“Don’t worry, you can conquer your cancer. Inside your beautiful body you have a giant army called your immune system army. I want you to dwell more on how you can help your army fight stronger for you — which you can control — instead of dwelling on your cancer inside.
Cancer is a horrible and terrifying disease. There is so much great information out there, but sometimes it is very difficult to filter out the noise. What causes cancer? Can it be prevented? How do you detect it? What are the odds of survival today? What are the different forms of cancer? What are the best treatments? And what is the best way to support someone impacted by cancer?
In this interview series called, “5 Things Everyone Needs To Know About Cancer” we are talking to experts about cancer such as oncologists, researchers, and medical directors to address these questions. As a part of this interview series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. William Sears.
Dr. William Sears, or “Dr. Bill” as his little patients call him, is a father of eight, grandfather of fourteen, and co-author with his wife of 56 years, Martha, of 47 books on parenting, nutrition, and healthy aging. He is the cofounder of AskDrSears.com and the Dr. Sears Wellness Institute, which has certified over 13,000 health coaches around the world. He has served as a voluntary professor at the University of Toronto, University of South Carolina, University of Southern California’s School of Medicine, and the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Sears and his contribution to family health were featured on the cover of TIME magazine in May 2012.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
I grew up as what would now be called an “underprivileged child.” Yet, looking back, I was very privileged. I grew up in a financially-poor but emotionally-rich home as the only child of a single mom. My mother had the wisdom to surround me with quality mentors (teachers, scoutmasters, sports coaches, and so on), and I owe much of my adult success to what I learned from my mentors at the fertile stage of my growing brain when advice such as “if you want it you work for it” and “we believe in you” really had an impact. I even remember the reverse psychology that my football coach in my senior year in high school told me: “Bill, you’re too dumb to play quarterback!” I showed him. I became the starting quarterback and co-captain of the football team. I realized early on that what would now be called “interpersonal relationships” was one of the keys to a happy life.
When I pleaded with my mom to go to the “fun school,” she insisted: “No Billy, you will go to Marquette High School — and you will get a summer job to earn your tuition.” Thank you, mom!
What or who inspired you to pursue your career? We’d love to hear the story.
My early love of teaching inspired me to become a doctor. “Doctor” means “teacher.” I worked my way through pre-med college by teaching biology courses at a nearby high school where I was the only male teacher on an otherwise all-female staff at an all-girl high school. I was “Mr. Sears” with a fancy shirt and tie and a buzzed flat-top haircut.
Enter medical school at St. Louis University. I barely passed the first two years of classwork, but started to shine in the last two years of medical school in the real life of a doctor working with patients in a hospital. My professors noticed that I had the gift of teaching, so I would be assigned to teach the younger medical students about the most challenging patients.
One day I was teaching a group of medical students about the heart when this beautiful, new nurse walked in to where I was teaching. Okay, yes I was very distracted. The next day I asked Martha for a date. She accepted. During our date she told me she thought I was one of the staff cardiologists. Nine months later doctor marries nurse, and the rest is beautiful history.
This is not easy work. What is your primary motivation and drive behind the work that you do?
The prime motivation that keeps me teaching, writing, and working in my 50th year in medical practice is, put simply, what I call “the helper’s high.” Each night I drift off to sleep with that priceless feeling that some parents got the right start with their baby and some people are happier and healthier because of what I wrote or taught.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? How do you think that might help people?
Besides enjoying practicing with our sons, Dr. Bob Sears and Dr. Jim Sears, at Sears Family Pediatrics, one of my favorite projects that gives me high doses of the helper’s high is creating a curriculum to teach and certify health coaches at the Dr. Sears Wellness Institute. Also, our institute has recently merged with the American Council on Exercise (ACE), a nonprofit institute whose mission and mantra is “getting people moving.” Since what I call “the sitting disease” is a modern malady, I believe in showing and teaching people at all ages the mission statement of our wellness institute: Movement makes your own medicines.
It’s amazing how few people realize that they have their own internal pharmacy inside the lining of their blood vessels. They just have to learn what medicines it makes and how to keep their pharmacy open. I have a great video on our website showing how movement opens your personal internal pharmacy, see AskDrSears.com/pharmacy.
For the benefit of our readers, can you briefly let us know why you are an authority about the topic of cancer?
Experience is the best teacher! Our family has survivors of five cancers: brain, blood, bone, breast, and colon. Yes, our newest book, Help Heal Yourself From Cancer, was literally written on the job as I was healing from two cancers, colon and leukemia, and helping other family members heal from their cancers. Perhaps the term “authority” does not fit. Better would be that I have a lot of experience.
Cancer caused me to change, beginning in 1997 with my colon cancer. I made cancer-healing my hobby, my passion, and my scientific pursuit. I started teaching patients how to help themselves heal from cancer as early as 1997 — and I’m still loving it! Our book Help Heal Yourself From Cancer was written primarily while my wife and co-author, Martha, was healing from breast cancer and I was healing from leukemia.
Ok, thank you for all of that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Let’s start with some basic definitions so that we are all on the same page. What is exactly cancer?
The term “cancer” comes from the Greek word karkinos meaning “crab” because under a microscope the extra blood vessels that protrude from cancer cells appear to drape over the tumor like crab feet.
To understand how a good cell becomes a bad cell, here’s a quick journey through the life of a cell. Inside each cell is a genetic code that prompts the cell: “Increase and multiply, and when your job is over, ‘retire’ to make room for young, healthy cells to take your place.” Yet, sometimes this genetic signal gets garbled and keeps turning on the growth of a cell instead of turning it off. As a result, the cell keeps multiplying out of control — becomes cancerous — and the cancer invades and damages surrounding tissue. Eventually, the process can creep into the bloodstream and travel throughout the body — a stage called metastasis.
What causes cancer?
Cancer is basically a body out of balance, beginning with the cells. Within our cells is a delicate balance of two sets of genes: cancer-promoting oncogenes (gas pedals), and tumor-suppressing anti-oncogenes genes (brake pedals). Normally, there is a balance between the two that is automatic. When this balance is disrupted in favor of the oncogenes — whether by carcinogens or diet and lifestyle, or even just by unlucky chance — you “get cancer.”
Many of us live in an environment full of toxins — grow-food for cancer. Picture your cells living in an environment exposed to toxins, such as “endocrine disrupters,” pollution, pesticides (we call it “sprayed in America”), smoking, and so on. Eventually, some cells in your body figure: “Enough already! I can’t be healthy in this environment. I’m turning cancerous.”
What is the difference between the different forms of cancer?
Usually cancer is named by the organ it most affects, such as “colon cancer.” Other terms are “localized cancer,” meaning the cancer seems to be localized to one organ or one part of your body; and “metastatic cancer,” meaning cancer cells creep into the bloodstream and travel throughout the body and settle into other organs.
I know that the next few questions are huge topics, but we’d love to hear your thoughts regardless. How can cancer be prevented?
Compare cancer to a garden growing out of control. Think of cancer as a seed. How much and how fast this cancer “seed” multiplies depends on the soil around it. If the soil (your body) is fed cancer-fertilizing foods and pollutants, then the seed grows into a cancer plant, a dangerous weed that invades neighboring flowers and plants. Just as you want to keep your garden full of flowers and not weeds, you want the same in your body.
The best ways to control the growth of cancer in your body’s garden are to keep the seeds from becoming cancerous and shut off their food and fertilizer so they can’t grow. Cancer specialists call this improving our biological terrain, making it unfriendly to cancer growth.
Here’s the list of cancer-preventing tools that I put up in my medical office:
- Make health your hobby.
- Stay lean: obesity is a top cancer trigger.
- Eat clean, live clean.
- Move more, sit less. (Movement mobilizes your conquer-cancer immune system.)
- Sleep well. (During quality sleep you turn on your immune system army, a nightshift that reports for clean-up duty.)
- Get screened: annual check-ups, mammograms, and colonoscopies, as advised by your healthcare provider.
I owe my life to my wife. It was time for my annual check-up and I said to Martha, “I feel fine. I think I’ll just skip my check-up.”
“No, honey, go to your check-up!” she responded.
You know when a woman looks at you with that disarming but loving look, you can’t help but just say, “Yes, dear.” I went to my scheduled check-up. My physical exam was normal, yet two days later I got that dreaded call: “Bill, your blood tests show you have leukemia.” It’s a good thing I didn’t skip my annual check-up or I may have not been alive to write this article.
I was so surprised at getting another cancer since by that time I was a committed “health nut” and did every possible cancer-preventing tool I knew of. Delving deeper into what may have contributed to my cancer I consulted a toxicologist who did a toxin profile on my urine and discovered high levels of glyphosate (Round-up), which we traced back to my exposure to this toxin being sprayed on the course on which I played daily golf. Again, sprayed in America is toward the top of my “naughty list” that needs to be controlled.
How can one detect the main forms of cancer?
Besides having annual check-ups, “get screened” is my next advice. Two top examples are periodic mammograms and colonoscopies. The schedule will be recommended by your healthcare provider according to your age, lifestyle, and risks. Also, there are blood tests, called “markers,” that your doctor may order that gives a clue that there may be cancer somewhere in your body.
Cancer used to almost be a death sentence, but it seems that it has changed today. What are the odds of surviving cancer today?
Cancer is a good news / bad news illness. The good news is that, due to increasing new breakthrough therapies, persons with cancer are surviving longer — and thriving longer, meaning having a higher quality of life while still living with cancer. The bad news is that cancer is occurring at a faster rate and at younger ages. Again, the medical system has greatly improved our treatment of cancer, but we haven’t cured the cause of most cancers — the toxic environment in which we live.
While you will read that certain cancers have a certain “percentage of survival,” don’t pay too much attention to these numbers since they are simply an average of how long and how well thousands of persons survive with a certain cancer. You are a person, not a percentage. Hearing your cancer “has only a twenty percent chance of survival” is not only meaningless for many persons with cancer, it just creates a fear factor that can further sabotage cancer healing. In fact, one of the points we make in our cancer counselling is to ask your cancer-care provider not to use statistics or survival percentages in your discussions unless absolutely necessary.
Can you share some of the new cutting-edge treatments for cancer that have recently emerged? What new cancer treatment innovations are you most excited to see come to fruition in the near future?
One of the cutting-edge treatments for cancer that I owe my life to is called “targeted therapy,” which is used in some forms of leukemia. This means that if a certain cancer can be traced to a certain defect on a chromosome there are medicines to target that actual defect.
Another rapidly-growing treatment is called immunotherapy. This is when a person’s own cancer cells are chemically manipulated to notify a person’s immune system to target the cancer cells yet not impact the healthy cells.
While I was studying the concept of immunotherapy I realized that cancer healing, especially the tools we list in our book, Help Heal Yourself From Cancer, is really about how to teach your body to make its own immunotherapy medicines.
Healing usually takes place between doctor visits. What have you found to be most beneficial to assist a patient to heal?
In my medical practice I start with what I call the “belief effect,” meaning the better you believe you will heal the more likely you are to heal. During a cancer-healing consultation I tell my patients that their brain is the CEO of their cancer-healing army inside their body. A principle of brain health that we also teach in our book, The Healthy Brain Book, is: where attention flows, brain tissue grows. So, I tell the person healing from cancer to focus their mental and physical energy on building a healthy immune system inside — which they can control — rather than dwelling on their cancer inside, which they have less control over.
Positivity promotes longevity in most illnesses, especially cancer. In fact, there is an emerging field about this belief effect called psycho-oncology.
Then I give them my cancer-healing to-do list that I outlined above.
From your experience, what are a few of the best ways to support a loved one, friend, or colleague who is impacted by cancer?
During my healing from two cancers and my wife Martha’s healing from breast cancer we loved being surrounded with our support team of friends, relatives and medical providers. We loved getting periodic emails and text messages, such as: “We’re here for you,” “You will beat this,” “We’re praying for you,” “We believe you will heal,” and so on.
Here’s a tip to boost your support team. Let them feel the positive vibes in your voice, such as: “I feel so loved. I believe I will heal. I can do this!”
If you really want to be effective in supporting a loved one going through a more difficult recovery time, make sure to be specific in your offering of help. Simply saying, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help,” while certainly well-meaning, winds up putting a burden on your loved one, who then oftentimes will struggle to come up with something for you to do. Instead, offer to do something specific: “Can I bring you dinner this Thursday night?” or “Can I come over Saturday at 2:00 to fold laundry and wash your dishes?” This way all your loved one has to say is, “Yes, that would be great, thank you so much.”
What are a few of the biggest misconceptions and myths out there about fighting cancer that you would like to dispel?
The biggest misconception, and the one that infuriates me the most, is that cancer just happens and we might as well get used to it being part of the risk of living. Hey, if we can land on the moon, we can conquer cancer.
Here’s why cancers are increasing in young children:
- Children have the highest exposure to toxins in history.
- Their detox systems are immature.
- Growing cells are more vulnerable.
I recently attended a medical meeting in which a group of experts were talking about how much cancer could be prevented by simply cleaning up our environment. Also, the general conclusion is that what I call “mom power” will be the driving force to lessen cancer around the world.
A piece of advice I give my politician friends is “Don’t mess with moms. You’re going to lose!” I have a poster in my office that Martha and I put together that says: “Children are our most precious natural resource. Our mission is to protect them.”
Thank you so much for all of that. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your experiences and knowledge, what are your “5 Things Everyone Needs To Know About Cancer? Please share a story or example for each.
1 . Believe you will heal. (Discussed above)
2 . Make cancer-healing your hobby. Cancer caused me to change, and that’s the transformation I wish for persons healing from cancer. Here’s a healing note from our daughter:
Twenty-five years ago, when I was in college, I got a call from my mom: “Hayden,” she said, “Dad has colon cancer. It’s serious, and you need to come home.”
Thank the Lord, Dad did well through the surgery. The hardest part was after that: the chemotherapy, the radiation, literally watching the hero of my life become so burdened. But during that very difficult time in my family’s life, something very beautiful started to happen deep inside my dad. Cancer became his passion, his fire, his obsession. He had to figure out how he could heal himself. But even more than that, he wanted to learn how to keep his eight children from ever having to experience cancer themselves.
His dad died from colon cancer, and my mom’s mom died of colon cancer, so genetically it appeared us Sears children would be doomed. But the Lord gave us a secret weapon: our dad.
He spent the next few years of his recovery just poring over research journals. Luckily, he was in a position of his career that gave him access to top minds in health and nutrition. He was able to glean from all of these resources. He had a new mission, a new passion in life, and has spent the last twenty-five years of his career sharing with others what he learned way back then for himself. What you get to read here is not only from the mind of a brilliant scientist, but also from the heart of a father.
Love you, Daddy.
Hayden Sears
Focus on improving your immune system army (ISA) inside rather than dwelling on your cancer inside. Since cancer is triggered by a weakened immune system, one of the best ways to prevent and help yourself heal from cancer is to build a smarter immune system. Picture inside of you a giant army of cancer-killing cells. My favorite is called “natural killer cells,” or “NK cells.” You have trillions of these cells circulating throughout your body on search-and-destroy missions. An NK cell is drawn toward a cancer cell, gloms onto it and shoots a biochemical dart into the cancer cell and blows it up. This goes on 24/7 in all of our bodies. When the NK cells fight stronger than the cancer cells, we don’t get cancer. When the cancer cells overwhelm our immune system, we “get cancer.” Just like you would train an army, here are ways to build a smarter immune system:
- Believe in your ISA inside.
- Feed your ISA real, healthy foods: a smart-fat and smart-carb diet of real foods, not processed foods. A diet high in plant foods is a must.
- Movement mobilizes your immune system. Dr. Mom’s trusted conquer-cancer advice: “Eat more fruits and vegetables and go outside and play.” The current epidemic of what I call “the sitting disease,” feeds cancer. Movement (especially outdoors) is one of my favorite ways to smarten my ISA.
- Sleep cancer away. During quality sleep is when your immune system reports for nightshift duty.
3 . Stay lean. Lean does not mean “skinny.” It means having the right amount of body fat for your individual body type. Carcinogens are stored in excess belly fat, which we call “toxic waist.” Excess belly fat raises blood sugar (cancer’s favorite grow-food), weakens your immune system, and spews out pro-inflammatory chemicals that act like cancer-feeders into your bloodstream.
4 . Move more, sit less, heal better. Movement mobilizes your natural conquer-cancer immune system army. In oncology-speak, this is called demarginating. During exercise your blood flows faster over the lining of your blood vessels, called the endothelium. This triggers a force that prompts the white blood cells of your immune system army to get off the lining of the blood vessels, go into your bloodstream and fight cancer cells all over your body. Imagine walking briskly with a group of friends and saying: “I’m demarginating my immune system army to go fight better for me.”
5 . Wisely partner with your cancer-care providers. You are a partner in your healing, not just a patient. Rise to the occasion.
You will notice that all of these give a person who wants to prevent or heal from cancer a mindset change. Fear sabotages the immune system. Positivity strengthens the immune system.
Imagine you or your child has cancer. You come to my office and I see the fear factor taking over your life. My sermon may go something like this:
“Don’t worry, you can conquer your cancer. Inside your beautiful body you have a giant army called your immune system army. I want you to dwell more on how you can help your army fight stronger for you — which you can control — instead of dwelling on your cancer inside.
Then I draw pictures of the NK cell shooting a dart and blowing up a cancer cell. I then share with them how a smart brain, healthy foods, outdoor exercise, quality sleep, and so on helps them build a better immune system.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Here’s my dream of a movement that is long overdue and I believe will soon happen. Imagine an organization called “Moms Against Cancer” (MAC). Envision thousands of MACs marching on Washington and demanding a stop to carcinogenic pesticides, herbicides, chemicals, in-factory processed foods, industrial pollution, and so on. Human resources have either cured or lessened most major diseases because we cared enough to devote resources to fight these diseases. The same should be true for cancer.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Since one of my missions in life is to help persons prevent and heal from cancer, I do monthly zooms on cancer-prevention, building a smarter immune system, and other suggestions related to cancer-healing and prevention. Many of these talks can be found on YouTube. Our website, AskDrSears.com, has thousands of articles you can browse, including a currently-growing section on cancer with downloadable pictures we call “healthy reminders” that you can post throughout your home and workplace as you make cancer-healing your hobby (see AskDrSears.com/healthyreminders). We will also post personal-healing testimonies, cancer updates, and take you on a room-by-room trip throughout your home to help you detoxify your home and workplace from carcinogens.
You can also follow my social media pages, Facebook.com/askdrsears and Instagram.com/askdrsears.
My wish for all of you reading this article is that you ponder the information that you have learned to not only help yourself heal but help friends and loved ones heal from cancer. You feel good when you do good. My wish for all of you is that after sharing much of this information you drift off to sleep with what I call “the helper’s high,” that peaceful feeling that some person is healing a bit better because of the support you gave them.
Thank you so much for these insights! This was very inspirational and we wish you continued success in your great work.
Wishing you well,
Dr. Bill