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Our Latest Discovery:

When I was first diagnosed with stage III metastatic breast cancer in March 2022, I thought I knew what I was up against. What I didn't know was that I was about to discover one of the most important pieces of the cancer puzzle—and it had nothing to do with genetics.

Through what I can only describe as divine intervention, I ended up on a podcast with Dr. Ben Bikman, a metabolic scientist at Brigham Young University, just as my cancer was growing undetected. Dr. Bikman was teaching about metabolic health and mentioned almost casually that:

I had breast cancer and didn't know it yet.

That conversation changed everything. I immediately put on a glucose monitor, switched my entire approach to food, and became obsessed with understanding how metabolism affects cancer. Looking back, I truly believe this knowledge was a huge part of why my cancer didn't grow out of control while two doctors were telling me that lump was "nothing to worry about."

Two years later, when my cancer returned in October 2024, we didn't just accept the same aggressive protocol. This time, we had learned something powerful: cancer might not be the genetic disease we've been told it is. It might be a metabolic one.

The Metabolic Revolution in Cancer Understanding:

Bikman explained something that blew my mind. For nearly a century, we've been operating under what's called the "somatic mutation theory"—the idea that cancer is purely a genetic problem happening in the cell's nucleus. But there's another theory that's been around just as long, started by a scientist named Otto Warburg (who won a Nobel Prize for this work).

Warburg discovered what's now called the "Warburg effect"—cancer cells have an insane preference for glucose (blood sugar) as fuel. We're talking about cancer cells using glucose at rates 10-23 times higher than normal cells. If you deprive them of that fuel, they become incompatible with life.

But here's the kicker: Dr. Thomas Seyfried at Boston College has been proving that cancer might actually be a mitochondrial problem, not a genetic one. In brilliant experiments, he took the nucleus (where all the DNA lives) from cancer cells and put it into healthy cells. Those cells stayed normal. But when he took the mitochondria (the cell's power plants) from cancer cells and put them into healthy cells, those healthy cells became cancerous.

This changes everything about how we think about fighting cancer.

How We Quieted Food Noise While Supporting Metabolic Health

One of the tools my wife and I have used on this journey is microdosing semaglutide — about 5-10 units a week, roughly half the typical starting dose. It’s been a small but powerful part of our protocol to:

• Reduce sugar cravings

• Minimize inflammation

• Mental Clarity & Mood Stability

• Quiet the constant mental “food noise” that so often leads to carb dependence

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✓ Personalized prescriptions, shipped to your door
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The Two-Sided Problem: Insulin + Glucose

Dr. Bikman breaks down the metabolic cancer problem into two parts:

1. The Fuel Problem (Glucose): Cancer cells are glucose addicts. The average person today eats about 70% of their calories from carbohydrates, six times a day, keeping them in almost constant high blood sugar. We're basically running aid stations for cancer cells, giving them exactly what they need to grow.

2. The Growth Signal Problem (Insulin): Many cancer tumors have up to seven times more insulin receptors than normal cells. Insulin's job is to tell cells to grow. So when you have elevated insulin (which happens every time you eat carbs), you're sending a growth signal that cancer cells are seven times more likely to receive and act on.

In essence, we're telling cancer cells to grow (with insulin) while simultaneously feeding them exactly what they need to fuel that growth (glucose). It's like cheering for the marathon runner who's trying to kill you.

What This Means for Treatment:

The most exciting part? Research is showing that putting someone into ketosis (a fat-burning state, the opposite of glucose-burning) can:

• Starve cancer cells of their preferred fuel

• Make cancer cells more responsive to traditional treatments like chemotherapy

• Potentially act as therapy on its own

The Simplest Protocol:

Dr. Bikman's approach is beautifully simple:

1. Control carbs - Stop getting them from "bags and boxes with barcodes"

2. Prioritize protein - Make it the star of every meal

3. Don't fear fat - Especially the fat that comes with protein

His ultimate simplification? "The singular superfood for human nutrition is any meat from a ruminant animal. Beef is the easiest."

This isn't about counting calories or complex meal planning. It's about understanding that there are essential fats and essential amino acids your body needs—but there's no such thing as an essential carbohydrate. Even the federal government admits the lower limit of carbohydrates in the human diet is zero.

Why the Pushback?

You might wonder why this information isn't mainstream. Dr. Bikman shared some eye-opening insights about this. Many doctors simply haven't been taught this approach—they learned what they were taught in medical school, often from textbooks that don't challenge conventional wisdom.

There's also what Dr. Bikman calls the "K-word problem." Just saying "ketosis" or "ketogenic" seems to trigger an immune response in people, including medical professionals. They shut down before they even hear the evidence.

The legal system plays a role too. The "standard of care" has evolved from a duty to deviate from the norm and use professional judgment into a safe harbor where doctors stick to protocols to avoid lawsuits. This makes it costly and risky to try metabolic approaches, even when the research supports them.

The Asymmetric Bet:

This metabolic approach is what I call an asymmetric bet—limited downside with potentially huge upside. The "side effects" of eating more protein and fat while reducing carbs include stable energy, better sleep, reduced inflammation, and easier weight management.

Compare that to the side effects I experienced from hormone-suppressing drugs during my first treatment: I literally kicked my husband out of the house, had suicidal thoughts, and displayed anger I'd never had before or since stopping those drugs.

The Bottom Line:

Cancer might not be the genetic death sentence we've been told it is. It might be a metabolic disease that we can influence through the most basic human activity: what we choose to eat.

As Dr. Bikman said, "Despite whatever individual origins chronic diseases may have, they all share one common metabolic core."

Some Things I'm Still Researching:

• Fasting protocols (Dr. Bikman emphasized that how you end a fast matters more than how long you fast)

• Exogenous ketones for people not ready to fully commit to dietary changes

• The specific responsiveness of different cancer types (breast and prostate cancers seem especially responsive to the insulin-glucose approach, while brain cancers respond well to ketosis)

Watch the full Interview here:

Disclaimer:

I'm not a doctor, and you shouldn't take anything above as medical advice for your individual situation. Dr. Bikman is a metabolic scientist, not an oncologist. Everything I've shared comes from trying to understand our own situation and the research that's publicly available.

We're pursuing this approach alongside—not instead of—our medical team's recommendations.