Debunking Myths: The Truth About Cancer Diets

Kevin Conners, DPSc, FICT, FAARFM

Thank you very much for having me.

Isaac Eliaz, MD, MS, LAc

Yeah. Maybe tell us a little bit more about your journey, how you got to focus on cancer, and a little bit more than I was able to do justice to in two minutes.

Kevin Conners, DPSc, FICT, FAARFM

Well, my focus on cancer began when I was in school. You mentioned I went to the naturopathic school but went to chiropractic school back and graduated in 1986. I’m kind of an old-timer, but I never wanted to have a practice where I was taking care of people with cancer. It never entered my mind, but it was what I was studying in frequency medicine and at RIF Cardiology that brought it into the light, “Wow, this could help cancer patients.” I was intrigued by that, and I wanted to someday have a RIF machine in my office and someday do lower-frequency therapies in my office, and light therapy in my office. They were very limited back in the 1980s, and some didn’t exist back in the 1980s. It was not until the late nineties that a patient came to me with cancer. That was my kind of aha moment—that it was time to buy a RIF machine. She was a chiropractic patient of mine, and she came and told me she had breast cancer in both breasts, and they had given her three months to live if she didn’t do chemo. She just said, I’ve got to have chemo, so if you can’t help me with this, I’m just going to die of it. I bought a RIF machine at that time and started to study. I was always into nutrition. I did a lot of a technique called kinesiology. A lot of people come from a functional nutritional, functional medicine-type perspective.

But it was at that moment that I had to learn. I had to kind of start taking a crash course in how to take care of cancer patients from a nutritional standpoint. Well, I had time because this is kind of a pre-website day. So we were just seeing patients as they came to us, and that patient lived another 13 years before succumbing to the disease. I had studied nutrition, studied how to take care of cancer patients as best I possibly could, and frequently used the RIF technology and some other technologies to heal cancer patients. Soon, my practice grew as far as having cancer patients call us and come to us. It was just that we could start to see the writing on the wall of the way that God was leading our practice. That’s why I ended up going to the Integrative Cancer Fellowship Program when they first organized it. That was quite a few years ago, and we’ve just moved completely out of anything chiropractic over a decade and a half ago, and it just focused completely on taking care of cancer patients, and Lyme patients. We’ve dealt with autoimmune patients fairly well because of my history, of having had Lyme a couple of times. That’s been my focus for a long time now.

Isaac Eliaz, MD, MS, LAc

Amazing. You mentioned that strict diets can be harmful. We know that there is a lot of dietary confusion around cancer, and often people are prescribed very strict diets. If you have concerns about that, I will share them with you. I’m philosophically aligned with it. Maybe you can elaborate on some of the risks and potential drawbacks associated with such extreme diets.

Kevin Conners, DPSc, FICT, FAARFM

Well, it’s not even just diets. You and I both know that when you have patients that are located, an alternative means is to try to deal with something as serious as cancer. There’s a lot of misinformation out there from an alternative perspective, too. That, “Oh, this cures cancer. 100% of the tests are known.” There’s a lot of wrong data out there about people being delayed; maybe some therapies that weren’t validated did, and you see that a lot with dietary restrictions too. Now, I think we both agree that excess sugar is not good for you. You’re feeding cancer by going out to eat. Eat a lot of simple carbohydrates. But there’s information that could put people on very strict diets, like, let’s use the ketogenic diet as an example. There is information out there that if any cancer patient goes on a ketogenic diet, every cancer patient should be off the ketogenic diet. That’s what’s going to cure cancer. Whether you hear phrases like that or words like that, it doesn’t mean that they’re completely incorrect, but you have to put up a red flag and start asking questions because cancer is a very complex disease. I believe that every person with cancer has unique metabolic pathways that could be fatal. Cancer, as the listeners know by now going through this series, is that certain cells’ metabolic makeup has changed and they’re in a state of rapid replication. Well, cells that are in a state of rapid replication need a lot of energy. They’re looking for fuel sources.

Going on a ketogenic diet is strictly limiting glucose in a person’s diet, or they’re hopefully on a full ketogenic protocol, which means their cells are surviving off of ketones instead of through glucose and glycolysis, which can be beneficial for some patients with cancer because their fuel source for that growing mass happens to be primarily glucose at that time. But cancers are trying to stay alive. Cancer cells are trying to stay alive. If you are deprived of glucose for some time, that could be good. But it could also cause the cancer to shift and feed off amino acids. Then a ketogenic diet could be harmful because a ketogenic diet is going to be primarily much higher in proteins, and you’re feeding it now with your diet. You have to be cautious about following a strict diet for a long time because, as cancer patients, we are constantly shifting to try to stay alive. These cells are looking for different metabolic pathways where there’s an availability of nutrients to feed and fuel them. You have to be cautious that you don’t move it to a state where you are fueling your cancer instead of starving your cancers.

Isaac Eliaz, MD, MS, LAc

I can’t tell you how much I agree with you. I don’t know if you were there in a frame on integrative oncology in cancer therapy when the person from Harvard shared for the first time the ketogenic diet. Everybody was excited. I got on the stage, and I warned everybody that the ketogenic diet has its place for a short time for the right person. Otherwise, the cancer’s survival mechanism will shift. And what happened? People are wasting it. Dietary strategy is much too early in the game and not at the right time. If you do it intermittently, it’s much more effective. Thank you for highlighting this. The other complex thing is the massive data showing that certain amino acids at high levels will fuel cancer. When you are moving too much protein, indeed, you can be fueling cancer. Yeah, it is so important to understand this. How do you realistically think a cancer patient should go about their dietary changes when they have a cancer diagnosis?

Kevin Conners, DPSc, FICT, FAARFM

Well, I think they need to take a moderate approach. The other thing about a strict diet that most practitioners don’t discuss is how difficult and life-changing it can be for a patient. It’s easy to go. “Well, we’ve got to save the person’s life. We’re going to talk about this diet. I don’t care how hard it is,” but when you take all the joy out of a person’s life, you have that psychosocial component that can lead to a person’s demise just as easily as if you were feeding the fuel to cancer. You have to be careful and cognizant of that as a practitioner, too. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve spoken to who have had cancer. That was their main concern: they didn’t want to go on a radical diet, or they heard my information that they heard me speak against a radical diet. That’s what intrigued them about my practice—that we get specific. If a person comes to us and becomes a member, we test them. We do kinesiology testing to see what the main fuel source is. That can change, as we discussed quite readily, as the cancer is trying to stay alive. It is trying to adapt to its environment. If you change what’s in the environment as a possible fuel source, it could readily adapt to try to feed off of something else through different metabolic pathways. You have to be able to pivot that way. But if a person doesn’t come to us, I would say you have to take a more moderate approach, and you don’t want to be fueling your body with amino acids that have been shown through studies to feed cancer, like methionine and glutamine. There are a lot of people who come to me who have been dysfunctional practitioners who think that, well, it all starts at your gut, so you need to kill that gut. They put these people on L-glutamate as a gut-healing product. Well, L-glutamate is a great gut-healing product because it causes cells to reproduce quite quickly. You don’t want to, especially if you have an epithelial-based cancer to feed fuel that is going to cause cells to reproduce quite quickly.

Isaac Eliaz, MD, MS, LAc

Interrupting it for the audience, please listen to what Dr. Conners is telling you. These are words of wisdom.  it’s a great example. Even in Kaiser Permanente, they recommends glutamine, glutamine repair. They the Krebs cycle, which you and then the cancer cell is revitalized. So. Yes, yes. I mean, it’s a great example of a common mistake. yeah, it’s so it’s so I   thank you for sharing this. Please, please keep going.

Kevin Conners, DPSc, FICT, FAARFM

Then the same thing is true, though I don’t think everybody should go out according to their diet. But with limited, simple sugars and limited carbohydrates in general, it can be beneficial, so be careful how you select the right carbohydrate and be cognizant of your weight and your weight loss. If you’re at a state of below-healthy weight and/or you’re losing weight every week, you have to add carbohydrates back to the diet, but you want to choose more complex carbohydrates that are going to give you calories and possibly put on weight, but be the best at limited fuel sources for the kids or so. Then we also recommend quite frequently doing some daily fasting. Bona fide fasting-restricted eating If you’re not in a weight-loss situation or under your current weight, that can be helpful as well. You have to also be willing to rotate these around and change your diet. That’s important because we discussed how kids are always looking for a fuel source. You need to change your diet. There’s so much research on just eating a diet that is robust as far as different types of foods. It is not uncommon, especially in America, where people are eating the same thing every single day. That’s not good for your microbiome. That’s certainly not good to help your immune system be able to fight cancer overall as well.

Isaac Eliaz, MD, MS, LAc

Wow. I just want to reemphasize to the audience that diversity is what Dr. Conners is talking about. We are losing diversity in nature. We are losing species. Right all over the world. We are hearing it in the news. We are also losing diversity in our microbiome, which is our biggest friend. When we eat a more diverse diet, we are allowing different bacteria to thrive. It is like keeping the rainforest alive. it’s important.  the idea of rotation, the cancer wants to survive. You cannot allow it to be figured out; just try to. That’s why I often say that when a treatment is working, it’s time to make a change before it stops working, which is contrary to oncological thinking. Use the treatment until it’s exhausted, and then use the stronger resistance. I can’t agree with you enough, and I want to ask: I think we are all in agreement on what we shouldn’t do. Maybe one more comment before this. I think that intermittent fasting is something that we agree is very important for regeneration. I agree with you very much on this daily. Tell us more about what the cancer patient needs to remove feeds the cancer because, at some level, it is easier to remove what is not good for you.

Kevin Conners, DPSc, FICT, FAARFM

Well, we have to use a little bit of common sense about what foods help stimulate growth. When we do our testing on patients, it’s okay. At least 90% of people consider dairy products one of the growth factors for cancer, and dairy products are one of them. If you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, Okay, what should I change in my diet? I think, What are dairy products for? So, we drink our mother’s milk as babies to grow quickly. So do baby cows, who drink their mothers’ milk and grow quickly. There are a lot of growth factors in dairy products that it might be wise to stay away from. Now, does it mean you can’t ever have butter on something? Butter is better than other sources? No, but it’s a matter of restricting some things. It might be a good idea, whether you have cancer or not, that we should be eating a lot of dairy products. It’s a matter of pulling that back. We may eat way too much of that. A cancer patient is something that it might be wise to restrict. It is very wise to restrict the products that are processed. Many people get a diagnosis of cancer and they’re eating the typical standard American diet, so that needs to be cleaned up, started, eaten organic, and get rid of highly inflammatory fluid foods like daily gluten. It might be something that you want to restrict, though that’s typically never a driver of cancer; it’s a driver of inflammation. 

Look at any foods for which you might have antibodies. They have antibodies against food. You’re eating that food. You’re creating this inflammatory response in your gut. It hinders your immune system’s ability to kill a growing cancer. That’s something to look at. You’re restricted to simple sugars, candy cakes, cookies, and things like that. But it doesn’t mean that you could never have those things. That’s one concern that I hear from patients all the time. It is like they can’t have a piece of their grandchild’s birthday cake anymore. They feel like their joy in life is gone if they can’t go out to eat with their friends because, the restaurant that they go to, it’s not organic. Well, you have to loosen up a little bit. I always tell people that your diet is something that you’re trying to use wisdom for. It’s not a religion that you’re following. You have to still have joy in your life and still enjoy some of the foods that you like to eat, but start to make different decisions. As far as what you go to the grocery store for when you’re shopping and how you’re cooking, clean up that process a little bit without going crazy about it and not being able to enjoy life.

Isaac Eliaz, MD, MS, LAc

When we move to our house and have the joy of the house, it’s the greatest healer. When the diet is restrictive, depressing, and not nourishing, it affects us. I think your point about the milk is profound. It is well documented, and it’s underemphasized. Everybody talks about gluten, but milk products drive cancer, especially hormonally driven cancers, which are much more than breast cancer and prostate cancer because they are just different receptors in colon cancer and thyroid cancer, sometimes in brain cancer and lung cancer, and of course ovarian and uterine cancer, etc. So, yes, and you emphasize the inflammation. People need to understand that when the inflammation is driven, it will bring growth factors to allow it to address the area of inflammation. It’s a multiple mechanism that Dr. Conners is offering guys with this simple advice. Maybe you can close this important, basic interview that focuses on the basics. When you use them, you can integrate them with any other treatment. What is some practical advice for cancer patients or their families that will allow them to make those changes without falling into the trap of being overly restrictive or following a harmful diet?

Kevin Conners, DPSc, FICT, FAARFM

Well, the biggest thing is, I think, to take things in steps. If you’ve been used to eating the typical standard American diet, you have a long way to go to clean up your diet, start eating organic, and start eating a better, more diverse source of foods. Take it in steps. If you overwhelm yourself, that’s going to be difficult. then there’s another group of people that eat organic their whole life, or they can’t figure out how they have cancer. They’ve been going through so many stages. Right. Well, now just take a step back and look at some things that you may be eating that you could be feeding the kids. Or maybe it’s dairy, maybe it’s soy, or maybe you’re eating too much animal protein. You have to change things around, be willing to make some changes, be willing to be diverse and be willing to explore new things. As far as diet goes, if you’ve got a clean diet, maybe get tested for food antibodies to see if you’re even eating good foods. If you have antibodies against your cause of inflammation and if you’re a little bit above your normal weight, then, for sure, start doing so. Intermittent fasting and time-restricted eating are very helpful, I think, for anybody, but certainly for cancer patients. You’re starving your body for some time. That could be very helpful to reset, but different metabolic pathways exist. Don’t be afraid to go to a practitioner and get some tests done to see what else is going on from a functional medicine perspective. But if you’re choosing to do, if you feel led to do a ketogenic diet, or if you feel led to do a more Gerson-type diet where you’re going to be juiced and eat a lot, don’t think you have to commit to it for life to commit to it. If you feel led to do that, commit to it for some time. It makes it easier to do that. I think it’s wiser because you’re not created to be a fuel source because of what you’re eating now. Make the changes and continue to make changes. Understand that it’s an ongoing process, and it’s a battle that you just keep working on to keep making changes and adapting.

Isaac Eliaz, MD, MS, LAc

It is so true. From an energetic and philosophical point of view, cancer is an extreme disease. It is a cell that goes crazy and starts dividing, and you’re offering a moderated approach, which makes the cancer so surprising. The whole biochemistry changes. It is a different quality of energy. There is so much truth to what you are saying. Cancer is a complex disease. People frequently use different doctors in a team setting. I think getting hit with this diet and testing is essential. Maybe you can share with us how people can find you, how they can work with you, and what specific programs you recommend specifically for cancer patients that are available through your center. It is an educational program that you would recommend.

Kevin Conners, DPSc, FICT, FAARFM

We used to have, as I graduated as a doctor, and people come to me, they get treated, and they go home. That all changed with COVID. We always had distance plans where people could work with us at a distance, but during COVID, that just flip-flopped. Most people chose a distance plan, and then we gradually phased out our office plan to be able to help more people. Everything’s done at a distance, so you don’t have to leave your home. We believe that it’s healthier for people, especially if they have a serious disease if they don’t have to travel. We always start with what we call a case review. That’s an additional interview with me to see if this is a good fit. We have lots of different options. We’ll know what a person’s budget is. It is why we have our courses on cancer. Our Stop Fighting Cancer course is based on the Stop Fighting Cancer book that I wrote years ago with the third edition. then you could make appointments with me and we could talk about protocols and such to do our full comprehensive program that includes a program, the RIF machine, that includes weekly Zoom calls that I do, where you could ask questions. It includes a members-only website where you can get all the updates and ask questions. Then, through that, we do cheek swab testing, where I test for diet, like we’re talking about, but also nutritional protocol, where we could get specific with people. 

We also do a lot of different functional medicine labs that could be beneficial to narrow down things to be able to see what may be the cause cancer and address those things. There are lots of different options for working with us. You just go to connersclinic.com and give us a call, and you could discuss with my staff different ways that might fit your needs or your budget. We have lots of people who are still doing standard care and choosing to do chemotherapy, and we’re just coming alongside and helping people. We have people who are working with a local functional doctor who is meeting certain needs that they have. We think that a team approach is often the best approach and that there’s wisdom in a multitude of counselors. We just try to bring in some wisdom to give people some insight that could help them along their journey.

Isaac Eliaz, MD, MS, LAc

Well, thank you so much for taking the time today to share your point of view on dieting and the general approach to cancer. From my almost 40 years of experience, I can’t emphasize how valuable and true your approach is. Thank you again for coming in. It was great to talk to you.

Kevin Conners, DPSc, FICT, FAARFM

Thank you.