Peptides and Cancer – The Cancer Revolution Series

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Well, thank you, Matt. It’s always great to be with you.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Well, tell me just a little bit of your journey. How did you get interested in oncology and integrative oncology? And tell me a little bit about what brought you here.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Right, well started a long time ago, but I’ll tell you why I got in specifically to oncology because I am number three of six children, grew up in Houston, Texas. My mother started to bleed when she was pregnant with me. She went to her doctor and said, oh, I’m bleeding. And he said, oh, we have a great drug that will prevent miscarriage and stop your bleeding. So that drug was DES, diethylstilbestrol, and that was used in the fifties. And so lo and behold when I’m 16 years old, my parents after school one day came and set me down and said, oh, we received this letter that that drug, DES caused cancer in both male and female offspring, caused anatomical problems, hormone problems, and all kinds of issues. And that we needed to go to MD Anderson Hospital to get evaluated. So when I was 16, I went to MD Anderson. If anyone knows the cancer institutions in the world, MD Anderson is one of the largest cancer institutions. And so I was basically a spectacle for a bunch of doctors because it’s a teaching hospital. So DES and all that exposition of that was what everybody wanted to learn about it. And so anyway, I got biopsies very early in my time period. And so that’s very traumatic for a 16 year old, not to mention, you know, I never really went to the doctor until this. And so anyway, then at 18, I went to my college physical and I was diagnosed with scoliosis. And so you can’t do anything about scoliosis, unless you really find it early and even braces at that time really were not effective. Anyway, so I thought, okay, I’m really good with biology, but I want be able to talk to people. 

So I thought, oh, I can be a doctor. So I went to college, got my degree in biology. And then I went to UT School of Public Health. And that’s where I did my thesis on DES. And then I went to medical school, and so finished medical school, went to Harbor, UCLA. And then I started my practice in LA after that. And I never had two periods in a row in my life. And so when I was in medical school, I went to all the doctors, and they said, no, we need to put you on birth control pills. Well, when I went on birth control pills, that changed my whole being, ’cause it just changed something very interesting in my system. Anyway, but you know, when you’re young, you don’t know what you don’t know. And so anyway, through lots of different things, I started practicing and I met a physician who was an internist and pathologist and he started teaching me all these things about the endocrine system because I had endocrine, you know, issues, ’cause I never had two periods. And so I started learning about the thyroid and hormones, et cetera, and that was like life changing. And he told me, you know what? You have to teach your patients how to eat because if you want them to be well, you’ve got to teach them how to eat. And I thought that was very interesting coming from an internist pathologist. You know, he saw patients, but then he looked under the microscope, you know, looking at pathological tissues. So I said, okay, I’m gonna listen to him. So I started my practice like that. And so it’s been a very interesting journey over the past 35 years. And one of my primary areas of interest when I would go to a medical conference is cancer. But more importantly, how do I prevent cancer in me? Because I’m a high risk, how do I prevent cancer? So I’ve met this gentleman at an A4M conference and he tells me his whole life story that he had a sarcoma. 

Sarcoma is a tumor of muscle and bone. And amputation is the treatment or surgical removal is the treatment for that cancer. And he said, he refused to get an amputation. He signed out AMA, and he spent the next 11 years figuring out how to save his leg and cure himself of cancer. And that was, you know, like 25 years post when he was diagnosed. So I said, I need to learn every thing this guy knows. So I did, and he became a mentor for me. And then in my practice I started seeing a dramatic increase in cancer and I thought, oh no, we’ve got to focus on prevention and early detection. But interestingly enough, that doesn’t really excite people. It doesn’t really like, you know, no, I need to do this, right? And so I partnered with an oncologist, local in Orange County, and he was very interested in what I was doing. And I really liked the way he worked up patients. And I would always send him patients to collaborate with me. And so we started working like that and I first was working with Oasis of Hope in Mexico and Dr. Contreras was my first partner. And so, we got this oncologist to work with us. We actually went down to Mexico, explored Mexico. And then I told him, I said, you got to really get into this the way this is done because oncologists, you know, they basically, prescribe chemotherapy. That’s basically, do a workup and prescribe chemotherapy, right? So anyway, but he was really on board with me. And so that’s how we started Cancer Center for Healing. 

Well, first it was called Oasis of Hope and then Dr. Contreras and I separated ways because people didn’t want to go to Mexico. They only wanted to come in the United States. So we decided he needed to stay and do his thing. And I stayed in Orange County to do Cancer Center for Healing. Now that’s what it’s called. So my whole mission, you know, I tell people when you see a patient they’re not just a cancer patient. We have a whole biological system and everything in a person must be addressed. Whatever the label of the patient, whether it’s diabetes, whether it’s heart disease or cancer, that’s just a label that patients get in this existing medical system. But we are a whole biological system and every single little thing needs to be worked up and investigated because patients are not just one thing and you don’t have to become that one thing. And that label can’t be you forever. You can cure yourself of diabetes. You can cure yourself of heart disease. You can cure yourself of cancer. And so anyway, it’s been a very interesting discovering odyssey of what I’ve learned from my personal experiences and through talking to patients for 35 years. And then I am always, just like you, we’re trying to know more and more and more every day. I tell people there’s 1.2 million PubMed articles that are written. Something is new every nanosecond and we, as doctors need to stay as updated as possible. And there’s something changing and new on the horizon and we need to be constantly looking for that pearl that we need to know.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Okay, before we do anything, hit me with some pearls and I say, okay, I want to prevent cancer. Give me your top five things you tell somebody if we want to prevent cancer.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

All right, so prevention is probably the number one thing we should all be interested in because health really needs to be our number one value, ’cause everything in your life hinges on the health of you, right? And so number one thing, I would say that everyone needs to take an inventory of their stress. And so we’re all very, very stressed today and we don’t grow up, I know I didn’t grow up, I know you didn’t grow up with skills on how to deal and handle stress, okay? And in today’s world because of the constant stimulation of information, TV, et cetera, and drama and trauma around the world, that it’s very difficult for us to take it all in, all right? And like how do you manage all that? And then we all in our life have life, and it has curve balls and detours, I call them. And we’ve got to learn how do we handle those, okay? And how do we resolve them? I tell people, you never get over trauma, but you get through it, and you got to reframe that unfavorable perception. But I will tell you that I started learning about stress and psychology of how we work and first of all, how I worked about 20 years ago, so the discovery of the psycho, spiritual, emotional facet of us, you know, rules us every day. And if we don’t have that in check, and we can’t do it by ourself, we think we can do it by ourself, but we’re not objective of ourself. So we have to partner with someone who can turn that stress into a blessing. And it really does. We all have to learn how to do that.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Well, that’s right. But I would say I was having somebody I really loved here this week. And then maybe like one of the two or three themes that came out of the week of our conversations was getting to that point of the blessing. And if you get to the point of recognizing the blessing of trauma, then I think like for me, everything that happened to me, I have actually gotten to the point that I would have no idea how to do what I do if those things hadn’t happened.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Sure.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

And so I’m actually really grateful that they happened because otherwise, if those things hadn’t happened, I would be doing anesthesia and taking somebody’s gallbladder out now, which would be like, you know? So, okay, one is managing stress. Cancer prevention, number two?

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Number two, what is your lifestyle? So how do you live every day? So if you don’t sleep, which is probably 50% of the population, your body can’t restore, rejuvenate and repair itself. So sleep has to be in order. You know, there’s a book called “Circadian Code.” 10 to six, give or take 30 minutes is something we have to honor. And if you don’t sleep, I tell people your day starts when you go to sleep. So sleep is paramount, okay? Number two, or three rather is what are you putting in your system, okay? You know, you have to look at everything that you put, whether it’s the water or the food is information. It’s information for your cells to take care of you, ’cause we are a biochemical machine. So if we don’t have the right information going in, so if we eat dirty, sugary, inflamed foods, that’s the way our body is going to be. Now I know it’s impossible to buy perfection when we buy food or grow food or anything ’cause the world unfortunately is laden with overwhelming toxicity. Last week, there was just a report they found micro-plastics in the blood. So that means that we are all very toxic. So we’ve got to look at the labels, but we’ve got to look at the manufacturers and we’ve got to look at the chemicals in the food. And if you can’t read the label, then it’s probably something that you probably shouldn’t be ingesting. And so the food is vital information that’s gonna tell a cell to take care of you, to help you or hurt you, so you have to know. 

And then the water, like all the water is contaminated. And so it has pharma water in it and then it has chemical water in it. So that means you must invest in a purification system that is water that is going to nourish and bathe your cells in the right medium and the right terrain, okay? And so then you have to move and we are a society of not moving now. You know that everyone uses the sitting is the new smoking because they’re sitting on computers, they’re sitting doing their work and so forth. So we have 800 muscles. Plus we have this magical lymphatic system and that has so many functions in our body and so that if we don’t move, we can’t activate the brain to derive growth factor. We can’t affect our circulation. We can’t oxygenate. We can’t detoxify. And so we have to move. And so little walks. I tell people, go take a walk five minutes every hour. You’re on your computer, go take a walk. Well by the time that’s eight hours, that’s 40 minutes. So just little walks are maybe even better than taking a long walk ’cause a lot of times people have a problem with exercise and exercise is like not fun for them. And so if they just go take a walk for five minutes, you’re gonna be activating your whole system. So I would say that’s kind of where we’d start. Of course there’s a lot more fine tuning. And then you’ve got to partner with an integrative physician who knows how to do a battery of great blood tests that looks for things that, oh, there’s something wrong with your inflammation. 

Oh, your blood sugar, your hemoglobin A1C is too high. Oh your vitamin D is too low. So looking at certain markers. Blood is typically not a great inventory for finding cancer. Yes, there are blood tests like the liquid biopsy ’cause RGCC, which is a lab in Greece that has been around for about 18 years, and it’s used all over the world and that’s a liquid biopsy. There’s a blood test I do called PHI, which is an indication of low oxygenation. So if you have low oxygenation, we know that something is not correct in your body. And so I will do that blood. Hormones like DHEA, DHEA is the main hormone made by your adrenal glands and your adrenal glands are your stress, immune and longevity glands. And DHEA is a single most powerful hormone for repairing your body. So we want that to be good also. So there’s great little blood tests that doctors can do every day. And I always tell people an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And if we could just totally really know that and embrace that because I tell people now, US ranks 43rd of the world in healthcare, we spend two and a half times more than any other country, 60% of the patients are suffering from a chronic illness, one in two people have cancer, and heart disease is increasing and the third leading cause of death in this country is the medical paradigm. We all have a social responsibility to take a stand and say, no, this is unacceptable. And we need to teach people that self care is the new healthcare.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

I love that. Yeah, I had a call with some people this morning and it was kind of awesome, ’cause I said, you know, I always say if I have a good idea, I say, I think this is gonna be a home run. And I said, you know, I have all of these friends that are kind of famous health influencers who basically made it their job to be healthy. And so then I realized, you know what? And I think I realized this a couple years. I just said, you know what? And I had just been working like a dog, like every doctor does 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and then I realized that they were doing that and getting away with it. And so then I said, you know what? I’m just gonna change my life and basically make it my job to be super healthy. And then it suddenly became like really easy for me to do that. And so I told them, I said, what you’re gonna do is you’re just gonna make it like kind of like your job. And I go, the side effect is your kids are gonna realize you’re super healthy and they’re gonna do the same thing. That means you and your family are gonna be fine. 

And then basically, what we’re talking about is essentially all of these strategies that you just mentioned that are the anti-cancer prevention ideas. And then I kind of paused. And then he goes, Dr. Cook, that’s not a home run. He goes, that’s a grand slam home run. So I love that. So then, let’s say we’re bought in and then we’re gonna do everything. And then, you know, cancer comes along. And so then one of the things I want to think about is peptides, you know, where does that come in? And then, but before I get into that, you know, one of the fears that everybody has is, oh, does this cause cancer, you know? And, you know, one thing about peptides is there’s a lot of peptides that actually have a benefit to blood vessels. So they can promote angiogenesis. Probably the most famous peptide in the world, BPC-157, promotes angiogenesis. And we know that cancer also does something that kind of promotes angiogenesis, ’cause it’s trying to get blood vessels to kind of go into it. How do you think about angiogenesis and cancer? How do you think about peptides from a cancer prevention perspective these days?

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Well, I think if you’re going to use peptides, you should make sure, especially the ones that can promote angiogenesis, which would be the TGF-Beta and the BPC-157, but they can also be very, very helpful, okay? So especially a lot of people have intestinal dysfunction, okay, and BPC is one of the best peptides for any kind of inflammatory bowel or some kind of chronic disease in their gut. And so key thing, if you’re going to think about prevention, you better make sure the person doesn’t have cancer, okay? And I know that I work people up to make sure. So I don’t start with peptides. I never start with peptides as a treatment until I have made sure that I’ve cleaned all the cobwebs and the thorns of what’s going in the body. You know, peptides are kind of like the icing on the cake, so to speak, all right? So I like make sure I do that complete battery of tests that I would do on a 25 year or a 105 year old because 25 year olds have problems that 55 year old people have. So I make sure that everything is working in concert. Like what are their hormones? What’s their blood sugar, D toxicity, you know, are they toxic? Like your body’s not gonna work effectively if your body’s still toxic. So I usually have patients do a cleanse. Also, if they need to, a lot of people have chronic infections like candida and parasites, which you have to eradicate, maybe sometimes with medicine. A lot of it I can do naturally. And then the peptides are a little smart, little molecules, little sequence of amino acids that go in there and add the icing to the cake. For example, if you have parasites, well, the BPC is not going to help it. 

Now the KPV acts as a natural antibiotic for lots of GI infections, but again, you may need, you know, heavy duty medicines for certain things, okay? And so I usually, like I said, I’ll make sure that I clear all the cobwebs, the thorns, whatever, so the peptides can do the magic that we want it to do. Just like for cancer like if you want to use thymusin alpha, thymusin alpha helps the thymus gland activate T-cells. T-cells help your immune system function better. But that’s just one of many things that I’m going to be prescribing to a cancer patient, but that’s like the icing on the cake, ’cause look what chemo does. Chemotherapy destroys the immune system. So every doctor should be giving patients something to support the immune system. And they don’t, you know? This is what’s so sad is that you’re giving this nuclear bomb and not taking care of the patient’s infrastructure and their foundation. So the thymusin alpha-1 peptide is a beautiful peptide to affect the T-cells, which help make really good white cells. ‘Cause look at the patients that get medications like Neupogen, which makes you feel really terrible. But if you proactively did this, then the patient wouldn’t need that. Like our patients, they get chemo, they don’t need these. They don’t ever need those kinds of drugs ’cause I’ve already prepped them before. So if they get chemotherapy, here is your counterbalancing protocol.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

And, I think you said TGF Beta but I think you meant thymusin beta-4.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Yes, thymusin beta-4.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Yeah, and interestingly, I would agree. And I basically don’t use thymusin beta-4 because of that hypothetical fear. And so then what I do is I’ll use the fragments of thymusin beta-4, but I also kind of try to think about things and try to gather, you know, labs and information with people and get a sense of what’s going on. But I also have really found a lot of benefit in terms of the gut with KPV and then also with KPV and BPC orally. And then interestingly, a lot of times if you take KPV and BPC systemically, then they will have an effect on the gut as well.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Right, so you’re just enhancing. I know I’ve done them all myself because three years ago I had 18 hours of back surgery. And so I had taken antibiotics, pain medicines, anti-inflammatories, anti-spasmatics. So I had to completely repair my body from all of those medications. And so I took, you know, BPC, thymusin, all of these. I love the KPV, that’s a great one. It’s a great one for a lot of different conditions, okay? And so, I mean, it was tremendous at helping my gut get back to normal function.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

And you know, regardless, it’s kind of almost like in your contract as a functional medicine doctor. You know, regardless of what we’re talking about, we probably need to dedicate 20% of our time to the gut. And what I have found is that if that’s working, basically everything’s working, you know?

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

True, I tell people your gut from the point of when you chew to the time that you get rid of in your colon, that that’s this freeway system for the rest of the body. So if that’s not right, because every little step from the chewing to the esophagus, to the stomach, to the small intestines, liver, gallbladder, pancreas and large intestines, they’re all phenomenal parts and you need them all. And if you rehabilitate all of that system, your brain’s gonna work, your liver, your circulation, everything is going to work for you.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

And then that means your immune system’s working, which is probably gonna be crucial for let’s say now we say we’ve got somebody coming in and then they’ve got cancer. How do you put together your sort of initial ideas in terms of treatment plans in terms of thought process? I guess we’ll start with that.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Right, well, the first thing is I’ll do a very good, thorough history and physical for each patient, okay? Because the patient has all the answers. So every doctor needs to listen to that patient, to the extreme detail. And I know you can’t get everything on the first visit. That’s why they call it the practice of medicine. So the first visit is to establish that rapport, relationship, but more importantly, doctor discovery, so you know how to properly take care of that patient. So if you don’t understand how that patient lives every day, then you can’t probably give them the direction that they need. So I always try to like to go through birth through where they are and especially what’s happened in the last 10 years, because from one cancer cell to tumor formation is about 10 years. So this last 10 years is very important for me to know how someone has lived in every which way ’cause I’ve talked about their stress, their sleep, et cetera. Then I look at all the medications and the comorbidities they have. If they have diabetes, I know that I’m gonna have to be very, very strict in getting that blood sugar ideal. If they have high blood pressure and other diseases, I got to make sure I either get them off medications or get them on the minimal medications. If they have autoimmune disease, that’s got to be taken into consideration. So every disease that’s going on with the patient, I have to take that into consideration with the patient who has cancer. 

And then I do an extreme, like I said before, an extreme battery of blood tests on the patients, because I always give the analogy, you go and want to go buy a brand new red BMW. And it’s just gorgeous in the showroom floor. And it’s beautiful interior, but let’s pretend for a moment that the radiator’s gone. Your car’s not gonna work. So the doctor has to be responsible for making sure the entire machinery in its insides is working, okay? So if you miss one thing, for example, what if you missed the white count? Well, if the white count isn’t strong enough, well, okay, there goes your treatments. You’re not going to be fixing the patient. So you got to make sure that that patient is in pristine order. Then usually I always recommend, first thing is examine what the patient’s eating. So I’ll have them see our health coach or our dietician to make sure that they know what they can eat, because there’s lots of confusion on what to eat. And so, but again, you have to look at the patient’s blood test. For example, if someone’s anemic, you don’t want them just on a plant-based diet, right? You want them to be eating protein. You can’t make hormones if you don’t eat protein. You can’t fortify your red blood cells. So I always make sure that they know how to eat. And also we already have to address their emotions and stress. Then I will put them on like what to start taking daily. I always do a nutritional profile on every single patient so I know what you’re deficient in. Otherwise your biochemistry can’t work for you if you’re deficient in one or more nutrients. And so I’ve already ordered that, but usually if I can see that the patient is toxic, which let’s face it, most people are, they’re not on a regimen like you and I would be following on a daily basis, but you know, I might put them on a cleanse. 

And I’ll just say, we’re just gonna get the cleanse while we’re gathering all this. Now the patients in very serious situations, I don’t put them on a cleanse and I will put them on a great eating program and specific supplements like vitamin C. Vitamin C’s the antidote for everything, all right, for viruses, cancer, bugs, and chemicals and heavy metals. I will put them on pancreatic enzymes. Pancreatic enzymes, cancer cells hide themselves in a fiber coating, 15 layers. That pancreatic enzyme strips the coating of the cancer cell. Then most cancer patients are acidic. So I’ll put them on an alkalinizing powder that I use. And then I’ll use something like carbon 60 for daily detoxification, but carbon 60 is also anti-cancer. So then start with that, okay? I don’t like to overwhelm the patient ’cause they’re already just in shock with their diagnosis. And so I kind of start slowly and surely. And then I will usually start IV vitamin C and mistletoe. So mistletoe’s a parasitic plant that’s been used for over a hundred years. There’s over 30,000 PubMed articles on mistletoe. There is an active trial going on at John’s Hopkins University studying mistletoe. It’s got very favorable results already. But mistletoe helps patients feel better, fights the cancer. You talked about angiogenesis. It also cuts out blood supply to the cancer and helps the immune system. So we want our patients to be, okay, they’re ill, we want them to feel better. So everything that we as physicians, we need to be elevating the energy capacity of every patient while they are going through it.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

I had a patient that I just loved and I loved him and I’m kind of like, take care of the family. And then he basically was the father and basically didn’t totally buy in, but was kind of interested in me. And so I just had kind of a long term relationship, but peripheral. And then there was a terrible cancer and there was probably a thought that we were gonna manage it at UCSF, but then I sent him to your clinic and they didn’t even get to see you, but just as kind of a workup, because I wanted to have a full sort of integrative experience around it. And at that time there was an idea, you know what? This is too bad and I’m just gonna say goodbye to the world and it’s gonna be over. And then we worked in parallel with your clinic, all of those steps. And so, and then we worked on that, okay, we’re gonna stay around here, we’ve got this. There was type two diabetes and hemoglobin A1C was sky high and all of this type of stuff. And then basically I did that kind of same pitch of I’m gonna make it your job to become the healthiest person, you know, in Silicon Valley. And then, you know, those seeds that you guys planted are still active today. And so they still send me pictures of the continuous glucose monitor. Diabetes is a hundred percent gone. You know, that one ended up being kind of a combination of surgical and a bunch of stuff, but it was great. And I think it highlights that as we go kind of through the experience, and also he did mistletoe and the vitamin C also, so then what that highlights is that I think there’s a huge opportunity even if you’re gonna go down the chemotherapy route to begin to do some of these IV vitamins, to begin to implement these strategies, affect where we are mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, and then manage pH and all this stuff. Like I couldn’t agree anymore with everything you said. And, I think it’s so important.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Oh gosh, yeah we’ve got into, I call it conveyor belt medicine. There is no one size fits all. There is no, like, okay, here’s the average and this is what we do for everybody. No, every individual is an original and we need to respect that process and really guide people to health. And there’s no like overnight sensation map. That’s the problem. It’s not just gonna happen over night. You know, my new one liner for 2022 is discipline or disease. And that is just the way it is. Like, look how disciplined you are with your own life, and like you said, the mission to be the healthiest person in the world. And so that kind of should be our goal as a nation is to be the healthiest nation in the world.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

It’s kind of like we had victory gardens in World War II, but we need to become victory humans, you know, nowadays.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

That’s right.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

That’s a good one. Are you using, there’s a peptide PNC-27?

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Yeah.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Tell me about that. Tell me about your experience or thoughts around that.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Yeah, so PNC usually, so just so you know, I do a lot of energy medicine, and the reason is like there’s, you know, drugs that starve cancer. So there’s a lot of drugs, but you couldn’t take 12 drugs usually at one time ’cause then liver would be overloaded. So I energy test patients to see what was going to work. The other thing is if RGCC, I can also send in things to them, like salinomycin or PNC, and I can see if that’s gonna be effective. But a lot of times I do it conveniently in the office just because that seems to be the easiest thing. But PNC is a membrane active anti-cancer peptide. And so what it does is it causes basically what they call membrane lysis, which is breakdown of the membrane. It pokes little holes in the membrane causing it to destroy. Because all of our cells have something called P53. P53 is the guardian of the genome and it’s a tumor suppressor gene. So what happens is when cancer comes in, it basically interferes with the P53 or there’s a defect. So basically what this is, is it combines with that membrane in the P53 and blocks it, and causes disintegration of the membrane. So that’s great, and it’s given intramuscularly usually because we usually want to use a peptide like that always, you know, non-oral or have the patient do injections. So that’s a great little peptide to use. The other one that we use with chemotherapy, we do fractionated chemotherapy, low dose. And so what we do is we use a peptide called IRGD. And IRGD basically is a teleporter of the chemo into the cancer cells, sparing the other cells. And so this is a great peptide to cause more penetration and acts as a, you know, intercellular uptake enhancer. So we will add that to almost everybody’s protocol.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

And you add that with insulin potentiation therapy?

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Yes, correct.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

That one is an interesting one. And just for people, tell them a little bit about what IPT is.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Yeah, so everyone knows what a PET scan is. A PET scan is to light up the cancer cells. So they use IV radioactive sugar, and cancer cells have about 64 receptor sites for sugar and a normal cell is about four. So when you give the IV sugar, it lights up. So when we give chemotherapy, we use insulin as a primer for the insulin-like growth factors on the cancer cell. So we prime the patient with insulin, bring it down to what we call the therapeutic moment, which is about a level of 40, and then we push the chemos, ’cause the chemos are gonna be selectively uptake with the chemotherapy, sparing the other cells of the body. So the insulin is like an escort or we call it the Trojan horse to selectively bring chemotherapy into the cancer cell.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Yeah, so basically you starve the body. And so the body is starved, but the cancer cells are even more starved. And then you put the chemo in with some sugar and insulin and then that just drives it in. And then are you using the peptide escort at the same time as that?

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Yes, that’s correct. Because you know, cancer cells are smart. So we have to do everything we possibly can because cancer cells have some thing called chemo-resistance and chemo-sensitivity. So any cancer’s population are chemo-sensitive and chemo-resistant all at the same time. Now we give our patients medications that enhance chemo-sensitivity, but you always have cancer cell populations that are resistant. So we have to enhance that sensitivity all the time and we’ve got to enhance all the environment to kill as many cancer cells as possible because they’re always trying to outsmart every single little thing that you’re doing.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

And then that would mean if you’re doing IPT potentially, there’s gonna be different chemotherapeutic agents that you’re using, but then this is just allowing you to use a much lower dose, so it’s a little easier on the body.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

That’s correct. That’s what it is. I mean, chemotherapy, you know, it’s very significant on every single biological system in the body, whether it’s heart, whether it’s neurological, gastrointestinal, it doesn’t matter. So we have to try to do everything to take care of the patient, and do, you know, less is more, doing the lowest possible chemical that we use. Even when we have other medical problems, we should always try to use the least, you know, potent dose of anything, right? Because we know that, you know, we’re damaging cells.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

When do you like to use IPT? Sort of how do you put that together?

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Well, the older the patient, the better low dose chemo is, right? That’s number one. Second of all, I will look if I have a young 25 year old, I will tend to use conventional chemotherapy, why? Because their DNA is replicating very quickly, and so the margin of error. And cancer in young people tends to be more aggressive. So a conventional chemotherapy protocol may be better. The other time is on the pathology report there’s something called the KI-67. The KI-67 is the proliferative index. So if the proliferative index is really high, I will tend to be, okay, we need to do conventional in this patient. If it’s low, I will tend to like less than 50. Low is ideal would be 10%, all right? But again, you will decide on each individual case. But I see all the time, a lot of my patients can’t even handle. They’ve done one dose of chemotherapy. They can’t handle it anymore. I had a patient with lung cancer that came to see me. She’s like 67. Her doctor was doing conventional chemotherapy and the family said she cannot handle anymore. Patient was very frail, very thin, very weak. And so I said, well, let’s do the low dose chemo. I fortified her for two weeks first, before I even administered it. And then we did low dose chemo. She went to her doctor ’cause she needed oxygen. We were prescribing oxygen therapy for her. And the doctor went in and said, you’re still alive? And she goes, wow, you look so great. You know, like what are you doing? And so the oncologist said, okay, I’ll do low dose chemo for you.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Great.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

So I said, great. And so she still does all the counterbalancing in the clinic that we do ’cause we do an IV to clean the liver. Once the patients get chemo, the following next day, 24 hours later, we do a special IV to preserve the liver. We do the red light bed. We do an alkaline drip at some point in time during the week. We do lymphatic drainage. So we do all the supportive things, so the patient stays well and functional during the low dose chemo or conventional.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Okay, so then that’s so important for people to hear. And I think sometimes people are triggered, you know, when, oh, I don’t want to do chemotherapy or this or that, but then to hear, oh, okay, sometimes we’re gonna do traditional things. Sometimes we’re gonna do integrative things. Maybe if somebody’s really sick, we’re gonna start with them fragile with something and then kind of build them up. And then the idea for people listening to this, the idea of, oh, okay, and this is how we think, and this is how I think about when I’m managing really sick people with Lyme disease or long COVID or other things. If I’m doing something stressful today, then I’m gonna be doing something kind of balancing and harmonizing and supportive. And so those from a design element, if I think about three or four days, I’m doing exactly the same thing. I’m doing lymphatic drainage with HydraMed and subtechniques and doing things to support and clear and detox the liver so that in that way, you can almost always get somebody through a week. And then that consciousness, I think is the profound thing for people to hear around chemo because most people in the traditional system, they’re just going in and getting that chemo and then they’re not getting any support. And there’s a lot of toxicity to detox. And then there’s a lot of just overall inflammation in the body and we just ignored that kind of in Western medicine up until now.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Well, I know it’s still being ignored, but you’re right. I always tell patients that if I even give you antibiotics, I need to be telling you the counterbalancing of those antibiotics that you just took. Because, what did you do? You just destroyed your natural microbiome. So it’s gonna be very important for you to do X, Y, Z after you take antibiotics, correct? Because every medication has the potentiality to be toxic, number one, but number two, to destroy your mitochondria, which are your powerhouse in conserving the cell.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

So there’s this adage in medicine of thou shall do no harm. But then maybe we need to have an update of that that says thou shall reverse all the harm that we do.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

That is true. Yeah, you’re talking about the Hippocratic Oath. Yes, and a doctor kind of signs up for that, but we’ve kind of lost that map. We’ve got to restore it. And that’s what I tell people because you’re a conventional doctor, but you’re a conventional doctor that has learned updated information and we call it functional integrative medicine. But I tell people, things are being updated and new all the time, but we need to look for things that don’t hurt and harm patients, and don’t cause irreversible harm. I see a lot of patients in my practice, oh, they’ve already had something drastic done, and I can’t do anything to reverse those surgeries that they have done. And so I would encourage anyone to really partner with a doctor who’s looking at the broadest spectrum possible to restore, you know, the functionality of the miracle that you get to live in every day.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

One, it’s encouraging as I think about peptides, it’s encouraging for me to hear you talk about the supportive role that thymusin alpha-1 can have as some immune support, as people are kind of getting going with this, because if you just think strategically about cancer, one of the things that we got to do is turn that immune system back on. And that’s a great way to kind of support that. How do you think about dosing it and kind of how long do people do that and how does that play into a protocol?

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Right, well, thymusin alpha, if anybody’s getting chemo conventional or low, you know, fractionated chemotherapy, low dose chemo, you should probably be administering thymusin alpha-1, okay? And I personally do injections with my cancer patients. It’s very little, you know, it’s an insulin syringe. And so I usually use about 0.25 three times a week. And really you’re gonna be watching them. I mean, we do weekly blood tests on our patients, but you know, I want to make a point that thymusin alpha is just not for cancer patients. It’s anybody who wants to optimize the immune system. I gave it to a lot of my patients during COVID. And the older you are, you know, after 60, I tell people the warranties over. So you need these little things to enhance and optimize your body. And like, by the time you’re 80, your thymus is basically nonfunctional, all right? So anybody over 80 really needs to be working on the immune system, because aging in and of itself is an immune system miscommunication and malfunction and deficiency in the body, correct? And so thymusin alpha is like one of those, like, you know, I had a patient who didn’t have cancer. They just came to me for human optimization and I gave her thymusin alpha, and she said, oh my God, I can tell you how much better I feel. My energy and everything is so amazing. Because when you’re tired, that’s, you know, partially your immune system so.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Yeah, that is such a good one. And you know, I had a conversation about a year ago with my friend, John Francois who is a peptide luminary. And I had been having this thought, he goes thymusin alpha-1 is very helpful for nerve and nerve pain. And we’ve been having this kind of conversation for quite a while around the fact that a lot of pain is immune pain.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Right.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

And because those nerves are inflamed. What happens in Lyme disease? Peripheral neuropathy. What happens in many infections is they have some different small fiber neuropathies that seem to be kind of associated with that. And then fundamentally those are peripheral expressions of something that’s going on centrally that is basically immune dysfunction at a neurological level that we can talk about that for about a month. But interestingly thymusin alpha-1 can be helpful. And so I will incorporate that in nerve treatments. And then to begin to think about that as we age, because as we age, we start to have a bunch of things that I think of at least as immune-centric or at least immune related. And I think cancer and pain may be the two biggest things that really affect people other than heart disease probably.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Right, no you’re exactly right. It is true. So we have all these things we can use and we got to just try them. I know I personally experiment all kinds of different things. I know you do too, because that’s what you have to do.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

In terms of other peptides that you like to use or that you’re using in patients with cancer-

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Another one we use a lot of is metenkephalin. So we have opiate receptors in our body. And so I use low dose naltrexone, which is beautiful for the immune system. But in very serious patients, I’ll use metenkephalin. Metenkephalin helps the immune system by stimulating very, very lightly. You don’t want to go too strong. You want to be very, very, you know, very, you know, pulsed and low on doing metenkephalin. It will help not only with patients with pain also. And so that’s another peptide that we use.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

What would be a low dose for you?

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

IV, we’ll do at 10 milligrams, IV.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

And over how long?

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Over I would say, you know, not that long, 30 minutes.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Okay, and how many times a month would they do something like that?

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Once a week.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Will you pair that with other IVs?

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Oh, yes, our patients are on, you know, usually a cocktail for a month and then we reevaluate. You have to constantly be changing different molecules and different systems with the body because that’s just what you do. So, and then we also sometimes will use the copper peptide also GHK. And so I will use that. I mean, people use it a lot for skin. But it’s also a great peptide for, you know, attracting immune, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory effects also. So I personally will use it. I have a GHK peptide that I use on my face, but also, you know, you can do it, you know, transdermally. You can do it subcutaneously also.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Do you do it IV?

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Usually not.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Okay.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Yeah, the main one we do IV is the metenkephalin. Everything else is either, you know, oral or subcutaneous.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Does the PNC-27 have to be IM or can that be subcutaneous as well?

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Subcutaneous, yeah.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Okay, the GHK copper is so interesting ’cause when something’s helpful for connective tissue and I do think it’s amazing for aesthetics. And so it’s kind of interesting that part of our conversation is talking to people about cancer and part of us is talking to the aesthetics people. But it’s interesting to hear that, you know, a lot of times we’re using the same things because we’re basically strengthening biology, and then that leads to the body working better.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Right, and people just need to understand that, you know, peptides are basically, they’re not drugs. They’re a sequence of amino acid, you know, made from the same DNA information. But they’re just certain sequences, which are just a string of different proteins in your body. And they’re, you know, designed to basically enhance a system or an organ or gland or system in your body. And so that’s the beauty is that it’s not a drug that I have to worry, it’s going to hurt the patient. So I’ve never had a patient where like it’s something that’s happened. I really don’t have patients with any, you know, negative side effects from it. And so that’s what we, as clinicians need to be very aware of is trying to not inflict pain or more harm to our patients, right?

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Hyperbaric oxygen, how do you feel about that?

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Love hyperbaric, love hyperbaric. I would be in there regularly if I had time, but you know, hyperbaric it’s been around for a long, long, long time. US has taken a long time to use it, but it’s now rapidly being used ’cause the studies are very profound. One increasing, you know, telomere activity, number two, wound healing, number three patients are a lot of times in a healing stage in some form of cancer think about it. And then like I mentioned to you before, the blood test called PHI, which is a fasting blood test that tells me basically the oxygen environment of the cell. So Otto Warburg, 1930 discovered that cancer is an anaerobic glycolysis. Sugar-loving, low oxygen, low oxygen makes acid. So you’ve got to get those patients in hyperbaric to really decrease, and I mean oxygenate the cell to take care of it, reduce that production of lactic acid. So I love hyperbaric. Obviously any patient who’s having surgery, it doesn’t matter if it’s plastic or regular, I have them go in there before and after. And it makes the surgeon look like a miracle worker because they heal so quickly and so fast.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

I read this book and this might have been five years ago. I haven’t thought about it. But it’s an amazing book. It’s called “The Emperor of All Maladies.”

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Yeah.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

And, I think Mukherjee, but it was an amazing book and he kind of talked about the history of cancer. Cancer being the emperor of all maladies, which is such a good title. But you know, as you go back in time and you look at the history, you know, of the last couple thousand years, cancer was really not that prevalent, you know? And they talk about some cancer like in what is currently Persia or Iran. And that was because there was a lot of wealth there and they were eating sugar. But the reality is we really have had this expression of cancer happen in the last hundred years where suddenly everybody’s eating sugar, and then it devolved into this sort of chaotic lifestyle that is kind of modern times.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

You know, it’s true, you know in the 20th century, cancer was one in a hundred. Like I said earlier, that cancer is, you know, one in two men and 41% of female. And what I’ve seen in the last four months, that’s quite alarming is the dramatic uptick in very young patients, meaning less than 40. And so we just all as a society, and we’re all in this human system together, we all need to be laser focused on reversal of disease and really, truly understand that assume the patient has something serious and then work backwards. And that’s our job as a physician. I see patients every day. I had a patient who they were taking medicines off and on for a scratch for a long time in their breast, and it was breast cancer the whole time. And then you think about young people, where is the preventive guidelines for young people, Dr. Cook? I mean, there’s none. A woman gets a pap smear and that’s about it. A man has nothing, nothing. And so that means now we have to renegotiate what we’re doing because we’re living in this unchecked world. We’ve got all this new stuff in the last 30 years, but it’s unchecked the impact it’s going to have on your existence. So, you know, whether it’s the stress, whether it’s our lifestyle, like you said, the sugar, the food, the toxicity, the glyphosphate, et cetera, the EMFs and everything. And we’ve created this petri dish that, you know, it’s not healthy. Okay, and we’re creating unhealthy gardens in our body.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

So then I mean, I would dig into this a tiny bit. Is any amount of sugar okay? What’s your stance on sugar?

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Well, I personally don’t eat a lot of sugar. Okay, if I eat anything, I have raw honey sometimes. I think if you eat fruit sugars, like, if you’re gonna drink orange juice, make your own fresh orange juice, okay? You know, but remember when you were little, an orange juice glass was like this big, okay? Now it’s this big, okay? So you know, oranges are good for you. Lemons, limes, grapefruits, other fruits are really good. I think it’s our manmade sugar, okay, that’s processed, you know, tremendously, right? And then like if you just buy yogurt now, there’s like 32 grams of sugar. So everything, if you look at the label is just loaded and tainted with sugar or fructose-like substances. And so, you know, like if you think people eat cereal for breakfast. Well, that’s a candy bar. Okay, then for lunch they have, what? A sugary, peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Well, there’s a lot of sugar in bread, okay? Then they get goldfish and then they get a juice drink. It’s not real juice. It’s fake juice, okay? Then they get a snack of cookies, okay? I mean, come on. All you’re feeding your kids is sugar. Or, you know, the regular person, okay? An adult person is eating sugar. They eat, think about it, a bagel, which is all sugar, a donut that’s sugar, a pastry that’s sugar. That’s all sugar. I just was reading a report. The dramatic increase in young people with pre-diabetes and diabetes after the year 2000, one out of three children is diabetic. Okay, all of this is beyond serious, okay? I’ve been calling the 9-1-1 button for a long time. You know that. I’ve told you that before. And I’m just like, what is it gonna take, you know? And, like you said, you know, you start modeling it in your family and everybody, hopefully, yeah, usually, I know in my family, you know, they all like have taken on. And we have a big family and they’ve taken on what I have been teaching for all these years. So, but you know, there’s rules and laws of our body and we are not living in according to the rules and laws of our body, Matt.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

That’s a good one, I love that.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Yeah, and I always ask the patient, do you drive? Sure, I drive. And I go, okay, I go, do you run stop signs every day? No, and I go, why? Well, I might hurt somebody. I might kill somebody. I might get a ticket. I said, yes, you’re running the stop signs in your body every day and not paying attention. And so it’s not difficult. It’s not difficult. Being sick is difficult. I know, I take care of very, very sick people every day. It is not fun for the patient, the family and the friends and anybody else that’s involved with the patient.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

You know, that is such a highlight for me because basically we’ve discovered, and when I say we, I mean, me and Barb, we basically discovered that like being really healthy, once we kind of made it our job, that it is shockingly like kind of easy.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

We don’t splurge probably once in a while. Of course, we do. I had dessert last night. I had a great banana dessert last night. It was wonderful after dinner. I had two bites though, okay? And so I’ll do that. I mean, I always tell people, you know, perfection is not your goal. Progress is your goal.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

That’s a good one, that’s a really good one. And then once you recognize that it’s basically not that hard, just got to make it your job. And then, even little psychology. I was at a dinner with a bunch of famous people. And so then everybody had dessert. And so then I kind of bowed to peer pressure and they really wanted to bring me dessert. So I said, that’s fine. And then I just sat there and I said, ah, do I really want dessert? Because I would have dessert like almost never. And then I go, I don’t know, but I was having fun. And then they brought me dessert so I was sitting there. And then next thing I was just really enjoying talking to everybody. And then next thing you know, they came and took it away.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Right, exactly right, that’s right.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

I kind of then was like well, I would’ve taken one bite of it, just to kind of experience that, but then generally when I do that it’s such a rush of sugar. It’s kind of interesting.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Right, yeah, and then you see you once you’re off sugar and you have sugar, oh wow. You really notice a sensation and how extremely sweet something is.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Yeah, and so then my takeaway from this is it’s basically cancer. You know, there are some peptides that help but really basically what I’m hearing is that they’re part of a deeply involved treatment plan that may involve Western components or traditional chemo, may involve some other sort of very interesting physiological techniques that are probably gonna become more mainstream. And, but it’s not fun. It’s a lot of work. It’s a challenge, which is why, you know, we send those people to you a lot of times. And so then maybe it would be a lot more fun to walk upstream and keep these people from jumping in that river of chaos. And then all of a sudden being healthy is kind of shockingly easier than we thought it was gonna be.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

That is correct, I agree.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Do you have any final words of wisdom for us?

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

Well, a lot of times people listen to these webinars and they’re overwhelmed. And I always tell people that this is all a process. Healing and health is not an event. And you know, when you decide to run a marathon, you decide, first of all, in your mind. Okay, I’m gonna run a marathon. And then you like study everything about running a marathon, but it starts with one step. And I always tell people, ’cause I have patients that like have never done any of this before, and I go, I’m gonna walk you through this alongside you. You’re gonna do one big thing a month and you’re gonna get that down. But to be heroic, to be a Navy Seal, takes one, the intention, number two, execution of that intention and slowly, methodically do it. And don’t make this, oh God, this is just too much information and I can’t do it. No, one little step at a time.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Well, it’s amazing. You look great. And so I can tell you’re living the dream. And I’m grateful that you’re here having, I think a profoundly positive influence on the world and vis-a-vis cancer and health in general. And I’m grateful to have you as a friend. So thank you so much.

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

You’re welcome. I love doing this, and I love spreading this important information to everyone because we can change, and change the landscape of medicine forever.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Okay, well, that’s it. Thanks for joining us, everybody. And I look forward to talking to you soon.