“The bottom line is that 30 to 40 percent of cancers are preventable. … And there are simple things that people can do to reduce your risk of getting cancer,” says Dr. Paul Marik, a founding member of the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) and former chief of pulmonary and critical care medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School. Watch the video:
“Cancer is big business. It’s highly profitable. The average cost of chemotherapy for a patient is probably $100,000,” Dr. Marik says.
He’s the author of “Cancer Care: The Role of Repurposed Drugs and Metabolic Interventions in Treating Cancer.” In this episode, he breaks down his key findings on preventing and treating cancer.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Jan Jekielek:
Dr. Paul Marik, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.
Dr. Paul Marik:
Thank you, Jan. Thanks for inviting me back again.
Mr. Jekielek:
When we spoke last some months ago on American Thought Leaders, you were looking into cancer treatment and cancer prevention. You are a well-published medical professional, but you discovered there is a whole body of well-established, scientific literature that you were just simply unaware of. We were talking about how astonishing that was. You have since turned that into a monograph and what you revealed is absolutely astonishing. Please tell us what you discovered.
Dr. Marik:
Yes, this was all by accident. I certainly didn’t know this information three or four years ago. Obviously, Covid opened up our eyes and it started this quest looking at repurposed drugs and alternative therapies. The bottom line is that 30 to 40 percent of cancers are preventable.
Just through simple lifestyle changes and through supplements, you can reduce your risk of getting cancer. This is really important, because about 10 million people on the planet die of cancer every year. Approximately 600,000 Americans die of cancer every year, and cancer will become the leading cause of death.
It’s going to affect one in two men and one in three women, so it is a very common disease. There are simple things that people can do to reduce their risk of getting cancer. This is well published, and it’s just been hidden in the literature. This is really important.
Similarly, there are very simple, effective measures that people who have cancer can take to improve the quality of their life and to increase their chances of going into remission. These are simple lifestyle changes, dietary changes, and the use of many over-the-counter supplements.
Mr. Jekielek:
I once watched a very interesting documentary about Dr. Burzynski from Texas who has been in practice for decades. He discovered antineoplaston, a way to treat cancer. He developed a clinic which was successful. People in industry and in government had been trying to shut him down for decades, but they were unable to do so.
He continued on and his clinic became a place where cases that were deemed untreatable, maybe people could try there, because it had helped a few people. The message of the documentary was also that industry didn’t want to validate his findings because he owned the patents. At the time I thought, “This seems very compelling,” and then I just left it at that.
But now with everything you’re saying, this whole picture takes on a new meaning. We talked about diabetes and there are treatments for type II diabetes that have very few side effects. They actually work very well, but again, they are largely unknown by the broader medical community. In how many areas is this actually the case? You dug into cancer. How many methods are there that actually could work that we’ve been told are some kind of snake oil or dangerous or problematic?
Dr. Marik:
Obviously, cancer is a big business, and it’s highly profitable. The average cost of chemotherapy for a patient is around $100,000. Big pharma makes a lot of money, and the oncologists in this country make a lot of money. The drugs we are talking about are cheap, off-patent drugs, so you can understand this narrative.
It goes against big pharma and it goes against traditional medicine. It is a tragedy because these are very effective therapies that can really improve the patient’s outcome. Some of these can be used in conjunction with standard chemotherapy.
We are not saying to throw away standard therapy. These can be used as adjuncts and as supplements to standard chemotherapy, if patients so choose. I was stunned recently to discover that MD Anderson Cancer Center, which is probably one of the biggest cancer hospitals in the world, indeed has an integrative oncology program.
There they advise and they recommend and they coach patients in comprehensive lifestyle changes. These lifestyle changes, which include relaxation therapy, sleep, improved diet, improved relationships, and exercise, can significantly reduce the risk of patients dying of cancer. It’s an astonishing finding.
Mr. Jekielek:
They seem to be applying it in isolated cases. But it’s not really there yet in the collective understanding of how the disease needs to be dealt with.
Dr. Marik:
No. You can go to a traditional oncologist and ask, “What dietary advice would you give me?” The oncologist will say, “Diet has nothing to do with it. You can eat whatever you want to.” We know that’s just simply wrong. There is overwhelming scientific data that specific dietary interventions can have a profound effect on cancer, and this is challenging the standard narrative.
Mr. Jekielek:
With Dr. Burzynski’s method, is this a real therapy?
Dr. Marik:
Yes, I think it’s real. It’s been subject to scrutiny and I think we should be transparent and open. From my understanding, it seems to be an effective treatment for cancer. I don’t understand all the biochemistry, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t study it. It doesn’t mean that it should be outlawed by the FDA. It should be investigated.
Mr. Jekielek:
A lot of cancer therapies have extreme side effects. There are serious quality of life issues with radiation and chemotherapy. On the other hand, these antineoplastons and vitamin D may not be a panacea, but they are not associated with these types of dramatic reductions in quality of life, so that should be part of the equation.
Dr. Marik:
Absolutely. For many patients, the treatment of the disease is worse than the disease. We know about the extreme toxicity of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, but these antineoplastons seem pretty benign. All of the repurposed drugs that we recommend are extremely safe and effective. What does the patient have to lose? When you have an intervention which is cheap, safe, and possibly could completely change the directory of the trajectory of the patient’s disease, what do you have to lose?
Mr. Jekielek:
When we talked about Covid in the past, we talked about vitamin D. Vitamin D seems to be a miracle vitamin that significantly affects the immune system in conjunction with some other supplements. But from what you’re saying, it also has a positive impact on cancer, not just on Covid.
Dr. Marik:
Yes. Vitamin D truly is an astonishing vitamin, and it should almost be called a hormone. As we know, it’s very effective for Covid, it’s effective for depression, it’s effective for Alzheimer’s disease, and it’s effective for diabetes. It just so happens that it is highly effective in both the prevention and treatment of cancer. There is overwhelming data that patients who are vitamin D-deficient have a much higher risk of developing cancer.
As you go further away from the equator and get less ultraviolet B and less vitamin D, your risk of cancer goes up and your risk of Alzheimer’s goes up. There is really good data that if you give patients vitamin D, you can reduce their risk of getting cancer. With patients who have cancer, if you give them high dose vitamin D it significantly improves their chances of going into a remission. This is a simple over-the-counter medication.
Mr. Jekielek:
Presumably some of these things could also be used in combination. You could do a diet change, you could do vitamin D, and you could also do chemo at the same time. Should that help you?
Dr. Marik:
Absolutely. What you say is true, these things work much better in synergy when they’re done together. For example, one of the things we recommend is intermittent fasting or time-restricted feeding. It’s been shown in the oncology literature that if you do time-restricted feeding at the same time you’re doing chemotherapy, you get a much better response.
For patients undergoing standard chemotherapy, there’s absolutely no reason that it should not be combined with these supplemental or complementary techniques which can only enhance the patient’s response to therapy.
Mr. Jekielek:
One of the big findings in your monograph is that you essentially believe cancer to be a metabolic disease. That is not the conventional wisdom.
Dr. Marik:
What you say is true, and this is based on the work of Dr. Seyfried. This is his area of expertise and he has written hundreds of papers. He has written a book on cancer as a metabolic disease, which basically challenges the conventional wisdom that cancer is due to a chromosomal mutation. That has profound implications. If indeed it’s a chromosomal disease, then the current chemotherapy does fit with that narrative.
But if cancer is a metabolic disease, then the standard approach is not going to work. There is overwhelming evidence in the literature that it’s not a chromosomal disease, it’s a metabolic disease. In fact, one of the people that discovered DNA, Dr. Watson, has basically said in an op-ed that he doesn’t think cancer is a chromosomal disease and that we should look at the metabolic changes that happen in cancer.
Mr. Jekielek:
The question is, could it be both? Could there be genetic mutations? We know that mutations can cause cancer, but the question is how that happens. Couldn’t both mechanisms be right?
Dr. Marik:
Yes, you’re right. There is a complex interplay between metabolism and genetics. We know there are some genetic predispositions. For example, we know that women with the BRCA gene have a much higher risk of developing cancer. But what’s interesting is that the risk of getting breast cancer nowadays is about 60 or 70 percent, whereas 30 or 40 years ago, it was 40 percent.
It does illustrate that it’s an interplay between environmental and lifestyle changes and genetics. Most current thinking is that maybe 5 percent of cancers are due to chromosomal or genetic defects. It appears that most cancers are not genetically determined.
Mr. Jekielek:
There’s a significant increase in a variety of metabolic diseases. In America, there is an obesity epidemic, which has a significant impact on metabolism. What did you find are the core causes?
Dr. Marik:
There’s a strong link between obesity, insulin resistance, and cancer. Probably 30 or 40 percent of cancers are due to obesity and insulin resistance. There’s a very strong association. There’s an association between the intake of high glycemic index foods and sugar beverages and cancer because of its effect on insulin resistance.
There’s overwhelming data, and the incidence of obesity is increasing. In parallel, it seems that the incidence of cancer is increasing. Then obviously, there’s the problem of environmental carcinogens, just to layer on top of this problem.
Mr. Jekielek:
I’ve noticed a perspective in the literature and in the health-related discourse in the media that obesity is more a genetic disease than a lifestyle disease.
Dr. Marik:
I don’t think that’s true, because people’s genes haven’t changed much over the last 30 or 40 years. But the incidence of obesity, particularly in the U.S., has increased exponentially, so it is a lifestyle disease. Like most things, there may be a genetic predisposition, but without a doubt, obesity is a lifestyle problem.
We eat processed foods and foods high in carbohydrates and glucose, and we snack all the time. Western people tend to eat all the time, rather than doing what our forefathers did, eating one or two meals a day. Western people eat all the time. They eat processed foods high in carbohydrates and glucose. In essence, we have become processed food addicts.
Mr. Jekielek:
Does it make sense to say that if you just focused on the obesity issue, you would deal with a whole bunch of other issues, perhaps even including cancer?
Dr. Marik:
Yes. With lifestyle change, which would start off with diet, exercise, and sleep, you could eliminate almost all the chronic diseases of Western society. That would include cancer, cardiac disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. All these chronic diseases are related to bad lifestyle and lifestyle choices.
Mr. Jekielek:
You don’t think it has to do with increased radiation? That’s one of the things you often hear.
Dr. Marik:
Obviously, environmental carcinogens are important, and people that live near power lines are at an increased risk of certain kinds of cancer. The problem is that pesticides and toxins are so pervasive that it’s very difficult for any individual to completely eliminate them.
However, there is good data showing that people who eat organic food have a lower risk of cancer. There is data showing that if you eat a diet of organic food, your risk of cancer is less. There are things that you can do, but it’s pretty difficult not to breathe the air that we are exposed to or not to drink the water. But there’s no question that environmental carcinogens have played a role.
Mr. Jekielek:
You found a series of lifestyle decisions and perhaps supplements. Let’s go through that in order of importance based on your study of the literature. Maybe there are some things that folks watching could implement right now that would help them.
Dr. Marik:
I can quote a randomized control trial, which is the gold standard that the ivory tower uses. They did a simple intervention with three things to see what would happen to the risk of cancer. It was vitamin D, omega-3 fatty acids, plus an exercise program. They showed the combination of all three reduces the risk of cancer by 60 percent. Those are very simple things that people can do. It’s a matter of exercising, taking vitamin D, and modifying your diet, which can significantly reduce your risk of getting cancer.
Mr. Jekielek:
I’m just going to repeat that. The combination of vitamin D, omega-3 fatty acids, and exercise reduced cancer by 60 percent?
Dr. Marik:
That’s correct. That doesn’t get a lot of press because you can’t make money on it. In fact, it’s counterproductive for the pharmaceutical industry and the medical complex if people don’t get cancer. This was published in a peer-reviewed paper in a peer-reviewed journal. It’s a really good study that is supported by other studies.
There are many studies that show that exercise reduces your risk of cancer. There is data showing that simple relaxation techniques, including meditation and yoga, improve your outcome if you get cancer. There are some very simple lifestyle interventions that can reduce your risk of getting cancer. If you have cancer, these interventions can improve the outcome.
Mr. Jekielek:
The risk of cancer is high for every person in this society. If you can reduce that by 60 percent, we should all be rushing off and starting this regimen.
Dr. Marik:
It doesn’t get the attention that it should get. The data on vitamin D in preventing cancer, in preventing Alzheimer’s disease, and in preventing depression is overwhelming. It’s a safe, cheap intervention that has minimal adverse events. From my perspective, there’s no reason that everybody should not be taking vitamin D.
Mr. Jekielek:
Let’s talk more about vitamin D. Can you overdose on vitamin D?
Dr. Marik:
It is possible that if you take megadoses of vitamin D, it can cause high blood calcium levels which can cause kidney stones, but you have to take exceedingly high levels. We recommend 10,000 units a day, which seems to be a very safe dose. By all standards it’s a very high dose, but the data suggests that 10,000 units a day is safe and does not cause toxicity.
Mr. Jekielek:
Do you feel comfortable recommending this to a broad group of people, based on your understanding of the literature?
Dr. Marik:
Yes. Between five and 10,000 units a day, depending on your particular scenario, makes a lot of sense, and there is really good data for this. For patients with cancer and patients with depression, we would recommend 10,000 units. As a prophylaxis for people, 5,000 units a day is a very safe dose.
Mr. Jekielek:
This is also for Covid prevention. Even in a situation where people have been overly boosted and therefore more susceptible to being infected, this would still help. There would be no problem taking vitamin D to protect yourself.
Dr. Marik:
Yes. Vitamin D has enormous immunological effects and it affects gene expression. There are hundreds of genes that are affected by vitamin D. There’s really excellent data showing that vitamin D reduces your risk of getting Covid. If you do get Covid, it reduces the severity of the disease. Your chances of being hospitalized or dying are much less.
During the Covid pandemic, if it was a pandemic, we should have been boosting people’s vitamin D levels, particularly the elderly in old age homes. They don’t get much sunshine and are certainly vitamin D-deficient. Instead of vaccinating them, we would have done a much greater service to the population if we had just given them vitamin D.
Mr. Jekielek:
People with darker skin in northern climates don’t synthesize it as much, so they may have even lower levels of vitamin D and not realize it. That’s another very valuable use case.
Dr. Marik:
Yes. Elderly people don’t make vitamin D well, obese people don’t make vitamin D well, and people with dark skin don’t make vitamin D well. With certain groups it’s even more important to take vitamin D.
Mr. Jekielek:
Is there anything else vitamin D is good for?
Dr. Marik:
There’s really nothing that it’s bad for. The only thing it can be bad for is if you have high blood calcium. If you have hypercalcaemia you wouldn’t want to take vitamin D, but otherwise it’s very safe.
Mr. Jekielek:
You mentioned something about addiction to food. Recently, I heard about someone working in the food industry who quit, because she realized that her job was basically to make food more addictive.
Dr. Marik:
There’s no question that there’s a pervasive addiction to processed food. The sugar and fructose causes a high that then stimulates the appetite. It becomes self-serving, because the more you eat, the more you want to eat. Then your blood glucose goes up and you develop insulin resistance, so you become addicted. There’s animal data that shows that glucose is more addictive to mice than cocaine or heroin.
Mr. Jekielek:
Please say that again.
Dr. Marik:
Animal data suggests that glucose-
Mr. Jekielek:
Like sugar?
Dr. Marik:
Like sugar and sweetened beverages. They are more addictive to experimental animals than cocaine. It causes such a high.
Mr. Jekielek:
Of course, we’re not allowed to run those experiments on humans.
Dr. Marik:
There is no question that a large segment of the Western population is addicted to processed foods. You can improve just by switching to real food, which means if it looks like food, then it is food. If it comes in a carton or has a wrapper and it has a package insert or a list of ingredients and preservatives and chemicals, then it’s not real food. Just by changing your diet to real food, you can make an enormous difference.
Mr. Jekielek:
The moment you start doing keto dieting, that actually becomes very normal. You just have to overcome the initial desire to eat the sugary things, but after a while, it’s not an issue at all. The reason it actually works is because you just can’t eat most processed things. If you’re on the keto diet, it’s just not an option for you.
Dr. Marik:
Once you become adapted to eating real food, eating processed food becomes very difficult. It just becomes unappetizing and it doesn’t have the same appeal, so that’s why it’s not a difficult thing to do. It should be a lifestyle change, not a diet change. Once you start eating real food, then the processed food becomes unappetizing.
Mr. Jekielek:
It’s still nice to have that burger once in a while.
Dr. Marik:
Yes, I cheat every now and then.
Mr. Jekielek:
I do a lot of meditation and it has been very helpful to me. At the same time, I don’t get a ton of sleep. What is the cost of that? You mentioned sleep as something that is important.
Dr. Marik:
Sleep is really important for brain restoration. There’s something called the glymphatic system, which is the way the brain detoxifies itself during sleep. It’s like the lymphatic system of the brain, but it’s only active during sleep. We know that if you are sleep-deprived, it reduces your life expectancy and it increases your risk of cancer.
It is not true that people can get away with five or six hours of sleep and it won’t affect their health. The data is clear that an adult needs at least seven hours of sleep. Interference with sleep increases your risk of many diseases, including dementia. There is data showing that people who have cancer and have sleep dysfunction have a much higher risk of demising.
Mr. Jekielek:
You mentioned some repurposed drugs for use with cancer that are not generally known.
Dr. Marik:
There is a group called the ReDo project, which looks at repurposed drugs for the use of cancer. They list about 250 different drugs that have shown in experimental models to have activity against cancer cells. In the monograph that I wrote, I reduced them down to the 30 drugs that I thought were the most effective. There are already good studies showing that in a test tube, in an animal model, as well as in patients, these drugs have anti-cancer activity. There’s a list of these 30 drugs in my monograph.
Vitamin D is number one, but then we have melatonin and green tea. The antidiabetic medication Metformin is actually a very powerful anti-cancer drug. Then we have the antiparasitic drugs like mebendazole and ivermectin that have activity against cancer cells.
Mr. Jekielek:
Some people call ivermectin a horse dewormer.
Dr. Marik:
Believe it or not, this so-called horse dewormer is very effective against certain cancers. There were patients who had solid tumors who were given horse dewormer together with some other drugs. As I said, it’s not one magical drug. It’s a combination approach, These patients were given a regimen which included this horse dewormer and the cancer disappeared.
Mr. Jekielek:
Every day you could have your vitamin D, your concentrated green tea, and your melatonin. These things are very innocuous.
Dr. Marik:
Yes. The bottom line is there are some patients who would choose this approach rather than undergoing chemotherapy or radiotherapy, particularly for cancers that are not responsive to chemotherapy. But you can also use them as adjuncts to chemotherapy, so that in the end you need less chemotherapy. The data is clear that the combination is more effective than chemotherapy alone.
Mr. Jekielek:
The point is you have to approach any treatment regimen skeptically. You really have to do your own research. This became something that you were not allowed to say over the last few years.
Dr. Marik:
Absolutely. The bottom line is patients must be empowered. They need to be empowered by the truth, and they should do their own research. The days are gone where you can trust implicitly what the physician says, particularly the oncologists in this country.
In some European countries, the oncologists are integrative oncologists. They'll use a combination of standard therapy plus what would be considered unconventional, but it happens in the same hospital. In this country, almost all oncologists will just follow chemotherapy.
Mr. Jekielek:
With the exception of this one, which has this whole integrative approach.
Dr. Marik:
Yes. They focus on lifestyle interventions as part of it. They don’t look at repurposed drugs or other dietary manipulations. I was surprised that they actually do have such a program. But it should be the standard of care that patients should follow in comprehensive lifestyle changes as well as I would say repurposed drugs.
Mr. Jekielek:
How many papers did you look at for this monograph?
Dr. Marik:
I looked at over 1400 different peer-reviewed papers and I have a pretty good understanding of the literature. This data is out there and this data is published. There is really good data showing that if you have surgery for colorectal cancer, and then afterwards you control your diet to control your glucose, your risk of getting a metastasis and dying of a metastasis is much less.
This is in the oncology literature, so the data is out there. That’s why patients have to do their own research. In my book I compile all the data out there in one place where patients can read it and then decide what would fit their lifestyle.
Mr. Jekielek:
You started out running a big emergency room. You also developed the vitamin C Sepsis protocol, which has now been vindicated. You’ve published over 500 papers, but not really focused on cancer. Why should people trust this? People might say, “Stay in your lane. Dr. Marik.”
Dr. Marik:
Yes. I have been asked the question, and that is a good question. First, it was ICU, not emergency medicine, although it’s a small point. The reason is that I have no stake in the game and I have no conflict of interest. I can objectively look at the literature.
That’s what I’ve done in most of my career. I have looked at the literature objectively and come up with treatment plans. I have no conflicts of interest here. I can objectively look at the scientific data, assimilate the data, compile the data. That’s what I did.
I’m not claiming to be an oncologist. I’m just compiling and presenting the data that’s already out there. I have no conflict of interest, I have no skin in the game, and I can be honest and objective and transparent. If people don’t think it’s true, let them decide for themselves. But obviously, I’ve looked at the literature and I’m presenting it as honestly and as scientifically as I can.
Mr. Jekielek:
I mentioned the number of papers you have published. Sepsis is a huge problem in any hospital and it’s a significant cause of death in any hospital. You’ve developed protocols that are better and cheaper and can be applied almost anywhere in the world, including in places that don’t have great hospital facilities.
You’ve done a lot of thinking about how to treat people and help make them better, including during Covid. In fact, that is actually what cost you your career running the ICU, because you refused to use their protocols, which we now know were terrible. You tried to do something better, which indeed worked.
Dr. Marik:
Covid basically opened my eyes, to be honest. I followed the narrative, and then I realized that there was another story. The diabetes and the cancer treatment is a good illustration that there is another side. The data is out there, it just needs to be brought to the surface.
Mr. Jekielek:
Where can people find this cancer monograph of yours?
Dr. Marik:
In two places. They can go to the FLCCC [Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance] website. That’s flccc.net, and they can download it for free. You can buy the monograph on Amazon.com.
Mr. Jekielek:
Wonderful. Any final thoughts as we finish up?
Dr. Marik:
People need to be empowered to improve their own health. Cancer is largely a preventable disease and people should do what they can so they don’t get cancer. It’s as simple as that.
Mr. Jekielek:
Dr. Paul Marik, it’s so good to have you on the show again.
Dr. Marik:
Thank you, Jan. It’s always a pleasure.
Mr. Jekielek:
Thank you all for joining Dr. Paul Marik and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I’m your host, Jan Jekielek.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
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