Patients are Individuals

Episode #85 of Metabolic Wellbeing Without the BS is now live — and this is a conversation that challenges many of the assumptions surrounding chronic illness, cancer care, nutritional healing, and the future of medicine.

I’m honoured to welcome Mary Beth Gonzalez to the award-nominated podcast Metabolic Wellbeing Without the BS.

Mary Beth is the widow of the late pioneering physician Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez and Founder & President of The Nicholas Gonzalez Foundation
, where she continues the important work of preserving and advancing her late husband’s groundbreaking legacy in nutritional and metabolic healing.

In this powerful episode, we explore:

🔹 The origins and philosophy behind The Gonzalez Protocol®
🔹 The critical role of nutrition, enzymes, detoxification, and individuality in health
🔹 Why Dr. Gonzalez believed modern medicine overlooked key metabolic and biological principles
🔹 The challenges of protecting innovative medical approaches outside mainstream systems
🔹 Mary Beth’s deeply personal journey working alongside Dr. Gonzalez for 15 years
🔹 The future of physician education and preserving this knowledge for generations to come

A particularly fascinating part of the discussion connects the work of Dr. John Beard and his trophoblast theory of cancer — concepts that influenced Dr. Gonzalez’s thinking around pancreatic enzymes, metabolism, and cancer biology. These ideas continue to provoke important conversations about prevention, chronic disease, and the metabolic terrain of health.

Mary Beth also shares how, in 2021, she led a physician-led educational initiative to train a new generation of doctors in The Gonzalez Protocol®, helping ensure patients around the world could continue accessing this work.

Beyond healthcare, Mary Beth brings remarkable experience from senior leadership roles with companies including Time Inc., NBCUniversal, and Univision — blending strategic insight, education, communication, and advocacy in a truly unique way.

This is not just a discussion about medicine.
 It is a conversation about curiosity, courage, legacy, and asking better questions about human health.

🎧 Episode #85 of Metabolic Wellbeing Without the BS is available now on all major podcast and audible platforms.

Please listen, share, and join the conversation.

Mary Beth does host an incredible podcast Your Way Back.  Available in this link:  https://linktr.ee/yourwayback

#MetabolicHealth #CancerResearch #Nutrition #FunctionalMedicine #IntegrativeMedicine #MetabolicWellbeing #Podcast #HealthLeadership #PreventiveHealth #Wellbeing #NicholasGonzalez #JohnBeard #CancerCare #MetabolicMedicine #ScottishPodcastAwards

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hi, I'm Martin Gillespie, the host of the nom the nominated uh award-winning podcast, Metabolic Wellbeing Without the BS. We've gone stateside to an incredible lady who we're going to have an amazing conversation about the work around cancer therapy and a whole lot of other areas. I'm going to leave it over to my guest, Mary Beth. Welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Well, thank you so much for having me, Martin.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Mary Beth, I always like to start the conversations. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:40

I'm doing great today. I just celebrated my 60th birthday, and I was um fortunate enough to be able to celebrate it with both of my parents who are still alive. So uh things are looking good.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Well, welcome to a new decade. Who is Mary Beth?

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Well, for the purposes of this podcast, um, I am the widow of the late great Dr. Nicholas Gonzales, who was a physician who treated people uh with all different types of cancer and other degenerative diseases through his individualized nutritional enzyme therapy, which we'll give a chance to talk about, I'm sure. Uh and I am officially the president of the Nicholas Gonzalez Foundation, which we established shortly after my husband died so unexpectedly in July of 2015. And I'm also the publisher of uh many of his books. Uh, and most recently, I am the host of my own podcast called Your Way Back.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Mary Beth, I want to get right down to the nuts and bolts. You mentioned a brilliant thing there: enzyme therapy. What is enzyme therapy?

SPEAKER_01 2:13

So, for people who are unfamiliar with this, uh, we call this program the Gonzalez Protocol. And it was developed by my late husband, standing on the so the shoulders of great scientists like Dr. John Beard. And essentially, the protocol itself has several core components. Uh, and uh I want to talk about those, and then I'll explain John Beard and his enzyme approach. So um, the protocol's principle is that cancer is systemic and that your metabolism really matters, and that people are nutritionally and metabolically quite different, and that in order to influence positive health outcomes, we need to support the individual body's regulatory system. So we approach patients as biologically individual human beings with different metabolic needs. Now, uh the protocol includes many components, um, all of which are important, uh, individualized diets based on your metabolic type, pancreatic enzymes, and that gets back to um the enzyme therapy, and detoxification, and a very targeted supplement program, all designed to balance your autonomic nervous system. Uh, but um, I don't want to you know bury the lead here. Uh, the enzyme treatment itself, it's based on something called the trophoblast model of cancer. So um hard to believe, but more than a hundred years ago, back in 1911, a Scottish embryologist by the name of Dr. John Beard was toiling away in his laboratory, and he discovered that cancer behaves in much the same way as something called a trophoblast cell. Now, trophobast cells are essentially what we call stem cells today, um, but they are aggressive cells that are involved in early pregnancy that help the embryo uh implant and grow. And what John Beard observed is that these special trophoblast cells can rapidly invade tissue, they can create their own blood supply, they can spread, and it then reminded him of how cancer behaves. So he then prophesies that uh when you're in a healthy pregnancy, pancreatic enzymes are used to normally like regulate and stop the trophoblast growth once the baby's placenta is established. And he therefore said that cancer could develop when these similar rogue trophoblast-like cells are not properly controlled, and that by introducing high doses of pancreatic enzymes into the body, they can be used as a cancer treatment to essentially control those rogue trophoblast cells. So I tried to say that in the simplest of terms. Uh, how did I do?

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Brilliant. I think the fact, you know, um, we're recording this uh podcast and you make the reference to Dr. John Baird, who was a fellow Scot. Um why is this not widely known?

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Well, um I I think that it just honestly, it takes a long time for new ideas to be accepted in science. And um while Nick certainly had um you know a huge waiting list, and his work was very well known within the alternative medicine world, um, we have not had you know broad acceptance around the world. Uh and I think that it's um it's it's really just a matter of the fact that it takes a long time for a new idea to be accepted. And while we have plenty of scientific evidence, it's uh primarily from observation and extensive case studies that have been written and scientific papers, as opposed to what some people think is you know more important, which are scientific trials.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

One thing you mentioned about the protocol, which I'm really interested to dig a little bit differently, di deeper. Is it the personalized approach for the last 40-50 years? If someone is diagnosed with cancer, it seems to be the gold standard, whether it be chemotherapy, immunotherapy. Why is why, in your opinion, do you think that uh personalized care is so important when it comes to cancer?

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Well, I think it's important because I've seen that it works. And um Nick was classically trained as a well, he was doing bone marrow transplants at Sloan Kettering, and and so he was planning you know to continue kind of the one size fits all conventional model until he saw otherwise through the work of a gentleman by the name of um Dr. William Donald Kelly, who was treating the most advanced cancers back in the early 1980s with success by completely individualizing people's care. And the premise of of the work is that you metabolically type people so that you can then bring the body into balance. So if if uh if people are out of balance, they're either too acid or they're too alkaline from a pH perspective. Well, once you can bring the body into balance, you can actually fight off almost any disease. And so it was through developing that concept of taking the diseases that we fear the most, like cancer and diabetes and heart disease, and putting an individualized approach to balance though the two branches of your autonomic nervous system, you know, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic branches, and figuring out how to do it with such precision that you can therefore, no matter what your genetics or your medical condition, you can actually fight off your disease.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

So you mentioned that this was this is well known within alternative medicine. Why should people care when they have an option to go down the traditional gold standard pathway?

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Well, I'm not telling people that they shouldn't try mainstream medicine. Um I think that it is important for people to realize that patients are just more biologically individual than modern oncology often accounts for. And it's not really the oncologist's fault. I mean, they haven't been trained to look at biological individuality. Um, and they also oftentimes, because of the structure of the way in which they work in a hospital or in a clinic, uh, they don't have the time uh to prepare individualized programs and then monitor them. Uh one of the things that was incredibly clear during the 15 years that I was married to Dr. Gonzalez was that he spent an enormous amount of time developing a patient's program and then working with them, coaching them through it, monitoring it, adjusting it and tweaking it as time went by. And it it's so his type of practice was very different than your typical doctor. Um, he might spend, you know, two hours in your first session, and then you know, rather unlimited time going forward as the uh to address whatever the patient needed. So it just his model just didn't fit nicely into the way that medicine works today.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

So with the protocol, can you explain a little bit more around you know, someone if someone was diagnosed today with cancer. What would be the first sort of steps that the protocol would allow them to start thinking about?

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Well, uh, first let me just explain that uh we call it the Gonzalez Protocol because I couldn't just keep calling it, oh, that work that my husband did. I mean, he didn't name it the Gonzalez Protocol. We did after he died. And in hindsight, I think that calling it the Gonzalez Protocol is a little bit confusing to people because they think that it is just one protocol. Uh, and it really isn't. It's a system. And every patient um, when they first start the program, they are metabolically typed. And we can talk about the different ways that we do that. Uh, and after they're metabolically typed, they are then uh given a customized nutritional plan for their metabolic type, with some people being more sympathetic dominant, getting a more plant-based diet, but still with some animal protein. And then other people getting a more carnivore-based diet with a lot of animal protein and more root vegetables, things that can um essentially uh acidify the body, because those people are too alkaline if they're parasympathetic dominant. So it's all very uh customized to the to patient's diagnosis as well as their um their biology and their genetics. And after the nutritional program is designed, we then design a detoxification program. And and and this is another area where I think conventional oncology uh differs from our work. We think that detoxification is is incredibly important, um, especially given the type of the world that that we live in today, where modern life is, well, you know, so dysregulating with ultra-processed foods and the tremendous stress. Maybe the stress is a little bit different in Glasgow than it is in America, um, but still quite stressful. Uh and the adoption of such seditary behaviors, um, the influx of environmental toxins, all those things have created a much more biologically overwhelmed system. So we have very specific detox routines, and even those differ based on whether you are more parasympathetic dominant or sympathetic dominant. Uh, and what um what we have seen is that we've had incredibly long-term success. I mean, we Nick started this work uh in the 1980s, and it continues today with uh several doctors that our foundation has educated in this work. And so the long-term survivor success success that Nick so meticulously documented um is already being seen today in that just the few years that that we've been treating patients.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

You mentioned a brilliant thing there about detoxification, and uh you mentioned the S word stress. How big an impact in the in your experience of seeing patients coming through this? Has stress played in uh people's one adaptation of this protocol, but two uh the realization that stress has made it made made its way into their life.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

It's uh incredibly important. And I was just talking with a long-term breast cancer survivor on the Gonzalez Protocol yesterday, and she was telling me about how she would sit in Nick's office, and she was the classic type A uh personality, which is very common amongst breast cancer patients. And she was uh always do-y-do-doing, and and worried and anxious. And and he said to her, You you just have to stop because what you're doing is pushing yourself through your stress into an even more sympathetic state, which is the opposite of what you need to do. You need to calm down, you need you know, stop running 10 miles a day, stop worrying about everybody else in the family. Uh, take time for yourself. Uh, one of the things that that we now recommend that we didn't have 10 years ago when my husband was practicing are infrared saunas. And we find those to be something that isn't really wonderful for helping people that are chronically stressed and overly sympathetic dominant. But to just expand on what you've said, the emotional piece of this work we have found to be even more significant today than 10 years ago. And uh, you know, I can say that confidently because the one of the people who work for the Nicholas Gonzalez Foundation and help uh do all the applications for the prospective patients also worked in my husband's office for many years. And she tells me about how the the stress level and the and the the um the emotional weight that people bring to the conversation that she has now with them is 10 times what it was uh 10 years ago. And that's where I think the internet has not helped, right? You know, people go to Dr. Google and whenever they have a symptom, and you know, Dr. Google will just freak them out with what they think is happening. And so people show up in our doctors' offices now with with so many more fears and and so much more anxiety uh than than they did 10 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

I remember the advice my hematologist gave me when I was diagnosed, it was rule number one, Martin, stay off Dr. Google. Rule number two, Martin, apply rule number one.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Google has a place, but it does it induce a lot of fear. I want to ask you another question, actually, which is vitally important. We mentioned there about the patients. What about the carer of those being diagnosed?

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Well, it's very important uh for people who are on the Gonzalez Protocol to have support in the home. And it's one of the things that we talk about in our application processes we want to make sure that the patient isn't on their own trying to do to do this program, which is essentially, you know, self-administered. So your doctor will give you your protocol and explain it to you, of course, but then it's up to you to go home and actually implement it. And, you know, what does that look like? Well, that's everything from you know cooking your own organic meals um, you know, three times a day. Uh for many of our patients, it requires them to drink fresh carrot juice, which you can't just make and put in the refrigerator and sip off of, you know, for days. You have to make it fresh and drink it within 20 minutes. Then there's a series of detox programs that one does daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly. And then uh there's also the supplementation piece. So we talked a little bit about pancreatic enzymes, but there are other supplements that we use to help balance the autonomic nervous system. And so some patients might be taking uh, you know, up to uh, you know, a hundred supplements a day, and those need to be organized and some taken with meals, some taken away from meals. So while we map all this out for the patient, it can still be quite overwhelming, especially if they're sick, right? And they don't feel well. So to have that the right support in the home, not only helping to do some of those tasks, but to to encourage them and not try to talk them out of the decision that they've made to pursue this type of lifestyle medicine.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

So I'm going to ask you a question, and it's it's a really Intriguing one. Is it a cure for cancer?

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Well, we've certainly seen remarkable results in treating the most difficult late-stage cancers and reversing them into remission. And uh this is what Nick saw when he followed Dr. Kelly's work in the 80s. And and you know, he never would have walked away from his wonderful research job at Slunk Hettering if he didn't see firsthand that this was effective. Nick actually looked at 500 of Dr. Kelly's patients and then personally interviewed uh 50 of them and wrote a book called One Man Alone, documenting all of their cases and including their medical records. So we have a lot of evidence that the the cancer has been reversed. Um and and because of the way that that this program is designed to balance your autonomic nervous system, it's actually been very successful for more than just cancer. Um in fact, about 25% of Nick's patients were being treated for autoimmune diseases, everything from Parkinson's and chronic fatigue uh to Lyme disease. And um, and then you know, I can proudly say I've been on the Gonzalez protocol since my third date with Dr. Gonzalez in the year 2000. And, you know, I have found that it being on the protocol has helped me not only never worry about, you know, if if I were to get cancer, how I would manage it, um, but it's also kept me in in good health and and good and strength to be able to do the rather challenging work that I do.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

And Maribeth, you bring up a great point there. Autoimmune dys disorders have increased 200 fold, and that's been modest. Crohn's disease, Lyme disease. What I do like about what we've discussed today is the fact that it puts the patient first and foremost. Why is it vital that the patient has to be seen as an individual and not as a number?

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Well, the patients uh actually want to be involved in their own care. And one of the things that we've recognized is that a lot of people have already sensed that there's more that they can do to support their healing, but when they ask their, you know, their their GP, um, they don't get the kind of advice that that is actionable. You know, they're told just like stay the course and you know, call me if you start to feel bad. Well, one of the reasons why um we think that that this program is so effective is because it empowers patients and it it helps them feel like they've got some control because they can take action and it's not a passive experience. Um so for patients who feel broken when they you know hear the whatever diagnosis they're given, you know, we're here to help them have hope that's really grounded in reality. And the reality is the now more than 40 years of success. That's all documented, not not only in the books that we've published, um, but in the scientific journal articles um that are all on our website.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

Now, you mentioned about the gun, you called it the Gonzalez Protocol, but it's not just one person doing all of this, it's a whole collaboration team of people, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Well, there are several doctors that we have educated in how to do this program. And we have a proprietary um series of tests that we do to help create um the metabolic uh type. Um, we also have an online test that anyone can take to figure out their metabolic type. It's called the Gonzales Metabolic Type Test, and it's on our our uh patient support website, which you don't have to be a patient, anybody can go to it. It's called uh GonzalesGuidance.com. And uh so we have tools that are ready and and accessible to anybody, and then we have teams of people who are here to support patients.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

So, another question for you. One key thing that people talk about, and um, there's a lot of talk, but a lack of action, in my opinion, is around the word prevention. And you've indicated here that you've got some tools there that people can actually look go and use to help prevent getting ill.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

Yes, we have we actually have two different tools um available on our website. One is that metabolic type test, which will tell you exactly what you should eat and what you shouldn't eat. It's gonna give you an 18-page report, um, which is gonna tell you, you know, what what foods, when to eat the foods, um, and and even how to shop and how to cook. Uh, and then we have another document called just Gonzalez General Guidelines, uh, which apply to everybody, no matter what your metabolic type is. And it gives advice about spirituality, uh, general detox advice, uh, nutrition advice, and and general supplement advice. So those are things that we believe that anybody who's just trying to improve their health can can easily access. But our doctors are also educated in how to create the same type of prevention program than Dr. Gonzalez gave me on our third date. So uh anybody can be on the Gonzalez Protocol for Prevention. We have found that oftentimes the caretakers and the family members of patients who are doing the protocol to um address a disease, um, those people become so fascinated and impressed with the results that they go on the program for preventative reasons. And and of course, you know, we would definitely encourage that.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

And Maribeth, people from around the globe can contact you and um find out more, can't they?

SPEAKER_01 29:38

Absolutely. So it's really important for people to understand that this isn't historical. Uh, this work is ongoing. And through the Nicholas Gonzalez Foundation, we have physicians who are trained in this work and they're actively treating patients around the world. Uh, one of the perhaps only um benefits of COVID is that telemedicine became a more um comfortable and acceptable way of interacting with patients. So uh our doctors, of course, want to see you in person, um, but they do a lot of their work um through telemedicine so that they can see patients from all over the world.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Mirbeth, this is incredible what you, the team, and everybody associated with the Gonzales Foundation has been doing for many, many years. It's been an absolute privilege to be able to arrange a time to get this on a recording uh with you. Uh and I would like to thank you for giving some amazing insights into this protocol. And hopefully, uh, we will be able to get more and more people adapting and adopting some of the things we've discussed today.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

Well, that certainly is our hope. We want people to understand that this if this is now available. Uh, and you know, frankly, one of the easiest ways to be introduced to this work is to watch our podcast, which is called Your Way Back. And it it takes the some of the concepts that we've talked about today, Martin, and it it puts them into you know small 10-minute um pods um on both video and audio, that are very simple to understand. And it's not just uh me explaining concepts, it's also some of the doctors that work with us and some of the long-term patients come on, being and so I I would suggest that people start by watching the podcast, and then from there you learn more about we have nine books, and the website has an awful lot of information uh available for free.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

Mary Beth, I'm going to end the recording, then stay on the line and thank you so much for your wisdom this afternoon.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

Well, thank you very much, Martin, for this opportunity.