Dr. Nasha Winters, ND - The Metabolic Approach to Cancer

Dr. Nasha Winters
Founder and CEO, drnasha.com

Dr. Nasha Winters is a sought-after luminary and a global healthcare authority in integrative cancer research and consults with physicians around the world. She bridges ancient therapies with advancements in modern medicine in the digital era. Dr. Nasha consults with some of the most prestigious cancer centers in the US on projects such as developing the clinical protocol for the current FDA-approved clinical trial using intravenous application of Viscum Album Extract (mistletoe) to treat advanced cancer, hyperthermia, cannabis, ketogenic diet, IV Vitamin C and more. She has educated approximately 250 professionals in the clinical use of mistletoe and has created robust educational programs for both healthcare institutions and the public on incorporating vetted integrative therapies in cancer care to enhance outcomes.

Dr. Nasha is the bestselling co-author of “The Metabolic Approach to Cancer” which has received many accolades. She is also completing a 2nd forthcoming book on therapeutic diets for cancer with her co-author Jess Higgins Kelley, MNT and is a contributor and curator of a book on mistletoe highlighting clinical applications around the world. In addition to her publications, Dr. Nasha is an engaging speaker bringing passion, heart, and soul to her audience. She has a variety of interviews and podcasts available on her website, www.drnasha.com.

A personal journey with cancer, overseeing the care of tens of thousands of patients worldwide, training practitioners in her methodology, presenting at medical conferences globally, and sharing her wisdom and wit with dozens of podcasters underscores her passion and purpose to be a beacon of hope for thousands. Dr. Nasha is on a mission to educate and empower the nearly fifty percent of the population expected to have cancer in their lifetime. Prevention is the only cure.

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Pompa:
Hey, welcome everybody. This is an important show for you all to hear, because we’re talking about cancer. And wait until you hear the new statistics on cancer. And I’ll tell you, you are going to be one of the highlights of this seminar. So thank you so much for being here, and thank you for being at the seminar.

Dr.Nasha, we really appreciate this. Because we’re opening this seminar up for the first time to the public because of speakers like you. And people need to hear this message. And I want you to talk a little bit about what you’re going to be talking about. And I really want to entice people, to invite friends and family. This is opened up, obviously, to every practitioner, as normal with our Health Centers of the Future seminar. But, for the first time, we’re doing a day for the public because it’s cancer.

Tell them your story. I know it’s over 20 years and you’ve probably told it a thousand times, but it’s a pain-to-purpose story like no other. And it’s made you an expert in this area, I believe.

Nasha Winters:
Well, thank you. I’m very much looking forward to being with all of you, and I love that you open it up for the public, because that’s frankly the public who is changing this conversation on a global level, in the world of standard of care oncology in particular, in healthcare in general. So, that being said, gosh, are any of us who are presenting at your conference here because we just said, “Hey, let’s just do this job for one day?”

No, I think all of us arrived at this place because of our story, our own purpose, our own path, and I’m no different. At a very young age, I had been sick. Sick, sick kind of born, a lot of health issues, and because of that it was missed in me for some time, until frankly it was too late, when I landed in the emergency room, which unfortunately turned out to be end-stage cancer, by the time they actually figured it out. Which has, of course, led me to my path and vocation. But at 19, just shy of my 20th birthday, I was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer, inoperable, untreatable, given a few months to live.

And I was actually too sick in my organs, too broken down to even take even a single dose of chemotherapy. And so, as many of your listeners probably can relate, sometimes when you’re told there’s no options, you find your own way. And I’m no different from that. In fact, I’m a little bit stubborn, in that if you tell me something can’t be done, I’m the person to step forward and show you that it can.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.

Nasha Winters:
So that’s what’s led me on, still. I mean, I’m still on this path, I’m still on this journey. 27 plus years later now, I’m learning everything I can about my terrain, about what makes my cancer cells stay put, about what activates them in myself and in the tens of thousands of others I’ve been able to guide over a 25 plus year career. That chose me because of what was going on with my process.

Dr. Pompa:
You know, Dr.Nasha, someone told me once that my authority doesn’t come from my years of schooling, it came because God gave me victory over that, and I would say the same to you.

You know, I would be looking to you if I had cancer, just because you’ve been there, you’ve been through it. I know you’re going to cover so many things at the seminar, but I want to start with this. Start with some of the recent statistics. Because when we spoke about this originally, that even stunned me. So I want people to understand that if you don’t think this may be you, think again. So, talk about that.

Nasha Winters:
Well, it’s interesting. The title of my book is “The Metabolic Approach to Cancer,” and I have people that I’ll meet at different places saying, “Gosh, is your book relevant to me, because I don’t have cancer, or I don’t know anybody who has cancer.”

Well, first of all, I was at a conference in early December where I asked a room of about 500 people, “How many of you in this room do not have a direct relationship with someone, either yourself, or someone you’re very close to, with cancer?”

I used to ask, “How many do you have? A relationship with that?” But the numbers have swayed so much in the last 20 years, that when I ask this question of a room of 500 people, 3 people raised their hands. Three. So that is the change of direction.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s pretty amazing.

Nasha Winters:
Even 3, I’m like, “Let’s talk after!” I was like, “Where are you live, what’s going on in your world?” It’s like, “Let’s bottle you up and sell you to people like snake oil.” I don’t know, but it was fascinating to see the shift in a quarter century of time, of very rare discussions of cancer, and now everybody knows about it, or knows someone or has it. So the stats today are 1 in 2 men, and 1.24 women. That’s today, in the United States, expected to have cancer in their lifetime.

That’s expected to go to 1 in 2 by 2030, and the cancer stats worldwide are expected to double by 2030. That is just shy, you guys, of ten years out at this point. We’re moving into that arena.

Dr. Pompa:
And a lot of the things that stunned me to is, I’m still using the statistic, “1 out of every 8 will get breast cancer.” You said they’re just about ready to adjust that, it’s 1 in 3 now?

Nasha Winters:
1 in 3. I was at a meeting, I think November, that was a Society of Integrative Oncology meeting, where they were talking about the statistics for breast cancer had been 1 in 8, they’ve moved it down or were moving it down to 1 in 5, but what they’re finding on the worldwide scale, is 1 in 3 women expected to have breast cancer. That is unbelievable.

Dr. Pompa:
It’s unbelievable. And when we look at the number … I know, since, gosh, I think 1957, I think it’s gone up ridiculous in kids. Like, 70 percent, almost? 60, 70 percent of Increase in kids. I mean, in just under 30, if we consider that, we’re talking about brain cancer, colorectal cancer skyrocketing.

Nasha Winters:
Skyrocketing.

Dr. Pompa:
Why are we seeing this?

Nasha Winters:
Well, that’s what we’re going to be talking about at your conference, is the “why” around this. Because to me, we’ve been so focused on the tumor, and the tumor type and the tumor cell, that we forgot to ask the why. And that’s precisely what I’ve been doing for myself, and for thousands and thousands of patients over the past 25 years, and we’re going to dive right into the “why” of that at your conference.

Dr. Pompa:
And share some of the things.

Nasha Winters:
Sure.

Dr. Pompa:
Because one of the things … I interviewed you on Cell TV and it was fabulous, and you gave people a lot of hope. You had … Part of your story was, you found an [inaudible 00:06:38] work, from probably digging at Micro Fish. Internet, back then.

Nasha Winters:
Not exactly.

Dr. Pompa:
Which is astounding to me, I can’t even imagine that. But you did find that, and of course, you’re going to be talking about a lot of your dietary strategies, mainly simple, and also you’re going to talk about some of the integrative factors with cancer. Share a little bit about that.

Nasha Winters:
Yeah, well I’m definitely going to be talking about … There’s a lot of controversy in the way we eat for cancer. We’ve got several camps out there that are quite verbal and quite loud on all stages. So what I like to show people is, what is the common denominator of a good, cancer-free lifestyle? Whether you’re treating it, whether you’re preventing it, whether you’re overcoming it, what have you. The common denominator is plant-based.

Common denominator is as many vegetables, ten to fifteen, low-carbohydrate, above the ground vegetables as you can squeeze into your body every single day. On top of that, would be high quality fats. And depending on your epigenetics, that might need a little more animal fat, or that might need a little more vegetable fat, depending on your biochemical individuality. And then on top of that is the condiment of quality, clean, non-four legged, super fund site animal protein sources, that just gives you enough protein to rebuild your cells. Which is far lower than [crosstalk 00:07:58].

Dr. Pompa:
Too much protein, I always say. Don’t [inaudible 00:08:03] half your body weight in protein, because you could stimulate another pathway.

Nasha Winters:
Exactly.

Dr. Pompa:
More replication.

You know, you’re going to hear more about that at the seminar. And when people heard you say that though, I bet you many people thought, “Oh, she’s a vegan, vegetarian.” And in your story, when you told it, you actually did that. And in the beginning it no doubt helped, because you came off standard American diet, you changed to a vegetarian, vegan diet, eating more plants. You’re going to help. But you realized it was raising your glucose levels.

Nasha Winters:
Big time.

Dr. Pompa:
You’re not talking about a high carbohydrate diet, you’re talking about plant-based, very low, Ketonic type of diet. So, clarify that.

Nasha Winters:
Sure, sure. To me, we all need to be metabolically flexible, okay? When we have that metabolic flexibility, meaning that at some times, our body needs to efficiently burn fat, and sometimes it needs to efficiently burn sugar. We’ve been stuck with a brick on the accelerator pedal for about the past hundred, hundred-and-fifty years now, of being sugar burners. And it’s very challenging, without extreme effort now, to lower your carbohydrates, to take the brick off that accelerator pedal, and become an efficient hybrid engine again.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.

Nasha Winters:
So that’s where it seems extreme. We tell patients they might need to fast, or they might need to eat a high, high fat, very low carbohydrate, moderate to low protein diet for a period of time, to reset that engine model. But ultimately, just to give you an example, when my patients hit that sweet spot, they can seriously go to bed, finish their last meal at 7 pm, get up, and at 8 am check their blood ketones, and they’re going to be, when they’re metabolically flexible, in low nutritional ketosis.

Somewhere between .8 and 1 on their blood ketones. That is a sign of metabolic flexibility. And you did nothing, but just finish dinner, go to bed, and wake up.

Dr. Pompa:
No, that’s it. And by the way, they’ll raise through the day.

Nasha Winters:
And that’s just it. By the end of the day, 2, 3, 4, depending. And that’s with no effort, that’s just being. And that’s even eating maybe 50, 60 grams of carbohydrate a day, but it’s all coming from your vegetable matter. And maybe more. Some people can handle … Like, my husband looks at a raspberry and his blood sugars spike. I could eat a pint of them and nothing happens. So, everyone has a different … Some people need to be as low as 20, some people can be as high as 100, but we learn, and it’ll help you at the conference, understand your individuality.

Dr. Pompa:
Maybe teaching them how to test that, because everyone is different.

Nasha Winters:
Exactly. Exactly, exactly.

Dr. Pompa:
We’re going to testing the people at the seminars.

Nasha Winters:
Awesome.

Dr. Pompa:
So we’re going to be testing people and showing them how to do that, so that’s awesome.

Nasha Winters:
Perfect.

Dr. Pompa:
Speaking of testing, you’re going to be sharing this in great detail. I think your testing, the testing you do around cancer is a novel approach. I’ve never heard of it before, I think it’s brilliant. Kind of give me a little bit there.

Nasha Winters:
Sure. So my kind of mantra is, “Test, assess, address, adjust accordingly. Never guess.” So when people say, “Oh, I’m in Ketosis,” or, “Oh, I don’t have to worry about eating low-carb.” Or, “Oh, my inflammation is just fine.” How do you know that? What’s your instant feedback? So I do a series of very basic blood tests that costs you about 100 dollars out of pocket from a walk-in laboratory environment, that helps you get a very good sense of where your immune system is, where your organ function is, where your blood sugar levels, metabolic functioning are, and your inflammatory status.

And even your immune status, just from five simple tests that I’ll be going into more detail at the conference as well.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, that’s awesome, I can’t wait. Well, Dr.Nasha, thank you. I just can’t wait to hear you talk, and this is going to be a fabulous seminar. Look right here folks, you can sign up for the Live It to Lead It seminar, and share this with your friends, share this with, for the first time, the public for a whole day, because of the topic of cancer. So share it beyond your doctor group, share it to friends and family members, you need to hear this information.

Right here, the date, the sign-up. Click here on the page, it’s all here, we’ll see you there. Dr.Nasha, thank you again, and we’ll see you at the seminar.

Nasha Winters:
Looking forward to it, take care.