Chapter 16 Dr. Michael Galitzer.

Michael Galitzer is my personal Western-trained, integrative antiaging doctor. He understands it all: how to balance hormones, how to strengthen the weakest glands and organs, how to strengthen the body to prepare it for fighting cancer or tolerating conventional therapies, and how to prevent getting cancer in the first place through lifestyle and dietary changes coupled with antiaging therapies. He provides this at his office in Santa Monica, California.

Most of all, he is a compassionate and caring man. He has brilliant instincts and is a proponent of the triad that body, mind, and spirit all work together toward the goal of optimal health and happiness. He has been one of my great teachers.

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SS: Hello, Michael. Let's talk about your approach to treating people with cancer.

MG: Okay, Suzanne, let's start with a basic premise: cancer is a disease of the whole body and a tumor is just a symptom of the disease. So basically you've got to treat the whole body; you can't just treat the cancerous tumor and try to kill it or eradicate it with chemo without supporting the whole body. We all have cancer cells in our bodies and that's important for people to understand, but you need about a billion cancer cells to get to the lump or bump stage, which is why a tumor takes years to develop. When traditional medicine diagnoses a tumor--whether it be by mammogram, MRI, or a CAT scan--whatever the diagnosis, it is important to understand that you have time. It is not necessary to start therapy the next day.

SS: As patients, we don't know this. My two cancer experiences both had a rushed element to them, as in "Let's start treatment tomorrow."

MG: Right, but a lump or a bump is an indicator that your body is now extremely toxic. Plus just the experience of being diagnosed with cancer will set a person's immune system back enormously. This is the point when the building-up process had begin. The patient needs to eat better, take nutrition seriously, and try to only eat organic. And then I would start the detoxification process. The stronger a patient gets, the more likely he is to do well with the therapy given in terms of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation.

Most cancer patients are depressed and frightened at the possibility of dying. Then on top of that they are given treatments that usually weaken the body. Unfortunately, this combination is a recipe for disaster. When they come to me in this condition, I ask them to take a deep breath. Go find a doctor who does integrative medicine, build up their bodies for four to six weeks with me, and then choose whatever treatment resonates best with them.

SS: Are you a proponent of integrative medicine only, or are you open to patients like me who want to do everything alternative? And just to put you on the spot, who do you think has the better shot?

MG: Who has the better shot? [Laughs] You always do this to me. Okay. We've talked about this in previous interviews. What's more important--the belief of the patient or the belief of the doctor? I think it's the belief of the patient, and as a doctor, you must respect that. If the patient believes chemo is going to help, then most likely it will. The placebo effect works one-third of the time, and the placebo is basically belief overriding biology. I always say to people, "If you can believe it, you can achieve it; if you can see it, you can be it." I truly believe the first key is to respect the belief of the patient.

SS: That's refreshing. Having your doctor work with you is so very helpful. I've spent so much time fighting with doctors, because I want to do everything natural if I can, and their resistance and, worse, mockery make for a contentious experience. Finding alternative Western doctors such as yourself has been a godsend for me.

MG: I work with patients however they choose. For instance, for the past twenty years, I've supported people who have chosen chemo, and many sail through it pretty well. Chemo when coupled with integrative medicine is going to allow most patients to feel safe, and that alone is healing. Then there are patients like you, who see chemo as the poison devil.

SS: I do. The whole idea of putting chemical poisoning inside my body is not, and never will be, an option. That thinking alone on my part means that I would not accept this treatment as a healing cure for me. I would see it as a foreign enemy, trying to kill rather than cure.

MG: That is your belief and you have to go with that belief and do what resonates for you.

I really believe we have all the tools to support any patient doing any sort of allopathic or alternative treatment. Again, one of the key elements of healing is to build that patient up first and then support the patient every day--not only before but after they go through chemo and radiation. My approach is to honor the patient's belief system and then support the patient all the way along the road.

SS: I agree with that, but I have to say in learning about cancer and writing this book there just do not seem to be that many cancers that respond to chemotherapy. And also they are not doing chemosensitivity tests in this country. It just feels like it's off track.

MG: The most off-track aspect is that patients who elect to do these treatments don't see integrative doctors. Their oncologists usually say that what doctors such as myself do won't help. One of my best friends had kidney cancer and went to see the head guy at UCLA, who told him not to bother with homeopathy, nutrition, or vitamin supplements. He said, "None of it works." So my friend just did chemotherapy for four or five months and did very poorly--total body degradation.

SS: To me this is a perfect example. If you don't bother to empower yourself with information and do the research, and just listen to the doctor in front of you, you most likely won't do well or you will die.

One of the problems with chemotherapy is that it doesn't kill the cancer stem cells, and that is something everybody is missing, both conventional medicine and integrative medicine.

MG: The drug companies are very aware of this and they're trying to develop ways to kill these stem cells, but I'm not quite sure that approach will be that successful. So yes, Suzanne, I do agree with you that there have been very few cancers that have been treated successfully with chemo; leukemias in kids, testicular cancer, Hodgkin's, and some other lymphomas are the ones that might respond to chemo.

Bottom line: conventional medicine believes that it is about killing the bad guys and once we kill all the bad guys you're fine. But is it? Isn't it about having a healthy body? What you're saying, Suzanne, is that there is no way the present protocol of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation is going to result in a healthy body. And if you do this without first strengthening the body, I would agree.

SS: What I have learned writing this book is that cancer appears to be manageable, that we can live with cancer whether the approach is integrative or alternative. So, specifically, what does building up actually mean?

MG: Okay, let's first talk about what causes cancer. We need to define what cancer is before we can actually treat it whichever way the patient desires.

Toxicity accumulates over time, whether it be nutritional toxicity, emotional, physical, mercury-induced, or environmental. These toxins deplete respiratory enzymes so these cells can no longer utilize oxygen.

Healthy cells utilize oxygen to create energy. But with cancer, instead of utilizing oxygen, cancer cells revert to a primitive way of creating energy by fermenting sugar. Once you ferment sugar, you create lactic acid, which makes the acidic condition of the body even worse. Now you have both acids and toxicity, which increase total body acidity through fermentation. This was discovered in the twenties by Otto Warburg. He's a German doctor who won a Nobel Prize.

SS: Is the not getting enough, or getting no, oxygen to the cells what is called anaerobic metabolism? Dr. Wright talks about this.

MG: Absolutely. You got it. Anaerobic metabolism is occurring. So what do you do at this point? You want to limit sugar intake; this is vitally important. No sugar for any cancer patient. Number two, you must increase the oxygen supply to the cell.

SS: How do you do that?

MG: We know the more toxic you are, the thicker your blood, and all cancer patients have thick blood. Cancer patients have enormous amounts of toxicity, and they have very thick blood. As a doctor, I know you've got to thin the blood, and you do this with garlic, ginkgo, enzymes, and a natural blood thinner called nattokinase. The thinner the blood (like red wine as opposed to ketchup), the more nutrients and oxygen can get to the cells.

Exercise is crucial. In the 1950s, a lady by the name of Joanne Budwig who was a German biochemist discovered that if you combined cottage cheese with flaxseed oil in the diet (a unique combination), you could increase oxygen supply to the cells.

The Budwig diet has been a mainstay in a lot of therapies that have not been talked about, but you can look it up on the Internet, and there's a lot of valuable information there about the Budwig diet.

SS: What exactly is it?

MG: It's pretty simple. It's two-thirds of a cup of cottage cheese plus six tablespoons of flaxseed oil. You mix them together and then you can put them in a blender with berries or nuts. No peanuts.

SS: How often would one take this?

MG: Once a day, divided into two doses. For maintenance you can take half of that amount. It's a very easy thing to do.

SS: Okay. I always need to know, what does this do? Why do I want to eat this?

MG: This combo gets to the cell membrane, increases the oxygen level in the cell and can also cause increased cellular energy production. It's all about getting energy production into the cell. Alkaline water will reduce the total acidity, which is a little bit of the job, but the best way to reduce total body acidity is to get the cells to make more ATP. Once the cells make more energy, the acidity of the body goes down.

SS: Cottage cheese and flaxseed oil appeals to me. I get it. But it's as "out there" as coffee enemas in terms of mainstream reaction to alternative treatments. Cottage cheese and flaxseed oil will be laughed at just as coffee enemas are laughed at. Why is there such a disparity between what you guys are doing and what the orthodox docs are doing?

MG: All doctors want to help people, whoever they are, and whatever therapies they are administering, they truly believe in those therapies. Doctors, number one, are very bright people. Number two, they're often very conservative people. And number three, frequently their basic assumption is, if it wasn't taught to me in medical school, or it's not presented to me at conferences, it doesn't exist.

There's an old saying, "If you're not up on it, you're down on it." So I think, as an oncologist, you're so overwhelmed with the amount of information, the amount of patients that you have to deal with, plus the new information that is presented to you at conferences, that really there's no time and no room to learn anything else. And I think that is a flaw in the medical system.

SS: What do you mean?

MG: The flaw is in not presenting the alternative way as an option or a choice. Currently, the medical system is a study of disease. We're taught how to treat disease. And unfortunately with a traditional approach, people either become diseases or are diseases in progress. It's not a health model; medicine sees disease on one end, health on the other end.

So it goes like this. If you can't sleep, you don't have a disease. If you've got night sweats, you don't have a disease. And this is the model all med students are taught. As a disease model in terms of cancer, it's "kill the bad guys."

SS: Burton Goldberg talked about hyperthermia as a treatment for cancer. Do you support that, and what exactly is it?

MG: Hyperthermia is an innovative treatment for cancer. It involves increasing the body temperature so as to use fever to kill the bad cells. Cancer cells are more susceptible to heat, and temperatures of 104, 105 degrees will actually kill them. In Germany, they're using low levels of chemotherapy and radiation along with hyperthermia because at that point of high body temperature, you don't need as much chemotherapy, and that's a big thing.

When I was an intern, I could rotate through the subspecialties at the hospital and my last subspecialty was cancer. I found that every cancer patient had a body temperature of about 94, 95, when normally it should be 98.6. This was consistent. Putting things together, I realized that if everyone with cancer has a low body temperature, then maybe high body temperature would prevent cancer. I was twenty-six and trying to figure this out, and I was so enthusiastic I wrote an article and sent it to the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Issels, a German doctor, found that when he created fevers in cancer patients or when they got an infection with a high fever, they would survive. In fact, the cancer disappeared. Then he looked at people who had very high fevers in childhood, and he found that those whose temperatures got up to 105, never got cancer. This has always been one of the treatment modalities in cancer patients, whether the patient chooses natural treatments or radiation, because it is known that the higher your body temperature is, the healthier you are.

As doctors, we are very interested in blood pressure and pulse, but we've forgotten to take body temperatures on our patients. We've got patients at 95 degrees versus 98 degrees, and we have to see that as a sign that something has gone amiss and that the patients with low temperatures may have a systemic disease.

We've known for years there have been spontaneous remissions in people with cancer, so it only makes sense that these are the people who should be studied. Yet no one has looked at these cases at all. Think about it--if there are spontaneous remissions in cancer patients, obviously the body has some way of producing something that takes care of the cancer. So the big question is, what can we do to deal with this situation naturally?

Clearly the answer is to build up the body, and the antiaging approach uses the same methods to strengthen the body. And as we know these same methods will prevent the development of cancer.

Dr. Gary Gordon, whom you know pretty well, Suzanne, came up with a program called FIGHT as a way of preventing cancer and preventing all illnesses. F is for fruits and their importance in your diet, plus you also eliminate coffee, Coca-Cola, alcohol, and cigarettes. And it's important to understand that we eat too much in this country, as most people in industrialized countries do.

SS: Some people require protein and animal fats. I believe I am one of them, but I do think that eating organic food and avoiding chemicals at all costs would certainly be cancer preventative.

MG: Absolutely, but in this country we eat too much animal protein, and too much animal protein causes too much cellular acidity. Then on top of it we don't consume enough fruits and vegetables. So nutrition and supplements are vital.

I is for infections. We're all carrying a huge load of bugs. Whether you call it candida or chronic viral syndromes, there are just too many infections going on. One great source of infections is teeth, particularly root canals. Dr. Rau at the Paracelsus clinic in Switzerland found that in one hundred breast cancer patients, ninety-six of them had a root canal in the molar tooth.

SS: Interesting. I had root canals on my right side, which is where I had breast cancer.

MG: Right, ninety-six out of one hundred people with breast cancer had root canals, a source of chronic infection in the root. When you try to clean it out, there are so many canals that it's almost impossible, and consequently it often represents a potential problem. Some of these canals still have bugs in them, which can go through the rest of the body. Now, Dr. Issels, who was the father of integrated cancer therapy in the fifties and sixties, had remarkable success with terminal cancer patients--in fact, so remarkale that about 70 percent of his patients survived and did well. Here is what is interesting, though. He found that tonsils swelled up in his cancer patients every time he drained the infections in the teeth, and when he did tonsillectomies on these people they did much, much better. Tonsillectomies were laughed at, but you remember when we were kids we all got tonsillectomies, and on a certain level he found, relative to the treatment of cancer, that by removing the tonsils it eliminated a source of chronic infection.

Another therapy that integrated medicine utilizes is to reduce the viral load with intravenous vitamin C. Some people also do intravenous hydrogen peroxide; others irradiate their blood or do ultraviolet radiations for the blood. These are all natural treatments and are very, very effective in killing viruses.

SS: I know that these treatments are very popular in Germany. In fact, I feel the Germans are way ahead of us relative to alternative medicine, and it's because their government supports it.

MG: But in this country, as we've talked about, this treatment is a no-no. A couple of states are open to it a little, like Arizona and Nevada, but it's illegal in California and probably the rest of the country. Too bad, because it does kill viruses and yeast organisms in the body.

The next one is the G in FIGHT. G is for geopathic stress.

SS: What is geopathic stress?

MG: It's a frequency called the Schuman frequency, which is a nourishing frequency that comes out of the crust of the earth at 7.82 Hz, which is the frequency of alpha waves in the brain. People always talk about being in the alpha state in terms of meditation, and the 7.82 Hz frequency is a nourishing frequency in the earth that's been found to not only support life but enhance it. Unfortunately, these electromagnetic frequencies are way off 7.82 Hz.

SS: What causes this?

MG: Well, for instance, there are Curry lines that come out of the atmosphere that can affect people by going through their homes, especially homes that are built over underground water. Or having your home too close to high-power lines can stress the body. Cell phones stress the body. So geopathic stress is a major stressor or cancer trigger.

There are things you can do to balance and minimize exposure. Your bedroom should be the quietest place in your house, especially when you sleep. You don't want to have your head anywhere near a computer that's on. Your also want to eliminate all electromagnetic stress as much as possible.

The H in FIGHT is for hormones. You've got to have balanced hormones. You know that better than anyone, Suzanne. All these cancer patients are completely depleted of hormones, whether it be adrenal hormones, thyroid hormones, bioidentical progesterone, estrogen, or testosterone. They've got to optimize hormonal output. Also, a lot of these cancer patients have too much insulin (a major hormone) because they're eating too much sugar. So it's important to increase estrogen, progesterone, testosterone when indicated, and definitely maximize adrenal output, then replace cortisol and DHEA at the same time you're maximizing thyroid output.

T is for toxins: mercury toxins from the teeth, mercury in tuna and swordfish, mercury in the atmosphere from coal burning, and then there are winds that blow from China which consequently blow a lot of that mercury from Chinese industrial coal production over the West Coast to California. They also found that 10 to 20 percent to the population in New York City has highly elevated levels of mercury. So mercury is a key toxin. The other heavy metals that are toxic are cadmium and lead. We've talked about your exposure, Suzanne, in the Las Vegas casinos years ago to the secondhand cigarette smoke you inhaled while you were performing. And we found you had high levels of cadmium in your urine twenty years later. This is how pervasive toxic poisoning can be, and it is affecting all of us.

SS: I remember being so shocked by this, because I never smoked.

MG: Right--it was all from secondhand exposure. We are also exposed to enormous amounts of pesticides, which have an affinity for the pancreas, and the pancreas creates digestive enzymes, which I will explain the significance of in a bit.

So there you have FIGHT. Now I've added more to it. And I call it FIGHT EM. Because I think that emotional and mental states have got to be looked at.

I see you, Suzanne, attending the antiaging conferences in Las Vegas, the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine [A4M], where the latest advancements in alternative medicine are discussed. I also go to the American College for Advancement in Medicine [ACAM], and these are not only alternative but also integrated doctors. So I have to say I am always surprised that no one talks about the emotional and mental states in relation to health or in relation to treating disease. And obviously it's never talked about in traditional medicine.

SS: I think it is a crucial element of healing. Dr. Stephen Sinatra discusses this extensively in his interview in this book, the power of intention and belief.

MG: Right, and in terms of a person's emotions it is crucial that we live our lives with purpose, passion, and gratitude. Granted, when you're feeling terrible and you have cancer, it's a little difficult to get passionate when you don't have the energy. But I try to tell people, "Do what you love, help others, and healing will follow."

Then you've got to take care of your body. You've got to look at your body as a Ferrari, and Ferraris need high-octane gasoline. So basically you must be very selective about what you put into your body in terms of food.

We all need to find exercise programs that we enjoy, and exercise regularly. Make fun and relaxation a daily priority. Learn to love yourself, and once you learn to forgive yourself, it's easy to forgive others. Find your inner peace and don't let go of it. You'll make decisions that give you the greatest peace of mind.

More important, connect with your higher source as often as you can. You can call it a guide or inner guides or higher self, but tap into it. And that's the value of meditation, because this inner you is always a source of knowledge, inspiration, and guidance. Involve yourself in cleaning up the environment, and it will help cleanse you emotionally. Once you decide that someone up there is your friend, everything else flows a lot easier.

Going barefoot in the grass is very, very important. Taking hikes, walks on the beach ... all these things connect you to nature. The emotional, mental aspect has got to be addressed in terms of the concept of FIGHT EM. The antiaging approach is both preventative and has a huge role in the treatment of cancer.

There is a quote from Gandhi that says, "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight, then you win." I think this applies to you, Suzanne: first they paid no attention to you, then they started laughing at you, now they're fighting you and writing articles about you, and soon you're about to win.

SS: Thank you, but I think it applies to all of us in the alternative world, and it's the essence of passion--you can't walk away once you have seen the light.

It doesn't seem, though, that this approach is being taught in medical school at all. Today's students are taught allopathic medicine as though this is all that exists. Do you think there's shot that alternative medicine will ever get big enough, important enough, and financially set to where studies can be done on nonpatentable medicine? Do you think the value of nutrition, and cancer being viewed as a manageable disease, will ever have acceptance and legitimacy?

MG: This is a huge problem, because there is no incentive for any drug company to fund these kinds of studies that basically look at nutraceuticals.

So how do we change this consciousness? How do you get more people or more doctors to start thinking the way you think or the way I think? At ACAM, we try to get medical students involved by reaching out to them and inviting them to our conferences. We let them come for free to expose them to our possibilities for healing. Show them our approach. You're not going to be able to change the approach of many of the older doctors who are set in their ways, as you might be able to do with young doctors.

As far as doing studies, the only way to do an integrated study is to work together with mainstream and alternative, present them with our successes, and show how integrating the two modalities is better for everyone. We'll show that we can get great results, and this allows orthodox doctors to sell their chemotherapy, and everyone wins, but mainly the patient wins.

SS: Even as you say this, it feels a long way off. But it sounds like a great starting point to invite medical students who are not yet locked into their thinking. That thrills me. This is the first idea I have heard that has the potential to effect change: get the young minds and maybe there's a shot.

MG: We need to teach reducing toxicity, which is not taught in traditional medical schools. And a very crucial step in reducing toxicity is drainage.

SS: How do you do that and why?

MG: We want to neutralize and eliminate toxins in the body, and the key organs to do that are the liver, kidneys, and the lymphatic system. For the liver we want everybody to take a fresh lemon every morning, cut it in half, squeeze the juice out of both halves, pour it into six to eight ounces of water. Drink that down.

We want people to have healthy water. For years I've been studying water. The elements of water that make it good are a pH that's slightly alkaline and lots of electrons, because electrons are energy. You don't want the water to be distilled, because distilled water is dead water; it doesn't have any minerals. At the same time you don't want the water to be distilled, because distilled water is dead water; it doesn't have any minerals. At the same time you don't want lots of minerals in water, but you want some.

Vegetable have got to be consumed two, three, four times a day for liver health: carrots, beets, zucchini, squash, artichoke. The lymphatic system needs to be stimulated. You can use a trampoline or rebounder, or if you're going to a gym use the elliptical machine, a jump rope, anything that bounces, because that causes the lymphatic system to be stimulated. Deep breathing also helps the lymphatic system.

Colonics can be helpful. Most cancer patients are toxic. You've got to have bowel movements every day. If you're not, colonics can be very helpful. Skin brushing can be helpful.

This is all about getting your drainage systems working efficiently. If the liver, kidney, and lymph systems aren't working, you can't pull toxins out of the tissues, because they go from the tissues to the blood to the liver, kidney, lymph system. Kind of like a bowel movement in a toilet bowl that won't flush. Drainage is first, detoxification second.

Detoxification: saunas, homeopathy, herbs, juice fasts, chelation (where you pull heavy metals out of the body again). You're pulling them out of the tissues, into the blood, and out through the liver, kidney, lymph system. To do this I use intravenous vitamin C.

Number one, clean the liver, stimulate the liver.

Number two, stimulate the immune system.

Intravenous vitamin C is used in a couple of different ways. The National Institutes of Health have proven that intravenous vitamin C will produce high enough blood levels to actually kill cancer cells.

We frequently use 50,000 milligrams of vitamin C intravenously over the course of an hour. Some people go up to 75,000 or 100,000. To the vitamin C we also add vitamin K3 orally to the C in a ratio of 100 to 1. So if it's 50,000 milligrams of C intravenously it will be 500 milligrams of K3 early, while you're getting the vitamin C. That seems to enhance the effect. If you're getting chemotherapy which kills cancer cells, then we'll reduce the vitamin C to 25,000 milligrams intravenously. We're not trying to kill the cancer cells; we're trying to keep the body as toxin free as possible. You have to remember when you're doing chemotherapy that all these dead cancer cells have to go somewhere; they go into the blood-stream and ultimately to the kidney, liver, lymph filter.

Keeping the liver as healthy as possible, as clean as possible, is probably the number one thing you can do for a patient with cancer on chemo therapy. And again, when doing chemotherapy, we do vitamin C on the off week.

SS: And how are these patients doing?

MG: They're feeling good and they are confident. When you have a patient who's doing chemotherapy who comes into your office and says, "I feel great," it's an amazing thing. We're not in consultation, unfortunately, with the oncologist, and often the patients have elected not to tell their oncologists that they are working with an integrative doctor who is building up their body simultaneously. I hope this changes in the future.

A lot of oncologists, by the way, especially in the L.A. area, are open to our work and will tell me, "Whatever you're doing, keep doing it." Because basically they're doing their thing, we're doing our thing, the patient's benefiting. The bottom line is everybody wants to help these people. It's just a lack of awareness and education about how to maximize one's health, whether one is on chemo or not.

We measure vitamin D levels, it's a blood test. We like to maximize vitamin D levels with cancer patients in the 70 to 80 range. That usually involves at least 6,000 to 10,000 units of vitamin D every day. We want to stimulate their immune systems.

Mistletoe [Iscador], for example, is a powerful anticancer treatment which builds up your immune system. You know this, of course, Suzanne, because you chose Iscador injections to build up your immune system to prevent a cancer recurrence and you have been cancer-free for the past nine years. It's readily available to all patients with cancer in this country, and I believe it's because of you and all the talking you did about it on television. All a patient's doctor has to do is fax over a request to either Germany or Switzerland. On that request, he must mention the disease and what kind of therapy is being given. Then the manufacturers will send a protocol to the patient of mistletoe and information about how to take it.

There are other ways to build up the immune system: AHCC [a mushroom extract] or MGN-3 [a rice extract].These activate the natural killer cells, which are key in trying to destroy the cancer cells.

SS: When you get lab numbers back on natural killer [NK] cells, where should they be?

MG: Normally, they should be where you have gotten your levels, around 40. A lot of these NK cell levels you see are 5 or 10 or 11. And vitamin D levels in cancer patients, which we like to see ideally at 70, are usually in the 10 to 20 range. Vitamin D is interesting in that if levels are low, around 10 or 20, they may not have cancer but you know they're sick. D levels are telling you something. German researchers found that zinc supplements interfere with the treatment of cancer.

SS: Why is that?

MG: Zinc activates the cancer process.

SS: Should no one take zinc?

MG: No. People with cancer should not take zinc. Young, healthy people can and should take zinc to help their prostate or to get a healthier testosterone metabolism. Zinc is major--when a couple is trying to get pregnant, it will help increase the motility of the sperm for young men. These are the latest findings presented at A4M last December.

These are the natural treatments we try to give to support and strengthen the body that has cancer. If you're on chemo, we would add melatonin because melatonin potentiates the chemo and helps people sleep. If you don't sleep, nobody gets better, and once you lose the ability to sleep, health deteriorates, but it's important to allow people to sleep naturally. Melatonin does that.

SS: And what about bioidentical hormones relative to cancer?

MG: Bioidentical hormones are key: estrogen, progesterone, testosterone all take away not only symptoms of menopause but also other chemo-induced reactions such as hot flashes that frequently occur. Plus, they have a great mental stimulating effect. They give you your zest for life, and frankly, women look better on bioidentical hormones. When you are taking chemotherapy and you see yourself looking better, it's a huge boost. And if you can stimulate patients' sexual response and help them feel more sexual while being treated for cancer, that's a sign of health. The more you can give people signs that they are healthy, the better their outlook, the better their belief systems, the better the prognosis. So bioidentical hormones are very, very important.

SS: Dr. Gonzalez is very keen on using pancreatic enzymes as part of his protocol for cancer treatment.

MG: Yes, cancer cells have a protective coating, and by giving the patient enzymes, such as Wobenzym, it lets these enzymes attack the cancer cells and take off that protective coating, so that the white blood cells then zoom in and attack the cancer cells.

SS: I know with a cancer patient on Dr. Gonzalez's program they sometimes require 150 or even 300 of these different enzymes daily to do the job. But how many would someone like myself, who is without cancer, take daily?

MG: About fifteen enzymes daily. Five each after a meal for digestion. But when using them to help rid the body of debris of cancer, you always want them on an empty stomach.

SS: Why on an empty stomach if you've got cancer?

MG: We want the enzymes to eat up the cancer debris, kind of like little PacMen that get into the bloodstream. A cancer patient who's doing therapies, whether it be chemotherapy or radiation, has all these dead cells running around in the blood. So getting rid of that debris makes it easier on the liver-lymph detoxification system.

SS: When I'm at your office and when I run into people who are your patients, they just love you. They love your approach to medicine. They love how they feel. It must be rewarding work for you.

MG: Well, I love my patients. They give me purpose. I want to help my patients, and I embrace all challenges.

When I was in emergency medicine I loved the challenge in that it was life or death. You had to work on your instincts. You had to think quickly and decisively. In emergency medicine there's nothing better than saving somebody's life. Sick people are similar; they are huge challenges. It is rewarding to have cancer patients who are receiving chemo and radiation but are feeling well. It's about quality of life before, during, and after treatment, and that's what I try to do with this kind of medicine. Whatever choice they make, it is up to me to honor their belief systems.

This kind of medicine is successful, and as more people realize it is available, they will be willing to take advantage of the breakthroughs being made. They're going to read your book. They're going to read these other doctors in the book and the success stories of their patients.

SS: My choice to go alternative in every facet of my health has been empowering. I feel I am in control of my health and that I can control or manage disease through my understanding of nutrition, detoxification, and supplementation. I've never felt better, and I like working with you as my doctor because of our back-and-forth, the education. You never talk at me; you educate me. It's made me a better patient, and as a result, I take better care of myself. In fact, I honor my health.

MG: You're like the model patient. You're excited, you're interested, you look up things, you e-mail me, you call, you read, you want to know more. You're a unique person. And because you are really into it, that is why you're feeling so great and healthy. In fact, I've never met anybody more into health than you.

SS: When I wake up feeling this great every day and every day is a good one, why wouldn't I do it? And I don't find it difficult; I find it easy. I find the food I eat to be delicious and nutritious. I have no interest in bad food or chemical foods, and I have very little interest in sugar anymore; the cravings are gone. It's just not in my system. And I sleep. I always feel happy and connected. This is the greatest thing I've ever done for myself, and I love having you as my doctor.

I look forward to many more years together. Thank you for all this great information.

MG: My pleasure.

RELATED ARTICLE: Knock It Out

* Cancer is a disease of the whole body; a tumor is just a symptom of the disease. This means you must treat and support the whole body to beat cancer. We all have cancer cells in our bodies, but you need about a billion cancer cells to get to the lump or bump stage, which is why a tumor takes years to develop. This also means that you have time after being given a diagnosis. It's not necessary to start treatment the next day.

* One of the key elements of healing is to build the patient up first, and then support the patient every day--not only before but also after he or she goes through chemo and radiation. As such, it's essential to find a doctor who honors your belief system and who will support you fully throughout treatment, whatever form it takes.

* When given a cancer diagnosis, a patient needs to eat better, take nutrition seriously, and try to only eat organic foods. Eliminating sources of infection, particularly chronic infection, is also important. The stronger the patient gets, the more likely he or she is to do well with the treatments given, including surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation.

* It is vitally important for cancer patients to limit sugar intake, as cancer cells create energy to grow and spread by fermenting sugar. Cancer patients must also avoid zinc, which activates the cancer process.

* Cancer patients must increase oxygen supply to their cells. Because toxicity gives cancer patients thick blood, garlic, ginkgo, enzymes, and a natural blood thinner called nattokinase can be used to thin the blood, resulting in more nutrients and oxygen getting to the cells. Exercise is crucial. The Budwig diet, which includes a combination of cottage and flaxseed oil, also helps increase oxygen supply to the cells.

* To neutralize and eliminate toxins in the body, the key organs are the liver, kidneys, and lymphatic system. For the liver, take a fresh lemon every morning, cut it in half, squeeze the juice out of both halves, pour it into six to eight ounces of water, and drink it. Consuming vegetables such as carrots, beets zucchini, squash, and artichokes is also important. To stimulate the lymphatic system, use a trampoline or rebounder, or if you're going to a gym use the elliptical machine, a jump rope, anything that bounces. Deep breathing also helps the lymphatic system.

* To stimulate the immune system, vitamin D levels should be addressed. In addition, mistletoe, otherwise known as Iscador, is a powerful anticancer treatment that builds up the immune system.

Reprinted from Knockout, by Suzanne Somers.

Copyright [c]October 2009.

Published by Crown, a division of Random House, Inc.