There is a lot of talk about genetics in alternative health and functional medicine. In this clip from Dr Conners’ interview on the Essential Oils Revolution Podcast, we learn how to consider genetics when dealing with a cancer diagnosis – and how to think about detox and prevention!

Transcript

Samantha
And speaking of genetics. I love that you’re doing genetic testing on people to really help match them with nutrition counseling, essential oils, supplements, all these things. We recently interviewed an epigenetic specialist here about that, that very topic. So I love that you’re integrating that. And it kind of sparked this question in me. I think that when we look at cancer specifically and genetics, a lot of the assumption out there is that the cause of cancer is your genes like its, it’s just genetic its, it’s there. But from the research that I’ve seen on this topic, really only about five to 10% of cancers are linked to gene defects. Is that the same studies that you’ve seen and I know you’ve done a lot of work on the causes of cancer, so I’d love to get into that.

Dr. Conners
I would agree. I think about 5% of cancers are caused genetically, but there’s probably maybe everybody with cancer has genetic pathways that would be beneficial to look at to help. So let me give you an example. So you could say that a, okay, a BRCA gene defect, that’s the gene that is the tumor suppressor gene for breast cancer and ovarian cancer. So let’s take a step back. Again though, a tumor suppressor gene are genes that we all have that kick on. When a cell goes into rapid replication. So if a cell goes into rap, so that’s what cancer is, is a cell going into rapid replication. That’s an abnormal process, but it happens on a regular basis to all of us. Cells, the replication process in that the nucleus of the cell gets interrupted and instead of that cell replicated every 12 weeks and the mother cell died, that’s called regeneration.

That happens constantly also. That’s what healing is. The cell goes into replicating every day or multiple times a day. That’s what cancer is. If that happens, which it does, it should kick on our tumor suppressor genes, which then kick on a pathway to stimulate apoptosis or cell death. So it’s a protective measure to keep us from getting cancer. So one could say that we all have cancer, which is true. If we’re just fighting cancer with what it is, it’s rapid replication of cells. So we all have rapid cells, in rapid replication. Then these tumor suppressor genes kick on and cause cell death and kill the cell and protect us from ever having a diagnosis. People with defects on their tumor suppressor genes, and we’ll use the Baraka genes as an example, have an increased rate of cancer because they’re not kicking out that important pathway with hormonally driven cancers like breast cancer.

And so they have a increased of breast cancer because they have multiple defects in those Baraka genes, so their risk goes up. So that’s a small percentage of the population and that’s not really what we’re really concentrating on. What we look at genes with a cancer patient. We look at other risk factors like if like I described, let’s say if I have a lot of defects out by Pon1 pathway, that’s a pathway that helps me detox large chemicals in my liver. So if I have a lot of defects on that Pon1 pathway, And i’m exposed to toxins in my food, food colorings, uh, chemical, herbicides and pesticides. I don’t detox those as well as I could if I didn’t have those defects. So it doesn’t mean I won’t detoxing, but I’m going to be a slower detoxer about those things. So let’s say you and I were living next to each other.

We’re both exposed to the same toxic load, but I have a lot of defects on my PON pathway or you don’t, you could clear them out easier then the risk of ill health because of of story toxins. It’s going to be less for you cause you’ll be storing less I the risk of ill health including cancer for me is, is higher because I’m not getting rid of those poisons. And if I don’t get rid of poisons, they can’t keep circulating in my blood they’ll kill me my body stores them in the cells or in the extracellular spaces. And then if they’re stored in the cells, they could at some point down the road interrupt that replication cycle. And it could cause rapid replication and that’s what you talk about. A cause of cancer as a pesticide or or an herbicide or some chemical or a combination of the slurry of, thousands of different chemicals that I’ve been exposed to over the years than that.

That is the cause of cancer for me. So looking at those detox pathways genetically can be extremely beneficial prior to somebody getting cancer and actually be a better idea. Right. So boy, I have a lot of PON, pathway defects. Then you go, okay, what from the literature that’s out there helps support that PON pathway. And then what from a look at it metabolic charts, what are the, are the other cofactors that help push that PON pathway? Would it be wise to supplement my diet or supplement with specific nutrition to help support that pathway to help my slow detoxify PON pathway to be maybe a medium detox in my PON pathway, I’m able to get rid of those things and that lifestyle changes like wow. Because I, these PON pathway defects, I’m going to be even be more careful not to spray pesticides on my, in my house or spray herbicides on my lawn because now I can see the correlation my risk is higher for all sorts of problems because of that.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download