The Truth About Detox and Cleansing

Detox programs are popping up everywhere, but what’s the best approach? Do you really need to chug charcoal?! Tina & Leah talk about what detox means from their perspectives. And while they agree on most of it, they each bring a different perspective on how detoxification, elimination, and cleansing should be defined. Tune in to learn more!

Harvard University takes on Detox
Objective Assessment of an Ionic Footbath (IonCleanse)
Tim Horton’s versus Tony Horton
Info on the Master Cleanse (a cleanse before cleanses were vogue)
Emunctories? What the heck are those?
A traditional naturopathic perspective on “toxemia” and “detoxification”
The Glymphatic System: A Beginner’s Guide (this is the lymph in your brain)
Scientists urge a more realistic take on the hundreds of chemicals we’re exposed to (Tiina’s article)
Infectious causes of cancer
Link to causes of various cancers.
Infections that can lead to cancer (ACS)
How Foods Directly Affect Detoxification Pathways (A scientific review paper.)
Common Carcinogens You Should Know (WebMD)
What is Phase 2 Detox?
What’s a femtosecond?

Transcript

Detoxing through your feet?

LEAH 0:00

It's all the rage

Tina 0:01

What's that?

LEAH 0:02

detox.

Tina 0:03

Ah, yeah.

LEAH 0:04

It's like the new, the new hip word.

Tina 0:07

It's the new old hip word because detoxification's been around in alternative circles for a very long time.

LEAH 0:13

Yeah. And it existed. It exists in Ayurveda. They call it cleansing though. That's the thing. I think it went from cleansing to detox and now detox. It's just a catchphrase. It's on everything.

Tina 0:23

Yeah. And it means different things in different contexts.

LEAH 0:26

means different things to you and me.

Tina 0:28

This is true.

LEAH 0:28

Yeah,

Tina 0:29

Yes. And each of our interpretations of the words you mean.

LEAH 0:32

yeah, yeah. So what's the weirdest detox that you've ever heard someone talk about?

Tina 0:36

You know, I think one of the weirder ones is those foot pads that people put on.

LEAH 0:41

That's what I was gonna say. I was gonna say foot baths. Yes. The foot pads are weirder.

Tina 0:47

Cause the foot pad. It becomes black because there's a chemical reaction with moisture from the feet. So that's why it turns black. The salt coming off the bottom of your feet makes this pad look black. And then you think you pulled toxins out your feet.

LEAH 1:02

That's so funny that we both think that those are weird. And I think we've mentioned this before cuz I vaguely recall me saying something about, isn't it a weird idea that all these quote unquote toxins are being dredged through your entire body, from the top of your head all the way down to the thickest skin in your body and then eliminate it into water. Like, that's just wild to me. Wild. So that, that's cool. Similar things are the weirdest thing. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Tina 1:32

Yes, we do agree on that point. Well, And it's just the salt from either your skin or in the foot bath when people do those foot baths. So will you take. Their feet. They put it in the bath. They add a salt to it, and then that water turns black.

LEAH 1:45

isn't there like a little metal? Some, there's some sort, some sort of little metal thing in the bath, I think too, that creates the ionizing, yada yada. But yes.

Tina 1:54

Either way, it's smoke and mirrors.

LEAH 1:56

smoke and mirrors.

Tina 1:58

I don't think they actually do anything,

LEAH 2:01

No. And there is, a study that was done by the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine that looks into, you know, the efficacy of those foot baths. so I'll stick the link in, uh, in the notes and folks can find it.

Tina 2:14

but there are real ways to detox and get rid of. There's A and P 90 x, the original version. Get rid of that gunk. That goo, that nasty garbage. That's what Tony says. Tony Horton P 90 x.

LEAH 2:26

Is he related to Tim Horton?

Tina 2:30

I don't know, I'm Dr Tina Kaczor and as Leah likes to say I'm the science-y one

LEAH 2:36

and I'm Dr Leah Sherman and on the cancer inside

Tina 2:39

And we're two naturopathic doctors who practice integrative cancer care

LEAH 2:44

But we're not your doctors

Tina 2:46

This is for education entertainment and informational purposes only

LEAH 2:50

do not apply any of this information without first speaking to your doctor

Tina 2:54

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast by the hosts and their guests are solely their own

Introduction

LEAH 3:00

Welcome to the cancer pod Hello Tina.

Tina 3:20

Hello, Leah?

LEAH 3:21

Today we're talking detox.

Tina 3:24

Yeah. It's a, it's kind of a trigger word for the, uh, conventional community. Conventional medical community finds the word detox to be very woowoo.

LEAH 3:34

I kind of, it's a trigger word for me, and I don't know if it's because most of the people who I see want to detox during treatment,

Tina 3:45

Oh.

LEAH 3:46

you know? And so, and then I also see a lot on social media. It's, it's like I said, kind of in the intro, it's a very, it's a very sexy word. It's like you, you pace detox on something. It's a detox smoothie, it's a detox, I don't know, whatever. You know, everything. This, it's detox water, you know, just, it's, I think it's something that, historically they were seen as cleanses.

Tina 4:11

Mm-hmm.

LEAH 4:12

I don't mean just like intestinal bowel cleanses, but like, like again, in Ayurveda there are very specific things to kind of cleanse and a lot of that is just eating certain foods is part of it and you know, but this has been going on for like thousands of years and we know at least through, you know, through school, I remember learning about cleanses, like seasonal cleanses, at the change of the seasons you do certain things, you eat certain foods, that kind of thing. So there is a very traditional medicine aspect,

Tina 4:42

Yes.

LEAH 4:43

but again, I see those as those cleanses.

Tina 4:47

Yeah. And maybe what's happened is the word has kind of spun out of control as far as marketing and detox

LEAH 4:53

Oh, absolutely.

Tina 4:55

so, so the concept might be valid to cleanse. The cells cleanse the body of, you know, chemical compounds or resetting the gut, the organisms in the gut. When you do a cleanse, the concept is valid, but the term itself is being misused and kind of like you said, slapped on everything.

LEAH 5:16

Yeah. And again, it's, yeah, it's super, super trendy. Don't you remember like that master cleanse that people were doing for quite some time and it was like lemon, it was like lemonade with maple syrup pretty much.

Tina 5:30

And some kind of something hot in it. I think like some, uh, hot pepper, cayenne, or,

LEAH 5:34

Oh yeah. Cayenne or something. But then I think part of it also was like, Um, drinking salt water, which just basically makes you have diarrhea. Like that was part of it too. But then I. As everything, like people will take part of it, so they'll take like the, the lemonade, maple syrup, cayenne part and not do the saltwater part because that's just too disruptive to their life. And I just think the whole thing was like woo, it was woowoo.

Tina 6:04

Yeah. You know, I think to myself any fast, which I would call that more of a fast cuz they weren't doing a lot of calories cuz even then it was, I think it was lemon water, not lemonade,

LEAH 6:14

Yeah. I know I call it lemonade, but it is like a lemonade made with maple syrup, but yeah, and it wasn't fast.

Tina 6:20

more. Yeah. It was closer to a fasting slash cleansing period than a what the be. But they did call it a detox. You're right. I mean they did. And here's, here's the thing. When you are not taking in calories, when you're not taking in anything, any period of fasting or, um, Cleansing can be considered a detox, I think cuz your body has to go into dump mode. It has to get rid of things because you're, you're, if you're, especially if you're losing fat cells, like let's just say your burning fat. As the cell shrinks it has less capacity to hold compounds. And so it by nature of just volume of the cell, it has to disperse what's inside it. And many of the chemical compounds and that we're concerned about are fat soluble. So they, they sit in our fat cells. So as our fat cells shrink outgo, some of those toxicants too.

LEAH 7:11

I think that this conversation could possibly be triggering to people if they have disordered eating.

Tina 7:17

Mm-hmm.

LEAH 7:18

Um, and I know that things like these cleanses and detox diets are definitely, triggering for those people. So just keep that in mind dear listener.

Tina 7:30

Yes. And that is why, I mean, especially in our profession, I mean, we do as naturopathic doctors, the people who seek us out are proactive. You know, as we, as far as, you know, in our private clinics anyways, they're proactive. They're coming to our door to find the right solution to their problem through food and supplements. And so sometimes we have, we actually bring in more people with what we now call orthorexia, right? So it's not anorexia, it's orthorexia, meaning they wanna do the right diet and, and do the perfect diet. And there is no perfect diet. Can we just put that out there? I mean, you can eat a really good diet, but there's, we're human beings and, there's a lot of latitude. In other words, you, you don't have to eat perfectly a hundred percent of the time. You can actually get away with a little bit of this or a little bit of that sometimes and be fine. That's not gonna change anything as far as disease process or longevity on the planet. So perfection is not the goal with diet.

LEAH 8:27

I mean, and, and pleasure is a huge part of it. Like these detox type diets, I mean, some of them involve a lot of vegetables, you know, fruits, that kind of thing, which could be pleasurable, but I don't know, it just, I don't know. again, I think a lot of it is because it gets clicks or likes or whatever on social media. I think that is a big part of it. And I think it's used so loosely cuz when a person hears something about detox back in the day, that meant like going to rehab, right? Drugs, alcohol, detoxification.

Tina 9:03

Right.

LEAH 9:03

Nowadays people talk about, oh, I'm gonna detox from social media, I'm gonna detox from caffeine, or you know, or Sugar detox. That's a huge one, right? Everybody writes books about. the sugar detox diet.

Tina 9:17

Yeah. Yeah. I guess that just means giving up sugar though, right? I mean, is that, is that what qualifies?

LEAH 9:23

are selling books. I know it should just be blank pages and in the very middle just say, stop eating sugar.

Tina 9:33

Yeah. You know, and we'll come back to this point, but really every day is a detox. Ultimately, that's how we live as naturopaths. We think of everyday as detox. I mean, that's just a lifestyle. It's not like a program. It's not, you don't sign up for it. It's not like a massive dumping, it's just everyday detox.

LEAH 9:48

our bodies naturally detox every single day. As long as you're taking in fluids and you're eliminating, you're urinating, you're pooping, um, you're sweating. All of that kind of stuff. I mean, that's how our body naturally eliminates. and I think that is something where people who get very, um, upset about the use of the word detox, what they're referring to is just your basic organs of elimination and make sure they're functioning. So if you're not pooping, you're not quote unquote detoxifying and you don't have to have diarrhea or purge or anything like that. Um, I guess purge would be the other direction, but still, like you don't have to have some extreme, just make sure that your body is moving, literally moving because movement helps your body to eliminate through sweat and through pooping big on the pooping.

Tina 10:49

I'm big on pooping.

LEAH 10:50

Poop, but not too much. It's like, um, yeah, it's like Michael Pollan, but about poop instead of like eat food, but not too much, you know, poop, but not too much. I dunno.

Tina 11:02

Well, you know, when I lived and worked in Tulsa, Oklahoma, You know, it was, it was pretty easy to talk to people who live close to the land and they would say, you know, moderation in all things, including moderation. That was what they would. say to me. I was like, okay, I'll buy that. Yeah. So what I'm thinking about is take formaldehyde for example, if you're around formaldehyde and it's in the air, you take precautions not to ingest more than your body can get rid of. If, for example, you put your hand in a bucket of kerosene or formaldehyde or some kind of chemical compound and it goes into your skin, your body's super smart, it will try to get rid of it. But if there's a lot of chemical in your bloodstream, this is why it socks it way into your fat cells, cuz it wants to get outta your bloodstream and away from your vital organs. So it will store. In an acute situation, if I can't get rid of the chemical compound fast enough, it'll store it. If it's a fat soluble compound, like those. So that's how I reason with people who have to work around chemicals. let's say it's their job or they have to use it to clean their farm equipment or something. take all the precautions you can. Don't breathe it in, don't get it in your skin. And if and when you are exposed, get it off of you as quickly as possible and make sure all of your elimination pathways are open, whether it's through your urine or your stool or even your breath. Cuz we breathe out some of the byproducts of chemicals, then it can leave, at will. If you're constipated and you're exposed, you'll have a higher, storage body burden.

LEAH 12:30

Yeah. And if you're not peeing, cuz you're not drinking water or fluids, you know, I mean all of that, our kidneys they're, they are a major organ of elimination.

Tina 12:40

Yes.

Naturopathic perspective on "detox"

LEAH 12:40

That's why we talk about drinking water and clean water, you know, ideally, um, because why put an extra burden on your body. Um, I guess one thing we should talk about is before we go on, we've mentioned this before in naturopathic medicine, and people tend to think naturopathic medicine and eastern medicine are the same thing. Naturopathic medicine originated in the west, um, really big in Germany back in the day. So this ancient, ancient, traditional medicine of naturopathy talked a lot about the emunctories,

Tina 13:16

Mm-hmm.

LEAH 13:17

which those are basically our organs of elimination.

Tina 13:22

Yes.

LEAH 13:22

And those include our skin, the kidneys, large intestine, liver, lungs. And then, When I was looking online, there was everything from five to seven organs of elimination, and so I did find that additionally people talked about lymphatic or the glymphatic system and then also a mitochondrial network for

Tina 13:45

Mm.

LEAH 13:46

detox. But I didn't delve into those cuz I was like, I just know what I know and I'm gonna stick with that.

Tina 13:50

Yeah.

LEAH 13:51

not learning anything new except from you.

Tina 13:55

I think the mitochondrial network is going a little beyond what people need to know for their own, day to day. I am super simple about this. You know, there's only a few ways into the body. You either swallow it, breathe it in, or absorb it through your skin. There's only a few ways outta the body. You poop it out, pee it out, sweat it out, or breathe it out and that's it. I mean, if, if you ingested it and it doesn't come out one of those four ways, it is now stored and storage equals body burden, what we call a body burden of toxicants. So I'm super simple in a pragmatic way, like avoid the ingestion and then encourage the elimination and in between. And that's what to me, detox is the in between point. If you ingested it and you need to break it down and eliminate it, that's detox to me is the, is the actual breakdown of the chemicals. I think of elimination as separate from detox. In my mind, I think detoxification as the actual breakdown process, whether that's in your liver or your small intestinal cells, it's the actual chemical biochemical. Procedure of taking something that's somewhat toxic, breaking it down in such a way to make it from, for example, taking it from fat soluble to water soluble so it can come out your kidneys. That to me is detox.

LEAH 15:13

Okay, so let's, let's take a break and when we come back we will talk about, can you or should you, safely detox, especially during treatment, cuz that's where I hear it the most.

Tina 15:23

All right. Let's do that.

LEAH 15:32

Okay, so we're back and Tina and I kind of have different views as to what we talk about in terms of detox. Um, I think I kinda lump it all together as detox and elimination is the same thing cuz I think the goals are the same. Um, I don't like the word detox especially when people talk about it during treatments. You know, you're getting all of these chemicals put into your body that are to reduce the burden of cancer, to eliminate the cancer and people, right? And they're like, when can I start my detox? When can I do the detox to get the chemo out of my body? I'm like, do you really wanna get the chemo out? I mean, you want the chemo to leave your body the way the chemo was designed to leave your body, but you don't really wanna speed that up.

Tina 16:17

That's true. That's true. That that is in the definition of detox. In my mind, that's what I'm talking about. Like you don't want to encourage detoxification of chemical compounds when you're in the midst of chemo because that might mean speeding up the metabolism of the drug. it's true for chemo. It's true for any other chemical compound you might ingest and need to get rid of in your body. It works, right? The things you do to detox actually do speed up these biochemical pathways in the liver to break down chemicals. And if that's the case during chemo, that defeats the purpose. You need to get a certain amount in circulation of the chemo and that small therapeutic window we call it, where if you don't hit that therapeutic window, if you're underdosed, you get a lot of the toxicity, but none of the benefit, if you blow through that therapeutic window and for some reason are overdosed with chemo, it can be highly consequential, including fatal if you get a high enough dose of chemotherapy. right? So that's, that's why we call it a therapeutic window. That's where the chemotherapy is effective. We don't wanna mess with that. So when the drug is having its effect to kill cancer cells, we don't mess with any detoxification pathways. I think that's really important.

LEAH 17:23

But you're supporting them. I mean, this is why there's the recommendation to drink a certain amount of water. You don't wanna have too much water because you may then set off an electrolyte imbalance, which then would be a really bad thing Um, but, you know, you wanna make sure that you're, you're flushing this through, that you're having regular bowel movements, not too much. Cuz again, you don't wanna, you know, have that risk of dehydration, through, you know, having diarrhea. But you don't wanna hold all of that, in. I think it's also a reason why I. Love for patients to, talk with the dieticians and talk about eating more nutritious foods, less foods that are fried or processed, because that puts a burden on your digestive system. so when possible, you know, try to eat as much in terms of, you know, whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, and less fried heavy foods because your, your body is really focusing on, okay, all this stuff's coming at me. Like you don't wanna add more to it. You know, eliminating alcohol during that period. Um, anything you can do to be kind to your body

Tina 18:38

Yeah, and that, that's a really good point because on any given day, chemotherapy aside, 25 to 30% of our calories is used just for digestive processes. So we use a lot of energy for digestion. And so the more you burden the body with excess fat, excess fried food, excess crappy food, the more you're you're creating more of a burden, and your body's very busy during chemotherapy. Already all the time trying to recover from the collateral damage of the chemotherapy. So you're constantly trying to make new red cells and white cells. You're constantly trying to fix your GI tract lining. whatever damage is is happening from the chemo your body is trying to bounce back all the time cuz that's what it does come back to homeostasis. But yeah, that's a really good point to eat nutritional, high nutritional foods to support all of the repair that takes place during that time and not really push any detox at all because it's gonna defeat the purpose unfortunately your job is to be toxic for a limited amount of time during chemotherapy. I do have people dance in and in and out of the chemo so, so talking to the oncologist and saying, so how long is this chemo supposed to be working in my body? Some drugs are very fast cuz their half-life is very short and so they're done killing cancer cells at least theoretically within. A few hours to a few days, and other drugs are really long lasting and can last for weeks. And so finding that out for your oncologist can also be helpful sometimes I will, if there's, you know, three weeks between treatments that last weeks and sometimes we can do a little detox and a little bit of dumping and a little bit of support and cleansing, in the sense of old fashioned cleanses, just to prepare for the next, round of chemo.

LEAH 20:20

you know, I know that there are probably people out there thinking like, well, when I'm. After my treatment. I don't feel like eating healthy, you know, I want comfort foods and that sort of thing. And I'm the kind of person where when I'm nauseated, the things that help me are like, I will eat french fries fried foods I used to get, I used to get, seasick when going fishing on a, you know, on a boat. And the only thing that would help me was eating fried chicken while on the boat while fishing. So, I mean, I get it that like, not everyone's gonna, you know, be able to eat perfect all the time, but, but definitely, you know, just trying to incorporate as much, you know, like maybe if you have your fries, you know, try to eat some fruit like pineapple or cherries or something that's, you know, a little bit nutritious. It's got a little bit of water in it, you know? you don't have to go full on green smoothie type thing. I mean, that's not necessarily what, I would recommend for people, but. There is a balance. Um, another really important part of when I make my recommendations to patients. If they talk about wanting to detox again, make sure that, I peeing, pooping, and moving. Exercise is ideally to bring up a little bit of a sweat, but just that movement in itself is so helpful.

Tina 21:42

Yeah. Yeah, because it's, when you do move, when there is movement, you are actually pushing the blood throughout your entire system more frequently, I think it's like five times faster, like the amount of blood that goes through your kidneys, for example, can be five times more if you're moving compared to when you're sedentary, which means that it gets filtered five times. It's like running something through a filter several times. You know? It's kinda like when you buy vodka it that's filtered seven times or filtered four times. Yeah. The better vodka is seven times. Just for the record.

LEAH 22:13

Things that I did not know I thought you were gonna talk about. You know, like when you rinse out fruits and vegetables, you're supposed to rinse it three times.

Breath Work as detox

Tina 22:20

No, I'm, I'm all about the, I'm all about fermentation and distilling and, you know, cultures and, yeah. Anyway,

LEAH 22:27

So you mentioned breath also, and that is another recommendation I make for patients, um, is using breath work, which can help with anxiety and nausea, but it's also part of that just like using your lungs when we're stressed out, we don't breathe as deeply. treatment, whether it's, you know, chemo, surgery, radiation, all of that is stressful

Tina 22:50

you know what's interesting? Whenever we talk about breathing, I take a deep breath. Does everyone do that?

LEAH 22:56

let's all take a deep breath together in through your nose and then out through your mouth. Ah,

Tina 23:04

It's like when people talk about posture and you start to sit

LEAH 23:06

you do sit up straight. You do, definitely. So, um, yeah, so, so my thoughts when somebody comes to me, Wanting to detox. Maybe they have some supplements, you know, they wanna take, I usually ask them to put those aside and let's focus on the things you know, the food, the fluid, the movement, the breath, and also focusing on trying not to take in so much sugar and alcohol, um, anything that's gonna stress out that liver. And then, you know, obviously like over the counter medications and all of that kind of stuff. This, anything that can, can strain the liver and then includes some supplements.

Tina 23:49

Mm-hmm. Like what?

LEAH 23:51

Oh, high dose vitamins,

Tina 23:53

Hmm. Okay.

LEAH 23:54

you know, high dose multivitamins and. Or, or those, like, I always think of like those proprietary blend type formulas that have just like a whole bunch of stuff in it.

Tina 24:05

Yeah. my feeling of some of those that are super complicated and have like a hundred different ingredients, all of them are probably good, but there's a smidge of everything in there. I'm always wondering if that's just, you know, if that is an easy way to slip something else in there under the guise of all those ingredients, and then just slip a little bit of, I don't know, ibuprofen

LEAH 24:25

Yeah. This really helps with my joint pain. And it's got like, you know, 140 different ingredients and you're like, but there's really nothing like molecularly, like, you know, there's nothing left of And yeah, and it's like, oh no, it's actually the, you know, The Prednisone that's in there.

Tina 24:43

You know, unfortunately, the reason that this is on my mind, is it's happened before and it's happened in several different supplements. A lot of different supplements, but that eventually became really popular. The, the famous one in the start of my career was PC Spz. PC Spz was a prostate formula that really did work for prostate cancer. Come to find out it was being laced with some drugs. It looked like an herbal formula on the label, but the company, it was made in another country. The company was, Slipping some steroids and some estrogen in there. And it was, it was working, It did have the plants in it as well, but it did have drugs in it.

LEAH 25:17

Yeah, but with like the detox formula, supplements that I have had patients bring in, they're often herbs that address kidney function and that address elimination, like through the colon. So you'll get a lot of psyllium. Um, maybe there'll be some black walnut in there. You've maybe got some, I'm trying to think of what are some kidney herbs? Um, you might have some dandelion, right? I mean, but they'll have all of these, all of these ingredients will be put in these capsules and I mean, it's just making you poop and pee, which can also be accomplished through your diet. Black Walnut is a real popular detox one because it's anti-parasitic and, um, yeah, we're not even getting into like the whole like detox parasites,

Tina 26:09

I was thinking of chemicals specifically, but you're right, detox is used for parasitic cleanses out there.

How constipation harms you

LEAH 26:15

but like these are in these formulas whether it's a tea or a shake or whatever, you know, or a capsule that, that people are taking.

Tina 26:23

whatever you're dumping, so, so we dump into the small intestine from our bile acids and they dump in the small intestine. We sometimes reabsorb what's in there, especially if there's constipation. So what constipation does and why we're so. Vehement about, daily bowel movements. Even when people tell me they're adults and they're like, but I've never gone every day. Well, doesn't mean we can't change that somehow. Like I'll work really hard with those folks. It's very difficult if someone has never gone every day to suddenly start, going every day at 40 years old. But we work on it. And the reason we do this Is constipation means that things in the small intestine that should be making their way out through the colon and out through the stool are reabsorbed. So there is recirculation, and if things sit in too long in the small intestine, they will be reabsorbed into the bloodstream, back to the liver, and sent out back into circulation. And if the body is doing that again, it'll hit that threshold where there's too much of certain compounds in the bloodstream and then it has to sock it away. And now you add to the body burden. So constipation can directly add to body burden of chemical compounds simply by. Hitting that threshold where the body says, Nope. Yep. I tried to get rid of it, but since there's so much in circulation, we're gonna have to, we're gonna have to sock this away and protect our vital oh, just because this is the only time we're gonna mention parasites. I just wanna say one thing in my mind, and I say, this every, I dunno, few, every, every 10th episode or so, really there's, three things that stimulate cancer In a lab, like when we wanna give cancer to lab animals, and it's either radiation, like large doses of radiation, especially gamma x-rays. Chemical compounds. So all those carcinogens, which we know fairly well and organisms, so there's various organisms that can cause cancer. And the World Health Organization does have an official list a list per cancer of, of what we think is implicated in causing that cancer. So some cancers have a lot of implications for chemical compounds. Other cancers have parasites like bladder cancer has a certain parasite that can be, involved in it. So there's, there is an official list

LEAH 28:32

In the US.

Tina 28:33

in the world. Yeah.

LEAH 28:35

Okay. I wasn't sure if it was just like more specific to certain regions.

Tina 28:40

Yeah. It's more endemic to certain regions. That's true. But it's possible anywhere. So they, they just have a list of viruses for lymphomas or chemical compounds involved in lymphomas or, Um, you know, HPV and cervical cancer. That's a viral cause of cervical cancer. HPV is now implicated in head and neck cancers, squamous cell carcinomas of all sorts of organ systems. So I'll put a link to it cuz I, I do use this to help, prioritize what we need to work on with a patient. I go through the list with a lot of patients and say, any of this look like it could possibly be something you, you were highly exposed to. And there have been occasions it's not common, but yeah, sure enough, I mean, I've, I've had people with gallbladder cancer who were exposed to the very fluke that is involved with that So it's something to consider. I'll put a link to that in our notes. On the carcinogen side. I wanna say one other thing that this is, this bumps up against conventional thought processes. They'll often say the cancer wasn't due to carcinogen because there's no major exposure to any known carcinogen. Like for example, arsenic. Arsenic is a carcinogen, but very few people are gonna say, oh, my cancer was caused by arsenic. Unless they had some occupation that had high levels or their Well, water had really high levels. Um, at least in the United States, it doesn't happen very often. What we're concerned about now is the hundreds of carcinogens in our environment that we're exposed to all at once because this is the real world Right now I'm in Portland, Oregon. I walk out and I suck in the fumes of the industrial area of Portland, which is just north of where I live. And I know that I'm probably. Breathing in a couple dozen different chemical solvents. Right. I can sometimes, I can even smell it. The, the point is the combination of low levels of many carcinogens, together is not well studied, and that's probably more realistic of what's at least adding to some of the burden in westernized nations.

LEAH 30:38

Well, and you know, pfas, pfas, pfas, that's in the news. P F A S and those are those forever chemicals that are found in fire retardant, clothing and, Teflon pans. And these have been shown to be carcinogenic.

Tina 30:57

Yeah. Yeah. There was, you know, there's a paper called The Hallmarks of Cancer, and all it is is the characteristics. Of all cancers, cancerous tumors, cancerous in general. And gosh, it's a long time ago now, but I wrote up a summary on a paper that was a consortium of scientists that said, here's how many carcinogens can come together and basically affect all of these different hallmarks. And this is a hallmark of cancer is like the tendency to be angiogenic or make new blood vessels, the tendency to be immortal for those cells not to die.

LEAH 31:30

So I thought you meant like immortal, like the tendency for us to be immortal cuz that would be badass.

Clean air, water and food.

Tina 31:35

No, no, that's not possible. Cancer or no cancer. Um, but all of the characteristic traits are called the hallmarks of cancer. And this is kind of a classic paper that was done in 2000 and updated in 2012, and again, updated more recently. But in any case, carcinogens can act on all of the various different hallmarks and a low level of many carcinogens at once may. Be implicated in cancer, but it's so poorly studied right now that a consortium of scientists is trying to push this agenda, but it's not happening. Cuz generally speaking, we think of one chemical compound like arsenic as being the culprit. But that's not realistic. It's not probably how it really happens. So on that note, I wanna say that the lungs probably our most vulnerable area of exposure to things like that when we're talking. I don't care if you're pumping fuel into your car, the difference between sucking in the fumes and getting it on your hand is dramatic in my mind. The lungs are the fastest route to your bloodstream. You breathe it in. There is very little between this room air and our circulation at this moment. Like, like a cell. There's just a cell It's an ate with very little between the room air, the ambient air, and your actual bloodstream. So it goes zoom right in your skin, at least has a little, you have, you know, An epidermal layer. You have the dermal layer, you have subcutaneous fat layer. You know, it's, it's a little bit harder to get,

LEAH 33:04

It's more of an effort.

Tina 33:06

it's just less surface area too. I mean, your lungs are, if you splayed out the size of the lungs, if you just splayed it out as a single surface, it's about the area of a tennis court. So imagine on a tennis court in the air, like just take a tennis court, like something that large and you have air on one side and your blood on the other, and every breath you take just permeates that. I mean, you just think of the concept of the surface area alone and, and how it's designed to absorb what you inhale. That's its reason for being. So, you can see how I harp on clean air over clean water and organic food. I think clean air is our most important ingestion. You know, air is more important than, than the others.

LEAH 33:45

I think clean water is equally because you can have. industrial byproducts, you can have farming byproducts, you know, things like lead. I mean, I water is, I think, think water and air. I'm gonna go with both of those because you know, your air is clean, but you're drinking in the toxins, I mean,

Tina 34:01

yeah, I guess I always think of the, the lining of the gut being more, more protection because it's, it's we're, we swallow so many odd things in our lives and it's kind of, it's ready for the outside world. As in a defense immune cells are there. They're like, what the hell's that? What did you just swallow? and fortunately, I don't know if this is common knowledge or not, but most of what we swallow when it goes, you know, it takes a pit stop in our stomach. It stays there for a little bit and then goes right through. How long it stays there depends on what you just put in your mouth. but most things go right to the liver. You absorb it, and pretty quickly to the liver. So this is why we harp on liver support too, just in the grand scheme of detox.

LEAH 34:46

or just being kind to your liver. Yeah. Cuz there are the two phases of liver, detoxification. Okay. We've been talking a lot.

The liver's involvement

Tina 34:52

So let's, let's do this. You bring up the two phases of detoxification in the liver. Let's talk about that after the break All right. When I think of detox, I really harp on how the liver takes compounds and helps us eliminate them. So it helps package them up in detoxification pathways, which we often refer to as phase one and phase two detoxification. So you and I have talked on this podcast many times about cytochrome P four 50 s, which is a mouthful,

LEAH 35:30

Because of potential for interactions with medications. Yeah. Through those, those pathways. Yep.

Tina 35:37

and these are well known pathways. These cytochrome P four 50 s and pharmacists keep their eye on it like this is what they use. When you look up the pharmacokinetics of a drug, this is what they're talking about. They're often talk about the cytochrome P four 50 pathways, how the drug is broken down. Or metabolized in those pathways. And then if it's eliminated and when it's eliminated, often that involves phase two as well.

LEAH 36:02

And there can be drug interactions with the phase two as well.

Tina 36:06

and phase two is long story short. Phase two is basically taking something that is highly reactive, often fat soluble, and making it water soluble. and the compounds are, are given a group, like another compound is attached to it that makes it water soluble. So you can now urinate it out. And a, in a lot of cases, that's the majority of the cases. The one thing that, sticks in my mind is right between the two phases is you can take a compound and some of these compounds that we call carcinogens aren't carcinogens until they go through phase one. Interestingly, there's a small opportunity right there where. If something goes through phase one, but someone's phase two detoxification pathway is not good. It's not efficient. They don't have the nutrients, they don't have the amino acids, they need to make it happen. If they don't have phase two, it's actually you can take a compound that is more toxic after phase one if you, if it doesn't go through phase two. So emphasis in my mind is always on phase two to make sure that if that intermediate, that little compound between phase one and phase two, that's there for, uh, well, whatever, a nanosecond, a picosecond, uh, femtosecond

LEAH 37:16

Oh, wait a second.

Tina 37:17

femto, F E M T O, femto second. anyways, a really short time. if that intermediate that's there for a super short amount of time does accumulate. That's highly carcinogenic That is where many carcinogens are derived right there at that path. If it's not gotten rid of, and so any blockage of phase two detoxification pathway it, it can have consequences in increasing your carcinogenic load.

LEAH 37:45

I'm sure I had a mnemonic when I was in school for that. But I think of things like, you know, sulfation, glucuronidation, those are the kinds of terms that, um, where you're taking something like you're saying that's water soluble and conjugating it, you're putting it together with whatever just came through the phase one, pathway. So, yeah. And then that makes it less toxic in your body and easier to. Eliminate. and I think of, you know, different foods, like that's where I really like people to be eating certain foods to help, to encourage that. I think of fruits and vegetables to support that, that pathway, you know, the cruciferous vegetables are the big one because that's the, the sulfur compound, but it's not like everything needs only sulfur compounds. You also need things from citrus fruits and from apples and, you know, what the, what nots, beans, that kind of thing, you know?

Tina 38:42

So this is the complexity of nutrition, right? So as long as you're getting some sulfur compounds. So that could be from anything that you cook that smells sulfurs, it could be cabbage, it could be broccoli, it could be Brussels sprouts, right? You can smell that sulfur, you know, you're getting it. There's also amino acids like glycine is involved. Um, Glutathione, that's a big one that people talk about. And glutathione is involved in phase two, and it's also involved within cells like the inside of the cell to get rid of free radicals. These damaging free radicals that. That can harm and damage fatty acids inside a cell. So glutathione support is important, but I don't recommend people take glutathione just for the record.

Glutathione and plant pigments

LEAH 39:26

I was just gonna say that. Yeah, I mean there are, there are a lot of different, foods that. Support the upregulation of, of glutathione, so glutathione can be, supported upregulated by eating foods that contain those sulfur compounds like, onions, garlic, shallots, and then those cruciferous vegetables. So it's not like somebody necessarily, you know, would take. A supplement, by eating certain foods you can support it.

Tina 39:57

And glutathione is made within the cells. So when you say up-regulate, it means, just to translate that When you up-regulate glutathione production, you're actually affecting the D n A within cells such that the DNA n a then makes glutathione. And in doing so, you can target that. You can up-regulate that with anything that has polyphenols. It's called the antioxidant response element, a r e.

LEAH 40:26

Wait, you have to, you have to say what polyphenols are.

Tina 40:28

polyphenols is a huge class of compounds and that you might recognize some of them. Anthocyanins are polyphenols,

LEAH 40:36

Okay. So anthocyanins like found in dark, colorful berries.

Tina 40:40

right? That's the pigment in the dark color berries, flavonoids like isoflavones and all of these flavonols flavonoids,

LEAH 40:50

found in soy

Tina 40:52

right. Soy is classic. polyphenols is a very large category with all of these subcategories under it. The flavonoids in the anthocyanins,

LEAH 41:03

right. I think of green tea is another big one.

Why you shouldn't juice during some treatments

Tina 41:05

right? A G, C, G, And green tea. So all of them, to some extent, will. Trigger the antioxidant response element on the DNA and antioxidant response element is what is responsible for then turning on or upregulating the production of glutathione along with other antioxidant enzyme systems within the cell. So when you do juice, if someone takes out their Vitamix and they throw in some kale and some mango and some berries, and you drink that eight ounces of that, what you're doing essentially is increasing not only your nutrient intake and two detoxification pathways in general, but you're also increasing antioxidant enzyme systems within cells in glutathione. One of those antioxidant enzymes, s o d, superoxide dismutase is another one. Um, cattle ace is another one. So you are through food. Affecting the production of antioxidants within cells, which is where you want them to have their action. So we don't need them in the bloodstream so much. We need them inside the cells. And sometimes when I'm thinking about food, I think how does that food affect cellular health? And in this case, I think this is why we, when we do a cleanse, when we support detox, in my mind, what we're doing with fresh fruits and vegetables and all these polyphenols from nature is that we're supporting both the packaging and, solubility of chemical compounds as well as antioxidant systems within cells at the same time, that's what detox is in my mind.

LEAH 42:40

And you are pretty adamant about people not doing things like juicing during certain treatments.

Tina 42:48

Radiation for one. Cause radiation is always oxidative. It's the only way it works. Chemo, some of them are oxidative, some of them aren't. But radiation a hundred percent of the time, that is its reason for killing cells. It creates super oxides and that is how it's stresses out the cells enough for them to die. And if you step in the way of that, I don't see how or why that makes any rational sense. And there's no studies to say that it's safe. So I, I would avoid it cuz it doesn't make sense and there's no studies, to, uh, override logic in this case.

LEAH 43:21

And I've had some patients who they wanna take certain supplements, whether it's a, a detox formula or just a combination product, and there will be ingredients that are protective against radiation. And so that's a, that's kind of a, a no-no thing, because in a way you would be detoxifying. It's a big air quotes, detoxifying, you know, the effect of the radiation. So yeah.

Tina 43:47

I feel like whenever you choose a path, you go all in. Right? So if you choose to do radiation, don't undo. It's very mechanism of action. And that's true of chemo too. You choose to do chemo, then don't undo its mechanism. Even in theory, I mean, you're going through it. There's no reason to do anything. But what can help it? Compliment it. Help your side effects. Sure. But do it safely. And I don't think that juicing through radiation or, or. Doing any kind of high concentration, even if it's a dehydrated combination, like a powder during radiation, I think that they even, that was too much. I mean, food is fine. Eat, well have soup, have your veggies, but you can juice so much more than you can possibly eat. You're not gonna eat the amount of vegetables in one sitting that you can juice.

LEAH 44:34

And we usually don't recommend more just because you want the patient to get protein and other nutrients, but it's usually, you know, don't do more than four to six ounces and don't do one of those big 20 ounce, 32 ounce cups of juice. Um, it could be part of a diet, but it doesn't need to be your entire diet, during treatment. so just being cautious with not doing detox cleanses during treatment. if you're taking something long-term, you know, know how that drug is metabolized. if you're taking it every single day, there's no period to say, oh, this is the, the half-life of the drug I'm gonna take. I'm gonna do, you know, my. Detox, elimination support, whatever you call it, during that period of time.

Tina 45:23

Yeah. Yeah, that is, that is a caveat cuz I was talking about going between and kind of dancing around chemo when it's given every three or four weeks or something, or even two or three weeks usually. Um, but yeah, some people are on a, you know, a daily oral medication that they, they are not going to be able to dance around. Yeah.

LEAH 45:42

so that is, you know, my number one concern when speaking to patients who wanna do something that's detoxifying. That's why I really encourage the food and the hydration, the exercise, and then the breath work. Again mentioned earlier, we talked about, you know, there's always a possible risk of dehydration. If somebody is doing herbs that really promote bowel movements, you don't wanna turn it into diarrhea, especially with going through treatment that also might potentially increase that risk. And I'm also trying to save patients money and not wanting them to spend a lot of money on products that are like, oh, well this is gonna help to promote detoxification. I mean, that's, I, I don't necessarily see that as a need during treatment at all.

Tina 46:33

Yeah. And during treatment, like I said, I, I, I lay low a little bit during treatment on the whole thing. Um, some of my patients really, really wanna get, you know, back to baseline and those folks I'll try to work with to dance around the conventional treatment and, you know, do what we can specifically for them. But a lot of times treatment is the time of some latitude. Like, go ahead and have some comfort food. You know, get all. your nutrients in And once you get all your nutrients, add to that comfort foods and stuff. So it's, there's, there's more latitude during that time. Cause I always tell them afterwards I, we're gonna be more strict. I'm gonna want you to control your blood sugar and I'm gonna want you to eat really well. And hopefully if you can afford it organically and, filter your water and really for prevention of recurrence, if someone does have no evidence of disease at the end, then I think I ask more of the patient after treatment than I do during treatment in general.

LEAH 47:27

And that's the other category of patients who, when treatment is done, they might see you at the one month follow up after the end of their, their chemotherapy, and they're like, okay, it's, I'm a month out. Or it's their last visit, maybe it's their last visit, their last treatment, and they're like, okay, I'm gonna start this detox plan. And even then I'm like, well, what do you, you know, what, what are your intentions? Because some of those treatments continue working and you don't want to, to mess with any of that.

Chelation

Tina 48:02

Yeah. When you say that. what, what comes top of mind for me is, platinum based agents, cisplatin, carboplatin more than Oxaliplatin. Um, but they're often used in ovarian cancer, for example. I've always been reticent. To help people pull the platinum out of their body. There is residual platinum. I mean, there's plenty of people who have tested heavy metal testing of the urine and you can see the platinum coming out for sometimes years after treatment. What we don't know is if this is in any way associated with durable remission, right? What is the platinum doing? Is it a problem at that point or is it actually okay to have some residual? Is it doing something therapeutically? Honestly, that is a big fat question mark and because it's a question mark, I'm, like I said, reticent to pull it out because there's no proof of harm and I don't know if it's helpful. So I, I actually advise against just pulling out all the platinum, just cuz it's there. That's, that's a case that's top of mind. I don't, I won't, I will not recommend chelation for those folks.

LEAH 49:09

Oh wow. You mentioned chelation. That was the first time you mentioned it. Yeah. That would be like, way too much for this, this episode.

Tina 49:16

Yes, it's just a fancy term for binding a metal, though. Chelation itself is just a fancy term to say the platinum is being bound by something and carried

LEAH 49:25

Right, right. But that, yeah, that, that opens up a whole nother episode. possibly.

Tina 49:30

Just more jargon.

LEAH 49:32

Well, and because there are also are supplements that people can obtain that talk about chelating.

Tina 49:37

Clay.

LEAH 49:38

Or clay or charcoal. Charcoal's a big one. These days they're putting charcoal in everything

Tina 49:45

Yeah. So, so they all absorb things in the gut though. They're not going into your body and coming back out. Right. So we have to remember that the gut is a glorified tube and that absorbing things within the gut is doable with clay in these compounds. But that's where it's having its action. So if it's, if it's sock away in your cells, It's not really cleansing or detoxing you cuz you've already put it in storage. It's not in your gut anymore if your exposures are from years ago.

LEAH 50:12

so, you know, products like charcoal and clay, if you are taking an oral medication, they bind to it in the gut and reduce efficacy. So even those types of things, um, a lot of caution around that.

Saunas

Tina 50:27

yeah. You know when you use the word binder, just remember to Yeah. knowing when you're taking a binder is important in natural medicine because you don't take medications alongside anything that binds things because you could bind the drug and then you're not observing it. So yeah, that's a really good, good thing to put out there. Cuz I don't think everyone knows when they're taking a binding agent. I.

LEAH 50:47

For Another caution in my mind is, you know, people wanna do like sauna type detoxes and really sweat it out during treatment. And that I also discourage because there are certain, that you are given for certain chemotherapy regimens that can, create rashes.

Tina 51:09

Yes.

LEAH 51:09

if you're pushing more of the drug out through your skin, is that gonna create more of a skin side effect?

Tina 51:15

Interesting. Yeah, And well, as you know, there's certain drugs that they specifically tell you don't heat yourself

LEAH 51:20

Yeah, absolutely.

Take-home point

Tina 51:22

even if that is something that you're like, oh, this is the one thing that brings me comfort. Um, make sure you ask about that. There's some drugs that it's not advised to take a hot shower, let alone as sauna. So I, I, I feel like we need a take home point. My thought is this, cause we've talked about, you know, the, the dangers of detox, but I really do after treatment, think about how to detox people as in how to get them healthier. So I don't think of it as detox as much as I think of it as nourishment and organ recovery. So if they had a treatment that was harmful to, or could be harmful to their heart, I will do things like herbal treatments that are good for the heart. You know, I'll do tine and carnitine and B vitamins and Hawthorne and just keep doing tonics for whatever systems took a bit of a hit from the collateral damage. If it was radiation, then I may actually stress the antioxidant thing and do a cleanse more than a detox so much. Detox to me implies that we're getting rid of chemical compounds. And I'm thinking more about like, how do we support the organ systems that took a hit. So if it's the liver, I might do milk thistle again. Tine can be nice. if it's the kidneys, milk thistle again ginkgo hydrangea, there's all sorts of good plants that we can think about to tonify organ systems and, and then nutrients that are used by those organ systems. And all the time foundationally, making sure people get enough nutrients, amino acids, colorful fruits and vegetables. High plant diet in the background of whatever our other specifics are. But for recovery, I think in terms of what organ systems do, we have to make sure don't have any problems in the near and distant future for this person. How do we make their, and of course at the same time taking into account any symptoms the patient is having at that time. So we address that too. So I think of it more nourishing than detox though, I think of building up, not cleaning out.

LEAH 53:17

I think that's a really good point to end on is building up not clean. And that's kind of what I like to encourage during treatment as well, You're trying to nourish as the treatment is, you know, assaulting,

Tina 53:30

Yeah.

LEAH 53:31

assaulting your body. You wanna do things not necessarily to further stress your body.

Tina 53:38

Yeah. And the default desire of the body is to detox. again, every day is a detox, as long as you limit the incoming, so you don't ingest in any of those three ways, whether you swallow it, absorb it through your skin, or breathe it in. If you limit the incoming. Maximize all of your nutrients in the background, support, whatever organ systems might be either damaged or weakened because that is a weak organ in your family. Right? Whatever it is. It's something heritable too. The body wants to get rid of things. It doesn't want to put things into storage. And so as long as you keep elimination open and support the body in an everyday detox kind of way. I think that's actually the name of a book of a recipe book called Everyday Detox, and it was actually a decent book,

LEAH 54:22

We'll have to look into it.

Tina 54:24

but as long as you do that, yeah, as long as you do that, um, over time you drip, drip, drip cleaner and cleaner. You know, your body burden goes down over time and things that are locked away, whether it's heavy metals or anything else that's locked away in your cells, you have to be very conscious about when you mobilize them into your circulation and eliminate them. You need to do that very consciously and make sure you do it safely because mobilization. Requires elimination. You don't wanna mobilize something and then just have it get stored somewhere else. Right. So that's, this is a big talk in the heavy metal circles of if you mobilize the heavy metals, you better be getting rid of'em, whether that's through your stool or your urine or else they're just gonna displace to another fatty tissue in your body. And the brain's mostly fat, So, we have to be careful of that.

LEAH 55:07

So, um, Tina,

Tina 55:09

Yes.

LEAH 55:10

I have an unofficial theme song. We haven't done it in a really long time, but I have one for this episode.

Tina 55:15

Really. Did it just come to mind or did you actually

LEAH 55:19

I thought of it before when I was, when I was putting together our little grid. Can you take any guesses?

Tina 55:26

talking about detoxification? No,

LEAH 55:29

Oh, that's pretty good. Oh, look at you. I know we need to get all like weird Al and start doing our own little songs. No, it's Brittany Bitch Toxic.

Tina 55:42

Oh. Can we play it right now?

LEAH 55:46

I totally was like typing up this little grid here and I was singing Brittany in my head. Yeah, so Brittany, Brittany Spears Toxic. That's our unofficial theme song. I will put that on our Spotify playlist for y'all to check out. It's been a really long time since I have come up with a song. I don't know why.

Tina 56:05

Can I, can I do my Brittany impression then?

LEAH 56:07

yeah. Dear Brittany. Yeah.

Tina 56:09

Im toxic. You are slipping under.

LEAH 56:12

Nice. Yay applause.

Tina 56:15

I know, the words cuz I kind am a Britney fan.

Wrap up - follow us!

LEAH 56:17

I know, that's why I was like, is she gonna get it? No, I knew that you were a Britney fan. so yeah, check out our Spotify list. We'll put a link in the show notes. As always, leave us a review. Give us a rating. Subscribe, follow whatever. Streaming device. Streaming app. You listen to us, you know, all the bells and whistles.

Tina 56:46

Yeah, and send it off to a friend who you think might derive some benefit and we'll put some nice links in our show notes, right, so that people can find more information on this. You found a nice foods that help with supporting detoxification. And

LEAH 56:58

Yeah. We'll have, we'll have some links out there for, for y'all.

Tina 57:01

that's it. Thanks. Thanks for making it to the end.

LEAH 57:03

You're welcome. Thank you, Tina, for making it to the end.

Tina 57:08

No, it's a listener.

LEAH 57:11

Oh, on that note, I'm Dr. Leia Sherman,

Tina 57:13

And I'm Dr. Tina Caer,

LEAH 57:15

and this is the Cancer Pod.

Tina 57:16

until next time.

57:17

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. Lea Sherman. And by Dr. Tina Caer music is by Kevin McLeod. See you next time.