A More Personalized Approach to Supportive Cancer Care
Cancer care is increasingly personalized. I believe supportive care should be too.
My approach at Restore Health is not centered around giving every patient with a particular cancer the same diet, supplement protocol, or list of complementary therapies.
Instead, I want to understand three things:
Your cancer. Your treatment. Your biology.
That means understanding the disease itself, the conventional treatment decisions in front of you, and the individual biological factors that may provide additional opportunities to support your health during treatment.
My goal is to help you understand the complete clinical picture, investigate areas that may deserve a deeper look, and develop an individualized supportive strategy around your conventional cancer care.
1. Understanding Your Cancer in Depth
I begin by trying to understand the cancer itself—not simply the diagnosis written at the top of the chart.
That may involve reviewing:
- Pathology
- Stage and disease distribution
- Imaging
- Molecular and genomic findings
- Previous treatments
- Treatment response
- Tumor markers when applicable
- Current laboratory findings
- Changes in the disease over time
Here’s what most patients and most naturopathic oncologists DON’T understand: two cancers in the same tissue can behave very differently. Even the same cancer with different genomics and proteomics isn’t the same disease.
Molecular characteristics can sometimes help explain those differences and, in appropriate situations, identify biomarkers associated with targeted therapies, immunotherapy, resistance mechanisms, or clinical trials.
That is why molecular information can be an important part of understanding the patient’s disease.
2. Helping You Navigate Conventional Treatment Decisions
Sometimes cancer treatment is relatively straightforward.
Other times, patients are presented with several possible paths.
Should treatment change now or continue?
What is the rationale behind the proposed chemotherapy regimen?
Is there a targeted therapy relevant to a molecular finding?
Where might immunotherapy fit?
What are the potential advantages and disadvantages of the options being discussed?
These decisions belong between the patient and the oncology team directing their cancer treatment. But patients often benefit from having someone spend additional time helping them understand the information in front of them.
One part of my work is reviewing the available clinical information with patients, explaining concepts in understandable language, and helping them identify questions they may want to bring back to their oncologist.
The objective isn’t to make the decision for the patient.
It’s to help the patient become a better-informed participant in that decision.
3. Looking Deeper With Molecular Profiling
In selected patients, additional molecular information may provide another piece of the puzzle.
This can include reviewing existing tissue-based molecular testing and, when clinically appropriate, considering circulating tumor DNA testing, commonly called a liquid biopsy.
Liquid biopsy analyzes tumor-derived DNA circulating in the bloodstream.
Depending on the cancer and clinical setting, validated ctDNA testing may identify genomic alterations relevant to approved targeted therapies, resistance mechanisms, or clinical-trial eligibility. It also has important limitations: not every tumor sheds detectable amounts of DNA into the bloodstream, and a negative liquid biopsy does not necessarily mean that an alteration is absent.
For that reason, liquid biopsy should not automatically replace tissue pathology or tissue-based molecular testing.
I view it as another potential source of information—one that can sometimes help us build a more detailed picture of the cancer when interpreted within the rest of the clinical context.
4. Going Beyond Routine Laboratory Testing
Understanding the cancer is only part of the equation.
I also want to understand the person experiencing the cancer.
Depending on the patient and the clinical questions we’re trying to answer, additional laboratory evaluation may investigate areas such as:
- Nutritional and micronutrient status
- Metabolic health
- Inflammatory markers
- Immune-related markers
- Gastrointestinal function
- Hormonal or metabolic factors when relevant
- Environmental exposures when appropriate
- Other biological abnormalities suggested by the patient’s history
I don’t believe in ordering advanced testing simply because more data are available.
The question should always be:
If this result is abnormal, could it meaningfully change what we do?
The purpose of deeper testing is to uncover useful information that may help make supportive care more individualized.
5. Identifying Barriers to Health and Immune Function
The immune system and cancer have a complicated relationship.
Tumors can create local environments that interfere with effective antitumor immune responses through mechanisms involving immune checkpoints, inflammatory signaling, altered metabolism, abnormal vasculature, hypoxia, regulatory immune cells, and other components of the tumor microenvironment.
At the same time, the patient’s overall physiology matters.
Nutrition, metabolic health, physical activity, sleep, stress, treatment effects, and nutritional deficiencies can influence immune function and general health.
I therefore look for potentially modifiable factors that may be working against the patient’s health or normal immune function.
That does not mean claiming that a supplement can simply “boost the immune system” or overcome the tumor microenvironment.
Instead, it means identifying biological factors worth addressing and evaluating what evidence exists for interventions that may influence them.
6. Using Nutrition and Nutraceuticals Strategically
Supplements should have a reason for being used.
I don’t believe that every patient with breast cancer, prostate cancer, colorectal cancer, or another diagnosis should automatically receive the same supplement stack.
Instead, I consider questions such as:
Why are we using this?
What evidence supports it?
Is there a deficiency we’re correcting?
Is there a particular biological pathway we’re trying to influence?
Is there human clinical evidence, or is the rationale primarily preclinical?
Could it interact with the patient’s treatment?
What dose has actually been studied?
Could it increase treatment toxicity?
Those questions often matter more than whether a supplement has been described online as “anticancer.”
Combining that with my clinical experience using various phytotherapeutics and micronutrients alongside conventional care guides our decision making.
The goal is strategic supplementation, not simply more supplementation.
7. Evaluating Repurposed Medications
I also evaluate evidence surrounding repurposed medications when appropriate.
Drug repurposing involves investigating medications originally developed for other conditions because they may affect biological pathways relevant to cancer.
Potential mechanisms involving cancer metabolism, inflammation, angiogenesis, cell signaling, and other aspects of tumor biology have generated considerable research interest.
But the strength of evidence varies enormously.
A medication showing anticancer activity in a cell culture is not equivalent to demonstrating improved outcomes in patients.
When considering a repurposed medication, I look at the totality of the evidence, including human clinical data when available, the specific cancer type, mechanism, dosing, safety, contraindications, drug interactions, and how it fits with the patient’s conventional treatment.
The objective is not to substitute experimental approaches for established cancer therapy.
It is to critically evaluate whether an additional intervention has a reasonable evidence-based role in an individualized supportive strategy.
8. Looking for Compatibility With Conventional Treatment
This may be one of the biggest differences in my approach.
I don’t develop a complementary plan first and then ask how it fits with oncology treatment afterward.
The conventional treatment is part of the analysis from the beginning.
If you’re receiving chemotherapy, I want to know the drugs.
If you’re receiving targeted therapy, I want to understand the target.
If you’re receiving immunotherapy, that mechanism matters.
Sometimes the same drug can be used to hit two different targets. Sometimes two drugs hit the same target. You want someone on your team who understands that nuance and can leverage that knowledge.
The same applies to hormonal therapy, radiation, surgery, anticoagulants, supportive medications, and other treatments.
Then we can evaluate whether a proposed intervention is likely to be compatible with that treatment, whether an interaction is possible, and how strong the evidence is for using them together.
Sometimes that means recommending an intervention.
Sometimes it means changing the dose or timing.
And sometimes the most appropriate recommendation is not to use something because the uncertainty or interaction risk outweighs the potential benefit.
9. Helping You Feel and Function Better During Treatment
There is another part of cancer care that shouldn’t get lost in discussions about molecular pathways and laboratory testing:
How the patient actually feels.
Fatigue, gastrointestinal symptoms, appetite changes, sleep disruption, loss of strength, nutritional problems, stress, and treatment-related symptoms can substantially affect quality of life.
Supporting these areas may involve nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress management, correction of nutritional deficiencies, carefully selected nutraceuticals, and other supportive interventions.
The goal is to help patients maintain their health and function as much as reasonably possible while navigating cancer treatment.
Bringing It Together: Your Cancer, Your Treatment, Your Biology
My approach at Restore Health can ultimately be summarized in three areas:
Your cancer:
What is the diagnosis? How is it behaving? What does the pathology show? What do imaging and molecular findings tell us?
Your treatment:
What conventional therapies have you received? How have you responded? What are you receiving now? What options are being considered next?
Your biology:
What do your symptoms, nutritional status, metabolic health, laboratory findings, medications, lifestyle, and other individual factors tell us?
From there, we can make more thoughtful decisions about nutrition, lifestyle, laboratory evaluation, nutraceuticals, repurposed medications, and other supportive strategies.
That is the model of naturopathic oncology and supportive cancer care I use at Restore Health.
It is designed to work alongside—not in place of—conventional oncology treatment.
Restore Health currently provides telehealth consultations for patients located throughout Utah.
If you would like to learn more about my approach, visit Naturopathic Oncology at Restore Health or schedule a free 15-minute discovery call to discuss your diagnosis, current treatment, and what you’re looking for from supportive cancer care.
