Episode 310: Unconventional Cancer Care
This episode will share one doctor's unconventional cancer journey, and how his positive attitude, strategic diet variation, quality of life, and integrated protocols have shaped the outcome of his life. Dr. Al Danenberg was diagnosed with incurable bone marrow cancer shortly after retiring from his thriving periodontal practice. You will hear his amazing story about how he rejected conventional treatments and took his health into his own hands.
More about Dr. Al Danenberg:
Dr. Al Danenberg, a periodontist, was in private practice for 44 years. He incorporated ancestral nutrition & lifestyle with his leading-edge periodontal treatment for his patients. In September 2018, he retired from the practice of treating individual patients in an office setting. However, he continued consulting with patients by phone or Skype regarding nutrition, lifestyle, oral and overall health, and the importance of a healthy gut.
Dr. Danenberg received advanced training in evolutionary nutrition. In June 2014, he received his Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner (CFMP) designation as well as his certification as a Certified Primal Health Coach. In 2015, Dr. Danenberg was appointed to the faculty of the College of Integrative Medicine and created the college’s integrative periodontal teaching module. Then, in April 2017, he earned the designation of “ADAPT Trained Health Professional” from Kresser Institute, In July 2017, Elektra Press released Dr. Danenberg’s book, Crazy-Good Living, which is based on ancestral nutrition and lifestyle.
Show notes:
Dr. Danenberg's book, Crazy Good Living
Dr. Danenberg's articles about his Carnivore Diet:
https://drdanenberg.com/cancer-carnivore-diet-my-experiment/
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Transcript:
Dr. Pompa:
In these stories, we learn a lot of amazing lessons. This episode of Cell TV, you're going to hear an incredible story about a doctor on death's door, what he's learned that we all need to learn as well. I'll give you a little tip he learned a lot a differences between the Paleo diet and how that helped him, but how it may have actually led to some things that caused his diagnosis, which you'll hear about.
He learned a lot about ketones, and he learned, and so will you, a lot about the carnivore diet. what that is, eating all meat? It's not what you think, and there's a right way to do it. It all lead, really, to diet variation. Anyways, interesting show—we even get into the bacteria the oral microbiome and its effect on the gut, and the gut’s effect on it. He has some great advice there too.
Man, this is a show, I promise you, you're going to want to share. You're definitely going to want to stay tuned to this episode of Cell TV.
Ashley Smith:
Hello, everyone, welcome to Cellular Healing TV. I'm Ashley Smith. Today, we welcome Dr. Al Danenberg, who is a periodontist who spent 44 years of his career incorporating ancestral nutrition and lifestyle in his leading-edge practice. What makes his story so interesting, however, is what happened after he retired.
Dr. Al has a very unconventional cancer story, which he will share with you today. From his positive attitude to his integrated protocols, you will learn all about how he navigated his diagnosis of incurable bone marrow cancer and what his status is now. I know this story will leave you nothing short of inspired, so let's get started. Welcome Dr. Al and of course, Dr. Pompa, welcome.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Thank you, Ashley, that was really nice. I should have written it myself. That was perfect. I love it.
Dr. Pompa:
Dr. Al, thanks for joining us. You and I spoke some time ago, now. Dr. Gerry Curatola actually brought us together, and said, “You need to interview him.”
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Yes, he's a good guy.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, no, I appreciate that so much. There's so many reasons why you're on the show today, and so many reasons why I hope people share this episode with people. Number one, you have an amazing attitude despite the diagnosis that was given to you of death, we'll talk about that, in 2018. We have a lot of proof that that didn't happen, as fact that you're here today. We're going to talk about that. No, really, I mean, it's more than just the diagnosis when people hear your story. My gosh, most people would have given up, so there's a story of hope here.
Also, you're one that dug into the research. One of the topics that I want to dig into today, as well, is the carnivore diet. You've done Paleo for many years, the Paleo diet, seven years at least, but ancestral diets for some time. You recently went into ketosis. We'll talk about the difference on the show of Paleo diet and ketosis and what you felt is the difference. Then the big difference of the Carnivore diet, what it is, and why you feel it's one of the pieces of the puzzle for cancer. Yet people would argue perhaps the opposite.
Now, I can't wait to bring out this interview because there's a lot of controversy over these topics. That's why I threw it out right at the beginning. Listen, let’s that start with your story, Al. Let’s start with that 2018 diagnosis. That was the diagnosis, but after you tell that then I want you to—my next question’s going to be the obvious because I ask it on the show. What do you think led to that diagnosis? Tell the story first.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Sure, so the story is interesting only because I have felt amazingly healthy. I mean, I was what I would have called the 71-year-old poster boy for a primal diet lifestyle. I was exercising. I was obviously eating very well. Paleo, when I started seven years ago I was 35 pounds heavier than I was. By the age 71—actually, I had a stroke at the age of 59. Doctors told me I needed to be on seven medications for the rest of my life. That didn't make sense.
I tried to investigate other healthy areas of lifestyle. I just went to the wrong sources like the American Cancer Society. The traditional stuff that I thought could get me answers, they didn't give me answers. I was very moved by a course that I got it took at the Kabbalah Centre for Yoga and Health that was on nutrition for healthcare professionals. It was a five-day course, but it was on primal nutrition. I was around 66 years old when I did that course. I didn't realize anything about this topic.
I started Paleo at that time. Amazingly, it changed my life. I dropped the weight I got off all seven medications. I felt good. I had lots of energy. Again, I thought I was a poster boy for this at the age of 71. I was doing lectures around the country. I was actually at Paleo FX doing a seminar in April 2018.
Generally, I walk all the time. When I go to the airport, and I'm in Charleston South Carolina to get to Austin, Texas. Everywhere I have to go, I have to go through Atlanta. It's a big airport. Generally, I walk from concourse to concourse, unless my flights are really tight. I had this bag on my shoulder as I walked from concourse A, B, C, wherever it was. By the time I got to the plane, my shoulder was aching. I thought, I must have pulled a rotator cuff or whatever. Went to the lecture. Did my stuff. It was achy, but it wasn't fascinating.
Came home, got a little worse. Then April, May, June, July comes through. It never really healed completely. It went from my shoulder, to my back, and then to my chest. That didn't sound like a muscle pull. I went to see my physician, general physician. He said, “You got something going on.” Brilliant, right, I told him that. He took some blood work. He did basic blood work.
What's interesting is the only abnormal finding was an elevated c-reactive protein. Generally, my c-reactive protein was below .5. It was four to five. Some people say it's normal, but that to me is not normal at all. He did say he felt obviously there was some kind of systemic inflammation. It couldn't be determined if it was acute or chronic, couldn’t determine and where it was coming from. It's only a good biomarker for inflammation.
We did an MRI. When we did the MRI, he called me and he said, “Al,” and I've known him for 35 years. He said, “Al, do you want to come into the office? We'll discuss it, or I'll talk to you over the phone.” I said, “Just tell me what's on your mind.” He said, “Well, I'd be concerned if I were you. I think it's either lymphoma, leukemia, or possible myeloma.” I don't want any of these three doers. I didn't even know what multiple myeloma is. When I was in dental school, we had pictures of the skull that had a lot of holes in the skull. That was called multiple myeloma. I didn't know about this disease. Obviously, I'm concerned.
We did a CT scan. We called in an oncologist. We found a soft tissue mass on the side of my spine. We did a biopsy of that. It turns out that the diagnosis was IgA Kappa light chain multiple myeloma with innumerable lytic lesions. In other words, I had holes like Swiss cheese everywhere. Generally, in multiple myeloma, the diagnosis—there's a lot of different types of multiple myeloma, but one of the ways to diagnose the severity is how many lytic lesions you have. You have one, you have two, you have ten. The radiologist says it was innumerable. They couldn't even count as many.
The problem with that is that my skeleton is so fragile it can't support my weight, and because of that I had pathological fractures. When I went to my doctor, what I had was a vertebral fracture, I think it was T3 or something like that; a couple rib fractures; a small fracture in my pelvis. I'm walking around like this. My physician said, “Did you fall down the stairs? Did somebody beat you up?” I said, “No, I had no idea that I was in such trouble.”
From that point on, the oncologist told me that my cancer was not curable with conventional methods. He did say he wanted me to start a cocktail of chemotherapy and bisphosphonates. Being a conventional oncologist, this is what they do. I said, “That doesn't make sense to me. First you're telling me I can't be cured, so I'm going to die from this disease. Now you're telling me you're going to poison my body, destroy my immune system, destroy the quality of life that I have to do what? Get into remission, and be more miserable, and more degenerative? Then the next round of chemotherapy would be more caustic.”
This is interesting, I just found this out. The reason cancer patients, when they have chemotherapy infusions, have a port, this little thing that goes into a large vein, is because the chemicals are so caustic that if they go into a normal vein in your arm, and it leaks, you'll get necrosis on all of the surrounding tissue. You can't touch this liquid. It is acid. You're pouring this into your body, destroying all the DNA, the fast, reproducible DNA. Hair falls out, you're miserable, and then they're going to artificially rebuild my immune system. They haven't been able to do anything satisfactorily. They're going to do this artificially.
Long story short, I rejected all chemical therapy. I did some research. Found a few integrative physicians to help me with my protocol. The majority of the research I did, I went to PubMed, looked at all kinds of research that was being done and duplicated, not just being done by one guy, duplicated around the world. I started to pick and choose what made sense to me and put it together. Although they said I was going to have three to five, or three to six, months to live, my oncologist thought I'd be dead by December 2018, I was getting better.
The chemistries were stable. The holes of my bone never changed, but I felt great. The only thing that happened, which was pretty severe, is I’ve broken a lot of bones. I’ve broken my right femur in half. It had to be repaired. I broke my right humerus in half. It never was set correctly so I have this extra angle in my humerus. Looks like I have a huge bicep. I can really impress women with my right side, but not my left side. Then I had another fracture in my left femur, but not—it wasn't another fracture through and through, and another vertebral fracture, compression fracture.
Each time I had this it was terrible. I recovered well. I do have this great attitude, I think. I feel that my unconventional therapy has extremely dampened this disease to give me a level playing field without being in remission. I've never been in remission. I have this protocol that includes a very healthy diet, that recently I've changed. I'll talk about that.
The other thing is my gut microbiome is critical. I think I have an excellent control my gut. I enhance my immune system with some herbal extracts. I do pulse electromagnetic field therapy, which supports soft tissue healing and actually osteoporosis lesions in the bone. I have a product of that I use that's called, Salvestrol, that has the ability to react with a type of enzyme that is only produced, or in abundance is produced, in cancer cells that reacts with this enzyme to destroy the metabolites, destroy the cancer cells. I've just started some immunotherapy that is very specific for a protein on the surface of my malignant plasma cells that has been very effective for me. I'm doing well. This is a crazy journey.
Dr. Pompa:
We’ll talk about those things, obviously. Okay, so let's back up. One of the things that you said. Okay, you were doing the Paleo diet. You lost 30 pounds. Now, one of the things that I've learned over the years is when people lose a lot of weight, they also lose a lot of toxins when they lose the weight, which can create new problems. We'll talk about where you think this all started in a moment. Do you think that the dumping of the fat could have—and then, therefore, toxins, could have been part of how you ended up here. Not that wasn't a good thing.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Absolutely, I think toxic load is the problem. I think our bodies are very well-designed to deal with most toxins in the environment, even mercury, as long as it's not overloaded, as long as the whole system is working effectively. What we'll get to is what I thought my initiating factors were to really put me over the edge.
Then I'm living like you are with toxins in the air, glyphosate in the food, chemicals that you think are okay in foods like preservatives, and emulsifiers that are not, dirty electromagnetic fields that are damaging our microbiome and DNA. I mean, there's so many—stress. God, I understand stress really well. I don't cope with it well, but this is of who I am.
Stress is a big, undiscovered by the general public, irritant to our overall health. There's so many other factors. You're correct. Although I didn't lose the 35 pounds quickly, it was over a period of seven-ish years. It was slow. You're right. The toxins are going to pour into my body. It's whatever [00:15:54].
Dr. Pompa:
Where do you think you got the toxins from?
Dr. Al Danenberg:
The original?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
I think dental school was my initiator. Here's the reason why. Plasma cells are very susceptible to low-dose radiation, ionizing radiation. That is what a dental x-ray is. When I was in dental school, four years of dental school, two years of graduate periodontal training. There were in my clinic, the way it was set up, there were in little four little modules. Each module of dental student had their own x-ray machine.
We had 120 students. It was a big class. A lot of x-ray machines all over the place. I am sure that there were a lot of times the x-ray machines were on, angled in the wrong direction. I didn't do what I was supposed to do. You can't feel, or smell, or detect radiation when you walk by it. We didn't have tags. We didn't have any radiation badges. It just wasn't done in those days.
I think I was exposed. It takes one malignant cell to not die properly to become a very virulent malignancy if other things are in play. I think that's one of the reasons. The second reason is that we were taught—and I'll mention something else about that in a moment, but we were taught in those days to place amalgam restorations, which are mercury restorations, called silver restorations by laypeople.
These mercury restorations, we took free mercury and put it in a powder and mixed it up. Then we took this glob of material, put it in a squeeze cloth. Squeezed the cloth so the excess mercury balls got off of the amalgam. We literally tossed the little balls on the floor. Everybody was doing it. Everybody was doing—this is 1970, ‘72 timeframe.
The dental school was the most toxic facility all over the country because every dentist was doing that. The free mercury is vaporizing and everybody's getting into it. We played with mercury in our hands like kids play with Play-Doh.
Dr. Pompa:
I want to point out to people listening because they're going to be saying, “Well gosh, I mean, why aren't all these people sick?” The dental field right now is the sickest profession of all professions. We can line up and look at all the different diseases. To your point, you aren't the only one poisoned.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Correct, in my neighborhood in Charleston and the surrounding area, I know for dentists within the last three to four years that have died from glioblastoma. That is a huge number in a small community of dentists. There was a study that I used to research—I wrote a paper and why I think I developed this multiple myeloma.
There was a study that was done a few years ago that showed the cohort of dentists my age, in other words, the group of 65 to 75-year-old dentists now, were more risky and the prevalence of multiple myeloma was higher than the general male population of that group. There's got to be something to what I've just explained. I think it's either and/or the radiation from the x-ray machines, and/or the mercury poisoning that we got in different doses over a long period of time. Of course, we react differently, but this is how I react. I think that's the start.
Then unbeknownst to me, I went with my life. It wasn't a healthy lifestyle. That's why I had a stroke at the age of 59, I guess. The toxins in the environment were building up. I didn't know anything about it. When I went to dental school, no one teaches anything about nutrition other than what is vitamin B and what is vitamin A. That's the only thing that we learn. The medical profession is totally ignorant. I am going on my merry way, have a stroke, try to figure out what's going on.
No one has an answer until I go to this wonderful course at the Kabbalah Centre for Yoga and Health. That started my brain really working overtime to figure out where the knowledge is. Once I felt I learned, I was I was as nerdy as you can be. I was digging into the research, figuring out what's going on. I made a difference in myself, and I incorporated it in my practice, and put it to work with my patients and lifestyle changes. The people that actually accepted that got better.
Now, I'm a conventionally trained periodontist. I was in a conventional periodontal office. People were not walking in to see me because I was a nutritional periodontist, as I later became known. I would say maybe three to five percent of my patients even listened to what I said. Most people and are not that proactive unless they are in a state of a life-threatening situation. Sadly enough, they may become proactive. Sometimes, it's too late.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, no, and to your point, but let's move the conversation to what you've done. I mean, obviously detox is an important role here. Let's talk about what people really can do right now, and so much is focused on diet. This has been a passion of your study, obviously, even before the diagnosis. Let's start there because I opened it up with that.
Paleo diet was what you were accustomed to. That, I believe, is what you said. That alone, in some ways, kept you from dying right away. In some ways, the weight loss could have put toxins out into the body too, so an irony there. Tell us where you went from the Paleo diet. Tell us what worked, what didn't, what you learned. Let's start right there. Then we’ll get into the Carnivore diet.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
I think I learned a lot from the Paleo diet because I really removed the major offending foodstuffs that are contaminated in our society. The grains definitely went. The grains, not only metabolically, were a problem because what they did with the gut microbiome and the membrane of the gut. Also the fact that they were damaged with glyphosate because I was not understanding organic yet. Glyphosate was a huge factor, and still is a factor.
Dr. Pompa:
Let me just remind new viewers, glyphosate is the chemical that's in Roundup. If you watch TV, now, you see glyphosate causes right—it's a known cancer causer.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Right, and it's like they just figured it out, but the research goes decades before—yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
Now, people actually believe it because there's billions of dollars being awarded. Okay, so glyphosate’s that chemical that they're spraying on most of our food supply, which we know makes other toxins more toxic, allows things to cross into the brain, into the body, passing the blood-brain barrier and other barriers. Okay, so go ahead.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
It also destroys the microbiome in the soil so that the plants are not able to absorb the nutrients that the microbiomes would have actually created. The residue is there. It is not destroyed. It gets into our gut. It passes the placental barrier. It gets into the fetus. Babies are born with glyphosate factors that are significant. It's really a problem. The other thing is glyphosate is sprayed. There can be a farm that is organic ten miles down the road. If the wind is blowing the wrong way, that spray—it doesn't take comment that many parts per billion to contaminate. It's a very potent drug. It's used all the time.
That, as well as the other chemicals that are on the plants that are getting into the surface and getting into our bodies, all of that I eliminated as best as I could. Then of course, the sugars. The grains and the added sugars, not the sugars that are in the natural fruits, so to speak. There's nothing terribly wrong with eating blueberries, but there is something terribly wrong with eating blueberries with powdered sugar on it. The added sugars are the real problem.
The two of those were of my biggest factors that I eliminated. Then, of course, with the Paleo diet you're eliminating the legumes. You're eliminating some of the—all the processed vegetable oils. Sometimes, if you point an autoimmune route, you're eliminating the nightshades. There's a lot of irritants that are coming out of the diet that has met—or coming out of the food supply, to make that diet really effective for me.
That's what I believe worked really well. Plus the lifestyle change—so the lifestyle change had a lot to do with exercise, sleeping restoratively, exercising efficiently with high intensity interval training. I was really doing that as well as some aerobic training and weight—body weight training. I was into the entire routine and feeling great, never knowing that there was this little thing growing inside of me that was going to pop out in a very ugly way. Here I am.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, all right, so then you got the diagnosis. What did you change?
Dr. Al Danenberg:
I went very strict Paleo, meaning that I went on the autoimmune part of the Diet. I didn't cheat whatsoever. There's a thought process where you can eat a diet 85 to 95% of the time and cheat 5, 10, maybe 15% of the time and get pretty good results. I may have cheated a little bit when I was not sick, but once I got this diagnosis I was 100% right on and eliminated all the nightshades.
I thought I was doing really well with the diet part, and then I included supporting my microbiome in my gut with a variety of other products that I take on a daily basis. Then I did some more research. Actually, I listened to a podcast with Mark Sisson and Dr. Paul Saladino. Dr. Paul Saladino is a physician. He's very into the Carnivore diet. He just wrote a book that's coming out. I think he's told me that it might be out by the end of this month or beginning of February called The Carnivore Code, which I think is going to be amazing because he's really geeky with the science.
That's what I really want. I want proof of what is going on. That got me started with the concept. Then I was looking on the internet, which is the source of all great information. I was looking and seeing all these people talking about the Carnivore diet, and this, and that, and their stuff. They're eating bacon from conventional sources. There's a lot of junk meat that they're eating. They're just eating meat. They're not even understanding organs. They don't understand bone broth. They don't understand a lot of the nuances that make the Carnivore diet work.
Dr. Pompa:
Let's just be clear. The Paleo diet, it's Paleolithic in the sense that it's meats, there's no legumes, there's no grains, there's never fine sugar, no dairy. Okay, so there's that diet. Then Keto, which is based on healthier fats. It's not Paleo in the sense that there's some dairy, etcetera, available with Keto, but it's a higher fat diet.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Of course, reducing the carbohydrates to maybe less than 50 grams or something like that.
Dr. Pompa:
Right, exactly, it's restricting carbohydrates. Now there's carnivore, which is meat and fat. That's why when define meat fat, carnivore, meaning not any vegetables, zero folks.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Right, no plants.
Dr. Pompa:
Right, so I mean by conventional standards I think if you asked 100 doctors, 100 out of 100 would say, “That's bad for you.” The media, “That's bad for you.” Ninety-nine out of a hundred people would say, “That's bad for you. There's no vegetables and fruit.”
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Let me tell you where my research led me. Interestingly, it's loaded with plant nutrients, and here's how it happens. These wonderful animals eat plants. The cattle graze on grass. Sheep, and pigs, and all these animals are herbivores, or they're big herbivores, or big in the plant world.
They're eating all this stuff, and they have a system in their body to digest the toxins more efficiently than we do. All their nutrients, now we're talking pastured animals, not conventionally raised animals, cattle that are raised on grain. I'm talking about cattle that are pastured and raised on grass and other things like that.
Dr. Pompa:
Let me use one example, Al, if you don’t mind. For example, so many people are vitamin K2 deficient, which is how you absorb calcium, etcetera, because they don't eat grass-fed anything. That's where you get it is grass. A cow eats grass, which contains K1. They, not us, have the ability to take that and make it into K2, which humans need.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Very efficiently, yes.
Dr. Pompa:
Very efficiently, right, so therefore we get this. No, okay, that's one example. Obviously, we can get vitamin D very similar in those ways. That really, to some degree, even happens to minerals. They take a very non-ionized mineral and other nutrients. They eat it and arguably make it more absorbable for humans. Your point is is we're getting vegetables in the meat and the fact that we're eating, or at least what the vegetables would offer.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Yes, and in a more biologically available form, so less concentration is still much more efficiently effected in our body. It's not in the meat so much. The muscle meat is in the fat and the organ products. We're talking about heart, and liver, and kidney, and pancreas, and brain, and things that are not on the typical plate of the average American consumer, even the average healthy organic American consumer. The Carnivore diet will only work if you're getting all of these and eating them when you're hungry, not forcing feeding.
Dr. Pompa:
Which by the way is another point, though. People that move into the Carnivore diet, especially done properly, to your point, they lose their hunger. Meaning that they really don't eat and have a need to eat as much, definitely not as often, which I argue is one of the cellular changes that takes place that saves your life.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
It’s very positive, yes. It's very positive. It forces you into intermittent fasting because you're just not hungry. It's a more efficient way to, like you said, for longevity, for mitochondrial health, for a lot of things. There are ways to get these organ eats if you don't want to eat them by preparing them. You can get desiccated organ complex, a desiccated bone marrow.
As a matter of fact, there is a company called Enviromedica that just put these products on their website. Those products are actually from New Zealand. They're grass-fed cattle. I'm sure there are many other sources for desiccated organ products. I'm very impressed with that. That's something that I use as a supplement.
I do eat liver. I do eat skin from chicken wings. I eat sweet breads, which are either pancreas or thymus depending on what they're getting from cattle. I am eating organs but not a huge variety. I can get what I don't get in the real organ meats that I'm eating from these desiccated products. I think that's very important for me to have a functional Carnivore diet.
Dr. Pompa:
Actually, you can add some of those sources to the show notes here. I've actually interviewed some others on some of these products.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Oh, I'm sure there are many other companies. I’m just telling you—
Dr. Pompa:
They’re so good. They are so good to your point. Tell me, and tell our viewers and listeners, how you felt from the Paleo diet, to the Keto diet, to the Carnivore diet. Take us through because not many people have done it perfectly with all the diets. You have, you’ve done your homework. Talk about your experience with all three and the differences.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
My biggest problem was with the Paleo diet because I went with from a standard American diet. Anytime you start with the standard American diet, no matter what you're going to do, you're going to have problems for two to three weeks, end of story. Just deal with it. You're going to feel flu-like symptoms, achy joints, stomach aches, but cravings, crazy cravings.
I'll give you an example. There is a fast-food restaurant that makes chicken sandwiches. They make a chicken sandwich on a bagel. It is the most delicious sandwich I have ever had. When I was eating a standard American diet, I would have two or three of those sandwiches in one gulp. I didn't even realize I ate that much, but it was just delicious. When I started Paleo, that sandwich was not on my plate anymore. I craved those sandwiches. I could feel that my throat ached if I didn't eat a sandwich like that.
There are cravings that I had that were difficult, but I didn’t succumb to the craving. I had a lot of headaches. I had a lot of the aching that I told you about. The interesting thing is do that for two to three weeks and it almost ends as quickly as it started, and it goes away. I’d never had a craving like that. If I smell something that is good, I say, “That smells good,” but I don't have a desire to eat it.
The addiction to the carbohydrates, as you know, is more difficult to break than addiction to narcotics. There are tests that have been done on animal models that show that rats prefer the carbohydrates rather than the heroin. It's interesting, and it is a difficult thing to get over. Once I got over that, it was clear sailing. I had no problem. The first three weeks, I would say, was the most difficult. Then over time I perfected the way I would eat to the point where I got involved with intermittent fasting.
I currently do intermittent fasting. My last meal of the day is no later than—by the time I'm done, it’s no later than 7:30 or so in the evening. I generally don't eat until 12, 1, 2 o'clock when I'm hungry. Now that I've changed my diet, sometimes I'm just not that hungry at all. I'll eat maybe one or maybe two meals a day, and that's it. The amount of food that I'm eating is not much, but the density of the protein and fat that I'm eating on a Carnivore diet is very satiating.
Dr. Pompa:
I want to put something out. You were Paleo that many years, but you had mentioned in it, though, I was really never in ketosis.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
I didn't do it on a regular basis. When I checked my urine—like we mentioned, I never did blood ketone test. I just did the urine test. I never saw a change in the color of the strip. I was not doing that diet to become or go into a state of ketosis, and so I never really pursued it. I never really got into Ketogenic Diet because I really jumped right into the Carnivore diet, passing through that little phase.
Of course, I've been on the carnivore diet for so long. I think that's my eighth day now. I’ve got to tell you, I'm not an expert, but I can tell you I did get into ketosis as of yesterday, which is day seven. Day one through six, I was not in ketosis. Checked my urine constantly, and automatically it just jumped to the moderate to—not heavy, but between the moderate to heavy level of ketones on a urine strip. I know that I'm in ketosis. One of the things that I feel is a good energy level. With all the stuff that I'm doing, and dealing with my cancer, I think I have had good energy, but I feel better energy now.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, and I want to point out to people, in the beginning, the urine ketones will rise because you're making ketones. Eventually, your body starts getting very efficient with them, using them. You'll see the urine ketones drop. However, your blood ketones will be up. The Carnivore diet, you are going to force your body into seeing a lot of ketones, which are incredible for you. They reset your DNA. They help your microbiome. They help your brain. There's a lot of reasons that these ketones are healing.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Let me just mention, the reason that I jumped into Carnivore is really for cancer. Although I love the concept of the Carnivore diet because it eliminates, especially, the—
Dr. Pompa:
What did you find with that? Why is the Carnivore diet so good for cancer? What was your findings?
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Yeah, so this is pretty interesting. There's no long-term study here. There are no studies that are in the works that are clinical trials in a controlled environment. Anybody and everybody could say there's no proof. Okay, I agree with that. I'm measuring my life in months, not years. All the research I read says in 10 years we’re going to know that the Carnivore diet is good or bad for cancer. I'm going to be long dead in 10 years, probably. That's not my story.
I want everybody to understand, I am not suggesting anybody go on the Carnivore diet for cancer treatment or any treatment. I'm not recommending anybody even to attempt it. I'm just telling you what I'm doing and the reason I'm doing it. I'm excited about it. There are several studies that you can find that are peer-reviewed in that they were in peer-reviewed medical journals, but they're only case studies. There's no control groups. There's not a bunch of people being investigated.
Two individuals in two different studies, one had a malignancy of the soft palate. Sixty-year-old woman did not elect to do chemotherapy or radiation therapy for the same reasons, I guess, that I didn't. It would have killed her, theoretically, in two to five years. That was the prognosis. she went on a strict ketogenic diet, I mean a strict Carnivore diet that was regulated by her physician team, a team of people.
Within 20 months, or 20 months after the study ended, there was remission that they could see on the x-rays that they used to identify the tumor size. They felt that this woman was in remission, and the lesion was gone in the mouth. That was impressive. No proof that the carnivore diet is a diet for cancer, but it was impressive.
Then there was some gentleman who I think is 27 years old in Australia, who had, again, a very malignant brain tumor that was not responding to medication and chemotherapy. He was told that he was going to die in weeks. Went on a very strict Carnivore diet, so strict that he was eating a variety of organ meats raw. That's not necessarily my recommendation, but that's what he was doing, and literally cured. After five years, he is totally in remission.
There is a hospital in Australia that is doing research and clinical trials on his protocol right now. Is that proof positive? Of course not, there are more case studies than these two, of course. I just didn't write them up in my article. That started me on the journey to investigate it. When I listened to the podcast, like I told you, with Mark Sisson and Dr. Saladino, I just got more excited about it. Then went into the fact that the plants have these toxins, these anti nutrients, especially oxalates, that are a significant problem that most people don't even know about.
Dr. Pompa:
There's phytates, oxalates—I mean all of the plants produce them to protect themselves from insects and other things, yeah.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Right, that's their immune system. That works effects effectively because it destroys the gut and the microbiome of these animals, so that they get sick and die. They don't want to eat, or they are repelled not to eat these plants. These chemicals, sometimes they can be eliminated by cooking. A lot of times they may not be, but we don't know. The damage could be ongoing and cumulative over years not just all of a sudden.
The Carnivore diet eliminates them. If there was nothing other than the fact that it is an ideal elimination diet, that would be a fantastic diet. You could start with carnivore, and then reintroduce anything and everything that you want, and see how you’re doing. That's not the way I'm going. I'm going full carnivore to see how it affects the progression of my cancer.
Dr. Pompa:
I had studied the American Indians for a while. I was fascinated, some of which, because I lived here and became fascinated in Utah. Visited Wyoming where looking at the different tribes. In the winters, they would be on a Carnivore diet. The cherished meat was the organs, by the way. That was really with a the most of on their Carnivore diet.
It wasn't what people thought. The organ meat was the most cherished. That's what they really tried get from the animals and store up. Of course, the different fats were the cherished parts, not as much the muscle. When you look at other ancient tribes, one of which I visited in Africa, and also the tons of people, they would go through times where they were in a Carnivore diet.
Now in my book, Beyond Fasting, I make the argument for this, these times to reset our microbiome, to reset our DNA, to reset. There is a certain detox that happens during these times. I believe, personally, Al, and you may believe differently. Just periods of these times is all we need.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
I think it's absolutely correct. It's possibly tied into this hermetic effect where you throw a lot of stuff in one direction and then in another direction. It shocks your body.
Dr. Pompa:
That's it. I believe that’s the key. Diet variation shocks the body, and that's what forces the microbiome the change, which creates more diversity. I believe that one of the worst things people do is stay on the same diet. I believe adding in a Carnivore diet for some periods of time will change your world. I think in part—I was going to say, I think it answers the people out there going, “What about the Gerson Diet, and the all vegetables, and it helps? Diet change is magic in itself.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
What you just said is very vital for people to understand too. That is there is the standard American diet which is junk. It's created the chronic disease which is at 60% of US adults today. Over 70%, 60% of adults die from a chronic disease. It is terrible. I will tell you that periodontal disease is a chronic disease. The prevalence of chronic periodontal disease is amazing. Gingival inflammation, bleeding or redness in the gum is a disease.
There are studies that show that 93% of the adult US population has gingivitis. The other study that was done several years after that, one study, 2007 and the other, maybe 2014. I'm not sure of the dates. The big periodontal study, which is more infection and passing from gingivitis to periodontitis, meaning it's just not just bleeding of the gums, but it's damage to the bone structure of the jaw. That's at 47% for the average, and then if you're 65 years or older, it jumps to 70%.
These are epidemic proportions. These are chronic diseases related, actually, to the gut microbiome that changes the mouth. It's not the mouth that gets the gut infected. It's the gut that gets the mouth infected. Then it goes back and forth.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, I was just going to say because when people have cavitations, infected root canals, these things—then it can go the other way. This then affects—
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Not only the other way but everywhere. What I profess is that all chronic disease he starts in the gut like the center of a wheel, and then the spokes move out. Along the continuum of these diseases that are related to the compromised immune system from the gut dysbiosis, and the chronic systemic inflammation that's part of the gut dysbiosis, it travels the body. Every organ system could be affected based on their genetic predilection.
Periodontal disease is one of them. Once it's in the mouth, it's more obvious. You can't see the gut so well. A lot of the tests from the gut is not that—they're not that good. The mouth is very obvious, at least if it's a trained professional. Then they say you've got this gum disease. It's going to cause cardiovascular disease, which is true, but that's not the only reason.
If you only treat the mouth and not the gut, you'll still have cardiovascular disease. It may have less prevalence because you have a lot of infection in the mouth that's spreading through the body in three ways. It's going, like you said, cavitations, infections that are embedded in bone, from poorly extracted teeth, failing root canals. That's true. It can spread in one of three ways, three through the sheaths of the nerves, which I believe is related to the meridians. It can go through the lymph tissues, which a lot of people don't understand, but that gets into the blood system. Then it can certainly pour into the blood system directly, just like gut dysbiosis can get into the bloodstream directly.
Once that happens, it can go anywhere and everywhere also. The big problem in periodontal disease is one of the very virulent bacterium called P. gingivalis. It's not just the bacteria that causes periodontal disease. There's several bacterium, bacteria, but this has a biofilm that surrounds it that doesn't allow the immune system to penetrate. Then it becomes an autoimmune disease, which is interesting. The disease goes from gingivitis, which is just pure inflammation, to periodontitis where the infection is damaging the bone. Then it pours into the bloodstream. The remnants of the cell wall which is LPS. Yeah, so it gets into the bloodstream. It's highly—
Dr. Pompa:
What was that, the bacteria?
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Yeah, the bacterial wall of the—
Dr. Pompa:
No, the bacteria that you were saying. It's an anaerobe that you were saying.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Yeah, it’s called P. gingivalis. Porphyromonas gingivalis, and it is one of the most virulent of the [00:50:35].
Dr. Pompa:
It's horrible. It builds up these biofilms. We see it when we go into these cavitations and people have it. It has the ability to go systemic, get into the gut. I mean, these things into the bone, as you mentioned, and the nerves. How do you kill it?
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Here's the interesting thing. First of all, a lot of dentists want to kill the bacteria in the mouth. They'll use antimicrobial mouthwashes and preparations on a daily basis, which is extremely unhealthy because dental plaque, which is a biofilm, is one of the healthy biofilms in the body. You don't want to remove healthy dental plaque. That's going to be a stinger for a lot of people because they don't under—these are bacteria. You’ve got to kill them.
Dr. Pompa:
I’ve interviewed Jerry Curatola, who you know personally. [00:51:29].
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Certainly, and he agrees with me. You go to a dental office. The hygienist wants to clean your teeth. They want to put this vegetable dye on your teeth that will stain all dental plaque red. They'll want to scrub that dental plaque until there's no red. That's like walking outside with no clothes and saying, “I'm protected.” You're not protected. You have no clothes on.
The dental plaque will do three things. It actually is the gatekeeper for minerals to get into the root surface of the tooth. The saliva has all these minerals. It gets into the dental plaque. The dental plaque puts the minerals into the root surface to remineralize it as necessary. The dental plaque, in its healthy state, in its balanced state, which is maybe 700 or so bacteria, will produce hydrogen peroxide in a variety of compositions that kill other invading pathogenic bacteria. It's very protective.
This dental plaque will actually keep the area healthy. If the dental plaque is removed, or the bacteria in the dental plaque is destroyed, there is no protection to the root surface anymore. There's another interesting thing on the tongue. The tongue has a lot of anaerobic bacteria that causes much of the bad breath in the mouth. You can use a tongue scraper or an inverted spoon to get the excess bacteria off, and then that's not a problem.
When you use an antimicrobial mouth wash, you kill all of this anaerobic bacteria on the tongue. That anaerobic bacteria has a biological function that takes the—if you eat leafy green vegetables and other foods that have natural nitrates, it gets absorbed into the bloodstream. Sixty, seventy percent get into the saliva. The saliva then pours these nitrates, very biologically active nitrates, into the mouth. The anaerobic bacteria on the tongue changes the nitrates to nitrites. You swallow them. You don't think about it. You just swallow them.
The nitrates get into your gut, and the rest of your system, and it produces nitric oxide, which is critical for cardiovascular health, controlling blood pressure. There was a paper that was written just a couple years ago by several cardiologists. It was really for cardiologists. It said, “If you are putting your patient on blood-pressure medication, and you're not getting the results that you think you should get, make sure they're not using an antimicrobial mouthwash daily because it's destroying the cycle of the production of nitric oxide, which naturally reduces the blood pressure.
These dentists and physicians that are killing all the bacteria mouth with antimicrobials are destroying the bacteria in the tongue. They’re literally raising the blood pressure as well as putting the [00:54:38] more at risk.
Dr. Pompa:
The moral of the story is you don't kill these things.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Daily, now, if you have an acute situation, like anything, you have to understand what you're trying to do. Yes, you may need to kill everything to get this pathology under control. You also have to understand that you have to rebuild right away the bacteria. You have to be on healthy supplements to support the gut microbiome that will in turn restore the mouth microbiome. They have to be probiotics that resist the stomach acid. The primary probiotics that resist stomach acid are the spore-based probiotics.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, I’ve been talking about those on the show. Yeah, megaspore biotics, [00:55:31]. These are all the spore types of bacteria.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
They germinate in the gut. The other probiotics work only 50% of the time because the metabolites they make are effective, and they are not destroyed by the acid in the stomach. The acid in the stomach is critical. That's the first line of defense for microbes. If we didn't have a low pH in our guts, in our stomach, we'd be eating bacteria and viruses and all kinds of stuff that would really make us sick all the time. That's one of our major sources of stopping potential infections in our body.
Dr. Pompa:
Great stuff, Al, so appreciate it. Gosh, so much we could talk about. I can't believe it the time went that fast.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Oh my goodness, look at that.
Dr. Pompa:
I know, right? It’s remarkable.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
A person who knows how to interview somebody—time flies. What can I tell you? It's a great interview. Thank you.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, no, there's so much here, from the—obviously, dietary changes.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
There is. I think there's an important takeaway. That is what you're doing, and what people like you are doing everywhere. The reason that you're being successful is because the public is demanding it. You can't go to a physician's office or dental office and see that they are doing their thing to get educated. They're only starting to become functional because the lay public is getting educated. They're demanding a response, or they're going somewhere else.
Fifteen years ago, you would go to your physician or dentist. Whatever they said to do, you did, and they were gospel. Now, you go to the dentist or physician and say, “Did you read this?” If they poopoo the idea, you walk, and you go somewhere else. I think that's a great thing, and the word is getting out.
I do think that if we get to treating the gut properly, and eating a healthy diet, and it could be any one that you want, like you said, alternate and really stimulate and shock the system but only with healthy food, I think we can cure chronic disease. There are several functional people that are saying that and writing books about it. I totally agree. The problem is getting people to be proactive.
Dr. Pompa:
It's true. That's part of my last question. With that said, I think that with the gut being the key. I can tell you from a group of doctors that I train, we never fix a gut just by giving bacteria. We fix a gut with the strategies that you were talking about here, changing the diet, forcing adaptation.
These dietary shifts, as dramatic as the Carnivore diet may seem, it takes these dramatic shifts the nature used to make us do. When we do it, we force a change in that microbiome through basically adaptation, hormeses, and therefore the diet changes the ecosystem in the gut, the diet change, I should say. I think this is an under looked thing, I really do. I'm one of the lone wolves talking about this. I think it's very critical.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
It's getting out, and I think that's good. The other elements, stress reduction, sufficient exercise, all of these little things that we never take into consideration are the big things in our life. There's not one way to do it. Of course the average person wants a pill, take the pill and they're healthy. It doesn't work that way.
Dr. Pompa:
I think this this is a bigger deal than we think, forcing these big dietary changes like you've done and have been successful with, obviously.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
I think so. I think so.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, no doubt, last question, so rare—I mean, very few people watching or listening to this are in a place or will ever be in a place that you're in. You're at death's door. You're in that teeter. What would your advice to them be? In this state, you learn a lot. What would your advice to them be?
Dr. Al Danenberg:
If you were on the train tracks, and you heard a train coming towards you, would you get off the tracks? Most people wouldn't right away. They really want the train to be so close that they can see it, and smell the smoke, and then jump off the train tracks. That may not be the right method. You need to be proactive. What I would say is if you're in a standard America—eating a standard American diet, get rid of the toxic foods and get on a healthy diet.
If you have a practitioner that you can consult with, make sure that you know how to restore your gut. I would say well into the 80 to 90% of the population has dysbiosis, meaning an unbalanced unhealthy proportion of gut bacteria because of the foods that we're eating and every everything else in our lifestyle. We need to get that in place. I think those two items, that's not everything, but if you can get the diet right and get the gut right you will be well off to being proactive. You'll never know that you're preventing yourself from getting the disease I have because you'll never have it.
You’ll feel good, though. You have to deal with your peers, and the party, and the cakes, and cookies, and pizza, and beer, and all the stuff that you think is the way to have fun. That's not necessarily the way to have fun. You may be able to cheat it occasionally, but you really need to get a mindset into a healthy diet, healthy lifestyle, and a healthy gut. That's what I would say.
Dr. Pompa:
Yep, thank you Dr. Al.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Read your book, too, right?
Dr. Pompa:
That’s it.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
I have a book too. I had a book that was published in 2017 called Crazy Good Living. It's all part of what we're trying to get out there for people to understand.
Dr. Pompa:
Awesome, well we'll put a link to that.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Thanks.
Dr. Pompa:
We appreciate you coming on Cell TV. Dr. Al, you had a lot of great things, thank you.
Dr. Al Danenberg:
Thank you. Have a great night. I will see you soon.
Ashley Smith:
That's it for this week. I hope you enjoyed today's episode which was brought to you by Fastonic Molecular Hydrogen. Please check it out at getfastonic.com We'll be back next week and every Friday at 10 a.m. Eastern. We truly appreciate your support. You can always find us at cellularhealing.tv. Please remember to spread the love by liking, subscribing, giving an iTunes review, or sharing the show with anyone who may benefit from the information heard here. As always, thanks for listening.
