How You Can Resolve The Perfect Storm Of Cancer

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

Well, me too. What a beautiful, wonderful, amazing, and hard to even accept introduction, but I’ll humbly thank you for that and try to live up to that for your wonderful listeners.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

I am one of those 10,000 practitioners whom you have taught, and I listened to you probably at the very beginning of my functional medicine journey. You were talking about the fact that you work with everyone. You started off working with, like, these elite athletes. You realize that it was the same thing that you were doing for these elite athletes, which could then be translated into helping people who were suffering get to a place where they were healthy.

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

That was a really interesting journey. The medical literature caught up about 20 years later. However, I did start working with elite athletes and was very fortunate to work with world champions within my first decade and in every major professional sport. But they had family members that they were sending in, and I would follow similar protocols, and amazingly, we got results. Then, fast forward, there was an article that was published in the medical literature entitled The Application of Sports Medicine in Critical Care Medicine. I came to realize that the same things and processes that tune up the elite can help those who are fighting for their lives.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Yes. People often don’t make that connection. The reason that they don’t make that connection is because our conventional medical system is quite preoccupied with disease, and they think that disease needs something special and specific to that disease. Where you’re coming from is that this is all about driving health.

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

It’s a different perspective. I always like to teach about the continuum. On one end, you’ve got people who are approaching death, and on the other end, you’ve got people who are trying to be their absolute best in life, realizing that natural medicine, functional medicine, good nutrition, and a good lifestyle are critical for every part of the spectrum. But if someone’s sliding and they need a strong intervention, well, that’s where medicine has its power and its greatest success. But we see many people who are just edging into that area where they have a defined disease, and they think that medicine should take over. We want to encourage them to use it prudently, but always take charge of their health and move in a better, more positive direction with better choices.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Yes. How did you get into this in the first place? Because this is out-of-the-box thinking.

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

Well, it’s a long story, but let’s try to be simple and succinct. I nearly died from an adverse action of the medication. It was my fault. I got hurt when I was playing football in college the first time I was studying to be an electrical engineer, which, by the way, I did complete, but I got hurt. I went to the medical doctor. He gave me muscle relaxants and painkillers. I went out on a date, had one drink, and fell asleep behind the wheel of my car, driving 55 miles an hour. Now, very fortunately, my date grabbed me and grabbed the wheel. I shook around and pulled over to the side of the road. She said, What happened? I said I passed out. She said, Well, I’m driving home. I said, Good idea. I got home, and I picked up that bottle of pills in my bed. It said, Don’t mix with alcohol; don’t operate heavy machinery; it may cause drowsiness. Well, I realized that it almost killed me. I flushed it down the toilet, went to the gym, and started trying to rehab myself, and the gym owner said, “My gosh, you look like you’ve been hit by a train.” I said, “Yes, that’s about how I feel.” He said, “Well, you need a good chiropractor.” Well, they’re good chiropractors and not good chiropractors. I was blessed to have been referred to a great one who was also a functional medicine specialist. He worked with the Wisconsin Olympic speedskating team, Dr. Mike Vickers, and he was a great human. I say he’s a better human than he was a doctor. That’s a very high compliment because he was elite, and he helped me understand that our philosophy is very simply the power that makes the body heal the body. If you give it what it needs most, things are recoverable.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

It’s interesting. Can you talk about what makes a great one, like what makes a great chiropractor? Because I feel like there’s still some judgment there, and people don’t realize what chiropractic training involves and how different their mindset is from that of a typical medical doctor.

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

Well, by the way, the difference would be heart and mind, because by the time you finish the education and pass the boards, you’ve got the skills to at least be a technician. As one of my mentors said, there are technicians and there are doctors. if someone just comes in and does the same thing on everybody every time, because it’s expedient. By the way, some people are going to get better. That’s fine. But what if someone takes the time to make a connection with that patient, understands where they’re coming from and where they want to go, and helps them find out? Here’s how you created this challenge for yourself, and here’s how you can make better choices in the future. I’m going to say a not-so-good chiropractor is someone who thinks he’s taking over patient care, whereas a good one will empower the patient to make better choices and essentially rarely need to see him or her again.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

What kinds of things do they specifically like when you’re working with someone with a breast cancer diagnosis? What kinds of things are you looking for? Like, where is the interference, and how are you helping to guide them towards recovering their health?

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

Well, I just had a brand-new breast cancer patient this morning. By the way, she was a patient over 20 years ago. She recalled that I was helping a lot of people make better choices in their cancer battles. I always tell people, especially if you’re dealing with a very challenging health circumstance, that everything matters and every good choice matters. I talk about the magnificent seven. You’ve got to eat right and drink. Think right, move right. Sleep right, poop right. Talk right every single day. Then we go through and take an inventory. How are you doing? Are you eating organic? Are you getting a good macronutrient balance? Are you getting your fruits and vegetables? Because one of my favorite quotes from literature goes back to 1994.

It’s this: At every step along the road to malignancy, plant nutrients tend to reduce the likelihood of transmission to the next phase. They’ve got to take the right step when it comes to drinking. We don’t want any liquid calories. We want good, pure, clean water. Or, as you and I know, coffee can be a functional beverage, especially when infused with wonderful herbs like Reishi, also known as Ganoderma lingzhi. Think right. That’s going to be how they are managing their stress and what type of positive outlook they have for their future. That might be one of the most critical steps for them. MOVE Right. We’re going to take an exercise inventory. Not too much. Not too little. Just right. Just like the Goldilocks rule, sleep. Right. That’s critical. There is a book called Peak by Anders Ericsson, and he studied the best of the best in every field, and the best of the best will sleep 8.6 hours a night. I’ll tell you what: if you’re fighting for your life, you don’t want to skip on that at all. Sleep is a powerful anti-inflammatory.

It is good for detoxification when it comes to poop. You’d be surprised at how many people don’t. I don’t know how. I chuckled because I gave a lecture at NASA, which is only a mile from my office, and there was a group of rocket scientists. One of them asked me, How do you poop right? And all we want is to be funny on occasion. I said, Well, you don’t want a demonstration, do you? A rocket scientist didn’t know. and then talk right. Well, that’s going to be more than just a conversation you have with yourself and those around you; every cell is potentially in communication with every other cell at all times. I let them know that this is generally accepted. Be the first step in cancer progression. The cells lose their communication with themselves and with their neighbors.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

I want to break some of those things down because they are super important. without giving us a demonstration of what it means to poop. We have all had patients who ask us if they use the bathroom regularly and if they poop regularly, and they say, I go once a week. Regularly.

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

I cringe at that. Yes.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Why is that a problem?

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

Well, we start talking about the digestive process, and I’m going to take a step back. Pavlov proved that it starts in the brain. If you get yourself in a calm state, you’re going to start priming the digestive process. Then we have to chew, and it’s accepted at least 20 times a mouthful. If you had your patients look at that, oh my gosh, there’s very few of us that do that ever, let alone consistently. Then, as we swallow it, it gets to the stomach. That’s where the process is going to start. But anywhere from 18 to 22 hours from the time you swallow that to the time it comes out the back end.

In the upper part of the digestive process, we’re going to break things down into things that the body can absorb: simple amino acids, simple sugars, and simple fatty acids. But by the time it gets to the colon now, we’re only going to absorb water. If you’re still sitting with things in the colon for too long now, you start absorbing these toxins. I listen to a podcast, which I frequently do, and there was a very brilliant question that was asked, and that is, why is it there? It’s rare to see cancer of the small intestine, but it’s common in the colon. The person who was being interviewed was a gastroenterologist. he chuckled. He says, Well, one place you got the kitchen, the other place you got the sewer. Where do you think problems are going to start? If you’re leaving your sewer stagnating for an extended period, you’re going to pay a price.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Absolutely. We see it in colon cancer, and that is the most obvious organ. But we also see it in breast cancer. There’s a huge tie between constipation and a lot of chronic diseases, like Parkinson’s disease. But because that is where we rid ourselves of our estrogen, it’s been broken down, detoxified, and made water-soluble. But if you don’t get rid of it, it comes right back in. and lots of people run into breast cancer problems from this mechanism.

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

Sure. Even if they have good, good movement, if they have dysbiosis, it depends on how technical we want to get in this conversation. Our number has at least 11 different enzymes that start the process of detoxifying estrogen. Some of them are very healthy. That’s cytochrome p450 1A2 that creates that two-opening position, which can create a two-hydroxy or two-myth. Oxyestrogen should be cleared healthily, but there are four hydroxy and 16 hydroxy. Those are called mutagenic estrogens and mitogenic estrogens. But once that binding site has opened, it’s minimized or neutralized with glucuronic acid, sulfate, or methyl. If you have the wrong species of bugs in your gut, you can de-conjugate the estrogen or free it up to be recirculated actively in the system in a worse form than it came in. That can be a real problem.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Yes, those estrogens, when they’re deconjugated, directly damage DNA, and this is how this cycle of cancer starts. How do you find someone who’s not online? Online? How do you get them to get their guts back online again?

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

Well, now, we’ve got a bigger issue.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Is a huge issue.

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

Yes. We’ve got a bigger question about just pooping than pooping right there. I tell people that we can solve most gut problems with five questions. Number one, what are you eating? We want to eat real food and clean food. Not too much. Not too often. Every color, every day, in a way that honors your physiology or genetics and your body goals, mostly plants. That was a long answer to: What are you eating? Next: How is your digestion? That’s going to start with the brain, then in the mouth, and then hydrochloric acid, and you and I both know that many people have hydrochloric acid challenges, and even if they’re good with hydrochloric acid, then we need the liver, we need the gallbladder, and we need the pancreas to be working. Even the enzymes in the small intestine. How’s your digestion? Next. What bugs live in your gut? Next. Do you have a leaky gut? Finally, how often do you poop? That should be every day at least, and preferably two or three times a day. We take that inventory. We’re going to clean up the diet. Oftentimes, we’re going to use supplemental digestive support, which, by the way, may get them to take a few deep breaths, making sure that they chew it 20 times. Then, when they swallow, do we want to prime the gut with something simple like acid, say, apple cider vinegar, or do we need hydrochloric acid? When people have chronic digestive challenges, I’m a big fan of supplementing with pro proteases, lipase, and amylase.

Those are going to digest protein, fat, and carbohydrates. Our pancreas does that. But plant-based enzymes work over a broader range of PH, and that tends to be my first go-to. If they have a leaky gut, we seal and heal that. Vitamin D is critical. Staying away from gluten can be critical for a while. The amino acid glutamine can be very helpful for that. Colostrum can be helpful with that. Reishi as it was known before. What bugs live in your gut? Across the board, I’m consistently recommending probiotics, and over the last decade, I’ve gone to a more spore-based probiotic because it seems to make better, lasting changes in the gut. Then finally, that question: how often do you poop? For most people, we have to significantly increase the frequency of that. But on occasion, I had a patient who was 20 years old and had post-ovarian cancer, and she was still having diarrhea ten times a day. fascinatingly enough, a good microorganism called Saccharomyces Berardi resolved that in three weeks for her now.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

It’s great for the immune system, too. I want to back up and talk about acid because it’s an important conversation. We normally make less acid as we age. You can not do anything wrong and still be in a low-acid state. However, there is a huge position-induced low acid state because we have created this whole acid phobia. We told everyone that acid is bad, acid is the devil, and acid causes acid reflux. all to sell proton pump inhibitors, and I’m sure you’ve seen in your practice, like ICMI, that those drugs were put on the market for the intention of use in ulcers bleeding, or perforations over two weeks or four weeks max. People have been on these drugs for years. Can you talk a little bit about what happens when you’ve been on acid blockers for years and how that predisposes you to cancer?

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

Sure. I want to go back a step even before that, because, first and foremost, when our stomach makes acid, our stomach is designed to handle it. It’s amazing. It’s got this wonderful mucus barrier. I tell people that if I took a drop of acid and put it on your kitchen table, it would burn a hole through it. Why don’t you do it with your gut? Well, your gut is made for that. The esophagus is not. There’s a very strong muscle, or at least it should be strong. It’s called the lower esophageal sphincter, and it should keep acid in the stomach rather than coming up. We go back to 1969. The Journal Gut realized that acid will cause the lower esophageal sphincter to contract tightly. The Journal of Surgery, 1989. It took 20 years after that to find out that if you add acid to the gut, you prevent acid reflux. The inverse of that is that you have low acid. You’re more likely to get acid reflux.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Now we’re creating acid reflux. When we’re giving people acid blockers.

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

We are and like you said, two weeks, four weeks, tops. Those were the clinical trials the last I checked, which is, not too recent but recent up within a few years ago. The average acid blocker patient has been taking it for 20 years or more. But I want to take a step back because hydrochloric acid is strong; it has a pitch of 0.8. I’m a numbers nerd, and I like to share that the patch of our blood is 7.35. Body fluids are ultimately going to be derived from blood and what we put into the body. To get down to 0.8, that’s a logarithmic scale. 7.35 to 6.35 is a factor of ten; 5.35 is a factor of 104.35. 1,003.35 10,002.35 100,001.35 a million is 0.83 million times as concentrated as that level of hydrochloric acid. 

Dr. Jeff Bland, the father of functional medicine, said decades ago that it takes about 600% more energy in the body to make hydrochloric acid than any other chemical. As our energy becomes less efficient, that is likely the very first chemical that will drop. When we start dropping our hydrochloric acid, we’re not going to be as efficient at extracting our nutrients. Acid can kill microorganisms. Understand that 80% of our immune systems cluster around the gut, and for good reason. If you’re going to get a bug in your system, it’s not likely to enter somewhere through your skin. It’s either going to be a respiratory passage or, more likely, the gut. You swallow that hydrochloric acid can kill a bunch of other weird bugs like H. Pylori seem to thrive in that environment. But that’s a different conversation altogether.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

But well, H. Pylori disrupts the parietal cells and prevents them from making acid.

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

There is no better statement there. You’re right.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Yes.

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

By the way, they call that a routine colonizer. It’s estimated that about half of the world has that. It doesn’t have to cause an ulcer like it can. in many people. But once you don’t have that acid, the protein digestion is going to be suboptimal, increasing the probability of putrefaction further in the intestines and creating more toxic byproducts, which again can be absorbed, especially if you’re not having ideal bowel function. then if the parietal cells are down, you’re not going to get as much B12 absorption as you want. B12 is critical for a process called methylation, and it’s estimated we do it a billion times a second. That’s how we mask and repair DNA. Many important things start there. much that Hippocrates 2000 years ago was only partially wrong, he said. All disease starts in the gut, but modern research shows it might be as much as 90%. We want to make sure that our gut is working, that our food choices are good and that our elimination is as well.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Yes, for people who are on acid blockade, how do you help them transition off? Because, as you have been saying, this is very important to normal physiology. It’s very important for normal gut function. The amount of inflammation that we subject ourselves to if we don’t have normal acid levels is tremendous. We know that inflammation is the root of disease.

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

Yes. By the way, in that chronic disease market, which is now over $30 trillion a year in every case, all those chronic issues, we can show that it’s a chronic, unresolved, inflammatory process that’s going on there. When people are taking these acid blockers, they have a very hard time getting off them. It’s a slow process. It’s a win-win process. We want them to reduce their dose, and we also want to prime their digestive process. Maybe we use something like apple cider vinegar, or maybe we use some bitter herbs. Sometimes we use different things that are going to help the gut mucus synthesis. That could be herbs like marshmallow root and aloe vera, which can be quite helpful. Some of the bitter herbs are good at stimulating the parietal cells, but it’s a slow process with diligence, and we let people know if you’ve been taking acid blockers for longer than a few months, which is what most people do, it’s going to take a bit of time to wean off of them. But patience and diligence.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Yes, but it’s important to do because, even if you haven’t been on an acid blocker if you don’t have normal gut function, I find that’s an important place to start and to make sure that you do have adequate acid. After all, it’s vital to your gut function. Another thing, another one of those pillars that you talked about, was sleep. This is something that happens between sleep and anxiety; those are the two biggest reasons people get prescriptions in the United States. Can you talk a little bit about what’s happening when we’re sleeping, why you think we have a sleep epidemic, and how to recapture that for people?

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

We’re learning more and more about sleep and its life-critical functions, and a term I heard just a few months ago on a podcast is now called Mental Floss. Your brain has this lymphatic nervous system and cleansing system, and it goes through a very significant detoxification process, ultimately affecting your immune system and your stress hormones. One of the things that I said in layman’s terms years ago was that if you’re not running on rest and recovery, you’re running on stress hormones. Stress hormones are catabolic; they’re immunosuppressive. That’s a horrible step in the direction of cancer. You look at why we have this sleep challenge; much of it is in artificial environments.

We look at blue lights and screens, and we know that those will directly inhibit melatonin. Now, enough. While we’re on this, melatonin is now getting a lot of press as a very powerful anti-cancer nutrient. The gut makes 400 times as much melatonin as the pineal gland, but the melatonin in our brain is going to be released with light and dark cycles. When people expose themselves to blue light near bedtime, their bodies will not shut down. It will not relax; it will not resolve. I’m a big fan of electronics. Sunset: no electronics at all for at least an hour before bed. If you can get full-spectrum lighting within the home, that’s going to be a better deal. no screens.  then we can supplement with melatonin, L-Theanine, and other things that are calming. Passionflower Valerian: Certain forms of magnesium can be wonderful to calm the central nervous system, and then a very strict routine. A lot of new parents are going to find out that their babies do well with a routine. I like to tell people we’re just tall babies. We are doing well with a good routine.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

There are lots of times when we need to take some lessons from the little ones. They don’t have the distractions that we do, and they know how to sleep. They’re much more driven than we are in that regard. You talked a little bit about melatonin. Can you just go into that because there is a lot of talk about melatonin and its role in cancer or cancer recovery? We find that a lot of people who are being diagnosed with cancer and metastatic disease have a relative melatonin deficiency.

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

Yes, they do. There’s an article entitled The Hallmarks of Cancer. If you look at that, all of those ten hallmarks are positively modulated. Now, sometimes you want to stimulate them, and sometimes you want to inhibit them with melatonin. The gut makes 400 times as much melatonin. There’s no known toxicity to it. I started on my melatonin journey, which has been a few decades now, and I’m a big melatonin fan, but I was at a major functional medicine conference and a world-renowned endocrinologist was on stage, and she said we found something very interesting.

We found that the adrenal glands have melatonin receptors. We’re going to look into that. Well, what they found out is that the way that our brain drives stress on our body is something called the adrenal cortical trough. hormone.  that’ll stimulate the adrenal glands to create cortisol and even acute stress hormones, epinephrine, and norepinephrine. When we give melatonin, it can bind to the adrenal cortex and prevent the brain from driving stress on the body. Over the last 15 years, I’ve taught what I call my stress reset. I recommend melatonin 1 to 2 milligrams every waking hour, and L-Theanine 100 to 200 milligrams every waking hour. That’s, by the way, a natural GABA facilitator and amino acid, as is green tea, which by itself has anti-cancer benefits. Again, there is no known toxicity to any of those. then Reishi spores. It took them until 2022 to realize that it decreased the amount of circulating stress hormones in circulation, cortisol. then it’s going to be alkalizing, anti-inflammatory, and anti-infective, and it’s good for parietal cells and can eradicate H. pylori, and even has direct actions against breast and inflammatory breast cancer.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

How long do you follow the protocol for that? You said melatonin is 1 to 2 milligrams every waking hour. L-Theanine.

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

Yes, L-theanine is 100 to 200 milligrams every waking hour. And then 200 to 500 milligrams of the spore form is what I prefer best that’s the most potent, Reishi. But even Ganoderma lucidum of the flowering body can work as well. when someone comes in and I’m going to look at different things between a stress survey and biomarkers and cortisol and DHEA and insulin and inflammatory markers, but typically at least seven days. But I have gone as long as 21 days with a post-traumatic brain injury where the individual had a—don’t even call it a miraculous recovery.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

When I say things like that to people, they think I can’t take melatonin every hour. I’m going to be dead on my feet. I’ll be sound asleep. Can you explain to them what is happening there?

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

By the way, I have a way of explaining this that sticks. We go back 35 years, when I was in school, and they described the blood-brain barrier as something that prevented toxins from getting into our brain. That’s not true at all because most environmental toxins are fat-soluble. They cross the blood-brain barrier. But what I believe it’s there to do is keep what’s in our brain and what’s in our body. In our body. Keep in mind that if 400 x two melatonin crossed the blood-brain barrier, we’d be asleep all day long. Or my funny way of explaining that the most excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain is glutamate in the body, which happens to be a neurotransmitter in pain.

I tell people that if we don’t have the blood-brain barrier, we wake up in the middle of the night, go to the restroom, stub our toes, and probably have a seizure. We nail the blood-brain barriers there for good reason. If people do get tired of melatonin, there are one or two things. Either they have a leaky brain, which, by the way, a lot of people do, and this would be a step towards solving it, or they’re running hard on stress hormones, and now you’ve pulled the plug on their resource. I see plenty of exhausted people. The first couple of days. I tell them, look, if your work requires that you be alert, if you’re a police officer, if you’re a pilot, or if you’re a surgeon, don’t do it when you’re working, but do it Friday afternoon through the weekend, and eventually you’ll be able to take it every waking hour. But when people get past that exhausted level of melatonin, it’s a significant breakthrough for them. They realize, wait a minute, I was stressed. That’s how my life was being fueled. Now that I don’t have it for the first time in a long time, I feel peaceful.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

I haven’t spoken to you about this before, and I’m curious as to what you think, but I don’t recommend routine screening with mammograms or any ionizing radiation studies. I don’t have my patients get follow-up CAT scans, PET scans, or anything like that. However, there are times when diagnostic studies are needed. In those times, I have people taking 100 milligrams of melatonin an hour before any radiation exposure to bind up the free radicals. I’m curious as to what you think of that protocol. If you have a similar protocol,?

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

Well, one, you’re brilliant, and you are out for the best interests of your patients. Congratulations. We need you to lead the way for many to understand that the Archives of Internal Medicine published that women who have had the most consistent mammograms over a decade have a 22% increased risk of invasive breast cancer. One of my functional medicine mentors years ago said We will continue to radiate the breast until we detect cancer that we caused, not caused, but contributed to. Melatonin is awesome for that, by the way, as is iodine. I had a seven-year-old autistic patient yesterday who had blood in his urine. I thought that was very unusual. We only think of kidney stones. I said, Well, did they do a CT scan? They said, “No. I said, Well, that’s good. I’m glad because we don’t want to radiate that young body that early. By the way, there’s an herb called gravel route that I’ve used now for three decades, and I can’t think of a single patient. There have been many cases where we didn’t dissolve their kidney stones with routine dosing. That’s something that people can look at because people are concerned about oxalate, as was this family. They had gluten-free, dairy-free eating, and a lot of things that had a good diet, but maybe not for his unique chemistry.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

The people who run into problems with oxalate stones do so because they have a genetic predisposition to it. It’s very hard to get oxalate stones just from eating a plant-based diet if you’re properly hydrated, and it’s very difficult and very uncommon unless you have the genetic makeup for that. I love to hear that you like my melatonin idea. Let’s go back to the statistic that you quoted: the women who have the most consistent mammograms have the highest chance of breast cancer.

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

But it’s breast cancer—invasive breast cancer.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Invasive breast cancer. If I counted, I don’t even think I could, but it’s a very high percentage of my patients that come in and say, I don’t know what happened. I get my mammogram every year, and that’s what happened. But why do we have this misconception that we don’t even think of mammograms as preventative? We have completely convinced people that they are irresponsible if they don’t get a mammogram and that it’s dangerous, and I have been called dangerous by my colleagues because I speak out against screening mammograms.

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

The literature is on, and Bruce Ames, a geneticist out of Berkeley at one time, was one of the top 20 science-cited scientists of all time. He said if someone is exposed to ionizing radiation while they have a vitamin or mineral deficiency, the radiation will damage the DNA to a significantly higher extent. You look at our malnourished, very stressed population, and we’re creating a challenge there. The literature is on your side now. I’m absolutely in favor of consistent screening in a way that doesn’t harm the body. I tell people what the absolute best lecture I went to was, maybe 25 years ago, and it was an ob-gyn male. He says, “Ladies, you deserve some time to yourself.”

He says, “Here’s what I recommend every week: get a quiet, nice bath, good music, maybe a book. While you’re washing, reach under that armpit, go feel the tail of the breast, work your way all the way through, and very simply spend a minute on each side. That’s all it takes—a minute each side each week. then, fully realizing that at different points of the hormonal cycle, the breast is going to feel different. But if you ever feel anything unusual, that’s the time to get it checked out right then and there.” If people would do that consistently, I would bet we would catch many more things in the early phase where it’s easier to handle.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

But the mammography argument too is that we’re catching everything in an early phase, and what that doesn’t take into account is that breast cancers, by and large, are not predictable in their growth, and they’re not predictable in their biology. The scenario that you’re describing is something that has become clinically relevant, and that’s a different story than these screening lesions that are not palpable and that are not clinically relevant. Now we are taking these people, we are biopsying them, we are giving them a diagnosis of invasive cancer, and we’re treating them for invasive cancer for something that may have never reached the threshold that you’re just talking about.

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

Well, and there’s a master of public health medical doctor. His name is Gilbert Welch. He wrote a powerful book years ago. It was called Should I Be Tested for Cancer? Maybe not. Here’s why. He went through the statistics of absolutely everything. He said that in terms of the medical screening, he didn’t see where any of the things that they were recommending should be a first option. Even talking about colonoscopy says, Look, not look for occult blood in stool first that costs a dollar. It’s non-invasive. If that’s positive, find out if you have a hemorrhoid. Take a little natural protocol. If it persists, then consider a colonoscopy. We could say the same thing with mammograms. People are very aware of their breasts, and they should be paying attention to them at least once a week.

Then, if you find something unusual, well, go to someone like yourself, get it checked out, and take the next most reasonable step. Now, how do you feel about it? I have plenty of patients who understand that ionizing radiation is bad. They say, What about a thermogram? That’s not a bad starting point. Putting your own body first, a thermogram is not a bad second choice.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Yes, I agree. The thermogram is going to show heat differentiation from the rest of the tissue. It can be an indicator that something is starting there. I don’t know that you necessarily have to chase it because oftentimes when you see something on thermography, you’re not going to find something corresponding to a mammogram. I use thermography more as an indication of whether I need to increase my gain. Do I need to be paying more attention? Do I need to take stock and figure it out, or am I in balance? Am I doing the things that I need to do to improve my health? Maybe that’s the time to run down the list that you told us about. Because many that much of the time we can use these indicators as opportunities.

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

Well, that’s the purpose of the test, isn’t it? If we can motivate a patient towards better choices in a way that doesn’t alarm them, one of the worst things that can happen is that someone becomes very frightened. Then they start making choices that maybe they wouldn’t if they could step back and take a more rational view. Thermogram, if they do that consistently, find something up their game, get a screening, a hang-up, it’s better. Awesome. If not, let’s look a little deeper. By the way, it shouldn’t take much time to make a change. I often tell people, that one of my catchphrases is that bodies respond to the frequency, duration, intensity, quality, and timing of stimuli. Why don’t we put you on a rock-solid ten-day anti-inflammatory, de-stress, detox, run it again, and see if we’ll find that the vast majority of the time we can make significant improvements?

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Getting back to the sleep thing because I want to make sure that we give people actionable steps. You talked a lot about blue light exposure, screens, and having full-spectrum lighting in your home. Are there any other things that you think about when you’re advising people about sleep routines?

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

Consistency. That’s going to be it all the time. Then there are things like a quiet, cool, dark room with blackout shades, and I’m amazed at how cool a lot of people like to sleep. They say, Listen, 67 degrees for me. I don’t know why, but that’s too cool for me. I’m good at 71. But find out your temperature, your wind-down routine, and things like alcohol. People think that if you drink it, you’ll fall asleep faster, but you’re going to disrupt your second sleep cycle. That’s a little bit disruptive. then things like caffeine, which has a half-life of five hours. Listen, you might want to cut your coffee a bit earlier, tea, or whatever caffeinated beverage you have. Ultimately, we want to take a good inventory, look at all the factors that might be disrupting sleep, and chisel away not one, two, or three, but all of them. Yes. then establish that good routine.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Those numbers you quoted as far as alcohol and caffeine might be true for men, but I don’t think women do that as well and as efficiently. I understood those numbers to be higher. Women have to be even more careful about avoiding alcohol. We know that women don’t tolerate alcohol as well as men do. The American Cancer Society doesn’t always get things right, but they got it right here in that there is no safe amount of alcohol for women. Men can tolerate it because they have a little bit better liver function, and men can tolerate a little more alcohol than women and caffeine. It takes most women eight hours to metabolize that cup of coffee. But there is something you speak about all the time that I would be completely remiss if we didn’t get into. But something like reishi mushrooms can up that caffeine metabolism and can do a lot of other things. Can you talk to us a little bit? Medicinal mushrooms and reishi in particular, and why do you like them so much and think they’re important?

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

Well, one of my favorite topics, for sure, but back to this scorpion cancer risk for just a moment. There was a study years ago where they found that women who had the BRCA gene, BRCA1 or BRCA2, oddly enough, had six cups of coffee or more a day. There was 69% less onset of cancer. Caffeine is a tri-metal thing, and caffeine is detoxified down the pathway cytochrome p450 A1A2, which creates two hydroxylase investors, and that’s healthy estrogen. I suggest maybe there’s some apple group present in the caffeine that can help to clear it. I thought that was fascinating. By the way, with men, the stat was similar, with 57% less onset of lethal prostate cancer. Now, they didn’t see any prostate cancer, but lethal, the Gleason grade eight or above, that can become metastatic a little more easily.

But when we start looking at medicinal mushrooms, these things are beyond fascinating. right now. It’s a $34 billion-a-year market. It’s massive. Globally, the world’s foremost authority is a guy named It was nearly a decade ago that he had a TED Talk entitled Six Ways that Mushrooms Will Save the World. Within that talk, in the end, he introduced his 84-year-old mother, who had very aggressive breast cancer, who resolved it with some conventional medicine, nothing too aggressive, and then medicinal mushrooms, but we started looking at our favorite, which would be Reishi also known as Ganoderma. It’s proven with direct and indirect action against over 15 different types of cancer, including breast cancer, inflammatory breast cancer, prostate cancer, and then the really hard ones like pancreatic cancer, lung cancer, and even glioblastoma.

It’s an anti-aging, antioxidant. It’s what’s known as a universal immune modulator, meaning if you have an allergy, it can calm it down. If you have autoimmunity, it can calm you down. If you’ve had an infection, it can ramp up to kill you. Or if you have cancer, it can wrap up to kill it. Anti-inflammatory by over a dozen proven mechanisms, considered by many to be the most alkaline food on the planet. We just go on and on, and we realize that when we put it in coffee, we make coffee a functional beverage. I was shocked. There are thousands of studies on coffee as a functional beverage. We go back a thousand years when people first started putting healthy things in copy; it can be something nutritious for us. Of course, we only have good, clean coffee and no herbicides or insecticides; it’s fungicides, mycotoxins, etc.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

That is the key. that you are a Resihi coffee consumer. I am a Reishi coffee consumer. It’s the best part of my day. I didn’t know that study about BRCA1 and BRCA2 carriers. I’m thrilled to hear that and know that. This has been an awesome conversation. I just want to go through your Magnificent Seven because people need to remember and incorporate them, and these are things that people can take home with them. Because as we start to talk about your diagnosis or any red flag that comes up, you can either see that as a punishment or you can see that as an opportunity. It’s the people who see that as an opportunity. Then adopt your Magnificent Seven and become those people that you have created Elite Health for. That Elite Health applies to the athlete, all of their family members, and all of the people that you have helped along the way. We’re talking about eating right, drinking right, thinking right, moving right, sleeping right, pooping right, and talking right.

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

Now that you’ve got all seven,

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Yes. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

Well, it is such an honor to be sharing with you and your tribe. I love the background. Real help, M.D. You are that so? I hope you start a trend that takes over all of health care because, looking at what’s going on out there, people have lost touch with the fact that we have what we need to live a beautiful, healthy, and amazing life. If we take responsibility, we can create a better world for ourselves and everybody else in it.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

It is just that attitude that made me feel drawn to you, as all people are. You radiate positivity and hope, and you embody the spirit of health. I just love spending time with you. I’m grateful for you coming on today and for doing all the work that you do because it’s truly a blessing.

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

Well, Dr. Jenn, you’re such a wonderful pioneer, such a spokesperson, and such a much-needed voice. I’m going to do all that I can to help get your message out there.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Thank you very much, Dr. Bob. Where can people find you now?

Robert Rakowski, DC, CCN, DACBN, DIBAK

The website is easy. drbobrakowski.com.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Great. It’s Dr. Jenn; bye for now.