Believe Big Podcast

98-Dr. Megan Bernard - What Your Oncologist Isn't Testing For

• Ivelisse Page & Dr. Megan Bernard • Season 4 • Episode 98

Share episode


Enhancing Post-Cancer Care: Integrative Approaches with Dr. Megan Bernard

What happens after cancer treatment ends? Too often, survivors are left without a clear roadmap for long-term healing and prevention. In this episode of the Believe Big Podcast, Ivelisse  sits down with Dr. Megan Bernard, a board-certified naturopathic doctor passionate about guiding patients through comprehensive cancer recovery.

Together, they talk about how mindset can shape healing, why many critical tests are often overlooked in conventional care, and the importance of personalized monitoring after treatment. Dr. Bernard shares the latest insights on functional and integrative approaches—including epigenetic testing, immune and metabolic profiling, and innovative therapies like mistletoe—that are helping patients thrive beyond survival.

Listeners will walk away with:

  • Practical questions to ask your oncologist about integrative therapies
  • Strategies for combining conventional and complementary care for the best outcomes
  • Hope-filled insights into the future of personalized cancer recovery

Whether you’re a survivor, caregiver, or simply curious about holistic approaches to health, this episode offers empowering tools and encouragement for the journey ahead.

Learn More About Dr. Megan Bernard:

Flourish, The Roadmap to Recovery

Suggested Resources:


Send us Fan Mail! Click here >

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! 🌟

Ivelisse Page:

Hi, I am 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 it's always a pleasure to be with you and spend this time. Today's guest is Dr. Megan Bernard, a board certified naturopathic doctor and founder of Flourish: the Roadmap to Recovery, a comprehensive cancer recovery and prevention program, empowering women to reclaim their health post-treatment. With extensive experience supporting women through cancer diagnosis and treatment, Dr. Megan recognized a huge gap in post-cancer care, driving her mission to provide effective research backed solutions for long-term wellness. Combining years of research and clinical practice, Dr. Megan blends conventional and holistic approaches to help women navigate anti-cancer, nutrition, and lifestyle changes with clarity and confidence. She holds a Bachelor of Health Science, a Master of Science, and a Doctorate in Naturopathic Medicine, specializing in cancer care. Driven by a passion for empowering women, she ensures her methods are practical and sustainable for everyday life. Welcome to the podcast Megan.

Dr. Megan Bernard:

So excited to be here.

Ivelisse Page:

So we always start our podcast with our guest favorite health tip, and I'm sure you have many, so, but could you share just one with us?

Dr. Megan Bernard:

Absolutely. It's always hard to come down with just one, but I think, I love the mindset pieces around changing your health because sometimes we can get all those details, but it's hard to figure out like what to put into place or it becomes overwhelming. So if we can kind of start with mindset first, that can be very helpful. So something like if we can come at our, our changes from a state of looking at your health of the overall body as opposed to looking at just killing cancer cells or being rid of cancer in general. That can make a big difference. So if we can focus on building our health, building our bodies, building our resilience, instead of just focusing on killing cancer cells, I think that can make a big difference in all the choices that you make.

Ivelisse Page:

I love that. Mm-hmm. Mindset is very, very important in our health. And so, today's episode I'm really excited about because after cancer care, you've been monitored very closely and let's say you're released and, and then you're into this new world of how do I continue to take care of myself? What are certain things that I need to be looking out for that, you know, conventional doctors are not typically looking at, they look at labs differently. So I'm so excited that you are here to talk about this important topic. So let's begin with, what are some of the most vital tests that are commonly missed in conventional cancer care?

Dr. Megan Bernard:

Well, it kind of comes down to that mindset switch I looked at where we're looking at the overall health of the body, whereas a lot of conventional care is looking at the cancer and getting rid of the disease. So whenever we're looking at testing, we always like to start with some blood work that goes above and beyond just the standard. Making sure that your livers functioning good, your kidneys, kidneys are good, that your white blood cell counts are good. We wanna go a little bit deeper than that. So going into blood work is kind of where we wanna look at everything from. Even inflammatory markers, which sometimes they might be high because you're just through treatment. Inflammation might be high, but we're gonna also look at your nutrient markers. We're also gonna look at your metabolic markers because if we're coming at it from this approach, we can kind of narrow down what's going on in the environment of your body so that we can optimize your overall health and build that resilience against cancer.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes. Yeah. So important. So for example, for patients with hormone sensitive cancers like breast or prostate cancer. Mm-hmm. What hormone or estrogen tests do you wish were part of Standard protocol? Mm-hmm. From the start?

Dr. Megan Bernard:

You know, I, I was curious. I actually don't go too far into hormone tests on blood work. I would prefer to look that at that, almost like from a metabolite perspective. So we can look at saliva tests for that, where we would see how does, how is estrogen getting broken down in the body? Because there are certain types of estrogen that might be a little bit more helpful and other types that might be a little bit more harmful, a little bit stronger, a little bit more apt to cause some damage to cells. So something like a saliva test, looking at the esra, estrogen metabolites is a little bit more effective. Um, and even with someone with a hormone responsive cancer. I feel like we also wanna look at other hormones that are involved, like insulin, like growth factor. Um, that has a big role to play in a lot of different factors for inflammation in the body, potentially leading to more inflammatory processes, cancer being something that starts and feeds off of, of inflammation in the body. Um, but yes, we definitely like looking at estrogen metabolites, although I say that we work with a lot of women in menopause. So a lot of the times whenever we do those tests, um, the sample is so little because estrogen's gonna be so much lower in the body due to menopausal impacts that the strength of the test isn't quite there. We'll still do it, um, sometimes, but um, at the same time we take it with a grain of salt. Like we just kind of consider that perhaps the test might be not super accurate because in menopause a lot of the estrogen is so low anyway, that measuring that amount is not gonna be super effective. Does that make sense?

Ivelisse Page:

Yes. Yes. And when I know you said saliva test, do you guys use the Dutch test, which is the urine test?

Dr. Megan Bernard:

We often, we often do epigenetic testing in general, which is part of that Dutch test. So we do epigenetic testing for a bunch of different things. So we'll also look at methylation and detoxification and stuff like that through just a general saliva epigenetic test. And then if we wanna go further with some people into the estrogen metabolites, we'll just order a straight up estrogen hormone panel. So we don't necessarily do Dutch, although a lot of the components we're looking at are gonna be on that Dutch test just, but just because we do certain epigenetic testing with everybody, we've already done like 50% of what's on the Dutch test. So let's just get another, just estrogen metabolites and things like that.

Ivelisse Page:

Okay. So is the estrogen metabolite test a lot cheaper than the Dutch test?

Dr. Megan Bernard:

It can be'cause'cause if we're already paying for the epigenetic test we're doing with everyone anyway, then yeah, it's a lot cheaper if we just order, order like a straight up hormone panel, uh, alongside the epigenetic test.

Ivelisse Page:

That's great. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. So many oncologists focus on only imaging to track the cancer, but what blood-based markers should patients request for cancers?

Dr. Megan Bernard:

So for cancers, there is this cool test that's out and it's kind of getting a lot of news lately. It's called the CT DNA testing, like Signaterra is one of the companies that run that, which we do encourage our clients to do after some education because it can be scary sometimes to get those results back. And it's not quite, smoothly put into the conventional system yet. So if it were to come back positive and all your tests, like your scans were showing negative, then it's not quite sure what to do with you just yet. Um, but it's still, I'm very much a database person. I love having numbers, um, to make decisions off of. And from a functional medicine perspective, our, we kind of have a method in place where we would encourage people to retest about four weeks later just to make sure that the Signaterra actually is positive. And then, um, we would encourage a lot of like more harder hitting functional medicine things like IV vitamin C or mistletoe injections for sure. To kind of see what we can we do in the meantime and then retest a little bit later to see how we notice those numbers reduce.

Ivelisse Page:

Yeah, I do the Signaterra test and awesome. It's great. And I, and it's really nice that it's actually a test that insurance covers, you know? Mm-hmm. There's so much in this world that is not covered. Mm-hmm. And I was so nicely surprised that my conventional surgeon actually, he asked for me to do it. Mm-hmm. And so it's really nice that that's even getting mainstream, um, acknowledgement and that many surgeons and oncologists know about it and are requesting it. And can really give you a good game plan. Mm-hmm. And so you, you mentioned something that's really important because if it's not zero, you know mm-hmm people get really panicked. And so what could alter those numbers that may not necessarily be a cancer that you're asking people to retest four weeks later?

Dr. Megan Bernard:

It's just also like with every test there could be like a false positive, so we just wanna double check that it's just actual a true positive. So just making sure that it wasn't a test error is one of the things we wanna look at. And then anything from, like, perhaps you exercise a lot that day and it set off certain inflammatory markers that might've got picked up due to the, the test parameters. Um, it could, could kind of just picking those things up too. Like it might act not actually be um, cancer cells that it's picking up. It's, it's a pretty specific test, meaning that it is, has a pretty high rate of it being positive. It is positive, but at the same time, we always wanna make sure that we're looking at you as an individual and just making sure that we're getting all the numbers we can before we make big decisions moving forward for sure. Does that answer that question?

Ivelisse Page:

Yeah, it sure does. And you know, for those of you who are out there getting your cancer marker, traditional ones like your CEA, C A 1 25, you know, over the years I had mine go up. Mm-hmm. Uh, and I panicked and I was like, why is it so much higher? And it wasn't that much higher. I would say it's like two points higher than normal. And, uh, realizing that my oncologist was calm and he's like, let's just retest it in four weeks. Um, it could have been an infection you had in your body. You could have overstressed your body and sure enough, I would just come back from a mission trip. So yes, my body was stressed.

Dr. Megan Bernard:

Yeah, those tumor are a little bit less specific, a little bit less accurate than the Signaterra test, the CT DNA testing. But yes, definitely with those tumor markers, they're not even recommended conventionally as a screening tool because of the potential to be impacted by so many different things. So we definitely don't want to panic. We definitely wanna retest and we want to look at more trends and numbers over time, as opposed to looking like at a one of situa situation. Although know it's easier said than done to not panic over those things, for sure.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes, yes. Mm-hmm. So inflammation is is so important in cancer development and recurrence. You know, everything's talking about reduce the inflammation in any way that you can. It's not only for cancer, but just in disease in general. Mm-hmm. So which inflammatory markers like CRP or IL six or TNF Alpha are most important to track cancer such as, say, pancreatic and lung cancer?

Dr. Megan Bernard:

So we don't see a lot of pancreatic cancer'cause our recovery program is a little bit more, um, nuanced to like breast cancer, colon cancer in the slower growing cancer. So I'm not exactly up to par on exactly pancreatic cancer, but generally speaking, what we wanna look at with absolutely everyone is something like an H-S-C-R-P. One, it's looking at just inflammatory levels, but it's also looking at heart health too, which is impacted a lot of the times by a lot of chemotherapies, even radiation, a lot of immunotherapies, things like that can impact the heart. And then we also looking at ESR erythrocyte sedimentation rate. Ooh, I got that out right. I was worried of gonna trip up over that ESR, again, another marker of inflammation in the body. We also find it's difficult sometimes to get something like a TNF alpha or interleukins done, um, through conventional labs. But when we can get those done, they're very helpful too. Because they are looking at a little bit more, it's a little bit more specific types of inflammation as opposed to general inflammation, which would be the H-S-C-R-P-E-S-R. Um, we also look at ferritin sometimes too for inflammatory levels.'cause if it's really high, but your iron panel is normal, then that can tell us more about how, like it's more inflammatory problems as opposed to an iron problem. Um, but does that, yeah, that makes sense. Like we do like, like looking at the TNA alpha, interleukin six, but mostly we can get H-S-C-R-P and ESR done very easily through, um, the medical doctor. And then even looking at your CBC panel, a little bit more in depth, looking at the ratios of white blood cells, so your neutrophil to lymphocyte ratios, your lymphocyte to monocyte ratios. Um, tracking those over time can give us a good idea of the strength of the immune system and whether we've got some good cancer fighting immune cells being boosted there, or if it might be a little bit depleted, and that gives us an idea to focus there when it comes to specific supplement interventions, mistletoe or even nutrient suggestions as well.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes. Yes. Mm-hmm. So for patients with GI type cancers like colon or stomach cancer. What gut function or microbiome tests would provide insight that standard care is missing? I know there's so many out there now, but which ones? You know, and I've tried many, but I'm just curious to know which ones you feel are the best and most accurate, you know, to really look into that. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Megan Bernard:

Yeah, test. We absolutely love the GI Map test just because it looks at a broad range of things, like, so we're seeing what is the healthy microflora. So it gives us a list of like all the different types of microflora, the bacteria that should be there. Uh, it tells us a little bit about what are the things that shouldn't be there, so it's looking at some pathogenic stuff. Or some opportunistic bacteria, which are the ones that take the opportunity to grow whenever the other things are a little bit off, when the good bacteria might not be in strong amounts. It also tells us about like the health of the gut immune system, the gut lining. So we would look at zonulin, for example, for the health of the gut lining. You can look at something like calprotectin, which tells us a little bit more about the inflammation in the gut too. And for example, like a high calprotectin could be a sign of either like usually irritable bowel disease or potentially we wanna dig a little bit deeper to make sure that cancer's not growing again in a colorectal cancer situation. So it can be an early indicator. Um, basically it tells us a little bit about how you digest things as well. So it's a very comprehensive test. Um, it's called a comprehensive stool test, and it tells us a lot about where do we need to focus. Is it bringing up your good gut health? Is it killing off some of the bad, um, gut bacteria? Is it mostly the lining that's impacted there? Are there certain foods that might be triggering certain processes that are being put off, like causing inflammation in the gut. Very good test. We love it.

Ivelisse Page:

Okay, that's great. Yeah, I've heard of the GI mapping one and especially, post, say even a, a colonoscopy to really determine how to get the gut functioning again really well, because once you do have a colonoscopy, you know, when you're doing your testing to cancer prevention moving forward it, it destroys, you know, your microbiome for a whole year. It used to be. But now with that, it really helps to direct you personally to say, okay, this is what you really need and can really help to enhance that so that it's, restored in three to four months versus the the year that it used to be. Have you found that?

Dr. Megan Bernard:

Mm-hmm. Yeah, because the gut is so complex.'cause you can have symptoms that mean 10 different things. So if you have bloating, it could be because you have trouble digesting things,'cause the digestive enzymes aren't there. Or because you might have a microflora imbalance. Um, it's not just like bloating equals this. It's kind of like different symptoms have so many different things that could be causing the underlying reasons and then going through the treatment and the process of going through like a colonoscopy, um, can really mess with a lot of different parts of your gut health and there's a lot of different moving parts and that, that it's. Just gonna understand, uh, give us an understanding better and more quickly of like, what is the actual issue here? Going at it for more of a root cause impact as opposed to just throwing spaghetti at the wall.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes, yes. I love that. So do you recommend after colonoscopy or should you do it before colonoscopy?

Dr. Megan Bernard:

It depends on, um, kind of the goals of the client and where are they at in the beginning as well. I would say probably after, might be a good idea and maybe like a month or so after, just to let the body settle a little bit as well. Um, because if you're gonna give it before, then they're gonna go through the process of going through, through the colonoscopy and then it's gonna change things again. And we're not gonna know where you're at. So we probably go do the colonoscopy, maybe wait a couple weeks or a month at least, and then do the GI map.

Ivelisse Page:

That's great. And so, uh, why should patients with blood cancers like a lymphoma or leukemia consider deeper immune profiling beyond standard CBC panels? Like what should they actually request?

Dr. Megan Bernard:

So I, I just find the CBC panels often overlooked big time where we actually get a, a breakdown of all the different types of white blood cells there too. And by looking at something compared to something else, like your neutrophil lymphocyte ratio, we can see more strength behind a lot of that. Um, so whenever it comes to supporting someone with any type of cancer, and especially like a blood cell cancer, we do wanna look at just not your total white blood cell count. We wanna look at what is everything in comparison to everything else. Because each of those different white blood cell, white blood cells, they have different roles to play, um, in different parts of the immune system, in different parts of encouraging certain anti-cancer processes to happen. So looking at your neutrophil lymphocyte, your monocyte to. Lymphocyte. So your lymphocyte to monocyte ratio, those two things can make a big difference with understanding, alright, so we can see that your immune system is building back up'cause we can look at trends over time or we can see it's kind of staying the same. Um, we might want to focus in a little bit more on building these anti-cancer cells up without overstimulating them as well.'cause we wanna be cautious in a lot of blood cancers. Um, does that answer that question there?

Ivelisse Page:

Yes. Yes. It sure does. Yeah. And so another one is the, the vitamin D and glutathione levels are rarely checked. Yet, I can't believe you have to ask for vitamin D. Lose my mind test. It's like a simple test. Yet they play such a huge role in immunity and so why should every patient, especially those with breast and prostate cancer, insist on these tests?

Dr. Megan Bernard:

Yeah. So even when my mom went through breast cancer treatment, it was like I knew how important Vitamin D was'cause I was in the early stages of, um, learning and things like that. And what we had to do is we had to say like, this is for her bone health, because the, the doctors get that there's a link between, uh, decreased bone mass with cancer treatments, especially breast cancer treatments. So they, then they would order it for her, but in reality I was asking for it because there's a whole lot of research behind adequate and optimal vitamin D levels with reducing, getting cancer in the first place. Um, with also helping people to survive cancer better throughout treatment, whether it's reducing side effects or actually decreasing tumor burden, meaning that we're helping to like get people more cancer free quicker and then also post-treatment to help them to reduce the risk of cancer coming back. And we don't want to just aim for that, okay range. The research truly is on ranges that are much higher, like in the 75 range, basically is what we're gonna aim for when we're looking at vitamin D levels.

Ivelisse Page:

That's great. And, and you work closely with integrative approaches. So when a patient is interested in, say, mistletoe therapy, what are the labs or immune markers that can help determine the suitability of mistletoe for them?

Dr. Megan Bernard:

Our big kind of like thing that's gonna really say like mistletoe is really gonna help you out here is mainly that white blood, blood cell count, the CBC panel looking at the neutrophil lymphocyte ratio, the lymphocyte to monocyte ratio. Also we would look at the, um, the aggressiveness of the diagnosis that they had received. If it was a little bit more aggressive, we would wanna put them on mistletoe. Absolutely. Like it would be a higher priority, just to make sure that we're getting the immune system up and running at full capacity. We'd also look at inflammatory markers too, because the mistletoe is really great at finding a balance of the different types of white blood cells. And your white blood cells are part of your inflammation system, like your inflammatory system. Um, and then honestly, like anyone would be a good candidate for mistletoe. We just find it's just a matter of prioritization when it comes to availability costs, things like that. For sure.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes. Yeah. And, and so what, how do you help to educate your patients?'cause we get this question a lot is how could patients bring this up respectfully with their oncologists who may not be familiar with it? And some of'em are just like, no, I don't know about it, so don't do it. So how can someone respectfully but informed, you know, share this with their oncologist, what do you recommend?

Dr. Megan Bernard:

Such a tough conversation because everyone's so unique in the way that we communicate and receive information and then beliefs around medicine and stuff like that. So it often just comes down to like, um, trial and error and seeing what works for, for getting through to certain people. But you just have to say, um, find a common ground. I think just allowing the oncologist to know that I do respect and believe in what you're, um, encouraging me to do. And I still wanna follow through with what you're encouraging me to do, but I also want to add on this extra layer of protection that I truly believe has a lot of impact when it comes to the research.'Cause there is a lot of research on it. And if we're going to be encouraging more research backed processes and, and, um, if your doctor is really research backed, then there's a lot of papers out there that can be very helpful for just passing onto their desk. Also, the more you prepare for them and the less they have to do, probably the easier it is for them to process the information themselves,'cause they are very busy people, your oncologists. So if we can kind of give, we, we put together a bit of a package for people where they can have a couple papers that are in humans,'cause again, we wanna encourage the strongest research. We want to give them a kind of like a script around, I want you to let your oncologist know that we're not getting rid of everything that they said, that we're actually just gonna add on this extra protection. And then we just kind of see what happens and then respond from there, depending on how that communication goes.

Ivelisse Page:

Yeah, would you be willing to share those um, flyers with us that we can add into the show notes for sure. Because for that is a question we get a lot and we actually wanted to create something that has the research on there and information for a clinician versus a patient. We have a lot of the patient resources, but the information for a clinician and you being one would be so helpful for them to look at it in a different lens. So that would be really helpful.

Dr. Megan Bernard:

Yeah. Super easy for us to put together. Yeah. And get, and hand it off to you. Awesome.

Ivelisse Page:

Awesome. Thank you. So why is testing, um, for insulin resistance and fasting insulin crucial in many cancers, you know, like breast cancer and liver cancer?

Dr. Megan Bernard:

Without getting too far into the sugar feeds cancer debate and going too down, too far down that rabbit hole for sure. Um, we do know that like sugar does play a role in cancer development. Um, we know for example, and this might be not a perfect stat, but people with diabetes have a 30% increased risk of getting cancer in their lifetime, which tells us a little bit about how blood sugar regulation probably plays a role in inflammation and inflammatory processes, if not in causing cancer to start in the first place. And we often, we, we often have a lot of women who eat very, very healthy, um, but we do their blood work and we can still see that they are pre-diabetic or they are insulin resistant. And by digging a little bit deeper, we can kind of pick those out.'Cause if someone walks into the medical office and they look healthy and they eat veggies and stuff like that, then it's not usually likely that we're gonna go down and, and test their blood sugar and things like that. It's just, we kind of assume that everything's good. But we've seen women who come back with fasting insulin, fasting glucose, and then we do their HOMA-IR score. Um, it's an insulin resistance kind of measurement where they are actually like, um, insulin resistant or almost insulin resistant. So if we can get ahead of that before they continue doing whatever they're doing, which is probably still good, but there's some tweaks that we can make, then we're gonna reduce the risk of getting diabetes or creating this inflammatory process in their body over time due to their blood sugar dysregulation.

Ivelisse Page:

Yeah. And what are some of those things?'cause I am one of those individuals who eat super clean, and yet my A1C is a little under that pre-diabetic no matter what I do, and it's just crazy. So, you know, I had someone who said, oh, your sleep can impact that number, and other things. So what are some of the tweaks that you give to these individuals who do eat clean, who aren't on a lot, who don't eat sugar and all that and still have that high A1C or the insulin levels?

Dr. Megan Bernard:

So there's a lot of different things, um, that we can go for. And then sometimes it's trial and error. Like, we try something, did it work? Okay, let's go on to the next thing. But from, let me lemme just list a bunch of them. Um, so one of them of course is exercise. So we wanna build muscle. The more muscle we build, the better we can burn these sugars. Um, you kind of mentioned like we're already doing lower carbohydrate, low sugar to no sugar diets, and that can make a difference as well. But something like, um, whenever you eat your food, you're gonna combine your healthy fats, your protein, your fibers, and any potential carbs all at once. Because if we are doing this combination of PHFF, uh, protein healthy fats and fiber, then it's going to slow the absorption of the carbohydrates and the sugars from carbo certain carbohydrates into the bloodstream, and it's going to help them burn a little bit more effectively so that they don't get stored. And, um, over time, increase your HBA1C and your fasting insulin, fasting glucose, things like that. Um, there are also some supplements as well that we love, like berberine can be a really good one for blood sugar regulation. And then just focusing on making sure that you're getting at least 30 grams of fiber per day. Um, these are kind of seem a little bit basic and you might even be doing them and there might be a bit of a genetic predisposition there as well, that we just want to monitor it more closely over time. So even if you're creeping up a little bit, um, we just wanna keep our eye on a little bit more closely as opposed to being super worried about it.'cause if you're doing all the great things, the marker might not be that impactful for you.

Ivelisse Page:

Yeah, those are great tips. I, uh, someone also shared with me, which is what I started doing as well, is, uh, after eating dinner or eating a meal, my husband and I will go for a walk around the block. Fantastic. Yeah. And you know, they said that helps to, to lower it as well. Absolutely,

Dr. Megan Bernard:

yeah. Like a 10, 15 minute walk where, um, it doesn't have to be like super aggressive walking, but a little bit of a nice, a nicer walk, like a little bit fast, but at the same time, enjoy it can be really good for your blood sugar regulation as well.

Ivelisse Page:

Okay, good. Yeah. Um, another topic that we get a lot of questions about and it's very impactful when it comes especially to disease and cancers, heavy metals like mercury and lead can suppress the immune function. Are there certain cancers, um, where you strongly recommend the toxic burden testing?

Dr. Megan Bernard:

It almost depends more on the patient's health history. Like, we'll have some people come to us and they're like, well, everyone in my community is getting cancer, so we're kind of considering is it more water, soil, air, anything like that. Um, is it the buildings that maybe they've all been living in and maybe they're a hundreds years old or something like that? Um, that's kind of where I would consider it more as opposed to a cancer type. I truly believe that cancer grows in certain environments as opposed to like certain cancers develop because of certain things. It's just more like the environment just triggers certain cells in certain ways. They just an unfortunate series of events. So looking at the person's health history gives me a little bit more of a better idea, uh, as to what testing as opposed to their cancer diagnosis.

Ivelisse Page:

That's great. Do you use the NutrEval, uh, for your heavy metal testing or what blood blood tests, or what tests do you use to evaluate the amount of toxins in someone's body?

Dr. Megan Bernard:

In a perfect world, we'd be doing that, like pre and post urine provocation test. Um, but it, where you get like the DMSO or like certain types of things delivered by iv and then we test like your urine before and after that delivery. Um, but it's really hard to get that done and it can be super expensive some for some people. So what we do mostly is the HTMA and we use Mosaic Labs, um, to get those done. It's just like a hair, hair analysis. Um, and that tells us, uh, also like the heavy metals as well as the, the nice minerals and things like that, that we wanna have in the body.

Ivelisse Page:

Okay. And what does that test cost?

Dr. Megan Bernard:

I think it's like$200 or 250 bucks. Okay. Like it's not too bad. Um, I mean, there's, there's definitely worse ones out there.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes. Yeah. The NutrEval, I was surprised the one that just does the urine, um,'cause I just recently did, it was like$300. So it, it's not super high, but it's also not cheap either. So you have to kind of determine what are the tests that really are gonna be most beneficial for you at each stage.

Dr. Megan Bernard:

Yeah. And that's the big part of like creating this plan, whether it's during treatment or post-treatment is we really wanna look at prioritization because your time, your energy, your budget should all come into place here. And if we're not doing these foundational approaches first, where we're looking at your blood work, which can be a little bit cheaper, where we're looking at your nutrition, your exercise, like these things have the higher hitting impacts when it comes to research. We wanna get all those into place before we go a little bit more fancy with a GI Map or an HTMA still important, but, um, I think priority in terms of time and budget would go into a lot of these foundations and then we build out from there based on even changes that you were able to make with the, the foundations.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes, yes. Yeah. And you know, it's really interesting because as we know, less than 5% or 5% of cancers are genetic in nature. Mm-hmm. And yet, oh, if your mom had breast cancer, then you really need to be even more watchful. And, but, you know, most of them are metabolic in nature, um, environmental and things that were, that we can actually control or to help support our bodies with. But how would, how would patients, what would you recommend them as far as asking their oncologist about testing for methylation detox capacity, like the M-T-H-F-R mutations, especially if they have had a strong family history of cancer?

Dr. Megan Bernard:

I have to say that I don't fully believe that it's the oncologist job to do the whole methylation stuff at this point and looking into the detox processes. It is more of a functional medicine kind of, I don't know, area of expertise because your oncologist is super smart and they have to spend all of their brain power, understanding the doses and the types of chemo and radiation and all these kind of things that I could never fit into my brain. And then to go and do the extra training for the methylation and the detox capacity and then figure it also. What do they mean and how to treat it, is a lot of work. It's pretty much another type of job. Mm-hmm. Um, so if you do have the opportunity to work with, uh, any sort of functional doctor or nutritionist who has a little bit extra training in the methylation capacities, and that's usually the best route to go.'Cause I wouldn't expect an oncologist to have to go and do all the extra training on this, in the current situation with their healthcare. But if they can do something, then something as simple as even testing your M-T-H-F-R or your COMT can give us good ideas around your estrogen metabolism, as well as your DNA repair processes with the M-T-H-F-R and the COMT.

Ivelisse Page:

Yeah. And recently I've even heard about new, not newer testing, but tests that really can determine what conventional treatments, would be most effective for you. So instead of going down the road where your body is crushed and then they say, oh, that chemo is not really working for you, um, I've heard of the Datar Test. Have you heard of that? Mm-hmm. That really, yeah. Looks at not only conventional treatments, but it also looks at mistletoes and even ivermectin and other things that really helps you to determine a strategy moving forward. Mm-hmm. What, what would you say about that test?

Dr. Megan Bernard:

I think that is great. That is where we're getting into the air of like more personalized medicine as opposed to patient presents with X, we treat with Y, we expect Z, then we go to A again. Um, whereas this is looking at patient presents with all this, we're gonna look at that kind of flow chart of things, but also let's do a little bit more in-depth testing because if they come back with this, then we can do this instead. And a lot of that testing, um, actually that is good testing, good things to have done through your oncologist and things like that where we're looking at how well are medications gonna work and what pathways are involved. And that would kind of often come down to looking at your liver enzyme capacity. So these are called your CYP enzymes. And even like tamoxifen for Tamoxifen, for example. Um, we can do a, I think it's CYP 2D6 I might be incorrect on that exact number there, but, um, they can do that through a saliva test and see how likely are you to be able to metabolize tamoxifen in an effective way in order for it to create the active drug in order to, for it to actually have an impact on your estrogen levels. And that is also something that's pretty readily available that you can do yourself, um, where you can look at certain saliva tests that go through a bunch of different medications from um, diabetes medications, cholesterol medications, um, chemotherapeutics, things like that. And we go through, um, DNA labs for a lot of that testing and they have that available, um, patient facing, if anybody wants to look at their drug metabolites.

Ivelisse Page:

That's great. We can put those links in the show notes as well. I'll definitely do that because, um, it's, you know, it's super important for people to be wise in knowing what pathway to take for themselves and mm-hmm. And to be their own advocates and really look into what's gonna be best for them. I mean, Megan, I can speak to you all day about this. It's so fascinating to me, and I know our time, um, has already come to a close, but is there anything that I didn't ask you that you feel would be important for someone to know when it comes to testing and labs and post-cancer care?

Dr. Megan Bernard:

I think we covered a lot. Um, overall, um, I do believe that a lot of people are so overwhelmed and unfocused and there's information coming at them from all angles during and after cancer treatment that it's hard to understand like, what is best for you. And this is where testing can really get into the nitty gritty of what is best for you, not just what was best for Karen on the internet or Joe down the street or whatever. So this testing where there's even just blood work can give us more focus onto like, what nutrients are depleted. So this is your supplement choice. Um, here are the best foods for you to include on a more regular basis. So it gives you a little bit more peace of mind to have that focus, get rid of that overwhelm, and then also to retest over time to make sure that whatever you're doing is making a difference. Another thing that it's not uncertain about often after cancer treatment and we're doing all these nutrition and supplements and things like that, it's like, is it really making a difference so we can get some markers, apply a treatment, and then retest over time? It can really bring this good sense of peace of mind and also highlights what is going well in your body too, so we can celebrate those things that look good, like maybe your vitamin D level is fantastic. Let's be happy about that.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes. And one last question'cause it just came to me and I know, uh, I had friends who had been asking, who had not had cancer. And if you're, say quote unquote, a healthy person going into your doctor, what tests should they absolutely ask for each year?

Dr. Megan Bernard:

Mm, vitamin D Absolutely without fault. Like we wanna get those vitamin D and optimal levels. If you're looking at overall cancer prevention. Um, if we're looking honestly at cancer prevention in general, I think the metabolic markers, especially like your fasting insulin, which is not often tested alongside fasting glucose.'cause then you can do that HOMA IR. And then HBA1C, which is a reflection of your blood sugar regulation over three months is good to have. But fasting insulin, fasting glucose are more like what's going on in the last like 12 to 24 hours. Um, and then inflammatory markers as well, although they were probably gonna come back pretty normal, even if a cancer diagnosis were to be in place. But it's not bad to have them sometimes.'cause there's certain types of cancer that might raise that a little bit quicker, like a pancreatic cancer or a more fast growing cancer. But vitamin D is like my favorite, vitamin D is my favorite vitamin ever. So.

Ivelisse Page:

That's great. Yeah. That's great. Well, thank you, Megan for joining us. Taking time outta your day and I really appreciate all that you do for the patients that we serve.

Dr. Megan Bernard:

Oh, my pleasure. Absolutely. I'm so glad to be here.

Believe Big:

Believe Big Integrative Cancer Symposium is happening Saturday, September 13th, 2025. In-person registration is now closed, but you can still join us. This is your last opportunity to secure a virtual ticket and be part of this one of a kind event. It will feature top speakers in integrative health and offer practical tools you can use daily to prevent cancer, heal your body and thrive. Visit believebig.org/symposium to get your virtual ticket today. We would also like to extend a heartfelt thank you to Kelly Benefits for their generous sponsorship, making it possible for even more people to access this life changing event.

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!