Dr. Nasha Winters

We are not getting cancer because we are living longer; we are getting cancer because we are damaging our mitochondria on a daily basis with environmental toxins, poor diet, and endocrine disruptors. Most of us are not eating the foods that keep cancer at bay while simultaneously overeating the foods that encourage its riotous growth—too many cookies, too little kale.

The seeds of a metastatic cancer will thrive in an inflammatory, immune-compromised, and highly oxidative environment. Yet when the terrain is healthy, nourished, and optimized, those same bad seeds cannot sprout.

We need to treat the terrain, not the tumor.

The genetic mutations considered by conventional medicine as the root causes of cancer are, in fact, modifiable by epigenetic factors. Indeed, it is well established that genetics is the cause of only 5-10 percent of cancers and most of these genes encode proteins that impact mitochondrial respiration. It is mitochondrial damage that causes cancer, not the genes. If the inherited cancer gene does not damage mitochondria, cancer will not occur.

All cancer cells have the ability to reprogram their energy metabolism in order to consume more glucose and grow faster. No conventional treatment, including the newer targeted therapies, will affect the cancerous cells if sugar remains high. Period.

Dr. Nasha starts all of her cancer retreats with this Emily Dickinson quote: ‘Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.’

Studies have found that the patients who are actively engaged in their care, ask all the questions, get second and even third opinions, are vocal about their needs and concerns, and have a great support system have longer survival and recovery rates than those who are passive in the process.

Between 1985 and 2000 the price of fruits and vegetables doubled and fish increased 30 percent, while sugars and sweets decreased by 25 percent and soda became 66 percent cheaper. It is horrifying how subsidies have made broccoli more expensive than Dr. Pepper!

We can slug down more sugar in thirty minutes than our ancestors would consume in an entire year. Since the primary function of cortisol is to balance the effect of insulin, it’s pretty simple: When insulin is chronically high, so is cortisol. If you eat more than 30 grams of sugar a day (less for kids), you are living in chronic stress, even without any other stressors present.