Chanchal Cabrera:
I find gotu kola. It's an anxiolytic. So right there, it's your relaxing nervine. But it's a brain stimulant because it sends blood to the brain, so it wakes you up and keeps you alert. But it also keeps you calm and not anxious. And then it has the great connective tissue tonic.
John Gallagher:
You are listening to Herb Mentor Radio by Learning Herbs. I'm John Gallagher.
Tara Ruth:
And I'm Tara Ruth. Today we're chatting with Chanchal Cabrera. Chanchal is a medical herbalist and has been in clinical practice for 35 years, with a specialty in holistic oncology. She is also a certified forest bathing practitioner, master gardener, and horticultural therapist. Chanchal's latest book is "Holistic Cancer Care: An Herbal Approach to Preventing Cancer, Helping Patients Thrive during Treatment, and Minimizing the Risk of Recurrence." She lives on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. And you can learn more about her work on chanchalcabrera.com.
John Gallagher:
Welcome back. Thank you so much for joining us again.
Chanchal Cabrera:
Yes, thank you.
Tara Ruth:
In your book, you talk about how you've sat with other words like integrative, complimentary, or alternative care. And can you talk about why you landed on holistic cancer care and what this term means to you?
Chanchal Cabrera:
Yeah, I'm glad you picked up on that point in the book. Because it's sort of subtle but important, because it sets it all into context. So I think one of the sad parts about the way medicine is practiced in North America, and really in much of the world today, is this idea that you have to do one or the other. That if you do alternative medicine, it is an alternative to mainstream. And of course, in truth, as we all know, mainstream is herbal medicine because 80% of the world is using herbal medicine as their primary healthcare. So really that's the mainstream. But in this context, what I'm talking about is the chemotherapy, and radiation and that aspect of conventional cancer care. We shouldn't have to choose between one or the other. And the term alternative implies an either/or situation. And I don't find that useful. Because as a practitioner, I require that my patients are under the care of an oncologist. Because I need to get information that is not available to me without an oncologists' intervention.
I need tests. I need pathology reports. And so, it's critically important that we find ways to, what I call in the book, to collaborate. Because the patient should be in the driver's seat deciding on who they want in the team. And then the whole team working together collaboratively for the patient's greatest good. Now, a bit of a pipe dream, of course, but that's what we're aiming for. And I will say that in the 20 years I've specialized in cancer care, I've seen a sea change in the attitudes. I mean, I do still get some pushback. But more than ever now I'm just getting a sort of neutral stance from the oncologists about herbal medicine. They're not really saying alternative anymore. They're not making patients make the choice. They're saying, "We don't understand it, but do whatever you want", a lot more than they used to. And so the whole term alternative is not really helpful or informative anymore. And collaborative, I think is the way to go.
John Gallagher:
Why do you think they are nowadays more going, "Yeah, we're open to that." Versus...?
Chanchal Cabrera:
Well, I think there's probably a number of factors. One obviously is patients are getting more educated, and more empowered, and more demanding. The medical system is failing them. And so they're becoming more vocal in their demands. Because they're seeing that if they don't speak out, they won't get the quality of care they need. I mean, it's sad but true that the squeaky wheel gets the oil. So I actively encourage my patients to be quite outspoken about their wishes and needs, because otherwise they won't get them met. So doctors obviously are responsive to that to some extent. But I think medical schools are changing. I mean, they're still called Integrated Medicine Departments. For example, down in Arizona, Andrew Weil's. The center there is being run by Lise Alschuler, who's a naturopath who used to run the Herbal Medicine Department at Bastyr University. So she's taking all of that into mainstream medicine.
So, yeah. There's more awareness. Younger doctors growing up in a culture that's generally a bit more aware. And some of us have been around this a long time, and we've seen it's not just in medicine, is it? It's about organic. So 20, 30, 40 years ago, I grew up on a so-called organic farm. And back then it was very odd and anomalous. People didn't generally think about organic, but now it's fairly mainstream. It's in the supermarkets. So there's been a whole change of culture, I think, towards natural overall. As fast as we get urbanized, we yearn for nature. That's very ironic. So I think herbal medicine has been lifted on that rising tide of awareness, I suppose. And the doctors have lifted with that.
John Gallagher:
So in your book you share about how, for the first decade of your clinical practice, you felt like you really didn't have those tools to support your patients with cancer. So how did this change? And what drew you to focusing on holistic cancer care?
Chanchal Cabrera:
Well, it's certainly true that for more than a decade, almost 15 years, I had a general practice. I saw lots of patients with lots of different conditions. And I would have to say herbal medicine largely works. It's very effective for lots of different things. But there was a certain point, and this may be hard to hear, but there was a point where I started to get a little bored. Sort of almost intellectually bored. Where I knew that I had great strategies for the herbs to help things like asthma, and eczema, and menopausal symptoms. And the herbs definitely had something to offer, but I wasn't learning a great deal anymore. I wasn't getting stretched in my clinic. Each and every patient is unique and interesting, but overall, I was not learning as much as I wanted to after a certain amount of time in clinical practice.
So I needed to go back to deepen and broaden my herbal knowledge. And I landed in a master of science degree at the University of Wales, Master of Science in Herbal Medicine. And I had the opportunity, the invitation, to go to Oregon to work in the clinic of Donnie Yance, who is a herbalist who specializes in cancer care. And has for a long time. And he wanted research done. And I was doing a research-based masters, so it seemed like a really good fit. He was able to give me a job where I did research into long-term breast cancer patients in his practice, and wrote my dissertation sort of on the back of that. It was called Living with Breast Cancer. And it was about patients who'd been in his practice for 10 years or more, and still were in treatment for cancer. Although cancer was not bringing them down, as in, they still had cancer in their bodies. They were still cancer patients, but they were living. It was called Thriving, or Living with Breast Cancer, because they were living with it.
John Gallagher:
Right.
Chanchal Cabrera:
It was so inspiring to me. I went there not feeling skilled in that arena, saw what Donnie was doing. Apprentice basically, I'd been in clinic already 15 years, and running a school. Running Dominion Herbal College up here in Vancouver. But still in all, I went back as an apprentice myself to learn from a master, and I had two years there. It was fantastic learning. And empowering for me to see how much the herbs could do. And so that's what kicked it off. I didn't go out looking for this challenge really. I looked for a challenge. I didn't know where it was going to land. It's so very interesting, because in this profession, most of us are generalists and a few people specialize.
And, as in any profession, specializing is something you do after you've been a generalist for quite a while and built that foundation. But it certainly is a very good way to practice because you are then sort of forced into really deep dive learning in a subject. Which is what it takes to really know your subject matter. You've got to really put the work in. And so I think at the end of a long series of study, then being a specialist gives you a greater insight into that arena. So it's been great as a clinical sort of, if you like, a professional choice.
John Gallagher:
So I'd like to shift the conversation to people who are listening who may have cancer, or may have someone in their family they're caring for. And, one place to start would be the fear of potential herb-drug interactions that can stop a lot of people from maybe using herbs. So how do people navigate their herb-drug interactions? And how can people be confident that the recipes and formulas that they might, say for example, get from your book, are safe for them to take?
Chanchal Cabrera:
It's a great question. And we definitely explore that in some detail in the book. And I think I would really like to down regulate some of the fear that happens around this, because it's largely misplaced. It is mostly based on lack of knowledge, or lack of understanding, rather than fact or evidence-based medicine. In fact, the evidence-based medicine strongly supports the idea that most of the herb-drug interactions that we see are in fact quite positive, quite useful. And a good example of this would be with turmeric. Where people think that turmeric is an antioxidant, and that is only partially true. Because in the herb world, we really don't have true antioxidants. What they do is actually regulate the oxidation reduction pathways. And so we call them redox regulators. It's not a one-way street with herbal medicine. If you take a pure antioxidant like synthetic vitamin C, it can donate an electron, quench your free radical. That's an antioxidant. Great, everybody's happy. But your ascorbic acid just lost an electron, and now it is itself a free radical.
So what did you just gain by that? Not a great deal. So what the plant complexes do, the flavonoid complexes in things like turmeric, is they donate an electron. And then they borrow it back, and then they donate it again. And then they borrow it back again. And this goes on many, many, many times, hundreds if not thousands of times in a second. The electrons are bouncing from one orbit to the next. Shared, so that neither party is either completely oxidized or completely reduced. Or only for fractions of a second. And this is redox regulation. And when you apply this concept to chemotherapy, the idea that an antioxidant will negate chemotherapy, in its most simplistic reductionist thinking, yes, that would be true. Chemotherapy works by oxidative stress. So yes, if you use an antioxidant, you're going to inhibit chemotherapy's efficacy. But with the herbs, that's not what happens.
With the herbs, the metabolism of the cancer cell in contrast to the metabolism of healthy cells, the way it works with the flavonoids, you end up quenching the free radicals that are causing collateral damage in the cell, or in the adjacent cells. But actually augmenting the efficacy of the chemotherapy as an oxidative compound in the cancer. And literally, a sort of contradictory or paradoxical effect where you're getting activation of chemotherapy and protection of healthy cells simultaneously. And this is evidence-based medicine. This is what we see. And there are lots of very reductionistic studies that demonstrate how and why these pathways work this way. But the clinical practice affirms all of that reductionist research. Which, it's always great when the research says one thing and clinic says the same thing, then you know you're onto something that's really pretty reliable. And so yes, we have a concern about herb-drug interactions. I'm not making light of it. But very often what we find is that they're very positive interactions. They're useful, and we can work with them.
And even, for example, this is now getting out into clinical practice, not for the lay person. But if you are on a blood thinner and having bleeding episodes, maybe you could be taking some herbs. Which are... If you could see me, I'm putting inverted commas here, "blood thinning herbs." Because it isn't quite as simple as that language would suggest. But there are herbs which will mediate some of the clotting factors. And maybe that can help, that you don't need as much of the drug and therefore you have less drug side effects. That's not for the lay person to mess with those drug doses, but a clinician might and compensate for the declining drug dose with appropriate herbs. Those are positive interactions. The textbook by Jonathan Treasure, Mitch Stargrove, and Dwight McKee, the textbook called Herb, Nutrient, Drug Interactions is fabulous for looking into this herb nutrient drug interactions by Jonathan Treasure, Dwight McKee and Mitch Stargrove, a herbalist, oncologist and a naturopath.
That book looks at all the interactions as potentially positive, and therefore may be useful. For the layperson, I would say consult with a professional. It's not necessarily safe to do all herbs, with all drugs, at all times. Of course it's not. And so notably herbs go through pathways in the liver just like drugs do, just like foods do. And they could induce or inhibit those pathways just like drugs or just like foods. And in the unknown of that is the risk, right? We know how many of the drugs are processed, but not all by any means. And we know how a few of the herbs are processed. And a few of the food complexes, where they go through the liver. But with foods and herbs, with hundreds of chemicals, we do not know how those all go through the liver and if they induce or if they inhibit.
So there's always a risk. We don't tell patients not to eat while they're taking drugs. We sometimes tell them to separate our foods and drugs, and maybe we'll separate herbs and foods and drugs as well. But it's the unknown that is the scary part. And I guess what I would say is that there is little to no research that validates the risk sufficient to hold back from logical treatment. Trying to say this carefully. If you have a very good reason to use this herb in this person. And you've researched that as much as you can, it is safe. That is, are the pathways in the liver known? Is there a recorded prior risk event? Do some research. You can't find any evidence? Remember, of course, that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. That's a really important point. It may not have been looked for in the past. It may not have been researched or counted or measured in the past.
So just because it's not in the literature doesn't mean it couldn't be true. That's where your evidence-based medicine kicks in. You go low and slow, you go in carefully, you measure and monitor, and that's what a clinician would do. If there was a high risk situation, you wouldn't be messing with that on your own without some supervision, I guess.
Tara Ruth:
Yeah. That's super helpful to bring that into...
Chanchal Cabrera:
Yeah. It's not uh between not being afraid and not being careless. We're not being frivolous with this. It's real medicine. If it works, if it's going to kill cancer, for sure, it's going to have some risk profile. But that shouldn't stop you doing things. And I'm not making light of it, but I would have to say that there is little to nothing that a herbalist could ever do that could possibly be as toxic as what the doctors are giving the patients already.
Tara Ruth:
And hearing you talk about herb-drug interactions and then also bringing food, and how of course that affects our bodies as well. I'm thinking about how in your book, you also bring in nutritional strategies for inhibiting cancer growth. And I'm wondering, can you talk about some of the nutritional strategies you employ as part of a holistic cancer care treatment plan?
Chanchal Cabrera:
Yes. One of the gratifying things about having been doing this work for so long and not just specializing in cancer care. But as a clinician for 35 years is to watch how many things that we learned in school, or over the years of clinic, from all the different teachers that we've had, how many things we've learned that are now becoming mainstream. So we used to be scoffed, and scorned, and laughed about all kinds of things that are now very mainstream. Including, just in the last, I don't know, month or so. There was a huge, big study that came out verifying and validating, no great surprise, how junk food causes cancer and heart disease. I mean, hello, what planet are we on? And what century are we in? It's gratifying that the world is catching up with good health principles and practices. Obviously not everybody is there yet. And the institutional inertia is a big problem because the lobbying power of the sugar industry, and the meat industry, and what have you is very, very big.
But the academia and medical research knows perfectly well what's going on. We haven't necessarily translated that into sort of government policies and programs that serve the people. But there is an overwhelming amount of research now about organic foods and vegetables, and avoiding sugar. And the basic principle is not really just about cancer, it's about...
John Gallagher:
Just about not smoking.
Chanchal Cabrera:
No, it's not just about not smoking either. Although I will say that lung cancer is the fastest growing cancer worldwide, including North America. And it's growing faster in women than in men. And that is a lot to do with smoking, of course, but it's also a huge amount to do with airborne pollution and microparticles in the air. And so yes, not smoking is obviously important. But yeah, it's a dangerous world out there. So I think given the overwhelming number of threats to our health and wellbeing, we have some personal responsibilities to do what we can to avoid as many of those as possible. And that's all I try to say in the book is, don't beat yourself up for what you can't avoid or what you haven't done in the past. Or any of that. That's not useful. You just look around your day, your life, your house.
You say, "Well, what is in here that isn't serving my health right now? What changes can I make that are reasonable, affordable, doable?" And then that's what you do. You do what you can, and that's all. But at the end of the day, it's not just cancer. It's every aspect of your health and wellbeing. It's because cancer is sometimes called an inflammation that never resolved. That's another way of thinking of it. So what is this incredible sort of global systemic inflammation that we have now? We have cancer, heart disease, and the autoimmune inflammations. These have never been more prevalent. What is driving all this inflammation in our bodies that is underpinning so much disease process? So many, many diseases have inflammation as a core process. Why is that happening now more than ever? I just keep coming back to the lifestyles we have and the diets that we eat. And those are some things that we might be able to make changes in.
John Gallagher:
Right. When reading your book, that's what I realize when you list out possible causes. And I'm reading the list and I'm like, really no one's immune. You can try your best. Because then what I'm saying is, yes, there's sugar and smoking and all that, but there's also things like, like in my case personally, where we're dealing with hereditary things and whatnot. And you often can't control, but you can try your best. And so in that case, and what you're just getting into, in addition to nutrition, what are those lifestyle recommendations that people can consider that might help them at least decrease their risk?
Chanchal Cabrera:
Yeah, what you're talking about is the science of epigenetics, and this is relatively new. In 10, 20 years that it's been sort of talked about in any sort of large way. And only in the last few years has it been sort of promoted as an opportunity for bringing better health. So epigenetics is the idea that you are dealt a set of genetics at birth. Dealt your sort of deck of cards, and you get to play your hand. And what did you get? Well, how do you influence what of those genes shows up? So you have your genotype of what you inherit. And then you have your phenotype, which is how it shows up in real life, what's manifesting. So it's about switching on and switching off the genes. You're born with a set of genes, but which ones are active? Which ones are dormant? Which ones are dominant? And which ones are quiescent?
And that's the science of epigenetics. So epigenetics refers to the capacity to change which genes are expressing. And this is really exciting. And we can do it by changing the signals that the cell receives. And so your DNA only responds to a message. It doesn't have a brain of its own to decide what to do. It responds to signals. Your DNA copies a piece of itself to make a new protein, to carry out a function in response to a signal from the external environment. So what is that signal? That's the really interesting question. So your cell isn't making a decision about what to do. That decision is made sort of higher up the command chain when you receive a signal from the environment and your body interprets how it needs to respond. So it's the interpretation of signals that's really, really interesting.
Then what are the signals? So the signals are molecular things we ingest, or inhale, or are exposed to. But they're also the molecules we make in response to the environment. So if we're under threat, we make certain molecules that affect our cells in certain ways. And if we eat certain foods, we have certain molecules in us that affect cells in certain ways. And then the cells behave accordingly. It's our responsibility therefore, to try and mediate the signals. And that's what the whole diet, lifestyle, get your sleep, deal with your stress, all of that stuff. So that you are building resilience so that when the challenging signals come along, the cells are already in a good shape. They're well-behaved and ready for the challenge. I hope that made sense.
John Gallagher:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
This, Tara, is an amazing episode. There's so much information.
Tara Ruth:
It sure is. I'm so grateful for Chanchal for sharing all of this with us.
John Gallagher:
And how she's here, and her new book, and able to take something that's really complicated and help us connect and learn about it in a simple way. But before we get back to Chanchal in part two, how about we play an Herb Note. One of your new Herb Notes?
Tara Ruth:
Yeah, let's do it. I'm excited to share this one with you all.
Welcome to Herb Notes. I'm Tara Ruth from Learning Herbs. Chances are you've probably stepped on your fair share of the herb plantain. This abundant medicinal plant loves to grow within pathways in even the most well manicured lawns. It's so prolific in fact, that when many people see it growing wildly in their yard, they weed it out and hope it doesn't come back. But herbalists know that this common herb offers many extraordinary healing gifts. Not only is plantain a first aid superstar, it also helps with more chronic issues too. Let's dive into three benefits of the common herb plantain. One, plantain can promote tissue repair in minor non-infected wounds, like scrapes and cuts. Plus plantain is an herbal drawing agent, meaning it can help draw out small splinters. Two, plantain can soothe inflammation in the digestive tract. I often drink dried or fresh plantain leaf tea to soothe my stomach. And I also swish with plantain tea when I get canker sores in my mouth.
Three, as a cooling anti-inflammatory herb, plantain excels at supporting mild red itchy skin issues like dry skin, sunburns, and insect bites. I often include plantain in my all-purpose salves and lotions, because it's so versatile and calming for skin inflammation. So to recap, here are three ways that you can use plantain. One, you can work with plantain to promote tissue repair topically. Two, you can call on plantain to soothe inflammation in the GI tract. Three, you can use plantain to help address red itchy skin issues like dry skin, sunburns, and bug bites. And right now you may be asking yourself, "What kind of plantain can I use?" What I'm talking about isn't the fruit plantain, but rather broadleaf plantain. Or narrow leaf plantain. In the US, broad leaf plantain, plantago major and plantago rugulii, is one of the two types of plantain commonly used as a medicinal herb. The other type is narrow leaf or ribwort plantain, plantago lanceolata. All of these species can be worked with interchangeably, and offer the three benefits I've highlighted here.
Want to learn more about plantains benefits? Visit herbnotes.cards to grab a free deck of our top 12 herb notes. You'll learn all about common herbs like catnip, yarrow, echinacea, cinnamon, and more. This has been Herb Notes with me, Tara Ruth. Catch you next time.
You touched on sleep and stress management. And I'm wondering what else, what specific lifestyle recommendations for folks that you often incorporate into a holistic cancer care plan.
Chanchal Cabrera:
Yeah, I have a sort of top five things to do today. I mean, because it is definitely something people want. They want to do something quickly, even if they know that there's a lot more to be done. They want something fast. And so I'll give you my sort of top five. The number one thing, and I suppose they're in order, but not necessarily. They're all important. Reduce sugar. That's like number one. That's number one for all health profiles. Reduce any refined sugars and refined carbohydrates to a absolute minimum. A treat, a special occasion, a piece of birthday cake. And then natural sugars like starchy vegetables, or sweet fruits. Eat the whole food, eat a couple of starchy veg a day, one or two servings of whole grain. But not the flour products, the grain itself. So really, really reduce sugar. That's number one. Number two is eat mushrooms.
I'm sorry to the people who are allergic, but eat mushrooms. Lots of mushrooms. Two or three or four times a week, and make sure they're cooked.
John Gallagher:
Yes.
Chanchal Cabrera:
Because I love to bring the medicine into the food. I love to make food the medicine. Why stress yourself taking pills when you could eat the good stuff. So mushrooms are really good. All the mushrooms, portobello, cremini, oyster mushrooms. All of them have good medicine, and they need to be cooked. That's number two. So reduce sugars, eat mushrooms, six or seven servings of veg. And two or three of fruit every day. That's point number three. Lots of fruit and veg. You need your phytonutrients, they're co-factors for every metabolic process in the body. And we evolved eating a humongous amount of fruit and veg. And so we really want to be pushing that. I try to get people six or seven servings of vegetables, two or three of fruit.
It's hard to do that, because we're not talking about juice. So again, from the top. Reduce sugar, eat mushrooms, eat loads of fruit and veg. Number four is, exercise and stress management. Mostly exercise. Because if you do good exercise, and I always suggest outdoors every time you possibly can, in nature. Because then you're getting double benefit of the forest bathing therapy. But if you're doing good exercise, you're getting your stress management, you're getting your blood sugar and your blood pressure controlled, you're getting your cardiovascular health, you're getting your mood elevation, you're getting your immune boosting. If you're doing it outside, you're getting your vitamin D. I mean, all of that helps. It helps you deal with stress. And the last point is about stress specific and sleep. So I like to end my little spiel of five things. So again, avoid sugar, eat mushrooms, eat lots of fruit and veg, get lots of exercise, deal with your stress. And in that last piece, dealing with stress, spend time with friends and loved ones. Be outside in nature and laugh often. That's my top five things. Yeah.
Tara Ruth:
Thank you for sharing those. And I get when you're talking about stress management too, I can't help but think about herbs and the ways that herbs can help calm our bodies. And support the nervous system of someone as they navigate the intense stress of receiving a cancer diagnosis, and going through treatment. And I'm curious about how you bring in herbal nervines into your practice for folks.
Chanchal Cabrera:
Yeah, that's a great question, because it's really fundamental actually. So in the book, what I try to explain is the pyramid prescribing model. And the pyramid means there's like a foundation and two sides. So the foundation is the lifestyle, the diet, the stress management, the sleep. And then the two sides of the pyramid. One is all the supportive herbs and comorbidities. And then the other is the cytotoxic active cancer work. But in that foundation, that's a really great place for adaptogens. So I think adaptogens have a great role to play in managing cancer. I mean they have... And again, in the book, I've gone into some detail about research specifically with adaptogens in oncology. But as a more general sense, just dealing with stress, adaptogens just give you more resilience. More capacity to roll with the punches. However, taking adaptogens is not a substitute for exercise, sleep, being in nature...
John Gallagher:
Dang it.
Chanchal Cabrera:
Hanging out with your friends, watching comedy movies. All right. So you don't like run, run, run, run, run, drink some coffee in the morning, take an adaptogen at lunch, and crash in the end of the day.
That's not the point. The adaptogen should be used as a backup. It's a little bit like the word supplement. They should be supplementary to a good diet. So adaptogens should be supplementary to significant lifestyle changes.
John Gallagher:
Right. Right. Because sometimes there's a supplement, or an herb, that you know just can't get enough of in your diet. Or maybe we're not getting enough of a certain mineral because it's just not in the soil anymore. So that's more the place for the supplements.
Chanchal Cabrera:
Yeah, exactly. And I do think also in a diagnosis of cancer and indeed other diseases, sometimes big disease takes big medicine. You can't necessarily get enough in a normal diet. I mean, let's be honest, something like turmeric, which there's few cancer patients that get away without a whole bunch of turmeric. And yet how much could you really eat? It's a pretty strong flavor. So I have a few ways I can get people to take it by the teaspoon. But all that to say that sometimes supplements are helpful to fill up the gap really, where you couldn't realistically eat enough on a daily basis to sustain the therapy.
Tara Ruth:
And what are some of those specific adaptogens that you like to weave in?
Chanchal Cabrera:
Well, I use a lot of licorice, because it does have the anti-inflammatory properties as well. Obviously it's not suitable for all patients and not everybody likes it, but I like to use licorice where I can. I use ashwagandha. I use a fair amount of eleuthero. I find that quite helpful. And I use rhodiola, but I'm careful with rhodiola because it's quite stimulating. It's one of those adaptogens, it gives you a lift and it's a little bit of a heart stimulant. So, I'm careful who gets rhodiola. I don't use a lot of ginseng. I use some American ginseng, but not really the Korean/Chinese. I find it too pushy for most of my patients. They're already a little bit debilitated and I need to build them up and not make demand. And even though it's an adaptogen, it's also not a long-term herb, the Korean or Chinese ginseng.
It's more of a quick booster and sort of get out. And so I'm looking longer term strategies here. I use a great deal of astragalus. And some people do consider astragalus an adaptogen, because it normalizes all of the immune functions. And so it isn't working on stress direct, but it's definitely working on the immune functions which are compromised by all the stress hormones. And I find astragalus hugely important. I use astragalus both in a soup. I make a big sort of broth mix that they can use with bone broths and what have you, of all kinds of herbs. And astragalus is in there because the water will extract the large polysaccharides. But I also have it in tincture because I want the triterpene astragalosides to come out with the solvent. So it's one of those herbs. I use it in two forms, to get two different medicines that are complimentary to each other. Or sort of synergistic to each other.
Yeah. So I use a few other adaptogens. I use tulsi, which is a sort of second tier adaptogen, if you like. It's not one of the key ones with lots of studies over long stretch and looking at adrenal health. It's not really working in adrenals, but I do find tulsi helpful. I find gotu kola. Again, some people consider that an adaptogen because it gives you more lasting energy. It's actually the number one herb in my practice. Gotu kola is the herb I...
Tara Ruth:
Wow.
Chanchal Cabrera:
Use the most of, and prescribed the most frequently. Before I went into cancer care as a specialty, my number one most prescribed herb was blue vervain. And I used to laugh in my classroom. I'd say, "If you want to get the extra points, or the gold star, just put blue vervain in your formulas."
Tara Ruth:
Love that one.
Chanchal Cabrera:
There wasn't anyone who doesn't need it, but probably because of the flower essence is just written for me. So I think blue vervain is my herb. But now in the cancer practice, I do notice quite distinctively that gotu kola is my top herb. When I did my research in Donnie Yance's clinic 20 years ago, in his breast cancer patients, licorice and red clover were by far his top herbs. But back then we weren't really using gotu kola in clinic. Hardly at all. It was kind of a new herb on the block in the western materia medica. And now it's really caught up. And I find gotu kola, it's an anxiolytic. So right there is your relaxing nervine. But it's brain stimulant because it sends blood to the brain, so it wakes you up and keeps you alert if you've got chemo brain, post-surgical brain fog, that kind of stuff. But it also keeps you calm and not anxious. And then it is the great connective tissue tonic.
So gotu kola strengthens and builds connective tissue. What cancer grows in connective tissue, it grows through connective tissue. When it metastasizes, the cells are traveling across connective tissue, across basement membrane and endothelial lining of blood vessels, and that's connective tissues. So, if we can knit that up tight and give more structural integrity, then we can resist the spread and growth of cancer a little bit. And I use lots of connective tissue tonics for that reason. I use horsetail and plantain and oat straw. And MSM as a supplement. Trying to knit up connective tissue. Hyaluronic acid. Yeah, it's a whole strategy.
John Gallagher:
I was just amazed how, in the book, how simply you explained what happens in cancer. From the miscommunication between the outer cell to the nucleus, and then all the way to the point where the cell just can't stop growing. So I was wondering if you just explain that, simply, to people to understand that part of what's going on. Just maybe think of that when you're talking about the gotu kola and everything.
Chanchal Cabrera:
Well, it is really complex and there are a million moving parts. And even in that book, which I felt was quite dense, and there's so much I left out and so much more I've learned since I wrote it all, but you know.
John Gallagher:
But I appreciate how simply you've explained it though. I was like, "Oh, I see."
Chanchal Cabrera:
Yeah. Although they're super complex processes, they can still be explained in relatively plain English. And I will have to say that I had a little headstart on the book in a sense because I've been teaching this stuff for quite a long time. And although I've been teaching it at the practitioner level, advanced level, that book was born out of the nucleus of a six-day program that I've been teaching where I tried to take all those complex things and put it into plain English that anybody who isn't a practitioner would be able to follow along. And so I used a lot of that to flesh out that material to write the book. So it had a flow to it. And I spent a long time honing the simplicity in there, from the complexity of what I started with, the content of the research. If you're going to look at all the references at the back of the book, it's like, "Whoa, to take that." It's taken a long time, years and years to get it down into plain English. So thank you for noticing. I appreciate that.
Tara Ruth:
Hearing you offer all these different recommendations. And also hearing you break down just what cancer is in simple forms, I'm thinking about how holistic cancer care can be overwhelming sometimes for folks. There's like an endless amount of things that one can do to support their body during cancer treatment. And I'm curious, how do you recommend people balance incorporating these holistic practices into their treatment plan without getting burnt out from the care plan itself?
Chanchal Cabrera:
That's such a great question. Yeah, really, really good. First of all, I often ask, or recommend, that they appoint a support person. Or more than one. Who will come to appointments, who will help them source some of the products. Help them make the bone broths and get them in the freezer, and all those sorts of things. So having someone who's not just got your back emotionally, and, "Yes, yes, I appreciate you're having a hard time." But actually like, "Hey, I'm making your soups here and they're in the freezer for you." That kind of practical support. And helping you even interpret information from appointments. Sometimes you get so much information you don't know whether you're coming or going. So getting you to appointments, keeping track of things when you've got chemo brain, so very practical stuff.
I also recommend, for example, and actually, I think I have this in the book. If you're going into surgery or going into chemo, that you prep ahead by literally making all the broths and getting them in single serves in the freezer. And really prepping everything out, ready for yourself to go. Counting out all the pills ahead of time. It's really disheartening to sit in front of all those pill bottles every day and count them out. You want to get a pill box and count out a month's worth. And then it's just a lot easier each day. Making a check off chart that you've put on the fridge, where you check that you've taken your morning, noon and night. So trying to bring systems, I guess, making it a routine. Because it does seem overwhelming.
But what I also find very interesting is some patients are so overwhelmed they actually don't come back. And I feel really badly about that. I have other patients who have the most complicated protocols, and they absolutely do it all. And they just get on board, and that's what they're doing. And I can't predict who's going to be able to deliver, or perform like that. So I have to sort of assume everybody wants to do everything, put it all out there. And then work with them and negotiate what's realistic. "Can you do this? Okay, you're not going to do that. What could we compensate for somewhere else?" Those sorts of discussions are pretty common in clinic. It's rare that somebody does everything, but most people do most of it. And it's just about that old thing. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. So you sit down and you make a plan. And you try and bring somebody else in to help you.
John Gallagher:
Absolutely. Wow. So Chanchal, I'd like to say this quote that's from the introduction of your book where you say, "My goal here is not to convince you that holistic medicine and natural therapies can help treat cancer. If you didn't already know that they work, you wouldn't have picked this book up. My effort here is to help you understand how they work, why it matters. And most of all, how to use them safely and effectively." I really like that. Because it really just says it in a nutshell, your approach and what you're doing.
Chanchal Cabrera:
I don't think anybody anymore disputes that this stuff works. I mean, honestly, the research just out of the food world is so overwhelming that everybody knows that what you eat matters. Not withstanding the oncologist. I heard a report from a patient last week who was told, "All this food stuff is nonsense. It doesn't matter at all." But it's pretty rare to meet that these days. And I would just like to say that this book I've written about holistic cancer care actually has a much wider application. First of all, up to between 40% and 50% of us will have cancer. So it is relevant to everybody. But beyond that, there's a whole chapter on pain management. There's a whole chapter on surgery. These are not exclusive to cancer. So there's useful information in there, I hope, for other reasons aside from cancer. Even in the therapeutics part, there's discussion of the nutrients and some of the herbs beyond only cancer applications. So just to say, it's about cancer, but it is also a little bit broader than that as well I think.
Tara Ruth:
For practitioners who are maybe at a stage where they're more generally practicing right now, but are interested in specializing in holistic cancer care. Aside from reading your book and diving in that way, how else would you recommend practitioners specialize in this area? Or just get more of that training?
Chanchal Cabrera:
I am hosting a couple of events that people might want to know about. For anyone who's listening that is not a practitioner, but is interested either personally or for family health, etc. I am starting at the end of June, I'm going to be doing a seven part series on the Shift Network, seven weeks following the book. I'm exploring the concepts and having Q&A and discussion with students about sort of self-care and family healthcare with cancer. So that's on the Shift Network. And there is a landing page for that, and I can send links for that, so.
John Gallagher:
That's great.
Chanchal Cabrera:
And then further from there, in the summer months in end of July, I'm hosting an event at my farm. Which is a residential program as in where you'd have to come here, it's not online. And there's some camping. And there's bed and breakfast throughout, and what have you. And it's a five-day case studies review with David Winston. And David Winston is a very, very senior, very experienced, highly regarded herbalist who's going to come out and stay here. And we're going to have five days of case reviews. And the participants are practitioners and senior students, and they'll be bringing cases to discuss. Kind of round table, teaching each other, sharing of what's working in clinic. And challenges we're meeting in clinic. So that is more advanced, and some of those cases will be cancer cases.
And in the beginning of the new year, I'm going to run an advanced intensive on basically picking up the second half of the book. All the clinical practice stuff about cancer care and cytotoxics, and what have you. And that will go out online at the beginning of the year, January. So I will send you some links when that gets all set up.
Tara Ruth:
Well, Chanchal, thank you so much for joining us on Herb Mentor Radio. And for folks who want to learn more about you and your work, they can visit chanchalcabrera.com.
Chanchal Cabrera:
Thank you so very much for the opportunity. And I hope that was useful and informative.
John Gallagher:
Absolutely.
Chanchal Cabrera:
And I just wish that I didn't have to have written that book. That nobody needed it. But as it is, I hope that it is helpful to people.
John Gallagher:
It is absolutely helpful to people, and I just can't thank you enough for writing it. It's clarified so much for me as well. I've been thinking about this recently, because I had this long biopsy process. It turned out to be all good and negative, but it was pretty scary. And when I knew we were interviewing you, and picked up the book and looked through it. And I was wondering, and I was just so glad I had that resource. Also, just things that I can do to help keep myself healthy through any possible future stuff. Yeah. So anyway, thank you so much, and we're going to have you back.
Chanchal Cabrera:
Yeah. My pleasure, indeed. Thank you.
John Gallagher:
HerbMentor Radio and Herb Notes are 100% sustainably wildcrafted podcasts. Written, performed, and produced by Tara Ruth and me, John Gallagher. Sound engineering by Zach Frank. Visit herbmentorradio.com to subscribe on your favorite podcast app. And to find out how you can be part of HerbMentor, which is a website that you must see to believe. HerbMentor Radio is a production of learningherbs.com LLC. All rights reserved. Thank you very, very, very much for listening.
