Blossom Your Awesome Podcast Natural Insights With Dr. Dominic A. Brandy

Blossom Your Awesome Podcast Natural Insights With Dr. Dominic A. Brandy

Dr. Dominic A. Brandy is an M.D. and a former plastic surgeon. He was given a cancer diagnosis that forced him to sell his Plastic Surgery Center. He turned this into a remarkable passion project helping others heal and return to wholeness. 

The irony is he had already changed his diet about a month before the diagnosis and this became the catalyst for his new life as a health advocate and author of his bestseller Beat Back Cancer Naturally.

Dr. Brandy is also the founder of Natural Insights Into Cancer where he shares powerful information, resources and offers consultations to those looking for guidance.

To see more of my work including self-improvement and self care tips check me out at my website

Where I write and cover mindfulness and other things to help you Blossom Your Awesome.

Or follow me on instagram where I post fairly regularly and ask an inquisitive question or two weekly in hopes of getting you thinking about your life and going deeper with it.

My Instagram - i_go_by_skd

To support my work - my Patreon 

Transcript

Sue (00:00.969)
Hi there, today on the show we have got Dr. Dominic Brandy here with us. I am so honored and delighted to have you here. Welcome to the show.

Dominic Brandy (00:09.022)
Hey, it's great to be here, Sue.

Sue (00:11.653)
I am so excited to have you here. I love your story Cannot wait to get into this with you and I know you're gonna have so many amazing insights for everyone so you are an MD or plastic surgeon and You were given this diagnosis five years ago of multiple myeloma which just changed everything for you and Now and you have a book beat back cancer naturally. So give us this backstory why you went into

Dominic Brandy (00:24.234)
Yes.

Sue (00:41.129)
plastic surgery to begin with, and then we'll just take it from there.

Dominic Brandy (00:46.043)
Well, as far as the plastic surgery, when I was little, you know, we would have to take those aptitude tests. And I always scored very high in science and art. I've always been a really good artist.

And I remember being 10 years old and saying, when I grow up, I want to be a plastic surgeon. So, and then as far as the health and nutrition aspect, my mother used to read Prevention magazine when I was a kid. And for some reason, I was really into that magazine. Even when I was eight years old, I was my mother would finish it, she would give it to me. And I would read that thing cover to cover. And even when I went to medical school,

I went to medical school in Philadelphia, and I am from Pittsburgh. My mother would actually send me the prevention magazines when she was done with it. I was still reading them when I was in medical school. So health and nutrition was always something I was interested in. And even in my plastic surgery practice, I always had an anti-aging division. I had that for about 30 years. So in that, I did a lot of weight loss counseling. I did...

a bi identical hormone replacement. I actually got into stem cell treatments for different joint issues and so forth. So it's always been a big part of my career. When I got diagnosed with multiple myeloma, it was actually about five and a half years ago. I really started to get into the scientific literature to find out any way that I could.

defeat this cancer because multiple myeloma is an incurable cancer for your listeners. It's a cancer of the plasma cells or the cells that make your antibodies. And to this date, they really don't have a cure. I'm in what they call a functional remission. My backstory actually started two months before I got diagnosed, which was kind of weird. I've read probably over 300 books.

Dominic Brandy (02:55.154)
on health and nutrition. And my wife and I were on a two week Viking cruise. And anytime I go on vacation, I always read a health and nutrition book. So I got on Kindle, this book popped up called, How Not to Die by Michael Greger. I don't know if you've ever read it, but it was on the best seller list. And for those of you that have ever read the hardback, it's literally about two inches thick and about an inch of it are scientific references. And that was the thing that really intrigued me about this book.

There really weren't a lot of anecdotes. It was all evidence-based. What the science was showing over and over again is that cultures and research cohort groups that ate more plant-based had a much lower incidence of cancer, cardiovascular disease, dementia, diabetes, really all caused mortality. So I'm on this cruise and I tell my wife, I'm two days into reading this book.

I'm gonna start eating whole food plant-based." And she thought I was out of my mind, because, as you know, on a cruise, there's just about every kind of food you can think of, meat, eggs, dessert, you name it. But that was September of 2017, and I really have been eating plant-based ever since then. But I came home. It's really weird how the whole thing happened.

The week that I got home, I was in the middle of the surgery. It was a liposuction case and my right collarbone just like, I just felt a little pop in there. I didn't think a whole lot above it, but it just kept getting worse and worse. And then I remember at the end of October, it was starting to keep me up at night. And it was really starting to concern me. I even told my wife, I said, I said, Trina, I think I have bone cancer. And she said, oh, you're the healthiest guy. I know you're fine. And I just kind of sloughed it off.

It's weird, but two weeks after that, we're watching television. I accidentally knocked over a container of water. I lunged for it, and my collarbone just cracked right in half. You know, I went to the URGY care center. They did an x-ray. It was completely displaced. Went to a friend of mine who's an orthopedic surgeon. He ordered an MRI, and then he called me. It was Friday night. This is like five days after I cracked this bone, and he said, Nick. That's my nickname.

Dominic Brandy (05:16.19)
said, Nick, I got some bad news for you. There's a tumor in there. And he said, it's either multiple myeloma or it's a metastasis from another cancer. And you can imagine my world was completely rocked. Here I had this extremely successful plastic surgery slash med-spa anti-aging center. In fact, I sold my practice about three and a half years ago to a venture capital group.

And at that time we had over 100 employees and we were ranked number six in the country through Allergan, the company that makes Botox. So it was just a thriving practice, very stressful as you can think, but all of a sudden here you are, you have a broken collarbone, you can't even do surgery, and your whole life is completely rocked. So at that point I had another plastic surgeon come in to kind of take over my cases.

Kregoser, and then I really haven't done surgery since then. And then I basically, when I had this diagnosis, had to go to my oncologist. And I have an IgA type of multiple myeloma. There's basically three types, IgA, IgG, IgM. IgA is the most aggressive, that's the kind that I had. IgG is kind of in the middle. IgM is the least aggressive.

And he wanted to start me on this triple regimen of two oral medications and then a chemo drug where I would have to go in and get injections into my abdomen every week. It was called Valkade, it's a proteasome inhibitor. And the more I was reading about that, almost everybody that gets that gets a really pretty severe peripheral neuropathy, it's like a destruction of the nerve endings in your fingers, in your feet. And because I'm a surgeon, that concerned me.

The other thing is at this point, I had already been eating whole food plant based for two months. And I was confident that was going to help me. So I told my oncologist, I said, hey, listen, I'm not doing the Valkyrie. And he was upset. He didn't think there was any way I was going to get into a complete remission just on these two oral medications. But I stuck to my guns, he was upset. But I started taking the oral medications and every month my numbers just kept.

Dominic Brandy (07:40.866)
getting better and better, and by the sixth month, I was in complete remission. And he was really totally blown away. I mean, he didn't even think I was going to get into a remission, and to do it in six months, he was just totally, his mind was blown, to be quite frank with you. And I've been in a remission since. I do still take those two oral medications, but at a very, very low dose. In fact, right now, he's trying to wean me off of those.

we're kind of in the weaning process. And so far I still holding my numbers. Maybe I'll be the first person ever cured of multiple myeloma, you never know. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. But when I got diagnosed, I went on this deep dive into the scientific literature. I wanted to know every single thing that I could do from a lifestyle perspective and also from supplements that I could take that would help me in this battle. And a year after I started

my treatment, I decided I was going to give a lecture to kind of share all this information that I was gathering. So I had one of the local TV newscasters, I've done many, many interviews with a lot of the stations in Pittsburgh. In fact, she was actually looking to find me because it was New Year's, and she was looking for kind of a story about health.

and changing your habits and so forth. So it kind of worked out that my lecture was scheduled January 9th. And so she did this whole story on one of the local stations and we had about 125 people show up for this lecture. We were expecting maybe 50. But I gave this lecture, it went for two hours. It was supposed to be an hour, but people were asking me all kinds of questions. There were a lot of cancer patients out there.

And when I was finished, I had a standing ovation. And I've never had a standing ovation for anything in my life. I don't think the lecture was that great. Maybe they felt sorry for me. Firstly, I think the reason was the cancer patients out there, I think they felt they were at the mercy of the surgery, the chemo, the radiation, and there wasn't anything that they could do. And in fact, after the lecture, there were quite a few

Dominic Brandy (10:08.962)
people that came up to me that were cancer patients. And one lady I remember had multiple myeloma, what I have, and she was definitely overweight. I would even say she was probably obese. And she was chatting with me and she said, you know, doctor, I asked my oncologist, should I change my diet? And he said, oh no, just keep eating the way you are. You'll be fine. And she looked me in the eye and she said, you know what? I just knew that couldn't be right.

And that was kind of the theme of the people that I was talking to afterwards. So after that lecture, I started a website. It's called Natural Insights into Cancer.com. I started an Instagram site. I have over 43,000 followers on that now. It's called Cancer Veggie Doc. You know, I do Facebook and that new threads and YouTube. So I really tried to educate as many people as I can.

So that's kind of been the whole focus of my life at this point. I do cancer lifestyle coaching. I do one or two hour virtual consultations. And I usually, in fact, I strongly recommend my patients to follow up with 24-7 Access to Me through email and text. It's a service I have on my website. People basically go to shop and then they hit either virtual meeting and then they can sign up for the 24-7.

access to me and I really do think that's important in the coaching process and patients do love it. I mean this morning, I probably got over 100 text messages. So some of these people are maybe discouraged or they have a question about a supplement or there's a study that they read they want me to review. Some of them want me to look at their lab work. So that's really where I've dedicated my whole life is to really helping cancer patients because

I have all of this knowledge and I don't tell people to give up their conventional therapy. I really want them to do more of an integrative approach. In other words, you need to hit it from every angle. You need to do your conventional. In my book, I talk about a whole food plant-based diet, targeted supplements, daily exercise, getting adequate sleep, keeping your stress down, stress management, and different ways to lower your toxic.

Dominic Brandy (12:31.334)
load and also ways to get rid of toxins. So that's kind of how I focus my whole practice to helping these people either stay in remission if they had cancer or a lot of my patients are actively battling. I mean a lot of them are stage four, stage three cancers and I really help them along the way to really try to get the highest quality of life and the longest survival.

Sue (12:58.009)
Wow, oh my God, this is so remarkable. So a couple of things. First, I have to say, Dr. Brandy, I just commend you because I think, you know, your attitude, it's so infectious, you seem so happy and so deeply fulfilled because one would think when you kind of have your whole life, your career, your practice kind of.

taken from you spontaneously in this way, right? Unexpectedly, you have to turn around and sell it. You're no longer performing surgery. So many people would just go into like a deep, dark despair. But I love that you turned it into something so remarkably powerful and insightful and positive and purposeful, and now you're helping other people. I just, I think that's so amazing.

Dominic Brandy (13:47.074)
Oh, I appreciate that. One thing I've always been able to do in my life is turn lemons into lemonade. For instance, in my book, and I dedicate my book to my wife, we were married just for a couple years. My wife got diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma at 28. So it was devastating. She went through two years. She almost died. They were talking about doing a lung transplant because the radiation and the chemo really had a really negative effect on her lungs. And then she lost her ovary.

And that probably devastated her more than anything when she found out she was infertile. So we end up Adopting three beautiful kids. We got twins. All my kids are biracial. They're beautiful They're all my twins are 29 years old and then the younger one we adopted another one. She's 26 now, but we took Lemons and we made it into lemonade, you know, a lot of people would say oh, I can't have kids and you know They just their whole life

They go without a family. So in this situation, I really did the same thing. And I'll be quite honest with you. I really love doing this even more than surgery, really helping cancer patients along the way, because I know what they're going through. And a lot of it is helping them through the mental part of it too. Like I had a patient this morning that texted me and he said, you know, the thing that really...

is anxiety-provoking for me is getting the blood work every month. And I told him, I said, because I get blood work every month too. And I said, listen, you'll learn to live with it. But I gave an analogy and it's funny. This came to me about two months ago. I was looking, I have a 10 year old dog. It's a meekie. And it's like a expensive mud, essentially. But they live to be about 15. But I was looking at my dog and I was, my dog has unconditional love.

for my wife and me. And I was just thinking, you know, my dog doesn't know she's gonna die someday. She wakes up every morning and she just enjoys the day. As long as she gets her treat, she's happy. And I kind of gave that analogy to him and he said, you know what, that really, I'm gonna start living that way. And I told him, you know, do something fun every day. Enjoy every day, try to eat as healthy as you can, exercise every day. And...

Dominic Brandy (16:10.186)
And he really appreciated that. And if I wasn't going through cancer, I don't think I would have been able to convey that to him because I know that one of the things that cancer patients get anxious about is they start thinking too far out away from the present. And it's like, okay, what's gonna happen? Am I gonna have pain? Am I gonna, how am I gonna die? And a lot of times you don't even die of cancer. In fact, many cancer patients actually end up dying of a.

cardiovascular event before they do cancer. They'll die of a heart attack or stroke. And that's one of the reasons I always try to monitor their lipid profiles to make sure that they are in a good cardiovascular position because many cancers, for instance, thyroid cancer is one of them, testicular cancer, endometrial cancer, prostate cancer. If you look at the studies, most people with those kinds of cancers actually die

more frequently of a cardiovascular event, like heart attack or stroke before they die of cancer. So that's something I just try to help them through the mental part of it, because that is a big part of dealing with cancer.

Sue (17:22.705)
Wow, okay. So now, and another thing that I just find so remarkable, I mean, the fact that, you know, like you say, so many of these cancers are treatable, curable, but you have this particular kind that is incurable, but it's in remission. You're living so powerfully with it. It's such, you're such an incredible example and voice for people who get these types of diagnoses, right? So it's like,

give us some insight into this, into the plant-based thing. Like if there were just a few takeaways, like where does one start with that?

Dominic Brandy (18:02.026)
Well, one of the things I always try to go with this is first off, the National Cancer Institute recommends nine servings of fruits and vegetables for the prevention of cancer. So this isn't something that's way out left field. We do know that plants have over 100,000 phytochemicals in them. In fact, Jed Fahey, he's one of the premier experts on phytochemicals. He feels there's over five million different phytochemicals in plant foods. And these phytochemicals have very powerful anti-cancer effects.

But if you look at the blue zones, I don't know if you're familiar with those, or the five areas of the world where people live the longest, Caria, Greece, Sardinia, Okinawa, Japan, Nicoya, Costa Rica, and right here in the United States, Loma Linda, California. That's where a lot of seven-day Venice lived. And seven-day Venice, they're either vegan or vegetarian. It's kind of part of their religion. I always like to use Loma Linda because it is in our culture.

The average woman in Loma Linda lives 10 years longer than their American counterpart. And men actually live 14 years longer than their men American counterparts. And all of those blue zone areas eat anywhere from 90 to 95% plant-based. And we do know that when you go through the studies, for instance, in

2017, there were two really large meta-analysis. One was the Epic Oxford study. The other was the Adventist Health study. And both of them found that the groups that ate whole food plant-based had much lower cancer rates compared to people that were eating more of a standard American diet. So that's the one thing that I really try to focus on. As far as getting people to transition into that, one of the things I tell people to do is

Pick five recipes that you eat all the time that are plant-based, that don't have meat in them. And for three weeks, just eat that. And you'll find that you'll start feeling better automatically. And usually people start shedding weight like crazy because most animal products have a lot of saturated fat. They're calorically high and nutritionally low.

Dominic Brandy (20:22.87)
So I kind of start with that. And then when I do my consultations, I always send a letter with about 10 different really good plant-based cookbooks, a bunch of different plant-based websites that you can get amazing recipes. Like my wife has become a crazy good vegan chef. Our diet is so diverse now compared to what it was before. I mean, it was always, you know, you'd have the meat and the vegetable next to it. And it now like last night,

acorn squash thing that was like amazing. It's just, and I always put them on my IG story, just so people can see that eating whole food plant-based can be an amazing way to eat. And you feel so healthy and vibrant and energetic. I mean, it's just, it changes your life. And one of the things I did about, it's probably like three years, four years ago, I got my license photo taken.

And it was crazy. And at this point I was, I had cancer, but I'd been eating whole food plant based for a couple of years at that point. And I had a photo of me. Like four years before. And at that point, and I literally looked so much younger, just the fact that I had changed all of my habits. I mean, it was just amazing. So I put that on my Instagram site just to show people that it's just amazing how just changing some lifestyle things can make an amazing difference in your health.

Sue (21:52.27)
Wow, I love it. And now, are there particular foods, particular fruits and veggies that are very, like exceptionally good for fighting cancer?

Dominic Brandy (22:02.994)
Yeah, I always go over this one study that was done in the Food Chemistry Journal, and they basically applied 34 different food extracts to seven different cancers. And what they found was, and I always show the different graphs, that consistently cruciferous vegetables and allium vegetables had the most potent anti-cancer activity against every one of the cancers.

The other foods, it would vary. Like I kind of would follow bok choy, and sometimes bok choy, like with medjolo blast stone, it hardly did anything. With stomach cancer, it was a little better. With breast cancer, it was even a little better, but it varied from cancer to cancer. But on every single cancer, the cruciferous vegetables, which would be broccoli, cauliflower, arugula, kale, radish.

they were consistently the most anti-cancer against all of them. Then the allium vegetables would be your onion, garlic, and leeks. So they're ones that I really strongly recommend. But the thing that I am focusing on with my patients, especially people that really don't think they can make a whole transition to a whole food plant-based. I really focus a lot of my study right now on the gut microbiome, the bacteria in your gut.

There's about 37 trillion bacteria in your large colon. Just put that into perspective, we have about 37 trillion cells in our body. So we have as many gut bacteria as we do cells. And there's a very large research project being done in Colorado, Dr. Robert Knight, he's one of the premier gut microbiome researchers in the world, they have something called the American Gut Project.

And they've analyzed over 15,000 different stool samples. And what they found was people that eat 30 different plant foods per week. That's not stirrups. That's just different plant foods. So you could eat a salad with 20 different plants in it. And that's typically what my wife and I do. Our salads have a couple of broccoli, a couple of cauliflower, a couple of radish, some peas, some corn. So instead of just having lettuce, some tomato, carrots, and maybe some onions.

Dominic Brandy (24:24.994)
you put a lot of different vegetables in there. So what he found is those that eat 30 or more different plant foods in a week had the most healthy gut microbiome. And those that ate 10 or less had the least healthy and they had more antibiotic risk, this and bacteria probably because they were eating more meat. The reason that gut microbiome is so important, we now know that these gut bacteria control about 70% of your immune function.

And the way they do it is really almost unbelievable. You have one layer of cells in your large colon. They're called colonocytes. And these bacteria actually send signals through that one layer to all of your immune cells, your T cells, your B cells, and so forth. And they actually tell these cells where to go, how hard to fight.

You know, if the inflammation's getting out of control, they tell the T regulatory cells, hey, you need to back off on this inflammation. So they're basically the conductors of your immune system. It's crazy. And the other thing is, I always wondered why in studies, people that eat plant-based have a better, they have less depression, they have better cognitive function. What they know right now is that these gut bacteria secrete 90% of your serotonin. That's your happy hormone.

Like when people take an antidepressant, it's a serotonin uptake inhibitor, and they secrete 50% of your dopamine. That's also kind of a happy hormone. And then they also find that the short-chain fatty acids that these gut bacteria produce cross the blood-brain barrier. They get into the brain and they enhance this neurotropic brain factor that actually causes

more brain cell growth and how it enhances the interconnections of the brain cells. So, you know, once I started understanding the gut microbiome, and then I was looking at all the advantages of people eating plant-based, it all kind of came together. It was really all this fiber is what these bacteria feed on. When they feed on it, they form these short-chain fatty acids that then do all these unbelievable things to your immune system. And also,

Dominic Brandy (26:48.418)
for weight, you're probably familiar with the weight loss injection, the semiglutide, you've probably heard of it, it's that big and so forth. With their GLP-1 receptor agonist, what these bacteria do, they feed on the fiber, they make these sure chain fatty acids, butyrate, acetate, progrenate, and they send a signal to the colon cells to produce this GLP-1.

The same thing that these expensive drugs are enhancing. So what the GLP-1 does, it lowers your appetite, it decreases the amount of gastric emptying, it makes you more insulin sensitive, it actually helps with diabetes. So I encourage people, and that's why I think when people start eating whole food plant, basically start shedding weight because it jacks up this GLP-1 naturally. What's really interesting, and this will blow your listener's mind, if you take

identical twins and you take a lean identical twin and you take an obese identical twin and you do a fecal transplant from the lean identical twin into a fat rodent. The fat rodent gets lean and vice versa and they've done that a hundred times and it always comes off as saying. So these gut bacteria really control a lot of your metabolism, they control your you know, your leptin, your Grolin, your GLP-1, your PYY and all of these

have an effect on weight loss. And I do quite a bit of weight loss counseling too. I have quite a few patients that I really, they just consult me to help them get their weight down. So that's another thing that I really do quite a bit of.

Sue (28:23.561)
Thank you.

Sue (28:30.005)
Wow, oh my goodness, so many incredible insights here. Now, what about sugar and fruit? Like, are there some fruits that are bad for you?

Dominic Brandy (28:37.67)
Oh, I eat tons of fruit. No, I think fruit, that's one of the biggest myths. What people don't understand is there's a big difference between refined carbohydrates and complex. In fact, my wife and I had a discussion about this. They really need to come up with a different word, refined carbohydrates, because people say, oh, carbs are bad. Actually, if you look at the longest lived cultures in the world, they eat about 80% of their diet complex carbs.

I mean, my diet's about 80% complex carbs. And that means whole grains. So when I eat, and whole grains are one of the healthiest foods you can eat. So I basically whole wheat bread, Ezekiel bread, brown rice, whole wheat pasta. So whole grains are quinoa. I mean, there's so many whole grains. So eating a lot of high fiber whole grain foods

like extremely important when you're in this battle and you're also really trying to lose weight. But as far as fruit, fruit has a lot of fiber. So when you eat it, the sugar is slowly released into the bloodstream, where if you eat a candy bar, you just get this huge glucose spike. So there's a big, big difference. And the other thing is fruit has hundreds of these phytochemicals.

For instance, an apple has over a thousand different phytochemicals in it. The other thing an apple has, it has over a hundred million different bacteria in it. So fruit actually have their own gut microbiome. So, and I think that's one of the other reasons when you eat a lot of different plant foods, the bacteria that are actually part of the plant microbiome get incorporated into your microbiome. So it becomes more diffuse, it becomes more diverse.

and it becomes more healthy. So it's, but fruit I eat. In fact, before I go to bed at night, I always eat some watermelon and pineapple, mainly because they are very alkalinizing also. And that's one thing I try to do with all of my cancer patients. I actually have them check their urine pH every morning. And I like their urine pH to be between like 6.5 to 7.5, because cancer really does not do well.

Dominic Brandy (30:58.77)
in an alkalinized microenvironment. So I really like their pH to be leaning more towards 7.45 than to be leaning towards 7.35. And I have studies in my book where they've actually shown in actual in vivo research studies that if the microenvironment of the cancer is more acidic, the cancer is more invasive, it tends to be much more metastatic. When it is more alkaline,

the cancer really struggles. It doesn't do well in that environment. And I always tell my cancer patients, listen, you want that cancer to be saying, I don't wanna be in this person. I wanna be somewhere else. Like, you know, I tell them, you wanna create the most hostile environment for this cancer. And there's a lot of different ways that you can do that. And that's my job is to coach them through that process.

Sue (31:54.785)
Wow. Oh my goodness. Dr. Brandy, so many incredible insights here. I just feel like I could pick your brain for hours. So I have a few more questions. Now, what about supplements and probiotics and things? Is there a brand, because I know, you know, you can just grab your multivitamin at the drugstore or whatever, but is there a brand that you can suggest or recommend that you prefer?

Dominic Brandy (32:04.14)
Okay.

Dominic Brandy (32:20.817)
What do you do after you have a remission? Well, what I do after I do my consultations with people that are either in remission or actively fighting cancer, I send them a list of supplements. I literally take about 30 different supplements and they're almost all herbal. Now, I don't expect the average person to do what I do. I'm like very type A and I can afford all of these supplements.

But what I do when I send a letter, I put four asterisks next to the ones I think are the most important. I put three on the ones that are less, two less, and then one the least important. And all of the supplements that I recommend you can get on Amazon. I basically go to consumerlab.com. That's really a great website to find what supplements are high quality and which ones aren't. So I look for ones that are the highest quality and are the least expensive.

And I don't hawk any supplements because I think when you do that, you automatically lose credibility. Like, you know, if I'm trying to sell you a supplement, then it looks like, hey, he's just trying to make money. And I don't do this, trust me, to make money. I just try to keep my website cone and just break even if I can. But I'm doing this as a really more of a passion project to help people go through the same thing that I'm going through. So, but that's what I do. The one, the three supplements that I really recommend every,

patient to do, even if you don't have cancer, is turmeric, bioperine, which is a black pepper extract that helps the turmeric get absorbed better. And then even though I am essentially vegan, I do recommend fish oil supplements that basically keep the inflammatory levels down. And also it helps the turmeric in the bioperine to actually be absorbed because they will not be absorbed without fat. So the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio is something I checked.

through my Quest biomarker testing that I do on my website. And I try to keep the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3, which that's a whole podcast you could do. I try to keep it at two to one. Most of the patients I check are like 10 to one, 20 to one, 15 to one. I mean, most Americans diets are like really pretty horrific. So when you supplement with the fish oil, I can almost always get them to two to one. Like mine, last time I had it checked, it was like 1.9 to one.

Dominic Brandy (34:41.63)
And that really, I'm 70 years old and I do not have a pain in my body. I tell that to, I went out with my friends the other day, my high school and college friends. I mean, I had knee replacements and everything. And I literally, when I wake up in the morning, I do not have one single pain in my body. I mean, my knees feel perfectly fine, my joints, you know. And a lot of it is keeping that omega-6 to omega-3 ratio at around 2 to 1. I mean, that really keeps all your inflammatory levels like very, very low in your body.

Sue (35:11.354)
And now as far as the turmeric, what form is the best form?

Dominic Brandy (35:16.682)
I always recommend, it's actually the cheapest form. It's more the root rather than the ones that are standardized and 95% curcumin. And the reason for that is this, there was a really good study that came out in one of the journals and they basically took turmeric, the root, which has over 300 of these phytochemicals that I was talking to you about, zingerone, tumorone, they compared that to just curcumin.

which everybody thinks that's the magic phytochemical. They basically applied that to seven different cancers. Every single cancer, the turmeric root, worked better than the curcumin. And the reason for that is these phytochemicals work synergistically. Like when you, and that's why I really encourage people to eat a variety of different foods, because these phytochemicals, when you, and there's a bunch of, I have actually,

two really good lectures on my website about the synergy of these phytochemicals. I mean, it's mind blowing the way when you combine foods, how the anti-cancer activity gets synergized. For instance, one study, it was against breast cancer cells. They applied a grape extract, it killed about 25% of the cancer cells. Then they applied an onion extract, it killed about 50%. Then they did a half-half.

solution. You figured that would kill maybe like 33% if you did a half-half. No, it killed 75%. So there's this synergy that happens when you really combine all of these different phytonutrients. That's why I recommend, the one I recommend now is Carlyle, that's the brand. It's like, I think it's nine cents per capsule. For cancer patients, I recommend taking four grams in the morning, four grams at night.

But if you're just trying to prevent, if you just do one capsule in the morning, one in the evening with a bioperine, which is the black pepper extract in the morning and the evening, and then maybe one fish oil in the morning and the evening, I think for prevention, that's just fine. But when you're battling cancer or you're in remission, you wanna stay there. It's a little bit of a different animal. I mean, you really wanna get more aggressive.

Sue (37:36.393)
Wow, oh my goodness, so many incredible insights here. You've just really kind of laid this all out for us. And so many.

Dominic Brandy (37:44.966)
Oh yeah, I mean, I've given some of these podcast interviews for three hours. I mean, I can go on forever because I've just accumulated so much knowledge over the years. And when I read, before I go to bed at night, I have to read before I go to bed. It just puts me to sleep. And when I read, I copy and paste. And then I have on my iPad, I have like a thing like facts that I want to keep in my head.

So I copy and paste and the next morning I put them onto my iPad. So I'm always accumulating data because, you know, I really need to communicate this with patients. But also when I do podcast interviews, I want to make sure I can provide a lot of good information for the listeners.

Sue (38:32.889)
Wow, you've provided so much amazing information. Now I have one last question for you. Organic versus non-organic. I mean, what are your thoughts on that?

Dominic Brandy (38:43.33)
I mean, I feel that if you can eat organic, you should do it. There's a website called ewg.org. And basically, they have the dirty dozen and the 15 clean vegetables that you could really the clean are the ones that you could eat conventional, not have any issues. But honestly, my opinion is if you can only afford

conventional, and conventional, because I think the benefits far outweigh any of the negatives because your body can really clean a lot of that out. And I do, there are certain things that I do recommend for detox. For instance, I recommend taking milk thistle, which helps the liver function. When you increase the cruciferous and the allium vegetables, they're sulfur containing. So they increase the, it's the glucose, like the glutathione transferase, which is a

important enzyme in your liver. But the three things after the glutathione transferase converts all of these bad chemicals into water soluble molecules, then it's basically when you eat more fiber, it's released through the stool. When you exercise and you sweat, you get it out through the sweat. And the other thing, my wife and I, we do an infrared sauna every night, 30 minutes. Right now we're watching the blacklist. So she gets in for 30 minutes.

put it on pause, she takes a shower, I get in for 30 minutes, but getting like sweating is really super important. So we do that every single evening and then drinking a lot of really purified water. And I do recommend people to use a water filter because you wouldn't believe all the toxins that are in tap water. I mean, it's mind blowing. So that's a really important part of it is even if you're eating conventional, you can really detox a lot of that just by doing some of the things I've just talked about.

Sue (40:39.889)
Oh my goodness, Dr. Brandy, so much food for thought here. No pun intended. Well, first of all, I just wanna say thank you so much for your time. I am so honored to have had this time with you and you've shared so much powerful information here for people and I would love to keep in touch with you. Circle back on your next book or whatever your next big passion project is. Have another conversation.

Dominic Brandy (40:44.731)
Oh yeah, sure.

Dominic Brandy (41:07.538)
Yeah, if you ever want to do another one, I have a lot more facts for you. Like even next week I'm doing one, I had done a podcast with a physician probably about two months ago and we were talking about the gut bacteria. And she was so fascinated by that next week. We're doing one just on the gut microbiome, like nothing else. So, so if you ever want to, you know, do something else, that's more kind of

Sue (41:12.919)
I'm sorry.

Dominic Brandy (41:35.498)
like more specific, I'll be more than glad to do that with you.

Sue (41:38.569)
I would love to do that. So again, thank you so much for your time. I am so honored and you've just been so incredibly insightful. Now in closing, if there were just one message, your hope for everyone out there, what is that closing message you wanna leave everybody with?

Dominic Brandy (41:57.526)
Well, I think the message is that if you can really get into a habit of making some even minor lifestyle changes, I think it can make an incredible difference in your whole quality of life. I think so many Americans nowadays are just eating such a crappy diet. And it really does have an effect on your weight. I mean, over 60% of the American population

is either overweight or obese. And really, when you have that kind of situation in a country, I mean, you're gonna have a lot of sick people that just don't feel good. They're gonna be prone to diabetes. In fact, 30% of the population is either diabetic or pre-diabetic. And those people are gonna have all kinds of issues, cardiovascular disease, blindness. I mean, it's just, so I would say, if each of your listeners could maybe

add a little bit more plants to their diet and lower a little bit of their animal products, I think they will notice a big difference in their health. So that would be the giveaway. And then exercise I think is extremely important. Just make that part of, if you can make it part of your daily routine because in my book I talk about the three lifestyle changes are really exercise, sleep, and stress reduction. And exercise is really the kingpin because when you're exercising,

you feel less stressed. And when you're exercising, you sleep better. So that's kind of the kingpin. So I would say add more plants, decrease the animal products, and try to exercise every day. That would be kind of the takeaway message that I would want to convey to your listeners.

Sue (43:43.409)
Wow, I love it. What a just powerful message to leave us with. You've been so awesome. Thank you so much.

Dominic Brandy (43:51.21)
Hey, it's my pleasure.

Sue (43:52.801)
Thank you.