Cancer Isn’t the Enemy—Your Terrain Is | Dr. Elise Sulser ND
Jul 07, 2025
WELCOME TO EPISODE 249
Dr. Elise explains terrain therapy as a foundational approach: envision the body as a garden, and cancer as weeds thriving in poor soil. By excavating the terrain—balancing nutrients, reducing toxins, optimizing metabolism, and supporting detox pathways—she builds biological resilience and nurtures healthy cellular growth. We discuss trends she’s seeing in younger cancer clients and the detailed lab models she uses to assess angiogenesis, immune ratios, mitochondrial function, and inflammatory biomarkers. Elise also shares her personal journey caring for her mother through multiple cancer diagnoses, and how integrative modalities like fasting protocols, manual lymph drainage, meditation, and psychological insight work together with biology. Finally, we explore the role of mistletoe therapy in Germany and beyond, including how it may sensitize cells, reduce inflammation, and support long-term surveillance in an evidence-supported and cost-effective way.
Episode Highlights
[00:00] - How mistletoe therapy supports immunity, inflammation, and cancer care
[01:37] - Terrain coaching explained: treating the body like a garden, not a battlefield
[02:50] - How toxic exposures and nutrient gaps disrupt your internal terrain
[04:14] - Why stress, circadian rhythms, and environment matter more than genetics
[06:17] - What we can learn from rising cancer rates in pets and younger humans
[10:02] - Dr. Elise’s personal story: supporting her mother through seven diagnoses
[13:36] - The hidden influence of environmental toxins on today’s cancer epidemic
[15:03] - Key terrain lab markers: angiogenesis, mitochondrial function, immune ratios
[18:48] - Why tracking your labs monthly reveals patterns medicine often misses
[20:29] - The danger of DIY protocols without context or clinical oversight
[23:36] - After oncology: how terrain coaching fills the post-treatment gap
[24:02] - Building custom protocols: drainage, detox, breathwork, and more
[25:49] - The supplement trap: why quality and sourcing are everything
[29:18] - Individualized biohacking: when common supplements become counterproductive
[31:30] - Nature’s medicine chest: sunlight, grounding, fasting, and movement
[36:29] - The emotional terrain: somatic healing, journaling, psychedelics, and voice work
[40:35] - Where terrain meets tech: fasting, LDN, methylene blue, and more
[53:51] - Will mainstream hospitals ever embrace integrative oncology?
[57:00] - Why Germany uses mistletoe with 80% of cancer patients
[59:55] - Dr. Elise on being “beautifully broken”: trauma, time, and transformation
Links & Resources
Metabolic Terrain Institute – https://www.mtih.org/
Dr. Elise’s Website – https://www.drelisesulsernd.com/
Dr. Elise’s Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/dr.elisesulsernd/
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FULL EPISODE INTERVIEW
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Freddie Kimmel (00:00.822)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the beautifully broken podcast. are joined with Dr. Elise all the way from Colorado. Welcome to the show.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (00:08.686)
Thank you so much for having me, Freddie. It's a pleasure to be here.
Freddie Kimmel (00:12.098)
honor to make the connection both through phone yesterday, but also the podcast. I will tell the story. I've referred a bunch of people to you because of your work as a terrain coach, the metabolic terrain Institute, which we've had Dr. Nasha on. People are familiar with the word terrain, but selfishly I want to have you on. And I wanted to talk about
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (00:20.964)
for coming.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (00:34.137)
Mm-hmm.
Freddie Kimmel (00:38.316)
What does a terrain coach do? Specifically, this metabolic terrain institute. Like, what does that mean to somebody?
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (00:45.406)
Yeah, yeah, this is a great question because I think it's not something that's talked about in the conventional cancer world at all. And so the metaphor that I really love to use with patients at the beginning is thinking about the body as a garden and cancer cells or tumors as the weeds. You they pop up, you know, left and white. And even if you cut the cancer cells off, pour chemo on it, radiate the tissues, the terrain, the soil is still the same. It's still gonna generate the same things that it did before unless something changes.
And so we do with terrain work is going in and kind of excavating the soil and saying, okay, what are the genetics showing us? What nutrients are missing? What exposures or environmental toxicities are going on that are generating more weeds than flowers, so to speak. And so it's coming from a completely different direction saying like, what is the environment and the condition to make healthy cells grow versus feeding cancer cells, essentially.
Freddie Kimmel (01:40.51)
explanation and it makes so much sense to me and it's not necessarily something you know we're taught from little kids it's like disease pops up as an unfortunate event
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (01:44.396)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (01:53.272)
Right, right, because germ theory, you know, you're exposed to a germ, you get sick. And there's no thought given to, how is your immune system? How is your stress levels? What are your circadian rhythms doing? All of those factors.
Freddie Kimmel (02:07.414)
Yeah. Yeah. And it's both true. They're both valid, right? There's, there's times when yes, germs do absolutely infect, impact large percentages of the population. but I'd say for context for the audience, the way in which that infection is expressed is very different from somebody who sits for eight hours, lives on diet Coke and Subway verse.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (02:11.49)
Thank
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (02:34.682)
way.
Freddie Kimmel (02:35.116)
somebody who's very fit, active, has an understanding of a sleep hygiene protocol, all those things that we'd love to talk about on the show.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (02:41.484)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's all about resiliency. How is our body actually responding and are we equipping our bodies in a way that they're able to respond to things that are thrown their way? Because to be honest, all of us have cancer cells floating around, you know?
Probably anyone over the age of 17 probably has a few cancer cells floating around. And it's a matter of whether your body is actually kind of a fertile soil for them to land and spread and grow and kind of how resilient all of the pieces are working together. So immune system function, hormone function, all of those beautiful parts that normally work together incredibly well. It's actually amazing that more of us don't have cancer, you know, with how many times cells replicate over a lifetime. But yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (03:22.838)
Yeah. And cancer exists not just in people, but also in animals, in the wild, right? This is, know, now we could talk about cancer rates and the percentages of occurrence and how that's changed over time, specifically since the industrial revolution. But have you studied animal models and cancer and how that's different?
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (03:23.93)
and good chance.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (03:51.06)
So yes, somewhat. mean, they're not necessarily in the lab, but you can look at overall trends. And it's a little different in humans because we're a much larger bodied species and we have a much longer lifespan than a lot of like the urine mouse models or smaller mouse models. You there's only so many replications that a lifespan of, you know, a year long lifespan has versus when we're getting into like our 60s, 70s, 90s. And then there's just kind of a matter of chance almost of like the number of times that a cell and
DNA mutates and divides, you're going to get a little bit more room for error on every single division. And so that's one element is like we're a larger bodied species that lives much longer than we used to. And then you add in things like the industrial revolution and glyphosates and stress and kind of unnatural environments. And we start to see those rates go up and up and up.
It is more rare in animals in the wild to see cancer rates that we see in humans. You know, they're projecting in our lifetime, like one in three to one in two people getting a diagnosis at some point. And so it's a little bit of an unfair playing field to completely compare to just like all the wild animals out there. And I don't have exact numbers off the top of my head, but it is more rare in the wild. But then you look at our domesticated animals.
Freddie Kimmel (05:06.542)
Sure.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (05:11.97)
our cats and our dogs, we see cancer rates that are matching humans. And they're getting diabetes and human diseases that aren't necessarily found in the wild. So that's the part that I find a fascinating correlation there.
Freddie Kimmel (05:25.792)
Yeah, I always just like to look at those things and just confirm my bias because you know, we can romanticize. We can romanticize, know, ancient man didn't deal with any of these things. And I think they dealt with a much more severe scope of issues. Like, you are probably not valuable to society once you broke an ankle. know, you'd probably die.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (05:30.157)
Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (05:41.73)
Absolutely.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (05:47.694)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I heard a quote once from an old school chiropractor. He was like, yeah, your body is not designed to keep you pain free for, you know, 70 years. It's just designed to keep you alive enough to procreate. And then after that, you know, it doesn't matter as much to evolution. And so we're kind of at this, this cusp of facing a lot of change as a whole species. But I'd be curious to see what have you seen in the cancer animal, you know, world.
Freddie Kimmel (05:59.308)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (06:04.099)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (06:08.728)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (06:14.57)
I would just mirror the same thing that from some of the holistic centers that care for and love animals, just the same you and I would do a human being, that there's lots of poor education around what is healthy food for an animal. Specifically, I was just talking to a guest a couple months ago about
the just the salivary glands and the enzymes that exist in a dog's mouth really are not ideal for breaking down Carbohydrates, you know, I started to say we give our dog really healthy food and there's vegetables and she was like pause there So she she just you know, she was saying look There's some things that are just we've passed on and we do and so as a result of that Obviously they get the food supply that we do in a controlled environment that is not clean, know specifically
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (06:53.978)
Wow.
Freddie Kimmel (07:10.978)
you know, in factory farms. So she goes, you know, it all depends, but yeah, she was, and we were also talking about, there's a great book out there. It's called, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. And, you know, the idea of like, the only species, human beings, to worry ourselves into a malady. And pets are so
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (07:24.908)
Mm-hmm, I've heard of this bug. Mm-hmm.
Freddie Kimmel (07:40.298)
intertwined with us and they pick up on our energy and I don't know about you but I've seen anxious owners with anxious dogs.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (07:43.866)
I know some people, absolutely, absolutely, they're so sensitive. Their nervous systems are mirroring us, which is why they make such great support animals. And also I think it affects them too. You know, they're in this right alongside of us. Absolutely.
Freddie Kimmel (08:00.27)
Yeah, it's pretty wild. Why cancer terrain? What has driven you to want to work in this sandbox, this milieu of cancer, which is very complicated and can be very heavy.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (08:13.836)
Absolutely. I mean, it's been a bit of a long and personal journey, you know, in my own life. Not that I've had cancer, but I grew up with it very near and dear in my life. My mom was first diagnosed when I was about 12 with multiple myeloma, which is a cancer of the bone marrow. And we from there went on a very long, decades long journey where she's been diagnosed with seven different cancers.
Freddie Kimmel (08:37.358)
Mmm.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (08:37.858)
And growing up, you know, I'd always been interested in nutrition and mentioning the pets. designed one of my dog's diets when I was a kid because he had candida between his paws. But I hadn't necessarily been introduced to diet as a link with cancer until I was, you know, much, much later. So as an athlete in undergrad, and then I decided to go to naturopathic med school. But even then, even though I knew the importance of nutrition, I was kind of shying away from the cancer world because it felt a little too close to home.
I would leave lectures because it felt so overly clinical and a little bit more like, wow, this is almost re-traumatizing in a way to see the statistics and the numbers. And my mom's still with us. She's a miracle, walking miracle woman. But I started to see when she was at Mayo, they would give her the corn syrup shakes and just ensure it's to keep weight on her, but they weren't actually feeding her cells. And then I was introduced to Dr. Winter's work and it was like the sun came up.
and it couldn't put it back down where it connected all the dots for me between the environmental piece, my love for nature, my love for people, seeing how, you know, if you don't change the conditions, the cancer will keep coming back. And I think that's something we see in a lot of people who've gone through conventional care and we need conventional care sometimes. Like I'm the first one to say like it saved my mom's life. It's the reason she's still here with me today. And we are always doing the work to kind of clean up her terrain now to give her the best possible chance.
to prevent a reoccurrence. And so it kind of weaved together all the threads of my own personal journey of caring very, very deeply and also seeing like, okay, this is all connected. We can't separate this from health on a very, very simple and a very beautiful level. And I just love thinking about the cancer terrain because it's so complex and endless learning for me.
Freddie Kimmel (10:33.26)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's really, man, it's you, you could, you could, I could go down a rabbit hole. I wonder, is your mom someone, because there's always a unique dynamic with family members and, you know, having an area of expertise. Sometimes that's like a touchy area. Does your mom allow you to support her and guide her and help her with her terrain?
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (11:00.244)
Yes, not to the extent that I probably would be involved with one of my my full time clients and patients, but she is she is always learning alongside me and open. So it's a work in progress, definitely. But part of it is just living my own life and saying, hey, this is what I do in my home to kind of clean up, you know, the terrain of my home and what I don't allow in my home and how I'm eating. Can I cook you a meal? And so a lot of it for us is has
Freddie Kimmel (11:14.316)
Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (11:28.204)
highlighted a lot of relational pieces there where it can just be like, can it just be more love, you know, between us and like how we nourish each other? Because yes, you're right, that can be very tender. And we've hit a few little nerves there where it's like, you're not doing, you know, what I know to be true. And we have to maintain like the daughter-mother relationship first. And often, you know, they say, don't try to treat your family members. So she's not in state of cancer anymore. So thank gosh, we don't have to, you know.
Freddie Kimmel (11:34.872)
Yeah. Beautiful.
Freddie Kimmel (11:48.418)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (11:52.076)
Yes. Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (11:57.262)
be in the deep end at this very moment in time.
Freddie Kimmel (12:00.28)
Beautiful, beautiful. And.
You refer out, you said. Yeah, I think that's probably healthy. When you look at the field as the time you've been in and again, working as a terrain coach, have you seen anything change as far as cancer rates, who you're seeing, the type of client you're seeing?
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (12:05.482)
Yeah, probably refer out.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (12:26.134)
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things you and I were talking about yesterday is age. Just the young people who are showing up in my office, I have young women who are in their late 20s who have diagnoses of cancer, early 30s, GI cancers and breast cancers. And it just is, it astounds me because these cancers we used to be seeing in people who are 50s, 60s, and that's kind of normal, not normal, not to say that any cancer is normal, but
That's almost what we would more expect as a demographic. But I think when it's actual environmental diseases or hormonal detoxification pathway type cancers that are showing up in my office at a very, very young age, my wheels really start to start spinning as far as environmental toxins and how do we reverse the train a little bit and move the engine in the opposite direction. Because the risk of recurrence with somebody who's so young.
you know, over the next couple of decades, we almost have to double down on our work to prevent that. So have one young lady who has lymphoma and she's in her, I think she's 31, but she was in the military. And so it was like, we have to do a toxicant panel on you because we don't know what you were exposed to in your time serving. And so we're waiting on those results right now. I'm really excited to see what we find, but oftentimes I do go looking and I will find things, you know, on the terrain labs. And then we get to work.
Freddie Kimmel (13:30.604)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (13:48.333)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (13:54.934)
Yeah. And so what are, can we talk about what some of those terrain labs could look like? What are some snapshots of the body and the terrain and metabolic function that you like to look at?
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (13:55.066)
So.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (14:06.426)
Totally. So I mean, right off the top of my head, we talk about angiogenesis. So new blood vessel formation. And so this goes on a couple of different levels with, know, cancer, cancer likes to change its own terrain. And it kind of creates this cool little encapsulation if we're talking about tumors rather than systemic cancers. And it creates its own little environment where it's like, ooh, I need some nutrients and I need all the sugar I can get. But it kind of blocks itself off from
the normal vasculature of the system that's flowing. So it creates its own vasculature. And so we can start to see both markers for angiogenesis as well as potential metastatic markers. So fibrinogen, for example, where the blood gets thicker in a certain areas. Well, it's thicker in the whole body, but it's causing this hypoxia formation. But also the stickiness of the blood creates a scaffolding where cancer cells can start to move around the building.
And so when we can start to address certain things like that or immune system function. So I always look at the neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio. And so we want this to be about a one to one to two to one ratio, which is much tighter ranges than like a typical abnormal on blood work. But what this shows me is that sometimes if somebody's been over treated with chemotherapy or if their immune system isn't functioning and it's, or it's been kind of depleted in a really severe way.
Their immune system has stopped its normal surveillance. And so we can see this bone marrow suppression, which triggers the potential for future cancers down the line. So we want to start to wake back up and rebalance that immune system. So that starts to do its job. Other elements to the terrain, big, big, big one is metabolic health. This is one that's kind of, I harp on day and night and.
know, cancer cells do change their metabolic function. And this is, you know, it turns off the mitochondrial function. And you've heard this over and over and over, Freddie, I'm sure. But they've lost the ability to use ketones as fuel. They can only use glycolysis, which is like the quick breakdown of sugars as fuel. And so we talk about the hybrid engine of cells and our normal cells can switch back and forth between both types of metabolism.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (16:24.378)
But cancer cells have lost that ability. And so when we put them in a more restricted environment with like fasting and ketones and more ketogenic diets, they start to hit a wall. And especially when you combine that with therapies like chemo or radiation, they uptake that at a faster rate. And, you know, people have much, much, much better outcomes when it comes to conventional care.
Freddie Kimmel (16:46.616)
Hmm.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (16:48.356)
So there's just a few little drops in the bucket that we can start to see on labs. There are these areas that we can fine tune. There's many, many, many more. There's microbiome, inflammatory markers, things like that that we start to peel back the layers and look at very individually for each person. Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (16:52.888)
Yep.
Freddie Kimmel (17:06.806)
Yeah. Do you, when you work with someone, do you have an essentials or a non-negotiable list that you like to have to get a complete picture?
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (17:18.25)
Yeah, I do. can't list the whole list right now because it's three pages long. But yeah, for basic blood work, basic. Some people come to me with their, they're like, I had lab work done by my oncologist. And it's like just to see if CBC and CMP. And I'm like, well, that's cute. But you know, let's run the full panel here. So yeah, for most of the people that I work with, we run a pretty comprehensive onboarding panel right at the beginning as like a baseline.
Freddie Kimmel (17:21.613)
No, that's okay.
Freddie Kimmel (17:35.917)
Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (17:46.722)
And then from there, every month we rerun and you start to build this cool graph where we can actually see trends like, Ooh, we did this and that lab marker dropped or you, you know, we pushed a little too hard and this oxidative marker is coming up. You know, we might need to back off the vitamin C therapies, know, things like that. And so people really start to get an idea of like, okay, when I eat this way, we can see my inflammatory markers coming down. And so I find it's really helpful for people.
Freddie Kimmel (18:05.57)
Hmm.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (18:16.078)
to put the pieces together. And then even when somebody's in quote unquote remission, you still want to run some of these markers on a regular basis so we can start to see if things start to kind of drift in the wrong direction, which is pretty cool. Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (18:16.174)
Hmm.
Freddie Kimmel (18:29.1)
Yeah. Yeah, it's really, I hope everybody that hears this podcast can just pause here and I hope everybody can feel like there is such a difference between. There's a really hard, because I want, you know, this term do your own research. It's like good luck, you know, good luck finding. Now, when I started this in 2006, it was a totally different space.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (18:37.082)
Hmm.
Freddie Kimmel (18:57.1)
I did, there wasn't so, you know, we hadn't really gotten into this influential model of people giving out information online. And there's just so many opinions out there today. I really, I really want people to hear like the value of working with someone with a health matrix, a functional matrix in which you're pulling statistical data, you're creating a framework and it's, you can visualize how the patient is or is not moving forward.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (19:25.572)
Absolutely.
Freddie Kimmel (19:25.954)
This is, it's so different than, you know, a wing and a prayer. And, you know, again, the, if you're talking to a clinic or saying, you know, we're going to do a two week detox for you and it's 20, 30, $40,000. just, I hope everybody can just pause and maybe we can talk a little bit about, know, these timelines. Like this isn't a week or a year. This is like,
the long, this is the life game. We're going to do this for life. And when we have these, uh, we can use the person without giving a name or a context, but the person you're working with in the military, it's very likely. Um, you know, I have a friend who was near up, he, his assignment was being near burn piles. And so he's on a list of like, they call him every six months. Do you have cancer yet? Great. Do you have this cancer? Do you have this symptom?
Have your lungs done this yet? Nope. And then they hang up the phone. They're just checking in and they're saying, this dude is very likely to have one of these things expressed. Now he's obviously, he's doing a lot of stuff to, manage his metabolic health as well as he can. But this is the context that it really does take. It takes time. And if, if the military is calling every six months waiting for these things happen, I promise you.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (20:22.766)
That is wild. Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (20:49.42)
They know something about their, there's a knowledge about the terrain, right? That, that this, this stuff matters. So it's, it's the scope, it's the timeline. It's like, you know, you're, you're doing it with a terrain coach because you have a workable framework.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (20:53.73)
Absolutely, absolutely.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (21:04.822)
Yeah, and this is where I've been so grateful for, you know, both my medical training, but also the additional kind of pieces afterwards and more of like the biohacking world and the conferences and everything that's kind of cutting edge because med school tends to be a little bit behind. But when you can marry and blend those worlds together and then put it in a, like you said, the matrix, like a framework that's going to hold somebody through.
Freddie Kimmel (21:18.766)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (21:26.382)
the six months after a diagnosis, the year after, the five years after, the 10 years after, or for someone like this person in the military, even before a diagnosis, can we do all the things to not even get there? But having an understanding of like, is, understanding like the momentum of cancer or the momentum of where the cells are going in the body. And they really do think we have a lot more information and autonomy and empowerment than we would.
be given to think, rather than just like a wait and watch approach. Or like so many patients are kind of, oh, you're in remission. And their oncologist is like, OK, we'll see you in a year for your checkup. And they're just kind of tossed out into the abyss. Like, cool, you're cancer free. Now what? And they're not oftentimes given like an aftercare plan. Like, now what? A post-treatment plan. How do we actually rebuild your body from the damage that was done?
Freddie Kimmel (21:57.165)
Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (22:18.262)
And I think that's a conversation that's not often had in the mainstream cancer world. The longevity people get it. They're talking about prevention and telomere length and all of that stuff on a day-to-day basis. But once you're already at that turning point, having a very concrete plan moving forward can be a game changer for a lot of people.
Freddie Kimmel (22:42.38)
Yeah. Yeah. And it's,
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (22:45.338)
There's so many layers. I mean, you can go look on Reddit and find things, but unless you've been kind of putting together the strategy and the pieces for years, it can be so overwhelming. And so I like to say, I'll do the strategy, bring me your questions, and then I'll create the game plan for you. And being open to all things, not shutting anything down. You want a very open-minded team on your side. Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (23:01.73)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (23:08.426)
Yeah. Yeah. It's, what I love doing. I love, the most, I'm the most happiest on a on stage. I'm speaking to people and then be working in a fashion of not prescribing or I'm not treating. am, I'm truly acting as a, say wellness concierge because I am unlike you. I'm not a medical doctor, but I will listen and I will, with, with, unbiased discernment, you know, I, I pretty good at, at least I pointing connecting with people.
like you. like, listen, hear everything you're saying is good. The missing piece is like this framework or the framework's really good. What I think you could really benefit from is it sounds like you're really struggling with cellular voltage or lymphatic drainage, or it sounds like you're really struggling with, you know, some, some type of a thing to rejuvenate the body after this trauma. Maybe that's, maybe that's a hyperbaric chamber, right? So then we can get into the nuance and again,
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (24:00.334)
Absolutely.
Freddie Kimmel (24:05.762)
be able to pull some of the marketing out and give people an actionable plan. But I really appreciate that. And it's just more and more, for me, it's become more difficult to get information offline. mean, even, let me give you one other example, which I'm sure you could probably join with me. I just wrote this article yesterday, because people were asking me about a B vitamin supplement. was saying, here it is from Thorne and do this. And my partner said, I noticed you're out of this one product from Cellcore. And she's like, I got it for you. I was like,
Where'd get it? She's like Amazon. was like Cool, and so I get this bottle showing up and I open it and it's like the label is clearly photocopied I open it up. The pills are red They're supposed to be like this smoky brown with like a humic and full of acid I was like babe. This is not she was like, how do you know? I was like, no, no, I know the pill I know the smell I'm like weird like that
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (24:36.792)
No, I'm not.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (24:53.006)
Nope. Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (24:58.776)
It's a wild world we're living in right now. Do not get your supplements on Amazon, please. Go through either third party tested. yep.
Freddie Kimmel (25:03.502)
We have a whole podcast coming out. Yeah, it's six, I think it was near 60 % of the quality control where pills were pulled from shelves and tested. I think 60 % passed. Whereas everything else, not that it wasn't real, it had additional items. Some had things like Cialis, proton pump inhibitors.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (25:24.538)
Thank
Freddie Kimmel (25:28.672)
other chemicals that would cause an effect in the body. So you'd feel something, but nothing to do with the product or the claim. And it's like a, it's like a wild, wild west of flea markets.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (25:38.808)
Yep, yep, absolutely. Yeah, so go through a trusted source, please, please, please, for some reasons.
Freddie Kimmel (25:44.426)
Yeah. Yeah. We, we have a whole, and I, I will also say I've, I'm totally do it once in a while, but you look for the right storefront, you look for the vendor, you look direct from company, you look from GMP stamps. It's interesting. I see a big overhaul coming from that platform just cause there's so much fraud on it right now. It's really interesting.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (25:57.05)
So.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (26:03.402)
Mm-hmm. That's a really, really good point. Yeah. Yeah. A useful scripter also go directly through companies. And it's kind of a pain sometimes because you're going through all these different sources, but they're direct from the labs themselves, which is the way you want to go. Essentially in the cancer world, because you don't have enough wiggle room to mess around. Like if you're just kind of trying to fix your GI health a little bit or whatnot.
Freddie Kimmel (26:06.209)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (26:20.898)
That's right.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (26:30.658)
You know, it's not going to cause a detriment, but if there's extra additives in a terrain that's already overly inflamed and already low on nutrients, we don't have a lot of wiggle room to play with. so yeah, I just get really wary when people are like, I saw this thing advertised on Instagram and I bought it. And I'm like, no, I wish you had asked me first.
Freddie Kimmel (26:41.345)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (26:51.566)
I had a buddy that just went in like $500 in on peptides and a nasal spray and I was like, buddy, I was like, I can go, we can go right to the company. have to come, we can just go right. It can be pure. can be lab pure. We can go, can actually, and I think the risk is for me, you're going to get a person out there who's like, maybe they were just trying to support their adrenal glands and you know, do some type of like a precursor to sleep. If every time you do a failure, you like,
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (27:04.452)
like it.
Freddie Kimmel (27:19.404)
that you lose a little faith in the system. So I'm such a huge fan of Fullscript and I know you can set a discount, you get direct from the company. It's actually very quick shipping.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (27:30.498)
Yeah, very quick shipping. And this brings up actually a really good point, you know, in today's day and age where we can just research anything at our fingertips, like what's good for adrenal health? That's where it's really awesome to have people who are on your team, kind of in your back pocket, you can ask, because it's like things like ashwagandha, amazing for adrenal health sometimes for certain people, but I never advise someone with a hormone sensitive cancer to take a.
Freddie Kimmel (27:51.587)
Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (27:55.674)
Ashwagandha. And I've had people come to me who have breast cancer and that's like in their list of things they're taking. Like we're going to get rid of this, we're going to get rid of this, we're going to get rid of this because you're directly sensitizing or like stimulating estrogen receptors, you know, in the cell tissue types. And so it's things like that that you don't necessarily know on face value when you're kind of looking for things, you know, online that may have great health benefits, but not for you, you know, in context, in terrain.
Freddie Kimmel (28:12.536)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (28:22.38)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So important. So important. Methacobalamin B vitamins, know, depending on, know, are you a person who's going to have a genetic snip, which that drives mania and anxiety? Yeah. Yeah. Go to a pro.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (28:26.138)
Yeah.
and
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (28:37.469)
Totally. B vitamins can be life-changing for some people and also can really push you over the edge. B6 with cancer patients, it's strongly contraindicated because it can stimulate certain pathways in cell growth cycles that we don't want to actually stimulate more cell growth. These little nuances, it takes a while for the brain to learn and hold all of that. We have brilliant, brilliant practitioners all over.
Freddie Kimmel (28:44.514)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (28:50.829)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (28:54.752)
Yeah. Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (29:02.157)
Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (29:05.378)
Everybody has a slightly different lens that they come at things with, but somebody that people feel really, you know, that they can trust that they can have open questions and conversations and dialogues with people who are staying up to date on the research who have teams of their own consultants to ask questions. think, you know, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. That's one of the beautiful things that Dr. Winters has set up.
Freddie Kimmel (29:09.07)
Mm-hmm.
Freddie Kimmel (29:22.508)
Yes. People are doing case studies, doing round tables with other doctors and practitioners on hard cases.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (29:32.642)
is like there's a whole network of practitioners that we all communicate to each other. You hey, I have this case, this one's really complex. I have them on this and this. Like, what else have you guys seen? What am I missing? And so it's really awesome to get like the hive mind going on it, the mycelial network. You know, everybody knows something a little bit different. So, yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (29:49.357)
Yes.
Yeah, it's so wild. It's so wild. I'm so, what do I wanna say? I'm so timid with my recommendations around anyone trying anything anymore. I'm even, it's putting together this big terrain course. was like, I mean, I think I'm just gonna stick to things like herbs and milk thistles and just teas and gentle, gentle, supportive, but mostly lifestyle, mostly.
mostly movement, manual lymphatic drainage, mostly sleep hygiene, mostly like the hormetic stressors of exercise that even me with, you know, I, I skipped stuff that I was like, God, the ROI on a fasting mimicking diet. was just, I was just looking at the, you know, I was just doing this analysis of like, what, where, where does the GLP one exceed like expectations and what happens with a five day fasting mimicking diet?
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (30:29.53)
Absolutely.
Freddie Kimmel (30:47.95)
And one's $12,000 a year and one's $150 a year. the, fascinating mimicking it's like, not only do you, you, you do get benefit, you do get weight loss, you do get a higher reduction of visceral fat, longer telomere length from the science existing, but you also don't lose muscle mass. You know, it's really interesting, like with this portion of the population who's already overweight and we're just not talking about quality control. We just want to diminish what's coming in.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (31:04.858)
Mm-hmm.
Freddie Kimmel (31:15.212)
The math for me has always sounded really bad on a GLP one as an intervention because of the incomplete conversation around terrain.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (31:22.81)
Absolutely, absolutely. And I mean, you're reminding me of like some of the old school naturopathic doctors, they were like, the doctors are light, grounding, cold water, fresh air, good diet, and going back to the absolute basics.
And not saying that that's going to just like cure everything, but I think if we took most people and took them out of their toxic environments and put them out in the countryside somewhere where they were walking barefoot and growing their own food and like getting the basics of sunlight in their eyes and circadian rhythms, you know, going back to those very foundational nature cure, we say vis medicatrix naturae, the Latin for, you know, the healing power of nature. And the body has such an incredible wisdom, you know, with apoptosis and DNA repair, the
If you just kind of make some subtle shifts, know, fasting, mimicking diets or, you know, a water fast for a couple days, you know, with support, if that's appropriate for you, but your body starts to reorganize its own intelligence around that. And it's like, do we always need drugs, you know, for weight loss? It's something that the body is actually going to do even better in a lot of ways, possibly. So I always like to balance, you know, the cutting edge and like, what's the newest, coolest, you know,
Freddie Kimmel (32:15.555)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (32:27.726)
Impossible, yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (32:35.69)
most exciting thing with like, okay, can we just like go for a walk and that's going to move our lymphatic drainage to, know, red light therapy and red light panels or a little bit of healthy sun. So it's definitely a nuanced balance there, but the body is incredible.
Freddie Kimmel (32:41.762)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (32:46.669)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (32:50.296)
Yeah, yeah. It's incredible. It's incredible. And it's and its ability to self correct if we allow it to. How do you incorporate the energetics and the emotional intelligence of the body into your practice?
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (33:08.314)
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, first of all, I meet people where they are, because not everybody is quite yet ready to take on that whole piece of their life. But, you know, it can be as simple as morning pages, writing out and noticing our own thought patterns, like where are the beliefs that we're stuck in as far as like, well, was me, nothing's ever going to get better. I'm not going to shift into health. And where can we shift that? Doing like visualizations, I think.
Freddie Kimmel (33:19.928)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (33:37.452)
Some people resonate with Joe Dispenza's work, some people don't, but some of the leaps that he makes as far as visualizing states of being, saying I am this vibrant health source of life and shifting into that state rather than the messaging that our cells get, because they don't understand the difference between running from the bear and kind of self-depreciating thoughts on a cellular level.
our cell danger response is very similar. And so I start off with people with just conversations of like, how's your relationship with your body? How's your relationship in your life with those that you love, with work? Like how satisfied are we? And then from there, if we wanna take off more more chunks, we have conversations around somatic processing, like what's stored in the body from childhood, things that aren't necessarily logical. We can do the talk therapy.
Freddie Kimmel (34:16.494)
Mm.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (34:31.96)
all day long and still not, you move the dial a little bit, but sometimes actually moving the body in its own wisdom, again, back to the wisdom of the body can be hugely profound for people. A lot of people are leaning a little bit more into like psychedelic integration therapy, things that can kind of speed up the timeline and like unlock things in the body and the emotional body and say, whoa, like that was there from when I was seven. And you know, that's not something that I necessarily work with people with, but I have, you know, referred out and people have been like,
Freddie Kimmel (34:42.168)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (34:55.95)
Hmm.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (35:02.048)
amazing breakthroughs and just seeing the integration on the other side and being able to walk forward in their life saying, wow, let that go, know, forgiveness. And so for each person, different things are going to resonate with them. But somatic therapy is one that I've seen a huge, huge benefit with. Emotion code is another one. Liberate is a good community that a lot of people have gone to to help identify specific little beliefs.
Freddie Kimmel (35:15.458)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (35:30.138)
specifically in cancer patients. They have a really awesome program and they've done some digging and seeing some patterns across the board for a lot of cancer patients is the belief of I'm not seen, I'm not worthy. And so this inability to like use our voice in the world and starting to take baby steps to be seen a little bit more in that those places that are scary for each of us to be witnessed in and I think sometimes witness
Freddie Kimmel (35:32.174)
Mmm.
Freddie Kimmel (35:44.642)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Freddie Kimmel (35:55.245)
Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (35:57.956)
comes alongside that healing process. So, yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (36:02.006)
Yeah. Can I ask you how, how are, how do you, how do you work with that medicine for yourself? to be, to be seen. Yeah. Have to have your voice out there.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (36:09.476)
For my soul. That's such a good question. Wow, I mean, this podcast is a piece of it. But part of my journey in the last couple of years has actually been working in a really beautiful women's container. And part of that has been singing in front of people and actually kind of sharing songs that I've written.
Freddie Kimmel (36:17.507)
Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (36:32.122)
And so using that kind of voice that was maybe squashed when I was, you know, young, young of like the fear of messing up and that perfectionist and saying, okay, so what, what if somebody sees me, you know, making a mistake and still having people who've walked through that journey alongside me saying like, we love you anyways, Lise, like keep going, you've got this. And each time the grip gets a little bit looser, a little bit more spacious. So, you know, it's
Freddie Kimmel (36:50.254)
you
Freddie Kimmel (36:59.331)
Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (36:59.702)
never like we're completely fixed and healed, but you can feel those shifts and each time it gets a little bit easier, a little bit easier. And so being in your creative, you know, can be massive and something that a lot of us are afraid to be seen in. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And so finding people who like really, really resonate with and trust and having good guides along the way.
Freddie Kimmel (37:06.882)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (37:11.362)
Hmm.
Freddie Kimmel (37:14.988)
Yeah, so, art and self-expression is so therapeutic for me. So therapeutic.
Freddie Kimmel (37:27.222)
Yeah. Yeah. I would love to ask you in this field of optimization, health optimization and longevity, are there any technologies that you think people are really getting it right with that have a good, that transfer over to the oncology terrain space very well?
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (37:45.466)
Mm-hmm. Let me think about that one. mean, things like, specifically longevity-wise.
Freddie Kimmel (37:54.562)
Well, things from that space that would transfer and really support somebody that is trying to upregulate their terrain to have a better experience with cancer.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (38:02.33)
I mean, the thing that we've already kind of touched on is fasting.
I think the longevity community, they were looking at mouse models and also human models and seeing even a 70 % decrease in daily caloric intake and a much larger increase in lifespan than supplementing different things, antioxidants and whatnot. And so in the human space, when we're in a fasting mode, obviously with support, if detoxification methods, pathways are open and optimized.
we see shifts in telomeres, in kind of overall vitality, in the way that our bodies or our hormone hungers, hunger hormones actually shift from before and after and stay there after for a prolonged amount of time. And so I think that this is almost a lost wisdom in modern day society. If you look across the board at so many different religious groups, so across the world, there's been some sort of fasting.
that's incorporated into human cycles. And we've lost a bit of that understanding of like deep, deep, deep rest, both on a GI level, a emotional level where we're not going out and doing, doing, all day long, like kind of going a little bit more introspective and allowing the body to go through and clear out any sort of tissues and cells that are not functioning optimally anymore. And so that's a good one. That's a really basic one.
Lodos naltrexone, I feel like is one that keeps coming up as far as immune system modulation and apoptotic effects with such a good safety profile as well. So across the board from autoimmune diseases, but also in the cancer space. That one's quite frequently and quite safely used. Hyperbaric acid.
Freddie Kimmel (39:56.504)
They're compounding pharmacy, the really good one. It's out in Colorado. Yes.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (40:01.562)
Mm-hmm, which one?
Freddie Kimmel (40:03.96)
They've been on the podcast, but it was like a hundred episodes ago.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (40:08.471)
it's not coming to me off the top of my head.
Freddie Kimmel (40:12.238)
Okay, let me see if I can find it while we're chatting.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (40:15.01)
I mean, things like methylene blue, you know, that's, you know, they've, they've kind of been going back and forth on that one, you know, in some of the spaces as far as whether it's, you know, causing people's brains to turn blue, but in like in the cancer space, with the RAS pathways and, you know, promoting mitochondrial rejuvenation, that sort of thing. So that's one of the big intersections between the longevity world and the cancer world is that the mitochondria and
Freddie Kimmel (40:17.656)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (40:24.686)
Mm-hmm.
Freddie Kimmel (40:30.979)
Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (40:44.356)
promoting that kind cellular energy space.
Freddie Kimmel (40:47.042)
Hmm. It was Belmar Pharmacy.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (40:50.176)
Elmar, yes, yes, I've heard of them, yes.
Freddie Kimmel (40:53.238)
Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, that's so funny. I've yeah, I played around with LDN like from like eight years ago. I bet I've been on and off of it. It's really interesting. For me, it's very, very sensitive to things disrupting my sleep. And that one always made me it made me it it facilitated a very like lucid dreaming state. I never felt like I was sleeping. Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (40:55.194)
Hmm.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (41:00.56)
did you?
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (41:09.274)
Thank you, everyone.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (41:17.722)
Mm-hmm, that's very common. vivid dreams are very common initial side effect. Sometimes it starts to go away, but some people are pretty sensitive.
Freddie Kimmel (41:24.214)
Yeah. Yeah. They say that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's so interesting. Is there, when you're looking at things like LDN, the other thing I wanted to go back to is you mentioned if drainage pathways are open, fasts can be, you know, that maybe they check a little more of a beneficial column. What do you mean by that when you're saying if drainage pathways are open?
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (41:48.218)
Yeah, that's a great question. So when the body goes into a fasting mode, if you think about all the powerhouses kind of settling down into almost a more sleeping state, the cells start to stop turning their cycles as quickly because there's no energy coming in, no calories coming in. They're like, it's like hibernate. And so with that hibernation, oftentimes the cellular pathways that are either promoted
Freddie Kimmel (42:10.35)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (42:17.828)
for detoxification or for cellular energy production slow down as well. And because we're not getting the minerals coming in to turn the wheels, so to speak. And so the body is trying to go and clear out different cells that are maybe on their way to apoptosis. It can stimulate that apoptosis, but we need to actually help to clear those out and send them out of the body. And also digestion stops as well when you're wearing a longer fast.
everything just kind of goes into a hibernation state. So what I oftentimes recommend for people is being on something like beam minerals, some kind of fulvic and humic acid to actually keep those little cycles going, keep the minerals on board so that not everything comes to a complete standstill. Also doing things like enemas during cleanses or fasts to kind of keep the toxic waste from accumulating in the bowel system.
So keeping the liver going with a coffee enema, things like that, castor oil packs, so that not everything comes to a standstill. And so there's a little bit of preparation work also going into this. People probably shouldn't just jump straight into a three or five day fast without doing a little bit of prep work, making sure, okay, liver enzymes are working well. Like I've been having good elimination on a daily basis. Kidney health is really good.
all of those areas that detoxification happens and probably sonning on a daily basis as well, because the skin is our largest detoxification organ. So again, looking at those, pathways, the SNPs pathways and kind of where each person has their own, know, enzymes that are either functioning or a little bit slower on the functioning pathways and how we can support those before jumping into something like a longer term, you know, water or, or Prolon fast, something like that.
Freddie Kimmel (43:43.693)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (44:03.33)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. yeah. Definitely. No, I just, everybody explains it in a different way. And I just always, I'm interested how people navigate that conversation. I'm certainly a drainage pathways open first to be sure we're prepared for, you know, what the body might be ready to release both energetically and from, how have I framed my day? Am I, have I over scheduled myself on the local Lorik burden still having to do
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (44:07.33)
So yeah, does that help to answer that a little bit? Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (44:23.214)
Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (44:27.097)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (44:36.692)
life and that I find can set someone into a severe sympathetic spiral.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (44:41.626)
Absolutely, because you don't have the spaciousness to actually digest what needs to digest and release what needs to be released. I love that you bring up kind of the energetic imprint of what fasting is, is supposed to be a slow down. It is supposed to be a deep rest that we're not necessarily getting on a day-to-day basis. Yeah, and there's so many levels to detoxification and especially in, you know, the cancer world, you know, some people are like, okay, dim, you know, for estrogen overload, but...
Freddie Kimmel (44:46.679)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (44:52.6)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (44:59.565)
Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (45:11.308)
in breast cancer, know, specifically, but that's not enough if your phase two and phase three elimination pathways aren't also open because then we're just transmuting, okay, sure, it's a less potent form of estrogen, but then it's still getting re-uptaken by the GI system if we haven't fixed the microbiome, if we haven't fixed, you know, where bile is flowing and, you know, all of those other little pieces along the way. And as well as like COMT and the pathways that our body really needs to be able to process everything beautifully.
Freddie Kimmel (45:32.803)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (45:40.834)
Yeah. Yeah. It's such, such good information. I have always heard, you know, just to do one more topic on fasting and I've heard and read different articles that have been anecdotal and I've never found anything unbelievably concrete, but from my understanding, it makes so much sense from a neuro cellular protective standpoint, leading into chemotherapy or leading into radiation.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (45:41.146)
And like, oh, yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (45:58.953)
Mm-hmm.
Freddie Kimmel (46:10.766)
that a 24 to 48 hour fast could theoretically be highly beneficial. There's a few things that I will print out, because a lot of times, again, working as a concierge, when that's happened in the past, I need to give people things to hand to their oncologist or their practitioner to say, hey, are you OK with this? I want you to be on board with this. You're the person who is. I am under your medical care. What's your understanding about
fasting as a practice leading into a standard of care treatment. And I know it will be nuanced depending on the cancer in the person and their strength and rigidity and whatnot.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (46:49.05)
Absolutely, this is so, so, so important. I'm really glad you brought this up. So kind of what I was saying earlier with ketosis and ketogenic diets, the cells, cancer cells have lost that ability to have the dual engine in a way, right? And so when we take away cancerous fuel, which is kind of our daily diet eating, cancer cells don't have the option.
to go into fatty acid metabolism. They don't have the option to like feed off of ketones. And so if we are able to shift the rest of our body into that state where we're able to operate on a fairly normal basis in ketosis, cancer cells are, it's like they're extra hungry. They're like, my gosh, I need fuel. I'm running out of fuel. I'm out of glycogen in the system. And then if you give a dose of chemo or radiation, those cells are gonna say, they're gonna suck that up.
on a much faster rate, while the rest of your cells are almost in like a little bit of a relaxed, you know, a little bit more of that hibernation state. So they're not uptaking the chemo as intensely, as effectively as the cancer cells themselves. It like hypersensitizes them to the dose that's coming in. And so what I oftentimes see if an oncologist is open to it is can we get away with a little bit of a lower dose of chemo?
if the cancer cells are hypersensitized because they're uptaking it at a faster rate. So things like metronomic chemo or even like minimal effective dose where it's not like the maximum, maximal dose that's like almost gonna kill someone, but like just enough to really get in there and do its job and then get out and then do some of the recovery and repair with like magnesium baths and, you know, do pull it out of the system, you know, in a gentle way, let it do its job. We don't wanna undo what it's doing.
Freddie Kimmel (48:11.992)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (48:35.288)
but do some of the repair in between sessions that are every three weeks or so, depending on the cancer. And so similar for radiation, there are certain things we can do, curcumin, things on board that actually will sensitize the cancer cells to radiation, especially when combined with fasting. Yeah, so it's a really cool system.
Freddie Kimmel (48:41.293)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (48:52.994)
Yeah. The last thing. Yeah. I mean, and I know it's contextualized. I just want to say that for everybody at home. This is not prescriptive in any way. you.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (48:58.97)
No, no. Yeah, I would highly recommend working with somebody who knows the timing and what else to bring on board and what symptoms to watch for and all of that to do it safely.
Freddie Kimmel (49:12.494)
If this conversation that we're having and it's all, you know, different people listen to this podcast from all over the world. think we're in like 35 different countries and everybody knows somebody going through cancer at this time. this it's, and the stuff we're having, we're having conversation, which is quite grounded and rooted in science that for the most part we can recreate. Will there be a time in the future where
places like the Mayo Clinic and MD Anderson and Mount Sinai start to incorporate some of these terrain practices and yeah, better, better. I want to say better, like better off boarding once, once treatment is done. you think?
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (49:56.704)
I really, really hope so. I do really hope so. And I think a lot of oncologists are catching up to some things that have been in the more alternative sphere for a while. A lot of them don't necessarily have time to spend with every single patient going forward. But a lot of them, especially with Mayo and some of the bigger cancer care clinics, they already have alternative programs along the side where it's like, you can go get a sound bath. You can go speak to a nutritionist.
Freddie Kimmel (50:10.862)
That's valid.
Freddie Kimmel (50:25.474)
Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (50:26.262)
Again, you know, they're still catching up on putting together the full picture of terrain support. Dr. Seifried has a really awesome lecture where he's like, he talks about, you know, the press pulse therapies and ketogenic diets combined with different off-label therapeutic drug uses. And he, he's like, they will catch up because they have to eventually, because all the research has been going into cancer as a genetic disease, like which
which genetic mutation do I have that gave me cancer that my parents have? And he's like, you know, his focus, Dr. Seyfried's focus is all on cancer as a metabolic disease and a mitochondrial, you know, malfunctioning disease. And he's like, once they start to recognize that those mutations are actually affecting the cellular environment, eventually they'll have to catch up because, you know, they can keep treating the cancer, but until we actually shift, you know, the body.
the numbers are just going to keep going up as far as diagnosis rates over time. And so I'm sure you've heard of the study where they took cancer cell DNA and put it in a healthy cell and the cell stayed healthy, even though it had cancerous DNA and vice versa. They took, you know, an unhealthy, you know, kind of junk cell and put healthy DNA in it and it continued to grow into cancer. And so that's, you know, on a micro, micro, micro level.
Freddie Kimmel (51:26.338)
Yeah. Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (51:36.846)
Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (51:51.928)
you know, one of the examples is like, it's not just genetics and oftentimes we're treating just the genetics or, know, the, the immunotherapies do have a lot of promise coming out, but I hope they can combine it with the full terrain approach eventually. And you look at, you know, clinics in Germany, like 80 % of patients in the EU and Germany are getting combinations with like mistletoe. So actually supporting the terrain of the body to turn back on its normal surveillance.
Freddie Kimmel (51:52.183)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (52:01.997)
Mm-hmm.
Freddie Kimmel (52:07.757)
Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (52:21.05)
that it's not common practice in the US because there's just not a lot of money there. So it's like, work,
Freddie Kimmel (52:26.112)
Yeah. Can we talk about mistletoe therapy a little bit? And, and we, we, think we scratched on it when Dr. Nacia was on, but what is mistletoe therapy and why do they use it in Germany?
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (52:36.856)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so mistletoe is a really, really cool plant. If you look at the trees growing in the wild, it's almost like there's a tumor ball growing in the tree. It's like a parasitic type of plant. But this plant just tends to be really high in certain lectins and certain immunostimulatory components. And so in the way it's used in Germany and some parts of the US, it can either be subcutaneous or IV injection.
and these components go and turn on different parts of the immune system that maybe have been lost or aren't functioning very well. So natural killer cells, it helps to reduce inflammatory cytokines, IL-6 and IL-1, starts to activate macrophages more effectively. And then the other really cool thing is that it starts to turn up our internal body temperature just a little bit, kind of micro, micro degrees.
And cancer really doesn't like warm cellular environments. actually, if you look at areas, it's actually cool kind of around areas where cancer really likes to thrive. And so when we're kind of stimulating like a very, very, very low level, like micro fever in a way. And so in addition to this immune system response, and so a lot of people, it's not necessarily a stand-in treatment, like you're not gonna do this instead of chemo, but it can help to come alongside chemo.
Freddie Kimmel (53:49.08)
Mmm.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (54:00.762)
to maybe improve outcomes, to reduce pain. And then what I like to do is beyond treatment, maybe once a quarter, do some dosing to remind the body, say, hey, body, let's look around and survey the tissue, survey the terrain with your own immune system for any little lingering cancer cells that were left behind that we all probably have. And so it's a really cool mechanism of a plant that's, you know.
Freddie Kimmel (54:17.006)
Mm.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (54:26.54)
It's been in druid lore and used as, you know, kind of rituals for centuries. But it's a really cool, almost like metaphor plant when we look at how it grows in the wild and what it treats in the body. We call it kind of the law of similars in a way, where we kind of see that that fingerprint from nature showing up as what it's offering to us in the medical landscape. And so that's a little bit more like
Freddie Kimmel (54:42.958)
Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (54:52.064)
woo and out there, but you know, one of the ideas behind mistletoe is that it's helping the body integrate into self more more effectively. Whereas you can think of cancer cells as, you know, one cancer cell is kind of isolating and it's removing itself from the whole and kind of becoming its own little community over here. And it's not actually working synergistically with the whole. you know, mistletoe is one of those ways we can say, hey, body, let's remind that,
Freddie Kimmel (55:00.046)
Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (55:19.822)
This is an other. This is still self. Let's bring everything back into harmony. But some really cool science around it is actually probably one of the most highly researched plants. There's probably the most studies out there on any plant is mistletoe.
Freddie Kimmel (55:24.557)
Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (55:36.172)
And I remember, I think my chemotherapy atop a cyte cisplatin was probably like, I think it was $19,000, $20,000 a week, something like that. What is a round or a protocol of mistletoe? What are the price ranges for something like that for a patient?
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (55:54.426)
Yeah, definitely not 19,000. A box trends anywhere from like 100 to 150 and that'll last somebody about a month supply. So much, much more effective as far as financial cost. And again, it's not necessarily going to replace the cisplatin, but again, for like long-term care, kind of helping somebody prevent a relapse potentially, or getting somebody through with fewer rounds or, you know, minimal effective dose type situations.
Freddie Kimmel (56:03.534)
wow. Cool. Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (56:24.282)
So there's a lot more wiggle room and room to play, so to speak, when we bring all of the layers synergistically together rather than just like one single drug at a time. Yeah.
Freddie Kimmel (56:36.408)
Amazing. Amazing. I want to be respectful of your hour and time and also people at home listening to this. I definitely want to have you back on the podcast if you'd come back because there's so many different things we could talk about. I would love to ask you a couple closing questions. This idea of being beautifully broken or breaking beautiful, what does it mean to you to be beautifully broken?
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (56:41.144)
Yes, thank you.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (56:49.132)
Yeah, I've learned so much from you, Freddie, already. This is, yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (57:06.51)
Hmm, I love this question. I mean, the first concept that kind of comes to mind is kintsugi. You know, the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with gold. And there's also a beautiful book written called The Turning Cancer, The Turning Point. And in this context, you know, when we are faced with looking over the edge, I'm like, what if, what if, you know, this precious, beautiful life
could end, know, which it will for all of us. But I think it's this, this, can be for those who are willing to kind of take it up, this opportunity to say like, what is the most precious to me? And whether I have six months or six years or 30 years, like what do I want to do with my time? And so these, these moments that break us very, very deeply, I mean, I've, you know, walking alongside my mom have faced some deep wells of grief of like, what if I lose her?
to this horrific, horrendous process that happens in the body and not to minimize the suffering that anyone goes through in the process of going through treatments and facing this. And it has made our relationship and bond so precious, like beyond, beyond what I could imagine as just like a teenage girl without having to ask these big questions at age 15. And I would not give this cup to anyone to drink from.
you know, as far as looking into the face of a diagnosis. And it creates the most magnificent humans that I've met, you know, in my life. It's the people who have actually taken this up and said, I'm going to go forth and actually speak to the stranger on the side of the street and actually be the person that I was here to be and actually use my voice and open that up and share my story like you're doing with this podcast. So yeah, it's it's one of those wild mysteries of being human.
Freddie Kimmel (58:56.684)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (59:01.856)
and living in a body that has disease that is very, you know, vulnerable and resilient at the same time. But yeah, we are still to have here to have. Absolutely. I call them the joy doctors. I tell my patients and like, go find your joy doctors, you know, whether it's your grandkids, whether it's like, you know, playing in the fields, whatever that is for you. Like those are the best. Those are the best medicine.
Freddie Kimmel (59:01.898)
I know, it's such a-
Freddie Kimmel (59:07.958)
Yeah, but we're still here to have fun.
Freddie Kimmel (59:22.424)
Yeah.
Yeah. And then my last question for you is if you could go back and jump back in a time machine, go back to your young 15 year old self and you could give her some advice as you were starting this journey and you were dealing with all these really heavy things at a very young age, what would you say to her?
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (59:49.87)
Wow, that is quite the question.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (59:55.66)
I think I would say lean into mentors more. Don't be afraid to go to a mentor and share your story more vulnerably. Because I think at that age, I was a first born child and kind of an overachieving girl. And I thought I just had to get through it on my own and didn't necessarily have a lot of support. My mom moved away for treatments for months at a time. And so I think I internalized a lot of that as overly independent.
Freddie Kimmel (01:00:17.154)
Mm.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (01:00:23.354)
I think it's only been in the last couple years that I've allowed myself to soften and be held and have people in my life who are like, yeah, tell me your story. And so if you're an adult in somebody's life, be diligent about pursuing them in their stories too. Because I think it's not always easy as a young person to ask for help as to be seen. So, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Freddie Kimmel (01:00:43.704)
Hmm. Yeah. Amen. And where, at least, can people find you if they're needing support, if they want to do a consult, if they want more information about your services?
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (01:00:56.118)
Yeah. And the best places to reach out on my website, drlisulsernd.com. I have an inquiry form there and we can hop on a discovery call and chat. I'm also on Instagram, drlisulsernd on that platform as well. So yeah, yeah, I'm around and happy to answer questions or point people in the right direction of where they can get somebody who's on board and on their team.
Freddie Kimmel (01:01:16.056)
Beautiful.
Freddie Kimmel (01:01:25.13)
Amazing. Amazing. Thank you for being a guest and we will see you soon in the future.
Dr. Elise Sulser ND (01:01:25.786)
Yeah.
Absolutely. Thank you so much, Freddie. Yes.
Freddie Kimmel (01:01:32.152)
Big love.
