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to live. Hey

2:28

everyone, Chris Kresser here. Welcome to another episode

2:30

of Revolution Health Radio. It's

2:32

an incredibly difficult and trying

2:35

experience to receive a cancer diagnosis

2:37

for your child, but that

2:39

is compounded by the fact that there

2:41

are very few integrative or holistic options

2:44

available for treatment. Or put another way,

2:46

there are very few clinicians out

2:49

there who take an integrative or

2:51

holistic approach to pediatric oncology. So

2:54

for parents who want to pursue that as

2:57

an approach, there

2:59

just isn't a lot available. And

3:02

that's true even if you're willing

3:04

to leave your local town and see a

3:06

practitioner out of town or

3:08

work with somebody virtually. So I'm

3:10

really excited to welcome my guest Dagmara Biney.

3:13

She holds a PhD in integrative medicine

3:16

and initially worked as

3:18

a physician's assistant in emergency medicine,

3:21

but after her daughter's cancer

3:24

diagnosis and subsequent fights against

3:26

acute myeloid leukemia, or AML,

3:28

which is a rare and

3:30

quite serious form of leukemia,

3:32

she transitioned into integrative

3:36

pediatric oncology and now supports

3:38

families and children who

3:41

are dealing with cancer diagnosis to

3:43

take a more holistic terrain-based approach

3:46

to recovery and

3:48

post-cancer recovery. So

3:51

in this episode, we talk about her

3:53

new book, which I highly recommend as

3:55

a resource. It's

3:57

called A Parent's Guide to Childhood Cancer. what

22:00

we moved, we moved houses. And so

22:02

now we don't have neighbors that spray

22:04

and we think about glyphosate. And

22:06

it's not a guarantee, but it's

22:09

empowering parents with the knowledge that

22:12

there are things that help contribute

22:14

to most of these diagnoses. I

22:17

would say maybe five to 10% of

22:19

cancers that kiddos get, yes, they are

22:21

genetic. And maybe these kids

22:23

had, you know, perfect growing up lives

22:26

and were breastfed

22:28

and didn't have toxins. But for the most

22:30

part, I can always find contributory

22:32

factors for most of these kiddos. Yeah,

22:37

it's a really important point is a

22:39

difference between blame and

22:42

responsibility. It's I've

22:44

always been struck by just the

22:48

etymology of the term responsibility, which

22:50

if you break it down, it

22:52

means the ability to respond. And

22:54

I might add appropriately to as

22:56

a sort of hidden word

23:00

there or concept is taking

23:02

responsibility means being

23:05

able to respond appropriately to

23:08

reality as it is, you know,

23:10

in this case, like objectively being

23:12

able to recognize, hey, these are

23:15

some factors that may have

23:17

contributed to my daughter's

23:21

cancer and may still be

23:23

contributing to her inability to

23:25

recover. So we're going to respond to

23:27

these factors in the way that feels

23:30

appropriate to us, you know, given our

23:32

circumstances and ability to do

23:34

that, which is very different

23:36

than blame, you know, shame, blame,

23:38

guilt, shame and blame, which, in

23:41

my experience, keeps us stuck and

23:45

unable to respond mostly because we

23:47

get stuck in this cycle of

23:49

self flagellation and blaming

23:51

ourselves or blaming other people. And then

23:53

that prevents a kind of clear eyed

23:55

seeing and ability to

23:58

respond effectively in that. situation.

24:00

I imagine that I

24:02

know that that's very, you know, I've worked,

24:04

of course, with patients with chronic illnesses of all

24:06

kinds. I have my own long

24:09

journey with chronic illness. And so

24:11

I've seen this in lots of

24:13

different contexts. And I know there's

24:15

a sort of linear relationship where

24:17

like the more

24:19

serious the diagnosis,

24:22

the more difficult it often is for

24:24

people to decouple the,

24:26

you know, the guilt, blame and

24:29

shame from the ability

24:31

to respond in a situation. So is

24:34

that I imagine that's a conversation

24:36

that you often find yourself in

24:38

with with patients and families. Yes,

24:41

then it's hard because I would 99.9 if not 100%

24:43

of oncologists are saying, this is just

24:49

bad luck. There is

24:51

nothing you did to cause this. And

24:53

I know that in

24:56

their hearts, they believe that and they're trying

24:58

to make the parent feel better and they

25:00

believe in the somatic theory of cancer, which

25:02

essentially sex cancer is bad luck. And

25:05

so I try to explain to parents, you know,

25:09

we're coming from a different explanation

25:11

of cancer and metabolic approach to cancer,

25:13

you know, I explained to them what

25:15

mitochondria are and how the health of

25:17

our mitochondria really determines the health of

25:19

us. And, and it's hard

25:23

to make some parents understand that

25:26

it's not about blame when their

25:28

oncologist is saying there's nothing you

25:30

did. And it's much

25:32

easier to hear that and it's much easier

25:34

to, to not have to change

25:36

everything in your world. It's much easier just

25:38

to be like, Oh, we just have to

25:40

do chemotherapy and radiation and we don't have

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to change the way we're eating. We don't

25:45

have to change air filters in

25:47

our home or where we live. I mean, it's

25:49

a lot of work. And so I think for

25:51

some parents, it's easier just to, those aren't the

25:53

parents coming to me to work with me, but

25:55

I know it's much easier for some parents to

25:57

just say, it's just bad luck. My oncologist developing

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28:32

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28:34

people under mental or emotional

28:36

stress and those struggling

28:38

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28:41

difficulty focusing and concentrating. Think

28:43

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28:45

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28:47

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28:49

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28:55

let's talk a little bit about, maybe

28:57

get a little bit more specific. You mentioned some

28:59

of the epigenetic

29:02

testings for SNPs that you

29:04

do. And let's talk

29:06

a little bit more about what are the

29:09

most common things you're doing to

29:11

support kids who are getting conventionally

29:14

treated? Yeah. So

29:17

the epigenetic testing, like I said, is

29:20

mandatory for me to work with a

29:22

child because it allows me to see,

29:25

you know, they're good and

29:27

they're bad, I guess is what

29:29

I call them, SNPs. The

29:31

ones that come up most commonly

29:33

for kids that are very relevant

29:36

through treatment. One we talk

29:38

a lot about in functional medicine is

29:40

MTHFR. But specifically

29:43

there's a significant association between

29:45

MTHFR polymorphisms and an increased

29:47

risk of methotrexate

29:49

toxicity. Methotrexate is a chemotherapy

29:52

that's used in a

29:55

lot of leukemia treatment. ALL

29:57

is the most common type of

29:59

leukemia. to

44:00

like the most modern approaches to wound

44:02

care. You cannot make

44:04

that assumption. And

44:06

on the flip side, you often

44:09

can trust common sense and intuition,

44:11

even if you don't have a lot of

44:13

domain knowledge or expertise in that area. I

44:15

think that's the key thing. And

44:17

the parents who probably come to you and

44:20

who are able to follow through with your recommendations

44:22

are the ones that are able to do that.

44:25

Versus, you know, I think

44:27

it's harder to do that in a situation

44:29

where you don't have expertise because you think,

44:32

well, maybe there's something I'm missing

44:35

and I can't trust common sense or I can't

44:37

trust my intuition in this situation. All

44:39

of these experts have some

44:42

knowledge that I don't have that

44:45

might invalidate my common sense or

44:47

intuition. Now,

44:49

I'm not gonna say that it's 100% reliable, but

44:52

I will say in my life, reflecting,

44:54

even in areas where I don't have expertise,

44:56

like in wound care, the

44:59

intuition and common sense are often very

45:01

reliable. And if you're able to trust

45:03

that, then it will take you pretty

45:05

far. Yes, and those are

45:08

the kind of families, I

45:11

switched and created an application to work with me

45:13

because I feel like I

45:15

don't want people wasting their money or time, right?

45:17

When I'm gonna tell you to do all this

45:20

stuff and it's gonna be too overwhelming. It takes

45:22

a certain type of parent to, yeah,

45:25

to be able to listen to their intuition

45:27

and know that something doesn't feel right and

45:30

it doesn't require you to be an expert

45:32

in that field. Yeah.

45:36

All right, so we've talked about some

45:38

of the approaches during treatment,

45:40

but of course, as

45:43

you've experienced firsthand, and particularly, this

45:45

is true with many chronic conditions,

45:47

but particularly with cancer, when

45:50

the treatment isn't

45:53

necessarily over, perhaps

45:56

there's the end of the chemotherapy or

45:58

whatever conventional treatment is happening, But of

46:00

course more support is needed after that in

46:03

many cases. So what does that tend

46:05

to look like for you? So,

46:08

you know, in conventional medicine, you're done

46:10

with treatment. They have you ring a

46:12

bell and they tell you you're done.

46:15

Like the outside world celebrates and brings

46:17

you, you know, like cakes

46:19

and cookies and ice cream to celebrate

46:22

that, right? That's another conversation altogether. Yeah.

46:25

And families are often, I

46:29

would say the first six months

46:31

off treatment are almost harder than

46:33

initial diagnosis because you're

46:36

told everything's done, everything's good.

46:38

And whether a family did integrative treatment or

46:40

didn't do integrative treatment, like they're just kind

46:43

of left starting to freak out. Think about

46:45

relapse. They have a child now who just

46:47

went through all this

46:49

toxic treatment. Their gut

46:51

is completely ruined. Their organs are

46:53

tired. The

46:56

mental, emotional vibe

46:58

and frequency of the whole family is

47:00

completely disrupted. The HPA access is just

47:03

dysregulated. So the

47:06

one thing, the number one thing I

47:08

tell families is that it's okay for

47:11

things to just not be okay for

47:13

a while. And I really refer to

47:15

that mostly to the like nervous system

47:17

dysregulation. Everybody's dysregulated. Everybody's going to respond

47:19

in their own way. Dad's

47:22

going to be sad in this way. Mom's going to be

47:24

sad in this way. A child, depending on their age, is

47:26

going to act out this way. Then

47:29

we talk about gut healing. Gut healing, gut healing,

47:31

gut healing. We need to heal that gut. And

47:34

it takes years to

47:36

heal a gut after most treatment. And

47:39

so I teach families, what does gut healing

47:41

entail? Nutrition

47:44

has to be on point. And then

47:46

we teach them about the importance of

47:48

the different probiotics and repair complexes and

47:50

we switch them out. I

47:52

don't do any gut testing on kids within

47:54

the first year of being done with treatment

47:56

because it's a waste of money because the

47:58

gut just, it looks awful. in

52:01

medical schools and in continuing

52:03

education courses. And if

52:06

you were to consult with some of the

52:08

top experts in the field, they would agree

52:10

with you wholeheartedly, but it's just this

52:13

lack of penetration of those

52:15

ideas down into the average,

52:18

your primary specialty care settings

52:20

that is just so enormously

52:22

frustrating for patients and clinicians

52:24

alike. Yes,

52:28

and 95% of kiddos who go through

52:30

treatment and have survived get

52:33

a late effect. And a late effect is

52:36

relapse or congestive heart failure,

52:39

liver disease. I mean, these are big

52:41

secondary effects. And I

52:44

really believe that if

52:46

kids could go through treatment in a better

52:49

way, and if we work on healing their

52:51

guts and healing their body and detoxing and

52:54

keeping an eye on them with more in-depth

52:56

testing than like the random CDC they'll run.

52:58

I mean, it's literally all they do. I

53:01

really think we can decrease those

53:03

late effects in kids, not just secondary

53:06

cancers, but just all of them. They

53:09

have these survivorship clinics. They call them survivorship

53:12

clinics. Once you've reached, I don't know if

53:14

it's three or five years, and

53:17

all that could be done in these

53:19

clinics. And it's literally just seeing a

53:21

patient once a year doing

53:23

maybe a CBC and a CMP

53:25

and maybe a heart

53:28

echo and no education.

53:31

And they're being told that that's what

53:33

survivorship clinic is, like they're doing something

53:35

and it's not enough.

53:38

Not enough, yeah. Well,

53:41

Dagmar, thank you so much for sharing

53:43

your experience and your insight and wisdom.

53:47

This is such an important

53:49

area of medicine that has really

53:51

been neglected as you pointed out.

53:54

There's really not that many places to

53:56

turn for parents who want to pursue

53:58

a more integrative that

56:00

I do throughout the week there that never makes it

56:02

to the blog or podcast, so it's a great way

56:04

to stay abreast of the latest developments.

56:07

Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you next time.