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#1 - Holistic Health Hour With Dr. Kevin Conners @ Conners Clinic

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Hello everybody. I’m Dr. Kevin Conners, welcome to Holistic Health Hour. We’re still jumping around with that. It’s not going to be an hour long, but we do want you to submit your questions on the links below this video and we’ll get to them. We had a few questions that came in already that I want to get to first, but let me just tell you the format of this. We’re just going to be really casual, obviously. I’m in jeans, very casual. Maybe we should call it casual cancer class? I don’t know. We’ll think about that, but just get your questions in. We’ll go over them. I can’t get too personal with specific things, but if we can get some general things about cancer, that could be helpful to people. That’s what we’re all about. Also check out our website and our blogs.

We give away all our books for free as a free download, utilize that as well. We really try to run our practice as a ministry so that people that could never come to us, can still get information that could help them with their care. I am again, Dr. Kevin Conners, one of the practitioners here at Conners Clinic. So let’s just jump right into the questions and get into this. So the first question that came in is, do your genes cause cancer?So let’s jump into that right away. So there’s very few cancers that we would say are caused by your genes. There are genetic mutations, especially you might’ve heard of the BRCA genes. Those are tumor suppressor genes. So a tumor suppressor gene is a gene that will turn on, for sake of a better word, if cancer is growing in your body, and it will help your body kill the cancer. So tumor suppressor genes are very important. So defects in the tumor suppressor gene systems can contribute to cancer, but they will never be a cause of cancer. So for instance, if I have cancer growing in my breast, and I have BRCA gene defects, so my tumor suppressor genes are going to be able to turn on to kill that cancer, you have other systems that are going to kill that cancer. So just because a person has defects on their tumor suppressor genes certainly does not mean that they’re going to get cancer. Now, there are some other genes, especially with colon cancer, that if people with these specific genes have a much higher incidence of colon cancer, colorectal cancer. But for the most part, your genes are not your causative factor of your cancer.

And then the second part of this question is, what about the MTHFR defect? Your MTHFR gene is a very important gene with detoxification, with methylation. But I certainly wouldn’t that that’s a cause of cancer. Defects in certain pathways, especially pathways that are involved with detoxification, you could argue that they could be a secondary or tertiary cause of cancer, because if I am exposed to toxins, and let’s say two people are working the same job, spraying horrible chemicals on whatever, and I have a lot of defects in my detoxification pathways and my coworker doesn’t. I’m going to be less readily able to detoxify those chemicals. So from a secondary standpoint, yes, I’m exposed to the same toxins as my coworker, my coworker’s able to detox these out faster than I am.

The chance that these chemicals are going to settle in my cells is much greater because of those defects and those pathways, the chance of that settling in my cell and disrupting the cell replication pathway is higher. And that’s what cancer is. So cancer is, by definition, a cell that has its replication pathway affected in a way that the cell is going through a rapid replication and natural cell death, apoptosis, isn’t taking place. And so that’s what cancer is. So the cause of it really would, in this case, in this example, would be toxicity. Are the genes the cause? Well, is there is a secondary effect of that? I’m not able to detox quickly and therefore, I’m the toxins that I’m exposed to aren’t getting out of my body. So, yes, in that case, yes, that’s why when we look at a person’s genes, that’s a part of all our plans, and we think is very important. Your detox pathways are what are the major things that we look at, even more so than your tumor suppressor genes.

Next question that came in was, what are some general things that somebody can do for cancer? So if I am diagnosed with cancer, some general things that you want to look at is, simply start with cleaning up your diet. Because, is dietary factors the cause of cancer? Well, no, not usually sometimes yes, but cleaning up your diet is going to be the best thing to help stimulate your immune system. Obviously, you have cancer. If I’m diagnosed with cancer, what I’m doing up to this point is not working to get rid of it. Otherwise I wouldn’t be diagnosed with it. So you gotta look at though, maybe it’s not the causative factor or maybe it’s not gonna make a giant difference, but certainly looking at diet, cleaning out too much excess sugar in your diet, cleaning out out too much excess animal proteins into your diet. Dairy is a big driver, because of the growth factors in dairy. Just doing some simple things to clean up your diet is a good thing to do.

That’s going to help your immune system be able to attack the cancer instead of dealing with inflammatory responses because of maybe poor dietary habits. So that’d be one thing to do. From a nutritional standpoint, my book is filled with different options as far as different supplements to take. So I’d probably refer you to look at that. And again, that’s a free download on the website. So I’m not trying to sell you anything. So go on our website, ConnersClinic.com to the book section or the blog section, you can download a free copy of the book. Another question that came in is, is a plant-based or alkaline diet best for the treatment for cancer? We get that question a lot. Should I go on a keto diet because “all my gosh, I read this book on keto diets and cancer Should I go on a plant-based diet? Should I not do any animal protein whatsoever? Or should I become a vegan or a vegetarian? Is that the best thing, should I go on an alkaline diet? Is that the best thing?” The truth is, cancer is cells in rapid replication. That means they’re highly metabolic, means that they’re very hungry. So they’re looking for a fuel source. Is that fuel source always strictly glucose? The answer is no, sometimes it’s not glucose. Sometimes it’s glutamine and serine, and those are different amino acids that are from protein. So a person whose cancer is driven mainly through amino acids, that is the main fuel source. Then yes, a plant based diet would be best for that person, but a plant based diet. Let’s say a typical, like Gerson juicing.

I’m going to start juicing right away. Well juicing can be high in glucose. So if your cancer is fed mainly through glycolysis, through the breakdown of glucose, then that might not be the right diet. So, how do I know? Because there’s these extreme ends of ketogenic, which is very, very low sugar, very, very low glucose, but maybe higher on the aspect of proteins, versus a juicing Gerson type diet, which is very high in glucose. So it’s just, it’s very difficult to know which one, which diet is best for you. So in our clinic, we test for that. So, but let’s say you don’t come to our clinic. How do I know what diet is best for me? There is some data out there on metabolic typing. That’s what Dr. Gonzales used to do is do metabolic type it.

And he did produce some literature on that, and you could take a very long questionnaire and get an idea of what could possibly be fueling your cancer. We have found that to not be extremely effective in knowing what can fuel my cancer. Also, the struggle with that is that cancer is constantly trying to survive and find a fuel source. So if your fuel source in your cancer is mainly glucose, and you go on a ketogenic-like diet, don’t have to necessarily get totally into ketosis. But if you go on a ketogenic-like diet and, you’re starving your cancer, that’s the goal, but your cancer can switch quite easily beause it’s trying to find a fuel source, and it could be fueled through a different pathway. So diets for cancer patients may need to switch over time. So if your cancer is fed mainly through amino acids, and you cut down all the animal proteins and you find that your cancer is starting to go into remission and then six months later, it starts to take off again. “What’s it matter? I’ve been staying on my diet.” It might be because the fuel source switched. So, if you’re not a patient of ours and you don’t have a way to find out what’s the best diet for me, maybe a balanced diet, meaning low in animal proteins, doesn’t mean you’re going to go off them completely and get rid of all your simple carbs and try to get on a low carb diet. That is what we call a mixed diet.

Most people that we test honestly, test positive for dairy being a driver for cancer. So I would suggest, in general dietary, cutting out dairy or cutting down dairy to a minimal, is beneficial. And it really has to do with what dairy is, and we’re talking about what comes out of a cow’s utters when we’re talking about dairy. What dairy is, is to make a baby cow grow quickly and gain weight quickly and become an adult cow. So it has growth factors in there. It has hormones in there. It has all sorts of other impurities in there as well. Even organic dairy still has hormones and growth factors in it because that’s what dairy is supposed to do. So that I would say in general is the right diet to do. But if you don’t have a way to test it, the only way to test it really is to try one of these diets and see if it slows your cancer growth, of course you have to have some at least subjective or objective data to be able to measure if you’re slowing the cancer growth, but that’s one way to do it, is try a diet, see how you’re doing. You’re doing real well, you feel like you’re at a relative state of remission, then stay on that diet. If things change and your cancer wakes up and starts growing again, then think about switching diets, because it’s looking for a fuel source.

Dustin our loyal tech person is feeding me questions here from you. What are your thoughts on IV vitamin C? Well, IV vitamin C I list as one of the cancer killers in my book. But it’s one of, I don’t know, what do we have a hundred of cancer killers or 80 of them are something listed in chapter five of this book? So this is for a free download. It’s a big book. It’s like 500-600 pages. You could get it on Amazon, but it’s a free download on our website. So, we look at vitamin C as one of those 80 possible cancer killer. So we don’t see vitamin C as, “Oh my gosh, you’ve got cancer, get out IV, vitamin C right away.” It can be a huge benefit for some people, but it’s just like anything, whether it be chemotherapy or whether it be an alternative therapy, whether it’s IV vitamin C or it’s mushrooms or whatever it is, what works for one person might not work for another person. So, how do I know that? Well, again, in our clinic, we test for that, but one of the ways that, if you don’t have that ability to test for that, if you’re a believer, you should be praying about what you should be doing, obviously. But otherwise, you just have to try things and see if it works for you. How long should I try IV vitamin C before it’s going to really change the cancer growth? Give it a few months, see if that makes a difference, if you feel like you’re really led to do IV vitamin C, stay on it. When anybody’s going to deal with cancer, it’s usually a combination of multiple things that’s going to affect that cancer to send you into remission. IV vitamin C can be done along with chemotherapy. We typically recommend if you do IV vitamin C with chemotherapy, you wait at least 48 to 72 hours after your use of the chemotherapy to do an IV vitamin C session. Even though vitamin C, the argument is that vitamin C is an antioxidant and chemotherapy is an oxidizing agent. So you’re negating the effects of the chemotherapy. If you’re giving the chemotherapy, which is a highly oxidizing agent, to your body, you want it to kill the cancer, it’s a poison. And if you give IV vitamin C, if that’s an antioxidant, while you’re negating the effects of the chemotherapy, and if I’m going to go through the chemotherapy, I want it to work. There’s some studies out there that show high dose vitamin C in an I V form actually can work as an oxidizing agent. So there’s some argument there, but still to be safe, I have to keep that at least 48 hours away from chemotherapy. So that you’re not getting any antioxidant effect, negating the chemotherapy, if you’re choosing to do that because you want it to work.

Another questions came in, “I have breast cancer, should I do surgery and chemo as they asked me to do?” Well, like I tell even our patients, you have to make that decision. That’s not our decision, whether you do surgery and chemo as they asked you to do. Regardless of what you decide to do with standards of care, they’re appropriate or inappropriate, for every person is different. So I’m not against chemo and surgery and radiation at all. And I think it’s very appropriate for a lot of people. But I am against anybody just jumping down a course of care because A) I think it’s sad if they think that they have no other option, and B) that they are making that decision completely based upon fear. That tends to be the case scenario. Most people hear that they have cancer, their sympathetic nervous system goes into a state of fight or flight, and it’s very hard for them to make any rational decision, and they can get just herded down a pathway that they later regret. So just slow down is my first piece of advice, slow down, go to prayer, make sure that you have peace that literally passes all understanding about what you’re doing and that you know that you’re going to be taken care of through that. Regardless of whether you decided to standards of care or not, you’re going to be better off if you add some alternative things as well, it will increase your survival statistics even more so. So the more alternative things that you could do, the better off I think you will be, whether you do standards of care or not.

Another question just came in, do you run the RGCC Greek test? We do not do that because we do some other tests and we do kinesiology testing at our office. That’s one of the main things that we rely on here, which is very similar as far as the results to the RGCC test. Though, I think it’s a valid test and that’s another way to help find out your course of care and it can be very beneficial for a lot of people. We just don’t personally use that test.

Another question, do you have any suggestions for brain cancer, supplements, et cetera? Well, brain cancer is unique, so let’s jump back to diet a little bit. So, when I said that every cancer can be different, as far as diet goes, there are some generalities to follow. So typically a colon cancer, colorectal liver, pancreatic cancer typically are going to be fed, and again, this is a gross generality, but typically the source of fuel is going to be more apt to be amino acids proteins. So those are the cancers, the GI type cancers, are more apt to be fed through proteins, amino acids. So they would probably be better with GI type cancers to cut out animal proteins, go more vegetarian-like as far as your diet goes. That would be your best guess if you were going to take a guess at it. Brain cancers are a different ball of wax, so, depends on the type of brain cancer. So astrocytomas, that’s a cancer that originates astrocytes tend to be fed through glutamine and create a glutamine as their own fuel source. That’s kind of a negative of astrocytomas. Now glutamine is an amino acid, so we never suggest any of our cancer patients to be taking glutamine. Even if their cancer is glycolytically driven completely meaning through glucose completely, and glutamine would be a supplement that a lot of people would be taking to heal their gut, L-glutamine. “Oh, I have leaky gut, so like doctor put me on L-glutamine, we take all of our patients off of L-glutamine.” We don’t want any of our cancer patients on L-glutamine. So an astrocytoma brain cancer, it would be probably wise to limit amino acids, thereby eliminating animal proteins, thereby cutting down on glutamine, but also goes for glutamates. So glutamates is a food additive that is added to food as a flavor enhancer and glutamate converts to glutamine through a specific genetic pathway that we look at in your genes, and with this specific defect of this certain gene pathway, you could convert glutamate to glutamine quite rapidly and back to glutamate. So, with astrocytomas, long story short, good idea to cut out animal proteins. Other brain cancers tend to be fed through glycolysis, tend to really love sugar. And again, this is a gross generality, but more often than not, brain cancers do better with a ketogenic diet.

If it’s an astrocytoma, you could go on a ketogenic diet with decreasing animal protein. So it’s going to be a much more vegetable and high fat diet. So most brain cancers, again, do better on a ketogenic diet. And again, it doesn’t have to be complete ketosis, getting into complete ketosis and staying in complete ketosis cause that’s very difficult to do. And it’s difficult to monitor and just a ketone stick urine test, doesn’t truly show if a person is in ketosis or not just cause you’re expelling ketones. But if you get into a ketogenic-like diet, you really reduce the glucose. So you can count your grams of glucose, getting it down below 15 grams of glucose per day. Really for brain cancer patients would be very appropriate at a very high fat vegetable type diet.

Okay. Any other questions come in? How is your modified Gerson different than the traditional Gerson? So the traditional Gerson protocol is to do 13 glasses of juice every day. So basically, a glass of juice every waking hour, for the most part, doing five coffee enemas a day. And then there’s some nutritional pieces that were added to that too. Now Gerson is from Max Gerson, who wrote several very good books on cancer. I’d highly recommend them. But remember all his work with cancer patients was done back in the 1930s and forties and fifties. Now, Charlotte has kept up his work on a marvelous basis. What we have found with a Gerson protocol is, first of all, it can be juicing. Juicing and doing a Gerson protocol could be really good if your cancer is not fed through glycolysis. So if it is fed through glycolysis, if you’re juicing carrot juice, it’s very high in nutrient value. But it’s also very high in glucose. So you can’t really do a Gerson type protocol if your cancer is fed mainly through glycolysis. The other issue that we have with Gerson is that it becomes very difficult to follow. So, we’ve had patients come in the office literally balling, in tears, that they feel so ashamed that they cannot continue their Gerson protocol that they started prior to coming to us. So, can a Gerson protocol, full protocol, called juicing 13 glasses a day, doing five coffee enemas be helpful? Yes. I don’t see that as real sustainable. You almost have to hire a maid, or have multiple extended family members doing grocery shopping for you, juicing for you, just the physical ability to do that. It limits everything else in life. And if that’s the last hail Mary pass that we have to try to save life, that’s great. And to do that for a period of time, that might be necessary and it might be appropriate. But in our clinic and in my life, I’m trying to balance healing and with respect for that person and respect for the quality of life, they have it to be. It’s real easy to make an idol out of your healing. If you are consumed with the tasks that you have to do in a given day to hopefully heal from the cancer and doing a full Gerson protocol can be life consuming. And it kind of defeats the purpose of why you want to heal the cancer, so that you can live life, if you can’t live life.

Now, I understand if I have to do this for three months, and this is going to give me another 10 years of life, well goodness sakes, let’s do the three months of doing Gerson, but it’s not everybody that has that experience, it can just be draining on their life. So it can be a good program for people. It’s not a good program for everybody just like anything else. And we want to make sure that we’re not consumed and make an idol out of our healing and then we are no good for anybody. Yes. All right. So thank you for our first session of our… What did we call this again? Holistic health Hour. Promise it wouldn’t go an hour, so we kept it short and we’ll see you again next week. Thanks.

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