012: What You Need to Outsmart Cancer – Dr Mel Palomares

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Dr Mel Palomares 0:00
We have to remind ourselves to take care of ourselves. That could mean personal health over profits. It’s really key to knowing and doing it. It’s a completely different thing.

accountability is important, but more than accountability, we also have to make sure we’re barking up the right tree.

Tony Maree Torrey 0:20
Welcome to the legacy in the making Show. I’m your host Ellie’s foremost Success Coach Tony Maree Torrey, I interview leaders and influencers who have gone beyond the superficial markers of success and claimed true fulfillment by leveraging their positions to create positive and profitable changes in their businesses and beyond. They share their stories and offer real world boots on the ground experience. That translates into practical advice to apply to your own journey. I invite you to this injection of wisdom and inspiration so you can prevail and leave your own legacy.

Hello, this is the legacy in the making show and I am here today with my friend and client, Dr. Melanie palmeras. And affectionately known as Dr. Mel, she is a triple board certified doctor which just impresses the heck out of me because I just can’t even imagine what the intensity of what that must have been like going through that triple board certification training process. So that’s just me like in all of you, Melanie, she’s affectionately known as Dr. Mel, if I haven’t said that already, and she has training and experience in oncology, epidemiology and cancer genetics. She practices preventative oncology, which is a term that she coined to describe the care of healthy patients who are either at increased risk for cancer or a cancer survivors. And then we Dr. Mel and I were just talking earlier. And she’s really she’s extending her practice to average risk people as well because as we were talking about the potential to save so many lives, and why cut it off to sit at the high risk or the survivors. And so what she’s been doing for 20 years is in academic medicine, first at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, and then at the City of Hope in Los Angeles and after experiencing cancer personally in her own journey. She was inspired to found the cancer prevention movement, and she can help you outsmart cancer through strategic screenings and smart prevention. Dr. Mel’s vision is a cancer free world and she’s dedicated her life to making that our reality one health conscious person at a time. Dr. Mel, welcome. I’m so happy to have you here. Please share with us a little bit about you and your journey.

Dr Mel Palomares 3:02
Thank you so much. And for that great intro. Creating a cancer free world is really the purpose that I’ve been put on this earth. I’ve been driven to do this for about 20 years. So those boards were not gotten all at once it was over time.

Tony Maree Torrey 3:21
Have you I mean I’ve had friends and colleagues

who have gone through med school I distinctly remember one girlfriend of mine who came home after being in residency to a dinner party where her husband made some kind of joke that just pushed her buttons and the next thing you know there are knives being thrown across the kitchen.

Oh my goodness. how stressful it could be?

Dr Mel Palomares 3:51
Yeah, my residency is a long time ago. I only did one residency.

Yeah, there you have to spend every third to fourth night in the hospital. So then deprivation, I guess it’s like having a child. Yes. Yeah. I get a little on the edge.

Tony Maree Torrey 4:06
Yeah. And sometimes turns you into being a child as well.

Dr Mel Palomares 4:11
Yeah, but I guess you could just call me a nerd. I love to learn.

Was cancer free, but was having all these side effects from the treatment? given them? I had a, like an existential moment, like I spent all this time in training. And I was feeling is this the right thing? And then I was talking about it with my supervising physician. They’re cancer free. And that’s not, that’s not good enough for me not enough. Yes. I mean, where’s the quality of life and I know that things have evolved, obviously, since back in the day. And treatment, conventional medical treatment is not as harsh and hard on the body as it used to be because they can target things better now, right? Which is fantastic of immunotherapies. To which boosts our own immune system.

Right, exactly. So I know that it’s not as bad as it used to be in the prognosis is better typically these days?

If we catch it early enough

Yes, exactly. And that’s kind of the point, right? Making sure it’s caught early enough. So tell us a little bit more about that piece of things. Dr. Mel, you’ve defined and designed processes that you use with your clients that allow them to have final with peace of mind, right, and also just be be able to protect themselves from a possibly fatal, painful, uncomfortable future. So tell us a little bit more about that.

There’s two pieces, really, part of it is early detection, where things are completely terrible, like you were saying, and part of it is avoiding the diagnosis ever happened. When it comes to both Actually, we have different algorithms depending on how much that person’s risk is. So cancer is actually not one disease. It’s a group of 158 different diseases. And that’s how it’s defined. Now. I’ve been

discovering more. And so it’s how much risk you have for certain cancers. And then, and then I design a screening program just for them. And then also that’s based on the risk. It’s on the risk, there can be a whole array of prevention opportunities, and then I work with them to decide what is the best program for them, because that’s not just based on risk. It’s based on their risk tolerance and their values and what their personal choices are.

Tony Maree Torrey 7:20
I love what you were saying earlier about the lifestyle medicine component, because it has to be taken into consideration. Like I understand, you know, one, one of my many certifications is in clinical hypnotherapy. And oftentimes, I have had doctors send patients to me to do that kind of work with their patients, because compliance is a huge issue for doctors. And how is it that you approach the problem of compliance with people presumably, to some extent with this key around lifestyle? What are some of the core components of that?

Dr Mel Palomares 7:51
lifestyle medicine is a conglomerate of different things. Part of it is looking at what people would think of automatically, like nutrition and exercise and, and hydration and sleep and that kind of thing. But then there’s a whole other component. That’s mindset. Mm hmm. Things like that. Most people don’t think of that as a physician’s job. What I love about this group, the American College of lifestyle medicine is actually a group of physicians that do believe that this is important and integral to the practice of medicine.

Tony Maree Torrey 8:22
I love that that it’s so huge, obviously, mindset is the kiddie pool that I bathe in, and that I that I splash around in

Dr Mel Palomares 8:31
and had lots of fun in. And I have to say, I mean, obviously, I can’t make any medical claims. But I have had clients who have had things that have been diagnosed by a multiple specialists as incurable. And as we have gone through and peel the layers of the emotional, and mindset and even historical components of their experience. All sorts of things have just literally disappeared. And it’s really it’s quite uncanny. And I don’t, I don’t take any credit for it myself, because I’m just the facilitator. Right, but these people are literally healing themselves by resolving the core wounds and the issues that were in place.

So that is exactly part of it is is having a good network of people like you, because that component is it’s foundational, actually. Because any behavioral change, it’s until some blocks are lifted. The behavioral change doesn’t really follow. And a lot of those lifestyle things are behavioral change.

Tony Maree Torrey 9:34
Mm hmm.

Dr Mel Palomares 9:35
Because I’m doing something that’s integrative for people at high risk. I also talk about screening modalities, you know, traditional medicine, basically, Medication, Sometimes surgery, sometimes depending on their level of risk testing, so I actually wrap it all together, but the lifestyle part is foundational. Everyone can use that and

should do XY and Z. But it’ll be become and focus on what they need to be in order for that doing to be natural, then it’s difficult. It doesn’t need to be difficult, though. So that’s, that’s why I appreciate what you do.

Tony Maree Torrey 10:16
Well, and I’ve got to give you credit where credit’s due there, too, because you are someone who is doing your work. So you can step more fully into your power and really support the cancer prevention movement and save lives. We’ve obviously had some conversations, there were some things that happened historically for you, that could have really kind of nipped it in the bud and made it impossible for you to move forward with this big work with your purpose driven work in the world. And I’m asking you this question. with permission, I asked you ahead of time to make sure it’s something that you are willing and interested in sharing. But tell us a little bit about that part of your journey, when you came up against what I would almost describe as a bit of a brick wall for you. And it was it was at least a hurdle, an emotional hurdle that you needed to get beyond in order to continue staying true to your mission, because I think many of us do hit these experiences in life that can really sidetrack us if we let them.

Dr Mel Palomares 11:17
So after I completed all that training, I joined the faculty at city code Cancer Center. People liked my ideas, I it was easy, relatively, at a time of a poor economy, to get grant funding for research. And I developed my own clinic and I was doing really, really well. So I’m just setting the stage that I had this fabulous academic career. And then one day I was in my office and I got a text and turned out that my husband had been found tremulous and trembling and

hallucinating and I wasn’t sure what was going on. But I asked the people that found him to take him to a local emergency room. And when I got there it was I discovered that he was having a drug overdose. I had no idea that he had a drug problem, that just that day, my life changed that most. So blindsiding. I’ve just can’t even imagine this person under the same roof with, right, that’s the thing. I thought I knew him. And I didn’t know him at all, he been hiding the side of his life. And I’m sure you and your listeners can think of times where I mean me myself, like, Where have I not been completely authentic? And I’m hiding something about my known

Tony Maree Torrey 12:39
Mm hmm. Where have we maybe set our own expectations or our own ideas of who someone else is and and had the blinkers on and just not seeing the full story for us

Dr Mel Palomares 12:51
complete trust,

Tony Maree Torrey 12:53
right? blind, blind trust and maybe turning a blind eye sometimes. I mean, I know that there are ways in which I’ve done that in relationships in my life. And I suspect that the legacy makers listening to the show, if you if you give it some thought, you can probably think of some examples for yourselves that, that you might have had a similar experience. So you discovered that your husband was having a drug overdose. What happened next?

Dr Mel Palomares 13:17
Well, a lot of chaos. I got him into rehab, and then promptly had my own little nervous breakdown.

And so I yeah, so I was completely knocked off my rocker got very stressed out high blood pressure weight gain. I actually found luckily I benefited from my own knowledge. So I found a mole that was an early melanoma.

Huh, I had one of those Yep, yeah. A bit of a wake up call.

Yeah, I caught really early so curative.

Tony Maree Torrey 14:23
I was very lucky, fair skinned woman under a hole in the ozone layer. Not a good combination.

Dr Mel Palomares 14:30
Yeah.

too, that would be one example where melanoma is very responsive to immunotherapies. And so our own bodies become like without external treatment. Our value is sort of our immunotherapy when we’re healthy and gone through this really stressful time. And like, those sales went, Okay, I’m going to grow a lot. Yeah, yeah,

Tony Maree Torrey 15:23
I found out after having that taken care of surgically, then and it was happening just as I was moving down to Southern California and having like a massive like life change, right. So I had to have that it was a fast decision, I may have made a different decision other than surgery, had the life circumstances felt a little less rushed. But once I got to Southern California, I started working with doctors, functional medicine, and integrative medicine, and just, you know, the whole body thing like what you’re doing. And I discovered that I was massively vitamin D deficient, like massively, which may have come from, from living 20 years in Portland, Oregon.

Dr Mel Palomares 16:07
I did semi training in Seattle. So I know that lifestyle.

Tony Maree Torrey 16:10
Oh, yes. Yeah. So now you’re in the midst of your own challenge, your own cancer challenge. It was a wake up call, like you said,

Dr Mel Palomares 16:36
doctors are the worst patience. I think it’s really true.

as the issues with my husband, but a lot of them. So having a family member affected, there was just a lot of reasons for me to focus instead of taking care of others, which is what I always focus on, like, oh, Hmm, maybe I need to take care of neat.

Tony Maree Torrey 17:45
It’s so important, that whole concept of putting the oxygen mask on yourself first. And I think that this is a really important lesson, too. You know, so many founding CEOs and entrepreneurs are so busy trying to create results for themselves for their families for their business, but creating their legacy that oftentimes they forget to put number one first. And that’s a huge, important lesson that I think most of us need to go on in our personal development journey. I know I had to, at some point, put the brakes on and go. It’s time for me to work on me.

Dr Mel Palomares 18:23
And it sounds like you had that wake up call. And you did the same thing. So good for you. Yeah, I actually think of as the universe putting all these things in a row, like I couldn’t ignore that. Mm hmm.

Tony Maree Torrey 18:35
Yes, like conceptive, like first to send to pebble, then a boulder, then an avalanche.

Dr Mel Palomares 19:59
And so we find out if that’s true. And I find that I am more often reassuring people, then what they have in their mind.

Tony Maree Torrey 20:09
Yeah, I think that’s really interesting. My father died of cancer. But he was a colonel in the Australian Army. And he was involved way back in the 50s, with the nuclear testing that happened in Montebello, in Australia. And he used to tell me stories like he had to have a lot of skin cancers removed over the years. They had also I think, tested Agent Orange, like he volunteered for like having a drop of Agent Orange put on the back of his hand, which blew up into this big ol crazy thing. So the thing is, like you told me stories about the fact that they walked out onto the test site in shorts and tennis shoes, right, like no one, back in the day, they just weren’t really getting the whole impact of radiation. And so yes, he died of cancer. But there was like this circumstantial component associated with that it’s a miracle that he lived as long as he did. And I, I actually attribute a lot of that to his capacity to mind to have an amazing mindset. And he in a lot of ways, was one of my first mentors in discovering the power of the subconscious mind. So one of the things that my dad did to me or with me when I was a kid, which convinced me of the power of the subconscious mind, is he used to hypnotize me as a party trick. And he would suspend me across three dining room chairs, and then convinced me that I was a plank and pull the middle one out. So then I was only suspended from the top of my head and the edge of my heel. And it’s like, it’s, it’s physically impossible, but I was doing it. And I think that’s, you know, my dad contributed a lot to the reason why I spend so much time delving into understanding subconscious motivations, and how it is that we can change our futures by changing what’s going on under the hood.

Dr Mel Palomares 21:59
So interesting, a couple of things that you said in there and your dad’s cancer story is that first of all, can’t cancer risk is multifactorial. So usually, it isn’t just sun exposure, or family history, or you know, it’s a multiple of different things. And the other thing is the whole concept of say that you have risk, we all have the power to alter that risk. And so some people think of it as epigenetics, and that’s fine. It’s, I think that’s a big umbrella term for the fact that we can, we can influence how our body regulates different things. So genes, but also hormones and things like that.

Tony Maree Torrey 22:43
So yeah, that that totally makes sense to me. And I think that you know, one of the primary things that you’re talking about, which I think is extremely important to anyone who wants to make a big difference, or a big impact in the world, and years ago, I was walking by my boss’s office, and he was playing talk radio. I don’t know, I couldn’t work with that going on. But but apparently he found it soothing. And I heard this comment, like it was an interview with someone and I don’t know who it was that which really saddens me, because I’d love to know who this quote comes from. But he would the person was being interviewed. And they were asking him, he was a financial expert. And they were asking him what the number one rule of making money was. And he said, stay alive.

Dr Mel Palomares 23:31
favorite topics is actually the in where health and wealth meet. Mm hmm. Oh, that’s a great job.

Tony Maree Torrey 23:41
Yeah, yes. Tell me more about that health and wealth meeting,

Dr Mel Palomares 23:45
we can think of it like in a cycle in two ways. So if we in the bad way, if you get sick, it doesn’t matter how much you planned. It can be extremely expensive, actually, people with a chronic illness, about 60% of Americans now experience what we call medical bankruptcy. Two thirds of people that have a chronic illness of those cancers that one of the top two, cancer and heart disease are the top two people think that I just need to have insurance, but insurance only covers so much their caps and deductibles. So it’s not the only answer. This is the reason why people think, Oh, well, it’s curable. Why do I have to prevent it? This is a big reason why Mm hmm. say we go in the in the wrong way and we get sick and then our savings is depleted. And then that affects our mindset, and then we get more or our behaviors and then you get more sick and this is like not a good, wrrong cycle. The other

To stay healthy, and live longer, you make more money you reinvest in yourself, you do all the things you’d like to but, but you know, this is the way to live long and prosper as that person you were quoting said,

Tony Maree Torrey 25:13
Mm hmm. Yeah,

Dr Mel Palomares 25:14
it’s really important because we spend fear if you do it right, you spend 10 1015 years to plan your retirement, why wouldn’t you spend the same amount of time to plan your health?

Tony Maree Torrey 25:24
It totally makes sense to me on legacy in the making show. I know that, to some extent, the legacy component, oftentimes people think about what’s happening after they’ve left this mortal plane. But it doesn’t have to be that way. And wouldn’t it be so much better to be creating this positive influence using your position to make amazing changes in the world and live long enough to see some of the results associated with that, and the generations that get to benefit from what it is that you’re creating in the world? Dr. Mel, have you got any last thoughts that you would like to add? This has been such an amazing conversation, I really hope people persist with listening to this just because cancer is an uncomfortable subject, we kind of want to like pull the blanket over our head and not take a look at it. But it is such a vitally important topic that we’re talking about here today. What else would you like people to know about? Before we finish up,

Dr Mel Palomares 26:23
I think the biggest tips are, prioritize your own health over profits, as I mentioned, and then in order to do that, to make sure you’re on the right program. So first, know your risk, so that you can have a strategy that is personal to you. I have a risk assessment that’s free online, and anyone can take on our website, our website is cancerriskprevention.com, or alternatively, cancerpreventionmovement.com That works too. And then at the top, there’s in big blue, your cancer risk, and click on that and choose the assessment. It’s only 10 questions to take, it’s really quick, each question is a domain of risk. And if it looks like there’s one, one area that could be improved, then you’ll be invited to speak with me. And if you’re doing everything great, perfect already, you’ll get a message that says that, however, it’s really easy to trip at least one of the 10. In order to know your risk, make sure you’re seeing a professional to do that.

Tony Maree Torrey 27:25
That is such sage advice. I love everything that you are doing in the world, the legacy that you are creating the movement, the cancer prevention movement, that you are stimulating the conversations around and making sure that we are starting to really protect ourselves and legacies in this way. Thank you so much for being here, Dr. Mel, links to your sites will be in the show notes, you can check out Dr. Mel’s, show notes and click on the link there and you’ll be able to be sure that you get straight to that amazing assessment. It’s been wonderful having you here, I am grateful to have you as a friend and a client and I look forward to the next stage of evolution in your movement.

Dr Mel Palomares 28:08
Thank you for having me. Can I add a little passionate thing?

Tony Maree Torrey 28:12
Oh, absolutely. lead with wisdom, prosper thru Passion is the tagline for legacy in the making show. That’s great. And that’s what we’re all about.

No sun there. I mean,

Unknown Speaker 16:41
And then I said, Fine, but give me six to eight weeks, I’m not taking anything, give me six, eight weeks, and I got busy. And I ended up losing a bunch of weight.

Tony Maree Torrey 16:49
Mm hmm.

Unknown Speaker 16:51
position was saying, What have you been doing? So I didn’t need medication. But that started me on the roll, actually, of getting healthy. I found the melanoma after that. So it makes me wonder if I had not started getting healthy, how much worse it would have been Mm hmm. more reason to make sure I stayed healthy once I had that diagnosis. And in between the two, having the high blood pressure, and me having melanoma, my father was diagnosed with colon cancer. So a lot, this is all happening at the same time

Tony Maree Torrey 18:42
And I was in the middle of a big avalanche. And so how does this play into how it is that you help?

Unknown Speaker 18:48
Yeah, I like what you were saying about other other business owners because as someone that founded a cancer prevention movement, and so I am also in that category, we have to remind ourselves to take care of ourselves. That could mean personal health over profits, it’s really key to knowing and doing it is a completely different thing. accountability is important. But more than accountability, we also have to make sure we’re barking up the right tree. So often I talk to people, because I say the first first thing you need to know is to know your risk, because strategy falls from there. You wouldn’t do your business, for instance, all you might have like a general boilerplate, but you’re going to personalize it for different situations and different clients, for instance. Right? And so it’s the same sort of thing. You don’t do the same plan for every person. And so what happens is sometimes I see people that have a family history of cancer, and they think they’re doing to get cancer, and I do these deep analyses of their family pedigree and really figure out is that true or not? And do we need to do genetic

Unknown Speaker 23:28
You know, I’m so glad you

Tony Maree Torrey 24:43
cycle

Unknown Speaker 24:44
the other way, but it’s common, it’s more common. People think the other way is is a proactive one and what I advocate and that is, you make a little money you invest in yourself and then you do proactive health, kind of

Unknown Speaker 28:22
When I said that, I believe I was placed on this earth to create a cancer free world, I actually believe it’s completely possible. I am committed. And so I will put the energy into it. And hopefully that commitment will will inspire other people to join with me. But we must start with ourselves, which is why I share what I share. Here’s the real key thing is that it starts with us. And so it’s important for other people to take up what I said because if they don’t do it, it’s not really a movement. We have to do our own preventive care, and then tell other people about it and they do their preventive care thing and then it becomes a movement. Yeah, just with us. People wait until they’re diagnosed with cancer. And by then it’s been there for five to 20 years. It’s really late when when to start is when you’re healthy.

Tony Maree Torrey 29:21
I’m glad you tuned in to the legacy in the making show. If you’re genuinely interested in creating positive change in your business or your life or on a more global scale, I invite you to connect with me at Tony murray.com that’s Tony with a why Marie with two E’s. When you get there you’ll find the path to purpose master plan, the truly brilliant method to make sure you’re clear on why you’re here. This is the absolute critical foundation to honing your instincts and leaving a legacy you’ll be proud of. You can also find out about the innate wisdom Business Council Which is an opportunity to evolve your vision in the company of like minded leaders and much, much more. Thanks for listening. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and we’ll see you next time.