May 10, 2025 • 32 mins
A paradigm shift is sweeping through cancer treatment, challenging decades of established thinking. While conventional wisdom has focused on cancer's addiction to glucose, Dr. Robert Hoffman's 50-year research journey reveals something equally powerful: cancer cells are addicted to the amino acid methionine.
This groundbreaking episode takes you into the heart of scientific discovery as Dr. Hoffman shares how he developed methioninase, an enzyme that depletes methionine and has shown remarkable results against various cancers. Despite published research and promising case studies, Dr. Hoffman's work faces resistance from established medical authorities – a classic example of how paradigm shifts in science often progress "one funeral at a time" as old thinking gradually gives way to new evidence.
The conversation takes a deeply personal turn when host Joe Grumbine shares his own battle with aggressive head and neck cancer. After finding himself drowning in conflicting medical opinions, Joe discovered Dr. Hoffman's work and embraced a comprehensive approach combining methionine restriction, fasting protocols, and conventional treatment. The results have been nothing short of transformative – a visibly shrinking tumor and minimal side effects from chemotherapy that would typically cause significant suffering.
What emerges is a powerful message about patient empowerment. "You hire a doctor, and the cancer is in your body, not theirs," reminds Dr. Hoffman. This episode isn't about rejecting conventional medicine but rather enhancing it with complementary approaches and taking an active role in treatment decisions. The weekly support meetings mentioned provide a forum where patients share experiences and build collective wisdom that benefits everyone.
Whether you're facing cancer yourself, supporting someone who is, or simply interested in cutting-edge medical research, this episode offers hope, practical insights, and a compelling case for keeping an open mind. Join the community of patients and researchers who are rewriting the rules of cancer treatment by combining the best of conventional and innovative approaches.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well, hello and welcome back to the Healthy
Living Podcast.
I'm your host, joe Grumbine,and I have with me again today
Dr Robert Hoffman.
And I want to reintroduceRobert because, as my life is
changing, the impact of ourexperience has changed as well.
(00:22):
And Robert Hoffman is ascientist and he has been
working.
He's a discoverer and aparadigm changer and many years
ago he discovered a mechanismwhere cancer cells are addicted
to amino acid called methionineaddicted to amino acid called
(00:49):
methionine and he's dedicatedhis life to publishing and
testing and studying anddeveloping an enzyme to help
people.
And, robert, I'm so gratefulthat you're here with us today.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Well, thank you, Joe, and I'm really grateful to be
with you.
You're a great model for cancerpatients.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Well, I never imagined in a million years that
that would be the case.
And for the listeners, I wantto take a step back.
We're going to do it verybriefly, but about seven, eight
years ago my father passed away.
I was 50 pounds overweight, hada stressful life and I got a
wake-up call.
I was going to become him and Ibegan a journey of health.
(01:29):
At that point, about seven,eight years ago, I lost 50
pounds.
I learned a lot of things.
I thought I learned a lot ofthings and you know I've been
working with cannabis medicinefor 40 years, been working with
cancer patients.
I thought I knew about cancer.
I thought I knew some things.
I watched things that I did,work and help people and I made
(01:50):
assumptions based on thoseobservations and I created a
paradigm for myself about whathealth was.
I did things, I tried them, Itested, I experienced, I
followed as much of a scientificmethod as I could and then six
months ago, I got diagnosed withsquamous cell carcinoma and my
(02:11):
life changed dramatically.
This was a very aggressive headand neck cancer that was
already big and I realized veryquickly that I needed to solve
this or it was going to undo me,and in the process I thought I
was doing everything right.
(02:31):
So I'm fasting, I'm cut out mysugar and carbs, I'm being very
rigorous, but I was eatingprotein as my primary fuel
source.
I was eating tons of protein.
And as I'm going from doctor todoctor and studying and
(02:52):
learning and starting to go wow,nobody agrees, I'm, I'm, I'm,
I'm wrong about some things, andI'm putting more and more focus
at this, more and more focused,I'm like I can't mess this up.
So I start researching andmeeting.
I stumbled upon this articleabout methionine somewhere in my
research and then I stumbledupon this enzyme methionine is,
(03:18):
and I went to go say, well,where can I find this stuff?
I thought I could buy it onAmazon and there was only one
name came up and I said allright.
And there was only one namecame up and I said all right.
So there was an email address.
I sent an email to that address.
I said I want to buy somemethionine.
I don't know anything more thanthat.
And I got a response that giveme a call.
(03:38):
And, robert, that's where ourjourney began, wouldn't you say
yes?
And from that point you invitedme to a phone call.
You said come join this call wedo every Sunday at 4 pm Pacific
time and we got a group ofpeople together and we talk
about all this and I sat on thatfirst call and listened and it
(04:02):
has been instrumental in yourwillingness to come on the show.
And you know, I mentioned thewhole paradigm thing because I
believe that you know you're apioneer, I'm a pioneer.
Some people that are willing totake chances and study things
are pioneers.
But sometimes we're just wrong.
You know, we think something isa certain thing, we assign a
(04:26):
value to things and, as ascientist, a lot of times we'll
just observe, right, you noticea thing and you go oh well, we
make an assumption.
Tell me how you went.
You know you've been studyingthis enzyme and how it works and
replicating things andpublishing papers and going
through the rigors of science.
Why don't you share a littlebit about that?
(04:46):
Because I think that's reallyimportant for people to
understand.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Okay.
Well, I got into this area ofmethionine addiction a little
bit.
I don't want to say by accident, but let's say by luck, but
(05:24):
let's say passed away.
Unfortunately, his maininterest was methionine.
I had no interest aboutmethionine but I was in Dr
Irby's lab.
I had to learn about it.
It was so boring, this pathway,that that pathway, who cares?
(05:47):
Then, by chance, I read a couplepapers that said um, cancer
cells can't grow on theprecursor of methionine, it's
called homocysteine and normalcells can grow.
And I said, wow, that's reallyreally big.
(06:11):
I could.
I said really big.
Um, my, my boss, he didn't stopme and I said, okay, I want to
work on this.
So I cultured some cancer cellson methionine.
(06:35):
I cultured some on homocysteinein place of methionine.
I cultured normal cells thesame way, with and without
methionine.
The normal cells didn't care.
Methionine, homocysteine, theyboth grew.
They grew on both media.
The cancer cells wouldn't growon homocysteine, they grew
(06:58):
beautifully on methionine.
They had this at that time wecalled methionine dependence.
Then some paper came out andsaid, oh, the cancer cells can't
make methionine.
Well, I did a whole bunch oftests and I found the cancer
(07:23):
cells made tons of methioninebut they, despite that, they
make making their their own,they needed an external source.
And years later, many years,decades later, I understood that
this was an addiction.
So in those early days I triedto study the mechanism.
(07:45):
And we weren't the first todevelop the methioninase enzyme.
The first, I think, was DrKreiss and Sloan Kettering, but
he didn't continue the work.
Then, in the 90s we're talkingnow fast forward from the 70s to
(08:09):
the 90s we started developingour own methioninase and we
found that this methioninasecould slow or arrest the growth
of tumors growing in mice.
(08:29):
And we found that if youcombined it with chemotherapy it
worked even better.
And we even put it into somehuman patients kind of a one-off
by IV and we found it depletedall the methionine in their
(08:51):
blood.
And then we did some studies inChina in monkeys, and we killed
a monkey because themethioninase is a bacterial
enzyme so foreign to the monkey.
If you treat them once they'reokay, but if you keep treating
them they develop a severeallergy called anaphylaxis which
(09:18):
can be lethal Right.
So over the next 15 years wewere really low key, kind of
depressed, working on otherprojects a little bit of
methioninase and then Around2017 or 18.
(09:38):
Dr Hahn and Dr Kawaguchi in thelab showed that you could take
methioninase by mouth totallysafe, no anaphylaxis, nothing.
It stayed in the gut and thatis very unusual for a protein,
an enzyme that can survive inthe gut, which is very low pH,
(10:00):
very acid.
It's designed to dissolvethings right.
It's designed to dissolve thingsright.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Right, it's designed to dissolve things, yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
So it's not.
Proteins are not designedreally to survive in the gut.
When we eat a hamburger, allthe proteins get broken down
into their component, aminoacids, acids, and the body
(10:28):
restruct, uses those amino acidsto construct your own personal
enzymes.
That you're, that yours, thatyour immune system won't react
to you.
They become you.
So anyway, we were lucky, solucky, and a couple years later
we started with patients.
Dr Hahn took some, himself verybrave researcher, no problem.
So for the last four or fiveyears we've given patients.
(10:53):
Around 350 patients have takenmethionine at least one time.
And one thing we learned forsure it's completely safe.
And one thing we learned forsure it's completely safe,
(11:17):
although we have tons of studiesin the lab that show methionine
NACE is effective against everykind of cancer and almost every
kind of chemotherapy makes itwork better.
We haven't done a clinical trialbut we've published 12 case
reports, some of them verypromising.
We can't make a claim becausealmost every case the patient
was taking multiple things Right.
(11:37):
Two of our breast cancerpatients that had very
metastatic disease went intoremission.
Very serious leukemia caseshe's in remission.
A metastatic rectal cancer case.
It was close to remission,doing good.
(12:01):
A liver cancer case has goneinto kind of steady state.
The lady is very much alive.
So we have a lot of results.
We can't make a claim becausealmost all the patients were
treated with other agents.
But we're very encouraged andwe got two or three stage four
(12:29):
pancreatic cancer patients nowthat are hanging in there.
We had one previously.
She's going into her fifth year, stage four.
She's alive.
She takes methionine ACE andkeeps taking her chemo and low
methionine diet.
You know I tell the patientsit's encouraging, but I tell
(12:50):
everyone.
You know we can't make anyclaims and every patient's
different.
But here's what we've learnedso far.
We've published most of it.
So that's kind of the story,joe.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
It's a powerful story .
Speaker 2 (13:06):
It's over 50 years.
I mean, I did a little bit oftime warp in my summary, but I
started this project in 1973.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Wow, wow, that's, that's still doing it.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
So and, like you said , it's a paradigm shift.
So for the last hundred yearsthe paradigm has been cancer
cells are addicted to glucoseRight.
It stems from the research of aGerman scientist called Warburg
(13:49):
, w-a-r-b-u-r-g the Warburgeffect.
Yeah that's what I do.
The finally addiction is theHoffman effect.
That's what it's called now.
I love it, but there's sure aheck of a lot of resistance.
The so-called opinion leadersdon't want to go near it.
They don't want a paradigmshift, they want to stay with
their paradigm which has giventhem fame and fortune.
(14:12):
Exactly, they ain't moving andthey put out a lot of
disinformation about yours truly.
I can imagine they try toostracize me, never communicate
me, don't invite me to meetings,don't let me publish in the
(14:32):
so-called fancy journals.
And they one of my favoritestudents I had kind of a not
only teacher, student relationwith, but kind of grandpa,
grandson.
He went dark on me because hisboss told him to stay away from
me.
Um, so that's if you're readingKuhn's book.
(14:57):
You know I am.
I'm going to read it again.
Kuhn's book will tell a littlebit.
For example, when Bruno triedto say that the sun was just a
typical star, they burned him atthe stake in the middle of Rome
, upside down.
(15:17):
That was in the 1500, I think.
That's not that long ago In thebig picture not that long ago
and a paradigm shift very hard.
The great scientist called MaxPlanck.
(15:38):
I'm not giving the properGerman pronunciation there.
He discovered quantum mechanics, and he said cancer progresses,
one funeral at a time.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
So true.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
The opinion leader has to die.
Yes, and Kuhn certainly agreeswith that.
So here we are very nascentparadigm shift which is over a
(16:21):
half century trying to get outof its little rabbit hole, if
you want to call it.
I don't know.
That's where they are.
Who is leading the paradigmshift?
The patients, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Absolutely, Absolutely, and that's one of
the reasons that I took thistorch when I realized what I was
dealing with.
You know, I've worked withcannabis medicine for 40 years
and there's powerful medicinethere and it has its own amazing
values.
But I was wrong about thingsabout it, because my paradigm
included observations andthere's not enough research that
(17:00):
backs any of it up, becauseit's been illegal for so long,
and so we just watch and we makeassumptions and observe, and
that's where a lot of problemscome from.
We don't have anybody pointingout the downside, Nobody's
trying to challenge it, Nobody'sreally studying it in a way
that makes sense.
And you know there's in Kuhn'sbook.
(17:22):
There's all these differentmotivators for a paradigm shift,
and one of them is just asimple urgency.
There's a big problem thatneeds to be solved and that's
one of the ways paradigm shiftWell, that's where it shifted
for me personally solved, andthat's one of the ways paradigms
shift.
Well, that's where it shiftedfor me personally.
So I'm now part of a big shift,but my paradigm had to shift in
order for that to happen.
All the things I believed abouthealth they weren't all wrong,
(17:45):
but some of the fundamentalprinciples that I relied on to
make judgments and answers andand advice and treating myself
and everything.
When I realized that I hadmissed a part that was a
fundamental part.
It changed everything and Ibegan a totally different
approach.
(18:06):
All the doctors that I've beentalking to, nobody agrees on
anything I've talked to.
One doctor said I don't havecancer.
I talked to a surgeon said well, this is what we need.
I talked to a radiation doctorhe said this is what we need.
I talked to a Chemo doctor shesays this is what we need.
Talk to an integrative guy hesays this is what we need.
Nobody's agreed on anything.
If I know solid science, getJoe.
(18:29):
Yes, exactly.
So then when we start talkingand I start talking to all these
people 20 people, 30 peoplesometimes and we all have this
in common we all are dealingwith cancer ourselves personally
.
And in this journey I came torealize that there isn't just
cancer.
Everybody's cancer is uniqueand everybody's answer is unique
(18:51):
, even though there are commonthreads.
So we have pillars.
Like you know, glucose is athing I mean cancer feeds off of
it.
But methionine is a thing andif you don't address that thing,
the glucose doesn't matteranything because it's going to
feed and grow and you know,unless you starve yourself to
death, the cancer is going to goon, and everybody has different
(19:15):
switches, Everybody hasdifferent things that cause it
to happen.
Everybody has their ownmetabolism, their own set of
problems and, as a patient, as aperson who's dealing with a
problem like this, you need toget involved as deeply as you
can.
And what I learned on a quantumlevel is that everything's
energy right and you have thisamount of energy in amount of
(19:38):
time and whatever you puttowards it, you have the ability
to make a change.
And I was able to and Iactually call it a blessing now
because I'm not dying the way Iwas a couple weeks ago but in my
ability to focus all thisenergy on this allowed me to see
some things clearly.
And in our conversations youyou've been with me for now over
(20:03):
three months and you've watchedthe tumor grow and get
oppressive.
I wasn't sleeping.
I haven't slept in three months.
I this thing was choking me out.
It was almost twice the sizethat it is right now.
This thing was choking me out.
(20:30):
It was almost twice the sizethat it is right now and I was
desperate.
I had a radiation doctor thatwouldn't clear my treatment that
they wanted to do.
I had dental problems and wewere talking in this notion.
You said you know, there's away to go about this, there's a
neoadjuvant solution that wecould go with a chemo-only
treatment and buy us some time,maybe, shrink this thing down
and get a handle on it.
And I said, wow, that soundsbeautiful.
(20:51):
In my life, chemo was the devil.
I would have never acceptedthat as a possibility.
It was natural or nothing.
You come to realize there's allthese different pieces to an
answer.
This thing didn't come to mefor just one thing.
I didn't just have one problem.
I had all kinds of things thatcaused it, and the answer isn't
(21:14):
necessarily going to be just onething, much as many people will
try to sell you.
And so I've been building oxygentherapy and nutrition and all
these fasting and all thesedifferent things to build this.
But this group that we have,it's a collective consciousness.
We have all these people thathave shared their experience and
out of that we're gaining trueknowledge because we're able to
bounce it off of.
It's a collective consciousness.
(21:34):
We have all these people thathave shared their experience and
out of that we're gaining trueknowledge, because we're able to
bounce it off of each other andsay, well, this worked for me.
Well, that didn't work for me.
Well, you can learn from that.
And in this group, Dr Exame andsome of the other folks we
talked about the fasting priorto chemo.
(21:54):
We talked about the oxygentherapy.
We talked about really goinghard on the methionine
restriction methionine is, andthen coupling that with a chemo
treatment and really causinglike a supercharger effect.
You got a race car that's goodand strong.
Bolt on a supercharger and itdoubles its horsepower.
That's good and strong.
(22:17):
Bolt on a supercharger and itdoubles its horsepower.
Well, it turns out that thesethings I was literally at the
place where I was looking at adarkness, I, I was like I'm
gonna keep going, but I don'tknow where, what I'm gonna do.
And at the last second I getapproval.
At the last second I, thistumor that was weeping and
giving me all problems clearedup.
Just enough, they put a port inme.
(22:39):
I got my first chemo treatmentjust under two weeks ago.
And, Dr Hoffman, why don't youshare with me what you're seeing
?
Speaker 2 (22:51):
I barely recognize you, joe, I was, it's striking.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
The decrease of that tumor.
It's striking, yes.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
And you know we talked about what might happen
In my mind.
You know I do it the energy,the prayer, all of it and I saw
everything.
The best could happen.
But I want to share with youthis thing that my goal was to
get the most effect and theleast amount of harm.
And that was what all this wasabout.
Right, all the dieting, thefasting, the methionine,
(23:29):
everything all of it.
And when I got the firsttreatment, I got, you know, the
two drugs, the docetaxel and thecisplatinum.
And then I got home with a pumpthat pumped in the 5-fluorosil
for five days and you know theytold me about the side effects.
(23:51):
And you know they gave me abunch of drugs for the nausea.
And they told me that.
You know, I gave me a bunch ofdrugs for the nausea and they
told me that, you know, I'mgoing to be exhausted, I'm going
to have nausea, vomiting, Icould have headaches, I could
have ulcers in my mouth, I getbone pain, all of these things,
they told me.
And I says, okay, I'm going tobrace for it best as I can.
(24:14):
I had already been fasting, sonow I'll turn my weights down.
I got to get my weight back up,I'm just so.
I spent a few days just tryingto eat and just rest and, you
know, acclimate to this.
And you guys, you guys, we, wedid the meeting just just before
I did chemo and then we didanother meeting a week afterward
(24:34):
and you were able to see adifference from one to the next.
I've been on a roller coasterride with the chemo side of
things, but to everybody I'vetalked to they've all said you
had less side effects than I'veever seen.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Because of the fasting around the chemo time.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Exactly.
It completely worked 100 percentand I have been.
I dropped weight.
I hit my line where I won'tcross, so I've been steadily
building my weight up again.
You know, with this diet it'shard, it's hard to get the
calories in, but we just do it,we just figure it out and we
just do it.
(25:15):
And I did get some sores in mymouth but I got this buffer
saline solution.
I've just been swishing it overand over.
It really helps a lot.
I noticed that the nauseamedicine, the side effects are
constipation and headaches.
The side effects areconstipation and headaches and
to me that's hell.
(25:36):
I said I'd rather be nauseousand so I said, ok, I'm going to
deal with the nausea.
But once again I'm like wait aminute, I know something.
And I got disillusioned becausethe cannabis oil that I was
taking was wrong for me and DrCastro luckily pointed it out.
(25:56):
He says you're flipping offswitches, that's causing it not
to be effective and your chemowon't even work right.
And so I stopped it immediatelyand I really got a broken heart
over it.
I spent 30 years advocating forthat plant and working with it
and formulating and I just kindof put it on a shelf like a, you
know, like a scorned girlfriend.
But then the other night I wassitting there and I just kind of
put it on a shelf like a, youknow, like a scorned girlfriend.
But then the other night I wassitting there and I was nauseous
(26:20):
and I didn't feel like eatingand I didn't feel like moving
and I'm like I got to get out ofthis.
I got to move and I got to eatand I remembered I'm like, wait
a minute, what's the one goodthing cannabis is for?
It's great for nausea andappetite.
And I said, you know what?
I'm going to try a little bit.
I took a tenuous little bitFirst time in my life.
It was purely medicinal andcalmed me down, settled my
(26:42):
nausea.
I got hungry again and I'vebeen on a steady incline since
that point.
Yeah, and I think the key of itis there is no one hit wonder.
There's no one drug, there's noone medicine, there's no one
herb, there's not even onepractice.
(27:03):
You got to build your solutionand you got to find what works
for you and you got to bewilling to adjust and pivot and
you got to be open-minded andyou got to be willing to be
wrong.
I've been wrong in this journeya dozen times and I was like,
okay, change, I just want tolive.
I want to live and I want tohave a long, healthy, happy life
(27:25):
and I want this cancer out ofmy body and that's all I care
about.
And I just feel that sharingthis story here and inviting
people to this meeting the shownotes of this I put a link every
week I encourage anybody if youhave cancer, if you know
somebody that has, even ifyou're not interested in this
(27:45):
diet or anything like that,listen, there's people that are
sharing amazing stories abouttheir journeys and they're all
tied around this paradigm shiftand I just am so grateful.
I keep wanting to come back andshare with you and I feel like
I have been able to bringawareness to a dozen doctors and
(28:08):
practitioners and 20 or 30patients at least put it in
their mind.
And you know, dr Hoffman, a lotof people have cancer and you
look at them and you would neverknow and as disfigured as I am
and have been, that was actuallya blessing, because nobody's
ever going to question that Ihave or had cancer.
(28:29):
It's right there for everybodyto see and when I can show you
this dramatic change and I cantell you how it happened.
I don't know.
Maybe you'll listen right, it'sfantastic.
So, anyways, I, I, my energylevel has increased by
(28:49):
exponentially.
I was actually able to sleep onmy left side a couple of days
ago for the first time in sixmonths, and it's just been.
The sleep is all the differencein the world.
You know, if you can't sleep,how do you heal?
Yeah, you're in big trouble,and that's where my energy is
(29:09):
coming from building my appetite, building my strength.
And I'm getting ready.
I got another week and a fewdays before my next round, so
I'm trying to bulk up as muchweight as I can get, get my
strength in.
We're ready to go round two.
You'll be ready, I know it Well.
Thank you so much, robert.
It is just a-.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Joe, thank you for your great story, your
inspiration for every patientand they should listen to you.
Well-.
Educ.
Story, or inspiration for everypatient and they should listen
to you.
Well, educate.
Every patient needs to educateyourself.
Today I talked with one of myuh pancreatic cancer patients
and he said the doctor proposedthese two drugs.
I said, well, maybe we need.
(29:50):
I'll do a little study and youmay need something else.
Oh, I can't tell the doctorthat.
I said you've been on the Zoom.
Did you see what Joe did?
Of course, you can tell thedoctor that.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Oh yeah, you bet and remember you're the patient you
hire a doctor.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
You hire a doctor and the cancer is in your body, not
his or her body?
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Yes, 100%.
And if you can present yourselfto a doctor in a way that says
you're taking the time to learnand you have a goal that is not
in conflict with theirs, you'rejust trying to solve a problem
and maybe you present anothersolution.
Nine out of 10 doctors aregoing to go.
(30:36):
Well, at least I'll listen toyou.
They're people.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
If you just followed your doctor, you would have been
at this point.
You would have been so radiatedI would have been Just by its
little self, along withmethioninase doing its thing.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Yes, its little self, along with methioninase.
Yes, doing its thing.
Yes, and you know my goal andmy hope is that I'm going to be
like shihiro and we're going tohave a good chance to be.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
We want to get rid of this thing totally.
Yes, 100 with the chemocombined with methioninase,
we've got a really good chancefor it and I'm going out and
told shihiro I want to operate.
Why are you going to operate?
Cancer is gone.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Yes, yes, and this week I'm going to be getting
some blood tests, thanks to DrExumay's advice, and I'm going
to be getting my own markers sothat I'll be able to go.
Well, here's my baseline andhere's where we're at, and the
doctors haven't even ordered it,but I'm doing it myself.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Don't count on them to order.
You got to do it yourself manytimes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
All right, Robert Well, thank you so much for
taking your time.
Thank you, Joe.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Great meeting and share it with everybody.
I keep doing it.
We'll see you Sunday, okay.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
See you Sunday.
Joe, all right, have a good one.
Thank you you.
Well, hello and welcome back to the Healthy
Living Podcast.
I'm your host, joe Grumbine,and I have with me again today
Dr Robert Hoffman.
And I want to reintroduceRobert because, as my life is
changing, the impact of ourexperience has changed as well.
(00:22):
And Robert Hoffman is ascientist and he has been
working.
He's a discoverer and aparadigm changer and many years
ago he discovered a mechanismwhere cancer cells are addicted
to amino acid called methionineaddicted to amino acid called
(00:49):
methionine and he's dedicatedhis life to publishing and
testing and studying anddeveloping an enzyme to help
people.
And, robert, I'm so gratefulthat you're here with us today.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Well, thank you, Joe, and I'm really grateful to be
with you.
You're a great model for cancerpatients.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Well, I never imagined in a million years that
that would be the case.
And for the listeners, I wantto take a step back.
We're going to do it verybriefly, but about seven, eight
years ago my father passed away.
I was 50 pounds overweight, hada stressful life and I got a
wake-up call.
I was going to become him and Ibegan a journey of health.
(01:29):
At that point, about seven,eight years ago, I lost 50
pounds.
I learned a lot of things.
I thought I learned a lot ofthings and you know I've been
working with cannabis medicinefor 40 years, been working with
cancer patients.
I thought I knew about cancer.
I thought I knew some things.
I watched things that I did,work and help people and I made
(01:50):
assumptions based on thoseobservations and I created a
paradigm for myself about whathealth was.
I did things, I tried them, Itested, I experienced, I
followed as much of a scientificmethod as I could and then six
months ago, I got diagnosed withsquamous cell carcinoma and my
(02:11):
life changed dramatically.
This was a very aggressive headand neck cancer that was
already big and I realized veryquickly that I needed to solve
this or it was going to undo me,and in the process I thought I
was doing everything right.
(02:31):
So I'm fasting, I'm cut out mysugar and carbs, I'm being very
rigorous, but I was eatingprotein as my primary fuel
source.
I was eating tons of protein.
And as I'm going from doctor todoctor and studying and
(02:52):
learning and starting to go wow,nobody agrees, I'm, I'm, I'm,
I'm wrong about some things, andI'm putting more and more focus
at this, more and more focused,I'm like I can't mess this up.
So I start researching andmeeting.
I stumbled upon this articleabout methionine somewhere in my
research and then I stumbledupon this enzyme methionine is,
(03:18):
and I went to go say, well,where can I find this stuff?
I thought I could buy it onAmazon and there was only one
name came up and I said allright.
And there was only one namecame up and I said all right.
So there was an email address.
I sent an email to that address.
I said I want to buy somemethionine.
I don't know anything more thanthat.
And I got a response that giveme a call.
(03:38):
And, robert, that's where ourjourney began, wouldn't you say
yes?
And from that point you invitedme to a phone call.
You said come join this call wedo every Sunday at 4 pm Pacific
time and we got a group ofpeople together and we talk
about all this and I sat on thatfirst call and listened and it
(04:02):
has been instrumental in yourwillingness to come on the show.
And you know, I mentioned thewhole paradigm thing because I
believe that you know you're apioneer, I'm a pioneer.
Some people that are willing totake chances and study things
are pioneers.
But sometimes we're just wrong.
You know, we think something isa certain thing, we assign a
(04:26):
value to things and, as ascientist, a lot of times we'll
just observe, right, you noticea thing and you go oh well, we
make an assumption.
Tell me how you went.
You know you've been studyingthis enzyme and how it works and
replicating things andpublishing papers and going
through the rigors of science.
Why don't you share a littlebit about that?
(04:46):
Because I think that's reallyimportant for people to
understand.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Okay.
Well, I got into this area ofmethionine addiction a little
bit.
I don't want to say by accident, but let's say by luck, but
(05:24):
let's say passed away.
Unfortunately, his maininterest was methionine.
I had no interest aboutmethionine but I was in Dr
Irby's lab.
I had to learn about it.
It was so boring, this pathway,that that pathway, who cares?
(05:47):
Then, by chance, I read a couplepapers that said um, cancer
cells can't grow on theprecursor of methionine, it's
called homocysteine and normalcells can grow.
And I said, wow, that's reallyreally big.
(06:11):
I could.
I said really big.
Um, my, my boss, he didn't stopme and I said, okay, I want to
work on this.
So I cultured some cancer cellson methionine.
(06:35):
I cultured some on homocysteinein place of methionine.
I cultured normal cells thesame way, with and without
methionine.
The normal cells didn't care.
Methionine, homocysteine, theyboth grew.
They grew on both media.
The cancer cells wouldn't growon homocysteine, they grew
(06:58):
beautifully on methionine.
They had this at that time wecalled methionine dependence.
Then some paper came out andsaid, oh, the cancer cells can't
make methionine.
Well, I did a whole bunch oftests and I found the cancer
(07:23):
cells made tons of methioninebut they, despite that, they
make making their their own,they needed an external source.
And years later, many years,decades later, I understood that
this was an addiction.
So in those early days I triedto study the mechanism.
(07:45):
And we weren't the first todevelop the methioninase enzyme.
The first, I think, was DrKreiss and Sloan Kettering, but
he didn't continue the work.
Then, in the 90s we're talkingnow fast forward from the 70s to
(08:09):
the 90s we started developingour own methioninase and we
found that this methioninasecould slow or arrest the growth
of tumors growing in mice.
(08:29):
And we found that if youcombined it with chemotherapy it
worked even better.
And we even put it into somehuman patients kind of a one-off
by IV and we found it depletedall the methionine in their
(08:51):
blood.
And then we did some studies inChina in monkeys, and we killed
a monkey because themethioninase is a bacterial
enzyme so foreign to the monkey.
If you treat them once they'reokay, but if you keep treating
them they develop a severeallergy called anaphylaxis which
(09:18):
can be lethal Right.
So over the next 15 years wewere really low key, kind of
depressed, working on otherprojects a little bit of
methioninase and then Around2017 or 18.
(09:38):
Dr Hahn and Dr Kawaguchi in thelab showed that you could take
methioninase by mouth totallysafe, no anaphylaxis, nothing.
It stayed in the gut and thatis very unusual for a protein,
an enzyme that can survive inthe gut, which is very low pH,
(10:00):
very acid.
It's designed to dissolvethings right.
It's designed to dissolve thingsright.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Right, it's designed to dissolve things, yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
So it's not.
Proteins are not designedreally to survive in the gut.
When we eat a hamburger, allthe proteins get broken down
into their component, aminoacids, acids, and the body
(10:28):
restruct, uses those amino acidsto construct your own personal
enzymes.
That you're, that yours, thatyour immune system won't react
to you.
They become you.
So anyway, we were lucky, solucky, and a couple years later
we started with patients.
Dr Hahn took some, himself verybrave researcher, no problem.
So for the last four or fiveyears we've given patients.
(10:53):
Around 350 patients have takenmethionine at least one time.
And one thing we learned forsure it's completely safe.
And one thing we learned forsure it's completely safe,
(11:17):
although we have tons of studiesin the lab that show methionine
NACE is effective against everykind of cancer and almost every
kind of chemotherapy makes itwork better.
We haven't done a clinical trialbut we've published 12 case
reports, some of them verypromising.
We can't make a claim becausealmost every case the patient
was taking multiple things Right.
(11:37):
Two of our breast cancerpatients that had very
metastatic disease went intoremission.
Very serious leukemia caseshe's in remission.
A metastatic rectal cancer case.
It was close to remission,doing good.
(12:01):
A liver cancer case has goneinto kind of steady state.
The lady is very much alive.
So we have a lot of results.
We can't make a claim becausealmost all the patients were
treated with other agents.
But we're very encouraged andwe got two or three stage four
(12:29):
pancreatic cancer patients nowthat are hanging in there.
We had one previously.
She's going into her fifth year, stage four.
She's alive.
She takes methionine ACE andkeeps taking her chemo and low
methionine diet.
You know I tell the patientsit's encouraging, but I tell
(12:50):
everyone.
You know we can't make anyclaims and every patient's
different.
But here's what we've learnedso far.
We've published most of it.
So that's kind of the story,joe.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
It's a powerful story .
Speaker 2 (13:06):
It's over 50 years.
I mean, I did a little bit oftime warp in my summary, but I
started this project in 1973.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Wow, wow, that's, that's still doing it.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
So and, like you said , it's a paradigm shift.
So for the last hundred yearsthe paradigm has been cancer
cells are addicted to glucoseRight.
It stems from the research of aGerman scientist called Warburg
(13:49):
, w-a-r-b-u-r-g the Warburgeffect.
Yeah that's what I do.
The finally addiction is theHoffman effect.
That's what it's called now.
I love it, but there's sure aheck of a lot of resistance.
The so-called opinion leadersdon't want to go near it.
They don't want a paradigmshift, they want to stay with
their paradigm which has giventhem fame and fortune.
(14:12):
Exactly, they ain't moving andthey put out a lot of
disinformation about yours truly.
I can imagine they try toostracize me, never communicate
me, don't invite me to meetings,don't let me publish in the
(14:32):
so-called fancy journals.
And they one of my favoritestudents I had kind of a not
only teacher, student relationwith, but kind of grandpa,
grandson.
He went dark on me because hisboss told him to stay away from
me.
Um, so that's if you're readingKuhn's book.
(14:57):
You know I am.
I'm going to read it again.
Kuhn's book will tell a littlebit.
For example, when Bruno triedto say that the sun was just a
typical star, they burned him atthe stake in the middle of Rome
, upside down.
(15:17):
That was in the 1500, I think.
That's not that long ago In thebig picture not that long ago
and a paradigm shift very hard.
The great scientist called MaxPlanck.
(15:38):
I'm not giving the properGerman pronunciation there.
He discovered quantum mechanics, and he said cancer progresses,
one funeral at a time.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
So true.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
The opinion leader has to die.
Yes, and Kuhn certainly agreeswith that.
So here we are very nascentparadigm shift which is over a
(16:21):
half century trying to get outof its little rabbit hole, if
you want to call it.
I don't know.
That's where they are.
Who is leading the paradigmshift?
The patients, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Absolutely, Absolutely, and that's one of
the reasons that I took thistorch when I realized what I was
dealing with.
You know, I've worked withcannabis medicine for 40 years
and there's powerful medicinethere and it has its own amazing
values.
But I was wrong about thingsabout it, because my paradigm
included observations andthere's not enough research that
(17:00):
backs any of it up, becauseit's been illegal for so long,
and so we just watch and we makeassumptions and observe, and
that's where a lot of problemscome from.
We don't have anybody pointingout the downside, Nobody's
trying to challenge it, Nobody'sreally studying it in a way
that makes sense.
And you know there's in Kuhn'sbook.
(17:22):
There's all these differentmotivators for a paradigm shift,
and one of them is just asimple urgency.
There's a big problem thatneeds to be solved and that's
one of the ways paradigm shiftWell, that's where it shifted
for me personally solved, andthat's one of the ways paradigms
shift.
Well, that's where it shiftedfor me personally.
So I'm now part of a big shift,but my paradigm had to shift in
order for that to happen.
All the things I believed abouthealth they weren't all wrong,
(17:45):
but some of the fundamentalprinciples that I relied on to
make judgments and answers andand advice and treating myself
and everything.
When I realized that I hadmissed a part that was a
fundamental part.
It changed everything and Ibegan a totally different
approach.
(18:06):
All the doctors that I've beentalking to, nobody agrees on
anything I've talked to.
One doctor said I don't havecancer.
I talked to a surgeon said well, this is what we need.
I talked to a radiation doctorhe said this is what we need.
I talked to a Chemo doctor shesays this is what we need.
Talk to an integrative guy hesays this is what we need.
Nobody's agreed on anything.
If I know solid science, getJoe.
(18:29):
Yes, exactly.
So then when we start talkingand I start talking to all these
people 20 people, 30 peoplesometimes and we all have this
in common we all are dealingwith cancer ourselves personally
.
And in this journey I came torealize that there isn't just
cancer.
Everybody's cancer is uniqueand everybody's answer is unique
(18:51):
, even though there are commonthreads.
So we have pillars.
Like you know, glucose is athing I mean cancer feeds off of
it.
But methionine is a thing andif you don't address that thing,
the glucose doesn't matteranything because it's going to
feed and grow and you know,unless you starve yourself to
death, the cancer is going to goon, and everybody has different
(19:15):
switches, Everybody hasdifferent things that cause it
to happen.
Everybody has their ownmetabolism, their own set of
problems and, as a patient, as aperson who's dealing with a
problem like this, you need toget involved as deeply as you
can.
And what I learned on a quantumlevel is that everything's
energy right and you have thisamount of energy in amount of
(19:38):
time and whatever you puttowards it, you have the ability
to make a change.
And I was able to and Iactually call it a blessing now
because I'm not dying the way Iwas a couple weeks ago but in my
ability to focus all thisenergy on this allowed me to see
some things clearly.
And in our conversations youyou've been with me for now over
(20:03):
three months and you've watchedthe tumor grow and get
oppressive.
I wasn't sleeping.
I haven't slept in three months.
I this thing was choking me out.
It was almost twice the sizethat it is right now.
This thing was choking me out.
(20:30):
It was almost twice the sizethat it is right now and I was
desperate.
I had a radiation doctor thatwouldn't clear my treatment that
they wanted to do.
I had dental problems and wewere talking in this notion.
You said you know, there's away to go about this, there's a
neoadjuvant solution that wecould go with a chemo-only
treatment and buy us some time,maybe, shrink this thing down
and get a handle on it.
And I said, wow, that soundsbeautiful.
(20:51):
In my life, chemo was the devil.
I would have never acceptedthat as a possibility.
It was natural or nothing.
You come to realize there's allthese different pieces to an
answer.
This thing didn't come to mefor just one thing.
I didn't just have one problem.
I had all kinds of things thatcaused it, and the answer isn't
(21:14):
necessarily going to be just onething, much as many people will
try to sell you.
And so I've been building oxygentherapy and nutrition and all
these fasting and all thesedifferent things to build this.
But this group that we have,it's a collective consciousness.
We have all these people thathave shared their experience and
out of that we're gaining trueknowledge because we're able to
bounce it off of.
It's a collective consciousness.
(21:34):
We have all these people thathave shared their experience and
out of that we're gaining trueknowledge, because we're able to
bounce it off of each other andsay, well, this worked for me.
Well, that didn't work for me.
Well, you can learn from that.
And in this group, Dr Exame andsome of the other folks we
talked about the fasting priorto chemo.
(21:54):
We talked about the oxygentherapy.
We talked about really goinghard on the methionine
restriction methionine is, andthen coupling that with a chemo
treatment and really causinglike a supercharger effect.
You got a race car that's goodand strong.
Bolt on a supercharger and itdoubles its horsepower.
That's good and strong.
(22:17):
Bolt on a supercharger and itdoubles its horsepower.
Well, it turns out that thesethings I was literally at the
place where I was looking at adarkness, I, I was like I'm
gonna keep going, but I don'tknow where, what I'm gonna do.
And at the last second I getapproval.
At the last second I, thistumor that was weeping and
giving me all problems clearedup.
Just enough, they put a port inme.
(22:39):
I got my first chemo treatmentjust under two weeks ago.
And, Dr Hoffman, why don't youshare with me what you're seeing
?
Speaker 2 (22:51):
I barely recognize you, joe, I was, it's striking.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
The decrease of that tumor.
It's striking, yes.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
And you know we talked about what might happen
In my mind.
You know I do it the energy,the prayer, all of it and I saw
everything.
The best could happen.
But I want to share with youthis thing that my goal was to
get the most effect and theleast amount of harm.
And that was what all this wasabout.
Right, all the dieting, thefasting, the methionine,
(23:29):
everything all of it.
And when I got the firsttreatment, I got, you know, the
two drugs, the docetaxel and thecisplatinum.
And then I got home with a pumpthat pumped in the 5-fluorosil
for five days and you know theytold me about the side effects.
(23:51):
And you know they gave me abunch of drugs for the nausea.
And they told me that.
You know, I gave me a bunch ofdrugs for the nausea and they
told me that, you know, I'mgoing to be exhausted, I'm going
to have nausea, vomiting, Icould have headaches, I could
have ulcers in my mouth, I getbone pain, all of these things,
they told me.
And I says, okay, I'm going tobrace for it best as I can.
(24:14):
I had already been fasting, sonow I'll turn my weights down.
I got to get my weight back up,I'm just so.
I spent a few days just tryingto eat and just rest and, you
know, acclimate to this.
And you guys, you guys, we, wedid the meeting just just before
I did chemo and then we didanother meeting a week afterward
(24:34):
and you were able to see adifference from one to the next.
I've been on a roller coasterride with the chemo side of
things, but to everybody I'vetalked to they've all said you
had less side effects than I'veever seen.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Because of the fasting around the chemo time.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Exactly.
It completely worked 100 percentand I have been.
I dropped weight.
I hit my line where I won'tcross, so I've been steadily
building my weight up again.
You know, with this diet it'shard, it's hard to get the
calories in, but we just do it,we just figure it out and we
just do it.
(25:15):
And I did get some sores in mymouth but I got this buffer
saline solution.
I've just been swishing it overand over.
It really helps a lot.
I noticed that the nauseamedicine, the side effects are
constipation and headaches.
The side effects areconstipation and headaches and
to me that's hell.
(25:36):
I said I'd rather be nauseousand so I said, ok, I'm going to
deal with the nausea.
But once again I'm like wait aminute, I know something.
And I got disillusioned becausethe cannabis oil that I was
taking was wrong for me and DrCastro luckily pointed it out.
(25:56):
He says you're flipping offswitches, that's causing it not
to be effective and your chemowon't even work right.
And so I stopped it immediatelyand I really got a broken heart
over it.
I spent 30 years advocating forthat plant and working with it
and formulating and I just kindof put it on a shelf like a, you
know, like a scorned girlfriend.
But then the other night I wassitting there and I just kind of
put it on a shelf like a, youknow, like a scorned girlfriend.
But then the other night I wassitting there and I was nauseous
(26:20):
and I didn't feel like eatingand I didn't feel like moving
and I'm like I got to get out ofthis.
I got to move and I got to eatand I remembered I'm like, wait
a minute, what's the one goodthing cannabis is for?
It's great for nausea andappetite.
And I said, you know what?
I'm going to try a little bit.
I took a tenuous little bitFirst time in my life.
It was purely medicinal andcalmed me down, settled my
(26:42):
nausea.
I got hungry again and I'vebeen on a steady incline since
that point.
Yeah, and I think the key of itis there is no one hit wonder.
There's no one drug, there's noone medicine, there's no one
herb, there's not even onepractice.
(27:03):
You got to build your solutionand you got to find what works
for you and you got to bewilling to adjust and pivot and
you got to be open-minded andyou got to be willing to be
wrong.
I've been wrong in this journeya dozen times and I was like,
okay, change, I just want tolive.
I want to live and I want tohave a long, healthy, happy life
(27:25):
and I want this cancer out ofmy body and that's all I care
about.
And I just feel that sharingthis story here and inviting
people to this meeting the shownotes of this I put a link every
week I encourage anybody if youhave cancer, if you know
somebody that has, even ifyou're not interested in this
(27:45):
diet or anything like that,listen, there's people that are
sharing amazing stories abouttheir journeys and they're all
tied around this paradigm shiftand I just am so grateful.
I keep wanting to come back andshare with you and I feel like
I have been able to bringawareness to a dozen doctors and
(28:08):
practitioners and 20 or 30patients at least put it in
their mind.
And you know, dr Hoffman, a lotof people have cancer and you
look at them and you would neverknow and as disfigured as I am
and have been, that was actuallya blessing, because nobody's
ever going to question that Ihave or had cancer.
(28:29):
It's right there for everybodyto see and when I can show you
this dramatic change and I cantell you how it happened.
I don't know.
Maybe you'll listen right, it'sfantastic.
So, anyways, I, I, my energylevel has increased by
(28:49):
exponentially.
I was actually able to sleep onmy left side a couple of days
ago for the first time in sixmonths, and it's just been.
The sleep is all the differencein the world.
You know, if you can't sleep,how do you heal?
Yeah, you're in big trouble,and that's where my energy is
(29:09):
coming from building my appetite, building my strength.
And I'm getting ready.
I got another week and a fewdays before my next round, so
I'm trying to bulk up as muchweight as I can get, get my
strength in.
We're ready to go round two.
You'll be ready, I know it Well.
Thank you so much, robert.
It is just a-.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Joe, thank you for your great story, your
inspiration for every patientand they should listen to you.
Well-.
Educ.
Story, or inspiration for everypatient and they should listen
to you.
Well, educate.
Every patient needs to educateyourself.
Today I talked with one of myuh pancreatic cancer patients
and he said the doctor proposedthese two drugs.
I said, well, maybe we need.
(29:50):
I'll do a little study and youmay need something else.
Oh, I can't tell the doctorthat.
I said you've been on the Zoom.
Did you see what Joe did?
Of course, you can tell thedoctor that.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Oh yeah, you bet and remember you're the patient you
hire a doctor.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
You hire a doctor and the cancer is in your body, not
his or her body?
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Yes, 100%.
And if you can present yourselfto a doctor in a way that says
you're taking the time to learnand you have a goal that is not
in conflict with theirs, you'rejust trying to solve a problem
and maybe you present anothersolution.
Nine out of 10 doctors aregoing to go.
(30:36):
Well, at least I'll listen toyou.
They're people.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
If you just followed your doctor, you would have been
at this point.
You would have been so radiatedI would have been Just by its
little self, along withmethioninase doing its thing.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Yes, its little self, along with methioninase.
Yes, doing its thing.
Yes, and you know my goal andmy hope is that I'm going to be
like shihiro and we're going tohave a good chance to be.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
We want to get rid of this thing totally.
Yes, 100 with the chemocombined with methioninase,
we've got a really good chancefor it and I'm going out and
told shihiro I want to operate.
Why are you going to operate?
Cancer is gone.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Yes, yes, and this week I'm going to be getting
some blood tests, thanks to DrExumay's advice, and I'm going
to be getting my own markers sothat I'll be able to go.
Well, here's my baseline andhere's where we're at, and the
doctors haven't even ordered it,but I'm doing it myself.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Don't count on them to order.
You got to do it yourself manytimes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
All right, Robert Well, thank you so much for
taking your time.
Thank you, Joe.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Great meeting and share it with everybody.
I keep doing it.
We'll see you Sunday, okay.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
See you Sunday.
Joe, all right, have a good one.
Thank you you.
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The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
True Crime Tonight
If you eat, sleep, and breathe true crime, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT is serving up your nightly fix. Five nights a week, KT STUDIOS & iHEART RADIO invite listeners to pull up a seat for an unfiltered look at the biggest cases making headlines, celebrity scandals, and the trials everyone is watching. With a mix of expert analysis, hot takes, and listener call-ins, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT goes beyond the headlines to uncover the twists, turns, and unanswered questions that keep us all obsessed—because, at TRUE CRIME TONIGHT, there’s a seat for everyone. Whether breaking down crime scene forensics, scrutinizing serial killers, or debating the most binge-worthy true crime docs, True Crime Tonight is the fresh, fast-paced, and slightly addictive home for true crime lovers.