534 --> 00:20:52,821.3683534 Blood sugar, balanced meals to better muscle building and exercise, which seems a little counterintuitive, intuitive, but trust me more exercise is gonna potentially lower your IGF one. 199 00:20:52,821.3683534 --> 00:20:57,541.3683534 In most ca cases, it's only when someone's like excessively working out that it might increase their IGF one. 200 00:20:58,341.3683534 --> 00:21:01,511.3683534 That Goldilocks effect too, right? We don't want too much or too little. 201 00:21:02,381.3683534 --> 00:21:07,18.03502 We can also see, with blood sugar regulation, like people who exercise enough blood sugar balance meals. 202 00:21:07,794.7016867 --> 00:21:26,24.7016867 just looking at their glucose, their insulin markers, hba one C, is there anything we can do to make sure that someone's body is processing carbohydrates or do we need to lower the carbohydrate levels? Certain therapeutic diets at certain points, like a, a healthy keto diet for a short term to see if that can impact their insulin as well, and, and then therefore their insulin like growth factor. 203 00:21:26,924.7016867 --> 00:21:30,384.7016867 But basically high IGF one is often linked to insulin resistance. 204 00:21:31,594.7016867 --> 00:21:38,214.7016867 We really wanna look at it because it is associated in research with faster tumor progression in some cancers. 205 00:21:38,234.7016867 --> 00:21:44,541.1681457 And I will, I will put some studies into the show notes there where they're actually looking at humans. 206 00:21:46,186.1681457 --> 00:21:57,442.8348124 And the, they're measuring their IGF one levels and seeing that people with higher IGF one compared to people with normal IGF one tend to have a higher, growth of their, their their tumor basically. 207 00:21:57,582.8348124 --> 00:22:00,2.8348124 So I'll put some links into the show notes there for you for those papers. 208 00:22:00,662.8348124 --> 00:22:02,642.8348124 But ig IGF one, we wanna tackle it. 209 00:22:02,642.8348124 --> 00:22:06,122.8348124 It might be encouraging more cancer growth and we wanna look at tackling it from. 210 00:22:06,762.8348124 --> 00:22:07,802.8348124 Different perspectives. 211 00:22:07,802.8348124 --> 00:22:10,687.8348124 One of 'em being looking at insulin resistance and your blood sugar regulation. 212 00:22:10,867.8348124 --> 00:22:15,887.8348124 And I'll give you some more specific, uh, ideas on how to bring the IGF one down in just a minute. 213 00:22:17,7.8348124 --> 00:22:19,867.8348124 So, like I said, we sometimes do get low IGF one. 214 00:22:20,892.8348124 --> 00:22:29,2.8348124 Which could indicate potentially under nutrition, like you're not eating enough foods in order to encourage cell healing and the, the release of IGF one. 215 00:22:29,222.8348124 --> 00:22:35,682.8348124 So we wanna make sure, 'cause we, we do have some clients who come to us and they're so afraid of all the foods that they're really limited in what they eat. 216 00:22:35,682.8348124 --> 00:22:44,682.8348124 They're skipping meals a lot of times 'cause it's just so frustrating and scary for them to put certain foods in their mouth that they just are deciding not to eat because that is less anxiety provoking. 217 00:22:44,742.8348124 --> 00:22:47,402.8348124 And I totally get the reasoning behind that 'cause of all the. 218 00:22:48,147.8348124 --> 00:22:54,17.8348124 Misinformation and fear-based information being thrown in your face when it comes to food and cancer specifically. 219 00:22:54,477.8348124 --> 00:23:06,47.8348124 But also we wanna make sure that you're eating enough to fuel your body because if we see low IGF one, it could be that or just undernourished, basically low IGF one can also be an indication of aging. 220 00:23:06,307.8348124 --> 00:23:11,287.8348124 It does go lower as we get older 'cause we have less repair and regeneration and things like that to do. 221 00:23:12,502.8348124 --> 00:23:18,122.8348124 And then honestly like some people are just genetically predisposed to having a little bit a lower IGF one. 222 00:23:18,122.8348124 --> 00:23:22,362.8348124 Like it's just somewhere in their genetics where it's just normal and natural for them to have low IGF one. 223 00:23:22,502.8348124 --> 00:23:35,522.8348124 And we have had clients who we just kinda had to come to the conclusion where their IGF one is most likely low because of some genetic predisposition that we don't really know about because they weren't very old and they were eating very well. 224 00:23:35,932.8348124 --> 00:23:39,732.8348124 So it was most likely just something that their body was built to have low IGF one, which. 225 00:23:40,362.8348124 --> 00:23:43,672.8348124 Maybe that's even protective for a cancer response. 226 00:23:43,992.8348124 --> 00:23:44,392.8348124 I don't know. 227 00:23:44,472.8348124 --> 00:23:51,512.8348124 I, that is more kind of my personal opinion, that if someone doesn't tend to produce a lot of IGF one, then potentially we're not fueling a lot of cancer growth. 228 00:23:51,852.8348124 --> 00:23:54,322.8348124 But who knows? just don't have that information just yet. 229 00:23:55,392.8348124 --> 00:23:57,696.1681457 But overall, we wanna look for a balance. 230 00:23:57,796.1681457 --> 00:24:01,96.1681457 So we wanna make sure that's not excessively high for sure. 231 00:24:01,556.1681457 --> 00:24:09,359.5014791 But, if we can do anything to improve it being low, if it's due to being undernourished, then that's gonna be beneficial for your overall body and healthier body as well. 232 00:24:09,359.5014791 --> 00:24:12,159.5014791 So we wanna get that IGF one into nice normal ranges. 233 00:24:13,249.5014791 --> 00:24:22,109.5014791 And what are those ranges? So your optimal ranges for IGF one, it does vary based on kind of like whatever lab you're getting your levels done by. 234 00:24:22,964.5014791 --> 00:24:24,854.5014791 Done from and also your age. 235 00:24:24,914.5014791 --> 00:24:30,534.5014791 But in general, whenever we're analyzing someone's blood work, we are looking at women who are post-treatment. 236 00:24:30,904.5014791 --> 00:24:37,254.5014791 We're aiming for like a low normal, around a hundred to 150 nanograms per mil of of their IGF one levels. 237 00:24:38,699.5014791 --> 00:24:39,119.5014791 Too low. 238 00:24:39,169.5014791 --> 00:24:40,519.5014791 We're thinking like under 80. 239 00:24:40,699.5014791 --> 00:24:50,679.5014791 We wanna see is there malnutrition, could it just be due to the age? 'cause we do work with some women who are in their seventies and eighties and maybe even a little bit all above that. 240 00:24:50,919.5014791 --> 00:24:52,919.5014791 Although most of our clients are probably 40, 50, 60. 241 00:24:53,579.5014791 --> 00:24:57,539.5014791 But if it's too high, we're looking at like 200 and above. 242 00:24:57,559.5014791 --> 00:24:57,979.5014791 Really. 243 00:24:58,766.1681457 --> 00:25:03,56.1681457 that might suggest that you might have an elevated risk factor for encouraging cancer cells to grow. 244 00:25:03,266.1681457 --> 00:25:23,856.1681457 Again, there's so many other factors in place here that we don't wanna just look at it in isolation, but we definitely wanna make sure if your IGF one is high, then we're gonna get the insulin, the glucose HVA one C, even cholesterol markers, all these kind of other markers tested when it comes and inflammatory markers, test it in order to see like, is this an actual problem for you? And of course, we're gonna tackle it even if everything else looks normal. 245 00:25:24,306.1681457 --> 00:25:28,151.1681457 We're gonna start looking at your IGF one and some things that we can do in order to bring that down. 246 00:25:29,331.1681457 --> 00:25:41,721.7997247 So speaking of what are those things that we can do to bring the IGF one levels down? We want to look at one, testing your insulin, and then if it's high, then we're gonna look at lowering the insulin, which is a big factor. 247 00:25:41,721.7997247 --> 00:25:43,121.7997247 There's many different approaches to this. 248 00:25:43,181.7997247 --> 00:25:46,841.7997247 One of them being just looking at air, blood sugar, and increasing exercise. 249 00:25:46,941.7997247 --> 00:25:51,321.7997247 And certain supplements, like berberine, for example, might help with your blood sugar at insulin levels. 250 00:25:51,921.7997247 --> 00:25:55,526.7997247 If we look at managing weight, we wanna look at the overall fiber intake. 251 00:25:55,526.7997247 --> 00:26:02,46.7997247 The foods you're eating, antiox, oxygen support, all these different things are all gonna play a factor in lowering the insulin, which will therefore lower the IGF one. 252 00:26:02,596.7997247 --> 00:26:07,326.7997247 Another thing that can increase your IGF one is your protein intake. 253 00:26:07,426.7997247 --> 00:26:10,886.7997247 So especially like excessive animal protein intake. 254 00:26:12,76.7997247 --> 00:26:18,976.7997247 If you are in poor metabolic health in particular, meaning that like you might be a little bit overweight, you might have high cholesterol issues, high inflammatory markers. 255 00:26:19,676.7997247 --> 00:26:26,366.7997247 Maybe, you're struggling with fatty liver disease and you do, you can have fatty liver disease and still be healthy weight and everything like that as well. 256 00:26:26,696.7997247 --> 00:26:39,510.9775442 So fatty liver disease can be a little bit of a beast of its own, but having, fatty liver disease or poor metabolic health in general, um, and then excessively eating a lot of animal protein might encourage your IGF one levels to go up high. 257 00:26:39,570.9775442 --> 00:26:46,445.9775442 So how do we manage that? We might look at making sure that you're still getting your normal, um, adequate amounts of protein to fuel your body. 258 00:26:46,745.9775442 --> 00:26:55,999.3108776 But looking at other sources of that protein, can we go maybe even towards more fish or, like legumes, your chickpeas, your lentils, your, your vegetarian source of protein. 259 00:26:56,649.3108776 --> 00:27:14,404.3108776 And we might even consider a kind of therapeutic short-term diet where we might go specifically plant-based for a couple of weeks and see, do is, does that drastically bring down your IGF one levels? Never would I feel the need to encourage someone to a hundred percent commit to like any specific diet for life. 260 00:27:14,997.6442109 --> 00:27:27,277.6442109 we kind of wanna trial some things out like a, a diet out on a therapeutic level sometimes, which might mean we do a a healthy keto diet for a short term in order to see can we boost someone's metabolism. 261 00:27:28,7.6442109 --> 00:27:30,212.6442109 Insulin levels, IGF one, things like that. 262 00:27:30,472.6442109 --> 00:27:41,532.6442109 And then after we get our blood markers to where we want them to be, we can then transition them into more of a long-term sustainable diet plan that works for them, that opens up their horizons on what they can eat and enjoy and things like that. 263 00:27:42,152.6442109 --> 00:27:50,652.6442109 So I don't feel like we've ever had to keep anyone specifically on a keto diet or a plant-based diet if that wasn't their chosen preference. 264 00:27:51,92.6442109 --> 00:27:55,412.6442109 we typically will put them on it for a short term as what we call a therapeutic diet in order to. 265 00:27:56,507.6442109 --> 00:28:02,757.6442109 Meet a certain goal for what we wanna see when it comes to their blood levels changing or um, symptoms changing, whatever that might be. 266 00:28:03,907.6442109 --> 00:28:12,887.6442109 So what else can influence and help to bring down your high IGF One would be your caloric intake and even something like fasting. 267 00:28:12,947.6442109 --> 00:28:26,817.5236608 So if we can get someone into healthy caloric levels for what their body needs in order to thrive, can get them into a fasting window, meaning that they're not eating for a certain time, typically overnight, or they're eating within a certain time, throughout the day. 268 00:28:27,512.5236608 --> 00:28:32,322.5236608 Then that can help to reduce IGF one Again, all shown to be beneficial in human studies. 269 00:28:32,802.5236608 --> 00:28:39,162.5236608 A lot of these research articles or research studies are done in like people with diabetes or high cholesterol, things like that. 270 00:28:39,262.5236608 --> 00:28:46,882.5236608 But we know that if people do these like a fasting overnight, then we, they can see an improvement in their IGF one levels. 271 00:28:47,737.5236608 --> 00:28:51,877.5236608 Can kind of, we interpret that to be a benefit in a cancer prevention aspect. 272 00:28:51,877.5236608 --> 00:28:57,717.5236608 So if their IGF one is high, if we can get that down, that is gonna help to reduce the risk of cancer growth and things like that as well. 273 00:28:57,717.5236608 --> 00:29:00,677.5236608 Even though the studies are done in like diabetes or high cholesterol. 274 00:29:01,617.5236608 --> 00:29:06,307.5236608 Another thing that is helpful is we're bringing down IGF one is exercise. 275 00:29:06,307.5236608 --> 00:29:09,667.5236608 So I know I told that story of someone who exercised excessively. 276 00:29:09,967.5236608 --> 00:29:12,587.5236608 So too much exercise can bring the IGF one up. 277 00:29:13,372.5236608 --> 00:29:19,632.5236608 But too little exercise can also bring it up so we can get a little bit of resistance training, muscle building to an adequate amount. 278 00:29:19,692.5236608 --> 00:29:21,192.5236608 And it, it doesn't have to be super fancy. 279 00:29:21,212.5236608 --> 00:29:28,912.5236608 You don't have to be like, well, how much is that? You'll know, you'll know that you're not overdoing it, that you're not in, you're not kind of in bodybuilding competitions and things like that. 280 00:29:28,912.5236608 --> 00:29:30,552.5236608 Like that might be a little bit too excessive. 281 00:29:30,962.5236608 --> 00:29:33,322.5236608 Depending on you, depending on your person, depending on the goals. 282 00:29:33,982.5236608 --> 00:29:42,637.5236608 But we just want get to get people exercising according to like the normal recommended it daily or weekly amounts for reducing cancer risk. 283 00:29:42,637.5236608 --> 00:29:45,197.5236608 And that's where we're gonna see healthy IGF one levels as well. 284 00:29:45,377.5236608 --> 00:29:49,797.5236608 So usually it's like two to three times a week for about 60 minutes each time. 285 00:29:50,440.8569941 --> 00:29:56,40.8569941 where we're seeing some people build, do, do some muscle building activity, resistance training, a little bit of cardio, things like that. 286 00:29:56,770.8569941 --> 00:30:03,890.8569941 And then just general walking outside of that or anything from like a lower activity like yoga, but we want a nice balance of. 287 00:30:05,255.8569941 --> 00:30:08,175.8569941 Resistance training, muscle building, weightlifting, things like that. 288 00:30:08,395.8569941 --> 00:30:13,135.8569941 And then also some of the other stuff like movement to get the blood flowing, like yoga and walking. 289 00:30:13,752.5236608 --> 00:30:21,432.5236608 a little bit of cardio too, if you're doing a little bit more, like more lunges and things that get your heart rate going whenever you're even doing some of your weight training as well. 290 00:30:21,582.5236608 --> 00:30:22,712.5236608 It's a, it's a nice mix. 291 00:30:22,712.5236608 --> 00:30:24,192.5236608 It's not just one or the other. 292 00:30:24,852.5236608 --> 00:30:27,832.5236608 And honestly, just start where you can when it comes to your exercise. 293 00:30:28,272.5236608 --> 00:30:32,112.5236608 I won't get too much into that, but there's so much I could talk about when it comes to exercise for sure. 294 00:30:33,102.5236608 --> 00:30:36,987.5236608 So, yeah, so exercise resistant training may improve IGF one levels if they're too high. 295 00:30:37,827.5236608 --> 00:30:41,567.5236608 and then the other thing is growth factors, or sorry, growth hormones. 296 00:30:41,787.5236608 --> 00:30:47,47.5236608 So I mentioned earlier that IGF one is often increased due to another hormone called growth hormone. 297 00:30:47,820.8569941 --> 00:30:51,980.8569941 honestly, the reason or the way that you lower growth hormone is you just get older. 298 00:30:53,180.8569941 --> 00:30:53,520.8569941 The best. 299 00:30:53,520.8569941 --> 00:30:55,200.8569941 Yeah, the best way we can do is just to get older. 300 00:30:55,400.8569941 --> 00:30:57,240.8569941 'cause aging just reduces growth hormone overall. 301 00:30:57,460.8569941 --> 00:31:01,80.8569941 So I wouldn't say that this is a controllable factor when it comes to lowering your IGF one. 302 00:31:01,120.8569941 --> 00:31:10,758.8616863 I just want to make you aware of it that as people get older, their growth hormone gets produced less 'cause there's less growing to do and then that is gonna reflect back on lowering their IGF one as well. 303 00:31:11,168.8616863 --> 00:31:13,728.8616863 But again, I don't recommend people just try to get older faster. 304 00:31:14,103.8616863 --> 00:31:15,495.5283529 it's just something I want you guys to know. 305 00:31:15,495.5283529 --> 00:31:16,575.5283529 It's not a controllable factor. 306 00:31:17,845.5283529 --> 00:31:22,175.5283529 Then genetics can sometimes just make people more predisposed to having lower IGF one factor. 307 00:31:22,315.5283529 --> 00:31:29,695.5283529 So if you are, um, if you are getting your IGF one measured and it is low, and you're like, well, I'm not malnourished. 308 00:31:29,695.5283529 --> 00:31:35,135.5283529 I'm eating a lot and I'm not really that old, then it could just be a genetic kind of reason as to why your IGF one is low. 309 00:31:35,395.5283529 --> 00:31:37,775.5283529 And I just wouldn't really worry about it too much. 310 00:31:40,60.5283529 --> 00:31:45,0.5283529 So basically what can you do to balance it? Just kind of recap, is we can eat in a way that balances blood sugar. 311 00:31:45,140.5283529 --> 00:31:47,840.5283529 You have your protein, your healthy fat, your fiber at each meal. 312 00:31:48,140.5283529 --> 00:31:50,200.5283529 You overall reduce your carbohydrate consumption. 313 00:31:51,13.8616863 --> 00:32:02,903.8616863 a a general, like a very general benchmark would be to make sure that your carbohydrates your consumption of heart carbohydrates is like 20% or less of your total caloric intake, which some dieticians and. 314 00:32:03,703.8616863 --> 00:32:09,593.8616863 Nutrition people think that's actually quite low, but that's not including like necessarily your fibers and things like that. 315 00:32:09,653.8616863 --> 00:32:14,273.8616863 So we're looking at the 20% of your total calories comes from carbohydrates. 316 00:32:14,413.8616863 --> 00:32:23,703.8616863 It, it is a little bit low and it's a little bit of a stretch for some people, but it's just like a benchmark goal when it comes to helping with insulin resistance and, metabolic health. 317 00:32:24,583.8616863 --> 00:32:27,483.8616863 The other thing is we want to make sure that we're reducing excessive. 318 00:32:28,373.8616863 --> 00:32:31,713.8616863 Animal protein intake, maybe focusing more on plant-based proteins. 319 00:32:31,863.8616863 --> 00:32:32,153.8616863 Fish. 320 00:32:32,433.8616863 --> 00:32:42,73.8616863 I know fish is technically kind of like an animal, but it's like a nicer source of protein that's a little bit easier on your body in terms of like the omegas and the, like, the healthy fats that are in the fish. 321 00:32:42,73.8616863 --> 00:32:43,953.8616863 It's a little bit just better for your metabolic health. 322 00:32:45,10.5283529 --> 00:32:54,953.8616863 the other thing is, there's a couple papers just showing that whey protein, insul ray whey protein isolate or whey protein powders may potentially increase IGF one. 323 00:32:56,13.8616863 --> 00:32:57,920.5283529 But, this is in a diabetic population. 324 00:32:57,920.5283529 --> 00:33:00,40.5283529 Again, it might not be totally applicable to you. 325 00:33:00,420.5283529 --> 00:33:07,40.5283529 So we do overall encourage people to look at other types of protein powders, especially if their IGF one is high. 326 00:33:07,60.5283529 --> 00:33:11,160.5283529 That's, we look for ones that are not whey protein and look at other, other forms of the protein. 327 00:33:11,770.5283529 --> 00:33:20,690.5283529 But I wouldn't worry about this unless you actually test your IGF one, see that it's high, and then maybe we would look at switching, uh, switching you out from a whey protein powder in general. 328 00:33:21,100.5283529 --> 00:33:22,540.5283529 I won't go too much into protein powders. 329 00:33:22,540.5283529 --> 00:33:23,300.5283529 In fact, maybe it's a good. 330 00:33:24,5.5283529 --> 00:33:25,285.5283529 A good topic for a different episode. 331 00:33:26,165.5283529 --> 00:33:31,45.5283529 I wouldn't necessarily, we, we often get people to stay away from whey protein powders anyway. 332 00:33:31,425.5283529 --> 00:33:34,995.5283529 Just mostly because I feel like we should be looking at more plant-based proteins. 333 00:33:35,375.5283529 --> 00:33:43,315.5283529 Of course we want to avoid soy protein isolates 'cause it's a little bit wishy-washy in terms of what its impact is on hormones and things like that. 334 00:33:43,935.5283529 --> 00:33:50,705.5283529 So we don't often have a lot of our clients on whey protein powders, unless like it's the only one that's palatable to them. 335 00:33:50,705.5283529 --> 00:33:51,705.5283529 It's the only one that tastes good. 336 00:33:52,760.5283529 --> 00:33:57,620.5283529 We do tend to encourage and we have certain suggestions when it comes to more plant-based protein powders. 337 00:33:59,480.5283529 --> 00:34:06,273.8616863 We can also avoid snacking constantly, giving your body a break from, breaking down food and insulin being raised and stuff like that. 338 00:34:06,273.8616863 --> 00:34:12,713.8616863 And that's gonna help to reduce growth signaling and IGF one on movement, like resistance training I alluded to. 339 00:34:13,30.5283529 --> 00:34:14,480.5283529 fasting can help reduce it. 340 00:34:14,980.5283529 --> 00:34:19,440.5283529 And then focusing on anti-inflammatory foods, color, ve colorful vegetables, omega threes. 341 00:34:20,170.5283529 --> 00:34:26,60.5283529 Even spices like turmeric can potentially help with your inflammatory levels and your growth factor levels and things like that. 342 00:34:27,23.8616863 --> 00:34:39,643.8616863 and honestly I want you to use the lab to, to kind of guide decisions and not just come at it from a place of fear and just automatically assume that your IGF one is done or is as high and you need to kind of work on all of these things. 343 00:34:39,703.8616863 --> 00:34:45,723.8616863 We definitely wanna get an idea of where is your IGF one on blood work before we start to incorporate many of these changes. 344 00:34:46,43.8616863 --> 00:34:47,523.8616863 'cause it might not be of importance to you. 345 00:34:48,253.8616863 --> 00:34:50,553.8616863 It might not be something you need to focus on. 346 00:34:50,683.8616863 --> 00:34:53,353.8616863 Maybe there's something else that could use your attention instead. 347 00:34:53,733.8616863 --> 00:34:56,553.8616863 And, we don't want to get caught up in what could be. 348 00:34:56,553.8616863 --> 00:34:58,833.8616863 And let's instead focus on what is important for you. 349 00:35:00,243.8616863 --> 00:35:07,103.8616863 So I know how easy it is to feel afraid whenever I talk about a marker that is cancer promoting. 350 00:35:07,858.8616863 --> 00:35:10,598.8616863 But I just want you to also remember that these are tools. 351 00:35:10,728.8616863 --> 00:35:12,238.8616863 These aren't the end all, be all. 352 00:35:12,238.8616863 --> 00:35:13,558.8616863 They cannot be used in isolation. 353 00:35:13,938.8616863 --> 00:35:17,398.8616863 And a lot of what I talked about today is stuff that we can actually make a difference with. 354 00:35:17,428.8616863 --> 00:35:19,318.8616863 It's not just like, it's high forever. 355 00:35:19,548.8616863 --> 00:35:20,758.8616863 What am I gonna do about it? Nothing. 356 00:35:20,758.8616863 --> 00:35:26,78.8616863 There's a lot of things that we can change that have been shown to have drastic impacts on your growth factor levels here. 357 00:35:26,78.8616863 --> 00:35:27,318.8616863 Something like growth factor one. 358 00:35:28,25.5283529 --> 00:35:31,205.5283529 and honestly, it doesn't define your future to have high GF one. 359 00:35:31,435.5283529 --> 00:35:32,365.5283529 High IGF one. 360 00:35:32,475.5283529 --> 00:35:34,725.5283529 It's, it's just a piece of a bigger puzzle. 361 00:35:34,865.5283529 --> 00:35:36,725.5283529 So let's see where it's at and then go from there. 362 00:35:38,215.5283529 --> 00:35:45,435.5283529 And I also wanna remind you that you're not just here to block a recurrence or to kill cancer or to stop cancer. 363 00:35:45,815.5283529 --> 00:36:00,45.5283529 You're here to figure out how can you live fully past cancer and not always have to do something because of cancer? So there's a different approach here that we wanna see where are your numbers before we go all haywire and try to do this, that and the other thing. 364 00:36:00,505.5283529 --> 00:36:06,245.5283529 And to also see lowering IGF one is A, is a helpful impact as well, not just to kill cancer. 365 00:36:06,525.5283529 --> 00:36:07,765.5283529 'cause it can help in many different ways. 366 00:36:09,960.5283529 --> 00:36:30,807.5142054 So if you do wanna learn more about interpreting your IGF one, looking further into different aspects of blood work in order to figure out what is the most important nutrition plan, where should I focus my attention when it comes to my supplements or my exercise, or just basically your time, energy, money, work can be a very helpful place to start, to start with. 367 00:36:30,877.5142054 --> 00:36:36,647.5142054 It's a very foundational approach to creating a plan to help you to feel better, faster, and to reduce your risk of cancer coming back. 368 00:36:37,507.5142054 --> 00:36:42,47.5142054 So I absolutely love talking about blood work and I've put together a whole training on it. 369 00:36:42,467.9289052 --> 00:36:46,615.6347543 right now I'm just kind of calling it for short, my Blood Work bootcamp, and you can join that. 370 00:36:46,615.6347543 --> 00:36:49,375.6347543 I'll put the link to signing up into the show notes. 371 00:36:50,105.6347543 --> 00:36:53,155.6347543 It's coming up very soon and I can't wait to do it. 372 00:36:53,155.6347543 --> 00:36:54,635.6347543 It's gonna be over a couple of days. 373 00:36:54,845.6347543 --> 00:36:56,275.6347543 We're gonna make a big party out of it. 374 00:36:56,275.6347543 --> 00:36:59,795.6347543 We're gonna learn a lot about what are the things that you wanna test for on your blood work. 375 00:36:59,975.6347543 --> 00:37:07,835.6347543 Why are they important in terms of your general health and cancer recurrence prevention? And also what can you do in order to make these more optimal as opposed to. 376 00:37:08,835.6347543 --> 00:37:11,135.6347543 Out of range or just okay ranges. 377 00:37:11,135.6347543 --> 00:37:15,375.6347543 We wanna get them all optimal in order to create this environment in your body where cancer doesn't wanna be. 378 00:37:15,595.6347543 --> 00:37:19,295.6347543 So if you wanna learn more about that, go over to the show notes and I'll have that link there to sign up. 379 00:37:19,915.6347543 --> 00:37:21,335.6347543 But that's all I have for you today. 380 00:37:21,455.6347543 --> 00:37:22,175.6347543 I hope that was helpful. 381 00:37:22,355.6347543 --> 00:37:33,255.6347543 We went through what is IGF one we went through, what makes it higher? What are the optimal ranges? What can we do to manage it? And if you do wanna learn more, then I do have that blood work bootcamp coming up that you can sign up for. 382 00:37:34,225.6347543 --> 00:37:34,715.6347543 Alright. 383 00:37:34,715.6347543 --> 00:37:35,950.6347543 That's all I have for today. 384 00:37:36,110.6347543 --> 00:37:39,870.6347543 I hope you have a wonderful week, and I'll see you soon. 385 00:37:40,840.6347543 --> 00:37:44,310.6347543 Thank you so much for joining me today on the Flourish After Cancer Podcast. 386 00:37:44,690.6347543 --> 00:37:49,70.6347543 If you love this episode, please be sure to leave a review and subscribe so you never miss an episode. 387 00:37:49,140.6347543 --> 00:37:50,910.6347543 Sending all my best your way, Dr. 388 00:37:50,960.6347543 --> 00:37:51,310.6347543 Megan.

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S01 | E08 Is Your IGF-1 Fueling or Fighting Cancer?

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}S01 | E08 Is Your IGF-1 Fueling or Fighting Cancer?