The Root Cause of Cancer Nobody Talks About

So real science shows we know about mitochondria. We know there's two pathways that feed cancer. One's glucose, one's glutamate. So we know if we're blocking those, we're doing some good things. And I work with... oncologists all over the world, patients all over, and I'm not working against oncologists, I'm working with them. If a patient is chosen to do conventional care,

chemo, radiation surgery, then I'm looking at mitochondrial-wise. How do I support with the mitochondrial therapies that we have, not only... Do we help chemo sensitivity? That means they can use less, work better, and less side effects. It also works with the surgery, so we can help them do better with conventional care.

The problem is conventional care is not getting to the cancer stem cells. That's why there's a high rate of reoccurrence. It comes back. They say, oh, the tumor's gone. Everybody says, I'm cancer free. It's just a really scary statement because stem cells are still sitting there. We have a reason to believe now we can't make the statement, but it's looking like we may be getting to the stem cells. And that is going to make a big change as well.

What if what we're using to treat cancer is missing the point? So today's guest is Dr. Denise Worden. She's an internationally recognized integrative physician, researcher, and entrepreneur and media host. with more than two decades of experience transforming healthcare through science, innovation, and patient advocacy. She is a leading expert in metabolic and mitochondrial medicine and co-author of a landmark clinical paper on ketogenic therapy for brain cancer.

And she is the founder of Repower Clinical in Arizona. She's also the founder of Prove It Research. It's a contract research organization that provides affordable... external validation for medical devices, nutritional supplements, and other health programs, helping companies prove what actually works. And she's the creator and upcoming television series host of Health Hot Seat.

A groundbreaking debate show with conventional and integrative medicine meets Head to Head. And she's the co-host of the soon-to-be-launched Hungry for Health, a legendary podcast with legendary speaker Les Brown. And so today, Dr. Denise and I are going to pull apart some of the myths and...

misuse of particularly biohacking techniques, particularly for women that have been largely either unstudied or don't really show the same quality of outcome for women. We're going to go deep into cancer as a metabolic disease and specific. around mitochondrial function and some of the misinformation that gets said out there in integrative medicine.

Dr. Donis is a wealth of knowledge, not only from clinical practice, but particularly research. And she is very much a fundamental believer of and conventional and integrative therapies. And so join me today. with Dr. Denise Wharton. All right, Dr. Denise, we are going to myth bust today. And before we get into like the nitty gritty of the myth busting, I think this is one of the most important things that you speak of that your entire practice and the people.

you work with and the research that you do is around this metabolic lens where it's powerful and it can also mislead. You've kind of spoken. publicly a lot about this metabolic approach to cancer, neurological disease, using things like hyperbaric oxygen, ketogenic diet strategies.

Walk us through your reasoning. Like what has to be true biologically and clinically before you consider that approach for someone? Like tell me like that. Because like I said, we're going to start pulling apart some of the stuff that happens in our industry that often gets misled. Well, and there's a lot, as you know, of misinformation out there. But as far as the mitochondrial theory of cancer, there's a group of us, there's about 80 of us now, researchers and clinicians that...

We know what we know about the mitochondria and that there's not a cancer, any type of cancer at any stage that we don't think that we can help support therapies and help support. you know, pushing against that cancer with these metabolic therapies because only 5 to 10 percent of cancers are genetic. But all of the conventional care, the medications, the chemos, everything is directed at.

genetics at DNA. Now, we can look at the DNA of the tumor cell and go, all right, this medication might work better or it might have less side effects. But when we're talking about really going after what is causing the cancer... and what's an overall treatment, it's looking at that mitochondrial, the mitochondria and the damage that's happened there. It causes a...

respiration problem. That means the cell mitochondria inside that cell has been damaged. Therefore, the cell can't respire properly and cancer happens. Now there's DNA damage after that, but that DNA comes... for most cancers after the fact. So it's a long explanation, but we've got the science.

No, I mean, I think that's really, really important. You know, most people don't realize that cancer cells are no longer fat burning. They are no longer mitochondrial burning of glucose and all of that. I like to call it the campfire, the cytoplasma and where we're burning. we're fermenting in cancer cells is kind of like a little campfire outside.

But, you know, why, I'm curious, why do you think conventional medicine has ignored the mitochondrial aspects of the underlying cause of cancer? Yeah, I'm going to say not now. You know, we are published in the British Journal of Medicine, those of us that are working on the research. side of this and clinicians. And so they know about it. They're not ignoring it. It's just the entire system is built on a model of genetics. And so to say, all right.

Maybe we've studied and are going down the wrong path, big path of how to look at cancer. It changes the entire paradigm, the entire industry. So we've got a very big stone that we have to roll up the hill and we're doing it with research.

And with case histories with our patients, we're doing it. So real science shows we know about the mitochondria. We know there's two pathways that feed cancer. One's glucose, one's glutamate. So we know if we're blocking those, we're doing some good things. And I work with...

oncologists all over the world from the major institutions, MD Anderson, Mayo Clinic, you name it, patients all over. And I'm not working against oncologists. I'm working with them. If a patient is chosen to do conventional care. chemo, radiation surgery, then I'm looking at mitochondria-wise. How do I support with the mitochondrial therapies that we have? Not only do we help chemo sensitivity, that means they can use less, work better, and less side effects.

It also works with the surgery. So we can help them do better with conventional care. The problem is conventional care is not getting to the cancer stem cells. That's why there's a high rate of reoccurrence. It comes back. They say, oh, the tumor's gone. Everybody says, I'm cancer free. It's just a really scary statement because.

Stem cells are still sitting there. We have a reason to believe now we can't make the statement, but it's looking like we may be getting to the stem cells. And that is going to make a big change as well. Yeah, I think that's important. Most people do not die from the primary tumor, and that's what we cut, burn, whatever it is we're going to do to get rid of, but it's the circulating tumor cells that go set up shops somewhere else.

that have been standing down and kind of quietly building new colonies. You know, one of the things that I think is important because you are very much evidence-based and bridging kind of the gap between very conventional care that might ignore a lot of these sort of underlying systems biology mechanisms or they don't have a... treatment protocol, so they sort of set it to the side. Or we can have on the other side of that a very sort of integrative approach that may not be very well.

studied and identified.

or applied very well. So for instance, we know like a ketogenic diet in many cancers reduces the fuel source for cancer treatment or even fasting, like appropriately well-timed fasting can help the impact of chemotherapies.

But some cancers don't respond as well as others. You know, there's like breast cancer and methionine. But, you know, I see a lot of people hanging a shingle. And this has got to make you crazy. They hang a shingle and they're like, I'm a functional medicine, you know, cancer expert. And I'm like.

oh my god i'm gonna i'm gonna give you glutamine i'm gonna give you i'm like whoo i start having i start having like uh like scientific tourettes well that's one of those pathways we're trying hard to block So, yeah. So, I mean, yes, there's a lot of let's pick this, let's pick that. And they're not going by the science. If we look at the real science that we have going in the metabolic therapies, it's from Dr. Tom Seyfried.

Dr. Dominic D'Agostino. These are well-seasoned researchers. We know what we're doing. So we are put together the protocols. That group I'm talking about, Society. for International Metabolic Oncology. We're just forming it. I'm in the middle of forming that nonprofit. We are getting together and really... putting together the hard science the case studies so that we really understand what we can and should be doing and not doing but right now a lot of people just want to say

Come see me. I'm going to do all these things. And everybody's got their take on it. But if they're following the real researchers, which is our group, they're following that the minute something new comes out. You know, we've got access to it to say this makes sense. And in the meantime, we know the basics of what we should be doing for pretty much all cancers, all types. But there are nuances that you just mentioned.

For the most part, we know that, you know, we know the basics. And then there's personalized medicine. You know, I've got liquid biopsies that we can do to say, is resveratrol going to help? kill a number of cancer cells and would be helpful for this patient's net normal cells. So I look at all the things, you know, we don't just do the metabolic therapies. I don't. I'm looking at all the detail of what.

really is pushing against that cancer and supporting the patient. Because you mentioned what kills a patient with cancer. There's two ways. It's sarcopenia, muscle wasting. So we have to do the ketogenic diet right. People say they're doing keto and I'm going, no, you're not. You're not doing it right. And the other is if it metastasizes into an organ and an organ can't function and that's what kills them, liver, those kinds of things. So we...

We really look at let's stop the metastasis and let's make sure you don't have muscle wasting. Those are two big things. Yeah. So if you were to look at kind of the evidence standards, how do you decide what's kind of promising? and what's kind of proven because that's the other thing is we hear a lot of people that will like if i if i hear anybody say something in research and they're like you know it's been proven or i'm like oh red flag i'm like that word's never coming out of my mouth

So you hear my language is that by the research, we have mouse studies, we have in dishes studies, right? And we have human studies. There are a lot of human studies. Hyperbaric, we know a lot about. We know quite a bit about fasting and ketogenic right now. The exact protocols, we're still working out what would be the exact best way to do it in a particular patient. We're still working that out. But there are basics.

that we have enough science that we can say this makes sense for most people. Now, of course, if someone has, there's always an exception. Somebody may not be a candidate for hyperbaric. So that's the big key. It's got to be. personalized. And to your question, what do we know is science and what is not? I would say I could challenge.

everything. You give me a chemotherapy, you give me a drug, you give me an injection, you give me anything. I can look at the science and we can poke holes in it. The thing about research and science, we try to do enough of it. So we can get a consensus to say, all right, there's enough and it looks like this research arm or this research signal. We call it a signal that this might make sense.

And if we get enough data on thousands of patients, we at least know, okay, it's causing this, this, and this in these types of patients. So we have to collect the data, but nothing, none of it is perfect. Science and spirituality. are hand in hand. And we can't say anything is 100%.

No. And I think a lot of times, especially my experience has been clinically for over 20, 21 years, is a lot of times, especially new adopters to this kind of paradigm, you know, maybe they've tried a bunch of conventional things and they come in with this. strongly held belief or really like a Hail Mary pass too. Right. And they want this ad salute. And it's like, well, if we had that, that would be awesome. But we don't.

That's right. That's right. In either system of medicine, you know, I mean, even in conventional care, you know, a lot of times, in fact, the oncologists are really reticent now to say what the prognosis is. Do you have three years? Do you have three months? Do you have, you know, the patient almost at this point.

has to pry it out of them. And then that you don't want to give, I think we need to give more hope, not less. You know, in medical school, right, we're taught don't give false hope. I think we need to give more hope because the minute you tell a patient. This is what's going to happen. They die almost to that day. Now, no doctor, no medicine, no therapy. We are not that accurate. That's the power of the human spirit of saying.

I was told I had three months. They looked at their calendar, and it's right around that time. So the power of us, the power of our pharmacy, the power of who we are is very, very important. We have to be realistic. Don't give false hope. and say, I'm going to cure you. Come to my program. I'm going to charge $20,000 or $40,000, some over $100,000. Go through my program. It's personalized. It's not. They're putting them all through the same thing most of the time.

It personalizes one person, one patient, really digging deep and doing completely different things for that patient, the best that you can see as a physician. So we've got... When I sit with patients and I work with these clients from all over the world, I say, right now, let's talk about the truth. What do we know and what do we not know to help them make their decisions? Because these are life.

decisions. These are life decisions. It's not something to make me feel better. They're literally fighting for their lives. And by the time they get to me, I love it. When I get to stage one or two, I'm like, oh, easy. Okay, we got this. We got this for the most part. I get a lot of stage four. They have exhausted their entire system. They're in their chemo, radiation, surgery.

There's not a lot left to ask the body to help with because their immune system is destroying all these things. We still help, still give quality of life. And I've seen turnarounds. However, it's much harder when I get them out of stage four. But. That's mostly who I work with because that is, they've heard about mitochondria and they've heard about this metabolic theory of cancer. They're watching Tom Seyfried on his YouTube.

You know, they're excited. They think, oh, there's something new. There's something there. But, you know, it'd be much easier if we could get them earlier.

No, I agree. You know, I would love to hear if there's a time that you had changed your mind. Maybe there was a therapy that you used to recommend and you scaled back or stopped kind of what what shifted for you? Because I think there's also like we saw this during COVID. There's kind of the sunk cost. And at some point, no one will dial it back because they don't want to admit they changed their mind. I'm kind of proud that I do it all the time.

Change my mind. All of the science. You know, we change. I mean, we used to do x-rays on people's feet to get their shoe size before we knew that radiation caused cancer. So we have to constantly shift. Always. So I would say it's an interesting question, a great one. I would say before. learning and becoming a researcher and part of the research group and clinician with this metabolic theory. We used to, especially in naturopathic medicine, doing vitamin C IVs, high dose.

for cancer patients. And, you know, oncologists still refer to that because they've heard of that and they think that might be okay. What I do now is whenever I do these kind of liquid biopsies, I'll see, is vitamin C a good killer? Does it kill 80% of the cancer cells? Then I'm going to say, can I do it orally and not have them spend the money?

and the risk of infection, going to get IVs, is that one of the best therapies? Or is it something else? So I don't just say, everybody, let's just do vitamin C IVs. And there's times and places you can't do it with certain chemos anyway. But that one I have dialed back on quite a bit unless it shows up as a really good fighter. But I will tell you this, it shows up on most people, but it's not usually in the top three.

Yeah. Yeah. Because that kind of goes back to the, you know, the earlier question kind of where where people have sort of hung their hat and said, oh, I'm now an expert in cancer when they may really not be because it's much more nuanced and it really comes down to the individual.

And if you're not going that deep, you might actually apply things that are adding to the problem and not creating health. And I won't work with someone if they don't have an oncologist. I want to work with the oncologist. First of all, we need to... be monitoring and make sure what we are choosing and doing is working or not. And so I work with them. Sometimes the oncologists go.

Yes, I trust you. I know that you're not going to interfere with what we're doing on this side. You know, we do better. You know, they've learned that my people I'm working with do better. They've learned to trust me. And, you know, in the ones that don't, I say, here, let me tell you who I've worked with and that I'm a published researcher. And then they learn to say, OK, I don't understand all what you're doing and they don't have time. They don't have time to learn it.

They are so overworked and overwhelmed, and they're doing cookbook medicine, and that's all they can do. And their hands are tied within their systems, even if they wanted. to say, why don't you do some hyperbaric oxygen or ketogenic diet might be good for you. Their hands are tied within the system and the standard of care. They can't, but they can say, okay, if you want to work with Dr. Ward or Dr.

Well, Dr. Donne's or Dr. Worden, go by both nowadays. If you want to work with Dr. Worden, go ahead, because I trust that she's going to do the right things for you. So we cannot throw out conventional. We should be questioning it, and we are, because we have not moved the needle since 1970s on how we're doing with cancer care and life expectancy from it and all that. It's a miserable failure. It's not working.

the way we're doing it. So that's why we're saying, all right, first look at the root. Are we even looking at what causes it and what's the best way to address this? Everything's, we believe. Most of it is based in information that Sunday we're going to look back and go, I think that we may look back and it's like that, you know, x-raying your shoe for a shoe size. It was like, oops, oops, we were looking at the wrong thing.

We studied the wrong thing. Yeah, and again, sunk costs. It's like we can't admit that we were studying the wrong thing, so we just keep doubling down and doubling down. That's right. Oh, for the love of God, can we stop doubling down? That's right. Guinness don't put mercury fillings in anymore either, but they never, ever admitted that there was a connection, right? But they changed. So that's what we hope for.

That's what we hope for. Yeah. And I think that's, yeah, I think, yeah, like you said, kind of bridging the gap because you do need those additional, you know, your screening and watching and paying attention. Otherwise, you have no way to know if you're, if you're, you know.

outcomes are going to be good. You know, that kind of brings me to, you know, when we look at your diagnostic algorithm, because with somebody with your skill set and your years and thousands and thousands of patients. you know, your sequence of the history, the labs, the imaging, and the lifestyle. You know, if you were to think of kind of your order of operations, how do you sort of think through that? You know, because you have more time with a patient than a traditional oncologist, you know.

and you're absorbing so much because it's it's really i think This is the hard part that we haven't figured out in functional medicine is how to take the brilliance in someone's brain from just time on. You know, if they say an expert's 10,000 hours, you got 30,000. Like, how do we build that algorithm? How do you kind of look at somebody and look at their experiences?

You know, and, you know, we always say, you know, don't like protocol medicine. Don't even like algorithms. It's really got to come back to, I think the physician also needs to know their skill set, where their weaknesses are and where they need to refer and where your strengths are and build. So what I do, if we want to call an algorithm, when a person sits in front of me, the first thing I do is ask them what their goal is for this meeting.

today, right here, right now. What is your goal? Because they come in wanting something, an idea. They see me on a podcast. They want something. And I want to start on that same page because their belief system and my belief system. need to be on the same page there. And then I go in and I ask about them. I don't start asking about the cancer first thing.

I want to know about everything else. I call it my questionnaire. I'm asking about their bowel movements. I'm asking about their sleep. I'm asking about all the things that we all want to know and ask for. I tell them I want to know you and I want to know your cancer. Two separate things.

I need to know about both. So then I will go through this questionnaire, ask them questions. By the end of that, I know their spiritual belief system, if they have one or not, their support system, all the things, because I have that time that you're talking about. New cancer patients, I'm spending two hours with them on the first visit. After that, it's fast. It's easy. I got it. I at least know the pieces of where we need to go. Last thing I do is look at the labs, the imaging, and all that.

That's to confirm what I think. That's to confirm what we've already looked at. So I go with learning the person before I look at the disease. Now, I'm aware why they're coming in. I know what disease. And I know what questions will be geared toward that. But my focus is on them. What's their willpower? I could almost tell when something, you probably can too after all these years we've been doing it. When someone walks in, you can almost tell.

This person's got a really good chance. They've got a spirit about them that they're like, you know, I feel that I. have fight left in me and that I can do this. The ones that are being drug in by somebody else, they're not sure that it's going to be a harder road. Now, sometimes I can get them.

get them turned around. And most of the time I can, but you can almost feel from the, I'm going to call this spirit of the energy of the person walking in that room, how hard we're going to have to work as a clinician. and a physician, how hard we're going to have to work, as opposed to, I'm going to tell this person what I think that they should consider, and they're going to do it to a T. They're going to do it. They're going to be compliant, we call, you know, and those are your joy.

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mastery m-a-s-t-e-r-y and your face will thank you what's some of the most common like root cause things that people chase right that you see distracting from the real issue like i i know from For me, it's almost always everything gets looped into the hormones. I mean, obviously, there's an extraordinary amount of change in perimenopause and menopause. But then everybody thinks everything is that, right? Exactly. Especially with hormones. Especially with women. And I will say that.

And you know that, you know, it's like every symptom that comes along was probably my hormones. Not necessarily, but they are powerful and they need to be balanced correctly. Right. But. I think that that is it. They come in with a mindset of thinking that. you know they'll they'll start saying well i have this because of this and i said you know what let me think about that i just want you to tell me how you feel let's talk about your symptoms don't i don't need to know at this point

that you think it's caused by this, this, or this. Now, we'll get there. I want to hear your opinion. Right now, I want to know exactly how you're feeling. Where are the pain points? Let's talk about those and not get caught in trying to...

They think they've already diagnosed themselves and they're just looking for somebody with a magic pill or bullet that's going to help them fix what they think they've already figured out. If they had it figured out, it probably would have been better by now. Yeah. i think that's true i like it between it's like usually the hormones or the gut yes health does start in the gut but it's not always that and it's always involved

It's always involved. But I think it sometimes obscures and it distracts from the issues. And then, you know, then you're kind of kind of fighting that. So you have you have a broader framework that's. That's called the seven pillars that you go through, which could apply to anybody, even if they're not working through cancer or neurological disease. Right.

Let's talk about that structure for resilience because that's ultimately it. If your body was really resilient and everything was working, chances are the immune system would be able to tackle that cell that's going rogue, right? That's right. Immune system and your mindset. I mean, because that's a big, huge piece. You know, people with all these gut issues, they've had every functional medicine test known to man still think. And it's the stress. It's the worry.

that's causing this, you know, the brain gut connection. So yeah, the seven pillars is kind of a fun little thing that I take people through and I'll do the short version with you right now if we want, is it's kind of a self-checkup. And I tell people, listen, if you were doing this at least once a month,

and being really honest with yourself, you may be able to... find things before there's a real problem, or stop chasing down one system that you think, like mold exposure, whatever it is, you're chasing down that so hard that you're not looking at these other pillars. So let's talk about this. So I'll describe each of these sections. So I tell everybody, if you're listening, if you could write it down or put it in your phone, you're going to be rating yourself on a scale of 1 to 10.

So 10 is, I'm doing really great with this. One, not so well. So let's start with sleep. Very important for everything. So, you know, how much quality sleep are you getting? REM sleep, deep sleep, do you know? Are you wearing a wearable? If you're a woman and wearing an Oura ring or wearable, it's not that accurate. Even for sleep for men, it's 75%. So back to, I like wearables. I like data. However, they're not.

hundred percent accurate. In fact, in some instances are not accurate in a big way. Listen to how you feel. Do you wake up? So a one would be you can't get to sleep and you can't stay asleep. hard to go to sleep, waking up all throughout the night. A 10 is you wake up ready to go, get out of that bed after about eight hours.

of feels like restorative sleep and you have energy throughout your day. That's a 10. So right now in one to 10, where are you on your sleep? And that's by how you feel and you can weigh in on what. your wearables are saying, but remember, they're not so accurate. Not yet. I think they'll get there. Now let's talk about your body.

Your body is beyond your weight and physique. You know, if you want to look in the mirror and say you're going to look like a supermodel at 6'2", you're not built that way. So let's go beyond that. It's not a stat. It's about are you happy with it? Is it? healthy? Do you feel good? So one would be you're weak, you don't feel strong, you feel flabby, and you really don't like looking in the mirror.

You know, you're not being too hard on yourself, but you just say, I can do better. A 10 is you love your body. It's working well. No aches and pains. It's working well. And you're taking really good care of it. You're going, you're exercising, you're doing movement, you're doing your strength training, you're taking care of it. That's a 10. Again, you might not look like a supermodel, but your body's in great shape. Next one is bowel movement.

Yes, I want to talk about poop for a minute. So, yeah, yeah. So a normal bowel movement, you know, it's just kind of an average. Everybody's a little bit different. But when I describe it, most people, especially women, go, what? It's from your wrist to your elbow about that long. It should be a medium brown color.

It should be easily passed in a log, not stringy, gooey, any of that. It should be about as big around as your wrist. It's in the middle. It should be pretty form, pretty larger than you think. You look and say, wow. How'd that happen to come out of me? So they're a little bit larger than you think, and they don't smell bad because you're breaking down the food swell. So if you have number one would be a stinky poo, it's really gooey, it's stinky.

It's really short. Or they're little rabbit pellets. Or you're constipated. You're not even going every day. You should be mostly going every day for the most part. A 10 is... You know, you're kind of so proud. You look back and you go, whoa, I almost would like to show somebody because it's like, wow, that that's incredible. Nobody's going to do that. But you look back, you feel better, you look at it and you're going, I'm doing something right.

My stress level must be down, so I'm not turning off my digestion. Stress level, I must be handling that, and I'm eating pretty well and moving. Next one is energy. Are you ready to go in the morning without coffee? In fact, you should be waiting at least an hour to have that first caffeine anyway. And are you not crashing in the afternoon? So one is you're waking up tired. You're tired all day.

And then you can't get to sleep. And you know what we call that, right? Is wired and tired. You're exhausted, but you can't go to sleep because you're wired. Brain is busy. It's going. That's all. A dangerous place to be in sleep. That's a one. A 10, you know, you get caught doing things like my dad's birthday is tomorrow. He's 92 years old.

He golfs 18 holes, even in the summer in Arizona, probably three times or four times a week. He goes dancing most nights and he goes to the gym at least three or four times a week. So that energy. That kind of energy at no matter what age, because too many people say, well, I'm getting older. I'm supposed to get. No, no. Now, there's some things he can't do like he used to.

But he's pulling himself out of a soft-shell hyperbaric oxygen tank just fine, which a lot of younger people couldn't. So we should age like that, and we should have energy like that. And age is not an excuse. Next is mental state. Now go back to dad. He's like, well, I'm doing good. That 92 doesn't bother him. He's like, he's grateful for where he is, that he's healthy and happy. And his mental state, he doesn't think he's 92.

Right. They literally he knows he is, but he doesn't. So mental state, clarity, cognition, your focus and memory. Are you having trouble pulling words, word retrieval, short term, long term, all that stuff. So if you really have in trouble saying, I'm really forgetting things more than I used to. Forgetting where you put your keys, that happens to everybody. Forgetting where you parked in the parking lot. That's always because you weren't paying attention. The thing is, you know.

You really know. Are you having trouble pulling a word or a person's name? Is your focus not there? You can't read like you used to or really have clarity to understand what's going on. And a 10 is going to be, you're on it. You're wiring and firing. Your brain is good. There's sometimes it'll be less because you didn't sleep as well. But for the most part, brain should be working for you. Next couple or last ones are relationships. We know. Studies show it.

a strong support system. You live longer, you're healthier, less diseases, having people around you. So if you don't have family or friends or colleagues at work, That's going to lower your number. Also, intimacy. Intimacy with your partner. And if you don't have a partner, even intimacy with yourself. We are sexual beings. We are touchy-feely and we should.

be being intimate in some way and having a good tribe around us. So the 10 is a great tribe and great sex. Now you wrote yourself a 10, right? Yeah. Spiritual health. Probably the most important if you feel connected and you've got a deep sense of gratitude and you can find serenity even when chaos is happening around you.

And there's grief or trauma, all those things around it. You have a practice, a breathwork, a meditation, a prayer, something that you can connect to something outside of yourself. God. spirit, whatever your belief system is, if you have that ability to connect there in the middle of chaos, you've got a good spiritual health piece going. But if you feel alone,

You wonder if it's all worth it. You have no connection. That's a low number on that spiritual health. But spiritual is not saying you have to be religious and go to church and do all of the rules in church. This is... the ability to find and feel that peacefulness and connecting this when you need to. So I always say, pick, look at your numbers, back at your numbers. What's the lowest one? Pick that. And there's so many.

things that you can do in all of these areas, whether, you know, whether it's just knowing the things you should be doing and you're not. And just give yourself a little time period to say, I'm going to work on this. If you can't figure it out, go to a good doctor. Go to someone who's going to look at these areas with you and help you figure out what you need to do. But doing more tests.

We've got to be really careful with that. Now, I love data. I like testing. I like knowing at least what I need to see. However, as we've already said, They're not always 100% accurate. And there are a few, like food sensitivities or microbiome tests right now. I'm not sure how reproducible most companies are. Now, there are some good ones, but reproducible means if you...

If we took your blood or your bowel movement, we did that same person, same day, and I send it off to a lab, it better come back. Both of those samples better come back with the same information. And a lot. of these expensive functional medicine tests are not reproducible. They're just not. They give us information, but you still gotta go back. Does that fit what they're telling me, how they feel, what they're doing? Back to these seven pillars. That's how you know.

If you've got a 10 in all these areas, I think you should quit worrying about things and quit doing all these expensive tests and, you know, and go on with what you're doing because your body and your brain and your mind and your spirit is giving you the answers. It's the best checkup. you'll ever get. And so that's the message is we don't have all the answers in science and medicine. We've got good things. We have really good doctors that can really help.

But it comes down to how, you know, you've got to really learn to check in with yourself. Yeah. I'm glad you said that about like food sensitivities because I was, you know, years ago. we didn't have we didn't have a lot of great ways to assess gut health and immune function and we had those tests but you know very early on it was very clear that we have a lot of friendly fire that shows up on there that's not a true long-term problem

And then, you know, microbiome got better. But again, people think, oh, it's about these individual bacteria. And this is just. this is it i'm like no it's more about the overall pattern that is seen in the immune system the digestive function other things and i think it's just because people are taking a very uh cookbook westernized approach to a in

imperfect but directional test. You know, which brings me to, we were talking about this, so you had something that you described. Now, what did you call it? Bio... Bio-slotging, yeah. Some of the most stressed people I know. or biohackers.

The buyer, they, they wear everything. They track everything. They're constantly, every thought is I got to do this. I got to go, I got to go do a cold plunge every day. I have to do this, have to do that. They are some of the most stressed people that I know. So I say, don't. just be a biohacker and a bio tracker. Being a bio slacker means you're not doing your homework before you jump into the latest fad and it could be harmful to you.

And it's just the new thing. And I want to go do it because everybody else is doing it. That's dangerous. Yeah. Like we were talking about, like, I think we should bring this one up. Cold plunge. Right. That comes from bro science. Right. and largely you know largely unstudied in women but but the little bit that is indicates that in many cases it may not be good especially for women but but in particular conditions too but people want to do it i'm like okay

So brief cold exposure, the things we do know, it can lower inflammation. It can increase your brown fat, which that's the good stuff that we want, and boost dopamine. You feel better. That's real. But for women... With hormones that aren't balanced, it can really work backwards, and it has killed people. There are deaths, heart attacks, and strokes documented, associated with it. So I asked...

You know, I was in front of this group of entrepreneurs and I said, how many of you? And I knew maybe the majority. I said, how many of you have done a cold plunge? All 80 hands went up. And I said, how many of you check to see if you might have an aneurysm? Did you think about your family history? Do you have an arrhythmia? Is your heart rhythm, your thyroid, your thyroid hormones? Did you check anything?

or think about it before you jumped into that cold plunge. Because in those first few seconds, the blood vessels clamp down, your blood pressure can spike to 50 points. and your heart races, what can happen? You literally can burst an aneurysm and die on the spot. A 40-year-old male just died from it. He was trying to outlast his friends in a 38-degree tub.

And he was healthy. He's one of these very healthy biohackers. Let me do everything right. So, you know, cold plunging can be amazing. Peptides, stem cells, they all have promise. But you have to know you. You have to know your risk factors and don't just jump in and say, what should I check before I start doing any of these things? And I say, ask three questions. Is it proven?

Do we know, is there any science, study, anything? Is it proven? Is it safe? And is it the right thing for me right here, right now, for my body? It might be safe for 98% of the people. But what if I'm in the 2%? So you have to really analyze things. I think we've got to remind our patients and people that listen to us that, you know, you really need to know before you jump into these things.

Yeah, and look at the representative sample. So if it was mostly done in young men in colleges, because that's a lot of times where the research is done, because who do we get? We get trapped students. That doesn't apply to a 55-year-old female. who you know with dysfunction like i like i don't do cold plunges i've done them right

I don't do them regularly. I have genetics for sheer force damage to arteries. I'm like, I don't think I need to get in somewhere where my blood pressure shoots up 50 points in a matter of seconds. Because I was like, you know, I do cardiovascular training. vo2 max training and stuff for short periods of time but i'm not going to do that but you know one of the things that i think is truly advantageous to women

is sauna utilization, both men and women. Like if there was one kind of biohack thing that across the board pretty much is favorable for most people, heat, thermal. activity it doesn't have to be at these really high heats if you look at some of the studies coming out of sweden and denmark you know societies that have done it for a long time but particularly for cardiovascular health but women because of our ability to vasodilate at a much greater level than men

sweat, you know, all those things that, you know, heat exposure is probably good for women. Of course, depending on how you're feeling, if you've got a lot of chronic disease, that may not be true. But, you know, so much of this stuff is just like, you know.

this, then it's this, then it's this. And I would say hyperbaric, except for when there's contraindications like previous. It's my favorite. Yeah, it is one of my favorites. And we've got science behind it. And you're right, a few contraindications, not many. But that, you want to talk about increases stem cells by eight and a half fold. That's out of Harvard. Eight and a half fold. And talk about pretty much every system in your body. You know, I'm a certified hyperbaric medicine.

specialist. And so I keep up with the science and what Dr. Dominic D'Agostino at University of Southern Florida is doing. He's funded by the Department of Defense and NASA to study. the astronauts and the Navy SEALs and the super soldiers, right? It's hyperbaric oxygen is one of the main things and ketogenic diet. So the same things we're using in the cancer patients and neurological patients, MS, Parkinson's.

Those same therapies are the same therapies that they're doing to keep our warriors stronger, faster, better under immense emotional and physical stress. So what about... People in between don't have cancer, don't have neurological, not a Navy SEAL, but you want to hack something. I think we need to be, you know, we're learning more, learning more. Not everybody needs to do all of it.

all the time. And if you're going to stress over doing all of it all the time, that stress is far more detrimental than not doing it. Oh, yeah, I would agree.

Yeah, so if you were to look at some metrics that, because, you know, let's face it, like I'm comparing two different wearables today because we're doing data capture for the Minerva platform. So I've got an ultra, I'm not endorsing either one. I've had Aura for nine years. Right. And then an ultra human. And, you know, and I think the signals that you can see in some of those are great. You know what I hate that they've started doing is their resiliency scores. Yeah. And that's all for women.

bullshit that is well especially sleep women get up in the morning and they're saying i thought i slept well i feel really good and the resiliency is saying i shouldn't go to the gym today but i feel good it's like We know, in fact, they've already, they've admitted it. They're trying to rebuild the algorithms. It's not very accurate for women, especially that resiliency piece. And it tells you, don't do anything today.

Listen to your body. Back to my seven pillars. How do you feel? How do you feel? That's a better indication than a lot of... And I like the metrics too, but it's just a better indication. It's not there for women. And you know, even regular lab work, blood work, it's based on 150 kilogram white college age male.

What does that have to do with women? And I spoke at the United Nations. They asked me to come and speak about women's health and AI. So I brought in and I said, first of all, AI can't help us that much right now because we don't have the... We don't have the research on women. We haven't researched women enough in all these areas for 8i to say, this is what you should do for medical. It's on 150 kilogram white college age male.

That's the data. Now, we're getting more studies being done in women. Eventually, it'll catch up, and AI will have some information. Right now, it's not accurate for women. No. Well, if anything, it's heavily biased, if it is, because we have, like, just a few studies to really look at.

You know, it miscounts everything else, but counts the Women's Health Initiative, which was so biased. It was insane. Oh, that was a disaster from the beginning. They were looking at the wrong thing. Yeah. Anyway, that's a whole nother. I'm sure you've had plenty of guests on that. Yeah, but we haven't studied women. And people go, was it biased? I said, no. One reason, hormones. It's hard to study a cyclical person when we have hormones changing.

all the time, it's very difficult to get a baseline from a research standpoint. That's why they chose males. It's because they had more of a steady... hormonal thing. Now we've got enough data and AI and all that that can track and pull all that out if you're cycling. But that's why we didn't study women. It was because of the hormone changes.

Yeah. I mean, even rats. We use male rats. Like, they're just like, forget that. Even in lab animals that we're going to euthanize, they go, forget it. You know, males still do. That's right. It's just easier to study it. But then now with AI and all the abilities that it can do, I think we're starting to see more female, women, female studies, rats and humans, because we can take the information and say, okay.

This is why this went out of range. It was because they were in the middle of the cycle or they were ovulating or whatever was happening, right? Or perimenopause when the hormones are plummeting. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So if some of my listeners, I'm sure some of my listeners may know somebody who is battling a cancer or neurological disorder or something like that and really looking for an integrative approach, because I like what you said.

work with oncology, providing these metabolic approaches where it's not just, you know, one or the other, because I don't think that's, our clinical mindset has always been and, right? That's right. That's right. Yeah. And, and, and. Yeah. Yeah. So how would my listeners reach out to you or find out more about you? Sure. They can go to my website, drwarden.com, or they can call the office.

at 480-588-2233. And I will say, because just have them say they were on, that they listened to Dr. Betty's podcast, right? And that... And I'll give them a free consult, like 10 or 15 minutes to say, is it a good fit? I've gotten very selective in who I work with now. I still get people outside of cancer and neurological, just complicated cases. Nobody can figure them out. I still enjoy that group.

as well, because I love diagnostics. But I really am trying to focus mostly on using metabolic therapies for cancer and neurological, and especially cancer. So yeah, if I can be of help, that'd be great. And I'll do that for your listeners. They've already been, if they're listening to you, they're already well-educated. So I'm sure I would love to have them. Yeah, I would say, you know, my listeners love the science. So that's really awesome. So they really dig in, which is great.

So if you're listening today and you know somebody that may be going through cancer or maybe have been through cancer and you feel like you're just not. getting what you need. Dr. Denise, I'm seriously, no joke, one of the few leading researchers in this area that's really providing change, you know, really moving the needle because conventional care is still very, very attached to the genetics and receptor.

you know, receptor activity rather than looking at the underlying root cause of what's really happening, which starts with mitochondrial function. You know, the commitment's there. And you know what I think is interesting because we're speaking about females? Do you know that mitochondria... are only passed through the female. The male mitochondria are completely killed off during fertilization. So your mitochondria...

That is your energy producer. Remember, it makes ATP. It's the stress. It's actually a sensor for stress. They repair. They're the repair coordinators. They tell the body where and what to repair. and decision maker of the cell survival. Are you going to kill off a cancer cell or not? That all comes through the matriarchal line only. And I think it's interesting if we start looking at...

You know, they get signals by natural light. We were talking about near and infrared saunas. They get signal from sunlight, from grounding. All those things change your mitochondria. And stress is one of the worst things that we can do to that mitochondria. From a female standpoint, think about it. Mitochondria are collaborative. They work together in a collaborative manner like a matriarchal society does. So there's a lot of really good fun.

analogies of feminine mitochondrial and the mitochondrial matriarchal science. The science between network communications, rhythmic responsiveness, the way that females think. It's the way our mitochondria think. Yeah. You know, they've tied cognition and memory and what we would consider sort of IQ to the matriarchal.

you know, X chromosome also. So most everything is coming from the mom when it comes from that standpoint. That's right. That's right. Actually, the grandma, I guess you should clarify that. Grandma. That's right. There you go. Grandma. It's grandma. If your grandma was super smart. That's right. That's right. That's right.

You know, we just got to remember that the body heals itself in the presence of safety, not force. We can't force it. So back to the biohacking, you can force all these things as much as we want hormesis, which is a controlled stress. to kind of wake it up once in a while, but I think we're doing too much of it. And if we remember that the body heals not in force, not in stress.

You have to get out of the stress for it to start healing from that stress. But if you stay in that stress all the time, both emotional or doing all the biohacks, it's going to be hard for it to have time to heal. And we've got to remember more is not better. It's kind of a mantra I say in my office all the time to all my people. Stacking isn't science. More is not better. We've got to know exactly what are the few things that might move the needle for you.

That's the best, in my opinion, the best way to help someone. Oh, that's Mike Jock moment. Dr. Denise. I want to thank you so much for being on Menopause Mastery. I think you elucidated a lot of misinformation that we've heard and then also helped people understand cancer, particularly as a metabolic.

malfunction of the mitochondria. Yeah. Well, I love the work that you're doing and hormones are, they're master signalers and switchers. So I'm so glad you got the education going out there because we need it. Yep. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Denise. And thank you everybody for listening and or watching Menopause Mastery. Don't forget if you need Dr. Denise to look in the show notes and find a way to reach her. And we will be back with you next week.