Debunking Cancer Myths: Insights on Cures, Trials, and Treatments

Cancer is one of the most complex and misunderstood diseases, and misinformation can leave patients and families feeling overwhelmed. In this thought-provoking Sagely Health webinar, Dr. Jason Sager and Jeremy Sewell tackle three of the most persistent myths about cancer, offering clarity and actionable guidance for anyone navigating a cancer diagnosis.

This webinar is a must-watch for patients, caregivers, and anyone interested in understanding the latest advancements in oncology.

What We Cover

1. Is there a secret cure for cancer that pharmaceutical companies are hiding?
Explore the origins of this myth, why it persists, and what the science really says. Dr. Sager provides a behind-the-scenes look at how new cancer treatments are developed and approved, debunking misconceptions about the pharmaceutical industry.

2. Are Phase I clinical trials worth considering for patients?
Clinical trials have evolved dramatically in recent years, with many offering cutting-edge treatments targeting specific genetic mutations or proteins. Learn why Phase I trials can now be a critical option for patients looking to expand their treatment options.

3. Is cancer a metabolic disease—and can diet play a role in treatment?
While metabolic factors and diet are important in cancer care, they’re just one piece of the puzzle. Dr. Sager discusses the scientific evidence surrounding these approaches, their limitations, and why genetic and protein-based therapies are leading the way in cancer treatment.

Why Watch This Webinar?

This discussion dives deep into the science behind cancer treatments, dispelling myths and empowering patients with knowledge. Whether you’re exploring treatment options or supporting a loved one, this webinar provides actionable insights to guide you.

About Sagely Health

At Sagely Health, we’re committed to helping cancer patients and their families make informed, data-driven decisions. From identifying clinical trials to navigating advanced diagnostics, we uncover every possible avenue to ensure you receive the best care available.

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Full Transcript

AI Generated so excuse any mistakes. Check the video to confirm content.

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Jeremy (00:01.392)

Hello and welcome to another Sagely Health webinar. Thank you for joining us everyone today. I am joined as always with Dr. Jason Sager. Jason, how are you?

Jason Sager MD (00:11.096)

Hello, good to see you again, Jeremy and everyone.

Jeremy (00:14.288)

So as we get towards the end of the year, we want to do one final webinar. And what we wanted to do was we wanted to focus on cancer myths. Because there's certain, we meet a lot of patients in different kind of different points in their cancer, what's called journey. And they come to us with kind of some understandings and sometimes we help them with their understandings. And there are things out there that are helpful and there's things out there that might be a little harmful. So.

We looked at three myths and I'll bring those up and I just wanna kind of hear your take on them and kind of anything you think people should know. So the first myth is the biggest one. The myth is that there is a cure for cancer and this cure for cancer is not reaching cancer patients due to some, let's call it maligned incentives of the pharmaceutical industry.

So, you I can understand people really wishing there was a cure for cancer. So, Jason, you've been around this a long time. How would you respond to someone saying, I believe there is a secret cure for cancer that no one is giving out?

Jason Sager MD (01:18.692)

Yeah. So, a couple of things, Jeremy. First thing is when someone is diagnosed with cancer, it is chaotic, right? There is just no way around that. And this chaos, you know, it rips families apart. does lots of things and you're trying to keep that together and really get guidance that matters is so fundamentally important for people, for patients, for their families, caregivers, loved ones, doctors, everyone.

And I just want to recognize that because there is that opportunity then coupled with the fact that for high risk cancers, the system doesn't do so well. Well, I mean, it hurts so much for, and I would say I speak probably for every oncologist and say, like, we wish we could give a cure to everyone. We, I mean, that's why we went into doing this. And what I know is that having dedicated my life to helping cancer patients, but also developing new drugs.

for cancer patients in biotech and pharmaceutical companies, that the intention is completely aligned. And the really nice thing is that, you know, as a physician, I'm not a business person. I'm not there to count the beans or do anything at these pharma and biotechs. I'm there to tell them how to benefit the most greatest number of people, the fastest possible.

And that's what they want because actually that's what gets them success. So they're suffering the same issue, although not directly indirectly, they're suffering the same, the same issue that we just don't know. Science doesn't have a cure for all cancers and it hurts everyone. But the fact is that like, if they did, you know, there'd be, there's plenty of other diseases. There's Alzheimer's, there's lots of things going on. You know, there's often, I hear that this idea that, you know,

that because medicine is such a big business that no one wants to cure it because then it wouldn't be a big business. The fact is, again, medicine is even bigger than cancer. The reason it's such a big business is because so many people have cancer. And so many peoples of those cancers are high-risk cancers. And that's where really everyone wants to do well. Everyone wants to do better. What I know from operating Sagely Health, where we uncover

every stone that's out there. We've looked at, you know, scorpion venom in, in, you know, coming from Cuba. We've looked at lots of various things. There is no cure for cancer. If there were the system is designed to try to recognize that and get it moved through the system as quickly as possible towards an approval where it's safe, where we understand the, the, or at least how safe it is. So we could tell people what the side effects are, but also

bring them the benefits. And again, the system is designed to achieve that. so, you know, under no uncertain, there is no, and I wish there were a cure, but there is no secret cure that's hidden out there because someone is misaligned towards trying to get it approved.

Jeremy (04:34.286)

Yeah, I mean, having been around this for a little while now, the other thing that strikes me about this answer, this idea that there is a cure is that there is not one cancer either. Right. And so you have kind of a genetic caused cancer, but in every organ and there's kind of, there's so many different types of cancer, think like well into the hundreds. and then there's a lot more kind of details further in it. So what works for one type of cancer doesn't work for another type of cancer or what works for one particular person's tumor doesn't work for.

another person's tumor. it's not a monolith, right? And so we haven't found there isn't a monolith solution, you know, drug that works for everything. And I'm also I'm also struck by I was thinking a lot about why people have why are people kind of willing to believe things like this? And when they have so much data, you know, the other way.

And I was doing a little research on kind of when was cancer kind of first named cancer. And it was Hippocrates who first noted cancer and called it cancer, which was a kind of, think, the Greek word for crab, which is also, you know, and so the cancer, the astrological symbol, that was like 2,400 years ago.

And we've understood the genetic origins of cancer since about the 1980s into the 1990s. So if you were to think about the entire length of time we've known of cancer and gave it a name, and you spread that over just one day, our understanding of the genetic cause of cancer would be like the last minute of the day. I mean, it's literally like people, it's multi-generational understandings of cancer and kind of.

the newer thing. I think it's like without something else to kind of understand, I see why people would kind of say, I don't really understand this. It's been around for so long. I can't imagine we can't have kind of cure. Look at all the science we have. So I guess, I guess I kind of say is like, what, what is it that makes it so complicated? I guess because that might be what people are really underlying, like what makes treatment of cancer so complicated from your perspective.

Jason Sager MD (06:31.96)

Yeah. And it makes it complicated and yet it's also really the hope that exists for these new drugs that are coming down the pike. And so the complicating factor is back to what you said is that we now understand that the initial event of cancer is one that's driven by a genetic change that that DNA in every cell that programs and tells the cell what to do gets altered, mutated, amplified, deleted.

some translocated, some sort of change. And that really enables the cell to kind of forget what it's supposed to be doing and then just start to replicating and dividing without care for where they are. And that's sort of what cancer is. So in the sense that, you know, the hope and the real way that we've been succeeding over the last 10, 15, 20 years is by focusing in on those either genetic changes that are powering the tumor and there's some

new KRAS inhibitors coming down the pike, know, MET inhibitors, VEGF inhibitors, all of these are these complicated names for all of those genes that have alterations that we're using now either single or as combinations to try to get to the attack the cancer from multiple directions. But it all does start with understanding and you can't just look at where the location is in the breast, in the colon, you've got to look and use next gen sequencing.

to dig in and look at the actual makeup of that DNA. On top of that, we're also looking at proteins. And because proteins is actually the machinery of what makes the cell go, and we'll talk about this a little bit more, but understanding that those proteins and which ones are unique to the cancer and more on the cancer than the rest of the body is also where we've been seeing some phenomenal successes with things like antibody drug conjugates. And I know we have other webinars that cover a lot of these advances.

But that's really what gives me the hope that we're getting there is because when science and companies and patients focus on these aspects, they do better. It may not be cure quite yet, but they are definitively doing better by focusing on these aspects. And so that's how we guide cancer patients at Sagely Health. We help them to identify these things in conjunction with their oncologists. We order tests. This we have.

Jason Sager MD (08:56.804)

their oncologist's order test, get those results, help them to analyze it, and really figure out what treatments are out there utilizing those specific perspectives. And again, because there's so many, because it is complicated, there's 20,000 genes. There's a couple of hundred that are implicated in cancer, but even there, right, do we have the right drug to match up to what the change is? That's the most important thing that we can do to try to do better.

Jeremy (09:24.42)

Yeah, well said. I would point out to people, because I think we kind of forget how the timing of things. So tumor sequencing, meaning taking a bit of your tumor material and running a test to see which genes are driving the growth of your cancer, that test was approved by the FDA for the first time a decade ago now.

It was 2014, I believe, right? And so it's only been 10 years. mean, 10 years is 10 years, but at the same time in medicine and science can move slowly and adoption can move slowly. So it's something where you think about that that's been more widely available and not yet widely available, more widely available for less than 10 years. And so, and then in that time,

A lot of great things have happened. So we kind of, we did have this kind of very quiet watershed moment when, when we suddenly could understand what's driving one particular cancer patient's tumor. And then I think, and then you mentioned, could you talk a little bit about, you mentioned protein testing and we haven't talked a ton about that in our webinars, but could you kind of explain how genes relate to proteins, relate to treatments?

Jason Sager MD (10:28.386)

Yeah, yeah. So the genes are the program of the cell, what they do. The way that they do it, how they do it is through proteins. And the intermediary, so you go from DNA to messenger RNA, which gets a signal out to the factories in the cell's periphery, and they turn out the proteins. But at end of the day, it's the proteins that are doing the work. So either it's a growth factor protein,

that's telling the cell grow, grow, in cancer, or it's other proteins. And some of these proteins live on the cell surface. And if there's a lot of protein on the cell surface, for example, one called Anectin-4, another one called Trope-2, again, they don't have particularly meanings. These are just genes and they're protein products. But if they're out there, what we know is we can use a drug to attach there and deliver

a toxin to kill that cancer cell. Because most of your cells don't have a whole lot, it's relatively safer. But just to come back to in the biotech sphere, how things have changed over the last 10 years, a good drug used to be one that caused tumor shrinkage in about one out of every five patients, about 20%. Today, that number is somewhere in the 40 to 60 % range. It's pretty phenomenal.

And so again, by now, that's the bar that we're like, wow, we have a great drug if we can do this for those patients.

Jeremy (12:03.676)

What's a great segue into our second myth, which is that, and we hear this a lot, phase one trials are worthless to a patient. so a patient would come to us and say, you guys can help me find a clinical trial. Well, my doctor said I should avoid all phase one trials. And we're saying that is a myth. That is not true. And so could you explain, of extending what you were just saying before, kind of why is that a myth? Why is that not true today?

Jason Sager MD (12:29.656)

Yeah. And again, if you were to talk about the prior to the 10 years ago where we had the ability to now look to see which genes were awry, which proteins were awry, then the only real way is by saying, okay, well, you have colon cancer, you have breast cancer. We'll try this. We'll try that. Right. And in the sense of, you're getting into the neighborhood, but you haven't found the specific address that is where the, let's say the bad guy lives.

And so you're just kind of wandering around trying to do the best you can. So if a patient joined a phase one trial back in those days, again, 20 % was actually a great drug. Most drugs failed because they didn't have that match of, I even sent the patient to the wrong city, let along the right or dress. Right. But now, now we have the DNA code that we can uncode and we have the protein code that we can uncode.

and take a look at, which address is it? All right, let's see how close we can get to that address. Sometimes we can hit it right on the nail on the head. For example, in HER2, in breast cancer, it's a great history and lesson. In HER2, now in a HER2-ADC antibiotic conjugate, just nails that thing, and the results are phenomenal. And so what we're learning is that the more and more this can be done, earlier and earlier,

you bring benefit to patients. And so now, with the expectation being so high that it's gonna work with a capital W, and you're gonna nail that address, you can start to direct patients there right from the beginning, right? Sure, they're gonna go through standard of care, but some patients that made last years for some patients it's months, some patients it's weeks. But regardless, you've got clinical trials there afterwards, things that are being developed specifically for those addresses. And that's where we wanna.

get those patients and drive them right to the house with the bad guy and attack it right there. And when we can do that, it's more successful. And that's where the hope to me lies. And so just to bring back, he used to be that only a phase three study where you already have all of this information, but again, it's still small and small and you're comparing them. Now it's, you can even get a larger bang and impact efficacy.

Jason Sager MD (14:52.098)

right from the very beginning in your phase one trial. And so the things to look for is, is this a generic, what we call solid tumor trial where everyone's coming on? Or even if it is a solid tumor trial, are there indicators? Like we're looking for people with MSI high cancer, with BRCA deficiency, with HER2 amplification or HER2 low expression.

I mean, these are all these subtle hints that say, that's the address. And if you can match that with your own situation, and this is what we help cancer patients to do, you have a better chance of succeeding for the long term.

Jeremy (15:36.412)

So.Let me just go back for a second to kind look at like how this, how we kind of got here. So in the past, you, like you said, you would have a drug, a new agent that they've never tried in a human. So the first inhuman trial would always be a phase one. And sometimes they really wouldn't know how the human was going to react. And they didn't have a great theory behind why a drug would work as they would today. So that first phase is say, is it safe for humans? Meaning I'm going to give a human a little bit of it. And then they would kind of escalate the dose over the phase one and the

go with the phase one is to say yes this is safe for treatment and then the phase two would then kind of say let's compare that to okay so okay so so then you had those kind of distinct as you know first phase one is it safe phase two does it work and phase three is it work better than what we're currently using right

Jason Sager MD (16:14.852)

But no, no, does it work? Does it work? And then phase three is let's compare it to the standard.

Jeremy (16:31.676)

And so now, because we have so much more data, like all those things, like they're targeting a particular mutation, a particular protein, a particular kind of characteristic of your tumor, that because that's there, there's much more theory. And the FDA, as I understand it, is kind of interested in phase one to say, hey, do tell us how well it worked. And there is, would you say, I know this would be hard to say across everything, but is there an increase in kind of the...

efficacy in phase ones over the past few decades? No.

Jason Sager MD (17:01.764)

Absolutely, Especially again with these targeted agents like these ADCs. We're coming out of phase ones with 50 % efficacy, meaning the tumor shrinks in half of the patients significantly. And that then is expected to prolong their survival. And so yes, I mean, absolutely. And so now the phase one, now you'll see like a phase one slash two, it looks like a half, but it's actually one slash two.

That's because what they're able to do is compress. So they're asking the safety question, so very important. They're also asking the efficacy question so that after that phase one trial, they can go right to a comparison study. That's the goal of every cancer program today.

Jeremy (17:47.548)

So, okay, so that's good. I think we've explained kind of why phase ones are worth looking at. I mean, I think it also just underlies just clinical trials in general, that there used to be this kind of like, you'd feel like a guinea pig or that it was an experiment or that it was only to drive cancer research discovery. And now it's something where there's something much more symbiotic about it where a patient can say, I actually want to get benefit from this and that does seem like a good fit for me.

Jason Sager MD (18:16.322)

Unfortunately, the regulations take a lot of time to change and so they still make you sign paperwork that says, I may not get any benefit from this, but again, if you dig and you look at what they're targeting and that matches your situation, then you have a shot. The other thing is what to do with the doctor who says, know, phase ones aren't worth pursuing. We'll do that later. You know, again, you could try educating them. They can watch this webinar, but more likely what you can do is say,

that's fine doc, could I get a second opinion at a NCI accredited cancer center or at another NCI accredited cancer center? And here, this is where we guide patients and we identify trials at centers so that they're going to one that has something that's targeted for them. And then usually the answer is different. And so that's just a perspective. There's other institutions that generally do more trials and less trials or have an open mind towards phase one.

But in general, that's what I would recommend to patients that they do.

Jeremy (19:21.914)

Okay. Well, I will say that anyone wants to learn more about that, please reach out to us at Sagely Health. I do want to go to our final topic, our final cancer myth, which is that cancer is a metabolic disease. And I just want to give a little background to this because I think there's a lot of things that get tied up into this as far as like diets for cancer patients, diets to avoid cancer.

So there's a doctor out of Boston College. His name is Thomas Seyfried, and he published a book in 2012. think it was called The Cancer as a Metabolic Disease, and basically is saying that it's our diet, it's what we eat, it's something to do with how our mitochondria processes glucose, and it creates...

the genetic mutations that we see and that's why we're, but we're all wrong that we're, shouldn't be focusing on the genetics. And I would just say, I've heard him speak and he's, he's a very smart person, but he's, he's a little biopic in his focus on this. And you know, it's been a while, right? Like this is something where the way that progress seems to happen is in clinical trials. And so this is something definitely worth proving out if

if a certain diet works with that, but he's kind of making a bold claim, and I think maybe to draw attention, but saying that cancer is not a genetic disease, it's a metabolic disease, and we should treat it as such. So I'd just like to hear kind of your thoughts on it, because I know you're not, you're never kind of completely all on one side or the other. I think you always kind of have a balanced approach. So I don't think there's nothing here, but I'm just kind of curious of how do you kind of put this in perspective?

Jason Sager MD (20:58.516)

And again, the purpose here is to try to figure out a solution, a cure for cancer that we have no solution to today for a lot of patients with high-risk cancers. Now again, low-risk cancer, absolutely just take what the oncologist says and do that and expect that you're gonna get a cure, which is great. Stage one breast cancer, even stage two breast cancer, others that are localized, surgically amenable.

When it comes to these high risk or unsolvable, uncurable cancers in general, some people do come up with a cure, interested in getting more of those. The question is like sort of, well, what was it that did that? And again, we counsel a lot of patients. A lot of them talk to us about the metabolic approach, about the idea of starving the cancer, and then some of the other herbal.

concoctions that may help to boost the immune system or boost the anti-cancer effect. And the issue is that when it comes down to it, the question is, does it relate back to science? So that we can understand what we're doing and know, because again, there's different ways of doing these things, which patients would benefit from it the most. And here's where it's been difficult because there are certain signs that says that there are definitely metabolics

involved with cancer. Whether or not it starts it or not, I personally believe more in the DNA approach and the fact that these mutations and alterations accumulate usually over one lifetime. Although if you happen to be born with a BRCA mutation or deficiency in all of your cells, you're more likely to get cancer, other pro-cancer situations. There are infections that stimulate it with HPV, for example.

human papilloma virus with cervical cancer, but we know that that's all happening through DNA. And so at the end of the day, that's the best signal that we have right now as far how it starts. Doesn't matter though. Who cares how it starts? How are we going to cure it? Right? And what we do know is that metabolic definitely has a role. And we know this because there's a study, an imaging scan called a PET scan, Positon Emission

Jason Sager MD (23:24.1)

tomography, say that 10 times fast, that we know uses a little tiny bit of radioactive glucose. It's not unsafe. And we do it in lots of patients because the glucose will be utilized by the cancer more than the rest of the body, except for the brain. The brain uses more, releases as much, so you can't really look at brain tumors there. We get MRIs in those people. Everyone else...

If the tumor is of a certain origin, and again, some tumors do and some tumors don't, but a lot of tumors do, use glucose and we can see it uptake of the glucose and we know where the tumor is based on where it's getting uptaken. just had a patient who had a review this morning that we are reviewing those results. And so this works. So we know that cancer is using more glucose. The issue is that when we try to...

either deny the cancer that glucose that we haven't had found a way to do that specifically for the cancer and not for the rest of the body. So if someone goes on a starvation diet, the issue is that you're probably, you're probably slowing down the tumor, but you're also hurting the person. And the fact is that the tumor actually is able to suck in enough nutrition. Even if the person's not able to. And so who loses out at the end of the day, unfortunately, it tends to be the patient.

more than the cancer. Now, are there other areas where insulin growth factor receptor, yes, they tried that. Are there other explorations, vitamin C? There's lots and lots. And the fact is, some of our chemotherapies, like methotrexate, actually work through the metabolic approach. So there are definitely successes in that. It's just that the diet, either as a sole preventative, although obesity and being overweight,

seems to correlate with some increased risk of cancer. But certainly when you have cancer, the starvation approach hasn't alone been seen to do something dramatic where we're able to hit the cancer and not hurt the patient. so, know, versus some of these other therapies that are coming down designed to strike the genes or the proteins specifically, those have been pretty exciting. Look, I hope that we find many more.

approaches to cancer and I hope that we do find the metabolic secret to success. But at least from all of the work that we've done, I haven't seen it to date.

Jeremy (25:57.537)

Yeah, when if I know this has happened, so I just want to kind of hear you talk about if a patient comes to us and says, you know, I've heard about kind of the starvation diet or I found a protocol of someone online that I want to follow their their kind of diet. And I'd like that to be kind of something I do. What is your advice to them? How do they kind of like, you know, find this information and decide to act on it? What would you say to them in that situation?

Jason Sager MD (26:24.024)

Yeah, mean, fundamentally, I know that, you know, if we don't have an answer for someone, right, how to cure their cancer, then it's a little, it's, it's, it's, just a little unfair to say to that someone, well, don't do this. It's not like I have an answer for someone. So to me, the, the key is let's do sort of take the best of all worlds, right?

Let's take the best of what science has to offer and make sure that they're getting that. On top of that, if they decide that they want to do their own thing, whether that be a diet or a complimentary approach with herbals or vitamins, or go to get some aromatherapy and acupuncture, and by the way, some of these things help, that's fine, right? Just to recognize that those complimentary approaches shouldn't replace

the Western medicines or the style, the scientific approach. But at the same time, you know, I think we can be less, you know, black and white about the fact that, you know, if we have something that we know works, sure, don't do anything else other than what we know works because you can expect a cure. And the more things you put in there, maybe it'll mess it up. Right. But otherwise, I think there should be a high tolerance for patients to be able to make their own choices as much as they can in these things.

you know, there's some issues that, know, again, like if you're starving yourself, you lose a lot of weight. Weight loss is often a, a particularly bad indicator and something that when you're getting chemotherapy, you kind of need the weight to try to keep the, keep things going. And so it can run into some problems. I would just, you know, this is something to talk to the doctors, talk to us about, you know, we will make recommendations on a patient by patient basis, but we do try to.

acknowledge and permit as long as it's know, anything that the patient really wants to do because again, why not? It does help their, you know, their sense of well-being and peace of mind.

Jeremy (28:36.996)

All right, well, I think we can probably wrap it up there and make this a quick one. But yeah, just just to review. I mean, we looked at the kind of is there a cure for cancer the pharmaceutical companies aren't letting us know about?

No, it just wouldn't get anyone interest. Phase I trials in this day and age are worth looking at. And we've published some stuff on our website about that. So if anyone's interested, feel free to email and I can point you in the right direction on some information about phase I trials. And then finally, the metabolic cause of cancer, it doesn't really matter if we know that until we know it. And it's because if you have cancer and you need it treated,

Jason Sager MD (28:51.095)

Myth.

Jeremy (29:15.12)

you know, we're gonna hunt down the data for you. And I just kind of point out, I've seen kind of patients come to us with say, know, hey, I'm interested in this. And I think it's kind

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