Dr. Lauren Cohen, Director of Events & Executive Brand Ambassador for RGCC North America, shares her expertise and wisdom both from her background in chiropractic and emotional healing work to becoming a cancer patient advocacy.
Dr. Lauren's world changed when faced with the dual diagnoses of her mother and sister, propelling her into the cancer world with a deeply personal lens. Alongside her, learn about the power of functional medicine, where Dr. Lauren explains how understanding the underlying causes of diseases can offer a path to true individualized healing. Her connection with RGCC, a pioneering medical research lab, showcases the potential of unique personalized medicine in tailoring effective cancer care strategies.
Discover the comprehensive cancer testing with RGCC's groundbreaking methodologies such as Onco-D-Clare and Oncotrace. These advanced tests offer insights into genetic expressions and circulating tumor cells, presenting a clearer picture of cancer's behavior. Through these tools, Dr. Lauren and RGCC's efforts their testing abilities that goes beyond traditional allopathic approaches, opening doors to precision testing and personalized treatments that can truly transform patient care. Hear firsthand how the Onconomics panels can guide tailored treatment plans, offering hope and direction to those navigating cancer.
Finally, HealingStrong, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering individuals battling cancer and other diseases is discussed and the partnership between RGCC and HealingStrong. Through holistic strategies and community support, HealingStrong nurtures the body, soul, and spirit.
Make sure to listen in and check out the RGCC free offering at the link below and discover the connections that are possible within HealingStrong, all while emphasizing the importance of lifestyle changes to foster a resilient, anti-cancer environment. With Dr. Lauren's insights and HealingStrong's supportive community, find encouragement and empowerment in your healing journey. Listen in for a heartfelt discussion on the potential of personalized medicine and the strength of community support in overcoming life's biggest challenges.
EPISODE MENTIONS:
Information & Free e-book Guide: https://myrgcc.com/healing-strong/
Connect on Social Media: Facebook and Instagram
HealingStrong's mission is to educate, equip and empower our group leaders and group participants through their journey with cancer or other chronic illnesses, and know there is HOPE. We bring this hope through educational materials, webinars, guest speakers, conferences, community small group support and more.
Please consider supporting our mission by becoming a part of our Membership Program, as a monthly donor.
When you do, you will receive additional resources such as: webinars, access to ALL our past and most recent conference videos, downloadables and more, as a bonus.
To learn more, head to the HealingStrong Membership Program link below:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
In my own practice in the 25 years, I can't tell you
how many times people have comein and said, oh, you need to rep
this particular product orsupplement, and there is some
DVD or MP3 or something thattells a story about how it
brought somebody back from thebrink of death, and then
(00:20):
somebody else takes it andnothing happened.
So were they lying?
And the answer is no.
It was an incredibly effectivetreatment for that person
because it was the right matchfor their cancer cells, but that
secondary patient it justsimply wasn't.
It doesn't mean that thesupplement was bad, it just
(00:41):
isn't the right match for thatperson.
So knowing this information inadvance is so incredibly
powerful and empowering, knowingthat you're making selections
and investing in things thathave efficacy for you.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
You're listening to the I Am Healing Strong podcast,
a part of the Healing Strongorganization, the number one
network of holistic cancersupport groups in the world.
Each week we bring you storiesof hope, real stories that will
encourage you as you navigateyour way on your own journey to
health.
Now here's your host stage fourcancer thriver, jim Mann.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Today I'm talking to a doctor doctor, which always
makes me nervous because they'realways so much smarter than I
am, but I'm anxious to know, andexcited to know, all the
knowledge she has on thistesting, which I've heard so
much about.
Dr Lauren, thanks for joiningus today.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Oh, thank you so much for having me.
I'm very excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Now you're a doctor, chiropractic right.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Yes, so my background is chiropractic, functional
endocrinology and emotionalhealing, and that was what I you
know professionally I was doingin practice before I shifted
into cancer patient advocacy andultimately started to work for
RGCC.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Part of that was functional medicine, right, what
exactly is functional medicine?
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Right.
So allopathic very simple kindof sort of comparisons is
allopathic is looking for thebreakdown in the system and then
manages the breakdown Infunctional.
There's a recognition that thebody has, you know, like natural
natural balance and naturalnatural rhythms, and when the
(02:30):
body is expressing dis-ease,that what we want to do is look
for the underlying causes andthen help the body to rebalance
itself and in that rebalance thedis-ease goes away and health
is restored.
So we're not just managing thebreakdown, we're actually
(02:50):
working to restore health.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yeah, so it's not a Band-Aid, is what you're saying?
Speaker 1 (02:55):
No, no, it's not a Band-Aid and it ultimately
becomes.
You know, typically the care,the things that patients learn
when they're utilizing afunctional paradigm with their
health care is it incorporatesinto their way of life, it
becomes part of their lifestyle,right, as opposed to it being a
(03:16):
treatment.
It becomes part of theirwell-being.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, and you did that for like 25 years before
you shifted in another direction, right?
Speaker 1 (03:25):
I did, I did yes.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Was it a clinic?
Is that what it was?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Yes, I had my own clinic where I saw patients and
again, it was amultidisciplinary practice where
I combined the chiropracticwork along with the functional
endocrine work and emotionalhealing as well.
So, you know, I focused on thewhole person as opposed to just
a, you know, a part of theperson, and that I did in my own
(03:56):
practice.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yes, All right, then something I believe, something
happened with your mom and yoursister.
They both had a diagnosis ofcancer with your mom and your
sister.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
they both had a diagnosis of cancer.
Yeah, so what's interesting is,even though I am a, you know, a
doctor, you know, and apractitioner, and I had my own
clinic, I was not.
I was not treating cancer.
I did not see cancer patientsAgain, from the functional
aspect of it.
I was.
I was working with endocrineconditions and both my mom and
my sister got diagnosed withstage four cancers at the same
(04:30):
time.
So I got thrown into the cancerworld the same way as all of
the patients did right.
So I entered the cancer worldthrough the patient door, not
through the, you know, provideror practitioner door, and it was
.
And it was a very humblingexperience because, with all of
the knowledge that I had workingwith patients for 25 years
(04:53):
doing all sorts of healing work,I knew nothing about cancer and
I had to educate myself.
And I always speak about how Iwent onto the internet and got
my Google PhD the way everybodyelse does.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yes, Except for you knew the big words.
You could pronounce those.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yes, and that actually is what kind of sort of
led me into cancer patientadvocacy.
It was just something thatorganically started to happen
was patients who met my sisteralong the way that you know,
people knew about me, who met mysister along the way, you know,
people knew about me.
They referred them to me, notas patients but to help them
(05:36):
understand like the doctorsspeak and to help them define
what the different treatmentoptions were in the different
healing modalities that werebeing offered.
And you know, because it's alot of information and very
dense information it was.
It was challenging for me withmy background, but I understood
much of that.
You know that higher levellanguaging and I was able to
translate it into commonlanguage so that people could
understand and I ultimatelybecame the doctor in the family
(06:00):
for those that didn't have one,so that I kind of shifted, like
I said, organically into cancerpatient advocacy and then that's
kind of ultimately how Ieventually ended up with RGCC.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
So did you find out about RGCC just through research
and you came across it.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yeah, I always say this in a very funny way, I was
a customer before I worked forthe company.
Yeah, I always say this in avery funny way, I was a customer
before I worked for the companyis that I found RGCC in the
advocacy work and the researchthat I did for my own family,
and I was very pleasantlysurprised when I came across a
medical, a world-class medicalresearch lab that had a
(06:42):
functional paradigm, medicalresearch lab that had a
functional paradigm.
It, you know, it recognizedthat in, you know, each person
is an individual and can't betreated as a one size fits all
model, which is the currentcancer care paradigm.
Right, so for me it was.
It was a natural connection.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
And it's not in America, is it?
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Yeah, the lab itself is based in Greece.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Greece okay.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Right, so there is a branch office RGCC North America
.
That's the branch that I workwith and we serve as the liaison
between the patients and theRGCC registered practitioners
and the lab, so we facilitatethe testing here in the North
America region.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Why and this is probably a dumb question why is
it just at one place where theydo that?
Speaker 1 (07:35):
That's a good question, one of which is
Giannis Papasitorio.
He is our founder.
So, giannis Papasitorio, he isour founder and he is a medical
oncologist, geneticist,molecular biologist.
He is, you know, a combinationof medical oncologist and
(07:55):
scientist is a simple way to sayit and he just understood that
there are, you know again, thegenetic differences and he took
the existing science in terms ofthe testing technologies and he
put it together in a veryunique way.
So he has been pioneering theconcept of personalized and
(08:16):
precision cancer care and cancertesting.
Right Now, when you say how comeit's here and in the, you know
only really pretty much in thislab is the standard of care, it
just doesn't recognize it, youknow.
So when you're in the strictlyallopathic model, you you get
(08:36):
stuck in that standard of careand it doesn't venture out.
So all of these innovationsthat are happening are happening
outside of the standard of careand there are other labs that
do some precision testing, butthere are differences amongst
the labs.
But RGCC is unique in thatspace because we literally
(08:59):
partner with patients all theway through the cancer journey,
from the earliest pre-screentesting on the market, all the
way through the cancer journeyfrom the earliest pre-screen
testing on the market all theway through remission and
everything in between, and we're, as far as I know, we are
really one of the only labs thatdoes that.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
All right, and you are our American connection.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
I am.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Okay, so in my Healing Strong group that I have
in Greenville, south Carolina,we had one of the members he had
that done and he's a teacher bytrade and so he explained
everything.
He put the charts up there, allthe results.
He had things that he wasexcited about, things he was
(09:44):
very surprised about, and itmade a lot of sense when he was
explaining it.
Of course, as soon as I walkaway I'm like what did he say
about that?
But can you kind of like for ussimple minded people who can
barely say aspirin, can youexplain how it works?
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Absolutely, absolutely.
So, like I said, we have anentire suite of testing.
So I'm not sure whichparticular test he was showing
you, but let me kind of start atthe beginning, which is
pre-screening.
We have a test calledOncoDeclarer, which is
(10:26):
pre-screening.
We have a test calledOncoDeclare and that is for
patients that have not beendiagnosed, that may have a
family history or they're verymuch into wellness and
prevention and want to do earlydetection.
And OncoDeclare what it's doingis it's not waiting for cancer
to develop to determine thatcancer is present, which
(10:47):
currently the other earlydetection testing on the market.
That is what it's looking for.
It's trying to pick it up early.
It's trying to pick it up on amicroscopic level before it
might show up on imaging.
But it is what we call CTC basedor circulating tumor based the
and circulating tumors, insimple terms, is your tumors,
(11:07):
your cancer sheds.
So there are cancer cells thatare circulating around your
bloodstream.
So whether they're picking upwhole cells or they're picking
up fragments, it is dependent oncancer already being present
and in circulation.
So our OncoDeclarepre-screening test, we went to
(11:27):
the step before, like where dowe start seeing shifts in the
physiology and when cancer isgoing to start to develop,
you're first going to seeshifting in the genetic
expression of specific immunecells.
So you can have the shift inthose immune cells without
(11:48):
cancer having started yet.
So we can pick it up very, veryearly, even before it actually
starts to develop right.
So for those that areinterested in pre-screen, that's
the information that we canprovide you, that whether cancer
is brewing right, is itstarting, even if cancer cells
(12:10):
are not yet in circulation.
Then when we move on to ourbaseline testing, we have our
Oncotrace, and Oncotrace is nowfor patients who are diagnosed
where there is a very strongsuspicion that cancer is present
, and we are also now lookingfor CTCs or circulating tumor
cells.
(12:31):
Now there are other CTC tests onthe market, but what is unique
about RGCC is that we don't givejust a CTC count right.
So the CTC count is basicallygiving you a volume.
It's called enumeration, but itgives you a number or a volume
of the amount of cancer cellscirculating in the system.
(12:53):
So if there's more cancer thenumber will be higher, if
there's less cancer it'll belower.
So it gives you a bit of ayardstick so that you can not
only find where you're startingbut you can use this testing for
monitoring as well, todetermine how your treatment
protocols are working.
But what is unique about ourtesting is that we have more
(13:14):
comprehensive information and wealso provide information on
what we call stemness markers.
And the stemness markers giveus an understanding of the
activity level of those cancercells.
Think of this very simply,right, just aspirin is.
The stemness markers are likelight switches, right, they're
(13:35):
either in the on position activeor the off position inactive.
So if you have CTCs in yoursystem and they are active when
we are monitoring, we want tocontinue to see the CTC count go
down, but we also want to seethose stemness markers go into
the off position.
So if you go through all ofyour cancer care and it's no
(13:59):
longer visible on imaging rightin the medical model, you might
be given the all clear sayingthat you're in remission.
But it doesn't have thesensitivity to monitor on a
microscopic level, but thistesting does.
So let's say that your CTCcount goes way down If those, if
(14:19):
those stemness markers arestill in the on position, you're
not done with care.
So again, the comparisonbetween other CTC tests and ours
is that they're giving you aCTC count but not the activity
of those cells and we're givingthe comprehensive information.
So not only do you know thecount, you know if those cells
are still active and if thosecells are active that cancer can
(14:42):
grow and metastasize.
And we want to make sure youcontinue with your care until
those also go into the offposition.
What's most likely what you wereseeing during your meeting was
an Onconomics Plus or one of ourOnconomics panels, which is our
most comprehensive personalizedtesting, and in that series of
(15:09):
panels and I'll explain theseries in a moment you get a
simple CTC count but you alsoget a full, complete,
comprehensive geneticexpressions profile.
So it gives you not only thegenetic expressions but the
physiological expressions thatare supporting and driving your
(15:29):
cancer.
So your practitioner can takethat information and provide
treatment options that eitherupregulate or downregulate those
mechanisms to support yourhealing.
And that's very much like afingerprint, it's very unique to
you as an individual right.
And then on our panels,depending on which panel you do,
(15:50):
we test 50 pluschemotherapeutic agents on your
cancer cells not the cancerdiagnosis, but on your specific
cancer cells that we'veextracted from your blood sample
.
So we do 50 chemotherapeuticagents, 50 plus natural
substances or a combination ofthe two.
(16:12):
So we ultimately serve threemarkets those that are that are
doing strict you know a strictlymedical path.
Those that are doing strictly anatural path, whether they want
to stay natural or they'veexhausted all of their
chemotherapeutic options.
Or those that are doing anintegrative path, where they're
combining both the medical andthe natural.
So with all of that information, your practitioner can build
(16:37):
very specific protocols that area match for you, as opposed to
the one size fits all where youhave the diagnosis.
You have 100 of us, you knowall of us have the same
diagnosis, we all get the sametreatment and we don't know who
that's going to work for.
Here you have that informationup front so that you can make
(16:58):
informed decisions about whatcare options you choose.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
I know that some of the results was because he was
taking the apricot seeds and itsaid that it had no effect on
his cancer, which surprised him,but I think he just stopped
eating them.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Yeah, and you know so , so I want to answer that or
respond to that in two differentways.
One of the things that's reallyimportant here is that,
especially in the natural world,there's an investment right,
Because the natural options arenot covered by insurance and
therefore there's monetaryinvestment.
That's there, and what we wantto make sure is that, if you are
(17:41):
going to take these naturalsupplements, we want you to make
sure that you're taking thingsthat have some level of efficacy
supplements we want you to makesure that you're taking things
that have some level of efficacy, so that you're not wasting
time and you know and money onthings that really don't work
for you.
And in my own practice, you know, in the 25 years, I can't tell
you how many times people havecome in and said, oh, you need
(18:03):
to rep this particular productor supplement.
And you know and there is some,you know DVD or MP3 or you know
something that you know tells astory about how it brought
somebody back from the brink ofdeath and then somebody else
takes it and nothing happened.
So were they lying?
And the answer is no.
(18:24):
It was an incredibly effectivetreatment for that person
because it was the right matchfor their cancer cells, but that
secondary patient, it justsimply wasn't.
It doesn't mean that thesupplement was bad, it just
isn't the right match for thatperson.
So knowing this information inadvance is so incredibly
(18:47):
powerful and empowering, knowingthat you're making selections
and investing in things thathave efficacy for you.
Now, a secondary thing that Iwant to share is that when I
teach healing, I teach it inthree buckets.
So there's the direct, theindirect and then environmental.
(19:10):
So direct are things that aregoing to directly affect the
cancer cells themselves right.
Then indirect are things thatare going to interfere with
different types of mechanisms ormessaging pathways within the
body so they change thephysiological expression and
(19:32):
therefore slow down the growthof cancer or inhibit the growth
of cancer or speed up the youknow the death of the cells.
Whatever it may do, but it'screating a change in the
indirect way.
So it's not going directlyafter the cancer but it is
having an effect on the cancer'sability to grow and thrive.
(19:53):
And then there's environmentalright, where we talk about doing
detox, making sure you'reboosting the immune system, that
you're highly oxygenated, thatyou're alkalized, right, because
an acidic and toxic environmentis a pro-cancer environment.
So there are those threebuckets.
So there are occasions wherethere may be something that, on
(20:17):
the direct impact, theinformation that you're getting
on the panel says that itdoesn't have efficacy at dealing
with the direct bucket.
You may still utilize some ofthese supplements in the
indirect or environmental bucket.
Does that make sense?
So, as a hypothetical example,vitamin C.
(20:38):
If vitamin C shows that it'snot, it doesn't have efficacy on
the, you know, on the directbucket, it still helps boost the
immune system.
So your practitioner may stillchoose to utilize it.
So just having an understandingof you know how this
information can be applied.
You just want to make sure thatyou're not accidentally
(21:00):
throwing the baby out with thebathwater and you want to really
have conversations with yourpractitioners to make sure that
you're not taking something outthat could be supporting either
the indirect or environmentalbucket as well.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Yeah, that makes sense.
I can't explain it to somebodyelse, but that makes sense to me
.
I've got to take you with me toexplain to somebody else, okay,
so, speaking of me.
So, speaking of me, like in mysituation, you know, I had stage
four melanoma and then, afterthey operated, they told me I'd
(21:40):
have like a month or two to livebecause it was so large, but
then it hadn't spread, whichthey did not understand, and I
thought, well, great, I've beenhealed, because I did have
500,000 listeners praying for me, you know, on the radio, so
that kind of helped.
But it came back 18 months laterin the form of tumors
throughout my body and so we didthe immunotherapy and within
(22:01):
two months they all shrunk andand they say, well, yeah,
there's, they can see some scartissue in there where the tumors
were, but pretty much they didit for two years.
They said, well, there's nosign of cancer.
They checked me out forever andin fact, coming up in a couple
of months, they're going to doone more MRI and then they're
going to close the books on me,they said, which kind of made me
(22:24):
nervous.
I said, what do you mean?
Close the books somewhere?
You're going to put me down orwhat, somebody like myself who
the doctors declare you're?
You know well, they don't saycancer free, but same thing,
which test would I need to take?
Because I thought, well, Idon't need to do anything other
than you know to eat.
Right, get the exercise.
And you know all the stuff thatI did change.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Yeah, I am so glad that you're bringing this topic
up, because this is a question Iget all the time.
You know it's like I was told Iwas.
You know I was free and clear.
The cancer is gone.
You know, like you said, likethey're gonna close the book and
that type of thing and you know, and they say, like the cancer
was gone, it came back.
What happened, how did thathappen and it happened about we
(23:06):
spoke a little while ago aboutthis is that we're monitoring on
a microscopic level.
The medical monitoring is justsimply not sensitive enough.
It doesn't mean that it's bad,it just doesn't have a good
sensitivity.
So you get to a certain pointand the cancer is below the
level of their ability to detectit.
(23:28):
So it doesn't mean that cancercells are not there, it just
means they can't see them.
And if they can't see it theycan't treat it.
So what occurred here was thatthose cancer cells remember we
talked about the CTC count goingdown.
But looking at those stemnessmarkers, most likely what was
occurring is that you still hadCTCs in circulation on a
(23:49):
microscopic level and they wereactive.
So even though the doctors hadgiven you the all clear and they
stopped treatment, the cancerwas still in circulation and had
the ability to grow andmetastasize and metastasize.
(24:12):
So for anyone that has beengiven the all clear that says
you know, you're now inremission, we're done with care,
I highly, highly encouragedoing the Oncotrace test Because
that will let you know if thereare CTCs in circulation, if
they are active.
And if there are CTCs incirculation, even at a
microscopic level, it allows usto do our more comprehensive
(24:34):
testing and we then you have anentire menu of treatment options
that you can utilize in aproactive way, that you can
continue to do that.
In the medical model, you gooff radar I call it flying under
the radar, like you go underthe radar and then they have to
(24:55):
wait until the cancer gets bigenough that they can detect it
again.
And by the time they do thatit's been there for a very long
time.
Now there is a book and I share.
I share the story by a womannamed Jenny Herbichek and the
book is called Cancer Free, areyou sure?
(25:17):
And the reason that I shareabout this particular story is
that she by chance wandered intoan RGCC practitioner's office
and she announced to him I'm,you know, I was told I am cancer
free.
And he responded are you sure?
And they ran the Oncotrace testand she had a significant
(25:41):
number of CTCs in circulationand it saved her life that she
found that information when shedid.
And the book kind of catalogsher journey, you know, her
healing journey, but theimportance of this personalized
and microscopic testing is thatcancer it can be active and in
(26:03):
existence without you being ableto see it and being able like
this, like I call the Oncotrace,the patient's yardstick, and it
is for me, as a patientadvocate and a family member of
cancer patients.
It is an incredibly empoweringtest because every cancer
patient, every single day, wesit and we worry Is the cancer
(26:32):
coming back or when is thecancer coming back?
And we have no way to determinethat.
Well, now you do, you have thatand it'll tell you when you're
in full remission and it willalso then give you the
opportunity to continue tomonitor yourself, right like
through the through thepractitioner, the RGCC
registered practitioner.
But you have a way to continueto monitor and you have that
(26:53):
information that you need.
And at the first sign thatthese CTCs are either coming
back or reactivating, you can doproactive intervention and not
wait for it to get big enough tostart showing up on imaging
when it becomes more challengingto treat.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
So do I need aspirin or not?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
At least one aspirin a day, I'm sure Okay.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
All right.
So like say, I took that and Ifound out I am actually in
remission.
Does that close the door or doI, you know, a year down the
road?
Speaker 1 (27:33):
do it again, right?
So each patient will have tomake this determination with you
know, your practitioner, as towhat is the appropriate timing.
So if you do the Oncotrace andit is determined that you are in
full remission, right, eitherlow or no CTCs or low CTCs in
the off position You're going towant to monitor, probably
(27:56):
initially every three months andthen, if you get an all clear,
you might go to six months, thenyou might go to a year, and
that timeline is reallydetermined by you and your
practitioner.
But from a patient advocacystandpoint, it's what is going
to give you peace of heart andpeace of mind.
How often do you need thatinformation, right?
(28:17):
We don't recommend you know,less than every three months,
but what is the timing?
That that gives you time, thecomfort that you are aware, and
staying on top of thisinformation, right, right, so it
could be six months, it couldbe a year, but initially, like
if you go, if you're, if youwere going into remission for
(28:39):
the first time, we're probablygoing to request, you know,
request that you do it everythree months because you're, we
want to make sure that you trulyare in remission, right, and
that you're staying there.
So it's not closing the book inthat way.
Um, you know, like, like youknow, okay, I'm done, I stopped
care.
And and the other piece of thisis, we now know that your body
(29:01):
has the propensity to createcancer, given the right
circumstances yeah right.
So it's not about stopping careand then just going back to life
.
You know the way it was before.
There's going to be certainlifestyle and dietary changes
that now become part of yourlife going forward to keep you
(29:23):
healthy.
To support a healthyenvironment.
To support an anti-cancerenvironment as opposed to a
pro-cancer environment.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
I already stopped eating Twinkies, so I should be
good.
I don't juice them anymore.
So, okay, where do you go tohave one of these tests?
How do you find out where to dothat?
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Right.
So RGCC testing needs to beaccessed through registered RGCC
providers.
So, for anyone that isinterested in exploring the
testing and having the testingdone, you would reach out to our
branch office and we willprovide you with a referral list
(30:11):
of RGCC registeredpractitioners in your in your
region, so that you can thenconnect with those different
providers and find someone whois going to be the right match
for you.
And there you know.
The way to do.
That is, you can go to ourwebsite, which is myrgcccom, and
there is a contact form there,or you can actually go to the
(30:35):
specific website for HealingStrong.
There's a contact form therewith a free downloadable e-book
for you as well, and that'smyrgcccom.
Forward slash healing dashstrong.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
So myrgcccom forward slash healing dash strong and it
will take you directly to acontact form that you can
download that ebook and thosecontact forms will actually come
directly to me and my team.
Wow, if you use the contactforms on the website, they will
(31:14):
go through.
They'll go through the mainchannels, but if you mention
that you are connected throughHealing Strong, then they will
then forward those contact formsto me so that I can respond
directly with each of you.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Beautiful.
How did you cross paths withHealing Strong?
Speaker 1 (31:36):
We were at the Annie Appleseed Conference.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
And we ran into Healing Strong and it was kind
of a funny thing.
I ran into Don Watson, whohappens to be one of your group
leaders out in Rancho Cucamonga.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
California.
I think I said that right.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
And it was funny because when we met we both were
like I was looking for youbecause I was interested in
connecting with Healing Strong.
I knew about Healing Strongfrom my patient advocacy work
and of course it's a patientadvocacy organization and they
in turn were interested ingetting more information and
(32:22):
education about RGCC.
So we connected there and nowwe have a wonderful you know
relationship and partnershipthat you know gives us the
ability to support each other.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Excellent.
Did you meet Susie Griswold I?
Speaker 1 (32:38):
did.
She wasn't there at theconference, but I have met Susie
and she is wonderful and I Iyou know.
I just think that she is ablessing to all of us, that this
organization exists fromsomething that she started.
She is absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Yeah, don't fall for that smile.
She's really mean.
She yells at me all the time.
No, I'm obviously kidding,because when I met her I thought
man, she's super sweet,something is up, she's hiding
something.
But no, she is she and herhusband Jeff both.
Man, she's super sweet,something is up, she's hiding
something.
But no, she is she and herhusband Jeff both same way.
It's so weird.
Yeah, wonderful wonderful woman.
(33:19):
Yeah Well, Dr Lauren, I reallyappreciate you coming by because
this is something that I wasreally interested in and I'm
thinking about doing it because,yeah, my cancer is supposedly
gone really interested in andI'm thinking about doing it
because, yeah, my cancer issupposedly gone.
But you know, like you'resaying, every time you feel a
little ache or pain, you're like, oh, did it come back?
You know, does it come backwith a vengeance?
So you know it is nervewracking.
(33:41):
I don't think about it till Ifeel a pain or a headache or
something like that.
So, if nothing else, it's peaceof mind.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Yeah, it really is, and I'm very familiar with that
experience from my family, fromthe patient advocacy work that I
do, is that you sneeze and thenthe first go-to is oh no, do I
have sinus cancer?
You know a little itch on yourskin?
Oh no, do I have, you know.
And it drives, you know it'sgoing to drive us crazy.
And oh no, do I have, you know,it drives, you know it's going
to drive us, you know, crazy.
And having the Oncotrace testdone gives you that peace of
(34:18):
mind.
You have something that canmonitor that for you.
And you know.
Again, as a patient advocate,you know, my goal is to help
each patient get the knowledge.
Goal is to help each patientget the knowledge and so that
they can feel empowered and thatthey can participate more
actively in their own journeyand their own, you know, their
own care and care choices.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Okay, and then the best way for people to get ahold
of you personally, you know,through the business.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Yeah, the best way to get ahold of me is through the
contact forms.
Like I said, the you know themyRGcccom forward slash healing
dash strong.
Those will come directly to meor the website contact forms.
They will be forwarded to me.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Well, Dr Lauren Cohen , thank you so much for sharing
this knowledge and we're so gladthere are people like you out
there with the brains andexperience know how to deal with
people that are facing allthese fears and being
overwhelmed and thinking, well,it's over, because I can't
figure this thing out.
So I'm really glad you're there.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Yeah, Thank you again for inviting me and allowing me
to share my knowledge and mywisdom, and I hope that it helps
some of your audience to beable to again make some better
choices for themselves.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
You've been listening to the I Am Healing Strong
podcast, a part of the HealingStrong organization.
We hope you found encouragementin this episode, as well as the
confidence to take control ofyour healing journey, knowing
that God will guide you on thispath.
Healing Strong is a non-profitorganization whose mission is to
(35:52):
connect, support and educateindividuals facing cancer and
other diseases throughstrategies that help to rebuild
the body, renew the soul andrefresh the spirit.
It costs nothing to be a partof a local or online group.
You can do that by going to ourwebsite at healingstrongorg and
(36:15):
finding a group near you or anonline group, or start your own,
your choice.
While you're there, take a lookaround at all the free
resources.
Though the resources and groupsare free, we encourage you to
join our membership program at$25 or $75 a month.
This helps us to be able toreach more people with hope and
(36:38):
encouragement, and that alsocomes with some extra perks as
well, so check it out.
If you enjoyed this podcast,please give us a five-star
rating, leave an encouragingcomment and help us spread the
word.
We'll see you next week withanother story on the I Am
Healing Strong podcast.
In my own practice in the 25 years, I can't tell you
how many times people have comein and said, oh, you need to rep
this particular product orsupplement, and there is some
DVD or MP3 or something thattells a story about how it
brought somebody back from thebrink of death, and then
(00:20):
somebody else takes it andnothing happened.
So were they lying?
And the answer is no.
It was an incredibly effectivetreatment for that person
because it was the right matchfor their cancer cells, but that
secondary patient it justsimply wasn't.
It doesn't mean that thesupplement was bad, it just
(00:41):
isn't the right match for thatperson.
So knowing this information inadvance is so incredibly
powerful and empowering, knowingthat you're making selections
and investing in things thathave efficacy for you.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
You're listening to the I Am Healing Strong podcast,
a part of the Healing Strongorganization, the number one
network of holistic cancersupport groups in the world.
Each week we bring you storiesof hope, real stories that will
encourage you as you navigateyour way on your own journey to
health.
Now here's your host stage fourcancer thriver, jim Mann.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Today I'm talking to a doctor doctor, which always
makes me nervous because they'realways so much smarter than I
am, but I'm anxious to know, andexcited to know, all the
knowledge she has on thistesting, which I've heard so
much about.
Dr Lauren, thanks for joiningus today.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Oh, thank you so much for having me.
I'm very excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Now you're a doctor, chiropractic right.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Yes, so my background is chiropractic, functional
endocrinology and emotionalhealing, and that was what I you
know professionally I was doingin practice before I shifted
into cancer patient advocacy andultimately started to work for
RGCC.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Part of that was functional medicine, right, what
exactly is functional medicine?
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Right.
So allopathic very simple kindof sort of comparisons is
allopathic is looking for thebreakdown in the system and then
manages the breakdown Infunctional.
There's a recognition that thebody has, you know, like natural
natural balance and naturalnatural rhythms, and when the
(02:30):
body is expressing dis-ease,that what we want to do is look
for the underlying causes andthen help the body to rebalance
itself and in that rebalance thedis-ease goes away and health
is restored.
So we're not just managing thebreakdown, we're actually
(02:50):
working to restore health.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yeah, so it's not a Band-Aid, is what you're saying?
Speaker 1 (02:55):
No, no, it's not a Band-Aid and it ultimately
becomes.
You know, typically the care,the things that patients learn
when they're utilizing afunctional paradigm with their
health care is it incorporatesinto their way of life, it
becomes part of their lifestyle,right, as opposed to it being a
(03:16):
treatment.
It becomes part of theirwell-being.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, and you did that for like 25 years before
you shifted in another direction, right?
Speaker 1 (03:25):
I did, I did yes.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Was it a clinic?
Is that what it was?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Yes, I had my own clinic where I saw patients and
again, it was amultidisciplinary practice where
I combined the chiropracticwork along with the functional
endocrine work and emotionalhealing as well.
So, you know, I focused on thewhole person as opposed to just
a, you know, a part of theperson, and that I did in my own
(03:56):
practice.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yes, All right, then something I believe, something
happened with your mom and yoursister.
They both had a diagnosis ofcancer with your mom and your
sister.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
they both had a diagnosis of cancer.
Yeah, so what's interesting is,even though I am a, you know, a
doctor, you know, and apractitioner, and I had my own
clinic, I was not.
I was not treating cancer.
I did not see cancer patientsAgain, from the functional
aspect of it.
I was.
I was working with endocrineconditions and both my mom and
my sister got diagnosed withstage four cancers at the same
(04:30):
time.
So I got thrown into the cancerworld the same way as all of
the patients did right.
So I entered the cancer worldthrough the patient door, not
through the, you know, provideror practitioner door, and it was
.
And it was a very humblingexperience because, with all of
the knowledge that I had workingwith patients for 25 years
(04:53):
doing all sorts of healing work,I knew nothing about cancer and
I had to educate myself.
And I always speak about how Iwent onto the internet and got
my Google PhD the way everybodyelse does.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yes, Except for you knew the big words.
You could pronounce those.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yes, and that actually is what kind of sort of
led me into cancer patientadvocacy.
It was just something thatorganically started to happen
was patients who met my sisteralong the way that you know,
people knew about me, who met mysister along the way, you know,
people knew about me.
They referred them to me, notas patients but to help them
(05:36):
understand like the doctorsspeak and to help them define
what the different treatmentoptions were in the different
healing modalities that werebeing offered.
And you know, because it's alot of information and very
dense information it was.
It was challenging for me withmy background, but I understood
much of that.
You know that higher levellanguaging and I was able to
translate it into commonlanguage so that people could
understand and I ultimatelybecame the doctor in the family
(06:00):
for those that didn't have one,so that I kind of shifted, like
I said, organically into cancerpatient advocacy and then that's
kind of ultimately how Ieventually ended up with RGCC.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
So did you find out about RGCC just through research
and you came across it.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yeah, I always say this in a very funny way, I was
a customer before I worked forthe company.
Yeah, I always say this in avery funny way, I was a customer
before I worked for the companyis that I found RGCC in the
advocacy work and the researchthat I did for my own family,
and I was very pleasantlysurprised when I came across a
medical, a world-class medicalresearch lab that had a
(06:42):
functional paradigm, medicalresearch lab that had a
functional paradigm.
It, you know, it recognizedthat in, you know, each person
is an individual and can't betreated as a one size fits all
model, which is the currentcancer care paradigm.
Right, so for me it was.
It was a natural connection.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
And it's not in America, is it?
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Yeah, the lab itself is based in Greece.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Greece okay.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Right, so there is a branch office RGCC North America
.
That's the branch that I workwith and we serve as the liaison
between the patients and theRGCC registered practitioners
and the lab, so we facilitatethe testing here in the North
America region.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Why and this is probably a dumb question why is
it just at one place where theydo that?
Speaker 1 (07:35):
That's a good question, one of which is
Giannis Papasitorio.
He is our founder.
So, giannis Papasitorio, he isour founder and he is a medical
oncologist, geneticist,molecular biologist.
He is, you know, a combinationof medical oncologist and
(07:55):
scientist is a simple way to sayit and he just understood that
there are, you know again, thegenetic differences and he took
the existing science in terms ofthe testing technologies and he
put it together in a veryunique way.
So he has been pioneering theconcept of personalized and
(08:16):
precision cancer care and cancertesting.
Right Now, when you say how comeit's here and in the, you know
only really pretty much in thislab is the standard of care, it
just doesn't recognize it, youknow.
So when you're in the strictlyallopathic model, you you get
(08:36):
stuck in that standard of careand it doesn't venture out.
So all of these innovationsthat are happening are happening
outside of the standard of careand there are other labs that
do some precision testing, butthere are differences amongst
the labs.
But RGCC is unique in thatspace because we literally
(08:59):
partner with patients all theway through the cancer journey,
from the earliest pre-screentesting on the market, all the
way through the cancer journeyfrom the earliest pre-screen
testing on the market all theway through remission and
everything in between, and we're, as far as I know, we are
really one of the only labs thatdoes that.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
All right, and you are our American connection.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
I am.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Okay, so in my Healing Strong group that I have
in Greenville, south Carolina,we had one of the members he had
that done and he's a teacher bytrade and so he explained
everything.
He put the charts up there, allthe results.
He had things that he wasexcited about, things he was
(09:44):
very surprised about, and itmade a lot of sense when he was
explaining it.
Of course, as soon as I walkaway I'm like what did he say
about that?
But can you kind of like for ussimple minded people who can
barely say aspirin, can youexplain how it works?
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Absolutely, absolutely.
So, like I said, we have anentire suite of testing.
So I'm not sure whichparticular test he was showing
you, but let me kind of start atthe beginning, which is
pre-screening.
We have a test calledOncoDeclarer, which is
(10:26):
pre-screening.
We have a test calledOncoDeclare and that is for
patients that have not beendiagnosed, that may have a
family history or they're verymuch into wellness and
prevention and want to do earlydetection.
And OncoDeclare what it's doingis it's not waiting for cancer
to develop to determine thatcancer is present, which
(10:47):
currently the other earlydetection testing on the market.
That is what it's looking for.
It's trying to pick it up early.
It's trying to pick it up on amicroscopic level before it
might show up on imaging.
But it is what we call CTC basedor circulating tumor based the
and circulating tumors, insimple terms, is your tumors,
(11:07):
your cancer sheds.
So there are cancer cells thatare circulating around your
bloodstream.
So whether they're picking upwhole cells or they're picking
up fragments, it is dependent oncancer already being present
and in circulation.
So our OncoDeclarepre-screening test, we went to
(11:27):
the step before, like where dowe start seeing shifts in the
physiology and when cancer isgoing to start to develop,
you're first going to seeshifting in the genetic
expression of specific immunecells.
So you can have the shift inthose immune cells without
(11:48):
cancer having started yet.
So we can pick it up very, veryearly, even before it actually
starts to develop right.
So for those that areinterested in pre-screen, that's
the information that we canprovide you, that whether cancer
is brewing right, is itstarting, even if cancer cells
(12:10):
are not yet in circulation.
Then when we move on to ourbaseline testing, we have our
Oncotrace, and Oncotrace is nowfor patients who are diagnosed
where there is a very strongsuspicion that cancer is present
, and we are also now lookingfor CTCs or circulating tumor
cells.
(12:31):
Now there are other CTC tests onthe market, but what is unique
about RGCC is that we don't givejust a CTC count right.
So the CTC count is basicallygiving you a volume.
It's called enumeration, but itgives you a number or a volume
of the amount of cancer cellscirculating in the system.
(12:53):
So if there's more cancer thenumber will be higher, if
there's less cancer it'll belower.
So it gives you a bit of ayardstick so that you can not
only find where you're startingbut you can use this testing for
monitoring as well, todetermine how your treatment
protocols are working.
But what is unique about ourtesting is that we have more
(13:14):
comprehensive information and wealso provide information on
what we call stemness markers.
And the stemness markers giveus an understanding of the
activity level of those cancercells.
Think of this very simply,right, just aspirin is.
The stemness markers are likelight switches, right, they're
(13:35):
either in the on position activeor the off position inactive.
So if you have CTCs in yoursystem and they are active when
we are monitoring, we want tocontinue to see the CTC count go
down, but we also want to seethose stemness markers go into
the off position.
So if you go through all ofyour cancer care and it's no
(13:59):
longer visible on imaging rightin the medical model, you might
be given the all clear sayingthat you're in remission.
But it doesn't have thesensitivity to monitor on a
microscopic level, but thistesting does.
So let's say that your CTCcount goes way down If those, if
(14:19):
those stemness markers arestill in the on position, you're
not done with care.
So again, the comparisonbetween other CTC tests and ours
is that they're giving you aCTC count but not the activity
of those cells and we're givingthe comprehensive information.
So not only do you know thecount, you know if those cells
are still active and if thosecells are active that cancer can
(14:42):
grow and metastasize.
And we want to make sure youcontinue with your care until
those also go into the offposition.
What's most likely what you wereseeing during your meeting was
an Onconomics Plus or one of ourOnconomics panels, which is our
most comprehensive personalizedtesting, and in that series of
(15:09):
panels and I'll explain theseries in a moment you get a
simple CTC count but you alsoget a full, complete,
comprehensive geneticexpressions profile.
So it gives you not only thegenetic expressions but the
physiological expressions thatare supporting and driving your
(15:29):
cancer.
So your practitioner can takethat information and provide
treatment options that eitherupregulate or downregulate those
mechanisms to support yourhealing.
And that's very much like afingerprint, it's very unique to
you as an individual right.
And then on our panels,depending on which panel you do,
(15:50):
we test 50 pluschemotherapeutic agents on your
cancer cells not the cancerdiagnosis, but on your specific
cancer cells that we'veextracted from your blood sample
.
So we do 50 chemotherapeuticagents, 50 plus natural
substances or a combination ofthe two.
(16:12):
So we ultimately serve threemarkets those that are that are
doing strict you know a strictlymedical path.
Those that are doing strictly anatural path, whether they want
to stay natural or they'veexhausted all of their
chemotherapeutic options.
Or those that are doing anintegrative path, where they're
combining both the medical andthe natural.
So with all of that information, your practitioner can build
(16:37):
very specific protocols that area match for you, as opposed to
the one size fits all where youhave the diagnosis.
You have 100 of us, you knowall of us have the same
diagnosis, we all get the sametreatment and we don't know who
that's going to work for.
Here you have that informationup front so that you can make
(16:58):
informed decisions about whatcare options you choose.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
I know that some of the results was because he was
taking the apricot seeds and itsaid that it had no effect on
his cancer, which surprised him,but I think he just stopped
eating them.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Yeah, and you know so , so I want to answer that or
respond to that in two differentways.
One of the things that's reallyimportant here is that,
especially in the natural world,there's an investment right,
Because the natural options arenot covered by insurance and
therefore there's monetaryinvestment.
That's there, and what we wantto make sure is that, if you are
(17:41):
going to take these naturalsupplements, we want you to make
sure that you're taking thingsthat have some level of efficacy
supplements we want you to makesure that you're taking things
that have some level of efficacy, so that you're not wasting
time and you know and money onthings that really don't work
for you.
And in my own practice, you know, in the 25 years, I can't tell
you how many times people havecome in and said, oh, you need
(18:03):
to rep this particular productor supplement.
And you know and there is some,you know DVD or MP3 or you know
something that you know tells astory about how it brought
somebody back from the brink ofdeath and then somebody else
takes it and nothing happened.
So were they lying?
And the answer is no.
(18:24):
It was an incredibly effectivetreatment for that person
because it was the right matchfor their cancer cells, but that
secondary patient, it justsimply wasn't.
It doesn't mean that thesupplement was bad, it just
isn't the right match for thatperson.
So knowing this information inadvance is so incredibly
(18:47):
powerful and empowering, knowingthat you're making selections
and investing in things thathave efficacy for you.
Now, a secondary thing that Iwant to share is that when I
teach healing, I teach it inthree buckets.
So there's the direct, theindirect and then environmental.
(19:10):
So direct are things that aregoing to directly affect the
cancer cells themselves right.
Then indirect are things thatare going to interfere with
different types of mechanisms ormessaging pathways within the
body so they change thephysiological expression and
(19:32):
therefore slow down the growthof cancer or inhibit the growth
of cancer or speed up the youknow the death of the cells.
Whatever it may do, but it'screating a change in the
indirect way.
So it's not going directlyafter the cancer but it is
having an effect on the cancer'sability to grow and thrive.
(19:53):
And then there's environmentalright, where we talk about doing
detox, making sure you'reboosting the immune system, that
you're highly oxygenated, thatyou're alkalized, right, because
an acidic and toxic environmentis a pro-cancer environment.
So there are those threebuckets.
So there are occasions wherethere may be something that, on
(20:17):
the direct impact, theinformation that you're getting
on the panel says that itdoesn't have efficacy at dealing
with the direct bucket.
You may still utilize some ofthese supplements in the
indirect or environmental bucket.
Does that make sense?
So, as a hypothetical example,vitamin C.
(20:38):
If vitamin C shows that it'snot, it doesn't have efficacy on
the, you know, on the directbucket, it still helps boost the
immune system.
So your practitioner may stillchoose to utilize it.
So just having an understandingof you know how this
information can be applied.
You just want to make sure thatyou're not accidentally
(21:00):
throwing the baby out with thebathwater and you want to really
have conversations with yourpractitioners to make sure that
you're not taking something outthat could be supporting either
the indirect or environmentalbucket as well.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Yeah, that makes sense.
I can't explain it to somebodyelse, but that makes sense to me
.
I've got to take you with me toexplain to somebody else, okay,
so, speaking of me.
So, speaking of me, like in mysituation, you know, I had stage
four melanoma and then, afterthey operated, they told me I'd
(21:40):
have like a month or two to livebecause it was so large, but
then it hadn't spread, whichthey did not understand, and I
thought, well, great, I've beenhealed, because I did have
500,000 listeners praying for me, you know, on the radio, so
that kind of helped.
But it came back 18 months laterin the form of tumors
throughout my body and so we didthe immunotherapy and within
(22:01):
two months they all shrunk andand they say, well, yeah,
there's, they can see some scartissue in there where the tumors
were, but pretty much they didit for two years.
They said, well, there's nosign of cancer.
They checked me out forever andin fact, coming up in a couple
of months, they're going to doone more MRI and then they're
going to close the books on me,they said, which kind of made me
(22:24):
nervous.
I said, what do you mean?
Close the books somewhere?
You're going to put me down orwhat, somebody like myself who
the doctors declare you're?
You know well, they don't saycancer free, but same thing,
which test would I need to take?
Because I thought, well, Idon't need to do anything other
than you know to eat.
Right, get the exercise.
And you know all the stuff thatI did change.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Yeah, I am so glad that you're bringing this topic
up, because this is a question Iget all the time.
You know it's like I was told Iwas.
You know I was free and clear.
The cancer is gone.
You know, like you said, likethey're gonna close the book and
that type of thing and you know, and they say, like the cancer
was gone, it came back.
What happened, how did thathappen and it happened about we
(23:06):
spoke a little while ago aboutthis is that we're monitoring on
a microscopic level.
The medical monitoring is justsimply not sensitive enough.
It doesn't mean that it's bad,it just doesn't have a good
sensitivity.
So you get to a certain pointand the cancer is below the
level of their ability to detectit.
(23:28):
So it doesn't mean that cancercells are not there, it just
means they can't see them.
And if they can't see it theycan't treat it.
So what occurred here was thatthose cancer cells remember we
talked about the CTC count goingdown.
But looking at those stemnessmarkers, most likely what was
occurring is that you still hadCTCs in circulation on a
(23:49):
microscopic level and they wereactive.
So even though the doctors hadgiven you the all clear and they
stopped treatment, the cancerwas still in circulation and had
the ability to grow andmetastasize and metastasize.
(24:12):
So for anyone that has beengiven the all clear that says
you know, you're now inremission, we're done with care,
I highly, highly encouragedoing the Oncotrace test Because
that will let you know if thereare CTCs in circulation, if
they are active.
And if there are CTCs incirculation, even at a
microscopic level, it allows usto do our more comprehensive
(24:34):
testing and we then you have anentire menu of treatment options
that you can utilize in aproactive way, that you can
continue to do that.
In the medical model, you gooff radar I call it flying under
the radar, like you go underthe radar and then they have to
(24:55):
wait until the cancer gets bigenough that they can detect it
again.
And by the time they do thatit's been there for a very long
time.
Now there is a book and I share.
I share the story by a womannamed Jenny Herbichek and the
book is called Cancer Free, areyou sure?
(25:17):
And the reason that I shareabout this particular story is
that she by chance wandered intoan RGCC practitioner's office
and she announced to him I'm,you know, I was told I am cancer
free.
And he responded are you sure?
And they ran the Oncotrace testand she had a significant
(25:41):
number of CTCs in circulationand it saved her life that she
found that information when shedid.
And the book kind of catalogsher journey, you know, her
healing journey, but theimportance of this personalized
and microscopic testing is thatcancer it can be active and in
(26:03):
existence without you being ableto see it and being able like
this, like I call the Oncotrace,the patient's yardstick, and it
is for me, as a patientadvocate and a family member of
cancer patients.
It is an incredibly empoweringtest because every cancer
patient, every single day, wesit and we worry Is the cancer
(26:32):
coming back or when is thecancer coming back?
And we have no way to determinethat.
Well, now you do, you have thatand it'll tell you when you're
in full remission and it willalso then give you the
opportunity to continue tomonitor yourself, right like
through the through thepractitioner, the RGCC
registered practitioner.
But you have a way to continueto monitor and you have that
(26:53):
information that you need.
And at the first sign thatthese CTCs are either coming
back or reactivating, you can doproactive intervention and not
wait for it to get big enough tostart showing up on imaging
when it becomes more challengingto treat.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
So do I need aspirin or not?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
At least one aspirin a day, I'm sure Okay.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
All right.
So like say, I took that and Ifound out I am actually in
remission.
Does that close the door or doI, you know, a year down the
road?
Speaker 1 (27:33):
do it again, right?
So each patient will have tomake this determination with you
know, your practitioner, as towhat is the appropriate timing.
So if you do the Oncotrace andit is determined that you are in
full remission, right, eitherlow or no CTCs or low CTCs in
the off position You're going towant to monitor, probably
(27:56):
initially every three months andthen, if you get an all clear,
you might go to six months, thenyou might go to a year, and
that timeline is reallydetermined by you and your
practitioner.
But from a patient advocacystandpoint, it's what is going
to give you peace of heart andpeace of mind.
How often do you need thatinformation, right?
(28:17):
We don't recommend you know,less than every three months,
but what is the timing?
That that gives you time, thecomfort that you are aware, and
staying on top of thisinformation, right, right, so it
could be six months, it couldbe a year, but initially, like
if you go, if you're, if youwere going into remission for
(28:39):
the first time, we're probablygoing to request, you know,
request that you do it everythree months because you're, we
want to make sure that you trulyare in remission, right, and
that you're staying there.
So it's not closing the book inthat way.
Um, you know, like, like youknow, okay, I'm done, I stopped
care.
And and the other piece of thisis, we now know that your body
(29:01):
has the propensity to createcancer, given the right
circumstances yeah right.
So it's not about stopping careand then just going back to life
.
You know the way it was before.
There's going to be certainlifestyle and dietary changes
that now become part of yourlife going forward to keep you
(29:23):
healthy.
To support a healthyenvironment.
To support an anti-cancerenvironment as opposed to a
pro-cancer environment.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
I already stopped eating Twinkies, so I should be
good.
I don't juice them anymore.
So, okay, where do you go tohave one of these tests?
How do you find out where to dothat?
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Right.
So RGCC testing needs to beaccessed through registered RGCC
providers.
So, for anyone that isinterested in exploring the
testing and having the testingdone, you would reach out to our
branch office and we willprovide you with a referral list
(30:11):
of RGCC registeredpractitioners in your in your
region, so that you can thenconnect with those different
providers and find someone whois going to be the right match
for you.
And there you know.
The way to do.
That is, you can go to ourwebsite, which is myrgcccom, and
there is a contact form there,or you can actually go to the
(30:35):
specific website for HealingStrong.
There's a contact form therewith a free downloadable e-book
for you as well, and that'smyrgcccom.
Forward slash healing dashstrong.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
So myrgcccom forward slash healing dash strong and it
will take you directly to acontact form that you can
download that ebook and thosecontact forms will actually come
directly to me and my team.
Wow, if you use the contactforms on the website, they will
(31:14):
go through.
They'll go through the mainchannels, but if you mention
that you are connected throughHealing Strong, then they will
then forward those contact formsto me so that I can respond
directly with each of you.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Beautiful.
How did you cross paths withHealing Strong?
Speaker 1 (31:36):
We were at the Annie Appleseed Conference.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
And we ran into Healing Strong and it was kind
of a funny thing.
I ran into Don Watson, whohappens to be one of your group
leaders out in Rancho Cucamonga.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
California.
I think I said that right.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
And it was funny because when we met we both were
like I was looking for youbecause I was interested in
connecting with Healing Strong.
I knew about Healing Strongfrom my patient advocacy work
and of course it's a patientadvocacy organization and they
in turn were interested ingetting more information and
(32:22):
education about RGCC.
So we connected there and nowwe have a wonderful you know
relationship and partnershipthat you know gives us the
ability to support each other.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Excellent.
Did you meet Susie Griswold I?
Speaker 1 (32:38):
did.
She wasn't there at theconference, but I have met Susie
and she is wonderful and I Iyou know.
I just think that she is ablessing to all of us, that this
organization exists fromsomething that she started.
She is absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Yeah, don't fall for that smile.
She's really mean.
She yells at me all the time.
No, I'm obviously kidding,because when I met her I thought
man, she's super sweet,something is up, she's hiding
something.
But no, she is she and herhusband Jeff both.
Man, she's super sweet,something is up, she's hiding
something.
But no, she is she and herhusband Jeff both same way.
It's so weird.
Yeah, wonderful wonderful woman.
(33:19):
Yeah Well, Dr Lauren, I reallyappreciate you coming by because
this is something that I wasreally interested in and I'm
thinking about doing it because,yeah, my cancer is supposedly
gone really interested in andI'm thinking about doing it
because, yeah, my cancer issupposedly gone.
But you know, like you'resaying, every time you feel a
little ache or pain, you're like, oh, did it come back?
You know, does it come backwith a vengeance?
So you know it is nervewracking.
(33:41):
I don't think about it till Ifeel a pain or a headache or
something like that.
So, if nothing else, it's peaceof mind.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Yeah, it really is, and I'm very familiar with that
experience from my family, fromthe patient advocacy work that I
do, is that you sneeze and thenthe first go-to is oh no, do I
have sinus cancer?
You know a little itch on yourskin?
Oh no, do I have, you know.
And it drives, you know it'sgoing to drive us crazy.
And oh no, do I have, you know,it drives, you know it's going
to drive us, you know, crazy.
And having the Oncotrace testdone gives you that peace of
(34:18):
mind.
You have something that canmonitor that for you.
And you know.
Again, as a patient advocate,you know, my goal is to help
each patient get the knowledge.
Goal is to help each patientget the knowledge and so that
they can feel empowered and thatthey can participate more
actively in their own journeyand their own, you know, their
own care and care choices.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Okay, and then the best way for people to get ahold
of you personally, you know,through the business.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Yeah, the best way to get ahold of me is through the
contact forms.
Like I said, the you know themyRGcccom forward slash healing
dash strong.
Those will come directly to meor the website contact forms.
They will be forwarded to me.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Well, Dr Lauren Cohen , thank you so much for sharing
this knowledge and we're so gladthere are people like you out
there with the brains andexperience know how to deal with
people that are facing allthese fears and being
overwhelmed and thinking, well,it's over, because I can't
figure this thing out.
So I'm really glad you're there.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Yeah, Thank you again for inviting me and allowing me
to share my knowledge and mywisdom, and I hope that it helps
some of your audience to beable to again make some better
choices for themselves.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
You've been listening to the I Am Healing Strong
podcast, a part of the HealingStrong organization.
We hope you found encouragementin this episode, as well as the
confidence to take control ofyour healing journey, knowing
that God will guide you on thispath.
Healing Strong is a non-profitorganization whose mission is to
(35:52):
connect, support and educateindividuals facing cancer and
other diseases throughstrategies that help to rebuild
the body, renew the soul andrefresh the spirit.
It costs nothing to be a partof a local or online group.
You can do that by going to ourwebsite at healingstrongorg and
(36:15):
finding a group near you or anonline group, or start your own,
your choice.
While you're there, take a lookaround at all the free
resources.
Though the resources and groupsare free, we encourage you to
join our membership program at$25 or $75 a month.
This helps us to be able toreach more people with hope and
(36:38):
encouragement, and that alsocomes with some extra perks as
well, so check it out.
If you enjoyed this podcast,please give us a five-star
rating, leave an encouragingcomment and help us spread the
word.
We'll see you next week withanother story on the I Am
Healing Strong podcast.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!