Once upon a time, you had a cancer diagnosis. Your life was thrown into a whirlwind of doctor's visits, new medications, new medical terms and advice from all sides. You fought the battle and it was long and challenging, but you beat it! You were declared N E D (no evidence of disease).
It's a happy ending, right? Or, is it just the beginning?
Can you go back to the life you knew before cancer? Do you need to stay vigilant in your new life post-cancer?
Join me today as I speak with Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi, a functional medicine and integrative clinical oncologist. We will answer those questions and talk about many practical ways you can help your body stay in a state of N E D.
Connect with Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi at The Institute for Functional Medicine:
https://www.ifm.org/practitioners/wafaa-abdel-hadi-md/
Suggested Resource Links:
Your donations power our podcast's mission to support cancer patients with hope, insights, and resources. Every contribution fuels our ability to uplift and empower. Join us in making a lasting impact. Donate now! 🌟
Once upon a time, you had a cancer diagnosis. Your life was thrown into a whirlwind of doctor's visits, new medications, new medical terms and advice from all sides. You fought the battle and it was long and challenging, but you beat it! You were declared N E D (no evidence of disease).
It's a happy ending, right? Or, is it just the beginning?
Can you go back to the life you knew before cancer? Do you need to stay vigilant in your new life post-cancer?
Join me today as I speak with Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi, a functional medicine and integrative clinical oncologist. We will answer those questions and talk about many practical ways you can help your body stay in a state of N E D.
Connect with Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi at The Institute for Functional Medicine:
https://www.ifm.org/practitioners/wafaa-abdel-hadi-md/
Suggested Resource Links:
Your donations power our podcast's mission to support cancer patients with hope, insights, and resources. Every contribution fuels our ability to uplift and empower. Join us in making a lasting impact. Donate now! 🌟
Hi, I'm Ivelisse Page, and thanks for listening to the Believe Big podcast, the show where we take deep dive into your healing with health experts, integrative practitioners, biblical faith leaders and cancer thrivers from around the globe. Welcome to today's episode on the Believe Big podcast. My name is Ivelisse Page, and today's episode is on a topic that isn't spoken about very often. Did you know that the recurrence rate continues to be high with cancer? A cancer patient rings the bell and are declared cancer free. They have done the hard work and are sent home to this watchful waiting period until their next scan. Many times they gain a sense of false security to return to life as they knew it. Today we are gonna dive into the topic of things that every patient needs to do to remain N.E.D., no evidence of disease. We are gonna get expert advice from my very dear friend who I met at one of the first mistletoe conferences I attended in Germany, Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi. Dr. Wafaa is a functional medicine and integrative clinical oncologist. She is an international speaker, researcher and the founder of a Aware Clinic, that is a professional educational platform that guides people on how to take charge of their health through analyzing the pattern of their imbalances, and trusting in the miracle of the human body to heal when given the right tools to survive and thrive. She is the first certified functional medicine doctor in Egypt and the Middle East, and is also a certified international health coach, which empowers her to closely establish the confidence and empathy needed to work with her patients. Welcome Dr. Wafaa to the show.
dr_wafaa_abdel_hadi:Thank you, Ivelisse, for having me. It's been such a long time and I was looking forward to seeing you in person, but then Covid hit Hopefully we'll see each others very soon.
Ivelisse Page:Yes, so good to see your face as well. Our listeners are always interested in discovering what our guest's favorite health tip is. Can you share yours with us?
dr_wafaa_abdel_hadi:Yeah, so, basically whenever I see anyone coming with any health condition, I ask him several questions: what is your vitamin D level; how is your stress level; do you measure your homocystine; do you exercise; and do you sleep well? So maybe five. Okay. Sometimes I start with one and then then I go forward. because Those are very important topics to address any disease, the root cause of any disease, because basically cancer comes from many things, but it's severe deficiency in vital nutrients needed for your body to build up and renew the cells. And it can be from high toxicity and your body is unable to get rid of those toxins. So why would deficient with special nutrients? Because of the modern technology in manufacturing foods. And why would someone get a lot of toxins? Because of the spraying of the foods, because of the pollution of the environment. So vitamin D is extremely crucial because it's actually an immunomodulator. It's very important for the bone health, cardiovascular health, immune health, and as an anti-cancer. And Vitamin D has been in a lot of studies. For autoimmune disease, vitamin D, if it's beyond a certain level, it acts as anti autoimmune agents. For cancer patients, it actually meddles with every step in the cancer processes. So it stops cancer growth. It improves the apoptotic of the cancer cells, so the cancer cells can die and wither. It blocks the angiogenesis, the new vessel formation. It actually makes the cell adhesions the cell to cell connection together to prevent envision metastisis. And most of the patients that I meet, whether in Europe or even in Egypt, where the sun is glorious here, but they do have a vitamin D deficiency and a severe one.
Ivelisse Page:So I always heard that if you are deficient in vitamin D, and even if you're in the sun all day, it won't produce it because of the deficiency. Is that true?
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:Yes. But there are several things behind how you don't absorb or you don't maintain your vitamin D level in your blood. First of all, you might have a genetic predisposition like a VDR receptor or a SNP(single nuclear polymorphism) mutation that's responsible for your vitamin D absorption and metabolism inside your body. This is one thing. You can be putting a lot of sunblock or being exposed in the sun when you shouldn't. So there are certain times, of course, to be exposed to the sun. And another thing, if you are eating food that is rich in vitamin D, you can actually have low gastric acid. Patients can be on statins, which actually decrease the absorption of the fat soluble vitamins like A, D, E, K, Omega-3 fatty acids, CoQ10 and selenium. So beware if you are on a statin, to check those deficiencies. And, it's just how it's metabolized inside your body. Liver is one of the main organs to metabolize vitamin D and the kidney.
Ivelisse Page:That's fantastic. So that's really interesting in regards to vitamin D as it relates to your chances of getting cancer. But today our focus is gonna be on the top things a person can do to prevent cancer from returning. So if a patient did not incorporate integrative medicine into their care during cancer, what we will be sharing today, I feel is even more important. So can you share with us why a combined approach is so important when dealing with cancer?
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:So conventional treatment is very important because this is the fast action, the acute phase. These are tools to help you now, how to deal with the cancer. However, the integrative approach looks at the whole person. Should that person takes the chemotherapy now? Should he do the surgery now? Should he take radiotherapy? How can integrative be complimentary to the conventional? For instance, if a patient has colorectal carcinoma and his vitamin D level is below 70, this actually makes it a worse prognosis, and he had a higher instance of recurrence. So a vitamin D level prior to the surgery is extremely important, and it determines the prognosis of that patient. Before doing the chemotherapy, you should optimize the glycemic load of the patient, like the insulin resistance, the hemoglobin a1c, the glycated hemoglobin, and the fasting sugar. Why is that? Because there is a 2020 study that showed that hyperglycemia is actually goes hand in hand with tumor progression. There is a molecular cascade that allows cancer to proliferate, causes invasion and metastasis, and up to chemo resistance. So if you give a patient chemotherapy and his blood sugar is high and he has a high insulin level as well. He will not get the best effect out of it, and it'll allow him later to be chemo resistant to that drug. And there has been a paper actually I was preparing a lecture two days ago about understanding the tumor micro environment in order to make cancer treatment more effective. And there is a paper about cancer metabolism and it's importance in making cancer immunotherapy work. Because if the patient's immune system is not working properly and then we hit him with chemotherapy, then there will be dead soldiers in the battle. The immune system has to be strong enough to take those soldiers out of the body or else there will be something called chronic non resolution of inflammation and that will be a process for carcinogenesis and more cancer to come back like you said.
Ivelisse Page:So most of the time when a patient is declared N.E.D. or(no evidence of disease), they are put in this watchful waiting period and are told to return in three months for their next blood tests and scans. I feel it's like waiting for the other shoe to drop. What should a patient do at this point? What monitoring needs to be done outside of what is done conventionally?
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:This is an excellent question. Why does cancer come back? Because if chemotherapy is not given in the situation that I was telling you, like high vitamin D, low sugar level, etcetera, there are resistant cancer stem cells. They linger and hide. Especially in the operative bed. So the first site of recurrence is the tumor operative bed where the tumor has been extracted. Why is that? Because there have been fibrosis and the fibrosis healing the place of the surgery actually is the perfect place for cancer stem cells to hide, to proliferate, and to actually make new vessels. So after three months, six months, depending on the genetics of the tumor, and depending on the susceptibility of the patient to actually make new cancer cells or be vulnerable to cancer progression. It happens after three months. It happens after six months. And I've seen patients it happens after 10 years. So there are factors that trigger cancer to come back, like stress. When you are stressed, you actually high cortisol level blocks something called BRCA gene. BRCA genes, they are tumor suppressor genes. So when you block the gene responsible for suppressing tumor development, cancer will develop. So when you have stress you elicit something called central inflammation in the brain, and that central inflammation sends this over-sympathetic shoot to the gut, to the immune system, and causes peripheral inflammation. And inflammation is one of the hallmarks, biggest hallmarks for cancer development.
Ivelisse Page:Yes. And so how do you address the cancer stem cells and the circulating tumor cells that are immune to chemotherapy and radiation?
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:There have been a lot of data on targeting cancer stem cells like curcumin. Curcumin actually blocks 90 pathways for cancer development, so the broccoli extracts, all of it. There have been data, and I show them in every conference I speak or attend. Sulforaphane actually kills cancer stem cells. Gingers kills cancer stem cells. It's a component in ginger called shogaol. Vitamin D address and kills cancer stem cells, and fasting. Those are very powerful tools in your hand that you can actually take. Initially when someone has declared N.E.D. he should take them because he is already deficient in them. But then he has to include that in his daily food. At the beginning, he needs higher doses, but when he's stable he can just do a two months supplement course per year.
Ivelisse Page:Okay, that's great advice.
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:And a cancer patient, there must be not only deficiencies and toxin, he has to screen for innards, like parasitic viral infection that's lingering there, bacterial overgrowth because those innards, they make the immune system busy when we want the immune system actually to go into this immune surveillance and search for cancer everywhere in the body.
Ivelisse Page:And what tests do you do to discover those innards of what may be causing the immune system to be suppressed?
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:Starting with a complete blood picture and I check the neutrophil count, the lymphocyte count, and the monocyte count. And if they are all increased if the monocytes, eosinophils, and basophils are high, this is a present infestation. Lymphocytosis and monocytosis, which is high counts in lymphocytes and monocytes are actually for viral infection. Depending on the cancer type, for instance, lymphoma, I do the E B V, the Epstein-Barr virus. There are two types for detecting viruses, an IgM and an IgG. And all people now after Covid, they know all about immunoglobulin. So the IgM is for instant infection that you have it now. During the rise of the IgM, the antibodies against that virus, there is a rise in the IgG, which is the past infection, this is the memory cells. So when the immune system sees it again, it can just replicate the antibody against it. However, if you have an antibody, so Epstein-Barr virus, IgG, that is shooting, that doesn't mean that you have just past infection. That means that you have a reactivation of the virus and the immune system is just pouring out antibodies against it, so we need to address that. The GIT Cytomegalovirus, for the Epstein-Barr virus, I do it for the head and neck, upper chest, and breast cancer as well. And Cytomegalovirus has also been implicated in brain tumors, believe it or not. If someone has gastric carcinoma, then he do the Helicobacter pylori. Sometimes I have a patient who had gastric carcinoma and because I don't do conventional oncology anymore, I give advice and I tell them what to do, of course, because I am a clinical oncologist. I've done chemo, radiotherapy, hormonal, immuno, everything, but I just tell them what to do. So I had a patient with stomach cancer and then she came to me and I told her, please do the Helicobacter pylori. And of course it was positive. So I told her, have you taken treatment for Helicobacter pylori eradication? She said I showed it to my oncologist and he said,"don't worry, you're taking chemotherapy, and that's even more powerful". The truth is chemotherapy will not kill Helicobacter pylori. So you have to eradicate the normal way.
dr_wafaa_abdel_hadi:Chemotherapy will not kill parasites. Chemotherapy will not kill viral infections. Actually, chemotherapy will cause weakening of the immune system and gut microbiome and that actually will flourish those infections.
Ivelisse Page:So is the curcumin and the broccoli extract and the ginger, those are the things that you're also saying that helps to kill those viruses? Are those some of the things that you do or is it different depending on what virus you find?
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:Yeah it's different, individualized, depending on the patient, depending on their labs. I have a patient she cannot tolerate curcumin. So we'll just reduce the dose. Don't take the full dose. And there are people who take it just fine. There are people who take intravenous curcumin, but it's individualized depending on the liver functions as well. And we have to choose the right supplements. Because sometimes supplements don't have what they said. The Food and Drug Administration actually took the supplements of the shelves, of Costco, gnc, and Walmart, and they found out that the what's inside the capsule is not what written on. We need very careful, get highest, purists and not because a supplement says organic, FDA approved. Then we get it. Like we know, the integrative oncology know.
Ivelisse Page:Yes. And a lot of people make that mistake, I'm just gonna go to Target or Costco and get this. But we actually, at Believe Big have a Fullscript account, which is here in the United States and it's all physicians grade supplements that patients can gain their supplements from, prescribed by their practitioner. They get a discount and Believe Big gets a portion of the sales to continue on with wellness grants. So it's kind of a win-win for everyone. But it's so important, you're right. Physician grade supplements are super important. So for patients that have undergone chemotherapy and radiation is there anything they should do post-treatment to detoxify their body? So they're done, they're declared no evidence of disease. They've gone through traditional treatments. Is there anything that you would encourage them to do to help detoxify from the chemo and the radiation they've had?
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:Yes, absolutely. Detoxification is individualized as well.
Ivelisse Page:It's important.
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:It depends on the genetic predisposed, like the nutrition genome. So I check something called phase one and phase two detoxification by the liver. And I concentrate on the the enzymes. So you have the gene. And the gene it decodes for an enzyme. That helps into making the fat soluble toxins into water soluble toxins, and then the body gets rid of them. However, you have to check phase one and phase two genes because if phase one is blocked, you get a lot of toxins in the body, and that can be one of the predisposing factors for cancer. But if phase two is blocked, the intermediate component between the water, the fat soluble and the water soluble state is oxidative stress. That by itself is inflammatory and can cause more cancer.
Ivelisse Page:It has to be individualized, but we recommend that patients work with an integrative practitioner that is skilled like you are in these things. But what are some basic things that are done to detoxify for a patient?
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:I love infrared sauna. It's fantastic. We give a niacin three hours before, but take care with niacin You take the flush formula. I need you to flush because when you flush your blood vessels actually dilate and you become sore and you sweat and all the toxins come out and you need to hydrate before and after the sauna. Like with a liter before and after. But go easy with the niacin. Start with 25 milligrams and increase it up to 250 because sometimes when you start with two 50 you, you would think that you have an allergic reaction, but it's actually the normal flushing. And the more you flush, the more you know that your mitochondria, the powerhouse of your yourself, is broken. This is one thing, and then you go into monthly using modified citrus pectin for instance. There have been studies that testing the urine of patients before and after giving modified citrus pectin have showed that modified citrus pectin increases the excretion of metals in your urine. So it's fantastic and modified citrus pectin, and at the same time, acts in prostate cancer to prevent metastasis. This is the paper like has been published. So it's an amazing ingredient to use. And we can do like a chutney or I don't know how you call it, but you get the peel of an organic apple. And then you sauté it on the fire. How do you say it? On the stove? And then you add some, maybe a little bit of stevia and you just put it in the jar and you add ginger if you like. You add lemon to make the, all the juice comes out of it. And there you have your natural, organic modified citrus pectin that you can eat. But if someone has just came out from cancer, just use the high grade one. The one I like is the one from EcoNugenics. It's available on the Fullscript as well. And then you can use yeah, you can use something like what else? Binders always use binders. So you use niacin and binders. Zeolite is a wonderful spray. You just spray the zeolite in your mouth, you swish it, swallow it, and you just take it every day in order for you to get rid of the toxins, the chemotherapy. And there are special detox supplements for every chemotherapy. But mainly if someone is on platinum who had like lung cancer or ovarian cancer and used this platinum or carboplatin, they should concentrate more in the metal detoxification they can use chlorella and spirulina, but mind that they can increase their copper level. Copper level has to be in a balanced state. Yeah, there has to have a full labs. And nutrition genome they said juice the carrots, juice the beets it's very nice to have carrots and beets, but they increase your blood sugar. But you can have them in moderation. Yeah, you can put half a carrot with avocado and some greens in a blender. Add some chia seeds or flax seeds. That would be fantastic, but just don't juice because you don't get the fibers and you just get a whole lot of sugar.
Ivelisse Page:I realized that as well, even with smoothies that I was making. I thought that I was doing all the right things. I'm doing great, these are all organic greens and fruits and it was increasing my insulin level so high. I was glad that I got the help from one of our Integrative nutritional therapist that said you need some healthy fats to add to that. And because I'm so sensitive to sugar, eliminate all of the fruits that was in there except for the berries that didn't cause that spike. And what a difference it made from feeling run down after I drink it to having the energy for the rest of the day. So it's really important, like you're saying, just because it's a good food item, it's really important again, to stress that you need to have a care team that is an expert in these areas that can really help you to thrive during cancer and post cancer. So thank you for sharing. We talked about how to detoxify the body, so what are the best ways that a patient can rebuild their body after having had cancer?
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:So first thing is to sleep well.
Ivelisse Page:Yes.
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:Sleep is extremely important because when you sleep and the melatonin rise, it's actually, it's the time from 9-10 PM until 2 in the morning. This is for your physical repair. Then afterwards, this is for your psychological repair because you just, I think you dream the last few minutes before you wake up, not all nights. So melatonin and sometimes I actually give melatonin to my patients and you have to check their history where they're night shifters, how are they sleeping, when do they sleep, the pattern of their sleep. There are ring for monitoring your sleep.
Ivelisse Page:Aura
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:Yes, but I'm not comfortable wearing something that will emit electromagnetic waves. Yeah. So never recommended it and I've never used it, but some people use it maybe to diagnose or to just improve your sleep for some time, but then don't make it a habit. And so sleeping is number one. Stress reduction. You have to make a list of what are you grateful about and you have to detox the bad thoughts of your body. Detox bad thoughts, bad friends.
Ivelisse Page:That's real life.
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:Yeah that's real life. You just need to be with the right company. And stress can also be from overwhelming information. When someone gets the diagnosis of cancer and they just Google everything and keep asking people and keep joining support groups on the Facebook. You need to be joining a support group will not overshoot information on you. They will take it easy on you. But there are some support groups that actually makes the patient progress because they are overwhelmed with information. And when I give them so listen, I'm an integrative oncologist, this is your conventional oncology plan, this is your integrated oncology plan. And then they say, What about, infrared sauna? What about mat, what about this, what about that? I tell them there are something called recovery fundamentals. For your body to recover, to reprogram your body in order to refunction again, efficiently, there are certain things, certain steps called recovery fundamentals. You have to optimize your food. You have to eat the right food, know which food is good, which food is bad, how to read the labels, et cetera. You have to avoid using plastics because with estrogen there are estrogen mimics and they increase all the gynecological cancers. You have to know how to cook, and you have seen the movie Dark Waters
Ivelisse Page:Yes.
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:Mark Ruffalo. And you have to know if you should eat cruciferous vegetables, raw or not, because you have a problem in your thyroid. You have to get rid of the environmental toxins. If you're living near an airport, move. You have to check your water using the environmental working group website to check which water filter do you need, or do you really need to move out of there? You need to know how to exercise. So exercise is crucial and there have been papers that shows that exercising, vigorous exercise reduces colorectal cancer recurrence in 40%. And this is a miraculous percentage for a cancer patient to reduce the recurrence by 40% without putting any chemicals into your body. And so exercise, it depends if that person is stage four and having bone metastasis, so I don't advise except with swimming and brisk walking. If that person doesn't have a bone metastasis, then go weight lifting resistance. Weight lifting is extremely important than exercise because especially in men, it increases their testosterone. So when their testosterone is increased, they actually make a hormonal balance and they get better stamina, better energy, and a better hormone balance, even with prostate cancer. I know with prostate cancers they use the total androgen blockade system but the total androgen blockade for prostate cancer, the expiry date is two to three years. And then the patient become resistance to that androgen blockade. That's why when I get cancer patients, I just put them on and off of it and then they can benefit from it for a longer time. And one of the best things I've used with bone metastasis and prostate cancer was mistletoe. Mistletoe is amazing. Whether you use it as an immunomodulator or you use it as an actual cytotoxic therapy to kill cancer. We talked about food, we talked about stress, we talked about exercise, we talked about sleep, optimizing vitamin D, and one of the most important thing is your methylation. Methylation you have to check indirectly if your methylation is good, by checking something called your homocysteine level. And of course, the detoxification according to each patient because some patients can, if you have something called TP53 gene mutation, which is the tumor suppressor gene, it's the garden of the genome. So if it's not working properly, you have to be on certain nutraceuticals for the rest of your life to modulate that gene expression to work properly, and cancer can be prevented. So it's very important to study the blood biochemistry, genetics, clinical picture, et cetera.
Ivelisse Page:And those are all these things that you're mentioning are things that conventional oncology does not do. And so that's why it's so important to have a full care team pre, during, and post cancer care, for sure. I wanted to go back real quick on something that you said. And you said that if you live near an airport to move. Why is that such a toxic thing to live near an airport and how far is far enough?
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:Those are very difficult questions, but I will try to answer because I'm not an environmental expert. However, you know when you are in traffic and the car exhausts suffocates you, a plane exhausts and how it spreads on that area.
Ivelisse Page:Yes.
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:And that contains metals, it contains carbons. So you are actually suffocating your respiratory system indirectly, and that toxins that get absorbed from your respiratory system, they get concentrated in the tissues about how far we can go. As far as you can go.
Ivelisse Page:I'm glad we're an hour away, so that's good.
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:I can't answer that because I'm not an environmental expert, but this is why you should stay away, because not only it's a pollution like exhaust pollution and heavy metals, et cetera, but also the noise pollution. And emitting electromagnetic waves because of the radios they use the towers to communicate with the airplanes, et cetera.
Ivelisse Page:All the 5G and everything else, there's so much that can be harmful. So that's really great to note. So I have another question. After cancer, I know it for myself that you can be hyper vigilant when you're experienced some kind of pain or ache and you know your mind can start playing games with you. Is that the cancer coming back? And is there a way to know what's normal or what could potentially be scar tissue that's actually causing that pain? Or is there a way to know?
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:Okay, so there are it depends on the cancer. There are the tumor markers. I urge everyone before going into surgery, if surgery is the choice for them. They have to check the tumor marker for that tumor. Because we need to understand if the cancer is actually saying that I am here with a tumor marker before excising the tumor from the body. So afterwards we can use those same tumor markers to know if the cancer is back or not. So like, ca15.3 for breast cancer, ca 125 for ovarian cancer, 19.9 colon and lung, cea, et cetera. And those same things are the same for pancreatic carcinoma as well. So using tumor markers sometimes cancer is tricky and it doesn't announce for itself. Sometimes even before surgery their tumor markers are normal. So how can we know? We know that by certain inflammatory markers like CRP, ESR, high ferritin level, and LDH. Nasha calls them the trifecta. But I added the ferritin, I added the ferritin because it's very crucial. But then you have to study. I made this Excel sheet with Patricia, my partner in crime, she's a nutritional therapist. We made this recovery fundamental program where we can teach the patients the basics, and we have a support group because I think it's very important to have the right support group. Today was our second launch. And it was a very energetic support group. They're all eager to start the recovery program and to learn more. And they're asking like a gazillion question and I'm so happy to answer them because I know that they are here to make a change and they are responsible for their health. So this is the beauty of a support group. There is a certain pattern for every patient. So some patient tells me,"well I know I had cancer because my back pain started". So if the back pain started again, they know that they have to make an investigation, like a scan to see if it's back or not. With the brain tumor, the blurring of vision recurred, the headache non nonstop recurred, could it be cancer if you don't have a tumor marker for it or if you don't have an inflammatory markers for it? Sometimes with the arise in alkaline phosphatase can indicate that there is something wrong with the bones. So you go and investigate that. Not necessarily to do a bone scan, So go do something called N-telopeptide, which is reflects NTX, which reflects if that person has bone metastasis from the cancer. So they're invasive, they are noninvasive. It depends on every patient and actually the patient knows. But for the patients who are overwhelmed, this is overwhelming information when you get stressed. You have to master deep breathing, meditation, grounding yourself in order to assess the condition properly, and don't make a harsh movement. But it's just, like I said, tumor markers, previous symptom that that patient was used to during the cancer diagnosis or other inflammatory markers that can identify that cancer is back. God forbids.
Ivelisse Page:Yes. And how long do you recommend those tests be done for a cancer patient?
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:From the conventional point of view, it's done every three to four months for two years and then afterwards, every six months for two years, and then yearly. And that's actually the protocol with scans. So they should be doing the scans as well. I do the the urine toxic profile for metals, and I find that they have a high gadolinium levels. So I tell them, take it easy with the scans and do it maybe every six months, not every three months, and your doctor will understand.
Ivelisse Page:Yes. And weighing your risk versus the benefit, cuz each scan can cause your body to have a risk for recurrence depending on how old you are as well, because the amount of radiation, depending on the type of scanning that is done, and that's what I did. I pushed mine out a little further than normal. But sometimes people, especially at that five year mark, they say,"oh no evidence of disease, I was released by my oncologist, I'm at year five and I'm good to go", but one of the biggest mistakes is stopping that yearly testing to test your tumor markers and things like that. So I'm glad that you said that even after you're released by your oncologist, continue to follow up with your integrative oncology practitioner that will run those specific tests and keep you at optimal health for many years to come. So that's excellent advice.
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:At least annually.
Ivelisse Page:Yes. And so our time, I cannot believe how quickly it went by, but before we close Is there anything that you would like to add that I didn't ask you in regards to preventing a cancer recurrence?
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:The only thing that I'm actually stressing on these days is your state of mind. Like you can put your mind into a healing on-mode. You can actually talk to your white blood counts to make the survey for you.
Ivelisse Page:you are absolutely right. I think even for me the mental side of the cancer was more difficult than the physical side. And it's so important to keep our mind and our spirits strong. And one of the things that is real is that"scanxiety", even if. I was out cancer free three, four years knowing that I had to go back for my CT scan, just you feel so exposed and knowing that it's gonna find every little thing and I, and it's real. And so I had to really pray. I asked my friends and neighbors to pray for me because you're walking into that environment could emotionally trigger you. People are not in the greatest of health. They don't look good. They're battling cancer themselves, so it can reignite some of those feelings of insecurities and fears and anxiety, and it's so important to have tools like you're mentioning that I Will Have No Fear Prayer that we have at Believe Big and having a support of network of friends and family that can surround you and say,"hey, we're here for you and we're gonna pray for you and wish you best today" because it is, like you're saying very important.
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:There is 80% of your immune system actually is being developed in your gut. And the gut sends messages to the brain more than the brain sends messages to the gut. The gut brain connection is amazing. So if your mind is not in its best state, you are actually doing, like I told you, central inflammation, peripheral inflammation, and then your immune system drops just by thinking negatively. This is number one. You have to"believe big". And you aware about what's going on inside your body, and you have to take your vitamin C when you are stressed out. And with the repurposed drug, one last thing. You have to be very careful with repurposed drugs because, I saw a patient two days ago. Her total cholesterol was 152. This is incompatible with life. Because fats are the bi lipid layer surrounding your cell, each and every cell of your body. And in order for the cell to be healthy, the wall of the cell has to be healthy in order to let the good things in and take out the bad things. Brain is made from fat cells. Your liver needs fat to region rates. So we have to stress on don't overuse repurposed drugs because you don't have to block all the pathways in the world. You have to understand which patient needs to block which pathway. And we have a lot of function medicine tests I saw a paper a few days ago about the enzymes in the mitochondria. Which one, if affected generates which type of cancer? And we can know those energy byproducts from doing the organics test. It's amazing, every day there are new things and you can just really tune and a protocol for one patient, but it needs a lot of time for you to do it. So hopefully the Believe Big Institute can provide that with lists of scientists that are there to analyze everything and yeah it's just there are a lot to offer to patients as a non-toxic treatment, alongside conventional treatment, which is a life saver in a lot of cases. But you have to do it in the right time. Prepare the patient properly, physically and mentally in order to withstand it and maintain the no evidence of disease afterwards.
Ivelisse Page:Yes, that is great. And yes, it is our vision and our hope to one day have this facility, the Believe Big Institute of Health, where everything will be under one roof. I tell people, it's almost like the Saint Jude's of integrative medicine, but for all ages, and not just for those that can afford it. And so we're working hard to make this vision a reality. And we are grateful for, in the meantime, for all the practitioners like yourself that are helping our patients today to get the help that they need and put their puzzle pieces together in order for them to optimize their health and remain cancer free. And also to help them have great quality of life and quantity of life while they're going through cancer. And Dr. Wafa, thank you so much for all that you do for the cancer patients that we work with every day. Thank you for always being willing to give of your time so generously and and thank you for all that you do for Believe Big. We're just so grateful.
dr_wafaa_abdel_hadi:Thank you for having me and for the work that you do and your team, and soon we will have a very big hug.
Ivelisse Page:Celebration. Yes!
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:Yes.
Ivelisse Page:Sounds great. Thank you.
Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi:Thank you my dear.
Ivelisse Page:If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support our podcast, please subscribe and share it with others. Be sure to visit believebig.org to access the show notes and discover our bonus content. Thanks again, and keep Believing Big!