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Cancer as a Metabolic Disease with Dr. Thomas Seyfried: Rational Wellness Podcast 217

Dr. Thomas Seyfried speaks about Cancer as a Metabolic Disease with Dr. Ben Weitz.

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Podcast Highlights

2:42  The most commonly accepted theory of cancer is the genetic theory of cancer.  This genetic theory is that cancer is caused by nuclear somatic mutations that give cancer cells a growth advantage over normal cells.

4:00  In contrast, the metabolic theory of cancer is based on the work of Otto Warburg, who defined cancer as a metabolic problem back in the 1920s.  Cancer develops from damage to mitochondria and cancer cells are unable to generate energy through the use of oxygen, through oxidative phosphorylation, but only through the use of glucose for energy.  Normal cells can produce energy anaerobically using glucose, such as while sprinting, and can produce energy aerobically using oxygen, such as while jogging.  Due to damage to the mitochondria of the cancer cells, they are locked into producing energy through the fermentation process. Cancer cells do have a lot of mutations and broken chromosomes, as cancer researchers have documented, but these are downstream effects of the mitochondrial damage.  These genetic mutations are the effect, not the cause. 

8:44  Dr. Seyfried does not think that it matters what type of cancer we are dealing with.  All cancer cells need to ferment and use glucose and glutamine as their fuel.

9:23  Some cancer researchers have challenged Dr. Seyfried, including Rodrigo Diaz Ruiz and others who wrote the article, The Warburg and Crabtree Effects: On the Origin of Cancer Cell Energy Metabolism, in which they claim that there are certain types of cancer that possess functional mitochondria and can obtain their ATP from oxidative phosphorylation, including gliomas, hepatomas, and breast cancer.  Dr. Seyfried says that they are wrong because they appear to have normal mitochondria because they missed the link in Warburg’s theory that glutamine, the amino acid can generate ATP in the mitochondria through a fermentation mechanism at the succinate CoA ligase step called mitochondrial substrate level phosphorylation.  Also, cells may take up oxygen, but this may not be to produce energy but to generate reactive oxygen species, which causes nuclear damage.  Every major cancer in human tissues has mitochondrial defects are unable to use oxygen for energy. They can make ATP through the fermentation of glutamine.  Cancer cells cannot burn fatty acids or ketone bodies for energy due to their mitochondrial defects.

13:35  It would appear that different types of cancer respond differently to a ketogenic diet. For example, some data indicates that glioblastoma has the greatest response to the ketogenic diet, while other forms of brain cancer and prostate cancer and some other forms of cancer don’t respond as well.  But Dr. Seyfried says that while some forms of cancer do respond more to the ketogenic diet than others, “no tumor cell can survive in the absence of both glucose and glutamine, especially when ketones are used to support the viability of normal cells.”

15:49  While Dr. Seyfried focuses on glutamine, other cancer researchers have focused on methionine or leucine as drivers of cancer. This is sometimes used to support a vegetarian diet for cancer, since it would be lower in protein.  But Dr. Seyfried points out that glutamine can produce energy via the glutaminolysis pathway. 

18:26  But if you block glutamine, this is an essential amino acid required by cells, so Dr. Seyfried recommends using glutamine targeting drugs like deoxynorleucine (DON) in a pulsatile manner that will reduce but not eliminate glutamine.  Glucose can be pressed down, since it is a non-essential fuel for the body.

20:32  The conventional cancer world is incorporating some of Dr. Seyfried’s concepts by recommending that some patients should fast for a few days before, on the day of, and a few days after receiving chemo or radiation.  This would be a hybrid model and that might be an easier model to accept, at least in the beginning. According to Dr. Seyfried, you can get the same result with reducing glucose and glutamine and without the toxicity of chemo and radiation. 

24:28  Given how dangerous, deadly and difficult treating cancer is, why not use an all hands on approach and employ a ketogenic diet and also use surgery, chemo, and radiation?  Dr. Seyfried said that “this is the only disease where I know where you’re poisoning and irradiating people to make them healthy.  It makes absolutely no sense.  Why are you subjecting people to all this toxicity when you don’t have to do it?”  Dr. Seyfried has been criticized for not having clinical trials to show that his strategy for cancer works, but who’s going to pay for the clinical trial?  Many trials are paid for by pharmaceutical companies, who are pushing these toxic drugs.  Dr. Seyfried also feels like the NIH is in bed with the pharmaceutical companies.  Dr. Seyfried is publishing case studies, including a new paper on Pablo Kelly, Ketogenic Metabolic Therapy, Without Chemo or Radiation, for the Long-Term Management of IDH1-Mutant Glioblastoma: An 80-Month Follow-Up Case Report.

30:14  While metformin can be a minor player, Dr. Seyfried has not found metformin, the leading drug for managing type II diabetes, to be that helpful for cancer.  Ketogenic diet is much more powerful than metformin and when they tried using keto with metformin in animals, it caused lactic acid toxicity in the animals.

32:33  Dr. Seyfried and colleagues did nuclear transfer experiments where they took the nucleus of a tumor cell into a new cytoplasm and they were getting no dysregulated cell growth, which indicates that the origin of the cancer was not from the DNA in the nucleus but from the mitochondria in the cytoplasm. Likewise, Israel and Shaffer from University of Vermont took the nucleus of the normal cell and put it into a cancer cytoplasm and got dysregulated cell growth, just the opposite.  And in more recent experiments, the mitochondria of cancer cells were placed into normal cells and you see dysregulated cell growth, showing that the origin of cancer is in the mitochondria and not in the DNA. 

34:58  Dr. Seyfried said that the concept of promoting an alkaline diet to reduce cancer growth does not really make sense and he tried using sodium bicarbonate in some of his studies and did not find any benefit. He also found that taking chloroquine to alkalinize the cell was also of no benefit in fighting cancer.

43:58  Deuterium.  The concept is that deuterium, which is heavy hydrogen, slows down the production of energy in the mitochondria and plays a role in cancer. So, eating a ketogenic diet actually is supposed to reduce the amount of deuterium because there’s less water involved, which are found in plants and other foods. So, the claim is by following either a low-deuterium diet or drinking low-deuterium water is going to reduce cancer risk.  Dr. Seyfried said that they tried the low deuterium water and gave it to mice and it did not have any effect on treating cancer.

 



Dr. Thomas Seyfried has a Ph.D. in Genetics and Biochemistry and he is a Professor of Biology in Boston College.  He serves on several editorial boards, including those for Nutrition and Metabolism, Neurochemical Research, the Journal of Lipid Research, Frontiers in Nutrition, Frontiers in Oncology, and ASN Neuro, where his is a Senior Editor.  Dr. Seyfried has over 200 peer-reviewed publications and he is the author of the book, Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management, and Prevention of Cancer .

Dr. Ben Weitz is available for nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also specializing in Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure and also weight loss and also athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111. Dr. Weitz is also available for video or phone consultations.



 

Podcast Transcript

Dr. Weitz:                            Hey, this is Dr. Ben Weitz, host of the Rational Wellness Podcast. I talk to the leading health and nutrition experts and researchers in the field to bring you the latest in cutting-edge health information. Subscribe to the Rational Wellness Podcast for weekly updates. And to learn more, check out my website doctorweitz.com. Thanks for joining me and let’s jump into the podcast.  Hello, Rational Wellness podcasters.

Today, our topic for is cancer as a metabolic disease with Dr. Thomas Seyfried. Today, we will be talking about cancer, what causes cancer, and what to do about it.  While there have been some remarkable advancements in cancer care, including some of the new targeted drugs that are much less toxic than traditional chemotherapy and immunotherapy. As an example, look at former President Jimmy Carter, who in 2015, was diagnosed with melanoma, that it spread to his liver and his brain. He was treated with surgery for the lesions on his liver, radiation to his brain and immunotherapy, and he’s still alive and thriving six years later. On the other hand, most patients with metastatic cancer do not live very long and progress on this front has been very slow. Our current cancer treatment protocol of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation has not been very effective for metastatic cancer, which is cancer that had spread from the original tumor. We spend over $150 billion each year treating cancer, yet a patient with cancer is as likely to die of it today, with a few exceptions, as one was 50 years ago.

According to our guest today, Dr. Thomas Seyfried, we need to rethink our concept about how cancer forms and how to treat it. Dr. Thomas Seyfried has a Ph.D. in Genetics and Biochemistry and he is a Professor of Biology at Boston College. He serves on several editorial boards, including those for Nutrition and Metabolism, Neurochemical Research, the Journal of Lipid Research, Frontiers in Oncology, and ASN Neuro, where he is a Senior Editor. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed publications and he’s the author of the book, Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management, and Prevention of Cancer. Dr. Seyfried, thank you so much for joining me today.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Well, thank you very much, Ben. It’s a pleasure for me to be here.

Dr. Weitz:                            So, perhaps you could start by describing what is the most commonly accepted theory of cancer today, which is the genetic theory of cancer.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yeah. Well, that that’s quite true. It’s stated on the website for the National Cancer Institute that cancer is a genetic disease. And, reading all the textbooks of Biology, Biochemistry and Cell Biology in those sections of the books on cancer, it’s always cancer is a genetic disease, caused specifically by nuclear somatic mutations that give these cancer cells a growth advantage over normal cells. And this is pretty much the ideology that has indoctrinated the generation of physicians and scientists to develop drugs and therapy. Some of which you’ve mentioned in your introduction, that justify the continued and failed strategy by which cancer is being managed today.

Dr. Weitz:                            Can you then explain what is the metabolic theory of cancer, which is the theory that you have advanced based on the work of Otto Warburg to start with?

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yeah. Well, Otto Warburg defined cancer as a metabolic problem back in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s. He showed and was convinced that all cancer was derived from damage to the primary energy generating organelle in the cell, which is the mitochondria. All other aspects of the disease are downstream effects of this damage to the ability of the cell to generate energy through respiration, oxidative phosphorylation, which is the use of oxygen to generate energy. 

Dr. Weitz:                            For those people who don’t understand. What you’re saying is what we consider aerobic exercise, which is when you run and you use the oxygen, [crosstalk 00:05:06].

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yes.

Dr. Weitz:                            As compared to say, sprinting, which is glycolytic and requires glucose for energy.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yeah. Well, that’s absolutely true. And the muscles can do anaerobic fermentation, they build up lactic acid, but this is only for a short period of time. And then you can, once you start breathing again, the muscles will respire. The issue here is the cancer cells are locked in permanently to this fermentation metabolism. The muscles can do it periodically, but they’re not locked into it. Their mitochondria are healthy and they can use respiration to generate the energy. The tumor cell is locked into a constant fermentation mechanism and that’s due to the damage and the insufficiency of the mitochondria in the cancer cell. And as the result of that, they produce these reactive oxygen species, which are carcinogenic and mutagenic and they are the defect in respiration is ultimately responsible for the somatic mutations that you see in cancer cells.  So, cancer cells, yes, have a lot of mutations, broken chromosomes and all these kinds of things that are thought to be involved, but they’re actually downstream effects. They’re not the cause, they’re the effect. So, that’s the main, the main difference is the mitochondrial metabolic theory places the origin of the disease in the energy-generating mitochondria where the somatic mutation theory places the origin of the disease in the nucleus associated with various kinds of mutations.

Dr. Weitz:                            It’s interesting. It would seem to be to rely exclusively on aerobic respiration [meant to say anaerobic respiration–BW], would seem to be a poor strategy for cancer cells to adopt.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yeah. Well, they’re falling back the cancer cells. See, on the origin of life on our planet was associated with an anaerobic environment. There was very little, if any, oxygen 2.5 billion years ago. And all the organisms that existed at that time were fermenting, they were fermenters. So, these ancient pathways of fermentation were the original energy generating pathways for these cells. There was no oxygen, so they had to ferment and these cells would ferment, grow like crazy, proliferate like crazy, and die as soon as fermentable fuels were depleted from their environment.  So, the cancer cell, today in someone’s body, is using these same ancient fermentation pathways. They grow without oxygen. It’s well-known. Cancer cells can grow without oxygen and they can grow in cyanide. Cyanide is a poison for oxidative phosphorylation. Your cancer cells grow fine in cyanide. So basically, these cells are simply falling back on ancient pathways involving fermentation and they will grow and metastasize as long as there are fermentable fuels in the environment that drive their growth. When the fermentable fuels are targeted, like we’re doing, then the cells die. They cannot live without glucose and glutamine, the two fermentable fuels that these cancer cells use. So, this is a very simple strategy for the management of the majority of cancers. Take away glucose and glutamine.

Dr. Weitz:                            Now, does it depend on the cancer cell, which type of cancer?

Dr. Seyfried:                       No, we haven’t found any difference. They’re all the same, so lung is the same, as brain is the same, as breast is the same, as bladder is the same as colon. They’re all the same. They all need to ferment. So, the common metabolic problem in cancer is a dependency on fermentation for growth and survival. And the two fuels that are driving the fermentation are glucose, the sugar glucose and the amino acid glutamine, which is an abundant amino acid in the body.

Dr. Weitz:                            Now, I’m sure you know other cancer researchers have challenged you on this and I did a little research and found a few articles. I found one called The Warburg and Crabtree Effects: On the Origin of Cancer Cell Energy Metabolism by Rodrigo Diaz Ruiz and others and he claims that there are certain types of cancer cell lines that possess functional mitochondria and can obtain their ATP from oxidative phosphorylation and he mentioned gliomas, hepatomas, and breast cancer.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yeah, well, they’re wrong and I’ll tell you why. First of all, they appear to have normal mitochondria because the ATP is being produced in the mitochondria. And we know now, this was the missing link in Warburg central theory that glutamine, the amino acid can generate ATP in the mitochondria through a fermentation mechanism at the succinate CoA ligase step called mitochondrial substrate level phosphorylation. We also know, we published a recent paper showing that cells in culture will take up oxygen, giving misinformation that these cells are using oxygen to generate energy. They’re not. They’re using oxygen to generate reactive oxygen species, which is causing the damage in the nucleus.

So, we’ve done intensive investigation on this and the field is misled by oxygen consumption and cells growing in culture. But yet we went through every major cancer in tissue, human tissues. Every major cancer in human tissues has mitochondrial defects, number, structure and function. They are not going to be able to use oxygen. They can’t use oxygen if the very structure of the organelle is damaged, but you grow the cells in culture and everybody says, “Oh, look, they’re using oxygen and they’re making ATP from the mitochondria. Therefore, Warburg is wrong.” No, no, no. They’re making ATP through a fermentation mechanism involving glutamine. Take glutamine away and you see how fast those tumor cells will die.

So, these guys, unfortunately, the field cannot… if they accept what I say that means Warburg was ultimately correct and if Warburg was ultimately correct, the gene theory makes no sense. And so, you realize we’re dealing with a lot of big issues here. But I assure you, we have done extensive work, myself and Christos Chinopoulos from the Semmelweis University in Budapest. We have gone through and we have looked at all these. Another issue here is that they’re selling these Seahorse machines to measure oxygen consumption in cancer cells by the hundreds and hundreds of these machines and it’s providing misinformation. We talked to the scientists who developed the machines at Agilent and they knew exactly what we were saying, but they could not accept it only because they won’t be selling the machines anymore. So, there’s a lot of issues here that you have to recognize.

No, the cancer cells cannot use oxidative phosphorylation. Cancer cells cannot burn fatty acids or ketone bodies for energy because you need a good mitochondria. The cancer cell is locked into a fermentation mechanism involving glucose and glutamine. If you take away glucose and glutamine, the cancer cells will die, especially if you transition the whole body over to therapeutic ketosis because ketones are used to support our normal cell energy metabolism, but not the cancer cell, very simple way to get rid of cancer.  As a matter of fact, our recent paper, that was just published, shows a young man with a glioblastoma who went on a metabolic therapy, but also acquired a mutation that targeted the two fermentation metabolism pathways. So, his diet together with the chance acquisition of what we call a therapeutic mutation is keeping him alive now seven years out with a glioblastoma. So, this is all based on the mitochondrial metabolic theory of cancer that completely contradicts most of the stuff from the gene theory. It’s very interesting.

Dr. Weitz:                            Now, we’re going to get to treatment in a few minutes. But another piece of evidence that seems to lend credence to this idea that different cancer cells function differently is, I looked at some of the studies on the ketogenic diet for cancer and it appears as though different forms of cancer have a much different response. So for example, glioblastoma seems to have the greatest response whereas other forms of brain cancer and prostate cancer and some other forms of cancer don’t respond as well. And so, that lends some evidence to this idea that different types of cancer work differently.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Well, that would certainly appear that on the surface, but that’s not true. Here’s the situation. The ketogenic diet will target the glycolytic pathway, thereby reducing to some extent the ability to use glucose to generate, but it does very little against the glutamine. So, many of these cancers that look like they’re resistant to the ketogenic diet are actually sucking down the glutamine, the other amino acids. No cancer that we have ever found can survive without simultaneously targeting glucose and glutamine, so you can’t just target one fuel without the other. You have to target both fuels together because this these cancer cells are dependent on fermentation and that fermentation comes from both glucose and glutamine.

So, some cancer cells, the metastatic cells are derived from macrophages. Most metastatic cancers are a fusion hybridization event between stem cells and an immune cell, most powerful immune cell in our body called the macrophage. And we know from the biology of the macrophage that they use glutamine as a major fuel and they have a natural capacity to spread through the body, suppress the immune system, very powerful cell. But we’ve shown that without glucose and glutamine, we can kill these cells just as well. So, there’s different biologies of the different cancer cells, that’s true. Some respond more to the ketogenic diet than others. But no tumor cell can survive in the absence of both glucose and glutamine, especially when ketones are used to support the viability of normal cells.

Dr. Weitz:                            It’s interesting selecting this one particular amino acid, glutamine as the main driver, because all the amino acids can be turned into sugar. And I’ve listened to other lecturers who targeted methionine or who targeted leucine and often, this is used to support a vegan diet as the answer for cancer.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yeah, well, here’s the situation with glutamine. Glutamine has two nitrogen groups, okay? And it doesn’t require any energy on the part of the cell to get energy. It’s called the glutaminolysis pathway. So the amide nitrogen, the first nitrogen is used for the synthesis of DNA and RNA nucleic acids, and then the second nitrogen is used for protein synthesis. You’ve got to have protein, to grow, you need proteins, nucleic acids, fatty acids, and all these kinds of things. So, the glucose carbons are good for synthesis of fatty acids and a number of metabolites for growth. The glutamine nitrogen support this and also provide the ATP, the energy to drive the cell line or to drive the tumor or whatever the tumor happens to be.

And we know that, as I said, metastatic cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer, they’re all metastatic. Those cells are dependent on glutamine and glucose for their growth, so regardless of what can’t, they’re all the same. It’s a hard thing for people who have been indoctrinated by the gene theory, thinking that all these different cancers have many different diseases. It’s a very complex disease. You hear all these terms. It is if you view it as a genetic disease, but when you view it as a mitochondrial metabolic disease, it can’t grow without glucose and glutamine. So, you target glucose and glutamine simultaneous, you’ll kill the majority of cancer cells and manage the disease in the majority of people.

It’s not that complicated. Once you understand the biology of the situation, you understand the different types of cells that are present in the cancer. You know that they throw out lactic acid from glutamine metabolism, therefore, acidifying the microenvironment, facilitating the spread of the disease. Radiation and chemo will often stimulate this kind of stuff. So, when you opened your introduction by saying, “We haven’t made many advances,” mainly because the treatments we’re using today actually increase the availability of glucose and glutamine in the environment, contributing to rapid growth in metastasis. Not surprising at all.

Dr. Weitz:                            God, there’s so many directions I want to go right now. But glutamine is also essential for cells. It’s even used by some integrated physicians to help some of the side effects of chemotherapy. If you take glutamine away from all your cells, your body will die also.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yes. Well, this is why you use the press-pulse strategy. So, this is what we published and this is the framework by which all cancers will be managed effectively. First, you bring the patient into therapeutic ketosis, reducing the availability of glucose as a metabolite for growth, elevating ketone bodies, which serve as the alternative fuel for normal cells, because the cancer cells can’t use the ketones but the normal cells can. Once the patient is in therapeutic ketosis, we pulse, we pulse glutamine targeting. As you said, if you put too much pressure on glutamine, you’re going to harm the immune system, the gut. You’re going to harm all these different processes.

So, the idea is with a pulse of a glutamine targeting-drug like the oxynorleucine, you can reduce by 50% the total tumor population and they will not be able to spring back. You pull back the glutamine-targeting, allow the immune system to recover, come in, pick up the dead cancer cells and let the system recover somewhat and pulse again. Reducing down again, gradually, gradually reducing down the tumor cells while maintaining the health and vitality of the rest of the body.

So, this is an ideal nontoxic strategy for the gradual elimination of cancer cells, but also being completely aware, as you’ve said, of the value of glutamine to the normal metabolism of our body. So, we have to do this very carefully and it’s based on dosage, timing and schedule. You can press down glucose, because it’s a nonessential fuel, but you’ve got to pulse the glutamine because it is an essential metabolite. So, you put the two together, and you can manage this disease quite effectively.

Dr. Weitz:                            It seems as though the conventional cancer world is the treatment world is somewhat embracing your theory, because I talked to a number of patients who were told to fast for a few days before they went in for their chemo and a day or two afterwards or their radiation. So, I think there’s some acknowledgement that reducing the glucose fuel for the cancer is beneficial; however, they’re pairing it with traditional treatments.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yeah, I think, this is, we call this the hybrid system. And eventually, it will move into a pure metabolic strand because it’s too much of a shock to the entire cancer industry, the academic cancer industry, to say that most of what we’re doing, it makes no sense. So, we have to do some hybrid thing at the beginning. And I’m working with a group in Istanbul, Turkey, where we have really good results using very low doses of chemo together with a variety of metabolic targeting approaches. But it’s like any kind of a transition. You go from pure sails to a steamship with sails eventually to a steamship completely and now you have a transition period, going from one stage to the next. But in the case of-

Dr. Weitz:                            That group in Turkey, you’re doing studies, clinical trials using your approach right now?

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yeah, well, I wouldn’t call them clinical trials. I would call them individual case, case studies. I think, my colleague, Mehmet Iyikesici used 40 advanced lung cancer patients and was able to show results that surpassed, exceeded survivability of any known, any current chemo immune therapy, chemotherapy for managing lung cancer. I think the system can be improved significantly. Yeah, I know, it’s too much of a radical change, but you know what? We’re dealing with the lives of people here.  And the field says, well, we have to move into this metabolic therapy gradually, because it might disrupt too radically what we’re currently doing. But if you’re the guy with the glioblastoma or the metastatic lung cancer, you’re going to say, “Well, I guess I have to die just so this field can adapt to what we’re doing.” And this is absurd. I mean, we have the potential right now to keep these people alive five, six times longer than the conventional medication, but we can’t because it’s going to be too radical for the field to adjust.  So, I’m sorry to say to the cancer patients that might be listening. I’m sure you might get your ire up because we have to sacrifice you poor people, because it’s too much of a radical shift for the field to adjust metabolic. Tell me, what is the purpose of radiation and chemo? It’s to kill cancer cells. Cancer cells can’t live without glucose and glutamine. You just pull the plug on the glucose and glutamine, you’re going to get the same result. They’re going to die without harming the body.

 



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Dr. Weitz:                            Given how dangerous, deadly and difficult treating cancer is. Given what a burden it is. It doesn’t make sense I think the traditional thinking is, “Look, we need to use an all-hands on-board approach. Well, use, ketogenic diet, but we’ll use the chemo and radiation and the surgery, too. We’ve got to use everything. Why just put those aside when we can hit it from all ends at the same time?

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yeah, but we can do the same thing by just pulling the plug on the glucose and glutamine.  And that doesn’t create the adverse effects in your body. Listen, you take a normal person and you expose them to high doses of poison and then you irradiate them.  How healthy is that?  I mean, this is the only disease where I know where you’re poisoning and irradiating people to make them healthy.  It makes absolutely no sense.  Why are you subjecting people to all this toxicity when you don’t have to do it?  That’s the thing.  And the ideology says, because it’s been so indoctrinated into the medical establishment, “We must use chemo and radiation.”  And I’m saying, “No, you don’t.”  You don’t have to use that because I can achieve the same result and the same.  And then they say, “Well, where are the clinical trials to support what you’re saying?”

Dr. Weitz:                           Exactly.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Who’s going to pay for the damn clinical trial? The radiation companies? The pharmaceutical companies pushing these toxic drugs? Who’s going to pay for the clinical trials?

Dr. Weitz:                           The NIH.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yeah. NIH, give me a break. They’re in bed with the pharmaceutical companies. Are you kidding me? And they’re also in the academic industry. Do you know how many research grants are out there on sequencing gene mutations in cancer?  I mean, it’s a complete waste of time.  I am just, you know?  Not prolonged establishments that have shown clear failure. Like you said in the introduction, we have over 1600 people a day in this country dying from cancer, over 600,000 a year dying from cancer.  You mean, there’s no urgency in this?  We’re running and jumping and painting pink ribbons on things. It’s all bullshit.  All you have to do is pull the plug on the glucose and the glutamine. People say, “You must be crazy.” Why don’t you look at our new paper on Pablo Kelly, and you’ll see the power and the elegance of what we’re talking about here. It works and it works well. The problem is, is that so many can’t believe it. “Oh, he’s wrong. He must be wrong.” The stuff that we’re doing is based on decades and decades of peer-review scientific publications in the literature that have not been adapted for use in the clinical practice, so it makes perfect sense.  It works.  It’s going to work and it will eventually replace all of this crazy stuff with radiation and chemo.

Dr. Weitz:                           Somehow, you’ve got to get a clinical trial going. You got to hook up with some billionaire who’s got a relative with cancer.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Well, yeah, well, I mean, we’re publishing case report after case report illustrating.  So, the argument for us, they say, “Oh, well, that’s only an N of one. We can’t be sure.”  Even though the N of one is based on hard scientific evidence, it’s an N of one.  So I say, “Well, listen, if we took 1000 guys in helicopters and threw them out, they’d hit the ground real fast.  We put a parachute on one guy, and he doesn’t die.  N of one.  How many more times you have to put the parachute on the guy.” You want to know?  I mean, so this is a false argument against what we’re doing. Anybody with a few functional brain cells that understands the science behind what I’m saying will immediately say, “Holy crap, we can manage this disease very effectively without the toxicity or the expense that we’re currently dealing with.” Now, I mean, you’re going to share this information with your people, with whatever, whoever listens to your program, and they’re going to say, “Wow, why is all this happening?” And then they’ll go down to the Oncology, “Oh, there is no evidence to support what he’s saying.”  Ask the guy if he understands who Warburg was. Ask him if he understands mitochondrial substrate level phosphorylation. Ask him if he understands glycolysis and glutaminolysis. And if he doesn’t, that’s not the guy you want to talk to, to manage your disease.

Dr. Weitz:                            Right. But as you just mentioned, his ultimate response is, “Where are the randomized clinical trials on humans?” A peer..

Dr. Seyfried:                       Sure, sure. That’s false excuse. What are we going to do take people? You know what you’re getting. Ketogenic diets and you’re not getting radiation and chemo? I mean, you need a double blind crossover. It’s immoral to do that. So, the pharmaceutical industry has locked in double blind crossovers to eliminate anything except toxic drugs. So, the whole system needs to be changed. I mean, this is, it’s very important, what I’m saying and it requires the emphasis of the cancer patients themselves, not the people running the operations, not the guys in the pharmaceutical academic industry. They’re the last people on the planet that want to do this. But the people who are dying from the disease, the sufferers, the ones that are being poisoned and radiated, they’re-

Dr. Weitz:                           Right. Why don’t you go to the manufacturer of metformin and tell them how metformin could be a huge boon for cancer treatment?

Dr. Seyfried:                       Well, metformin is a minor player.

Dr. Weitz:                           But what if you use metformin anyway, right?

Dr. Seyfried:                       It’s a minor player. You’re not going to cure cancer taking metformin.

Dr. Weitz:                           I know. What if you did a ketogenic diet and metformin and glutamine antagonist?

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yeah, we tried that. Metformin works in a strange way and we were pushing keto, restricted ketogenic diets with metformin causing lactic acid toxicity in the animals. So I mean, it’s and I have cancer patients that have tried metformin with keto, and it’s not as effective. You’ve got to target the glucose and glutamine simultaneously. And metformin might do a little bit of that, but it’s not as powerful as what we already know what we can do. I’m not saying don’t take metformin. I’m just saying it’s not going to be the factor that’s going to allow you or the cancer patient to live much longer in a healthier state. But I’m not arguing that we don’t use metformin at all.  I’m just saying it’s a minor, minor player in the eventual management of the disease, a very minor player. But it doesn’t harm you and it’s probably could have some minor effect and improvement. So I’m not, you know? We’ve looked at so many different things already, so why waste my time on these other things when we can go right for the jugular of this disease and knock it out. And that’s the issue.

Dr. Weitz:                            I got it. But I’m just suggesting you might get the company that makes metformin, who want to fund your study if it can be utilized.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Well, it-

Dr. Weitz:                            in your protocols.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Ben, we publish so many papers identifying, in no uncertain terms, exactly what’s going on. And the closest we have in the most recent metabolic information, and sometimes it’s like talking to a plug socket. They just don’t understand it. It’s just like, “What the hell, man? Don’t you read the scientific literature? Don’t you understand?”  I mean, I don’t know what to say. I mean, I publish this stuff. It’s clear and for anybody, they look at it, I mean, we did the nuclear transfer experiments, identified that.  And it was clear that it cannot be a genetic disease under any way you can look at it.

Dr. Weitz:                           Why don’t you just explain…

Dr. Seyfried:                       And yet, they still don’t understand it.

Dr. Weitz:                           Why don’t you just explain that for our listeners?

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yeah, well, so what I did was I went back in the scientific literature over decades, and looked at those experiments where they were evaluating tumor cells and whether tumor cells could direct normal development. And they were putting the nucleus of a tumor cell into a new cytoplasm and they were getting no dysregulated cell growth. So, you have to realize that people say, “What is cancer?” Cancer is dysregulated cell growth, period. That’s the phenotype of cancer, dysregulated cell growth, so as the dysregulated growth, as the origin of the dysregulated growth, does it reside in the nucleus with the genome, the nuclear genome, or in the cytoplasm with the mitochondria? So when you take the nucleus of the tumor cell and put it into a new fresh cytoplasm, you get regulated cell growth. Completely different from what the mutation theory would say.  On the other hand, if people who have done this, Israel and Shaffer had done this at the University of Vermont, they took the nucleus of the normal cell and put it into a cancer cytoplasm and got dysregulated cell growth, just the opposite. And then the more recent experiments, which are a little bit more technically difficult, is taking normal mitochondria and placing them into a cancer cytoplasm and causing reregulated growth. And then taking abnormal mitochondria and putting it into a normal cell and causing dysregulated cell growth. So clearly, the origin of the disease resides with the mitochondria in the cytoplasm, not with the nucleus, not with the genome in the nucleus. Clear, clear, clear, clear. So anyone who says that cancer is a genetic disease, obviously lacks knowledge or is unfamiliar with the situation. So I mean, this is the way it is.

Dr. Weitz:                            I got it. I want to bring up a topic that probably doesn’t come up in a conventional medical world, but comes up in a functional medicine/integrative medical world. You mentioned a couple of times about cancer creating an acidic environment, lactic acid, things like that. So, there are and I don’t subscribe to this idea, but there are those who claim that eating an alkaline diet is beneficial for fighting cancer. Can you talk about why this does or does not make sense?

Dr. Seyfried:                       Well, I think the body, the alkaline behavior of a human body is so tightly regulated, I mean, all of our metabolic systems work in a very narrow range of pH acidification. And if you try to alkalinize the body in an incredible way, you’re going to create all kinds of metabolic instabilities. I’ll give you an example. We have metastatic cancer, some of the best models of metastatic cancer that I work with and one of my students tried to test this. They said Gatenby and Gillies, I guess, Gatenby and Gillies was saying, “Oh, yeah, alkalinization will stop cancer cells.” Okay, so we jacked up the alk. We gave them sodium-

Dr. Weitz:                           Bicarbonate.

Dr. Seyfried:                       I forgot the mix up, but what is it?

Dr. Weitz:                           Bicarbonate.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Bicarbonate, yeah. Well, we jacked up these. It didn’t do anything to the cancer. It didn’t have any redeemable effect. So, they’re saying, “Oh, yeah, make it alkaline.” The best way to make it alkaline, take away the goddamn glucose. I mean, they’re alkaline because they’re burning, they’re converting glucose into lactic acid. So again, you pull the plug on the glucose, you don’t get acidification in the micro environment. I mean, everything is so simple if you understand the biochemistry of what you’re dealing with.  Why are you going to jack up somebody, make them alkaline? Your body is not going to respond that way about the physiology of your body has evolved over millions of years to maintain very accurate alkalinity, so that the enzymes that allow us to work in metabolic homeostasis don’t get screwed up. So people, so where was that, people taking chloroquine and all this other crazy stuff. It’s just, when you understand the biology and the biochemistry, half of what people are doing is nuts. It doesn’t make sense. We tried it. It doesn’t make sense.

Dr. Weitz:                            Yeah, actually, I think I read somewhere when you talked about using chloroquine and green tea extract. They both inhibit glutamine in some way?

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yeah, well, here’s the situation why we tried that. It’s still experimentally, it works, but it hasn’t worked as well yet in cancer patients. And we’re still exploring this. Listen to this.  The metastatic cell is derived from a macrophage. This is one of our immune cells in the body. Macrophage means big eater. Okay? So, what the macrophages do when they’re restricted in energy, they begin to gobble up material from the micro environment, digesting this material in the lysosomes and getting glucose and glutamine from the fuel, from the materials that they’re ingesting. Okay? So, the stomach or the lysosomes has very low pH, just like our stomach and our body. Okay? Our stomachs are acidic, because we need the acidity to break down and metabolize foods that we eat. Well-

Dr. Weitz:                            [crosstalk 00:38:28] proteins into amino acids.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yes, yes. And complex sugars into simple sugars and fats. We break down all this material. So, the lysosome will do much of the same thing in a cell. Now, what was interesting is chloroquine neutralizes acidity in the lysosome, so, but we’re not neutralizing the whole body, we’re just neutralizing the stomach of the macrophage. So, if we restrict effectively glucose and glutamine and some of these cells are still hanging on, it might be because they are able to phagocytize. That means eat junk from the micro environment and therefore, potentially get small amounts of glucose and glutamine from the material that they phagocytized. So, the concept of chloroquine was that it would neutralize the acidity in the lysosomes of the cancer cell, thereby blocking the ability of the cell to get the two fuels that there needed to grow. So, if we target outside and use chloroquine inside, it could then provide a greater bang for your buck.

Dr. Weitz:                            And how does the green tea extract work?

Dr. Seyfried:                       Well, the green tea extract is thought to interrupt the glutaminolysis pathway. The ability of a cell to get energy from glutamine. There’s a pathway in that glutaminolysis. There’s two ways. It goes from glutamine to glutamate to a TCA cycle metabolite called alpha ketoglutarate. So, this is all in the Krebs cycle, the TCA cycle. So, green tea is a glutamate dehydrogenase inhibitor. So, there’s two ways that glutamate can get to alpha ketoglutarate and that is through a transamination reaction. I know this is might be very complicated for the lay person, a transamination reaction and a dehydrogenase reaction and the green tea blocks the dehydrogenase reaction, but we learn that most cancer cells are getting to alpha ketoglutarate through the transamination reaction, not through that other. So, the green tea may have a slight effect, again, like metformin. It’s like one of these very minor things, so.

Dr. Weitz:                            Are there any other nutritional supplements that might play a role in that process?

Dr. Seyfried:                       Well, glutamine, we haven’t been able to find anything yet on that process, because glutamine is so essential that there doesn’t seem to be and our bodies can make it from actually glucose. There doesn’t seem to be a nutritional way to target glutamine at this point in time and that’s the reason why we use the drug, deoxynorleucine, which is called DON. That blocks the variability of glutamine to be metabolized. It targets multiple different glutaminolysis simultaneously, thereby blocking the ability of glutamines to use the MI nitrogen as well as the carbon backbone for ATP synthesis, energy synthesis.  So, that seems to me right now at this point in time, to be the singular best way to shut down the glutaminolysis pathway. And that’s why we pulsed on. We don’t give it as a chronic because it can, as you mentioned, yes, DON can disrupt the number of different pathways and processes, so we don’t-

Dr. Weitz:                            Again, I know the vegan proponents out there are thinking, “Ah, this is why you got to get rid of animal protein out of the diet.”

Dr. Seyfried:                       No. Pablo Kelly, the glioblastoma guy eats only a carnivore diet and he’s managing his tumor-wise quite well. I’m not saying that vegans can’t manage their tumor. It all comes down to the glucose-ketone index, which we published. So, cancer patients have to be in therapeutic ketosis in order to have these drugs work at their maximum therapeutic effects. And you can get into therapeutic ketosis if you’re a vegan or you’re a carnivore. It doesn’t make any difference.  You just have to measure the ratio of glucose to glutamine and know whether or not you’re in therapeutic ketosis, so this is a broad range. It’s very flexible for cultural diet differences, because “Oh, can I eat this? Should I eat that? Can I eat this?” Just measure your glucose ketone index. If you’re in therapeutic ketosis, then you don’t have to worry about these other issues.

Dr. Weitz:                            It’s interesting. Alpha ketoglutarate is actually being touted as an anti-aging nutrient.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yeah. I don’t know. It doesn’t get picked up in the cells. You got to have transporters to get it into the cells, right? The body will metabolize it. You see the cells, the cancer cells all have massive transporters for glucose and glutamine. This is the result of the oncogene, so the oncogenes, that everybody likes to talk about, are facilitators, so when respiration is defective, in order for the cell to survive, it has to ferment. But you need so much fermentable fuel and the oncogenes turn on the receptors bringing in large amounts of glucose and glutamine. As soon as you give the cell back normal respiration, the oncogene is turned off, you don’t need all the fermentable fuels. So, it’s really quite beautiful. It’s a quite beautiful way. [crosstalk 00:43:57] can’t be helped.

Dr. Weitz:                            Have you heard of deuterium?

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yeah, we tried that.

Dr. Weitz:                            Okay, just for everybody to know who’s listening. There’s a group of Hungarian researchers. I’ve interviewed some of them in the past, who have this concept that deuterium, which is heavy hydrogen, slows down the production of energy in the mitochondria and plays a role in cancer. So, eating a ketogenic diet actually is supposed to reduce the amount of deuterium because there’s less water involved, which are found in plants and other foods. So, the claim is by following either a low-deuterium diet or drinking low-deuterium water is going to reduce cancer risk.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Well, I don’t know it might reduce cancer risk. It’s possible, but it’s certainly not going to kill cancer cells. So, we tried-

Dr. Weitz:                            Basically, it does because it slows down the ability of the mitochondria, this part of it that spins that deuterium clogs it up and-

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yeah, but it’s already clogged up. The cancer cell is already clogged up, so you don’t have to worry about that. You just have to stop the glutamine from coming. Deuterium is not going to stop the glutamine from coming in and providing the ATP for the cancer cell. I know all that. We tried a lot of this stuff. It’s so simple, man. You just got to target the glucose and the glutamine while in therapeutic ketosis.

Dr. Weitz:                            You tried the low-deuterium water or did you?

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yeah, we drank it ourselves. We gave it to the mice. It doesn’t do… it might prevent. I’m not saying it can’t prevent. That’s a different issue. Preventing cancer is very different than trying to manage cancer. Okay? So, you keep your mitochondria healthy, your probability of getting cancer is extremely low, so-

Dr. Weitz:                            Okay. I want to hit one more topic. I want to hit oxidation. Now, there’s a couple of ways that this plays a role. I’m going to throw all three of them out there that you do something with it. So, one of them is that you mentioned how the cancer cells create these reactive oxygen species and that’s part of how the cancer kills the healthy cells and stays alive. I know that you’ve talked about in some of your writings using hyperbaric oxygen to kill cancer cells via oxidative stress. We know that chemo uses oxidative stress. And then I also want to throw out the idea of whether or not it’s a good idea for us to recommend antioxidant nutritional supplements as part of support for cancer patients.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yeah. Well, this is an extremely important point and you’re absolutely right. Chemotherapy, radiation therapy works in large part by creating reactive oxygen species in the micro environment. But the problem is, of course, they’re indiscriminate. They damage normal cells as well. Why we use hyperbaric oxygen, this was the work I did with Dom D’Agostino at University of South Florida who’s a real force and leader in understanding the power of hyperbaric oxygen.  Taking antioxidants is probably not going to have any effect in any really meaningful way. Hyperbaric oxygen, actually, not only will saturate all the oxygen positions in the hemoglobin molecule, but also dissolved oxygen directly because of the pressure. So, you get oxygen dissolved right into the liquid plasma of the body. And when the patient is in therapeutic ketosis, restricting the availability of glucose, hyperbaric oxygen, can potentially kill the cancer cells by a mechanism similar to chemo and radiation without causing the adverse toxicity that you would see from these other treatments.

You have to realize that glucose and glutamine provide antioxidant defense for the cancer cells through the work on glutathione. They both converge on glutathione. So, if I pull the plug on glucose and glutamine, the cancer cell now becomes more vulnerable to death from reactive oxygen species, which could be forced into a greater state by hyperbaric oxygen. Interestingly enough, if the normal cells are burning ketone bodies, they’re very resistant to the formation of reactive oxygen species based on the work of the late Richard Veatch. We did all the bioenergetics to prove that. So, when you take a cancer patient, put them into therapeutic ketosis, and then put them in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, you’re essentially killing this cancer cells in a mechanism similar to that a radiation chemo without the adverse effects.

Dr. Weitz:                            Have you considered adding in intravenous vitamin C, which vitamin C at a very high dosage like that is a pro-oxidant and therefore, [crosstalk 00:49:15].

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yes, and I think, yeah. I’ve seen some success with IV vitamin C, but as long as, if the cancer patient is in therapeutic ketosis and glutamine targeting with IV vitamin C, you could also work this. There’s a lot of ways to skin this cancer cat and all of these things used appropriately under the right dosage, timing and scheduling could be very, very therapeutic. It’s just that very few people are exploring this whole field, mainly because they’re searching for gene mutations that are largely irrelevant. Right? I mean, this is-

Dr. Weitz:                            Yeah, as part of your theory, if everybody didn’t pick up on this, that these gene mutations result from the damage to the mitochondria, not the other way around.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yes, yes. And some gene mutations we know for the IDH1 mutation is highly therapeutic. It’s an acquired mutation that indirectly targets the glycolysis and glutaminolysis pathway simultaneous, so it’s really incredible. So, the-

Dr. Weitz:                            What pathway is it?

Dr. Seyfried:                       It’s both the glycolysis pathway and the glutaminolysis pathway. So, this IDH1 mutation allows brain cancer patients especially to live twice as long. So, they live twice as long because the mutation takes and takes alpha ketoglutarate and metabolizes it to this, what they call an oncometabolite called 2-hydroxyglutarate. 2-hydroxy glutamate stabilizes the oncogene called HIF-1 alpha, preventing glucose from coming into the cell. So, the very waste, the very diverted, a product of this mutation shuts down the glycolytic pathway. Also, the TCA cycle, that alpha ketoglutarate is the fuel for mitochondrial substrate level phosphorylation energy, and that’s diverted off to, so it’s diverted off to 2-hydroxyglutarate. So, this mutation in indirectly targets both of the two pathways absolutely essential for the rapid growth of the tumor.  And the people who acquire it by chance are like, call it a gift from God. They get it, they get it by chance alone, they live a lot longer. Now, here’s the crazy thing. There are drug companies out there trying to target and stop the 2-hydroxyglutarate from being produced, which is insane, man. So, yeah, this shows you how the lack of knowledge in the cancer field is just profound, that you would take away what God gave you so you can make a buck on the drug that would stop it. It makes no sense. And so, I look at this, and I say and then you irradiate the brain of somebody with the glioblastoma freeing up massive amounts of glucose and glutamine from the very treatment that you’re trying to protect the patient. You’re creating a micro environment.  But even though with that, the patient will still live a little longer with this IDH1 mutation, but the guy we have in England published this big paper now. It just came out one month ago and has over 14,000 views. It shows that the acquired mutation together with his metabolic diet, he’s alive seven years now. The guy is out seven years. This is unheard of, but it’s because of the understanding of the metabolic origin of cancer.

Dr. Weitz:                            Yeah. It seems to me the biggest obstacle right now to people in the integrative functional medicine world who are say giving some advice to cancer patients, employing a ketogenic diet. By the way, are there specific parameters about the type of ketogenic diet you recommend? But I was going to say the biggest issue for them is going to be being able to block glutamine without using this prescription drug.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yeah, well, that’s one of the tragedies. One of the great tragedies we have today. And there is no specific ketogenic diet. Any food item that you eat that brings you into therapeutic ketosis based on the glucose-ketone index monitor will be effective. Whether it’s a vegan preparation or a carnivore preparation, or whatever as long as you get into, you can take whatever. As long as you can get your GKI value down. Now, here’s the absurdity.

Dr. Weitz:                            Do you recommend incorporating some fasting or intermittent fasting with a ketogenic?

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yes, all that.

Dr. Weitz:                            Is there like a protocol that you would sort of recommend?

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yeah. We have that. It’s actually, some of it’s in the paper that we just published in nutrition, in Frontiers in Nutrition with the glioblastoma patient. He has what he did in there to keep the thing. But we’re not allowed. The FDA, now DON, deoxynorleucine was used years ago for little kids with leukemias, and it worked pretty well, but they never used it. They pressed it, like you said, it’s not good to do that. And they used to consistently without targeting glucose at the same time, so they got more marginal effects. But right now, physicians fear using it because they might lose their license because it’s not approved, right? Well, they just approved an Alzheimer’s drug with a scientist that is not going to work through political manipulations between the drug company and the Food and Drug Administration. And for-

Dr. Weitz:                            Interestingly, Dr. Dale Bredesen just published a paper on 25 patients showing 80% reversal of their Alzheimer’s using a ketogenic diet and other nutritional supports.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yeah, Richard Veatch was the leader on that and showed that Alzheimer patients are hypoglycemic and they also have a resistance to cancer. You can’t grow cancer if you’re hypoglycemic. They can’t get the glucose through the cells, but the ketones can bypass that. It’s an end around back alley way to get in through that and bypass all that stuff.  But the issue is, is that we have a drug called DON, used with the metabolic therapy will be absolutely effective in managing the vast majority of human cancers. And why are we prevented from using that drug when we’re using these Alzheimer drugs that will generate large amounts of revenue for the pharmaceutical company when DON is-

Dr. Weitz:                            Normally, swelling and bleeding in the brains of 30% of the patients, you take it.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Yes. It’s just, give me a break. So, and I know Johns Hopkins is producing a DON analog, where they can take it orally rather than infuse it with a port. Because stomach acid will disrupt DON, so if you put it in the bloodstream, you’re going to get real power, but you can’t eat it. You can’t take it as a pill because your stomach acid will destroy most of it. So, Johns Hopkins is trying to build the DON drug that maybe could last by through a pill. It will work, but it will work better when you put it with therapeutic ketosis. So, people are working on these things. It’s not like we’re not working on it, but we know what we need to do to manage cancer.

Dr. Weitz:                            Excellent. Thank you so much, Dr. Seyfried. Any final thoughts you want to leave to our listeners?

Dr. Seyfried:                       Well, I think it’s going to be, the change will come from the power of the people and once people who have cancer realize what they can do to manage their disease. The sad part is, is that this field is not ready for this. The physicians who you need to help are not trained, and they don’t understand the concepts. And that’s where we need to have a real paradigm change, so that we can make cancer a very manageable and not so stressful disease, which I absolutely know can happen.

Dr. Weitz:                            And if people want to know more about your work, how can they find out about it?

Dr. Seyfried:                       Well, we publish most of our papers on peer-review open access. You just look up my name and just say cancer, and you’ll see large numbers of YouTube videos and things like this. And we get much of our financial support from the Foundation for Metabolic Cancer Therapies from Travis Christofferson’s. We get support from the good people who know what we’re saying and want to help us because it’s very hard to get research grants from the NIH when you’re on the same kind of stuff. So, we’re moving forward and we’ll definitely have this manageable hopefully in the not too distant future, so we can reduce the 1600 people a day dying to half. And I’m sure we can do absolutely sure, we can cut that number down in half in a very short period of time if we are allowed to do what we need to do.

Dr. Weitz:                            That would be awesome. Dr. Seyfried. Thank you.

Dr. Seyfried:                       Well, thank you very much for having me.

 


 

Dr. Weitz:                            Thank you listeners for making it all the way through this episode of the Rational Wellness podcast. Please take a few minutes and go to Apple Podcast and give us a five star ratings and review. That would really help us, so more people can find us in their listing of health podcasts.

I’d also like to let everybody know that I now have a few openings for new clients for nutritional consultations. If you’re interested, please call my office in Santa Monica at 310-395-3111. That’s 310-395-3111, and take one of the few openings we have now for an individual consultation for nutrition with Dr. Ben Weitz. Thank you, and see you next week.