How Your Thyroid Health Could Hold The Key To Reducing Cancer Risk

Introduction and Guest Background 0:00

Welcome back to the reversing Hashimoto's and Thyroid Disease Summit. My guest today is Doctor Nisha Winters and she is just a cancer expert, but a pioneer in the cancer field. And she's dove deep into the research and has actually built training programs for other practitioners and programs to help prevent, but also help get you through that time. If you were in that state of dealing with a cancer diagnosis and this is not contained to thyroid cancer, of course we're going to dive into that today.

It's all cancers everywhere. But the information that you're going to get from Doctor Nisha is going to want to make you explore her more in the area of prevention or in the area of proper treatment for cancer. So Doctor Ayesha, thank you so much for jumping on today. Thank you so much. This is an incredible summit. I'm super honored to be part of it and such an important discussion and something that's affecting so many of us. So thanks for having me. Well, you know, and a lot of my patients have already gone through a thyroid cancer diagnosis and treatment, which we know is total thyroidectomy or radioactive iodine.

So let's start with the thyroid cancer diagnosis, what you see in your practice and how there is a distinct connection to Hashimoto's. Yes, absolutely. So basically broken down into three major sections of thyroid cancer types that we know about today. The least, common and the most aggressive hits about 1 to 3% of thyroid cancer diagnoses, which is called anaplastic, thyroid cancer. It's a very aggressive, very squirrely, nonresponsive to standard of care treatments, very rapid moving, often fatal, and really related to a strange kind of DNA disrepair from like major radiation poisoning, things like that.

It's very, very, very rare to see that. I think I've seen two in my entire career. The second, but, one about 10% of all cancer thyroid cancer types is a combination of the medullary and the follicular. Now these can have metastatic potential, but they're they tend to be pretty slow growing. And thyroidectomy is often enough for these, treatments as well. And then just watching if it's if it's already left the building, if metastasized

Thyroid Cancer Types and Hashimoto's Connection 2:34

and they'll look at systemic therapies. But I do want you to know that chemotherapy is not really favorable to cancer diagnoses in general of the thyroid. It's just not as responsive. There are some new tyrosine kinase inhibitors and some targeted therapies that have some benefit. But chemo is often not a good option. But the most important one, which is so relevant to the summit, it's also the most common, the least aggressive, and the less the least fatal. Okay. And that's 80 to 85% of all thyroid cancers are this papillary thyroid carcinoma.

And PTC is what you might see in the literature. And this is starting at you know, these these little these little like a lot of people will notice little nodules in their thyroid. And they'll be sent off for a biopsy or an ultrasound. And if there's anything it might just show anaplastic or not anaplastic. Excuse me hyperplastic. So just like some cell changes but nothing yet cancerous that they might think of pre papillary carcinoma but they do find papillary carcinoma. I will tell you this. Most patients can take a very thoughtful watch and see approach.

It will probably surprise you and your listeners to know that by the time we reach the age of 70, virtually all of us have cancer in our thyroid. All of us. Okay, we will die with it, not of it. And of those findings, they're papillary in nature. And so to bridge all this back to the Hashimoto's discussion is the most common driver of a papillary thyroid carcinoma. A diagnosis of thyroiditis, secondary photos or graves. And so the nature of the beast is when we have this chronic autoimmune process happening, we have increased levels of inflammation, we have increased levels of reactive oxygen species, which are reactions to changes in our environment that lead to some DNA vulnerability.

And we have, other endocrine hormones signaling malfunctioning going on. So maybe our cortisol response or our sex hormones response or our pancreas, you know, insulin levels respond or our pituitary responds in response to these changes happening. So Hashimoto's is when you start to find nodules and whatnot. Patients for the most part will find that there are Hashimoto's nodules and that going after it more. And we talk about prevention instead of just cutting it out and radiating it, with this high dose radioactive iodine, we could start with some dietary and lifestyle modifications and head this off at the past way before we get too aggressive and then can't basically change what damage we've done with either surgery or, and radiation, iodine uptake process.

And that rye in and of itself so so many patients out there. Right. They're presented with the diagnosis of a thyroid cancer. And they're presented with two options. You either have that total thyroidectomy or you have the radioactive iodine treatment. Now I always tell them go for the surgery. I know it's going to be a little scar. It'll heal. Don't worry about it. Cover it up, do some laser whatever versus the radioactive iodine treatment because, I mean, just the term radioactive. I mean, come on, that's something that we avoid all of our life.

Well, so why would someone why is that even an option? And why would you advise someone to, to avoid that form of treatment as well? I love that question. You know, I mean for sure to break it down. Radioactive as you alluded to, problematic known carcinogen, no damaging of our DNA, whether it's healthy DNA of the healthy tissue around or the cancerous DNA of the cancer, they're bringing in radioactive iodine in hopes that it only targets the cancerous, rapidly dividing cells. But unfortunately, what we see more often than not is it also damages the surrounding tissue, making those cells more vulnerable to DNA damage and more mutations.

Mutated, mutable, that's a word makes them vulnerable to have a recurrence or a progression of that very same cancer and the not so distant future. In fact, I was telling you in a previous discussion that I've never had a patient with papillary thyroid carcinoma. First of all, not have Hashimoto's. So there's that piece. They I always see those go hand in. And, the other side is I've never had somebody who's come to me with thyroid cancer papillary specifically, I've had more aggressive like the follicular or the anaplastic I talked about, but papillary.

I had never seen a single patient die. Papillary thyroid cancer, nor has metastasis except in those who did the I. Yeah. And that helps understand is that we cause more gene mutations in that surrounding tissue, more reactive oxygen species, more inflammation, more vulnerabilities. And then we had another whammy with this, in, in, in influx of a mass of bullets of iodine, which it has some confusion in controversy out there, but specifically with this combination iodine in big or small amounts in the radioactive iodine uptake or in supplemental does in fact stimulate thyroid peroxidase antibodies, which is the hallmark, blood test for Hashimoto's autoimmune thyroiditis.

So you're thinking here, we're going to give a treatment that makes the cells more vulnerable to becoming cancerous, and we're going to have a treatment that makes the very reason why they became vulnerable to begin with even more so. Right. So it makes sense to me. And because of that, if I'm lucky enough to get somebody before I, I will help them avoid it like the plague. And if I see someone in surgery seems to be indicated or they've already had the surgery, I get them into somebody like Doctor Amy who knows how to properly evaluate their thyroid orchestra and its relationship to the rest of the endocrine system, and how to be very alchemical in the way you can medicate and support these folks.

Because what also happens after a thyroidectomy is people get put on a single high dose of a T4 or synthetic T4 and T4 only, which, thank God Doctor Amy speaks volumes on. This doesn't work. No, doesn't work. And it does not. It's not even remotely who we are. Like we are such this complex, beautiful orchestra of t, T4, T3, T2, t1. Even like all these different thyroid hormones and their relationship

Radioactive Iodine, Surgery, and Recurrence Risk 9:20

with everything else. So here's a crazy thing. We were also talking about for the recording was there's been suggestions that over hyper or over suppression of TSH. So putting a patient basically to hyper thyroid ism also proliferates cancer cells. So any residue of cancer cells after the thyroidectomy and after the radioactive uptake, when they're then put on a massive dose of T4 by itself, that leads to an even more vulnerable push of cancer, proliferation of any residual cells there. So it doesn't surprise me that my patients, who were just very proactive with cleaning up their terrain and supporting the beautiful orchestra of their endocrine system in relationship to their thyroid, and removing a lot of the things that were contributing to those antibodies that led to the Hashimoto's diagnosis.

That's where we either prevent cancer or prevent cancer from recurring after it's already started. Okay. Yep. Absolutely. Now, is there a connection or is there a a TPO limit that you look at, let's say over 2000 or over 1000 where you go, this person has antibodies so high they are at a times ten greater risk of thyroid cancer. Or do the antibodies number not matter? That's a stinkin awesome question. No one's ever asked it of me. And here's the funny thing I said. We also run thyroid globulin, which is a cancer marker for thyroid.

So if I've had a patient who has had, say, breast cancer and they'd have radiation say to their breasts, at that time I will check a thyroid globulin on them annually, because just the field of the radiation could reach the thyroid. And increase the risk of thyroid cancer after having breast cancer radiation. How fun is that? So I'm watching their thyroid globulin antibody regularly if they live near Chernobyl or if they were near Fukushima, or they lived in areas like there's a hotspot in Norman.

Norman, Lake Norman in North Carolina, hotspots on radiation, tailings, you know, old mining towns in Colorado, big one where I grew up or where I spent time in Durango, Colorado. Lots and lots and lots of Hashimoto's there. Then and only then in my watching, like annually for thyroid globulin to screen for and stay ahead of a thyroid cancer diagnosis the antibodies themselves do not seem to have. I've had patients with full blown papillary thyroid carcinoma with like a 12 on their TPO antibodies, right?

I've had people who have like no more thorough globulin, which is the tumor marker, and their imaging looks good and their TPO is at a 1000 like I've not seen that number correlate. So it seems like you've had the similar experience. Yeah, yeah. And I wonder what your your experience was since you dive into this and see so much thyroid cancer. So now you had mentioned as well the connection of gluten and iodine as being huge drivers. And obviously we know gluten is a huge driver in ischemic expressing itself and then kind of expanding and growing.

I always use the analogy of having soldiers. So when we look at those antibodies, if you think of them in terms of soldiers and those soldiers are going out and beating up your thyroid gland, well, when we consume gluten, those soldiers look at that gluten. That looks like an chemical structure, like the thyroid gland. They're like, let's go start a war and let's beat up that thyroid gland again today. What is the connection between gluten, iodine and thyroid cancer? Got it. Well, first of all, I mean, I love what a stinking awesome analogy.

For this piece here. And and also, you know, up until about 19, late 1960s, early 1970s, celiac disease. So the HLA, Q gene or the human lymphocyte antigen genes of the celiac risk factors, were, you know, we were still probably about 1 in 1000 of people with true celiac. We saw that number start to explode upwards of 1 in 10 today. Not necessarily true celiac, but true gluten sensitivity. And that's thanks to another massive endocrine disrupting chemical that is ubiquitous in our environment. No matter where you live on this globe. And that is glyphosate.

Yep. Okay. So glyphosate has basically it's like been like Kryptonite to our GI tract. And it has created a deeper leakiness some more, issues with how we take in information we shouldn't and get rid of information that we need to be holding on to. It has taken gluten and sort of turned it into like a made it from a molehill into a mountain. Right? So even if somebody doesn't have celiac, thanks to glyphosate, it's created these changes in our microbiome and in our GI tract and therefore in our immune system.

That makes us all basically gluten sensitive today for the most part. So if you have and what's very interesting is gluten itself. I love how you describe the Army. That's because what happens is the gluten comes on board and the body sees it as a cell, like something to attack. Yeah. It just keeps you in this perpetual state of chronic autoimmune dysfunction, and it's impacting your mineral balance even more because you're eating something that is causing even more leaky gut and causing more imbalance of your minerals, which then leads to selenium imbalances, magnesium imbalances, calcium, vitamin D, vitamin K2, iodine, all of that.

Even the milk, you know, the the micro minerals as well start to get thrown off there with this. The other component is that gluten itself kicks up something called NF kappa beta. We can measure that in realms of like interleukin six. We can measure that with C-reactive protein. If I see patients with chronically elevated AST alt, which are your liver enzymes with, they don't drink or they drink very minimally issues, that is always a marker of celiac or gluten sensitivity as well. So that's an interesting piece that that these patients might be getting retrigger.

And unbeknownst to them, like I learned the hard way that my toothpaste at one point had gluten in it. So I was avoiding it so strategically in my diet, and suddenly I was getting it in my toothpaste. Wow. And it was a Tums of me, which was even crazier. Like, I free. All right, so now you'd like go to those depths of like, hey, what's my body care products a little bit because somebody like me, I've got true celiac, right. So I've got the had aging and I have Hashimoto's and I had ovarian cancer, and I was on a big kick for a long time on iodine supplementation to do with my thyroid, because that's what I was studying at the time about 25 years ago.

And I was an explosion. I shut my thyroid entirely down, because of massive bullishness of iodine. I didn't understand that connection and that the iodine will tick up the thyroid peroxidase antibodies, I did not. I always knew that it would make your TSH look falsely elevated. Right. And that it could have some issues there, but I but no one ever taught me in that realm, in the iodine world, about the thyroid antibodies. And when I started correlating and doing that test on myself, as well as the hundreds and hundreds of patients I had on high doses of iodine.

Luckily, I test those antibodies regularly, and it was very easy to see how quickly those antibodies go up in the face of exogenous iodine uptake. I have no problem with people getting it from their food. Seaweed. You know, the body knows what to do when it's coming from that. Or like a nice mineral, like a B minerals. I really like some of those out there. Have a really nice balance that's not throwing or skewing you in one direction.

Gluten, Iodine, and Autoimmune Triggers 17:08

So food and some of those mineral supplementation are completely fine. But by itself I've been, careful with any exogenous iodine supplementation, especially in those who already have Hashimoto's. And then I'm watching at least annually thyroid antibodies. If somebody is taking iodine, had they not had Hashimoto's. And so we've learned pretty quickly, even those folks tend to start to move into Hashimoto's in a relatively short period of time. On exogenous iodine. So it's something I would really encourage practitioners listening to start to run TPO and anti-terror globulin antibodies.

And then that relationship is with iodine. Also interesting when you take a lot of exogenous iodine or a bolus of it in the radioactive iodine treatment of thyroid cancer, you will in response to that upswing of iodine, increase your estrogen levels. It will respond to that. So it creates this even if it's temporary, a moment of estrogen dominance, which my world can be a not so great place to be for a lot of the patients that we're working with, it have, already vulnerabilities to growth factors of which in an active state of cell proliferation, you do not really want to be messing with adding any more insult to injury with other growth factors.

So we tend to be very, very careful with any exogenous hormones, exogenous iodine, watching gluten in all of our patients with cancer just so we don't end up with these autoimmune storms, these DNA vulnerability storms, these reactive oxygen species, and this just general immune dysfunction. Right. Well, okay. You mentioned immune dysfunction. That was going to be my next question is supporting the immune system is key for the prevention of cancer. But it's also key for autoimmune conditions. And people get that confused.

So like wait a minute. It's autoimmune. My body's attacking my thyroid gland in the case of Hashimoto's. So why would I support it? Why would I use something like vitamin D to support my immune system? And essentially I just want my immune system to go sit in a corner and shut up. God damn attacking my good stuff in my body. So what is the importance of can you dive more into that, into supporting the immune system on so many levels? I got seize on this one. A great question because you're right, we've got.

So here's my teeter totter. Okay. In the center is t h3 which is your T helper cell which think about that. And this is a component of the immune system not the thyroid system per se. This is about modulation of immune function when we have cancer not always mind you, but for the most part it's TH2 dominant. Okay. So T2T helper cell two is hyperactive in most cancer situations. In autoimmunity T one is most dominant. T helper cell, one. You also have I was one of these cases. And I see dozens of these people that are both T1 and T2 dominant, which is really weird because it's like, oh, we really have to get your skate a really thin line.

So if you're someone who's both got autoimmune history and cancer and they're dancing with each other, maybe simultaneously you're taking turns, you got to really stay on that three zone to support them. And I'll tell you about how we do that in a moment when people have been extremely over treated chemotherapy immune suppressive drugs, but bio modulating drugs. So like the drugs used for rheumatoid arthritis etc. and, and those things that will push both T1 and T2 down, basically taking your entire immune system completely off the grid.

That's not a good idea either, because then you just, like, die of some strange random like tooth infection, right? Like your body gets so taken over it doesn't know how to recognize, respond, or remember when it's facing these things. That's a functioning immune system. So how we support a balancing act, a modulating and not a stimulating or suppressing of either end of the teeter totter is to focus on the center. So, for instance, if I have a person who's got a Hashimoto's storm or even an autoimmune storm after taking an immune therapy like Keytruda or Opdivo in the cancer world.

So we're using a lot of immune therapies today. Immune therapies, by the way, fully suppressed. Turn off the switch on H2 and fully crank up TH1, right? Basically, they create an autoimmune shit show. Yep. All right. And so I help patients by saying, okay, you're going to get on these drugs, but we're going to find out where your immune system is hanging out in the teeter totter land. Right now. We can run tests like your companies like PSI. We can do a lymphocyte mapping panel. I can take a questionnaire and kind of get a sense of people.

I can just look at their family history. I can look at things like their neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio, their white blood cell count. I can look at their inflammatory markers, and I can get a sense of which teeter into the teeter totter is at play, if not both. Then we focus on trying to modulate it. And so if someone's flaring that autoimmune, we can give high, high dose vitamin D, fish oil, vitamin A to literally suppress that hyperactivity instead of what standard of care would give is steroids.

Right. Not a good idea okay. Because we're going to set up the metabolic mayhem and really push cancer again. So if we can do that short term, like really bring on like two weeks of like high doses of those nutrients I just talked about, you can de-escalate that autoimmune flare. And then what we do is we titrate amidst that is using the right amount of vitamin D, the right amount of probiotics such as our acromion, which is very balancing out in the three zone to both cancer side and autoimmune side.

We can bring on things like low dose now truck zone, which is an off label drug, which is one of my I mean my personal saving. I'm pretty sure my teeter totter is alive and well today because of low dose. They'll trek zone with my years of autoimmunity and years of cancer. These are the things that we can modulate the immune system. So it recognizes self, but also can recognize other and respond appropriately and not over excessively or under, you know, underwhelming. And so this is the dance about modulation, about balance, about homeostasis.

And that pushing either end on either side of the coin is often not a great idea, at least for a long term. Yeah. Now, you mentioned LDN. What are your thoughts on black human seed oil? I went down that rabbit hole and I was blown away. Well, number one, I use that with patients to lower antibodies. Right. And I was blown away. So this is why I put it in my Hashimoto's fixer. Because number one it lowers antibodies. But number two anti-cancer I was like, do you know what kind of studies you have to have in the supplement world to say that any do you even use the C-word?

But to say that it sends cancer? Oh my gosh. So there has to be substance there. Or the all the alphabet soup agencies would be slapping down on any supplement company.

Immune Modulation and Supportive Therapies 24:18

Would black women in it? It's so crazy. I want to say, is that thymus alone? Is that in a client? Yeah. No. It's like every once in all the words like I see it go across my little mental brain here that people. Because if you look at black humanity you might not see the data. But if you go up and look up the thymic loan, that's where you see the data, which is one of the, you know, that constituents of that whole black human seed and it has pro apoptotic effect. It's a BCL two inhibitor, which is what induces apoptosis.

It works on the mean metallo matrix proteins. It specifically can lower VEGF, which is vaso endothelial growth factor, which is the angiogenesis in the wrong places in the body. It dampens NF kappa beta. It is a toll like receptor modifier. It can work on interleukin 610 and eight to lower those. What I'm saying probably sounds like Greek to you, but this is where the the research is in the oncology space. All of those individually I talked about have tons of research and looking for that one drug to treat that one particular target.

And yet this particular ion Vedic food, has got hitting all those targets at once. It is such a potent modifier. I love that you brought that up. Yeah. And it also has because it's working on the toll like receptors that has a similar impact of what low dose naltrexone is doing. So they're very, synergistic and supportive of one another as well. Yeah. So for me, I put that into the category of what I call the new dose supplements, as in die. You're going to take that every day, right. You know, you're kind of like with vitamin D and magnesium and, and the minerals, you know, you just you just do because the benefits are wide reaching and just tremendous to the body.

What what would you put in your notes, supplement list for those with, let's say, Hashimoto's and or dealing with thyroid cancer. I love this. This is so good. I mean, first of all, I want to take some things out. I want to make sure they're not taking iodine. Any supplementation or in like iodized salt. I want to make sure they're getting getting like a good like Colima sea salt. There's a really good sea salt from South Africa or Himalayan salt. You're still getting plenty of iodine the to meet your daily needs, but you're not overextending it.

There are some folks like myself. I'm really sensitive. Like, red salt is my favorite, but it's got a lot of iodine in it and so I can get my antibodies will tweak. If I eat too much, I can tell I get swollen in my joints if I get too much iodine. So if I go out to eat and I'm eating iodized salt, I know I'm getting a little bit of a thyroid flare. That's how sensitive I am. I'm a canary in the coal mine though, so not everyone's going to be that sensitive, but I would avoid gluten at all costs.

I'm really careful with that. And even for folks who are new to the Hashimoto's stance, maybe gluten, alone isn't enough. So I like to pull all grains and legumes to get the gut healed, at least for a period of time. Sirieix offers a test for cross-reactivity. So, for instance, when I went gluten free in 2009, I was eating a lot of tapioca and sesame to make up for some of the places where I wasn't doing gluten and my body was thinking I was still getting gluten, so I had to pull those out for a few months.

Thanks to that test, it showed me that I was having hyper reactions, as if my body was still thinking I was getting gluten. Took them out for a few months. Now I have no problem with them, but in the beginning you might be vulnerable that your body thinks everything is gluten, right? And because it's in everything, not as much today as it has been in the past. But you still need to be mindful of that then my no duh, I love that. By the way, your, I hope you've trademarked that. I wouldn't, you know, I want to know their baseline of their vitamin D.

I want to make sure it's in a good like 50 to 80 in the preventive mode. If they're actively cancer ING or actively autoimmune, I might want it higher 80 to 100, 120. As a treatment of balancing and modulating that immune system, I really like to look at, essential fatty acids and see like, what is the best for that patient. Sometimes it's like the fatty 15, sometimes it's, a fish oil, sometimes it's other, you know, components that I might be looking at there. I also really love for folks who are dancing both with cancer and with autoimmunity.

Low dose naltrexone is in every one of those patients, every single one. Nothing works better. And then I really love, there's the, Gosh, it used to be called secure. I don't know what it's called anymore, but it's basically a pre digested fish protein. It's basically like a peptide that heals the gut. And so it's nice because it won't push a lot of the glutamine or methionine that can sometimes be concerning in an active cancer process, but it can give enough building blocks to repair, the body repair the DNA there.

And I like to look at there's really cool testing. A company called By Track I've been playing with lately. They can do a very inexpensive microbiome test. And I'm telling you, across the board, acromion ex seems to be the missing ingredient. And most of our autoimmune and our cancer patients. So I really like the pendulum product there. I know, by the way, all these things I'm saying I get no affiliation to. I like it, it works for me.

Supplement Strategy and Where to Learn More 29:28

And the patient population, we, we see. But those are things that I think would be an ongoing. And to your point, I think magnesium every single patient is on. We're so depleted or soil. It just depends on maybe which forms they need depending on their symptoms. So I might mix that up for the patient. But that's kind of like my go to when I travel. I take extra vitamin D, I take some extra vitamin C from a like a food base. Paleo Valley is the one I use for that when I'm on the road. And then I take my low dose entourage.

So to my magnesium, those are like my always, always, always supplements. Otherwise I do it through food and lifestyle. But if I had something going on, I would titrate it based on that person's needs. At that moment. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you for sharing all of that. And thank you for sharing all of your information today. It's been absolutely a pleasure to talk to you because this is such an important topic in the world of Hashimoto's, but in our world in general for preventing cancer. So as I've shared on my podcast, when you were on my podcast, I want to work with you and your team for prevention because that is so important.

So can you let the audience know where they can find you, more about you, where they can work with your team, all the good stuff. Thank you. Yes, absolutely. So you can learn more about me on Natia. I on Doctor nisha.com drawn a qcom. That's where you'll see my book The Metabolic Approach to Cancer. My other book, mistletoe and the Future of Integrative Oncology, loads and loads of other interviews and podcasts and a lot of free downloadable information just for education, education, education. You can also find out about our trainings for clinicians and allied health professionals.

As well as those who have completed our training and are available to do evaluations of you and your terrain. On our website m t I h.org that's Metabolic terrain Institute of health MTI. Org. And there's a great directory listing. We've got almost 700 clinicians and allied health professionals in over 43 countries now, available to consult with you, and your loved ones on this journey. And then our own podcast, which Doctor Amy is going to join me on eventually, which is metabolic Matters. Dot com.

You can find us there. We've had a lot of incredible conversations with unbelievable thought leaders in the space of metabolic health in general. And not just a, just about a cancer discussion, but all things metabolic. So follow us there. And thank you for the opportunity to be part of this incredibly important and informative summit. Absolutely amazing. Thank you once again and thank you everyone for watching. We'll have much more on the reversing Hashimoto's Thyroid Disease Summit.