We don't often look at preventative measures when it comes to our health. We typically look for ways to get better after we get sick — take a pill or undergo this operation, and everything will be better! Don't put off becoming more health-conscious until you've been diagnosed with a disease like cancer. The adage still holds: prevention is better than a cure. In this episode, Best Selling Science Author++ Travis Christofferson discusses the root causes of diseases and how we can take a preventive approach to health. He shares emerging cancer treatment research and encourages us to learn more about them. Focus on your overall health rather than specific diseases. When your body has a good immune system, it can help prevent illnesses like cancer!
If you want to learn more about the latest in cancer research disease prevention, then this episode is for you!
Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:
- Understand the root causes of diseases and how we can prevent them rather than waiting for illness.
- Learn about emerging cancer treatment research, including the metabolic approach, ketosis, abscopal effect, etc.
- The state of our health care systems
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Episode Highlights
[03:17] Travis’ Background
- Travis has an undergraduate degree in biochemistry. He eventually took over the family business and got married.
- He then finished his master's degree, focusing on cancer metabolism for his independent study.
- The prevailing teaching during that time was that somatic mutations cause cancer.
- Travis was inspired by the book, Cancer as a Metabolic Disease, to do a thesis on metabolic theory.
- Otto Warburg proposed the metabolic theory many years ago, but the medical community dismissed it as simplistic. New evidence reignited interest in the approach.
[08:10] The State of Healthcare
- Public and health institutions have long accepted the somatic approach to cancer, with billions of dollars backing it.
- The United States spends the most per capita on health care expenditure among developed countries yet has the lowest life expectancy.
- The issue with the healthcare system lies in variations of treatment, over-treatment, and drug development process.
- The healthcare industry is focused more on treating diseases rather than preventing them.
- Although technology has advanced to assist people in tracking their health, people's health is deteriorating. Even if people live longer, they often experience illness and disability in their final years.
[12:48] Changing the Healthcare Industry
- The healthcare incentive structure must change. Doctors get paid for every drug and procedure they prescribe, leading to overtreatment.
- There are emerging practices where doctors get a big bonus per patient who doesn't need procedures, encouraging them to keep patients in good health.
- When blood sugar levels rise, doctors usually diagnose diabetes. However, we can test for fasting insulin regularly to intervene.
- This test can also help people prevent other diseases and become more health-conscious.
- Change takes time with systems and industries, but we can take simple lifestyle interventions now.
[16:01] Why People Are Getting Sicker
- Maintaining our health can be challenging. We've been conditioned that taking a magic pill is preferable to putting in the effort.
- Remember that metabolic dysregulation causes aging, not the other way around.
- In the last 10,000 years, humanity has drastically shifted to consuming processed foods, carbohydrates, and oils, resulting in noticeable consequences.
- People have also become sedentary.
- A hunter-gatherer society has no obesity, insulin resistance, or chronic systemic inflammation. However, we frequently see this in the Western world.
[20:32] The Root of Diseases
- Understanding cellular health and inflammatory processes are critical in keeping yourself healthy.
- Periods of food scarcity have happened throughout humanity's evolution. Our bodies enter ketosis due to the caloric deficit but most never reach this state.
- Studies have shown that ketosis can help prevent diseases ranging from Alzheimer's to Parkinson's to cancer and diabetes.
- Constantly eating keeps our immune system active and prevents it from resting, which has implications for chronic inflammatory diseases.
[24:53] What Happens During Ketosis?
- Ketosis happens in a fasted state, and a ketogenic diet is nutritional maintenance.
- When we fast, our bodies will mobilise the fat we have in our bodies and begin a process of beta-oxidation to burn off fat.
- A caloric deficit makes this process faster, converting fats into ketone bodies, which then take the place of glucose.
- Ketones have more thermodynamic energy and ATP per carbon unit compared to glucose.
- Ketosis also boosts antioxidant levels. Since diseases are oxidative, ketosis can help to combat illnesses. Listen to the episode to learn more!
[32:01] Growing Healthcare Trends
- Research has shown that fasting before chemotherapy can reduce some radiation side effects
- Sugar is fuel for cancer cells, but doctors continue giving and allowing patients to consume it.
- There's more awareness of the latest research. The annual Metabolic Therapeutic Conference has grown to around 1600 attendees.
- When we approach doctors, we will receive information their institution has taught and allowed them to give us.
- Even with COVID-19, people have yet to explore treatments like monoclonal antibodies, hyperbaric, and Vitamin C.
[44:00] The Abscopal Effect on Cancer
- The abscopal effect is when you target a single tumour site, but it affects other tumour sites in the body.
- Travis shares a case where someone with breast cancer on a checkpoint inhibitor received a much lower radiation dose.
- In that case, radiation was sufficient to systematically stimulate the immune system to attack cancer, improving the patient's chances of survival.
[47:41] Advancements in Immunotherapy
- Using peptides to manipulate the immune system is still a trial and error process.
- The immune system's job is to survey for cancer, get rid of it early, and create a checkpoint to avoid attacking itself.
[49:44] Emerging Cancer Treatment Research
- In detection, metastasis is an early stage event rather than a late-stage one. Cancer cells break off, dying when it reaches the bloodstream.
- This selection pressure creates different genetic mutations in tumours.
- The somatic mutation theory argues that a series of sequential mutations cause cancer, with each tumour site having a unique set of driving mutations.
- The epigenetic metabolic theory posits that these mutations are a side effect of the disease.
- All cancers burn sugar and evade the immune system, but mutations vary too much. Treatments should focus on epigenetic expression rather than mutations.
[55:16] Researching Treatment Options
- The medical field is filled with uncertainty. Cancer treatment options have not been compared.
- After an in-depth look at clinical trials, we find that what seems to be the best treatment paradigm isn't always the right option.
- When conducting research, consider the data and evaluate it using a risk-reward framework. You can choose from low-risk alternatives.
[59:59] The Soil Approach to Cancer
- Cancer grows in the presence of a favourable microenvironment and molecular events. It takes a long time for a chronic irritant to develop cancer cells.
- Cancer cells take on characteristics of our earliest genes, including replication and the appearance of early embryos.
- You can help your cells "behave" by providing oxygen and avoiding chronic irritants.
- Nurture the microenvironment through exercising and eating the right foods.
- Instead of focusing on the seed or cancer, we should concentrate on the soil or microenvironment.
[1:04:05] Health and Longevity
- While we don't know humankind's natural and optimal states, ketosis and fasting provide a glimpse.
- Cells stop metabolising as we age, causing inflammation. We may be able to extend life spans if we can reduce senescent cells.
- Travis shares a study in which mice received fisetin, found in strawberries, reducing senescent cells and prolonging their life.
- There's a lot of new research on substances that kill senescent cells, like senolytics, quercetin, and other compounds.
[1:08:49] About StageZero Life Sciences
- StageZero Life Sciences looks into markers of inflammation, insulin resistance, etc.
- They also recommend potential lifestyle interventions to change those markers.
- They are currently available in Richmond, Virginia, Toronto, and Ontario, Canada.
7 Powerful Quotes
'It's just a combination of probably a terrible diet and just not moving enough because we were designed to go out and have to work every day to catch food. That's what we evolved, and when you uncouple your physiology from that environmental niche, you see all kinds of problems'
‘It appears that evolution has built in a powerful signal to that when you're in a caloric deficiency, you switch your metabolism…to something called ketosis where you completely shift what you're burning to these little small molecules that come from fat,’
‘We're terrible at focusing on prevention. We focus on the disease, trying to treat it once it's already manifest, which is an absolutely horrible strategy.’
‘If we look at cancer then as the prime drivers being metabolic and epigenetic, that means that all of those things potentially could be modifiable, right? We don't have to target mutations. We can look for ways to change the way cells are expressing genes and so forth, and metabolising substrates and things like that.’
‘Just mind the microenvironment of your body, which is giving you the right food, exercising. It's designed to do that. Every time you do that, it brings down those inflammatory processes, and so forth.’
‘We tend to think we're in this modern era, but with regard to cancer, we will look back 200 years from now, realise that we were just in the Dark Ages. We’re still using radiation which was invented about 110 years ago; chemotherapy was invented around World War II. That's still the mainstay of cancer treatments.’
‘When you really look deep, the two problems really are variation in treatment, over-treatment. The drug development process, I think, is one of the main problems too,’
Resources
About Travis
Travis Christofferson is the founder of The Foundation for Metabolic Cancer Therapies and works in Clinical Development at StageZero Life Sciences Ltd.
He is also a science author of several books, including Tripping Over the Truth: How the Metabolic Theory of Cancer Is Overturning One of Medicine's Most Entrenched Paradigms, Curable: How an Unlikely Group of Radical Innovators Is Trying to Transform Our Health Care System, Ketones, The Fourth Fuel, and co-author of The Origin (and future) of the Ketogenic Diet.
Want to learn more about Travis’ work? Check out Foundation for Metabolic Cancer Therapies.
You can also connect with him on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.