June 13, 2025 • 35 mins
What happens when you refuse to accept the standard cancer treatment plan? Joe Grumbine's remarkable journey proves that taking ownership of your health decisions can lead to extraordinary results.
When Joe was diagnosed with advanced squamous cell head and neck cancer, doctors immediately recommended aggressive radiation and high-dose chemotherapy. Instead of simply following this prescribed path, Joe partnered with Dr. Robert Hoffman to create a personalized "chemo cocktail" combined with a methionine-restricted diet, enzyme supplementation, and oxygenating therapies.
The results have been nothing short of miraculous. After just seven weeks, Joe's tumor dramatically reduced in size, and his NavDx test measuring viral markers dropped from 24,000 to zero after just one treatment round. His oncologist was visibly shocked during their video consultation when reviewing these results.
Throughout their conversation, Dr. Hoffman emphasizes that Joe's approach works because it's systemic – addressing cancer throughout the entire body rather than just at the tumor site. This is crucial because the real danger isn't local recurrence but distant metastasis, particularly to the lungs. The methionine restriction specifically targets cancer cells' unique metabolic requirements, essentially starving them while the modified chemotherapy regimen delivers the knockout punch.
What makes this episode particularly valuable is how it balances respect for conventional medicine with the courage to question standard protocols. Joe didn't reject medical expertise – he engaged with it thoughtfully, researched alternatives, and presented a well-reasoned plan that his oncologist ultimately supported. His story demonstrates that patients can and should be active participants in their treatment decisions.
Ready to take control of your health journey? Listen now and discover how combining evidence-based conventional treatments with carefully selected complementary approaches could potentially yield outcomes far superior to either strategy alone.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well, hello and welcome back to the Healthy
Living Podcast.
I'm your host, Joe Grumbine,and today we have back in the
studio Dr Robert Hoffman.
Robert, welcome back.
How are you doing today?
Thank you, Joe, Always glad tobe here.
You just got back from anotherinternational trip.
How did?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
that go.
Yep, and I survived it Allright.
That's the most important part.
So you're doing better, better.
You're just continuing to justmelt that tumor away.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
It's just, you know, I looked at pictures, uh, about
a year ago, and then I justlooked at some pictures about a
year and a half ago and I'verewound this thing about a year
and a half in seven weeks.
It's pretty amazing.
This last round was a littlebit, you know, I won't say tough
because I'm out there workingin the yard, it's just to get so
(00:52):
tired.
It really takes, you're takinga big dose.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
People ask me is this a low?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
dose that's what it takes.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Hell.
No, this is not a low dose,this is a big old dose, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I mean we're not doing Dr Feelgood, you know, oh
no, We've got to get rid of thisthing.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
But you know what?
I'm sleeping fine and I get outthere and I work for a little
while.
I feel tired, I come in, take anap.
It's no big deal.
There you go, there you go.
You just adjust your life.
Life and you know, this has allbeen about priorities and this
is the most important thing isgetting this thing gone and
getting back to health, whateverit costs me, whether it's my
(01:31):
hair or some dollars or someinconveniences, who cares?
Right, that's absolutelycorrect and you know we were
talking about on the meetinglast week and I want to really
impress on the listeners.
This meeting is so important Ifyou have cancer or if you know
(01:52):
somebody who does.
This is a Zoom call that peoplefrom all around the world are
joining and they're sharingtheir life experiences with this
notion of amethionine-restricted diet,
methioninase as a way to manageit a little bit.
People are talking about, youknow, these are people that were
(02:15):
diagnosed terminal years agoand they're still with us.
They're still alive and healthy.
These are people that hadtumors that they were told had
to be operated on, radiated, andthey didn't do those things.
They did these other thingsthat we're talking about and
they're today still living acancer-free life and I'm the
(02:36):
poster boy today.
I've jumped into this arenaonly a few months ago.
I embraced this diet, I'veembraced this enzyme and several
other tricks, if you will,oxygenating things, and we came
up with this chemo cocktail notthe one that the doctors came.
The doctors came to me withradiation and chemo high doses
(02:59):
of both and I just really feltin my gut that radiation is
going to cause me more problemsthan it's going to help and,
plus, I couldn't get it quickenough because I had some dental
issues and Dr Hoffman and Icame up with this cocktail of
chemo and I presented to them asa neoadjuvant sort of a
(03:21):
precursory treatment to theother things they wanted to do.
They accepted it and we'veknocked this thing down to a
fraction of what it was andevery day I take pictures of it
and Dr Hoffa is running a casestudy on this thing.
In fact, I wanted to tell you,I requested, I told you the last
time we talked, talked.
(03:45):
I was talking to the medicaloncologist the one who's
overseeing the chemo, and I hadjust gotten a new uh blood work
done.
They call it a navdax and it'sa.
It's a measure of the viralmarkers that cause this cancer,
and the first time I had it donewas in I believe it was january
(04:08):
, and the number was up at like24 000.
I don't know if that's what themeasure of units is, but 24 000
is a number to go by.
And today, or this last one Igot about a week ago oh no, no,
I actually got the last oneafter just after the first round
of chemo.
All right, it was they.
(04:29):
I took it as I was gettingready to do the second infusion
and it took a few weeks to getback.
So I'm doing.
I was doing these cycles everythree weeks.
So last week I had a videoconference with her and I asked
you know, how did that last scancome up?
She opened it up and I saw hereyes kind of get big and she's
(04:52):
like whoa and uh, says what'swhat's going on, and she goes it
says zero, let me go back anddouble check that.
And she went back and readthrough everything and it went
from 24,000 to zero.
And that was just the firstsession was completed and I'm
now I just finished taking thethird session.
So the plan right now is, afterthis is done for Saturday, they
(05:19):
take the pump off of me.
I'll be completed with allthree drugs and and I'm
continuing, you know, this veryrestrictive diet.
I'm taking the methionineaseand if I go even off a little
bit off the chart, I double upthe methioninease.
So I'm not giving this canceranything to eat and any way to
(05:41):
replicate, and this chemo isjust tearing it apart.
And so they're going to bedoing a scan what do they call
it, a contrast CT scan on June30th and then after that we're
going to discuss the next steps.
(06:01):
And I presented to her the ideaof maintenance chemo and even,
in case this didn't do what wewanted, some other drugs that
might be a way forward.
But she kind of dug in herheels and you know I presented a
neoadjuvant solution, which isa precursor, not a finished
(06:25):
solution, and I we even talkedto her about, you know that
identifying it as being gone,essentially.
But she said well, you can'treally do that without a surgery
because this thing was soprolific that we can't do a
biopsy of all these differentplaces.
We have to be able to go in andsee it and I, you know I'm
(06:46):
working with her when she'sright, you know, I asked for a
low dose on the CT scan and shesays well, if I do that, it's
not going to necessarily tell uswhat we need.
I agreed with her.
I said you know what?
I'm not going to fight you onany of this.
I'm just trying to get the mostgood with the least amount of
harm, and that's all.
And if you tell me that there'sa reason, I'll work with you.
(07:07):
You need a normal CT, joe?
Yeah, and I'm fine with that.
I just have to propose thenotion, if there's a safer way
forward for me, that we're goingto take it.
Nothing's going to happen toyou from the CT, don't worry
about it.
Yeah, and I'm okay.
I just know I everything's atstake here and I'm trying to
come out of this knowing that Imade the best choices possible.
(07:29):
So that's kind of where we leftoff, and you know.
Let me give you a couple ofthoughts.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yes, please, your medical oncologist and your
radio, your radiologicaloncologist whatever you want to
call him, radiologicaloncologist or whatever you want
to call him are kind of sayingthe standard is to get that
radiation.
But the danger, joe, for you isnot the local recurrence, the
(07:59):
danger is that it will recurdistantly, especially in the
lungs.
So that's why I that it willrecur distantly, especially in
the lungs.
Right so that's why I am verymuch hoping that you can get
some good chemo as a maintenancechemo.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Right.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Keep this thing from recurring at a distance site,
especially the lungs.
I agree, this is the problem ofsquamous cell head and neck
cancer Metastasis to the lungs.
So right now your lungs areclean, your tumor's going away
and we, you know, we, we got tokeep this guy down on the you
(08:45):
know just down.
We got to keep it from risingup Absolutely.
You know, just stoppingeverything now and no, that's
not going to work.
So that's why we need asystemic.
Methioninase, of course, issystemic.
The low methionine diet issystemic, the ivermectin is
(09:07):
systemic.
All good, all good Doing allthose things.
We need some chemo.
In my opinion, we need somechemo in the mix, I agree.
So, just like Chihiro, shekeeps that thing from coming
back.
So let's get the scans, let'syou and I will have a talk, and
(09:32):
then I think it's it'll be timeto talk again with Dr Castro.
I agree, put it straight to himI want some maintenance chemo
prescribed, something for me.
I want it.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Yeah, I agree, I want it.
What I'm trying to do is I justreached out to the medical
oncologist to get a set of thelast blood work so that I can
send both of those tests to youand that's extremely.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Your blood work is a great result.
It's unbelievable.
But we've got to keep it thatway.
Joe, I agree, and no matterwhat your blood work says, no
matter even what the CT scansays, there's cancer cells
around, there's for sure.
I agree.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
We've got to keep them down.
No, I'm right there with youand I agree.
As much as I was opposed tothis chemo, I look and see what
it did and I look at the resultsand really the toll it's taken
on me is minimal.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
We think the chemo is working much better because
you're combining it withmethionine restriction.
That's consistent with whatwe've done in the lab for 40
years on that Consistent whatwe've seen in other patients.
By the way, scott Davies he hadhis med pet completely negative
(10:57):
.
Scott is tumor-free and I'mbegging him to get maintenance
chemo and he agrees.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Good good, it sounds like he's got the right attitude
.
He does.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
It's not a coincidence that Scott got this
great result because he has afantastic attitude, huge.
He's taken everything possibleto get that result.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Right, yeah, this doesn't just happen.
This happens with a huge amountof effort, people with cancer
have to take it seriously.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
It's a life-threatening disease every
day and it's got to be kept down.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Well, you know, I spoke with a woman the other day
and she heard about me and thethings that I've been doing and
her son is 27 years old and he'sgot non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and
it's metastasized and he is, youknow, they're religious people
and they believe in miracles andall this stuff.
And I said, listen, a miracledoesn't happen just because you
(12:01):
want it.
Miracle happens because you goout and make it happen.
And I said, you know, I don'tthink you should worry about
anything.
I think you should take itseriously and approach it as
something that will take yourlife if you don't.
And worry doesn't help you, butfocus does.
And I had a nice long talk withher and I told her about all
these things that I've done andI told her about our meeting and
(12:23):
I told her about you, I senther all the links and stuff.
And she says she's, you know,going to try to get through to
her son.
The severe or the, just the yeah, I mean this is.
This is the most daunting thingthat could ever come at you.
It's the most important problemyou could ever have to solve.
(12:45):
And to sit there and go I'm notworried about it, it's just
basically closing your eyes andjumping off a cliff and you know
she's, she's going to try toget, I said, but she can't do it
for him.
You know mom can't fix her son,who's 27 years old, and I, I
hope that you know.
She says that you know I wasinspiring and she says that
she's really motivated and she'sgoing to try to get him to talk
(13:08):
to me and I hope he does.
But that's, you're right, thepeople that succeed.
You got to have it as the mostimportant thing in your life.
You got to own it and realizethat you know you're the only
one that can solve this.
All the people, the doctors andthe ideas they'll have bits and
pieces.
Some of them might have goodanswers, but some might have bad
(13:30):
answers and you got to figurethat out.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
So I'm like you.
I want to move as far as I canahead, even just in my mind, as
a solution.
And you know I've got a fewmore days of this last round.
Like I said, I've weathered itreally well.
I didn't even get any sores inmy mouth this time, and three
(14:04):
weeks after that they're goingto do the scan.
But as soon as we get the scandone, I really want to and
another blood test.
Yeah, yeah, I think they'regoing to do the blood test and
the scan about the same time.
So we'll have yeah and we'llsend that along to Dr Castro.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Absolutely, we don't ask them.
We tell them we want, we wantmaintenance chemo.
Could you please prescribe whatyou think?
Speaker 1 (14:27):
is best for us.
Exactly, that's where I'm at,because I know the last time you
want you got to tell the docwhat you want.
This is what I want.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I have noproblem doing that, as you well
know.
I know the last time we talked,I talked to Dr Castro.
You know he was pretty much inagreements with the radiation
and he thought that you knowthat's their standard of care
(14:50):
and they're not going to go offof that.
And you know again, like youand I've said, this is I'm the
one who's hiring them, not theother way around.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
You know again, like you, and I say I'm the one who's
hiring them, not the other wayaround.
Well, the problem what'sradiation going to solve?
Right now, I agree, you'repractically tumor-free at the
local site, so you get more.
You get all this burn from theradiation there.
And if there's cells that havealready moved out to various
parts in the body, already movedout to various parts in the
(15:23):
body and and and you can saythat that's 99.9 percent that
it's happened, what's the,what's the radiotherapy going to
do to that when you just put iton your neck?
We need systemic, I totallyneed systemic therapy to prevent
these cancer cells that haveescaped from your primary tumor
from growing elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
That's what we need, 100% and that's what got me.
It was like okay, the wholeidea.
Luckily or fortunately, whenthey did the last CT scan it
showed it had not moved and Ibelieve it still hasn't.
Well, it's not detectable by CT?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
You don't have any distant tumors, but you can just
bet there's cancer cellsfloating around in your blood.
With all that Looking for aplace, to the viruses that were
picked up before they're outthere.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
I agree, I agree and I also agree with the whole
systemic notion.
That's why you know theseoxygen therapies I do, they're
systemic.
The fasting it's systemic, thediet, it goes everywhere.
There's no place it doesn't go.
So I'm trying to create anenvironment where the cancer
doesn't have a place to land butinevitably, you know, know,
(16:36):
something goes away or somethingyou know you let up, or
inevitably there's a place whereit finds its way, not if you,
not if you don't let up.
Exactly.
Well, I have no intention ofletting up.
I tell you this is my life nowand, yeah, I'm not, uh, I don't
have any, any, any falseillusions, that you know.
It's funny that the medicaloncologist I forget the, what,
(16:58):
the term, what is her name?
Dr Nabar Hang on, n-a-b-a-r.
I will, I'll look it up, herfirst name and I'll send you the
information.
Would you please name and I'llsend you the the information
please.
She's a little indian lady orsome middle eastern and she's
(17:20):
very.
You know she, she communicateswell and you know again, I don't
even fault these guys.
They're trained away, theylearn a certain thing and that's
what they're, that's theirexpertise.
They're not, they're notnecessary.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yeah, but she was flexible enough to let you have
your adjuvant chemo Absolutely,and the other 99% of them
wouldn't let you do that.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
You're right, and I couldn't have done it without
her.
I can't just go and order thosedrugs.
And so that you know, for me Ithink, even if we come to a
parting of ways she wasinstrumental, I don't think
you'll have a parting of waysJoe.
You'll stay with her.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
But just because if you get a prescription of
something to take doesn't meanyou part the ways from her.
You stay in touch and get yourperiodic scans and stuff like
that.
You still need her.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I still got this port in me.
So until they take it, don'ttake it out.
Oh no, no, no, no, I'm notdoing anything like that.
I'm, I'm, I'm prepared for thelong haul on this, whatever
there you go, you need to do I.
I'm not going anywhere and Iplan to outlive my kids if I
have the opportunity, and youknow, that's that's that's where
(18:35):
I'm at.
I really believe that I've gotthe ability to help a lot of
people and I believe I have anability to help your work, and I
think that's important.
Well, you're already helping it.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Joe, You're such a great example.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Well, and I think that that's a thing that, as
people realize, I've learned alot from you.
Well, that's how it's supposedto be, my friend.
I think we're all supposed tolearn from each other and grow
from each other, and whenthere's something important,
this is important work.
This is literally changing theparadigm of medical approach to
(19:12):
cancer and I believe that ifthis worked this way for me I
mean the listeners who are maybehearing this for the first time
, you know, the listeners whoare maybe hearing this for the
first time you got to understandI was facing.
I don't know how many more daysI would have gone without this
turning it around before it gotreally critical.
I mean, I was getting chokedout.
(19:33):
I wasn't sleeping, I couldhardly walk around my yard
without getting dizzy.
I was getting weaker and weakerin spite of all the things I
was doing, and it wasn't enough.
And I don't know.
You know it was not a very goodsituation and because of these
things that have happened within, it's been seven weeks and it's
(19:53):
reversed itself to the pointwhere anybody who sees me today,
that has seen me months ago,their eyes open up, wide open
they don't know what to say.
It's not just this tumor shrunk.
My energy is back, I'm stronger, I'm vital.
I'm not 100%, but I'm gainingon it every day.
Whatever it is I did, somebodycan't argue with that, they
(20:21):
can't deny it and so that givesme a voice.
And so I can talk to any doctor, I can talk to any scientist, I
can talk to any patient, and Ican just tell them what I know,
which is what I've done and whatI saw, and I think that's
important.
I think it's very important.
So I'm looking forward to, youknow, getting this final blood
(20:45):
work.
Obviously, I'm a little, youknow.
I'm cautiously optimistic, I'mconfident that I'm going to get
what I want.
But until you see it, you'regoing to get what you want,
because we're not going to stoptrying to get it.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
If Dr Castro doesn't come through, we'll find
somebody else.
I agree, even a plain old doccan prescribe any medicine.
I agree, you don't have to bean oncologist to prescribe these
drugs.
A licensed physician canprescribe any FDA any.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Any fda approved drug , no problem and you know,
especially if we come up with anoral solution that I don't need
to have, like chihiro, maybeyou'll take chihiro's drug.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
It's probably active against any cancer and she's
hanging in there with it, um,and she's.
You know, she keeps coming upwith the negative scans.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
We'll figure it out.
No-transcript.
The blood work.
I think I can order most ofthat myself.
I don't think most of it.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Well, you've got life extension.
It lets you order most things.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Right.
So I mean in the worst of allcases, and you can go down.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Another option, joe, is to go down to Tijuana.
That's absolutely true.
You know that wonderfulpharmacy in the middle there.
I forgot it's Mas's, mas,something it translates to most
cheap.
Yeah, there you go.
You can get every drug there.
A couple things you have to goupstairs and pay $5 to the
(22:20):
doctor and he gives you aprescription.
95% of the stuff downstairs isopen for just pay.
If we have to, you'll go gothere, exactly 100.
We're going to get something.
It's going to be good for youone way or another.
You're not going to.
Nobody's going to prescribe it.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
We've got the alternative of tijuana I totally
agree and I I think that'sagain another important thing.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
You know, people get told, oh well, you can't do that
, and then they just you know,it's very liberating, very
liberating, yeah, you know, Imean, they let in mexico, they
let people decide for themselveswhat the heck I I've been down
there before and I'll go downagain if I need to, and you know
(23:05):
that's the end.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
That's that's really what it comes down to and and I
think that's the big messagehere is for people to consider
taking ownership of your ownhealth.
You know, we people go todoctor.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
No other way.
Joe, I know you know if we justdepended on the doctors,
especially in cancer, you knowmost of us wouldn't make it.
We need them, they're necessary, but they're not sufficient.
We need the standard care, butwe need more.
(23:42):
Exactly, we need more than thestandard.
The standard care is like DrExame says you take the standard
care and you get the standardoutcome Right.
The standard outcome for almostall metastatic cancer is to die
Right.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
You got five years and then you're gone.
Well you're lucky if you getfive for most of them.
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
A few months.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
And that's not even you know.
If you think about it, most ofthese standard of care
procedures, they don't enhanceyour quality of life at all.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
In fact they know they're tough medicine but we
need them.
We like the chemo you got wasstandard.
It would have been morestandard if you would have had
the radiation on top of it, butit was standard and it did great
.
And why did it did great?
Because you're doing all theseother things Exactly.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
You know, if you just took those three drugs alone, I
don't know what your outcomewould have been.
We don't know, it's not acontrolled experiment, but we
could at least have a good guessit wouldn't be nearly what we
see, I'm confident it would havenot.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
it would have not done what it did and I would
have.
We need these chemo drugs.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
We need them, I agree , and people who deny chemo are
just denying their life.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
And the one thing the doctor did say when I presented
to her some of the drugsolutions that I came up with,
she goes you know, there's a lotof good drugs out there, but
just in her mind this was notgoing to solve the problem.
I needed the radiation.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
So I believe we I believe, and that's her
experience, joe, and that wouldhave been the same for you if
you weren't on methioninerestriction and all the other
things you're doing.
No, she's right.
Well, and also I just shedoesn't know anything about
beyond what the drugs do.
She doesn't know, she and shedoesn't have the mind to learn
(25:32):
because she's completely trappedwithin the guidelines.
Uh, she can't.
She went as far as she could go, kind of blessing your uh plan,
which was a miracle.
It was great.
We love her for that.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
She's blown away by it, so don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
You stay with her, joe, she's an angel.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
You stay with her.
I have no.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
For all your subsequent checkups and stuff.
We need her.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
I totally agree.
I have confidence that she hasmy best interest in mind.
She just does.
Of course she does.
Of course she does.
You know, I think one of thethings is that you know, when
I'm presenting things to her,some of them are in different
stages, you know, some of themare still in trials, some of
them are.
Some of them are still in trial, some of them are old
(26:30):
information, and it's a mix ofdifferent things that I've
brought to her, including thatblood test that you sent to me,
and she says well, you know,this NavDx is really good for
what you have.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
It's great for now and I have something.
I'll send this to you by emailwe have another test that's very
, very, um, uh, very highresolution, to look for, uh,
rare cancer cells floatingaround.
So, um, it's all about thecirculating cancer cells,
(27:03):
circulating cancer dna.
Um, these are great tests.
Meanwhile, you've got the virustest.
That's good enough for now.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Yeah, and for me, I mean I think that as far as
monitoring and testing, I'mgoing to do whatever I can,
because I think that you knowthe idea is okay.
So I get this thing down tozero as far as we know.
That's really.
What I can claim is that, asfar as we know, we're at zero
(27:31):
and if they had their way, theywant to come in and preemptively
radiate and give me more chemothat will supposedly keep it
from coming back.
But, as you just said, well,what if it's already floating in
my blood and it lands away fromthere, which it's most likely
to do, primarily in my lungs?
I'm not radiating my lungs.
No, you can't.
You can't radiate your wholebody, exactly.
(27:52):
So so for me, the logic wouldsay that I'm way better spending
my time watching and and andlooking at any possible marker
that there is and keeping an eyeon it every month, every three
months, absolutely and that'swhy I like blood tests, that's
why I like cp scans and then, ifyou see anything go moving at
(28:17):
all, then we get aggressiveright away.
And yeah, that's a bigdifference.
See, remember, dr hoffman, whenI finally took action, I
already had a lump sticking outof my neck.
That thing was billions ofcells and it already had built
an infrastructure.
I had a city in my neck that Itried to had to get rid of.
(28:37):
If I had done this on some kindof an early scan two, three
years ago, it might have been atotally different battle, but it
was because I had let it go sofar.
Well, now the fact that it hasalready been there and going
away, I have this problem ofcirculating tumor cells that are
(28:59):
never going to really go away,but I just can't give them away
a place to land.
And it's an easier battle andit's one that we can watch
carefully and never give it achance to do what it did before.
So I'm in a much betterposition today than I ever was,
and I'm never going to let itget to a worse position, you bet
(29:22):
.
Well, I know we're about burnedout of time, but I did want to
touch on a thing and maybethere's a way that you can give
a really quick overlook, ormaybe we can get into it next
time.
No, go ahead, give me a shot atit and we'll see.
When people talk about thingslike FDA trials and things like
(29:43):
that, I know there's differentstages.
There's stage you know there's.
There's first, second, thirdtypes of trials.
Can you just maybe give a aquick outline of of what each of
these mean as as okay, so uhthere are what are called phase
one, phase two, phase three,right trials.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Phase one is basically a toleration test.
Okay, they give you threedifferent doses, escalating
doses and see how much you cantolerate.
That's phase one, okay, phasetwo is a test against historical
results.
Okay, everybody knows theresults of 5-fluorouracil.
(30:27):
We got a new one and we'regoing to compare it with the
historical results of5-fluorouracil.
We got a new one and we'regoing to compare it with the
historical results of5-fluorouracil.
Wonderful, that's phase two.
That's not a toleration test,it's an efficacy test, but it's
not controlled.
It's against historical data.
Okay, phase three, it's thedrug against placebo.
(30:49):
You don't know if you're goingto get the placebo or the drug
and hundreds and hundreds ofpatients.
And that's what phase three isall about.
What do I tell patients?
Clinical trials you become ahuman mouse and the number of
patients.
One of the saddest things I'veexperienced was this gentleman
(31:12):
who was going to go onmethionine AIDS for his little
girl with brain cancer, but thedoctor convinced him to go on
this clinical trial and wouldnot allow him to take the
methionine.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Oh no.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
And he, oh yeah, clinical trial man, that's what
I want, oh, no.
And he oh yeah, clinical trialman, that's what I want.
And you know, I just had toshut my mouth right.
So you're, you're a human mouse, and most of these trials
nobody knows if they're good ornot.
Hey, why should you do thatwhen you can take drugs which
(31:46):
have a long, long history ofwhat they can do and what they
can't do?
And so I'm pretty much againstputting people on a clinical
trial.
Not totally.
If I see something that thepreclinical studies are so
fantastic, okay, okay, we cantry.
(32:06):
Studies are so fantastic Okay,okay, we can try.
But generally you're just amouse, and you're just a mouse
that's owned by thepharmaceutical company, you know
, trying to develop their nexttrillion-dollar drug, and that's
okay, I'm all for that.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
But patients who are under my care, I care about them
and I don't care about thepharma company.
So, and you don't even know ifyou're getting the placebo or
the drug anyway.
If you're in phase three, youdon't know.
And and if that's somethingthat's critical to your
volunteering your life for thepharma company, right yeah I
agree, I would never do it.
I would never do it.
I would never do it.
You know, yeah, I am just everso grateful for all the hard
(32:56):
work that you've done and thatyou make yourself available.
And you're just.
You know, everybody I talked tothat works with you and has
worked with you works with youand has worked with you.
We all have the same things tosay You're doing amazing work.
You are just a jewel of a human.
I appreciate everything you'redoing.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
You know, for me it's like breathing the air.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
That's how you know it's for real.
Yeah, All right.
Well, I'm going to be headingup to the mountains this weekend
.
I will join the call if I havesignal Okay if you've got a
signal, you join.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
If not, you'll join when you get back from the
mountains, enjoy the mountainsand celebrate your great result.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
I absolutely will Thank you for joining us and, as
always, my pleasure, joeAwesome, and thank you to
everybody who's supporting thisshow, and we'll see you next
time.
Well, hello and welcome back to the Healthy
Living Podcast.
I'm your host, Joe Grumbine,and today we have back in the
studio Dr Robert Hoffman.
Robert, welcome back.
How are you doing today?
Thank you, Joe, Always glad tobe here.
You just got back from anotherinternational trip.
How did?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
that go.
Yep, and I survived it Allright.
That's the most important part.
So you're doing better, better.
You're just continuing to justmelt that tumor away.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
It's just, you know, I looked at pictures, uh, about
a year ago, and then I justlooked at some pictures about a
year and a half ago and I'verewound this thing about a year
and a half in seven weeks.
It's pretty amazing.
This last round was a littlebit, you know, I won't say tough
because I'm out there workingin the yard, it's just to get so
(00:52):
tired.
It really takes, you're takinga big dose.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
People ask me is this a low?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
dose that's what it takes.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Hell.
No, this is not a low dose,this is a big old dose, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I mean we're not doing Dr Feelgood, you know, oh
no, We've got to get rid of thisthing.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
But you know what?
I'm sleeping fine and I get outthere and I work for a little
while.
I feel tired, I come in, take anap.
It's no big deal.
There you go, there you go.
You just adjust your life.
Life and you know, this has allbeen about priorities and this
is the most important thing isgetting this thing gone and
getting back to health, whateverit costs me, whether it's my
(01:31):
hair or some dollars or someinconveniences, who cares?
Right, that's absolutelycorrect and you know we were
talking about on the meetinglast week and I want to really
impress on the listeners.
This meeting is so important Ifyou have cancer or if you know
(01:52):
somebody who does.
This is a Zoom call that peoplefrom all around the world are
joining and they're sharingtheir life experiences with this
notion of amethionine-restricted diet,
methioninase as a way to manageit a little bit.
People are talking about, youknow, these are people that were
(02:15):
diagnosed terminal years agoand they're still with us.
They're still alive and healthy.
These are people that hadtumors that they were told had
to be operated on, radiated, andthey didn't do those things.
They did these other thingsthat we're talking about and
they're today still living acancer-free life and I'm the
(02:36):
poster boy today.
I've jumped into this arenaonly a few months ago.
I embraced this diet, I'veembraced this enzyme and several
other tricks, if you will,oxygenating things, and we came
up with this chemo cocktail notthe one that the doctors came.
The doctors came to me withradiation and chemo high doses
(02:59):
of both and I just really feltin my gut that radiation is
going to cause me more problemsthan it's going to help and,
plus, I couldn't get it quickenough because I had some dental
issues and Dr Hoffman and Icame up with this cocktail of
chemo and I presented to them asa neoadjuvant sort of a
(03:21):
precursory treatment to theother things they wanted to do.
They accepted it and we'veknocked this thing down to a
fraction of what it was andevery day I take pictures of it
and Dr Hoffa is running a casestudy on this thing.
In fact, I wanted to tell you,I requested, I told you the last
time we talked, talked.
(03:45):
I was talking to the medicaloncologist the one who's
overseeing the chemo, and I hadjust gotten a new uh blood work
done.
They call it a navdax and it'sa.
It's a measure of the viralmarkers that cause this cancer,
and the first time I had it donewas in I believe it was january
(04:08):
, and the number was up at like24 000.
I don't know if that's what themeasure of units is, but 24 000
is a number to go by.
And today, or this last one Igot about a week ago oh no, no,
I actually got the last oneafter just after the first round
of chemo.
All right, it was they.
(04:29):
I took it as I was gettingready to do the second infusion
and it took a few weeks to getback.
So I'm doing.
I was doing these cycles everythree weeks.
So last week I had a videoconference with her and I asked
you know, how did that last scancome up?
She opened it up and I saw hereyes kind of get big and she's
(04:52):
like whoa and uh, says what'swhat's going on, and she goes it
says zero, let me go back anddouble check that.
And she went back and readthrough everything and it went
from 24,000 to zero.
And that was just the firstsession was completed and I'm
now I just finished taking thethird session.
So the plan right now is, afterthis is done for Saturday, they
(05:19):
take the pump off of me.
I'll be completed with allthree drugs and and I'm
continuing, you know, this veryrestrictive diet.
I'm taking the methionineaseand if I go even off a little
bit off the chart, I double upthe methioninease.
So I'm not giving this canceranything to eat and any way to
(05:41):
replicate, and this chemo isjust tearing it apart.
And so they're going to bedoing a scan what do they call
it, a contrast CT scan on June30th and then after that we're
going to discuss the next steps.
(06:01):
And I presented to her the ideaof maintenance chemo and even,
in case this didn't do what wewanted, some other drugs that
might be a way forward.
But she kind of dug in herheels and you know I presented a
neoadjuvant solution, which isa precursor, not a finished
(06:25):
solution, and I we even talkedto her about, you know that
identifying it as being gone,essentially.
But she said well, you can'treally do that without a surgery
because this thing was soprolific that we can't do a
biopsy of all these differentplaces.
We have to be able to go in andsee it and I, you know I'm
(06:46):
working with her when she'sright, you know, I asked for a
low dose on the CT scan and shesays well, if I do that, it's
not going to necessarily tell uswhat we need.
I agreed with her.
I said you know what?
I'm not going to fight you onany of this.
I'm just trying to get the mostgood with the least amount of
harm, and that's all.
And if you tell me that there'sa reason, I'll work with you.
(07:07):
You need a normal CT, joe?
Yeah, and I'm fine with that.
I just have to propose thenotion, if there's a safer way
forward for me, that we're goingto take it.
Nothing's going to happen toyou from the CT, don't worry
about it.
Yeah, and I'm okay.
I just know I everything's atstake here and I'm trying to
come out of this knowing that Imade the best choices possible.
(07:29):
So that's kind of where we leftoff, and you know.
Let me give you a couple ofthoughts.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yes, please, your medical oncologist and your
radio, your radiologicaloncologist whatever you want to
call him, radiologicaloncologist or whatever you want
to call him are kind of sayingthe standard is to get that
radiation.
But the danger, joe, for you isnot the local recurrence, the
(07:59):
danger is that it will recurdistantly, especially in the
lungs.
So that's why I that it willrecur distantly, especially in
the lungs.
Right so that's why I am verymuch hoping that you can get
some good chemo as a maintenancechemo.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Right.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Keep this thing from recurring at a distance site,
especially the lungs.
I agree, this is the problem ofsquamous cell head and neck
cancer Metastasis to the lungs.
So right now your lungs areclean, your tumor's going away
and we, you know, we, we got tokeep this guy down on the you
(08:45):
know just down.
We got to keep it from risingup Absolutely.
You know, just stoppingeverything now and no, that's
not going to work.
So that's why we need asystemic.
Methioninase, of course, issystemic.
The low methionine diet issystemic, the ivermectin is
(09:07):
systemic.
All good, all good Doing allthose things.
We need some chemo.
In my opinion, we need somechemo in the mix, I agree.
So, just like Chihiro, shekeeps that thing from coming
back.
So let's get the scans, let'syou and I will have a talk, and
(09:32):
then I think it's it'll be timeto talk again with Dr Castro.
I agree, put it straight to himI want some maintenance chemo
prescribed, something for me.
I want it.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Yeah, I agree, I want it.
What I'm trying to do is I justreached out to the medical
oncologist to get a set of thelast blood work so that I can
send both of those tests to youand that's extremely.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Your blood work is a great result.
It's unbelievable.
But we've got to keep it thatway.
Joe, I agree, and no matterwhat your blood work says, no
matter even what the CT scansays, there's cancer cells
around, there's for sure.
I agree.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
We've got to keep them down.
No, I'm right there with youand I agree.
As much as I was opposed tothis chemo, I look and see what
it did and I look at the resultsand really the toll it's taken
on me is minimal.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
We think the chemo is working much better because
you're combining it withmethionine restriction.
That's consistent with whatwe've done in the lab for 40
years on that Consistent whatwe've seen in other patients.
By the way, scott Davies he hadhis med pet completely negative
(10:57):
.
Scott is tumor-free and I'mbegging him to get maintenance
chemo and he agrees.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Good good, it sounds like he's got the right attitude
.
He does.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
It's not a coincidence that Scott got this
great result because he has afantastic attitude, huge.
He's taken everything possibleto get that result.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Right, yeah, this doesn't just happen.
This happens with a huge amountof effort, people with cancer
have to take it seriously.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
It's a life-threatening disease every
day and it's got to be kept down.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Well, you know, I spoke with a woman the other day
and she heard about me and thethings that I've been doing and
her son is 27 years old and he'sgot non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and
it's metastasized and he is, youknow, they're religious people
and they believe in miracles andall this stuff.
And I said, listen, a miracledoesn't happen just because you
(12:01):
want it.
Miracle happens because you goout and make it happen.
And I said, you know, I don'tthink you should worry about
anything.
I think you should take itseriously and approach it as
something that will take yourlife if you don't.
And worry doesn't help you, butfocus does.
And I had a nice long talk withher and I told her about all
these things that I've done andI told her about our meeting and
(12:23):
I told her about you, I senther all the links and stuff.
And she says she's, you know,going to try to get through to
her son.
The severe or the, just the yeah, I mean this is.
This is the most daunting thingthat could ever come at you.
It's the most important problemyou could ever have to solve.
(12:45):
And to sit there and go I'm notworried about it, it's just
basically closing your eyes andjumping off a cliff and you know
she's, she's going to try toget, I said, but she can't do it
for him.
You know mom can't fix her son,who's 27 years old, and I, I
hope that you know.
She says that you know I wasinspiring and she says that
she's really motivated and she'sgoing to try to get him to talk
(13:08):
to me and I hope he does.
But that's, you're right, thepeople that succeed.
You got to have it as the mostimportant thing in your life.
You got to own it and realizethat you know you're the only
one that can solve this.
All the people, the doctors andthe ideas they'll have bits and
pieces.
Some of them might have goodanswers, but some might have bad
(13:30):
answers and you got to figurethat out.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
So I'm like you.
I want to move as far as I canahead, even just in my mind, as
a solution.
And you know I've got a fewmore days of this last round.
Like I said, I've weathered itreally well.
I didn't even get any sores inmy mouth this time, and three
(14:04):
weeks after that they're goingto do the scan.
But as soon as we get the scandone, I really want to and
another blood test.
Yeah, yeah, I think they'regoing to do the blood test and
the scan about the same time.
So we'll have yeah and we'llsend that along to Dr Castro.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Absolutely, we don't ask them.
We tell them we want, we wantmaintenance chemo.
Could you please prescribe whatyou think?
Speaker 1 (14:27):
is best for us.
Exactly, that's where I'm at,because I know the last time you
want you got to tell the docwhat you want.
This is what I want.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I have noproblem doing that, as you well
know.
I know the last time we talked,I talked to Dr Castro.
You know he was pretty much inagreements with the radiation
and he thought that you knowthat's their standard of care
(14:50):
and they're not going to go offof that.
And you know again, like youand I've said, this is I'm the
one who's hiring them, not theother way around.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
You know again, like you, and I say I'm the one who's
hiring them, not the other wayaround.
Well, the problem what'sradiation going to solve?
Right now, I agree, you'repractically tumor-free at the
local site, so you get more.
You get all this burn from theradiation there.
And if there's cells that havealready moved out to various
parts in the body, already movedout to various parts in the
(15:23):
body and and and you can saythat that's 99.9 percent that
it's happened, what's the,what's the radiotherapy going to
do to that when you just put iton your neck?
We need systemic, I totallyneed systemic therapy to prevent
these cancer cells that haveescaped from your primary tumor
from growing elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
That's what we need, 100% and that's what got me.
It was like okay, the wholeidea.
Luckily or fortunately, whenthey did the last CT scan it
showed it had not moved and Ibelieve it still hasn't.
Well, it's not detectable by CT?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
You don't have any distant tumors, but you can just
bet there's cancer cellsfloating around in your blood.
With all that Looking for aplace, to the viruses that were
picked up before they're outthere.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
I agree, I agree and I also agree with the whole
systemic notion.
That's why you know theseoxygen therapies I do, they're
systemic.
The fasting it's systemic, thediet, it goes everywhere.
There's no place it doesn't go.
So I'm trying to create anenvironment where the cancer
doesn't have a place to land butinevitably, you know, know,
(16:36):
something goes away or somethingyou know you let up, or
inevitably there's a place whereit finds its way, not if you,
not if you don't let up.
Exactly.
Well, I have no intention ofletting up.
I tell you this is my life nowand, yeah, I'm not, uh, I don't
have any, any, any falseillusions, that you know.
It's funny that the medicaloncologist I forget the, what,
(16:58):
the term, what is her name?
Dr Nabar Hang on, n-a-b-a-r.
I will, I'll look it up, herfirst name and I'll send you the
information.
Would you please name and I'llsend you the the information
please.
She's a little indian lady orsome middle eastern and she's
(17:20):
very.
You know she, she communicateswell and you know again, I don't
even fault these guys.
They're trained away, theylearn a certain thing and that's
what they're, that's theirexpertise.
They're not, they're notnecessary.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yeah, but she was flexible enough to let you have
your adjuvant chemo Absolutely,and the other 99% of them
wouldn't let you do that.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
You're right, and I couldn't have done it without
her.
I can't just go and order thosedrugs.
And so that you know, for me Ithink, even if we come to a
parting of ways she wasinstrumental, I don't think
you'll have a parting of waysJoe.
You'll stay with her.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
But just because if you get a prescription of
something to take doesn't meanyou part the ways from her.
You stay in touch and get yourperiodic scans and stuff like
that.
You still need her.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I still got this port in me.
So until they take it, don'ttake it out.
Oh no, no, no, no, I'm notdoing anything like that.
I'm, I'm, I'm prepared for thelong haul on this, whatever
there you go, you need to do I.
I'm not going anywhere and Iplan to outlive my kids if I
have the opportunity, and youknow, that's that's that's where
(18:35):
I'm at.
I really believe that I've gotthe ability to help a lot of
people and I believe I have anability to help your work, and I
think that's important.
Well, you're already helping it.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Joe, You're such a great example.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Well, and I think that that's a thing that, as
people realize, I've learned alot from you.
Well, that's how it's supposedto be, my friend.
I think we're all supposed tolearn from each other and grow
from each other, and whenthere's something important,
this is important work.
This is literally changing theparadigm of medical approach to
(19:12):
cancer and I believe that ifthis worked this way for me I
mean the listeners who are maybehearing this for the first time
, you know, the listeners whoare maybe hearing this for the
first time you got to understandI was facing.
I don't know how many more daysI would have gone without this
turning it around before it gotreally critical.
I mean, I was getting chokedout.
(19:33):
I wasn't sleeping, I couldhardly walk around my yard
without getting dizzy.
I was getting weaker and weakerin spite of all the things I
was doing, and it wasn't enough.
And I don't know.
You know it was not a very goodsituation and because of these
things that have happened within, it's been seven weeks and it's
(19:53):
reversed itself to the pointwhere anybody who sees me today,
that has seen me months ago,their eyes open up, wide open
they don't know what to say.
It's not just this tumor shrunk.
My energy is back, I'm stronger, I'm vital.
I'm not 100%, but I'm gainingon it every day.
Whatever it is I did, somebodycan't argue with that, they
(20:21):
can't deny it and so that givesme a voice.
And so I can talk to any doctor, I can talk to any scientist, I
can talk to any patient, and Ican just tell them what I know,
which is what I've done and whatI saw, and I think that's
important.
I think it's very important.
So I'm looking forward to, youknow, getting this final blood
(20:45):
work.
Obviously, I'm a little, youknow.
I'm cautiously optimistic, I'mconfident that I'm going to get
what I want.
But until you see it, you'regoing to get what you want,
because we're not going to stoptrying to get it.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
If Dr Castro doesn't come through, we'll find
somebody else.
I agree, even a plain old doccan prescribe any medicine.
I agree, you don't have to bean oncologist to prescribe these
drugs.
A licensed physician canprescribe any FDA any.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Any fda approved drug , no problem and you know,
especially if we come up with anoral solution that I don't need
to have, like chihiro, maybeyou'll take chihiro's drug.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
It's probably active against any cancer and she's
hanging in there with it, um,and she's.
You know, she keeps coming upwith the negative scans.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
We'll figure it out.
No-transcript.
The blood work.
I think I can order most ofthat myself.
I don't think most of it.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Well, you've got life extension.
It lets you order most things.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Right.
So I mean in the worst of allcases, and you can go down.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Another option, joe, is to go down to Tijuana.
That's absolutely true.
You know that wonderfulpharmacy in the middle there.
I forgot it's Mas's, mas,something it translates to most
cheap.
Yeah, there you go.
You can get every drug there.
A couple things you have to goupstairs and pay $5 to the
(22:20):
doctor and he gives you aprescription.
95% of the stuff downstairs isopen for just pay.
If we have to, you'll go gothere, exactly 100.
We're going to get something.
It's going to be good for youone way or another.
You're not going to.
Nobody's going to prescribe it.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
We've got the alternative of tijuana I totally
agree and I I think that'sagain another important thing.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
You know, people get told, oh well, you can't do that
, and then they just you know,it's very liberating, very
liberating, yeah, you know, Imean, they let in mexico, they
let people decide for themselveswhat the heck I I've been down
there before and I'll go downagain if I need to, and you know
(23:05):
that's the end.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
That's that's really what it comes down to and and I
think that's the big messagehere is for people to consider
taking ownership of your ownhealth.
You know, we people go todoctor.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
No other way.
Joe, I know you know if we justdepended on the doctors,
especially in cancer, you knowmost of us wouldn't make it.
We need them, they're necessary, but they're not sufficient.
We need the standard care, butwe need more.
(23:42):
Exactly, we need more than thestandard.
The standard care is like DrExame says you take the standard
care and you get the standardoutcome Right.
The standard outcome for almostall metastatic cancer is to die
Right.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
You got five years and then you're gone.
Well you're lucky if you getfive for most of them.
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
A few months.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
And that's not even you know.
If you think about it, most ofthese standard of care
procedures, they don't enhanceyour quality of life at all.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
In fact they know they're tough medicine but we
need them.
We like the chemo you got wasstandard.
It would have been morestandard if you would have had
the radiation on top of it, butit was standard and it did great
.
And why did it did great?
Because you're doing all theseother things Exactly.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
You know, if you just took those three drugs alone, I
don't know what your outcomewould have been.
We don't know, it's not acontrolled experiment, but we
could at least have a good guessit wouldn't be nearly what we
see, I'm confident it would havenot.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
it would have not done what it did and I would
have.
We need these chemo drugs.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
We need them, I agree , and people who deny chemo are
just denying their life.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
And the one thing the doctor did say when I presented
to her some of the drugsolutions that I came up with,
she goes you know, there's a lotof good drugs out there, but
just in her mind this was notgoing to solve the problem.
I needed the radiation.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
So I believe we I believe, and that's her
experience, joe, and that wouldhave been the same for you if
you weren't on methioninerestriction and all the other
things you're doing.
No, she's right.
Well, and also I just shedoesn't know anything about
beyond what the drugs do.
She doesn't know, she and shedoesn't have the mind to learn
(25:32):
because she's completely trappedwithin the guidelines.
Uh, she can't.
She went as far as she could go, kind of blessing your uh plan,
which was a miracle.
It was great.
We love her for that.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
She's blown away by it, so don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
You stay with her, joe, she's an angel.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
You stay with her.
I have no.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
For all your subsequent checkups and stuff.
We need her.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
I totally agree.
I have confidence that she hasmy best interest in mind.
She just does.
Of course she does.
Of course she does.
You know, I think one of thethings is that you know, when
I'm presenting things to her,some of them are in different
stages, you know, some of themare still in trials, some of
them are.
Some of them are still in trial, some of them are old
(26:30):
information, and it's a mix ofdifferent things that I've
brought to her, including thatblood test that you sent to me,
and she says well, you know,this NavDx is really good for
what you have.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
It's great for now and I have something.
I'll send this to you by emailwe have another test that's very
, very, um, uh, very highresolution, to look for, uh,
rare cancer cells floatingaround.
So, um, it's all about thecirculating cancer cells,
(27:03):
circulating cancer dna.
Um, these are great tests.
Meanwhile, you've got the virustest.
That's good enough for now.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Yeah, and for me, I mean I think that as far as
monitoring and testing, I'mgoing to do whatever I can,
because I think that you knowthe idea is okay.
So I get this thing down tozero as far as we know.
That's really.
What I can claim is that, asfar as we know, we're at zero
(27:31):
and if they had their way, theywant to come in and preemptively
radiate and give me more chemothat will supposedly keep it
from coming back.
But, as you just said, well,what if it's already floating in
my blood and it lands away fromthere, which it's most likely
to do, primarily in my lungs?
I'm not radiating my lungs.
No, you can't.
You can't radiate your wholebody, exactly.
(27:52):
So so for me, the logic wouldsay that I'm way better spending
my time watching and and andlooking at any possible marker
that there is and keeping an eyeon it every month, every three
months, absolutely and that'swhy I like blood tests, that's
why I like cp scans and then, ifyou see anything go moving at
(28:17):
all, then we get aggressiveright away.
And yeah, that's a bigdifference.
See, remember, dr hoffman, whenI finally took action, I
already had a lump sticking outof my neck.
That thing was billions ofcells and it already had built
an infrastructure.
I had a city in my neck that Itried to had to get rid of.
(28:37):
If I had done this on some kindof an early scan two, three
years ago, it might have been atotally different battle, but it
was because I had let it go sofar.
Well, now the fact that it hasalready been there and going
away, I have this problem ofcirculating tumor cells that are
(28:59):
never going to really go away,but I just can't give them away
a place to land.
And it's an easier battle andit's one that we can watch
carefully and never give it achance to do what it did before.
So I'm in a much betterposition today than I ever was,
and I'm never going to let itget to a worse position, you bet
(29:22):
.
Well, I know we're about burnedout of time, but I did want to
touch on a thing and maybethere's a way that you can give
a really quick overlook, ormaybe we can get into it next
time.
No, go ahead, give me a shot atit and we'll see.
When people talk about thingslike FDA trials and things like
(29:43):
that, I know there's differentstages.
There's stage you know there's.
There's first, second, thirdtypes of trials.
Can you just maybe give a aquick outline of of what each of
these mean as as okay, so uhthere are what are called phase
one, phase two, phase three,right trials.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Phase one is basically a toleration test.
Okay, they give you threedifferent doses, escalating
doses and see how much you cantolerate.
That's phase one, okay, phasetwo is a test against historical
results.
Okay, everybody knows theresults of 5-fluorouracil.
(30:27):
We got a new one and we'regoing to compare it with the
historical results of5-fluorouracil.
We got a new one and we'regoing to compare it with the
historical results of5-fluorouracil.
Wonderful, that's phase two.
That's not a toleration test,it's an efficacy test, but it's
not controlled.
It's against historical data.
Okay, phase three, it's thedrug against placebo.
(30:49):
You don't know if you're goingto get the placebo or the drug
and hundreds and hundreds ofpatients.
And that's what phase three isall about.
What do I tell patients?
Clinical trials you become ahuman mouse and the number of
patients.
One of the saddest things I'veexperienced was this gentleman
(31:12):
who was going to go onmethionine AIDS for his little
girl with brain cancer, but thedoctor convinced him to go on
this clinical trial and wouldnot allow him to take the
methionine.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Oh no.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
And he, oh yeah, clinical trial man, that's what
I want, oh, no.
And he oh yeah, clinical trialman, that's what I want.
And you know, I just had toshut my mouth right.
So you're, you're a human mouse, and most of these trials
nobody knows if they're good ornot.
Hey, why should you do thatwhen you can take drugs which
(31:46):
have a long, long history ofwhat they can do and what they
can't do?
And so I'm pretty much againstputting people on a clinical
trial.
Not totally.
If I see something that thepreclinical studies are so
fantastic, okay, okay, we cantry.
(32:06):
Studies are so fantastic Okay,okay, we can try.
But generally you're just amouse, and you're just a mouse
that's owned by thepharmaceutical company, you know
, trying to develop their nexttrillion-dollar drug, and that's
okay, I'm all for that.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
But patients who are under my care, I care about them
and I don't care about thepharma company.
So, and you don't even know ifyou're getting the placebo or
the drug anyway.
If you're in phase three, youdon't know.
And and if that's somethingthat's critical to your
volunteering your life for thepharma company, right yeah I
agree, I would never do it.
I would never do it.
I would never do it.
You know, yeah, I am just everso grateful for all the hard
(32:56):
work that you've done and thatyou make yourself available.
And you're just.
You know, everybody I talked tothat works with you and has
worked with you works with youand has worked with you.
We all have the same things tosay You're doing amazing work.
You are just a jewel of a human.
I appreciate everything you'redoing.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
You know, for me it's like breathing the air.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
That's how you know it's for real.
Yeah, All right.
Well, I'm going to be headingup to the mountains this weekend
.
I will join the call if I havesignal Okay if you've got a
signal, you join.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
If not, you'll join when you get back from the
mountains, enjoy the mountainsand celebrate your great result.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
I absolutely will Thank you for joining us and, as
always, my pleasure, joeAwesome, and thank you to
everybody who's supporting thisshow, and we'll see you next
time.
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