Elle MacPherson's Natural Cancer Cure

[00:00:00] Leah: And she says in her interview, you know, if it's a choice between losing my breast or losing my life,

losing her breast was her, you know, and it was her option, but then she chose for whatever reasons to go a more holistic route route route. She chose to go, she chose to go a more holistic route. Root? Route? I don't know what the root is!

[00:00:25] Tina: It could be either.

[00:00:26] Leah: Okay, either!

[00:00:27] Tina: Either.

[00:01:17] Leah: Hey, Tina.

[00:01:18] Tina: Hey, Leah, how you doing?

[00:01:20] Leah: I'm doing well. Did you watch that video I sent you?

[00:01:22] Tina: I did. I actually did my homework this time.

[00:01:26] Leah: Awesome.

[00:01:27] Tina: We both know that's not a given.

[00:01:29] Leah: No, that's not. Um, did you know who Elle Macpherson was before you watched the video?

[00:01:37] Tina: No.

[00:01:38] Leah: Okay. I didn't think so.

[00:01:40] Tina: Her name is vaguely familiar, but if you said, who's Elle McPherson, I probably would have meant, I don't know, an actress.

[00:01:46] Leah: Yeah. Now I know that you're not like, you know, you're, you don't have the finger on the pulse of cultural, whatever the word is. I don't know.

[00:01:54] Tina: Yeah. I went to a trivia night and people expected me to know things and I was like, this is all pop culture. I know nothing. I mean.

[00:02:02] Leah: Yeah,

[00:02:03] Tina: yeah.

[00:02:03] Leah: so I was very familiar with who Elle Macpherson is because I Know about models and supermodels and all that stuff. Anyways, so to our listeners we are talking about the 60 Minutes Australia video That is on YouTube Where Elle Macpherson is interviewed about her book that she is coming out with that is going to be released in the US in November of 2024 And there is a portion of the interview where she talks about her breast cancer diagnosis in 2017.

[00:02:39] Tina: Yeah, I have seen rumblings on social media about this, and so it is being talked about a lot. And, um, the reason I haven't really paid much attention to those conversations, and I was happy to watch the 60 Minutes video, it's like everything we do, it's kind of going back to the source. So I was glad you sent me that video because I want to know what she has to say.

not what other people are interpreting her as having have said.

[00:03:03] Leah: Well, exactly. And I looked into the video because of everything I had seen on social media. And then I started seeing headlines where, these different media outlets were declaring that Elle Macpherson refused chemotherapy, cured herself naturally of breast cancer. And so when I learned of this video on YouTube, I was like, like you said, we don't have access to the book to read it.

So that was the next best thing, um, was to listen. And what's interesting about the interview is it's not all about her cancer diagnosis. She talks about her history of alcoholism, and other things. And so The breast cancer part of her book. It's one chapter as is I'm sure the alcoholism and other issues, you know Relationships or whatever she talks about she talks about her insecurities and modeling I mean, it's just the interview just doesn't focus only on the cancer part, but that's the part that I wanted you to see

[00:04:00] Tina: Yeah, I found it really interesting, and, I know, because I've been doing natural medicine for 25 years, that what happens in headlines, even through media, before social media, regular media, the spin zone, you know, things get spun out of control and just for readership and more eyeballs on there.

Whatever they're writing or blogging or publishing. So, I kind of knew that it was probably going to be different from her mouth than it is from the scuttlebutt that I see online.

[00:04:28] Leah: right, and I I mean I understand when cancer patients and survivors are saying this is irresponsible, you know, promoting natural medicine, alternative medicine, I should say, you know, instead of doing conventional treatment, you know, pushing that. I mean, yeah, I, I get all of that. Um, watching the interview, was she pushing it?

It didn't seem like she was pushing it. She said it was her choice. I do know there are people out there who will say, well, if L. McPherson can do it, then I can do it. but. maybe we should start at the beginning so Let's let's let's rewind and we'll do a little bit of history of what we gathered from the interview,

[00:05:11] Tina: So, her diagnosis. What was her diagnosis exactly?

[00:05:14] Leah: right? So her diagnosis according to the interview was a "Her2 positive estrogen receptive intraductal carcinoma with positive margins."

[00:05:27] Tina: Mm hmm.

[00:05:28] Leah: So, in the United States, we would say HER2 positive, ER positive, you know, estrogen receptor positive, um, DCIS, ductal carcinoma in situ. Stage zero is what they call it in terms of, the staging of, breast cancer.

There is a standard of care that patients in the U. S. would receive, and that is according to the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, NCCN. From what I gathered from the interview, it's the same in Australia?

[00:06:00] Tina: Yeah, I think the conventional recommendation sounded exactly the same, which is surgery. . With large enough margins or if the margins are small, they're still clear, but they're smaller than a certain amount, then it's lumpectomy plus radiation.

And, and hormone blockade if it's estrogen receptor positive.

[00:06:20] Leah: Right, and then sometimes a mastectomy is recommended, or a patient chooses to have a mastectomy to reduce the risk of a recurrence on the same side.

[00:06:31] Tina: Yeah, and I don't have any patients in my recollection that have ever been offered or recommended chemotherapy for DCIS.

[00:06:40] Leah: No, no, um, I'm looking at the NCCN guidelines right now and that is not in there. It is, uh, let's see, I'm looking. You look for the tumor estrogen receptor status. Typically HER2 is not something that is looked at.

[00:07:00] Tina: Not in DCIS.

[00:07:02] Leah: Not in DCIS, correct.

[00:07:03] Tina: Here in the States.

[00:07:05] Leah: Breast conserving surgery without lymph node surgery or total mastectomy with sentinel lymph node biopsy and reconstruction would be optional, plus or minus reconstruction. With the breast conserving surgery, which is a lumpectomy, then you have the option of either whole breast radiation, accelerated partial breast radiation, or no radiation.

[00:07:31] Tina: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

[00:07:32] Leah: And then post treatment, you would be offered tamoxifen or an aromatase inhibitor if you are post menopausal.

[00:07:41] Tina: Exactly. Yeah. And so in the interview, she mentioned that she was offered or recommended aggressive therapy, including chemotherapy, radiation and hormone blockade. That would be unusual here in the States. I do think she's being honest. Now, I don't think there's any duplicitous nature in anything that she's doing with the book or the interviews or anything like that.

 When people are saying, Oh, she's lying and blah, blah, blah, and people get all uppity. Um, I think she heard what she heard and somehow along the way she thought chemotherapy was going to be something that Maybe some facilities recommend for her. I don't doubt her. I think she heard exactly what she heard in my experience.

Sometimes people hear things that are a not a hundred percent correct. So I've seen thousands and thousands of patients, and there are times that people hear something and they know they heard what they heard, but it's just a little off from what was said. So. I don't know what, I mean, we can speculate that maybe someone said, well, if we find that there is invasive ductal carcinoma, blah, blah, blah.

Like, I don't know.

[00:08:45] Leah: That's what, that's what I was thinking. I was thinking that if they did discuss one of your options, and I think she sought treatment in the U. S.

 that's the impression I got from the interview. But if somebody said. you can choose a mastectomy. We will do a Sentinel lymph node biopsy at that time.

If there is cancer in that lymph node, then chemotherapy, that could have been the conversation that I could totally see. I mean, we've both had conversations with patients. You know, I used to see them immediately after they would get their treatment plan from the doctor and the nurse. You know, they would talk to them about the treatment plan.

Then they'd come to me and they would. They, you know, they had additional questions. And so, you know, we've had patients where it's like, we've had to clarify. That's not, you know, that's not what the plan was.

[00:09:31] Tina: Yeah. It's totally understandable. Mm

[00:09:34] Leah: yeah, your brain isn't, you're not present. I mean, it is, it's like you're given this diagnosis, you're given this treatment plan. It's a lot of information. You don't have a medical background. Um, you're taking notes or maybe you're not taking notes. Maybe you're recording it. Maybe you're not, you know, so.

We don't know what she was actually told, but that's her recollection of what she was told.

[00:09:55] Tina: Exactly. There's two possibilities too. I mean, one, she walked away with that and misheard it in a way that it wasn't actually a recommendation, at least not at that point for DCIS. Or, and this is a horrible idea, chemotherapy is really a cash cow. And so if she went somewhere that was completely unscrupulous or somehow You know, not legit in that sense, chemotherapy has been given to patients that was like a marginal, benefit.

 I've had that happen to patients in the past where chemotherapy was given. I thought to myself, wow, that's, it seemed like an overtreatment for some people.

[00:10:31] Leah: Oh, absolutely. We, you know, working at Cancer Treatment Centers of America, we saw patients that were coming for second opinions and definitely saw patients who were diagnosed with breast cancer came to us because the chemotherapy was too much for them. And they thought they, they would get alternative medicine at CTCA, which they did not, but then learned from the oncologist.

Well, for your type of breast cancer, at your stage, chemo really isn't indicated. But I have a feeling she went to, like, I mean, She was a supermodel. She has access to the best health care.

[00:11:08] Tina: like a superpowers. She's got superpowers to go

[00:11:11] Leah: No, she's a supermodel. She's not, you know, going to some, you know, off the grid cancer center. And so when I, I looked at Mayo, City of Hope, MD Anderson, those are the kind of the big guns. I mean, there are other cancer centers, you know, in the Phoenix area, but, and I just assumed that she went to Arizona for her treatment discussions.

But, you know, they all, all those websites. State that what we just said for standard of care for DCIS, it's on the website. So anyways, we don't know who she talked to. We don't know what cancer center she went to. we have doing a lot of disclaimers here.

[00:11:48] Tina: Well, yeah, because we're speculating a little bit, but the whole idea here is this is a good opportunity to talk about, you know, there's a time and a place for natural medicine and conventional medicine and can I say something in this interview? I have a little pet peeve, and that is when conventional medicine, orthodox medicine, allopathic medicine, those are all synonyms.

What it is not. And it should never be called is traditional medicine. So people can refer, and the interviewer did this, she referred to conventional medicine as traditional medicine.

[00:12:18] Leah: Oh, I didn't catch that.

[00:12:20] Tina: Mmm, I only catch it because I'm like, it rubs me the wrong way. Um, it's not traditional,

[00:12:25] Leah: Well, I, cause when I think of traditional medicine, I think of indigenous medicine,

[00:12:29] Tina: Traditional medicine is herbal medicine and all, you know, a shaman might practice traditional medicine, . so just saying, saying that, because you know, from a language perspective, I'd like to be consistent and traditional means, more ethno botanical medicine, maybe Chinese medicine or whatever.

So I just wanna put that out there. 'cause I, you said conventional, which I agree with. I think conventional is the term that everyone can understand, but,

[00:12:52] Leah: That's, that's what I typically use. I don't, yeah, I don't think of it as traditional. Um, I want to rewind a little bit and I want us to talk about the HER2 positive receptor in general, and then also in connection with the DCIS.

[00:13:09] Tina: so, well you did a little bit of research on this. I'll let you talk about it.

[00:13:13] Leah: So, HER2 is a receptor. It is the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2, and it's a protein that promotes the growth of cancer cells. It's checked in breast cancer, when it's invasive. It's one of the receptors they check, they check the estrogen and progesterone receptors and they check the HER2 receptor.

Um, but it's also found on other cancers. The status is also found with other cancers. which we're not going to talk about because that's not the topic. So it is a receptor that can be targeted with certain medications.

 Herceptin and Projeta are the ones that we think of the most. and it's not typically tested or checked in DCIS.

[00:14:03] Tina: So let's talk about why it's tested normally. So an invasive ductal carcinoma. So DCIS is not invasive. Ductal carcinoma. Ductal carcinoma in situ is that intraductal breast cancer, what they referred to as intraductal in the interview. I looked it up quickly just to see, I was like, why did they do HER2 status on DCIS?

Assuming everything they're saying is accurate. It's unusual to do because it's not prognostic in DCIS as it is with invasive ductal carcinoma. So in DCIS, it's positive more often. It's around 40 percent of the time it's positive, but it has no bearing on. The treatment, normal DCIS treatment, doesn't depend on HER2 status at all.

When we look at invasive ductal carcinoma, it's positive 15, maybe 20 percent of the time. Maybe more than that now, there's a little bit more sensitive testing going on. Um, in any case, yes, I did a little reconnaissance just looking at that, because I thought that was kind of unusual to have the HER2 status for DCIS.

[00:15:10] Leah: I do remember a particular patient where their HER2 status was checked at the prior cancer center. And I remember talking with the oncologist and I was like, what, what about the HER2 status? where does trastuzumab, you know, Herceptin come into play? And he said, no, we don't, that's not something with that we look at.

So I'm sure that they're still looking at it. They're still doing tests. You know, there's still research around it about what, you know, the significance is, but it's like you said, it's more prevalent

In carcinoma in situ than it is in. invasive, uh, cancer.

[00:15:44] Tina: I'll put a link to that study. It's called Prognostic and Predictive Value of Her2 Expression in Ductal Carcinoma in Situ. So I'll put a link to that so people can go back and look at it if they're interested.

[00:15:54] Leah: yeah, and it, in invasive cancers, it is, I mean, in general, it is a sign of a more aggressive cancer.

[00:16:02] Tina: Right. For invasive ductal carcinomas.

[00:16:04] Leah: Yeah. So, but they're not quite sure what it means, as you said, you know, in, DCIS. So, so that was kind of a, like a, I don't know what you call it. It like, threw a little, a wrench in the whole story. It's like, cause like, why was it, why was it checked?

You know, it,

[00:16:21] Tina: Yeah. Because she used the word aggressive. They told her that her DCIS was aggressive. And normally that's is not like the invasive form of breast cancer. The aggressiveness depends on the architectural pattern of the tissue, the, what we call the histology and on the nuclear grade, like how many cells are dividing.

And so there is, there is a scale, right? Papillary, solid, cribiform. There's a scale of aggressiveness for DCIS. So I don't doubt that either. She was told, you know, you have a crib of form or you have a highly aggressive architectural pattern to the tissue. I don't doubt that because you can use the word aggressive and DCIS in the same sentence.

That's a truism. It just doesn't mean the same thing as invasive ductal carcinoma once it leaves the ducts because when you say aggressive then, it has more prognostic consequences, right? So it really means that this is more likely to go somewhere else in your body because it's already left the duct itself, the actual mammary gland duct.

All right. I just want to clarify that

[00:17:27] Leah: Okay. So that's kind of, the background on the pieces.

You know, the pieces that we were able to glean from the interview. Um, neither of us have treated her. We don't know her.

[00:17:38] Tina: and just so we're clear on that's all the diagnosis clarifications and our understanding of what's going on. And for her treatment, just so we're crystal clear, she had what she called a lumpectomy with positive margins and then a second lumpectomy that also had positive margins and that's it for conventional medicine.

That's where she stopped with the conventional and then she went on.

[00:17:56] Leah: What I'm thinking is with that second surgery, if that's not when the mastectomy was discussed.

[00:18:03] Tina: Mm hmm.

[00:18:04] Leah: And she says in her interview, you know, if it's a choice between losing my breast or losing my life,

losing her breast was her, you know, and it was her option, but then she chose for whatever reasons to go a more holistic route route route. She chose to go, she chose to go a more holistic route. Root? Route? I don't know what the root is!

[00:18:29] Tina: It could be either.

[00:18:30] Leah: Okay, either!

[00:18:31] Tina: Either.

[00:18:35] Leah: Um, And that's kind of where, like, we know very little about what she did. She does talk a little bit, in general that she, I have notes, she saw two doctors, two holistic doctors in the Phoenix area.

[00:18:49] Tina: Well, just to be clear, she saw 32 different doctors settled on those two. Yeah.

[00:18:57] Leah: doctors. She underwent eight months of what she described as intense therapy, um, a natural, very complex protocol. She received, natural medications as IVs. she saw a holistic dentist, I believe. She saw osteopaths, chiropractors, and she did a lot of spiritual work.

Does she claim she was cured? In the interview, she says, that she was "healed through her breast cancer." she didn't claim that she was cured. She talks about how she's considered in remission.

[00:19:39] Tina: and this is where, you know, she gained a lot of validity in my mind. And I was like, she's not really trying to tell anyone anything, except her own experience. I get it. She has the means financially and time wise to do whatever she damn well pleases. So my thought is, yeah, okay. I know what she's saying.

She got an intense IV. She could have gotten all sorts of things that are being used as anti cancer treatments that are natural. Natural derivatives. They do IV curcumin, artemisinin. you can do off label drugs as well. And I know that's not natural. You can go on specialty diets and you have the means of somebody to help you through that, whether you're paying for people to do it or paying for people to cook it for you, it doesn't matter.

But I do think that if money were no object, I've actually had this Y in the road of decision making with patients when, to be perfectly honest, Because of their financial situation, they had to do something more conventional rather than more natural.

[00:20:39] Leah: Well, what I want to point out in terms of the treatment that Elle MacPherson did receive, the conventional treatment, surgery was it. Surgery was her treatment.

[00:20:50] Tina: Mm-Hmm.

[00:20:50] Leah: And as I read with the NCCN guidelines, radiation, whole breast, partial breast radiation or no radiation. So the treatments that she declined were kind of the add ons, right?

I mean, it's like the surgery is the treatment and she did have a positive margin, which personally, I had a very close margin after my mastectomy, my skin sparing mastectomy, I suppose they could have taken everything. but they didn't, they, they left. You know, the, the skin, I don't know what else to say.

They left the skin on the skin sparing mastectomy. And my radiation oncologist spoke with her people at Memorial Sloan Kettering, and they all agreed I didn't need radiation. So, but as different, mine was invasive ductile, so it's completely different. But what I'm saying is that positive margin would have indicated that.

conventionally, she probably needed additional treatments, you know,

[00:21:53] Tina: radiation.

[00:21:54] Leah: radiation or the mastectomy.

[00:21:56] Tina: Mm-Hmm. . Mm-Hmm.

[00:21:57] Leah: So anyways, I do want to say that, that, that was a huge part of her treatment. You know, it's like, it's not like she for went for went, why can I not speak this morning? Um, she, she didn't forego conventional treatment.

She received conventional treatment. So we have to really emphasize that.

[00:22:15] Tina: Right. You know, that's an important point because that happens a lot in our world of straddling natural and conventional medicine. a lot of proponents out there, and I will not name names, but make entire empires based on, you know, having, been on the right side of the coin when you toss a 50 50 chance of recurrence after surgery without doing chemo, or radiation or whatever, whatever the adjunctive therapy is.

And they're on the right side of the coin, and they live to tell about it, and then they create an entire, business around that about natural medicine, but they had surgery.

[00:22:49] Leah: Yeah, they had surgery and then they claim it was the natural therapy that they adopted afterwards that cured them instead of saying, Hey, well, I did have surgery and that was the main treatment recommendation.

[00:23:01] Tina: Now the, the beauty of those stats is I look at whatever those stats are. Okay. So let's, let's talk about this. So you have reducing the risk of recurrence. So we have stats on chemo and radiation. Like your risk would be, I don't know, 30 percent if you don't do the radiation, it'll be 20 percent if you do the radiation.

We know these numbers, like these are actually flushed out pretty well. In this interview, they, I talked to a medical oncologist, not on camera, off camera, and reported that the oncologist said right now, L. McPherson has a 20 percent chance of recurrence. Now I get it. She's like, let's see, two out of 10 is my chance.

If I don't do any of that radiation or what's radiation going to do, bring it down to one out of 10. Like you can really look at the stats and be mindful of the fact that sometimes The benefit n your mind, and for you, and for your particular trajectory in life, isn't worth it. So I'm saying that because it's one of those things that I get it in some ways.

If it's a 20 percent chance now, you know, two out of 10, it means that it would have reduced it down below that. Let's say cut it in half. It's one out of 10. if that status correct,

[00:24:13] Leah: And I worked with a doctor who had a history of breast cancer, had recurrences while I was working with her, had a recurrence. And I think they were talking to her about. The certain treatment, you know, it's a 30 percent chance of recurrence unless you do this. And she was like, I look at it as a 70 percent chance of not having a recurrence.

You know, it's kind of, how do you look at it? Is she looking at it as, well, it's an 80 percent chance of me not getting it. I mean, it's, you know,

[00:24:44] Tina: that's exactly it.

[00:24:45] Leah: 20 percent is huge, but 20 percent is huge, but it's like, how are you? Yeah. How are you? What's your perspective of it? So anyways, that, that's my, my, that's my little story.

[00:24:54] Tina: Well, and I always look at that as the worst case scenario. So if the, if you were given that number 20 percent chance, those are people who do nothing. So now you say, okay. I have the time and the means to go do natural therapies where I will work on my body. I will look at my risk factors. I will remove them.

If I'm overweight, I will lose the weight. If I'm drinking too much alcohol, I'll stop doing that. If I'm smoking, I'll stop doing that. If I can't sleep, I'll, you know, so, so you are probably ticking away at that 20 percent as you remove any risk factors that you had when you got your diagnosis. We don't have So I look at whatever it is without adjunctive treatment as the worst case scenario without natural medicine. And then anything you do to better yourself and get yourself in better health, you're probably ticking away at that percentage. We just don't know how much.

[00:25:40] Leah: And again, both of us have seen patients who refused any conventional medicine, at all, and they just wanted to do alternative medicine. And again, working at CTCA, I saw a lot of patients who came to us with advanced cancers after they had declined. Maybe some of them had lumpectomies, and then declined.

further treatment.

[00:26:10] Tina: hmm.

[00:26:11] Leah: Others had invasive ductal carcinoma and opted for alternative natural treatments and they came back with stage four cancer that's not curable.

[00:26:22] Tina: Yeah. This is where we're all a product of our own experiences, right? So if they did well, you're not going to hear from them. If they recur or have a metastasis, you're going to see them as a clinician. So you're you're going to lean more towards more treatment in the first, you know, that frontline diagnosis because you don't want them to recur and you're like, well, do everything you possibly can.

So this doesn't happen. But the people who. Don't do it. Do refuse it. Most of them are not Elle MacPherson writing a book. And so we don't know about them.

[00:26:51] Leah: And, and most of them don't have the means, not to say that if you have money, then choose alternative medicine. I'm not saying that at all, but

[00:27:00] Tina: I'm saying alternative medicine is not even an option, or complete natural medicine in this particular scenario with positive margins, which is a higher risk of recurrence. It's less an option. Then it would be if you have the means to do what she did, which is an eight month complex intensive program.

it's just not an option for a lot of folks. And I'm not saying people can't do it. They can do whatever they want. I'm a firm believer in knowing the data and choosing your path. Um, I actually think all this data should be more, more available. At the ready and maybe with AI, it will be people can just ask and find this information now.

 but generally speaking, people have been misinformed a lot of the times. In my experience, people have been given data about relative risk rather than absolute risk. That's a whole nother discussion. But if someone looks up the difference between the two, you can see how relative risk can be very misleading as to how much benefit you get from something.

Absolute risk is really the only thing we should be thinking about and talking about, because that's how our brains work, you know. How many out of a hundred, right? Not relative risk, which is a whole different ballgame, which is often what people are given.

[00:28:03] Leah: changing subjects slightly. Did you, Dive into trying to find out what she did.

Okay, I did. Oh, I, I mean, I didn't go into the dark web, but I was like, I was putting in every word combination to see what exactly it was that she did. Um, she did kind of talk about, in terms of like, like some of the spiritual mind body work that she did.

 I really admire her for that because she says that she doesn't worry about recurrence. She doesn't think about it and that the fear itself is, you know, not a good thing. as a naturopathic doctor with a history of breast cancer, I wish I could say the same for myself,

[00:28:46] Tina: Mm hmm. Yeah.

[00:28:49] Leah: you know, so that, you know, And we have spoken with People recently, you know, we've had professionals come on, experts in the mind body field who talk about the importance of that as being, part of your integrative care.

[00:29:05] Tina: Yeah. Yeah. It's really deep work. I mean, it's really deep work and it, it's, It's hard because it's not as structured as the rest of it, right? You can go find a trainer, you can go find a gym, you can look up online, you know, how to, how to make more muscle mass in your body and lower your risk by, lowering inflammation or what to eat.

But finding spiritual guidance and doing real Deep work, is so individualized, so personal and is so loaded in some ways. you know, if you don't go to the wrong person, I think there's potential for damage too. So, to your point, I'm glad that we've talked to some folks in that arena that are true professionals, so that people can maybe look back at the older episodes and go from there for some guidance.

But, um, Yeah, I think it's fraught with some dangers if it's not done right.

[00:29:50] Leah: Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

[00:29:53] Tina: Yeah.

[00:29:53] Leah: Um, the other thing I learned, there was different information out there. one is that she has adopted a raw vegan diet, something else said that she was plant based. Yeah.

[00:30:04] Tina: Okay. So we're not sure.

[00:30:06] Leah: We're not sure, but plants are, plants are definitely involved. I'm not a big fan of raw vegan. I think we've talked about that before, especially if somebody lives in more northern climates where it's cold and damp and you know all of that kind of stuff.

But

That's just my take on that. But plant based definitely is something that. We have talked about and we talked to our patients about

[00:30:29] Tina: Yes. Yeah. I mean, that's clear. That's very clear is that you need to eat plants and you need to eat a variety of plants. Ideally. I mean, if we're going to go full bore, you want to eat them as locally as you can and as in season as you can. As you know, I took a recent trip to Italy and I, I was left with the, Oh wow, we can't even really mimic the Mediterranean diet because everything is grown down the road.

whatever they eat, that tomato did not get shipped in. I'm not eating, eggplant from, I don't know, Egypt. I'm eating it from down the road up from a small farm. So, so getting back to small farms and what's that localharvest. com is a great place to find consumer supported agriculture and your local farmers markets wherever you are in the whole United States.

It's mapped out by zip code. but that is one of the keys.

[00:31:18] Leah: it's still not an option for everyone.

I mean, there still are people who Whether to to financial reasons or just their you know, their location that isn't an option But even if you're incorporating more, you know, if all that's a bit I'm thinking of Alaska

[00:31:35] Tina: Oh, yeah.

[00:31:36] Leah: my sister lives, you know, like vegetables are really, really expensive.

Their fruits and vegetables are coming from, at least from Seattle, the closest. I mean, it's, you know, there are places where it's just not that accessible. You know, it's challenging to get those fresh fruits, vegetables, local stuff, and you can grow stuff there, but not everyone has the means. So, um, you know, choosing frozen, canned, whatever it is, is fine.

Just include a lot of them and a variety of them.

[00:32:06] Tina: Yeah. Yeah. You know, we just dusted off our little sprout jars, because doing sprouts is something that is both economical and not intensive as far as space. Anyone can sprout. Seeds are inexpensive, water comes out of the tap, and then you have a jar with a screen. so, that's one way to get greens in, inexpensively.

It just takes a little time to, you know, rinse them daily, but, you know, that's not a big deal.

[00:32:30] Leah: Yeah, it's like having a pet. It's like having an animal. Edible pet. I don't, I don't want to go there. I'm not going there. But it is, it's, it's like this, it's like those, um, those little electronic pets that we, in the 90s, they had those, I forgot what they were called, and you had to like feed, like electronically feed them every day.

Anyways, okay, we're, we're digressing. Um, I wasn't able to find anything else about her treatment, and I did look. I really, because I was so curious. I was also trying to figure out where she received her treatment.

[00:32:59] Tina: Uh huh, uh huh.

[00:33:00] Leah: I'm glad I didn't find online because that would have been really bad because someone would have talked and then that's hipba blah blah blah blah blah anyways

[00:33:07] Tina: Right. Major violations, yes.

[00:33:09] Leah: major major Violations, um, she does Elle MacPherson did say in their interview.

She does go for follow ups. She gets blood work and imaging

[00:33:21] Tina: Yeah, so let's just talk about, like, foundationally, there's no doubt in my mind part of her protocol is to sleep well at night to exercise both aerobic and anaerobic, meaning resistive exercise, building muscle.

[00:33:36] Leah: Oh, and I have to say in, in the interview, cause she's 60 years old. And she was known as the body. Like that's what her reputation was. I mean, she was sports illustrated. I believe Victoria's secret. I mean, she claims that she's still kind of has that body. So she's got trainers or she's got a great gym.

Like she has access to whatever she wants to have that body at her age.

[00:34:03] Tina: yes. She's gifted with some genetics and then probably works really hard to keep herself healthy.

[00:34:08] Leah: Yeah.

[00:34:09] Tina: Yeah. So, so let's just say that like any what's accessible to anybody is to move and exercise, you know, if you, if you have a job where you have to sit, then maybe try to get a modification for a standing desk or make sure you walk and, you know, like, like there are aspects that are perfectly free in self care.

[00:34:30] Leah: Standing up every 30 minutes, isn't that a thing? Like standing up and doing squats every 30 minutes if you have a desk job?

[00:34:35] Tina: Yeah, there's little apps you can put on there that go off every 40 minutes and tell you time to stand up, or then it go off for a longer amount of time and say, you know, time for your walk, whatever. So, um, I just want to put that out there because yeah, she's got the means to do this whole intensive treatment, but there's a lot of things that can be addressed by just changing our habits.

[00:34:56] Leah: Right? Incorporating more fruits and vegetables, preferably fresh, but if that's not accessible to you, then just fruits and vegetables. grains, legumes, all of that. More plants in your diet. The mind body part I think is huge.

[00:35:09] Tina: Mm hmm.

[00:35:10] Leah: Um, and as I admit, like it's not something that I, I haven't gotten there yet.

almost 10 years later. Um, um, she does have like a supplement line. I don't know if you saw that.

[00:35:26] Tina: Oh yeah, they said something about a wellness line or product line. I didn't look it up. Is it supplements?

[00:35:31] Leah: Yeah, so I looked it up. I looked it up on my phone and I don't always see things as well on my phone. she has a line of like these powders, powder supplements, called Well, W E L L E. And I did the little quiz to see which ones I needed,

[00:35:47] Tina: Yeah.

[00:35:48] Leah: according to their quiz. And yeah, there were products that had astragalus.

Um, there was one that was like an elixir that I didn't see anything. I didn't see any ingredients on it. Maybe if I looked online, I would have seen them, but I didn't see it on my phone, but I mean, they were just like vitamin and herbal blends.

[00:36:07] Tina: Mhm.

[00:36:08] Leah: That is her own product line. I don't feel like she was pushing her product line in the interview at all.

[00:36:14] Tina: Mhm.

[00:36:15] Leah: But, and I don't know who helped her develop those. Cause I guess she's been into holistic medicine for a long time. Um, as we mentioned, she does have a history of going through rehab for alcoholism, and that was 20 years ago. And so perhaps at that time is when she kind of started,

[00:36:31] Tina: I'm thinking that's true because she did mention I've been in, you know, doing natural medicine things for about 20, for, for 20 years.

[00:36:37] Leah: Yeah. And she, she did her rehab. She talks about doing the rehab in Arizona as well. And so it kind of fits. But yeah, she does have a product line, but she wasn't pushing it. I wasn't really that dazzled by the supplements

[00:36:49] Tina: Well, Sometimes , I think you and I know so much about precision built into each ingredient. Like in our minds, that's precisely for this. That's precisely for that. And so sometimes when there's. mishmashes. It's hard to dazzle.

It's hard to be like, okay, that's awesome. Because one, we've been doing it long enough and there's so many formulas. A lot of them are just repeats of other formulas. It just comes down to quality at that point.

[00:37:12] Leah: Yeah, and as we've talked about with any of these like proprietary blends how much of a Something is in there, you know, like one of the formulas it said like cyanocobalamin, but I didn't like look to see the label to be like how much b12 are you putting in there like

[00:37:27] Tina: Right.

[00:37:27] Leah: anyways, so Yeah, there's that

[00:37:30] Tina: Yeah. you and I are not easy to impress when it comes to supplements .

[00:37:34] Leah: No, and these whole powder things, you always hear me complain. It's, my big complaint is, why do they always put so much stuff in these powders? Like, I'm looking for just like a greens powder. I just want greens. Because sometimes, I'm not, I'm not gonna like blend my greens and make a smoothie. I just wanna throw powdered greens in cause that's me.

And, they always have like astragalus or um, ashwagandha, like no, I don't want mushrooms, I don't want like, adaptogens. I just want powdered greens.

[00:38:03] Tina: Yes.

[00:38:04] Leah: That's my big,

[00:38:05] Tina: But you're unusual. Most people want other things in there. More is better. What kind of American are you?

[00:38:11] Leah: I know and I, I'm just, just, I'm just lazy and I don't want to always go out and get my fresh greens or like, you know, whatever. So, but it's not about me, it's about Elle. So I guess that's kind of, that's kind of everything that we, we got from her interview. It was interesting. Um, I do want to point out that I feel that, as you mentioned in the beginning, a lot of it was headlines.

[00:38:37] Tina: Oh my God. It's just, it's the same old, same old when it comes to natural medicine and using plant medicine. And you know, if they can spin it into the negative zone and maybe that's just media, maybe that's just always negative in general, but I, it's been my entire career where if there's a way to make it negative, they're going to do it.

So L. McPherson is on the receiving end of that, unfortunately.

[00:38:58] Leah: And so are, so are NDs. So I have never and will never claim to anybody that I can cure their cancer. My role has always been to be supportive using integrative medicine. Um, I thought it was in my license that I couldn't even claim that. I don't know if that changed over the years, but.

[00:39:23] Tina: Yeah,

[00:39:25] Leah: Because there are a lot of people out there who are, they have claims, they on their website, they, they do say that they treat and cure cancer naturally.

That is, I don't want that responsibility. I don't have that knowledge to do that.

[00:39:39] Tina: I'm going to interject with anyone in an interview or online or in any way, shape or form writes a book and uses the word I, a doctor who treats cancer and says I this, I that, I do this, I, you know, um, even when I go to a lecture, I'll notice this, that person has such an ego investment that I don't trust their perspective because they won't see their failures, I, I, I, it's not about the practitioner ever.

So anyone who's that vested in the, in the. So, the fact that they did it, they cured that person. They didn't do anything. I mean, they guided the person, they helped them, they taught them. But they can't say they did it. if the patient is fortunate enough to not have cancer or cancer recurrence, the patient did it.

So, anyways. It's a big red flag for me when people start to do the research. You know, I sentences big red flag means they're not probably seeing anything in their world where they didn't do well Because the truth is nobody knows you do your best and you let the chips fall where they do And there's no way you can control that and there's no way you can have 100 percent success or 97 percent success for that matter It's not possible Because we don't understand cancer well enough and we don't understand people well enough to cure cancer on a regular basis.

I mean, if we could do that, we'd, you and I wouldn't be sitting here doing a podcast. We'd have a sanatorium on top of a hill and do that.

[00:41:00] Leah: I know I used to tell my patients, if I, cause they would say, well, you know, you do natural medicine, you know, big pharma conspiracy, you know how to cure. And I was like, if I had to care for cancer, I would be handing it out. On street corners. And that was before my parents were diagnosed with cancer or myself, you know, before I was diagnosed with cancer, I would be giving it out for free as I think a lot of conventional doctors would probably feel that way too, because it's just, it's, I'm going to get emotional.

[00:41:29] Tina: Oh, sure. Yeah, you can't, you can't keep down, you can't keep down the human nature to help people. I don't care. I mean, yeah, I do think that big pharma slows us down. No doubt. No doubt. Slows us down. Because we would be a lot farther along if we could study our medicine on a more equal footing and not just be about pushing drugs and researching the drugs and

[00:41:54] Leah: Our medicine, like integrative medicine, naturopathic medicine. Yeah.

[00:41:58] Tina: integrative, yeah, naturopathic medicine. if in an evidence based world, we would have more evidence if there were more research dollars to go into it, it's not that we're disproven. Most of what we do, not all of it, a lot of it has evidence, but some of it is unproven simply because we don't have the evidence.

the means, the money, the institution, like Big Pharma has behind it. So it's, it's a tough, it's not, it's not equals. We're not equals with Pharma. We can't compete with them in that sense. Maybe AI will help us there too. We'll

[00:42:29] Leah: Oh, stop with the AI. Stop with that.

So much potential. I'm cutting off here, lady. On that note, I'm Dr. Leah Sherman,

[00:42:38] Tina: And I'm doctor Tina Kaczor

[00:42:40] Leah: and this is the Cancer Pod.

[00:42:41] Tina: Until next time.

[00:42:42] Leah: Thanks for listening to The Cancer Pod. Remember to subscribe, review, and rate us wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us on social media for updates. And as always, this is not medical advice. These are our opinions. Talk to your doctor before changing anything related to your treatment plan. The Cancer Pod is hosted by me, Dr.

Leah Sherman, and by Dr. Tina Kazer. Music is by Kevin MacLeod. See you next time.