#380 How Cancer Treatments Affect Your Nutrients And What You Can Do About it

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In this week’s episode, we’re talking about something that’s often overlooked but can have a huge impact on your recovery—nutrient deficiencies caused by breast cancer treatments.

Yep, you heard that right! The very treatments that are helping you heal could also be depleting your body of essential nutrients, and you might not even know it.

If you've been feeling a little more fatigued than usual, dealing with muscle cramps, or noticing changes in your skin, hair, or even your mood, this episode is for you.

We’ll be exploring what drug-induced nutrient deficiencies are, how you might recognize the subtle (or not-so-subtle) signs, and how to take action to nourish your body in a way that supports your healing and helps you feel your best.

I’ll also be sharing some simple and effective dietary tips—no overwhelm here, I promise!

These are things you can start adding to your life today to boost your energy, improve your mood, and support your overall well-being while you're on this recovery journey.

Whether you're currently in treatment or navigating life post-treatment, this episode is packed with insights that will help you understand what your body needs right now.

So grab your favorite cup of tea, get cozy, and tune in! You won’t want to miss this eye-opening conversation that might just be the key to unlocking a deeper sense of wellness in your recovery.

 

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Read the full transcript:

0:00
You're listening to better than before breast cancer with the breast cancer recovery coach, I'm your host, Laura lummer. I'm a certified life coach, and I'm a breast cancer thriver. In this podcast, I will give you the skills on the insides and the tools to move past the emotional and physical trauma of a breast cancer diagnosis if you're looking for a way to create a life that's even better than before breast cancer, you've come to the right place. Let's get started.

0:33
Hey there, friends, welcome to episode 380,

0:36
of better than before breast cancer. I'm your host, Laura lummer, and thrilled to be here with you today. Today we're going to talk about something that I think is very important for us as people who have had a breast cancer diagnosis to understand. Because when we have a breast cancer diagnosis, more often than not, we take pharmaceutical drugs as part of our treatment plan, and we also go through some different things, right? So first of all, let me start off with a little bit of a disclaimer. This episode is totally educational. What I'm going to share with you is information that I hope expands your understanding of what possibly could be happening in your body and why you might be experiencing certain symptoms, doesn't mean that it's true. Doesn't mean that this is what's happening to you. And as I talk about what we're going to talk about, which is drug induced nutrient deficiencies, I'm not saying that it's happening to you if you've gone through certain treatment, but I am saying 100% don't go out and start taking a bunch of supplements if you hear me say something about a B 12 deficiency or vitamin C deficiency, because this show is not about encouraging you to go take supplements, I want to help you understand that you have some options available to you if you're not feeling the way you want to feel. And first so let me start off with a little bit of a story here. When I went through my first treatment, my IV chemotherapy bag in 2011

2:09
I had severe neuropathy in my hands and in my feet, in from my feet, I should say, from my toes to the middle of my shins, and it was very uncomfortable. I was really struggling. It affected my ability to walk. It affected my ability to walk up and down stairs. It affected my ability to cook. It was difficult for me to just hold on to utensils long enough to cook. It affected my ability to exercise. It was very difficult to pick up any kind of a dumbbell. My grip strength was just not there anymore. And one of my sisters had a client who was a physician, and he was in treatment for Stage Four colon cancer, and he my sister and he were talking one day, and she shared with him the neuropathy that I was going through. Now, my oncologist was well aware of this also, but he shared with her a supplement that I could take that would help. And he said, B 12, in the form of methylcobalamin, will help your sister, because a lot of times a b 12 deficiency is something that can happen because of chemotherapy, and it can have a big impact on neuropathy. So great information. I trusted him. I got this sublingual form that he recommended I took it, and at the same time, I was doing acupuncture, and I had tremendous results from that. It helped me a lot. Fast Forward, many years later, I'm diagnosed with stage four metastatic breast cancer, and one of the treatments I get put on maybe two, two and a half years into my treatment was a drug called brazilnio. And after reading all of the studies and understanding the side effects that I might encounter, one of them being that 89% of women who take verzinio have chronic, severe diarrhea, and I did not escape that side effect. So what I wanted to understand was, what is the mechanism like? Why, when I'm taking this drug, does it cause this side effect? And I think a lot of times, we just stay with the idea that I feel bad because I'm doing chemo. I feel bad because I'm on aromatase inhibitor, I feel bad because I'm taking this thing. And we just relate what we're experiencing to the drug we're taking or the therapy that we're undergoing, but we don't really realize that that drug or that therapy may be impacting some kind of nutritional value in our body. And the reason why I said this is not a show to encourage you to just go out and start taking supplements, is because sometimes those therapies that you're taking may be intentionally changing the health of your gut or the type of nutrient that you're taking. So for example, many of us are told.

5:00
Old when we're going through chemotherapy, don't take antioxidants because they don't want the antioxidants to undermine the benefits or the effectiveness of the chemotherapy. Maybe it's because studies haven't been done. If you take this vitamin, how will it affect this drug? And it's just unknown. Or maybe with some it is known that if you take something, it can make it less effective. For example, something like grapefruit. We know that there are elements of grapefruit that can cause chemotherapy agents or other drugs to be cleared from the liver too fast, so it doesn't have time to stay in the body long enough to have the impact that standard of care wants it to have. So we have to be aware that sometimes these things are interacting, and we don't want to lessen the effect of the drug. That's why, anytime you think about taking a supplement to address a nutrient deficiency, please be speaking to a licensed medical practitioner, whether it's your naturopath or a standard of care doctor, but somebody who understands the interaction between supplements and medications. Now what I'm going to talk about is these nutrient deficiencies and how we can address them through diet, because diet is always going to be a safer route, right? It's not this condensed form of some nutrient. So let me go back to my story here. When I got on verzinio, my quality of life, once again, was impacted substantially difficult time leaving the whole house.

6:35
I was very uncomfortable.

6:37
My mornings were occupied with the side effects of versinio. And if I wanted to go anywhere outside of the house or be away from a bathroom, say a car ride, or something like that, for any period of time, then I would have to take other things to counteract side effects of that drug, so I could just get from one place to the other. But it was also uncomfortable and also being focused on metabolic health. In my mind, I'm thinking, this is tearing up my gut, right? So I'm taking a drug that's clearly having an effect on my gut health because of the side effect of diarrhea. Then I'm taking other things to try to stop the diarrhea, just so I can live a normal life, or sit for an hour on a consultation or on a call with a client, and then that's also changing what's going on in my gut. So I didn't like that interaction at all. And I called a lot of people. I called pharmacies. I spoke with my oncologist. I called the drug company itself. I called a lot of people to say, what is the mechanism? What is happening when I take this drug that causes me to have such severe diarrhea? And what I heard was it's just the nature of the drug. So nobody could say to me, like, for example, it's dehydrating, or it's preventing your large intestine from reabsorbing a certain amount of liquid, or it's an irritant, or they couldn't tell me specifically. And I wanted to know specifically, what does the drug do? So that I could understand, is there something I could do to counteract what is happening there for that specific side effect? Right? So eventually I ended up getting off that drug because it just it was not work. It was not working. Wasn't effective with my treatment at all, and it was actually creating a tremendous amount of inflammation and really extreme side effects for me, I just was not doing well on it. So I did switch and and everything improved rather quickly. But that's not the point. The point of it is that understanding that when we take any kind of a drug, it's going to impact something else in our body, and maybe some of the symptoms we experience can be lessened with proper nutrition. Then we take into considerations people's nutrition genome, so the way that our genes respond to nutrition, and for me personally, my nutrition genome shows me that I need more than what would be considered the average of B 12 that my body doesn't use it efficiently, choline and folate. So if, for example, the RDA on one of those nutrients was a specific number that's looking at the minimum amount required for the average person to get what they need, and I know that I need more of that. Then let's say that I'm taking some kind of a drug that also impacts my levels of B 12, folate or choline. Then I know I'm going to need even more of that, right? So I'll have to pay really specific attention to my diet and the foods that bring those nutrients into my diet. So when we're talking about drug induced nutrient deficiencies, this is what I'm talking about. So essentially, I'm saying that it's a condition where something has led to a deficiency and our body doesn't have enough of the nutrients it.

10:00
Need to function optimally, not not to function at all, because many of us function with nutrient deficiencies, but it doesn't feel great. So we think of it as a car, right? A car as gas and a car as coolant and a car as oil. And I'm sure it has other things I have no idea, but if we don't take care of the oil, and we put great gas in, and we get a tune up, but we don't have them take care of the oil, and we run out of the oil, the car is not going to work, right. Or we don't use the right kind of oil in our car, the engine's going to make clunking sounds, or the wrong kind of gasoline, right? So the same with our body, for not putting the right things in. It doesn't mean it's not necessarily going to work, but it may not work optimally, and you may not feel the way you want to feel. So how would you even begin to know if you have a nutrient deficiency? Well, there's a couple of ways. So one way is that you might be noticing physical, mental or emotional symptoms that are out of the ordinary for you. So it may be fatigue, muscle cramps, brittle nails, thinning hair, dry skin, frequent infections. You might have brain fog, trouble concentrating, feeling just mentally off, or have mood swings or anxiety, or just feel just lethargic and unmotivated or just kind of down. Now, some of those symptoms when we're going through treatment could be the result or being impacted by the stress of the treatment itself, and some could be because of a nutrient deficiency. So another way to know is by doing functional nutrition testing, so labs where a functional specialist, or someone who understands looking at labs from a functional perspective, rather, which is different than a standard of care perspective. When we're looking at those kind of labs, we're looking at mineral levels, or indications of vitamins, mineral levels, inflammation, inflammatory markers, how well your body is detoxifying, so we're looking through a little bit of a different lens, and that kind of helps us to see through this kind of testing and through what your blood is saying whether or not there may be a nutrition deficiency. So let me give you some insights as to what common drug induced nutrient deficiencies happen when we're going through breast cancer treatment. So chemotherapy, if you've been through it, you know it's very tough on your body. It affects your stomach lining, which can lead to poor absorption of nutrients like B, 12, folate, calcium, zinc, so your electrolytes can be off of balance, and this is an important thing that they address. When we're going through chemotherapy, right? We want to stay hydrated. And a lot of drugs, I know, for me personally, a lot of drugs that were given to me were to curtail nausea and vomiting, because we want to stop someone from going down that road, so that they don't get even more dehydrated. So you might feel tired, get tingling in your hands and feet, or just feel overall weak radiation therapy, this increases oxidative stress in the body. So basically, it can deplete antioxidant vitamins like vitamin C and vitamin E. It can impact calcium and vitamin D, and you might notice dry skin, slower healing, increased bone pain, aromatase inhibitors. These medications lower estrogen, which is important for our bone health. So they can lead to deficiencies in vitamin D, calcium, magnesium, and they can increase the risk of bone loss and muscle cramps. So if you're on these you might notice symptoms like muscle stiffness, cramps or bone aches, and you might think it's just because of the drug, but could it be possible that the drug is causing a deficiency, and the deficiency is what's resulting in the discomfort? Again, it's something to explore. It's not saying that this is exactly what's happening to you. So let's think about as you're going through this, and I think a lot of times, we kind of dismiss these symptoms also as either a part of treatment, or I'm getting older, or I'm not exercising as much, and all those can have a part in this as well, right? So one more time to re emphasize, I'm going to continue to emphasize this. It's not always because of a nutrient deficiency, but it can be an option for you if you're not feeling the way you want to feel, and you think you've addressed things and it's not improving, this is another area to explore for yourself. So let's talk about some of the things that you can do to support your body with the right foods that could be helpful if you feel like maybe a nutrient deficiency is the source or part of the root of some of the symptoms that you're experiencing. So I think something that's important to address here is that even if you are.

15:00
Getting the amount of calories needed for your body to function right? Calories are just an exchange of energy. We take in calories through food, we put out calories through our body functioning and moving. And let's say that you want to lose some weight, or you're gaining weight, and you're thinking, well, I already am eating enough, right? So why would I have a nutrient deficiency? Because I'm eating enough, I'm not losing weight, right? I don't have a calorie deficit. Or maybe there's some other issues going on with that. But I think there's a something we have to really pay attention to, is there's a difference between eating enough calorically and eating enough of the right nutrients. So we have to realize that if we're eating processed foods, if we're eating high sugar foods, if we're eating foods that are high in carbohydrates a lot of times, or especially if we're eating out, there's a lot of hidden calories. So I went to this restaurant recently with my granddaughter. We were out doing back to school shopping, and of course, when I'm out with her, the sky's the limit. I take her wherever she wants to go, within reason. But I said, Where do you want to go for dinner? We would take a shopping break, and she named a restaurant in the shopping center we were out. So I said, Okay, I haven't been to this restaurant in a very long time, and on the menu is the caloric content. So here in California, I don't know if it's like this all over the country, but in California, if you have certain caloric values on your meals, you have to list them on the menu. So I started looking at the food on this menu, and I was shocked. I mean shocked at the amount of calories that were in a salad or an appetizer. I mean, way more than a day's worth of calories, even in a piece of the desserts that they sold. And so I think it's important for us to remember that just because we think we're getting enough energy in, doesn't mean we're getting the right nutrients in. So it is very important, and I talk to clients about this all the time, it's very important for us to track our food for at least a short period of time, and even if that means two weekdays and one weekend day that you actually look at what you eat on a regular basis without trying to be perfect, without trying to be good, you just look at it in a food tracking app that actually tells you the nutrient values, even if we're intentional about getting in vegetables and getting in salads, you may be surprised at How far short you fall of recommended daily allowances of certain vitamins and minerals. So it can be very eye opening. And I always say that the first step to change is just awareness. Before you change anything, just be aware of what you're currently doing. Because if we just go with and I hear this a lot when I talk to people and they say, No, I don't track anything, but I know I eat good. I'm sure I don't eat that many carbs, and I say, Let's then, let's just look. Because once we have data, we have a lot more power. So we have data, we can say, Wow, this is what is actually going on. Now we can make realistic, small changes to support you. Okay, so let's talk about what we can do through food. Number one, understand what you're eating, become aware of what you're actually eating, without judgment, without condemnation, without feeling bad. This is just an exploration and curiosity. What is going into your body to support your health. Then if you see some nutrient deficiencies, let's talk about what you could add in so if you want to boost vitamin D and calcium, you can eat more fatty fish, salmon, sardines. I know when I say sardines, people like turn green, but I've actually learned to love sardines. I buy these wild cut sardines, and they're packed in olive oil, and it's basically just tuna, and they don't have heads and tails and eyeballs and all that, because I would totally gross me out. And so I just opened them up and throw them into a salad. And because I actually like tuna, and they taste very much just like tuna. So we can use sardines, tuna fortified plant milks. We can use leafy greens, kale, spinach, nuts, like almonds, and get outside intentionally every day, 10 to 20 minutes a day, okay, sunlight really helps your body to make that vitamin D naturally. Aside from just the fact that nature is so good for our health, if you see that you're not taking in as much magnesium as your body may need you're falling short of a recommended daily allowance, and maybe you're noticing a lot of muscle cramping. I know that's an issue for me up to be very on top of my magnesium and my electrolyte intake, you can eat things like dark chocolate, not sugar filled. Dark chocolate, good. Dark chocolate is like 80% cacao.

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Right? And I'll tell you what dark chocolate and nuts can be helpful. So something that I really enjoy doing is taking nuts. I prefer macadamia nuts, but you can do almonds. You can do any of your favorite kind of nuts, melt the dark chocolate and just make a nut bark out of that dark chocolate, mix it with a little bit of coconut oil to kind of give it that liquidy, but it'll still get hard at room temperature. And pour it over your nuts and seeds, so you can get a little treat with it as well. So you can take in magnesium through dark chocolate, avocados, nuts, seeds, and if you do consume grains, whole, organic please, grains like quinoa or brown rice, can help with that. One of my favorite ways to get some more magnesium, and I know if I'm having a lot of muscle spasms that this is going to give me relief right away, is an Epsom salt bath. So adding in Epsom salt baths to your routine, it's relaxing, and it helps you absorb magnesium through your skin, and I think that it's a very eye opening experience, because we talk about lowering our toxic burden by what we put in on and around us. And for me, when you take an ebsense alt bath and you realize how much relief that can give you so quickly, I think it's another elevation in awareness at how much our skin absorbs. So we have to think about that when we're taking things in and we're thinking about lowering a toxic burden. Okay, let's talk about B vitamins. I see a lot of red flags when I'm working with people about nutrient deficiencies in their B vitamins. So some of the things we can make sure we're incorporating on a daily basis, eggs, legumes, if you eat legumes, leafy greens and B 12 is particularly found in animal products. So if you are a plant based eater, only if you only eat, and this is very rare. I'd like to say, if you only eat vegetables, most of the time, I find that if people call themselves plant based, they're taking in a lot of carbohydrates. But if you are only eating vegetables, you might want to talk to your doctor or nutritionist about a P 12 supplement, because it can be very important, especially in the whole in the methylation process, but so many other things that happen in our body. So B vitamins are water soluble, and that means your body doesn't store them well, so you have to eat these foods more regularly on a daily basis. If there is a deficiency, or your labs, or your testing shows, or your symptoms indicate that you may need more zinc. You can get that through shellfish, pumpkin seeds, beans, nuts and zinc is very beneficial to support healing and our immune system function. So if you notice that maybe you're having a change in your sense of taste, or you're getting frequent colds, maybe that's a sign you need more zinc, and you could do some testing to look into that and see so let's also talk about how you get antioxidant support in a way that's safe without turning to a bunch of antioxidant supplements. Unless you've spoken to a licensed practitioner who tells you it's okay to take supplements and they're not going to undermine the effectiveness of your effectiveness of your treatment, but the way we can increase our antioxidant support safely through food is by eating berries, dark leafy greens, nuts, again, with the dark chocolate, good quality dark chocolate, not dark chocolate filled with sugar and even seeds. So this helps our body fight off that oxidative stress. Antioxidants help to kind of fight off that rust, for lack of a better word, that oxidative stress effect on our body. This is why eating a rainbow, multiple colors of vegetables is more than just fun and pretty and smells good and tastes good, but it's a way to get a variety of antioxidants into your body every day in a way that's not overloading yourself, like through supplements. Okay, it's really important to remember that breast cancer treatment is a journey. It is complex. It changes. It is not over, as we all know who are going through it and have been through it. It's up and down. It is not linear and it changes, but so does your body right and paying attention to your nutrition and how your body feels through different treatments, noticing if symptoms come and go, that you could make changes and tweak your diet to help support your overall wellness. So we don't want to just do one thing all the time without stopping and paying attention to what is changing and what changes in our body can be affected by treatments, of course, by stressors in life, but also by seasons, right? We're going to add different needs, and this.

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The beautiful thing about eating whole foods, and especially eating local foods, eating organic foods, is that the Earth produces foods with certain nutrients that support us better in seasons, so foods grow, and it's not some random thing that foods grow during certain seasons. And if you think about, I love thinking about the Ayurvedic energy of being connected to the earth, and when the season changes to fall or winter and the air is cold and dry and windy, and we have access to more vegetables, like root vegetables and sweet potatoes and pumpkins and squash and things that are heavy and unctuous and a little bit sweet, right when it's hot during the summer. What does the Earth produce for us? Fresh watermelon, right? More watery foods because it's hot and it's dry outside, cooling foods, salads, berries, strawberries, beautiful tomatoes. So let's think about being in sync with the rhythm of the seasons of our body of the earth, and paying attention to the nutrients that we need to support us during each of these phases. So I hope that helps you in understanding a little more about the fact that maybe you have some more power. Maybe there's something else to look into if you're not feeling the way you want to feel, and your understanding or your thought about it is it's just because of a pharmaceutical you're taking, and that's what that drug does to you. But maybe that drug is affecting something else, and there's potential there for you to have better support for yourself so you can feel better. Okay, so check these things out with your doctor, check these things out with your functional nutritionist. Check them out with your naturopath, ask questions and really create a team to support you, because there are so many options for us out there. Let's get as many tools into our toolbox as possible to support our bodies journey on its way to optimal health. All right, if you would like more help with that, you can find me at the breast cancer recovery coach.com

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you can go to coaching and programs where you can choose metabolic coaching. You can work with me in my better than before breast cancer life coaching membership where we work on everything, our thoughts, our bodies, our minds, our time, everything, relationships, all the good stuff. There's just a four year library of content in there to support every conceivable thing you can think of. All right, so come and check it out at the breast cancer recovery coach.com and I'll talk to you again next week. Until then, be good to yourself.

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