February 21, 2023 • 34 mins
It's been 10 years since Alison Gannett was diagnosed with "terminal" brain cancer and given approximately six months to live.
How has she managed to beat the odds?
Cancer is not a "generalized" disease to be treated like you're on a conveyor belt. It's an "individualized" condition, and Alison credits cancer for waking her up to the root causes of disease that were plaguing her. She describes her "check engine" light as being on, yet ignored as she tried to push herself and prove herself in life (something we are all guilty of doing whether we have cancer or not).
This incredible story of self-discovery and positivity may be just what you need to hear today. Join us on today's podcast as Alison and I talk about the importance of lab testing, knowing and acknowledging your family history, genetic makeup and so much more!
Connect with Alison Gannett:
https://alisongannett.com
Suggested Resource Links:
- Holy Terror Farm (Facebook page)
- BOOK: Fully Alive by Susie Larson
- PODCAST: Susie Larson on the Believe Big podcast
- Superfund Cleanup Site
- BOOK: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
- BOOK: The Anti-Cancer Cookbook by Alison Gannett
Send us Fan Mail! Click here >
Your donations power our podcast's mission to support cancer patients with hope, insights, and resources. Every contribution fuels our ability to uplift and empower. Join us in making a lasting impact. Donate now! 🌟
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ivelisse Page (00:06):
Hi, I'm Ivelisse Page and thanks for listening to
the Believe Big podcast, theshow where we take a deep dive
into your healing with healthexperts, integrative
practitioners, biblical faithleaders, and cancer thrivers
from around the globe.
(00:34):
Welcome to today's episode onthe Believe Big podcast.
My name is Ivelisse Page andit's an honor to spend this time
with you.
I have a special guest on todaywho is going to share her story
on how she has survived aterminal brain cancer diagnosis
when told she only had months tolive.
(00:54):
Okay, that was in 2013.
Alison Gannet is the founder,director and head coach for
Personalized Anti-CancerNutrition.
Alison also became a worldchampion, extreme freeskier in
Canada in 1998.
That's amazing.
She won titles in South Americaand Japan.
(01:16):
She and her husband Jason,currently live and grow and
raise almost all of theiranti-cancer foods at their Holy
Terror Farm in Colorado.
Welcome Alison to the show.
Alison Gannett (01:30):
I am so excited to be here.
Ivelisse Page (01:32):
So our audience is always curious to discover
what our guest's favorite healthtip is.
So what would you say is yours?
Alison Gannett (01:40):
Oh, I had such a hard time to decide which one.
I ended up with two, so I hopeyou don't mind.
Ivelisse Page (01:46):
Sure, bonus.
Alison Gannett (01:48):
The first one is really the mental component
because I feel that your websitesays it all, Believe Big.
Because it's very overwhelmingwhen we get diagnosed that we
wanna be a statistic, and theysay we're only gonna live 6.8
months, and we've gotta do X, Y,Z PDQ and it doesn't look good.
There's no cure for my type ofcancer.
(02:10):
I love to say, I love provingeverybody wrong and I wanna say
to everyone out there that weare not statistics and we can
take charge of our health andknowledge is power.
You don't have to just sit thereand wait for your next scan.
There's so much we can do everyday to take charge of our life.
(02:33):
And I have to say, I'm happierand healthier now than I was
when I started 13 years ago andwas told that I wasn't gonna
make it.
Ivelisse Page (02:42):
That's incredible.
So yes, definitely the mentaltools for believing that you
know what is being told to youisn't necessarily gonna be your
case.
Really believing big.
I love that.
Okay, so what is your secondtip?
Alison Gannett (02:56):
My second tip, it's really exciting to get out
there and do research into theroot causes of why we got sick,
but it tends to be reallyoverwhelming.
You might read one day thatcoffee's good for you, and then
one day coffee's bad for you.
One day red meat, great, thenext is it causes cancer.
The real answer is that we'reall different and that we have
(03:19):
unique DNA, we have unique labs,we have a unique cancer, and
that we need to have coacheslike myself that can help you
navigate this awful maze ofstuff out there.
And once you look at yourgenetics, for example, I can
process red meat, but my husbandwould be the worst person to eat
(03:43):
red meat.
And of course, I was avegetarian eating the wrong diet
for me.
He was a red meat eater eatingthe wrong diet for him.
Same goes for dairy, chocolate,all those different types of
things.
So get some help out therebecause it is tough to navigate
this whole process and we wannatest and not guess, We wanna see
(04:05):
if what we're doing is workingand we wanna see that.
And I love the science.
It makes it exciting instead ofsitting there and living in
fear.
I get so excited when my newlabs come in, or I've got a scan
coming up because they're notgood or bad, it's just
information.
And so we have to take in allthat information and add it to
(04:26):
our plan.
Ivelisse Page (04:27):
And it changes.
So let's get into a little bit,before we share about what you
do as a coach.
Can you share with our audiencea little bit about how you found
out you had brain cancer?
Alison Gannett (04:38):
Well, it was interesting, it happened slowly,
and I think a lot of people canrelate to this is you just
thought I'm getting old, or I'mtired, something's a little off,
but it's not a big deal.
There were two big things thathappened for me.
I was speaking to Microsoft onachieving your goals because I
was this crazy skier jumping offcliffs for a living and I forgot
(05:01):
to get on the plane.
Then when I got on the stage, Icompletely blanked out and gave
the wrong presentation.
Interestingly enough, I don'tremember any of this because the
brain tumor was so big and wecan post a picture of it.
It literally had taken overalmost, I don't know, two thirds
of my brain power up there.
My whole skull was filled withthis tumor and my husband knew
(05:24):
something was off, but hethought maybe I was having an
affair on him, or like I wasjust acting really strangely.
And one day I was cooking baconand it caught on fire and the
flames were like shooting up tothe ceiling.
And I was just sitting therethinking how pretty they were.
At that point, my husband waslike, no, something's wrong, and
(05:44):
we're going to the ER, and wefound out that night that I was
dying from cancer.
Ivelisse Page (05:49):
Wow.
what did the doctors tell you?
Alison Gannett (05:51):
I actually don't remember that much being there.
I do remember bits and pieces.
I remember them being like, Oh,no problem.
You're young and you've gotthis.
I was 48.
I felt like I was in good shape.
I felt like I was eating theright thing.
I felt like I was growing andraising my own food and I was
exercising and I was doing allthese amazing things.
(06:13):
So I really went through likethe stages of grief and the
first one is denial.
And so it was hard to let itsink in and luckily, they rushed
me into surgery.
I had this 10 hour surgery,which I miraculously survived,
which was step number one.
And when I woke up, luckily theysaid, that was so traumatic.
(06:33):
We don't want you to start chemoand radiation right now.
You need six months to recoverfrom this surgery.
And luckily, during that time, Ifound Dr.
Nasha Winters and my whole lifeturned upside down for the best
possible way.
Ivelisse Page (06:49):
Wow.
So we know that there are manypieces of the puzzle when
healing from cancer, but what doyou feel are the top three
things that she shared with youor that you did that helped you
to heal?
Alison Gannett (07:01):
I literally could list a hundred things
because really, I think ofcancer as this really big
thousand piece puzzle, andyou're trying to put the puzzle
together, literally.
But what I've decided over theyears of working with a lot of
other clients, because I fell inlove with this process so much
about myself, that I went toschool to do this And I came up
(07:22):
with an acronym called SIT,which is Stress, Insulin, and
Toxins.
And so I like everybody to justsit and let's talk about sit,
because there isn't a person outthere that doesn't have 20
things that fall into stress and20 things that fall under
insulin or blood sugar, carbcontrol.
(07:43):
And then toxins, of course, islike a big bucket to dig into.
Ivelisse Page (07:48):
Yeah.
And so many hidden things thatpeople aren't aware of.
What would you say are some ofthe things that fall into each
of those categories?
Alison Gannett (07:55):
I would say for stress, and I'll just use myself
cuz it's easy to remember.
I would say the mental,emotional component I always
thought that since I wasn't likephysically abused as a child,
that I was just the adult childof an alcoholic.
That the absence of a big traumadidn't seem like a big deal, but
(08:15):
I think it is actually a hugedeal for me to repair not
feeling emotionally safe as achild.
And really just the only emotionwe were allowed to feel was joy.
And if you felt sad or if youfelt angry or if you felt
bullied you couldn't bring upany of those things.
So I'm working through thatactually a lot right now.
(08:36):
I do somatic experience,tapping, and I also have a
therapist and I read a lot ofbooks.
I also do a ton of meditation.
You see this a lot with braincancer people, especially is the
overactive brain.
And I think this, for a lot ofcancers, is we either go numb or
we're overdoing everything.
(08:57):
We're the helper.
We just help everybody elseexcept for ourself.
And so I have been learning howto help myself before I help
other people.
Hormone imbalance was a hugestressor for me.
Immune system disruption, hugestressor for me.
Found out I had Lyme disease,parasite, gut imbalance, a
vitamin D3 deficiency.
(09:18):
My sleep hygiene was horrible.
I did all my work at night andnever paid attention to the
circadian rhythms of the planet,and now everything's different
for me.
My whole life revolves aroundsleep first and then probably
food second, and water.
So those are the main stressorsI would say for me personally.
(09:39):
Every single person's gonna bedifferent.
We need to find out what's inyour stress bucket and go from
there.
Ivelisse Page (09:45):
Yes.
I completely agree.
and I think.
One thing that we've been tryingto share too, we had Susie
Larson on the podcast, she wrotea book called Fully Alive.
I think you'd really love it.
And she talks about theemotional trauma that she went
through, and how she says whathappens in your soul expresses
in your cells and she sharesthat she couldn't even absorb
(10:07):
the waters and the nutrientsbecause she was caught in that
fight or flight.
So I think you're right.
We're so focused on the physicalside of cancer or disease that
we don't take time to thinkabout our past and not that we
have to have that victimmentality, right?
We address it, but then we canmove forward knowing that we
just haven't shoved it down andsaid, okay, I'm not gonna even
(10:29):
address that.
Alison Gannett (10:29):
And I thought, I didn't have severe trauma, so I
thought it wasn't a big issue.
And I think even just mymechanism of becoming a
professional extreme skier ofdoing all these things so well
was a coping mechanism as beinga small child, not being seen,
not being heard, just not beingvalidated.
And so I've had to do all thesecrazy things.
(10:52):
And I almost think that my body,one of the crazy things my body
did was like, okay, now you havecancer.
Now you have the biggest thingpossible.
And I really think of cancer asa messenger, that it's there to
tell me something about my life.
And in the beginning I reallywanted to go back to my old
life.
Everybody talks about this withcancer.
(11:13):
Like I wanna think about mebefore cancer, because that was
when everything was great.
But the reality is our normalgave us cancer.
So we have to create a newnormal that's bigger and better
and more wonderful and morecomplete than my old self.
And I'm very much moreappreciative of the little
(11:33):
things in life.
I always say if I'm not in thehospital and I'm not looking up
at the hospital ceiling, ifthere's a blue sky and green
grass, I mean having a gratitudejournal, like all these things,
appreciating just being alivecuz we're all gonna die.
We don't know if we're gonna dietomorrow in a car crash or if
(11:53):
I'm gonna die from cancer.
But that whole, like not knowingabout when I'm gonna die is what
I've been learning to embrace.
What we have is this beautifulmoment right now with us
interacting with each other, andthat's all we have.
And so let's go for it and enjoylife as much as we can.
Ivelisse Page (12:12):
Yeah.
Take each day as it comes andmake the most of it.
I really love that.
What about insulin?
Most people think of insulin andthey think of diabetics.
Oh, I don't have an issue withinsulin cuz I'm not diabetic.
But what does that really mean?
Alison Gannett (12:25):
Well, I originally called it sugar, and
everybody always says like me,oh, I don't eat sugar.
Well, do you eat wheat bread?
Do you have pasta?
Do you have broccoli?
Do you eat beets or potatoes?
Every single thing has a certainamount of a blood sugar index
effect on our body.
(12:45):
What I didn't realize when I waseating all these amazing foods
that I grew on my farm was thatall the foods that I ate really
caused my blood sugar to rise.
And if you look at all thestudies, they kind of vary on
how much sugar affects cancer,but they all kind of agree that
there is a glycolytic componentof cancer.
(13:08):
That means it could raise yourIGF-1 or it could raise your
hemoglobin A1C, or it couldraise your fasting insulin, or
it could raise your fastingglucose.
There's so many blood glucosemarkers and we need to look at
all of those and see if insulinand blood sugar is a problem for
you.
Everybody tells me I don't eatsugar.
(13:29):
Everybody tells me I don't knowwhy I got sick.
I eat perfectly.
Some people say, I know why Igot sick.
But the bottom line for me was Ididn't know that the things I
was eating was developinginsulin resistance in my body.
Cancer basically acts I alwayssay like a Walmart scanner, like
those little guns, and it'slooking around for its preferred
(13:51):
fuel and it's preferred fuel issome kind of glucose or carbs
that you've eaten.
And really, how you eat thatcarb is as important as what
carb you are eating.
For example, I found out throughtesting that every time I ate
broccoli, my blood sugar wouldgo up.
But if I ate broccoli with ahalf a cup of let's say my
(14:13):
homemade salad dressing, or if Ideep fried my broccoli, or if I
served it with a quarter stickof butter, then that would
mitigate the insulin effect ofthe broccoli.
So how you eat is as importantas what carbs you eat.
And so I've had to changebasically everything.
What I was taught in school inthe eighties about nutrition was
(14:34):
wrong.
It said eat five servings ofgrains.
I was doing exactly that.
My blood sugar was going throughthe roof.
I was eating lots of legumes, myblood sugar was going through
the roof.
We call it the keto diet, but Ilike to also call it therapeutic
carb reduction because whatwe're doing is we're really
paying attention to what kind ofcarbs go into our body and the
(14:55):
quality of those vegetables.
Of course, they should beorganic and chemical free.
But also a really wide varietyof vegetables.
I try to get, if possible, 20vegetables a day into my diet,
and also nine cups of vegetablesinto my diet in the day.
So when I was a vegetarian, Ididn't eat vegetables hardly at
(15:17):
all.
Now that I'm on Alison'santi-cancer therapeutic carb
reduction diet, I eat tons ofvegetables, very small amounts
of very high quality protein,and then really high quality
fats.
I find that I need to eat theequivalent of about three sticks
of butter a day.
Now, of course, we don't know ifyou can metabolize dairy or not,
(15:39):
or if saturated fat is good foryou or not.
These are all things that we'regonna find out when we dive into
your DNA and your labs.
Ivelisse Page (15:47):
I love that.
Alison Gannett (15:48):
Yeah, a lot of people eat low carb, but they
forget about the fat.
Ivelisse Page (15:51):
Yeah.
And it's so important.
Even growing up fat was the badword, and no carbs and all these
things.
Again, I wanna stress if thereare patients listening like
we've mentioned before, whatAlison's saying is absolutely
correct.
You have to be tested to findout what your sensitivities are,
what your body chemistry is, sothat you can be on the right
(16:12):
diet best for you.
Great example for me was Ithought, okay, I have cancer.
I'm gonna have this greensmoothie juice, and this green
smoothie that I thought had allthese good things in it made my
sugar level skyrocket cuz I'msuper sensitive to sugar.
So I had eliminate all thefruits in there.
I could only have blueberriesand then I added the spinach and
(16:33):
added some protein to it.
But it's amazing how everybody'sbody's different.
So just because you hear it fromanother patient or a friend that
this works for them, it reallyis individualized and you really
need to seek someone like Alisonthat can really work with you to
really dive in to say, okay,what is gonna be most
therapeutic for you?
(16:54):
And let's touch real quickly onthe last one cause I wanna hear
more about your story andtoxins.
Most people think toxins andthey think about glyphosate or
things like that.
So what is encompassing of that?
Alison Gannett (17:06):
Where I start first for every single person is
I take the zip code or wherethey live cuz most of my clients
are international and I look upsuperfund cleanup sites.
I look up water toxicity reportsfor their area and everybody
thinks that you know their areais clean or they know that it's
(17:26):
dirty, but they really don'tknow what the toxins are.
So I wanna find out what is intheir water, and then I wanna
find out what is the right waterfilter to work for them.
For example, a lot of peoplewill have a really good reverse
osmosis water filter for theirtap water, but then I might find
out that their water'sradioactive and that they're
(17:46):
showering in it every day.
So we really need to find outwhat the chemicals are and then
we gotta come up with a strategyof how to get them out.
Then we dig into air and look atthe air pollution for their
area.
We see a ton of rise of lungcancer, and that is because of
air pollution.
And air pollution could betraffic on the street.
(18:07):
It could be oil and gasdrilling, or it could be radon.
Or it could be wildfire smoke,it could be hundreds of
different things.
So we really wanna dig intothat.
We wanna look into food toxins.
What are you eating?
What are you drinking?
What are you doing for homecleaning products?
What are you doing for yourdentistry?
How about biotoxins, like moldand Lyme disease, C.diff,
(18:32):
bacterial infections, viralinfections, parasites, SIBO,
constipation, colitis,diverticulitis.
Going down the list, it'sprocess of elimination.
What I have realized over theyears is we wanna just cross all
these things off the list andsay, okay, this one is not a
player.
Ivelisse Page (18:52):
Yep.
Alison Gannett (18:52):
Because I had a reoccurrence in 2018 and another
one in 2020.
How can this be happening to me?
But the reality was I missedradon in the beginning, and I
also faked meditation.
I knew I should do it, but I waslike, I'm doing enough.
This is fine.
And then that recurrence, like Isaid, cancer's a messenger.
(19:15):
It slapped me upside the headand said, Alison, you're not
doing enough.
You need to do more.
Every time I've had one of thoserecurrences, it's been like this
horrible thing that's turnedinto another gift.
This last journey, I discoveredthat I had Lyme disease, so that
was another big one in 2020.
And also, I had faked dealingwith my trauma as a child.
(19:37):
So I thought, oh, it's not thatbad.
And so I was like, look, I havenothing to lose.
I might as well dig in to mytrauma and see if anything's
there.
I feel like we all have grown upwith good things that happened
to us and bad things thathappened to us.
And it's not like we have toremember all of them, but we
have to integrate them intoourself.
(19:58):
I'm reading right now, The BodyKeeps the Score.
Holy moly.
The body really does keep thescore and there's a reason I got
cancer and it's not just becauseI was eating high carbs and
getting lots of all the things Ilisted, it's more than that.
Ivelisse Page (20:13):
It's interesting cuz people will say, I can't
believe this person got cancer.
Even myself, I can't believethat you got cancer Ivelisse
because you and Jimmy eatorganic, you exercise.
So I have the MTFHR gene and soit makes it really hard for me
to process things out.
And I've shared this before, butin the past I went on a mission
trip and I had to get nineimmunizations and they gave them
(20:35):
to me within a two month period,all nine of them.
And, a year later, I'm stagefour cancer.
So I know that was the trigger.
I don't want people to beconcerned to think, oh, I have a
family history of this.
I'd love for you to chime in onthe fact that we can switch on
and off those things based onwhat we do.
I actually switched it on notknowing.
Alison Gannett (20:56):
Yep.
Ivelisse Page (20:57):
So speak to that for us.
Alison Gannett (20:59):
A lot of people are focused on cancer as a
genetic disease, and that hasbeen disproven.
We could do a whole show onthat.
We're not going to but less than4% of cancers are genetic.
And even if they are, let's takethe BRCA gene for example.
The BRCA gene is very sensitiveto insulin and toxins.
So the BRCA gene can actually beprotective for people with
(21:22):
cancer, if you take care.
If you know that you have thatgene and then you take care of
it, how do you take care of yourgenes?
Diet and lifestyle are the twobiggest ways that you can either
turn on a gene or you can turnoff a gene.
A perfect example for me is thatI have the apoe4 gene, and if
(21:44):
anybody knows about that gene,it's often linked to a very high
percentage of Alzheimer's.
What people don't know is theapoe4 also is very poor detoxer
of chemicals.
So even though I live in ruralColorado, when you test my body,
it looks like I live in HongKong because the apoe4 gene and
(22:08):
I have about oh, maybe 11 othergenes that hold onto toxins like
a sponge.
And this is why two relativescould live at Love Canal in New
York.
One might get cancer from thetoxins in the soil, and the
other one may not because of thegenetic predisposition we have.
But what's so cool is when Ichanged my diet, when I changed
(22:31):
my lifestyle, and my sleep andmy exercise, and taking care of
myself, all my blood markers gotbetter and when they get better,
you are actually influencingthose genes.
So if anybody has seen a helixof DNA, it's looks like a slinky
that's stretched out.
They have these little methylgroups that latch onto your DNA
(22:53):
that are gonna turn on or turnoff a gene.
So if you could look at my apoe4gene, if I had lots of toxins
that gene would be turning onand turning on, if I had lots of
insulin based foods, lots ofcarbohydrates that gene would be
turning on.
If I remove the foods thattrigger apoe4 and I remove the
(23:14):
toxins that trigger apoe4, thenthat gene is, you could call it
neutralized.
It's basically not going tocause you harm.
And the reason we know this isthere is a tribe in Africa.
They are all apoe34, and 44, andthe majority of them are apoe44,
which is two copies of thedisease, one from your mother,
(23:37):
one from your father.
There is no incidence ofAlzheimer's in that tribe until
they leave that tribe and starteating the standard American
diet.
Ivelisse Page (23:46):
Wow.
Alison Gannett (23:47):
Once they leave the tribe, they eat the junk
that I was eating when I gotsick, then the disease has a
very high proportion ofexpressing itself.
And again, Alzheimer's is likecancer.
It's a big puzzle, a thousandpiece puzzle, that we need to
put together.
But I know that for me, the giftthat cancer gave me is that I
(24:08):
will never get Alzheimer's iswhat I fully believe because
I've made so many changes to mydiet and lifestyle for cancer.
Those are the same changes Ineeded to make to prevent
Alzheimer's.
Ivelisse Page (24:21):
I've heard that the ketogenic diet is fantastic
for brain cancer and alsoAlzheimer's.
So for those people who arelistening who don't know what a
ketogenic diet is, can youexplain what a ketogenic diet
is, and then also the differencebetween that and a therapeutic
one.
You touched on it brieflybefore, but just so it's a
little clear.
For those who aren't familiar.
Alison Gannett (24:40):
The first type of keto, which is short for
ketogenic, is what I call dirtyketo.
It's also what I call internetketo.
Basically, if you go on thewebsite and you Google around,
all these people are eating likesausage and cream cheese.
The quality of the foods is notgood.
It's very high fat and very lowcarb.
That is what a ketogenic dietis.
(25:03):
But what is the quality of thosecarbs?
What is the quality of the fats?
For example, so I could eatsausage and cream cheese, but in
my case, I have a gene thatdoesn't process dairy, so I
can't have dairy in mypersonalized low carb diet.
I also have a gene that doesn'tprocess coconut oil, so I can't
(25:25):
have coconut oil or palm oil,very saturated fats in my diet,
whereas a lot of people outthere on the internet are saying
saturated fat is good.
In general, yeah, it's waybetter than vegetable oil.
We wanna stay way far away fromvegetable oils, seed oils, those
kinds of things over-processedhigh Omega-6s but we also need
(25:46):
to look at your genetics andsay, what kind of fats can you
metabolize?
Okay, back to keto.
So we've got internet, dirtyketo.
Then we've got the high qualityketo where you're eating lots of
vegetables.
Generally we avoid,carbohydrates like bread, rice,
and pasta.
We're also avoiding most fruits.
A lot of people think likefruits are this big antioxidant.
(26:09):
The truth is, if you want lotsof antioxidants, you'll get the
same antioxidant power from likeyellow Swiss chard as you would
from like a high carb thing likean orange carrot.
So we say mostly we're going toeat above ground vegetables.
That's the easiest way Idescribe it to everybody.
(26:30):
I've also written a cookbook.
I've also have like my"yes"foods list, my"no" foods list,
where to buy healthy foods list.
Those foods have to be chemicalfree.
They have to be grown as closeto you as possible, so we're not
losing all that nutrition whilethey're driving in a truck for
three weeks.
And we also really need to focuson the quality of, especially
(26:52):
things like proteins.
There are studies, a lot ofpeople have read them that say
meats can cause cancer.
The reality is the meats theytested were conventional meats.
I'm a beef farmer.
Our cows graze in thesebeautiful pastures with all this
healthy vegetation.
They're rotationally grazed.
(27:13):
They're happy, they're healthy.
They have clean water, cleanair.
Cows that you buy at, I'm gonnapick on my mom, supermarket When
she goes to supermarket, she'ssupporting cows that are raised
indoors often and they're fedanything from corn to candy to
anything they can get theirhands on.
That is cheap, and then theygive them, because they're so
(27:35):
sick from those things they'veeaten, they give them lots of
antibiotics and then they wannamake more money.
So they give them growthhormones, to make a small cow
become a big cow, also make asmall tumor become a big tumor.
So we really wanna have qualityproteins.
We also wanna look at the DNAand see which proteins you can
(27:56):
eat and should not eat, becausethat gets more complicated as
well.
So we've kind of got now aclean, healthy version of keto,
focusing on quality andquantity.
Quantity for therapeutic keto,we generally put people at 85%
fat, 5% carb, and 10% protein.
(28:17):
Now, I don't know yourmetabolism or anybody's
metabolism, so we generallystrive to test for ketones.
So if you have a low gradecancer, you might want to have
your blood ketone tests, saysomething from one, two, three,
and we call that nutritionalketosis.
So that would be more like maybe75% fat, maybe more like 15%
(28:42):
protein.
and then people who have highergrade cancers, more severe
cancers or cancers that we knowreally love carbs and sugar.
Pancreatic cancer is one ofthem, triple negative breast
cancer, brain cancer lovessugar.
I don't think there's a cancerout there that hasn't been shown
to be glycolytic.
(29:03):
So we wanna have some kind oftherapeutic carb reduction for
everybody, but we just don'tknow exactly what yours should
be until we work with yourdoctor and we look at your DNA
and we look at your labs and welook at your health history.
All of those come together andwe make a customized, low carb,
(29:25):
high fat diet, which you couldalso call the therapeutic.
Ivelisse Page (29:29):
I actually glanced at your anti-cancer
cookbook and the recipes justlook delicious.
And sometimes people think, oh,ketogenic, that's so limiting,
but it really isn't when you'reputting the right foods
together.
And so I would encourageeveryone to take a look at your
anti-cancer cookbook and we'llput a link in our show notes for
that as well.
Alison Gannett (29:48):
I'm glad you brought that up cuz it has to be
fun.
Ivelisse Page (29:50):
Yes.
Alison Gannett (29:50):
And I think if you think of this with dread, it
will be dreadful.
In the beginning, everythingseemed foreign and scary.
How do I eat this fat and how doI do this?
I walk you through it step bystep.
But also the way I look at itnow is I get to eat my dairy
free ice cream, and my low carb,grain-free brownies every single
(30:14):
day and maintain healthy weightand all that ice cream and
brownies, it sounds like junkfood, but every single
ingredient there is healthy andgood for you.
Ivelisse Page (30:24):
Are those recipes in your cookbook?
Alison Gannett (30:26):
Oh, absolutely.
You've gotta have a replacementfor everything.
So you know, if you love bread,what is a ketogenic version of
anti-cancer bread?
Most of the recipes out therethat are keto are made with
almond flour, and I'm just gonnago ahead and say that I'm not a
fan of almond flour, very highin carbs, so people think
they're doing the right thingbut nuts vary in their amount of
(30:48):
carbs.
And the other thing we foundwith almonds and certain nuts is
they can be heavily sprayed withglyphosate and atrazine.
And those are two knowncarcinogens.
Ivelisse Page (30:59):
Even organic raw ones?
Alison Gannett (31:00):
They did a test and I'll have to pull up the,
PubMed or it was NCBI, I can'tremember who did the test, but
they tested all the packagedorganic foods in Whole Foods,
and they found traces ofglyphosate in all of them.
Ivelisse Page (31:15):
Wow.
Alison Gannett (31:16):
And everybody's oh, Allison, this is such a
pain.
How am I gonna make my brownies?
How am I gonna make my granola?
How am I gonna make my bread?
One of my biggest tips when youget diagnosed is, I felt
terrible and I didn't have timeto cook or even think about
cooking.
Hire a local teenager onFacebook or a friend of a
friend.
Have them make your five, can'tlive without foods.
(31:39):
For me, that was brownies, icecream, salad dressing, herb
puree, my dairy free cream.
I had to have those in therefrigerator.
If you have a bad day or you'refeeling sorry for yourself, I
need a way to feel like I'mcheating, but I'm not really
cheating.
If I'm craving coffee cake, Icreated my keto coffee cake so
that I could have thatexperience of eating this
(32:00):
delicious coffee cake onChristmas that we do in our
family every year.
So I help my clients recreatethose family recipes that you
can't live without becausethat's the only way you're gonna
succeed.
Ivelisse Page (32:12):
Alison, you are a wealth of knowledge.
We're gonna have to have youback on again and share more.
I'm so grateful for your timeand being with us today.
And, is there anything that Ididn't ask you that you would
wanna share real quick before weclose the episode?
Alison Gannett (32:29):
I would just say, bring joy to your life
because I spend a lot of timeand energy loving my cancer to
death.
I used to say fighting mycancer.
I'm not fighting my canceranymore.
I'm working with myself andloving all these things that
went wrong, that went right.
I spend about half of my day onself-care, things like
(32:49):
detoxification with a sauna, andcooking the right foods and
exercising and being outside.
But I also wanna spend half ofmy day having fun and a lot of
people forget that as soon asyou get diagnosed, you can apply
for disability and if you doqualify for disability, then you
can get a chunk of money andthen you can use that money to
(33:12):
hire.
For me, I don't like cleaning myhouse, so I hired someone to
help clean my house and I hiredsomeone to help cook for me.
So get rid of the things thatyou don't like to do and try to
focus on how am I gonna live mylife with love and passion.
It's really brought me close tomy family and my friends in a
beautiful way.
(33:33):
And asking for help is hard, butit's like breathing all my life,
I've been breathing out, I'vebeen breathing out and helping
other people.
I need to learn to breathe in,which is helping myself, and
then breathe out and help otherpeople.
It has to go both ways.
Ivelisse Page (33:50):
Yes, a hundred percent.
And I would always say to myfamily, even for myself, is,
that's why the meditation for mein prayer is so important is, I
have to fill my cup with Himfirst, so then I can pour out
because I can't be in a state ofemptiness and feel like I can
still serve.
So it's so important that you'refilling yourself so that then
(34:10):
you can give back.
So thank you so much for joiningus and, and we'll look forward
to seeing you soon.
Alison Gannett (34:17):
So great to be with you and thank you for
believing big and inspiringeverybody out there.
It really means a lot to me andto everybody else.
If you enjoyed this episode andyou'd like to help support our
podcast, please subscribe andshare it with others.
(34:39):
Be sure to visit believebig.orgto access the show notes and
discover our bonus content.
Thanks again and keep BelievingBig!
Hi, I'm Ivelisse Page and thanks for listening to
the Believe Big podcast, theshow where we take a deep dive
into your healing with healthexperts, integrative
practitioners, biblical faithleaders, and cancer thrivers
from around the globe.
(00:34):
Welcome to today's episode onthe Believe Big podcast.
My name is Ivelisse Page andit's an honor to spend this time
with you.
I have a special guest on todaywho is going to share her story
on how she has survived aterminal brain cancer diagnosis
when told she only had months tolive.
(00:54):
Okay, that was in 2013.
Alison Gannet is the founder,director and head coach for
Personalized Anti-CancerNutrition.
Alison also became a worldchampion, extreme freeskier in
Canada in 1998.
That's amazing.
She won titles in South Americaand Japan.
(01:16):
She and her husband Jason,currently live and grow and
raise almost all of theiranti-cancer foods at their Holy
Terror Farm in Colorado.
Welcome Alison to the show.
Alison Gannett (01:30):
I am so excited to be here.
Ivelisse Page (01:32):
So our audience is always curious to discover
what our guest's favorite healthtip is.
So what would you say is yours?
Alison Gannett (01:40):
Oh, I had such a hard time to decide which one.
I ended up with two, so I hopeyou don't mind.
Ivelisse Page (01:46):
Sure, bonus.
Alison Gannett (01:48):
The first one is really the mental component
because I feel that your websitesays it all, Believe Big.
Because it's very overwhelmingwhen we get diagnosed that we
wanna be a statistic, and theysay we're only gonna live 6.8
months, and we've gotta do X, Y,Z PDQ and it doesn't look good.
There's no cure for my type ofcancer.
(02:10):
I love to say, I love provingeverybody wrong and I wanna say
to everyone out there that weare not statistics and we can
take charge of our health andknowledge is power.
You don't have to just sit thereand wait for your next scan.
There's so much we can do everyday to take charge of our life.
(02:33):
And I have to say, I'm happierand healthier now than I was
when I started 13 years ago andwas told that I wasn't gonna
make it.
Ivelisse Page (02:42):
That's incredible.
So yes, definitely the mentaltools for believing that you
know what is being told to youisn't necessarily gonna be your
case.
Really believing big.
I love that.
Okay, so what is your secondtip?
Alison Gannett (02:56):
My second tip, it's really exciting to get out
there and do research into theroot causes of why we got sick,
but it tends to be reallyoverwhelming.
You might read one day thatcoffee's good for you, and then
one day coffee's bad for you.
One day red meat, great, thenext is it causes cancer.
The real answer is that we'reall different and that we have
(03:19):
unique DNA, we have unique labs,we have a unique cancer, and
that we need to have coacheslike myself that can help you
navigate this awful maze ofstuff out there.
And once you look at yourgenetics, for example, I can
process red meat, but my husbandwould be the worst person to eat
(03:43):
red meat.
And of course, I was avegetarian eating the wrong diet
for me.
He was a red meat eater eatingthe wrong diet for him.
Same goes for dairy, chocolate,all those different types of
things.
So get some help out therebecause it is tough to navigate
this whole process and we wannatest and not guess, We wanna see
(04:05):
if what we're doing is workingand we wanna see that.
And I love the science.
It makes it exciting instead ofsitting there and living in
fear.
I get so excited when my newlabs come in, or I've got a scan
coming up because they're notgood or bad, it's just
information.
And so we have to take in allthat information and add it to
(04:26):
our plan.
Ivelisse Page (04:27):
And it changes.
So let's get into a little bit,before we share about what you
do as a coach.
Can you share with our audiencea little bit about how you found
out you had brain cancer?
Alison Gannett (04:38):
Well, it was interesting, it happened slowly,
and I think a lot of people canrelate to this is you just
thought I'm getting old, or I'mtired, something's a little off,
but it's not a big deal.
There were two big things thathappened for me.
I was speaking to Microsoft onachieving your goals because I
was this crazy skier jumping offcliffs for a living and I forgot
(05:01):
to get on the plane.
Then when I got on the stage, Icompletely blanked out and gave
the wrong presentation.
Interestingly enough, I don'tremember any of this because the
brain tumor was so big and wecan post a picture of it.
It literally had taken overalmost, I don't know, two thirds
of my brain power up there.
My whole skull was filled withthis tumor and my husband knew
(05:24):
something was off, but hethought maybe I was having an
affair on him, or like I wasjust acting really strangely.
And one day I was cooking baconand it caught on fire and the
flames were like shooting up tothe ceiling.
And I was just sitting therethinking how pretty they were.
At that point, my husband waslike, no, something's wrong, and
(05:44):
we're going to the ER, and wefound out that night that I was
dying from cancer.
Ivelisse Page (05:49):
Wow.
what did the doctors tell you?
Alison Gannett (05:51):
I actually don't remember that much being there.
I do remember bits and pieces.
I remember them being like, Oh,no problem.
You're young and you've gotthis.
I was 48.
I felt like I was in good shape.
I felt like I was eating theright thing.
I felt like I was growing andraising my own food and I was
exercising and I was doing allthese amazing things.
(06:13):
So I really went through likethe stages of grief and the
first one is denial.
And so it was hard to let itsink in and luckily, they rushed
me into surgery.
I had this 10 hour surgery,which I miraculously survived,
which was step number one.
And when I woke up, luckily theysaid, that was so traumatic.
(06:33):
We don't want you to start chemoand radiation right now.
You need six months to recoverfrom this surgery.
And luckily, during that time, Ifound Dr.
Nasha Winters and my whole lifeturned upside down for the best
possible way.
Ivelisse Page (06:49):
Wow.
So we know that there are manypieces of the puzzle when
healing from cancer, but what doyou feel are the top three
things that she shared with youor that you did that helped you
to heal?
Alison Gannett (07:01):
I literally could list a hundred things
because really, I think ofcancer as this really big
thousand piece puzzle, andyou're trying to put the puzzle
together, literally.
But what I've decided over theyears of working with a lot of
other clients, because I fell inlove with this process so much
about myself, that I went toschool to do this And I came up
(07:22):
with an acronym called SIT,which is Stress, Insulin, and
Toxins.
And so I like everybody to justsit and let's talk about sit,
because there isn't a person outthere that doesn't have 20
things that fall into stress and20 things that fall under
insulin or blood sugar, carbcontrol.
(07:43):
And then toxins, of course, islike a big bucket to dig into.
Ivelisse Page (07:48):
Yeah.
And so many hidden things thatpeople aren't aware of.
What would you say are some ofthe things that fall into each
of those categories?
Alison Gannett (07:55):
I would say for stress, and I'll just use myself
cuz it's easy to remember.
I would say the mental,emotional component I always
thought that since I wasn't likephysically abused as a child,
that I was just the adult childof an alcoholic.
That the absence of a big traumadidn't seem like a big deal, but
(08:15):
I think it is actually a hugedeal for me to repair not
feeling emotionally safe as achild.
And really just the only emotionwe were allowed to feel was joy.
And if you felt sad or if youfelt angry or if you felt
bullied you couldn't bring upany of those things.
So I'm working through thatactually a lot right now.
(08:36):
I do somatic experience,tapping, and I also have a
therapist and I read a lot ofbooks.
I also do a ton of meditation.
You see this a lot with braincancer people, especially is the
overactive brain.
And I think this, for a lot ofcancers, is we either go numb or
we're overdoing everything.
(08:57):
We're the helper.
We just help everybody elseexcept for ourself.
And so I have been learning howto help myself before I help
other people.
Hormone imbalance was a hugestressor for me.
Immune system disruption, hugestressor for me.
Found out I had Lyme disease,parasite, gut imbalance, a
vitamin D3 deficiency.
(09:18):
My sleep hygiene was horrible.
I did all my work at night andnever paid attention to the
circadian rhythms of the planet,and now everything's different
for me.
My whole life revolves aroundsleep first and then probably
food second, and water.
So those are the main stressorsI would say for me personally.
(09:39):
Every single person's gonna bedifferent.
We need to find out what's inyour stress bucket and go from
there.
Ivelisse Page (09:45):
Yes.
I completely agree.
and I think.
One thing that we've been tryingto share too, we had Susie
Larson on the podcast, she wrotea book called Fully Alive.
I think you'd really love it.
And she talks about theemotional trauma that she went
through, and how she says whathappens in your soul expresses
in your cells and she sharesthat she couldn't even absorb
(10:07):
the waters and the nutrientsbecause she was caught in that
fight or flight.
So I think you're right.
We're so focused on the physicalside of cancer or disease that
we don't take time to thinkabout our past and not that we
have to have that victimmentality, right?
We address it, but then we canmove forward knowing that we
just haven't shoved it down andsaid, okay, I'm not gonna even
(10:29):
address that.
Alison Gannett (10:29):
And I thought, I didn't have severe trauma, so I
thought it wasn't a big issue.
And I think even just mymechanism of becoming a
professional extreme skier ofdoing all these things so well
was a coping mechanism as beinga small child, not being seen,
not being heard, just not beingvalidated.
And so I've had to do all thesecrazy things.
(10:52):
And I almost think that my body,one of the crazy things my body
did was like, okay, now you havecancer.
Now you have the biggest thingpossible.
And I really think of cancer asa messenger, that it's there to
tell me something about my life.
And in the beginning I reallywanted to go back to my old
life.
Everybody talks about this withcancer.
(11:13):
Like I wanna think about mebefore cancer, because that was
when everything was great.
But the reality is our normalgave us cancer.
So we have to create a newnormal that's bigger and better
and more wonderful and morecomplete than my old self.
And I'm very much moreappreciative of the little
(11:33):
things in life.
I always say if I'm not in thehospital and I'm not looking up
at the hospital ceiling, ifthere's a blue sky and green
grass, I mean having a gratitudejournal, like all these things,
appreciating just being alivecuz we're all gonna die.
We don't know if we're gonna dietomorrow in a car crash or if
(11:53):
I'm gonna die from cancer.
But that whole, like not knowingabout when I'm gonna die is what
I've been learning to embrace.
What we have is this beautifulmoment right now with us
interacting with each other, andthat's all we have.
And so let's go for it and enjoylife as much as we can.
Ivelisse Page (12:12):
Yeah.
Take each day as it comes andmake the most of it.
I really love that.
What about insulin?
Most people think of insulin andthey think of diabetics.
Oh, I don't have an issue withinsulin cuz I'm not diabetic.
But what does that really mean?
Alison Gannett (12:25):
Well, I originally called it sugar, and
everybody always says like me,oh, I don't eat sugar.
Well, do you eat wheat bread?
Do you have pasta?
Do you have broccoli?
Do you eat beets or potatoes?
Every single thing has a certainamount of a blood sugar index
effect on our body.
(12:45):
What I didn't realize when I waseating all these amazing foods
that I grew on my farm was thatall the foods that I ate really
caused my blood sugar to rise.
And if you look at all thestudies, they kind of vary on
how much sugar affects cancer,but they all kind of agree that
there is a glycolytic componentof cancer.
(13:08):
That means it could raise yourIGF-1 or it could raise your
hemoglobin A1C, or it couldraise your fasting insulin, or
it could raise your fastingglucose.
There's so many blood glucosemarkers and we need to look at
all of those and see if insulinand blood sugar is a problem for
you.
Everybody tells me I don't eatsugar.
(13:29):
Everybody tells me I don't knowwhy I got sick.
I eat perfectly.
Some people say, I know why Igot sick.
But the bottom line for me was Ididn't know that the things I
was eating was developinginsulin resistance in my body.
Cancer basically acts I alwayssay like a Walmart scanner, like
those little guns, and it'slooking around for its preferred
(13:51):
fuel and it's preferred fuel issome kind of glucose or carbs
that you've eaten.
And really, how you eat thatcarb is as important as what
carb you are eating.
For example, I found out throughtesting that every time I ate
broccoli, my blood sugar wouldgo up.
But if I ate broccoli with ahalf a cup of let's say my
(14:13):
homemade salad dressing, or if Ideep fried my broccoli, or if I
served it with a quarter stickof butter, then that would
mitigate the insulin effect ofthe broccoli.
So how you eat is as importantas what carbs you eat.
And so I've had to changebasically everything.
What I was taught in school inthe eighties about nutrition was
(14:34):
wrong.
It said eat five servings ofgrains.
I was doing exactly that.
My blood sugar was going throughthe roof.
I was eating lots of legumes, myblood sugar was going through
the roof.
We call it the keto diet, but Ilike to also call it therapeutic
carb reduction because whatwe're doing is we're really
paying attention to what kind ofcarbs go into our body and the
(14:55):
quality of those vegetables.
Of course, they should beorganic and chemical free.
But also a really wide varietyof vegetables.
I try to get, if possible, 20vegetables a day into my diet,
and also nine cups of vegetablesinto my diet in the day.
So when I was a vegetarian, Ididn't eat vegetables hardly at
(15:17):
all.
Now that I'm on Alison'santi-cancer therapeutic carb
reduction diet, I eat tons ofvegetables, very small amounts
of very high quality protein,and then really high quality
fats.
I find that I need to eat theequivalent of about three sticks
of butter a day.
Now, of course, we don't know ifyou can metabolize dairy or not,
(15:39):
or if saturated fat is good foryou or not.
These are all things that we'regonna find out when we dive into
your DNA and your labs.
Ivelisse Page (15:47):
I love that.
Alison Gannett (15:48):
Yeah, a lot of people eat low carb, but they
forget about the fat.
Ivelisse Page (15:51):
Yeah.
And it's so important.
Even growing up fat was the badword, and no carbs and all these
things.
Again, I wanna stress if thereare patients listening like
we've mentioned before, whatAlison's saying is absolutely
correct.
You have to be tested to findout what your sensitivities are,
what your body chemistry is, sothat you can be on the right
(16:12):
diet best for you.
Great example for me was Ithought, okay, I have cancer.
I'm gonna have this greensmoothie juice, and this green
smoothie that I thought had allthese good things in it made my
sugar level skyrocket cuz I'msuper sensitive to sugar.
So I had eliminate all thefruits in there.
I could only have blueberriesand then I added the spinach and
(16:33):
added some protein to it.
But it's amazing how everybody'sbody's different.
So just because you hear it fromanother patient or a friend that
this works for them, it reallyis individualized and you really
need to seek someone like Alisonthat can really work with you to
really dive in to say, okay,what is gonna be most
therapeutic for you?
(16:54):
And let's touch real quickly onthe last one cause I wanna hear
more about your story andtoxins.
Most people think toxins andthey think about glyphosate or
things like that.
So what is encompassing of that?
Alison Gannett (17:06):
Where I start first for every single person is
I take the zip code or wherethey live cuz most of my clients
are international and I look upsuperfund cleanup sites.
I look up water toxicity reportsfor their area and everybody
thinks that you know their areais clean or they know that it's
(17:26):
dirty, but they really don'tknow what the toxins are.
So I wanna find out what is intheir water, and then I wanna
find out what is the right waterfilter to work for them.
For example, a lot of peoplewill have a really good reverse
osmosis water filter for theirtap water, but then I might find
out that their water'sradioactive and that they're
(17:46):
showering in it every day.
So we really need to find outwhat the chemicals are and then
we gotta come up with a strategyof how to get them out.
Then we dig into air and look atthe air pollution for their
area.
We see a ton of rise of lungcancer, and that is because of
air pollution.
And air pollution could betraffic on the street.
(18:07):
It could be oil and gasdrilling, or it could be radon.
Or it could be wildfire smoke,it could be hundreds of
different things.
So we really wanna dig intothat.
We wanna look into food toxins.
What are you eating?
What are you drinking?
What are you doing for homecleaning products?
What are you doing for yourdentistry?
How about biotoxins, like moldand Lyme disease, C.diff,
(18:32):
bacterial infections, viralinfections, parasites, SIBO,
constipation, colitis,diverticulitis.
Going down the list, it'sprocess of elimination.
What I have realized over theyears is we wanna just cross all
these things off the list andsay, okay, this one is not a
player.
Ivelisse Page (18:52):
Yep.
Alison Gannett (18:52):
Because I had a reoccurrence in 2018 and another
one in 2020.
How can this be happening to me?
But the reality was I missedradon in the beginning, and I
also faked meditation.
I knew I should do it, but I waslike, I'm doing enough.
This is fine.
And then that recurrence, like Isaid, cancer's a messenger.
(19:15):
It slapped me upside the headand said, Alison, you're not
doing enough.
You need to do more.
Every time I've had one of thoserecurrences, it's been like this
horrible thing that's turnedinto another gift.
This last journey, I discoveredthat I had Lyme disease, so that
was another big one in 2020.
And also, I had faked dealingwith my trauma as a child.
(19:37):
So I thought, oh, it's not thatbad.
And so I was like, look, I havenothing to lose.
I might as well dig in to mytrauma and see if anything's
there.
I feel like we all have grown upwith good things that happened
to us and bad things thathappened to us.
And it's not like we have toremember all of them, but we
have to integrate them intoourself.
(19:58):
I'm reading right now, The BodyKeeps the Score.
Holy moly.
The body really does keep thescore and there's a reason I got
cancer and it's not just becauseI was eating high carbs and
getting lots of all the things Ilisted, it's more than that.
Ivelisse Page (20:13):
It's interesting cuz people will say, I can't
believe this person got cancer.
Even myself, I can't believethat you got cancer Ivelisse
because you and Jimmy eatorganic, you exercise.
So I have the MTFHR gene and soit makes it really hard for me
to process things out.
And I've shared this before, butin the past I went on a mission
trip and I had to get nineimmunizations and they gave them
(20:35):
to me within a two month period,all nine of them.
And, a year later, I'm stagefour cancer.
So I know that was the trigger.
I don't want people to beconcerned to think, oh, I have a
family history of this.
I'd love for you to chime in onthe fact that we can switch on
and off those things based onwhat we do.
I actually switched it on notknowing.
Alison Gannett (20:56):
Yep.
Ivelisse Page (20:57):
So speak to that for us.
Alison Gannett (20:59):
A lot of people are focused on cancer as a
genetic disease, and that hasbeen disproven.
We could do a whole show onthat.
We're not going to but less than4% of cancers are genetic.
And even if they are, let's takethe BRCA gene for example.
The BRCA gene is very sensitiveto insulin and toxins.
So the BRCA gene can actually beprotective for people with
(21:22):
cancer, if you take care.
If you know that you have thatgene and then you take care of
it, how do you take care of yourgenes?
Diet and lifestyle are the twobiggest ways that you can either
turn on a gene or you can turnoff a gene.
A perfect example for me is thatI have the apoe4 gene, and if
(21:44):
anybody knows about that gene,it's often linked to a very high
percentage of Alzheimer's.
What people don't know is theapoe4 also is very poor detoxer
of chemicals.
So even though I live in ruralColorado, when you test my body,
it looks like I live in HongKong because the apoe4 gene and
(22:08):
I have about oh, maybe 11 othergenes that hold onto toxins like
a sponge.
And this is why two relativescould live at Love Canal in New
York.
One might get cancer from thetoxins in the soil, and the
other one may not because of thegenetic predisposition we have.
But what's so cool is when Ichanged my diet, when I changed
(22:31):
my lifestyle, and my sleep andmy exercise, and taking care of
myself, all my blood markers gotbetter and when they get better,
you are actually influencingthose genes.
So if anybody has seen a helixof DNA, it's looks like a slinky
that's stretched out.
They have these little methylgroups that latch onto your DNA
(22:53):
that are gonna turn on or turnoff a gene.
So if you could look at my apoe4gene, if I had lots of toxins
that gene would be turning onand turning on, if I had lots of
insulin based foods, lots ofcarbohydrates that gene would be
turning on.
If I remove the foods thattrigger apoe4 and I remove the
(23:14):
toxins that trigger apoe4, thenthat gene is, you could call it
neutralized.
It's basically not going tocause you harm.
And the reason we know this isthere is a tribe in Africa.
They are all apoe34, and 44, andthe majority of them are apoe44,
which is two copies of thedisease, one from your mother,
(23:37):
one from your father.
There is no incidence ofAlzheimer's in that tribe until
they leave that tribe and starteating the standard American
diet.
Ivelisse Page (23:46):
Wow.
Alison Gannett (23:47):
Once they leave the tribe, they eat the junk
that I was eating when I gotsick, then the disease has a
very high proportion ofexpressing itself.
And again, Alzheimer's is likecancer.
It's a big puzzle, a thousandpiece puzzle, that we need to
put together.
But I know that for me, the giftthat cancer gave me is that I
(24:08):
will never get Alzheimer's iswhat I fully believe because
I've made so many changes to mydiet and lifestyle for cancer.
Those are the same changes Ineeded to make to prevent
Alzheimer's.
Ivelisse Page (24:21):
I've heard that the ketogenic diet is fantastic
for brain cancer and alsoAlzheimer's.
So for those people who arelistening who don't know what a
ketogenic diet is, can youexplain what a ketogenic diet
is, and then also the differencebetween that and a therapeutic
one.
You touched on it brieflybefore, but just so it's a
little clear.
For those who aren't familiar.
Alison Gannett (24:40):
The first type of keto, which is short for
ketogenic, is what I call dirtyketo.
It's also what I call internetketo.
Basically, if you go on thewebsite and you Google around,
all these people are eating likesausage and cream cheese.
The quality of the foods is notgood.
It's very high fat and very lowcarb.
That is what a ketogenic dietis.
(25:03):
But what is the quality of thosecarbs?
What is the quality of the fats?
For example, so I could eatsausage and cream cheese, but in
my case, I have a gene thatdoesn't process dairy, so I
can't have dairy in mypersonalized low carb diet.
I also have a gene that doesn'tprocess coconut oil, so I can't
(25:25):
have coconut oil or palm oil,very saturated fats in my diet,
whereas a lot of people outthere on the internet are saying
saturated fat is good.
In general, yeah, it's waybetter than vegetable oil.
We wanna stay way far away fromvegetable oils, seed oils, those
kinds of things over-processedhigh Omega-6s but we also need
(25:46):
to look at your genetics andsay, what kind of fats can you
metabolize?
Okay, back to keto.
So we've got internet, dirtyketo.
Then we've got the high qualityketo where you're eating lots of
vegetables.
Generally we avoid,carbohydrates like bread, rice,
and pasta.
We're also avoiding most fruits.
A lot of people think likefruits are this big antioxidant.
(26:09):
The truth is, if you want lotsof antioxidants, you'll get the
same antioxidant power from likeyellow Swiss chard as you would
from like a high carb thing likean orange carrot.
So we say mostly we're going toeat above ground vegetables.
That's the easiest way Idescribe it to everybody.
(26:30):
I've also written a cookbook.
I've also have like my"yes"foods list, my"no" foods list,
where to buy healthy foods list.
Those foods have to be chemicalfree.
They have to be grown as closeto you as possible, so we're not
losing all that nutrition whilethey're driving in a truck for
three weeks.
And we also really need to focuson the quality of, especially
(26:52):
things like proteins.
There are studies, a lot ofpeople have read them that say
meats can cause cancer.
The reality is the meats theytested were conventional meats.
I'm a beef farmer.
Our cows graze in thesebeautiful pastures with all this
healthy vegetation.
They're rotationally grazed.
(27:13):
They're happy, they're healthy.
They have clean water, cleanair.
Cows that you buy at, I'm gonnapick on my mom, supermarket When
she goes to supermarket, she'ssupporting cows that are raised
indoors often and they're fedanything from corn to candy to
anything they can get theirhands on.
That is cheap, and then theygive them, because they're so
(27:35):
sick from those things they'veeaten, they give them lots of
antibiotics and then they wannamake more money.
So they give them growthhormones, to make a small cow
become a big cow, also make asmall tumor become a big tumor.
So we really wanna have qualityproteins.
We also wanna look at the DNAand see which proteins you can
(27:56):
eat and should not eat, becausethat gets more complicated as
well.
So we've kind of got now aclean, healthy version of keto,
focusing on quality andquantity.
Quantity for therapeutic keto,we generally put people at 85%
fat, 5% carb, and 10% protein.
(28:17):
Now, I don't know yourmetabolism or anybody's
metabolism, so we generallystrive to test for ketones.
So if you have a low gradecancer, you might want to have
your blood ketone tests, saysomething from one, two, three,
and we call that nutritionalketosis.
So that would be more like maybe75% fat, maybe more like 15%
(28:42):
protein.
and then people who have highergrade cancers, more severe
cancers or cancers that we knowreally love carbs and sugar.
Pancreatic cancer is one ofthem, triple negative breast
cancer, brain cancer lovessugar.
I don't think there's a cancerout there that hasn't been shown
to be glycolytic.
(29:03):
So we wanna have some kind oftherapeutic carb reduction for
everybody, but we just don'tknow exactly what yours should
be until we work with yourdoctor and we look at your DNA
and we look at your labs and welook at your health history.
All of those come together andwe make a customized, low carb,
(29:25):
high fat diet, which you couldalso call the therapeutic.
Ivelisse Page (29:29):
I actually glanced at your anti-cancer
cookbook and the recipes justlook delicious.
And sometimes people think, oh,ketogenic, that's so limiting,
but it really isn't when you'reputting the right foods
together.
And so I would encourageeveryone to take a look at your
anti-cancer cookbook and we'llput a link in our show notes for
that as well.
Alison Gannett (29:48):
I'm glad you brought that up cuz it has to be
fun.
Ivelisse Page (29:50):
Yes.
Alison Gannett (29:50):
And I think if you think of this with dread, it
will be dreadful.
In the beginning, everythingseemed foreign and scary.
How do I eat this fat and how doI do this?
I walk you through it step bystep.
But also the way I look at itnow is I get to eat my dairy
free ice cream, and my low carb,grain-free brownies every single
(30:14):
day and maintain healthy weightand all that ice cream and
brownies, it sounds like junkfood, but every single
ingredient there is healthy andgood for you.
Ivelisse Page (30:24):
Are those recipes in your cookbook?
Alison Gannett (30:26):
Oh, absolutely.
You've gotta have a replacementfor everything.
So you know, if you love bread,what is a ketogenic version of
anti-cancer bread?
Most of the recipes out therethat are keto are made with
almond flour, and I'm just gonnago ahead and say that I'm not a
fan of almond flour, very highin carbs, so people think
they're doing the right thingbut nuts vary in their amount of
(30:48):
carbs.
And the other thing we foundwith almonds and certain nuts is
they can be heavily sprayed withglyphosate and atrazine.
And those are two knowncarcinogens.
Ivelisse Page (30:59):
Even organic raw ones?
Alison Gannett (31:00):
They did a test and I'll have to pull up the,
PubMed or it was NCBI, I can'tremember who did the test, but
they tested all the packagedorganic foods in Whole Foods,
and they found traces ofglyphosate in all of them.
Ivelisse Page (31:15):
Wow.
Alison Gannett (31:16):
And everybody's oh, Allison, this is such a
pain.
How am I gonna make my brownies?
How am I gonna make my granola?
How am I gonna make my bread?
One of my biggest tips when youget diagnosed is, I felt
terrible and I didn't have timeto cook or even think about
cooking.
Hire a local teenager onFacebook or a friend of a
friend.
Have them make your five, can'tlive without foods.
(31:39):
For me, that was brownies, icecream, salad dressing, herb
puree, my dairy free cream.
I had to have those in therefrigerator.
If you have a bad day or you'refeeling sorry for yourself, I
need a way to feel like I'mcheating, but I'm not really
cheating.
If I'm craving coffee cake, Icreated my keto coffee cake so
that I could have thatexperience of eating this
(32:00):
delicious coffee cake onChristmas that we do in our
family every year.
So I help my clients recreatethose family recipes that you
can't live without becausethat's the only way you're gonna
succeed.
Ivelisse Page (32:12):
Alison, you are a wealth of knowledge.
We're gonna have to have youback on again and share more.
I'm so grateful for your timeand being with us today.
And, is there anything that Ididn't ask you that you would
wanna share real quick before weclose the episode?
Alison Gannett (32:29):
I would just say, bring joy to your life
because I spend a lot of timeand energy loving my cancer to
death.
I used to say fighting mycancer.
I'm not fighting my canceranymore.
I'm working with myself andloving all these things that
went wrong, that went right.
I spend about half of my day onself-care, things like
(32:49):
detoxification with a sauna, andcooking the right foods and
exercising and being outside.
But I also wanna spend half ofmy day having fun and a lot of
people forget that as soon asyou get diagnosed, you can apply
for disability and if you doqualify for disability, then you
can get a chunk of money andthen you can use that money to
(33:12):
hire.
For me, I don't like cleaning myhouse, so I hired someone to
help clean my house and I hiredsomeone to help cook for me.
So get rid of the things thatyou don't like to do and try to
focus on how am I gonna live mylife with love and passion.
It's really brought me close tomy family and my friends in a
beautiful way.
(33:33):
And asking for help is hard, butit's like breathing all my life,
I've been breathing out, I'vebeen breathing out and helping
other people.
I need to learn to breathe in,which is helping myself, and
then breathe out and help otherpeople.
It has to go both ways.
Ivelisse Page (33:50):
Yes, a hundred percent.
And I would always say to myfamily, even for myself, is,
that's why the meditation for mein prayer is so important is, I
have to fill my cup with Himfirst, so then I can pour out
because I can't be in a state ofemptiness and feel like I can
still serve.
So it's so important that you'refilling yourself so that then
(34:10):
you can give back.
So thank you so much for joiningus and, and we'll look forward
to seeing you soon.
Alison Gannett (34:17):
So great to be with you and thank you for
believing big and inspiringeverybody out there.
It really means a lot to me andto everybody else.
If you enjoyed this episode andyou'd like to help support our
podcast, please subscribe andshare it with others.
(34:39):
Be sure to visit believebig.orgto access the show notes and
discover our bonus content.
Thanks again and keep BelievingBig!
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