⏳ 00:00 Introduction and Opening Remarks
⏳ 00:24 Meet Dr. Dan Rubin
⏳ 01:17 Founding the American Board of Naturopathic Oncology
⏳ 03:27 The Role of Naturopathic Oncology
⏳ 05:00 Integrative Cancer Care
⏳ 09:09 The Resilience Model of Cancer Care
⏳ 15:16 Advice for Newly Diagnosed Patients
⏳ 15:39 Ad: Prostabel®
⏳ 16:18 Advice for Newly Diagnosed Patients (continuation)
⏳ 20:03 Advanced Lab Testing in Naturopathic Oncology
⏳ 26:21 Personalized Treatment Plans
⏳ 34:30 Conclusion and Contact Information

How Naturopathic Oncology Is Changing Cancer Care

with Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO

 

Introduction and Opening Remarks

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: I’ve been on a rampage for years, and I use the word, specifically, pathetic. The type of testing that is done on average in the world of conventional oncology is subpar, and it really is pathetic. I will say this in…

Meet Dr. Dan Rubin

Victor Dwyer: Hey, everyone! Welcome to today’s episode of The Beljanski Cancer Talk Show.

We’re honored to welcome Dr. Dan Rubin, a pioneer in naturopathic oncology with over 20 years of experience integrating natural and conventional cancer care. As the Medical Director of the Naturopathic Specialists in Scottsdale, Dr. Rubin has helped patients in all 50 states and 19 countries.

He’s known for guiding both adults and children through personalized care, especially those exploring alternatives to conventional treatment. Get ready to learn how naturopathic oncology is transforming cancer care with compassion and innovation. 

Founding the American Board of Naturopathic Oncology

Sylvie Beljanski: Hello, Dr. Rubin. Thank you for joining us today. 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: You’re welcome. 

Sylvie Beljanski: You are a founding member of the American Board of Naturopathic Oncology. I assume that growing up as a little boy, you did not dream of being on the board of Naturopathic Oncology. So what happened? How did you get there? 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: It’s an interesting question. You’re right. I didn’t dream of it. I’m trying to figure out what I was dreaming of back then.

It really came out of a need to protect the public. So the American Board of Naturopathic Oncology actually came out of the Oncology Association of Naturopathic Physicians, which was founded in 2004 because, especially in the state of Arizona, we had a need to demonstrate those who are naturopathic physicians who are focused in oncology to be able to call themselves specialists. ‘Cause in the state of Arizona, it was actually, what was it? It wasn’t criminal. It was professional misconduct to refer to yourself or to put yourself out there or to make yourself look like a specialist without having recognition by the board.

So, in order to do that, we had to form a specialty organization. We had to get acceptance and affiliation with our national profession. And then that allowed us to become recognized by our state board. So, we started a national organization, 2004. I was the founding president. It was called the Oncology Association of Naturopathic Oncologists or Naturopathic Oncology.

And from that, we had to denote who was gonna become a fellow to the American Board of Naturopathic Oncology. So, the American Board of Naturopathic Oncology came out of that. And we were able to develop criteria and develop a test which was cut, scored, and administered by a third party. And then, if you meet all the criteria and you pass the test, then you were eligible to be given your fellow to the American Board of Naturopathic Oncology and be deemed a specialist. Why? 

Sylvie Beljanski: So in, in other terms, you are a net naturopathic oncology doctor… 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: I am 

Sylvie Beljanski: …setting criterias for other naturopathic oncology doctors… 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: Board certified naturopathic oncologist, one of the first in the country. 

Sylvie Beljanski: So how did you become…

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: Thanks for asking. 

The Role of Naturopathic Oncology

Sylvie Beljanski: How did you become a naturopathic oncology doctor? I think that’s very rare. When people get cancer they do not even imagine, fantasize, that there could be a naturopathic oncology doctor. For most people, oncology means chemotherapy, radiotherapy, pain, suffering, and two minutes attention and that’s it.

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: Yeah.

Sylvie Beljanski: You are doing, obviously, something else. Otherwise, you will not be a naturopathic doctor. So how is your care different from other oncologists? What does it mean to be a naturopathic doctor, oncologist, doctor? 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: It’s a great question because, whereas on the whole, in terms of natural care and being a naturopathic physician and the tools that we have, they’re not, our tools are really not as good at killing the cancer cells per se, but we are amazing at taking care of everything else.

And so in conventional oncology, although things are changing because we’re looking at immunotherapy, we’re looking at small molecules, we’re looking at precision diagnostics and targeted therapies. But on the whole, looking at surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy and where things have been, they are focused not on the human per se, they’re focused on the tumor, and that’s where the naturopathic oncologists, functional medicine practitioners, health coaches, sort of everything in the realm of non-conventional oncology and on the inside the village that it takes to take care of somebody comes in. 

Integrative Cancer Care

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: And so the way we approach nutrition, the way we take care of the human, the lab testing we do, and I wanna actually go in depth, if you don’t mind here.

Sylvie Beljanski: Sure. 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: At least on this podcast, to talk about lab testing and we did this probably about 25 years ago is when we really started focusing on integrative oncology. Looking forward and knowing that it’s really easier to treat people in an integrative realm, to treat more people. You have more ability to reach more people in different parts of the country.

And at the time, many years ago, we were reaching people in many parts of the world. We had treated people from 19 countries. They would fly in, we would do some telemedicine after that, but so it’s really… 

Sylvie Beljanski: Those people are coming to you because they expect a different kind of experience in their treatment.

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: Yes, they’re coming to us, but we do a lot of integrative care, so we’re not purists in the non-conventional care realm. And I wanna make that differentiation. We are a naturopathic oncologist and we can, and it all depends on where somebody is in the context of their care, because a woman who has estrogen receptor positive breast cancer, which is only metastatic to two nodes and has no distant lesions that has had surgery to remove those decline radiation and may decline anti-estrogen therapy and now comes and seeks my treatment is going to be monitored by me, maybe by her medical oncologist, but isn’t under the care or any treatment conventionally and now is under the care of only me.

That’s a lot different than somebody with metastatic pancreatic cancer that has active lesions and is undergoing chemotherapy and is seeing me as well. Does that make sense? And so the, it’s really important for people who are listening to this podcast or any podcast to understand that cases are so different.

Everybody. You ask me how I approach it, we approach it as N-of-1. Everybody. They’re just different. You can classify and stratify people. We look deep. We look deep down, we look under the hood and we try and uncover unique biophysiology because so many people ask us, how did I get this cancer? And I’m like, I don’t know. I just met you. I haven’t tested you yet.

This takes a good strict doctor-patient relationship, a lot of testing and a lot of discussion to try and uncover maybe what the cause was, and then we have to decide how relevant the cause is at that time, depending on their situation.

But it’s important to know that everybody is an N-of-1 and the gamut of cases of people that we see and the differences in patients and how they present to us are quite different, and it’s important to know that when you’re seeking this kind of care to understand that the doctor, the practitioner that you’re with, if it’s me, we already know what it is, but if it’s somebody else, you gotta make sure where their experiences that they understand the individualism, not just in the oncology diagnosis, but how you come to that diagnosis as well.

Sylvie Beljanski: So it would be fair to, to sum it up by saying that what patients get when they come to your clinic is a personalized experience and attention instead of just being one person, a number in a court designed to become one statistic one day. 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: Yes, absolutely. And thank you for saying that. And it’s such a good comment because, often in the realm of this non-conventional work, people are attracted to larger clinics and you go there for their protocols and for their clinic.

You don’t necessarily go there for their physician. At our clinic, you meet with the physicians, we advertise our physicians on our website. We tell you about ’em, we show you their faces. And so it’s definitely a different experience than a lot of other clinics in the country. And yes, it’s entirely personalized.

And not only that, but we write everything down for people. And I say we give concierge level care for the most part. Our sort of tagline, our motto, our clinic is called Naturopathic Specialists and our tagline is called Personalized Medicine, Personalized Care with the notion that the medicine is what you do with the doctor, but the care is everything else you do and how you engage our clinic, outside of just the doctor.

And we know how many people it takes to take care of somebody with cancer, especially at the beginning. 

The Resilience Model of Cancer Care

Sylvie Beljanski: How does that work interact with what you call the resilience model, which is something you like to, to use as a, rather than war on cancer approach, 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: The resilience model of cancer care.

Sylvie Beljanski: Yeah. 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: Yeah. The resilience model of cancer care is something that we conjure to really figure out how can we have people understand what it means to be human and what it means to be resilient inside and outside of the context of everything that they’re doing with other practitioners, but specifically around conventional care as to not interrupt that and how can that be narrated and deciphered globally?

And so we came up with 16 different points that we thought were really important, that we should, at least, look at for each person. We don’t necessarily have to attend to it for each person, but for instance, one of them is art, love. Do people love? Are they spending time in nature? We call it nature bathing.

One is physicality. How physical is this person? Another one is EMF, or electromagnetic field mitigation. We look at infectivity, we look at what’s called a positive mental, your avatar. So, there’s 16 different points that we say at least, “Hey, you know where on these do we think you need some work?”

And then, we start to look at those one at a time. And that’s outside, of course, of the context of necessarily the supplements that we’re gonna be giving or the IV therapies or the homeopathics, the botanicals. It, it’s really outside of any drug or treatments. This is about how they live their life and the idea is that resilience is what people have to have in order to live in the world.

You don’t just have to have cancer to need to be resilient, but in the context of being human, resilience is what pushes us forward as a species, as a population, as a group, as a club, and here as a clinic. I have to say as a naturopathic doctor who has become a naturopathic oncologist, especially coming out of school in the early 90s, resilience was absolutely key to the success because we had to be resilient in the face of much chastisement and much naysayers in the conventional world who said, “Oh, it’s fake medicine” or “This doesn’t really, and this isn’t based on science.”

And one of the things that I love to laugh at is how we used to get chastised for using probiotics. You know, and now you know how much research is being done on the microbiome. I mean, it’s, it’s pathetically hilarious, to tell you the truth. And I knew it then, but we had to be resilient to it. The same was true for the naturopathic doctors using bioidentical hormones or using PRP.

It’s in this context, us brave, courageous, non-conventional practitioners push these things through. And eventually, then they find their way into conventionalism. And you know, hugely 

Sylvie Beljanski: Yeah, they catch up

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: Yes, 

Sylvie Beljanski: They catch up later on, after 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: But it’s resilient, yeah they catch up later on. You’re right.

But it’s this resilience that we demonstrate as a species of physicians that we then bring to the table for our patients. And that’s how it was really developed. 

Sylvie Beljanski: So, that’s really in a way you give an opportunity to your patients to develop human skills that go beyond treated cancer.

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: Absolutely. 

Sylvie Beljanski: That’s, that’s unique, pretty unique 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the way that you put that, too, human skills that I think sometimes we lose. For instance, when I talk about nature, I talk about going out and seeing distance. Like, we’re here in Arizona, so we happen to have mountains right here in Scottsdale, say.

It’d be nice if you could go hike that, but sometimes people can’t. But go to the, go to our parks and just look at the vastness and don’t see a building per se for, you know, miles and look at the 3D-ness because so much of it is, so much of our 3D in our nature is represented on screens, or we look at it through windows or while we’re driving by and there’s something.

You know about getting out in nature and breathing the air and, you know, feeling uneven ground beneath your feet. It’s very much the same as being resilient when somebody has a feeding tube. Okay? If somebody is, say, going through radiation therapy for head and neck cancer, and they’re so inflamed here that they can’t open their mouth or chew their food and they have to have a feeding tube installed, there’s a certain amount of resilience that you use when you’re not chewing.

That teeth coming down and having food or clenching, that sends neurological signals, up and down in your gums that are closely attuned to your brain and your different nervous system in your body, and it sends a signal of living. Whereas feeding tubes, sometimes we need them, I’m not denying that. I’m just saying if there’s a way, in a resilience model to get people to just, even if they have a feeding tube, is just tell the body that, yes, I’m still living, I’m clenching my teeth.

The same thing is with swallowing food. When you swallow food and that food, you know, via deglutition, and via, you know, haustral movements go down in that peristaltic-like fashion and makes its way all the way through your gut and out, that is a sign of living.

So, that’s a simply put way of demonstrating resilience. We talked about physicality. Some people can’t walk a quarter mile for whatever reason. Whether it be that they’re, you know, so low on hemoglobin, that it’s so hard for them to, you know, walk a quarter mile or it’s because they’re in pain or they just had surgery.

So, there’s a lot of people who are incredibly fatigued and the resilience is really in the trough, and we help to bring that back so they can be more resilient to their next treatment, or maybe they’re in a holding pattern and they’re waiting for a clinical trial to come out, or they’re waiting for an appointment to come see me, or they’re waiting for, you know, something else that’s going to treat them, and we help make them resilient so they can get there.

Maybe what they’re doing is they’re holding on to see their grandson graduate or maybe they’re, you know, waiting to see their daughter get married and they’re holding on for that and they need resilience for that. 

Advice for Newly Diagnosed Patients

Sylvie Beljanski: And for those patients who are just newly diagnosed what kind of advice do you give them? 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: To people that are newly diagnosed with cancer? 

Sylvie Beljanski: Yeah. There is so much misinformation everywhere. How do you get them to, recalibrate them to what they should do and…

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: It’s a really good call. 

Ad: Prostabel®

Victor Dwyer: Welcome to a new chapter in Men’s Health. Prostabel® offers a natural boost for men over 50 concerned with maintaining their prostate health. The capsules are packed with 310 milligrams of Pao Pereira, and 60 milligrams of Rauwolfia Vomitoria, ensuring potent support for your prostate. 

Experience broad spectrum support with safe and non-prescription ingredients, all backed by science. Plus, enjoy the added benefit of reduced nighttime bathroom visits, helping you achieve a more restful and uninterrupted sleep. Discover real stories and transformative experiences. Visit our website to see what others are saying about Prostabel®.

Take charge of your wellbeing with confidence and feel better naturally. Discover Maison Beljanski. Sourced from nature. Perfected by science.

Enjoy a 15% discount on your first purchase with code EP2.

Prostabel® – Where your health journey begins.

Advice for Newly Diagnosed Patients

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: So, you’re thinking about the people that are seeking not just straight conventional care, but are looking… 

Sylvie Beljanski: Yeah. 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: …for other things. One, usually friends and family, if you do indeed let them know about your diagnosis are, will come forward and say, “Oh, you should do this” or “I had a friend who did this” or “I go see this person. You should go see her” or “You need to take this” or “You need to buy that.” We see that a lot and… 

Sylvie Beljanski: Yeah, and people are overwhelmed. They’re terrorized, frightened, overwhelmed. Everybody in their family have their own advice and they’re lost. 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: They’re lost. And also a lot of people are already on social media or they may turn to social media and then there’s a lot of charlatan, charlatanism out there and there’s a lot of hype out there.

Hype is, I think, the big word, and there’s also some good science out there. There are, there are good scientists, good clinicians that are putting out good content. And so you really do need boots on the ground. Somebody that is in the profession that you can talk to at whatever level, as long as you trust them.

And if it is the practitioner that your friend or your spouse or your family member saw says you need to go see ’em, maybe go see them. But if you’re really trying to put something together and in context, you need somebody who does this all the time, not somebody who dabbles in the world of oncology, which is really the motivation you got. Getting back to your first question, why did we develop the Oncology Association of Naturopathic Physicians and wanna board certify and distinguished doctors in oncology? It’s because you can, the public was starting to consume so much in the non-conventional oncology world.

Remember this is back in 2004, and it was like, okay, since they’re consuming it, it would be nice to differentiate myself, for instance, to demonstrate my expertise because I was a hundred percent oncology than the naturopathic physician down the block who sees three or four or five patients a year in oncology.

It’s simply, they should refer to us, so we wanted to demonstrate specialty. It’s what conventional medicine has, too. Specialists are specialists for a reason. I don’t see my GP when I have, I don’t know, if somebody needs surgery, obviously. They can’t do surgery. They could buy the tools, they could buy the drugs to do it, and they could find a place to do it, but they’re not skilled in it.

And so that’s how we protected the public. So, it’s the same out there at the different levels, whether somebody be a health coach, a nurse practitioner part of Dr. Nisha’s group, a naturopathic doctor, they should have expertise and deep experience in the world of oncology and really understand your particular situation and know how to read stuff.

It’s important or else that’s when things go the wrong way and they could get screwed up. 

Sylvie Beljanski: As a doctor, also, your advice is different from those of all the friends and family. What they can provide because you get to go to the lab test and that’s where people feel that there is real science and knowledge.

What kind of lab tests do you like to prescribe that people will not get at any hospital? 

Advanced Lab Testing in Naturopathic Oncology

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: Yeah. I will say this, and I’ve been on a rampage for years talking about, and I use the word specifically pathetic. The type of testing that is done on average in the world of conventional oncology is subpar, and it really is pathetic.

Most of the time you’re getting a complete blood count. You’re getting a complete metabolic profile, maybe a tumor marker, a couple other maybe tests. Not necessarily a screening. You’re just getting a CBC and a CMP, maybe a liquid biopsy, maybe they’re analyzing tumor.

But as you go, you’re just being screened with the most simplest and cheapest tests available for one of the most complex diseases that we really still don’t understand. And that’s where doctors like myself or practitioners, like myself, come in. At our clinic, at Naturopathic Specialists, it’s difficult to proceed and to do the best work if you don’t really specifically test people.

So, there’s a hoard of tests that can be done through people’s insurance, not necessarily through Medicare or State Aid, but it’s, people have private insurance. We run those tests and these are ones that any doctor can order that’s licensed or has an account with, say, the commercial labs like LabCorp or Quest out there. They’re not hidden, they’re there. They just need to be ordered. That’s it. And they need to… 

Sylvie Beljanski: So, can you give us some example, for example, of what you would order that people will not, other doctors generally do not think of ordering? 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: Yeah, what we would do is we would look specifically, obviously, it depends on the case, but let’s just say a person with active disease comes in and they have colorectal cancer newly diagnosed, and it is diagnosed in stage four disease.

And let’s say their primary tumor is four and a half centimeters at the Rectosigmoid Junction, and there are, it has an SUV on PET scan of say, 14 and a half, and there are nearby nodes that have SUVs peaking around nine, and there are three liver lesions up to about three centimeters, and those have a standard uptake value near 13.

Between, well between 8 and 13, and there’s some questionable lung lesions. Okay, that person’s newly diagnosed, maybe symptomatic, maybe not. It all depends, and on that person, and they’re coming to see me and they’re trying to make some decisions, I’m gonna do a great workup, so I’m gonna do a slew of tests from LabCorp.

I will look at something called VEGF, MMP9. I’ll look at their inflammatory pathways. I’ll do GlycA, I’ll do C-reactive protein, a SED rate, fibrinogen markers, the prothrombin, the D-dimers, the Interleukin-6, Interleukin-8. I’ll do an Interleukin-10 and probably an Interleukin-17. I’ll look at their methylation pathways from LabCorp. I’ll look at their nutrient status, so maybe Ds and As. I’ll look at their glutathione, just because I think it’s important to know. I will, I’ll probably look at lipids as part of that inflammatory marker. And then depending on their comorbidities, I’ll throw in tests from there. 

Victor Dwyer: With all those tests. Like what are actionable insights that you get from…

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: Oh, you want me to get deep like that? Okay. 

Victor Dwyer: Yeah. Like meaning that so the conventional, they have those very simple tests, but where does it come in where you say, Hey, these special tests now, how does that influence what you do?

If you test them for lead, for example, oh, we need to get you on like where’s the actionability of what conventional medicine does versus what you do in the… 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: The actionability is within every single lab test, but you can’t… I might order five specialty tests or six specialty tests and 35 tests from LabCorp and to me, it’s one test. And what I do is I bring people in for what we call grand planning, and we go through everything. I have a screen on my desk, they see it, we amalgamate it. I narrate it for them. I tell ’em the story, and then I develop a treatment plan. But, unless you understand human physiology and you can see how these all fit together, then a lot of these just kinda live on their own and isolation, and some tests are good.

So, it’s really a narrated story to tell and, obviously not here, but the best way to do it would be to analyze somebody live time. Now you’re giving me ideas on maybe what I should do, ’cause I do have, a podcast, too. We’ve thought about this, how does it work? For instance, that newly diagnosed patient that I gave you an example of, let’s do, I’ll take, let me take five parameters.

MMP9, Interleukin-6, VEGF Plasma, circulating tumor cells, and T-cell function. Okay, and let’s look at all those. So, I’m gonna look specifically at a T-cell function, not a quantitation, a qualification. And I’m gonna look, does this person have an immune response? Obviously there’s something wrong because they got the cancer, but do they have ex-vivo when those cells are taken outta the body, obviously taken outta the body, shipped, and then you know, tested.

Do they actually have competence there? Sometimes, the answer is actually yes. So, I need to know that. And I need to know at baseline where somebody is, because they’re gonna go through treatment and I need to know what we started with. So, the very best time to test somebody is right away, right when they see you.

So, then I would also look at that VEGF, Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor. So, that informs me, you gotta know a lot about the physiology of VEGF, what it is, how it acts in the body, what their comorbidities are, and how it might interface at the vessel tumor interface, and what their inflammatory markers look like to be able to look at that VEGF and you, like, I have my own cut score.

So at, for instance, VEGF plasma, not serum, but plasma at LabCorp, the scale is 0 to 115 and my cut score is 65. But I look at it in context of everything else because I might see somebody who’s a 58 and be like, that’s positive. But I know for me, if it’s above 65, then I, there’s something there.

But it all depends on what we know about the tumors as well and what we expect because then… Go ahead. 

Sylvie Beljanski: Yeah. But once you have done all those tests, how do you tell, I mean, which are obviously extremely tailored to the person and give you a very unique picture idea of what may go wrong with that person.

Personalized Treatment Plans

Sylvie Beljanski: How do you transfer that knowledge to a very specific and personalized protocol for nutrition, detoxification, or whatever that patient needs. 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: Yeah. We do because when we understand the physiology of the person and we understand what they have, and so we understand the physiology of the person in the disease state, given that case that I suggested, and we know are they going to be, you know, are they headed towards conventional medicine? Are they not? What do they want there? Then we have to decide on how you administer those treatments, and it’s the process of going through, and this is the thing, is you can’t just give somebody something. You have to understand what’s going on in their body to be able to give them something. That’s the best way to do it.

So, going through that series of lab tests and narrating for them and talking through it for myself to get to a point where I’m like, okay, I get it. And maybe even looking a couple years before at old lab tests if they had them and say okay, we could see this building up. It’s important to look back at those.

Sometimes we have the luxury of doing that, but it’s, you put together, I don’t know what to say, tt’s really you put that together based on what you see ‘cause you gotta know how your treatments work and what they’re intended to do. It’s very easy to say you need intravenous vitamin C for, ’cause you have cancer.

But what dose and what rate do you give it at and what frequency and how do you dilute it and do you give it with other things? So, it’s a very knee jerk reaction, but nowadays we know so much more about it. But that’s one of the simple things that people usually give.

Or do we give low dose naltrexone? Is it appropriate? Or do you give green tea extract or do you give thymoquinone, or do you give fermented wheat germ extract? Do you give a mushroom? Or what happens if somebody, do you have genomics on the tumor, right?

And so if you have some kind of information about the tumor itself, does that person have active circulating tumor cells? How dirty is the tumor, per se? How hypermethylated is it? So it’s, I would just find it difficult. I’m what, 28 years in practice? And if I had no information, I have enough experience to develop a protocol based on how the person presents to me because I’ve done it so many times.

Sylvie Beljanski: Many times. 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: But I still want my tools and my tools are gonna inform me about that N-of-1 person and then I could do better work. Does that make sense? 

Sylvie Beljanski: You mentioned going back to old tests and see what, how things evolved. 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: Yeah. 

Sylvie Beljanski: And I find that fascinating. You are the only doctor I ever interviewed that mentioned that, and to me it’s kind, putting in parallel the physiological changes and maybe what happened in the life of that patient during the time between those two tests.

And it’s putting in parallel the evolution of a disease and maybe the dramas, the traumas that happened in that person’s life and will help him or her understand what happened to his body and how what happened affected his physiology, and maybe able to address that at an emotional or philosophical level.

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: Yes, yes, yes, Yes. So many of those, yes. You’re talking about helping to create the story when they said, how did I get this cancer? Was it because I cooked on Teflon pans or something, or, because, a lot of times, a lot of times people will say, I know how I got it, right, nowadays, because they’re, they’ve been thinking about this or a lot of times it’s stress. But you’re right, we haven’t even gotten into the realm of the mental emotional aspect and the spirituality of this and how we’re so focused on giving the body something, a lot of times.

And then you talked about detoxification, which is taking something away from the body, but you usually have to do something to it. Not always. You can go sweat, right? And you’re taking something out of the body. And that’s a great detox, sitting in a sauna. So, there is an elegance in not just giving but doing something to the body.

And so to discover that takes a longer doctor-patient relationship and trusting and investment in time and energy, finances, of course, if it’s out of pocket on the part of the patient. Not all patients want to dig into that, but the ones that want to heal and that are really motivated, then they do. Yes. 

Sylvie Beljanski: Abso, absolutely. And I think that’s where you make, can make a really, a difference with your expertise and your knowledge. Absolutely. 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: Thank you. 

Sylvie Beljanski: So, yes, a lot of doctors, they treat the tumor and that’s it. And as a naturopathic doctor, you look at the patient and that’s, that’s a completely different story and generally a different outcome. 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: Yeah. It’s wonderful to work alongside our conventional partners because, like I said, they’re better at killing tumor cells. They are. We’re just better at the, the other parts of what it takes to take care of somebody with cancer.

And sometimes you need the toxicity. I am not against conventional medicine at all. We, our patient, we refer constantly. We are, like I said, I’m an integrative doctor. I’m not a purist when it comes to natural, but there are cases, very frequently, where people either don’t want to, can’t tolerate, or frankly, the conventional medicine just wasn’t defective.

And we have many of those patients in our clinic, and we’re always in contact with their our medical colleagues who are on their case, and maybe they’re referred to us, like, I gave the example of the woman with estrogen receptor positive disease who’s had surgery and maybe can’t tolerate the anti-estrogens that they would like, the conventionalist would like for her to be on.

And she’s tried them. Maybe she’s tried four of them. Postmenopausal and has tried four different medicines. What are they gonna do? So, a referral to me is absolutely warranted, and we have a way we have decades of experience in managing this, so. Actually, a focus of ours is managing women with estrogen receptor positive breast cancer, who don’t want to take conventional anti-estrogens, like the selective estrogen receptor modifiers or the aromatase inhibitors, or the selective estrogen receptor degraders.

Sometimes, there’s a need and we can show the women when there’s a need. And we want to push them in that direction to see if they can tolerate. Some people don’t wanna take it dogmatically. “I’ve read it, I’ve read about it on the Internet. I’ve, my friend had it and it was miserable. She was suicidal. I’m not taking this stuff.” And it’s okay. Let’s measure, let’s, we do a whole measure. We do a whole lab workup and a lot of focus on the estrogen dynamics. We built out a whole protocol and a structure for this. We’ve treated thousands of women in this realm. We get many referrals from our conventional medical oncology colleagues, and we’ve been doing it for a long time.

One of the patients that pushed me into a corner and made me do it, I remember it’s going on 19 years now. We laugh about it and see each other every year. So, there are ways to do this when you respect and honor the true biophysiology of the wonderful human body. And that’s so important in health, but especially in disease because we need to heal these people and bring them from disease.

Yeah. Another context, you won’t hear me say the term cancer patient, unless I’m specifically saying it in that context ’cause we seek to elevate the person above the diagnosis and always see the person and not necessarily a patient. So, that’s a, just another little way, a semantic way. When you tell yourself, “Oh, I’m really bad at that.” Then you’re bad at that, right? But if you could say, “Hey, I can do that,” then at least you’re gonna give it a try. So, just by saying it’s a person with cancer instead of a cancer patient, there’s a whole contextualization in that. And I think little things like that end up meaning a lot. I do.

Sylvie Beljanski: It, it matches so well who you are as a person. And I had the privilege to meet you, your wife, and your wonderful children. 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: Thank you. 

Sylvie Beljanski: And uh, and all that, I mean, it’s uh, it really works well toge, together. The love you are surrounded with and the love that you are giving to your patients as that, that’s coherent and it’s very remarkable. 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: Thank you. 

Conclusion and Contact Information

Sylvie Beljanski: For those persons who are looking to find you, doctor, where should they contact, try to contact you? 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: Uh, try. I’m kidding. 

Um, so we have a phone number and it’s a cool phone number. It’s 480 990 1111. 4809901111.

We have a website and I love our URL. It’s called listenandcare.com. That’s fricking what we do. We listen and we care. It’s all written out. And our clinic is called Naturopathic Specialists and we, that’s how you find us on like Instagram and Facebook, and then, and you were a guest on my podcast, which is called Rubin On Point.

And we look, we look forward to many more. But thank you for allowing me to give my contact information. 

Sylvie Beljanski: Yeah. And you are located in Arizona near Scottsdale? 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: Right smack dab in the heart of Scottsdale. 

Sylvie Beljanski: Okay. 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: At 92nd and Shea. 

Sylvie Beljanski: Okay. Okay, good. Very good. 

Victor Dwyer: Cool. 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: Thank you. 

Victor Dwyer: Awesome. Thank you so much, Dr. Rubin, for joining. Thank you everyone… 

Dr. Dan Rubin, ND, FABNO: Welcome. 

Victor Dwyer: …that has listened up to this point. This is The Beljanski Cancer Talk Show and we’ll catch you next time. Thanks. 

Sylvie Beljanski: Thank you.

Dr. Rubin’s practice of naturopathic oncology has been an integral part of the Phoenix metropolitan medical community for the past 28 years. After graduating from Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine (SCNM) in 1997, Dr. Rubin returned to SCNM to complete his residency. In 2004, he became the Founding President of the Oncology Association of Naturopathic Physicians (OncANP). The OncANP represented a revolution for the field of naturopathic oncology providing, for the first time, definition, validation and standardization of the field of naturopathic oncology. Since that time Dr. Rubin has become an internationally recognized naturopathic oncologist. Dr. Rubin is co-Founder (along with his wife, Debi Smolinski, ND) and Medical Director of Naturopathic Specialists, LLC, in Scottsdale, AZ, where he practices as a naturopathic oncologist. At present, Naturopathic Specialists has served the clinical and logistical oncology needs of people from all 50 states as well as 19 countries. NS also serves as a teaching and training facility for residents and students desiring to become naturopathic oncologists. Dr. Rubin is an expert at the integration of traditional and naturopathic medicine for people with cancer and services both the adult and pediatric population. He is also an expert in the naturopathic approach to people with cancer who either are unable to undergo conventional therapy or who choose not to. His selected positions include those from the regulatory, education, advisory and community sectors and his main philanthropic interests are focused on children with cancer as well as post-graduate education. Dr. Rubin also serves as Director of Business Development for Immunocine, a Cancun-based, world-class immunotherapy treatment center. Dr. Rubin and Immunocine have also partnered to create a tumor biobank for patients desiring to store their tumor samples for future personalized dendritic cell therapy production. Dr. Rubin was voted National Physician of the Year 2024-2025, by the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians. He was also voted Physician of the Year 2019, by the Arizona Naturopathic Medical Association.

 

Dr. Rubin is co-Founder (along with his wife, Debi Smolinski, ND) and Medical Director of Naturopathic Specialists, LLC, in Scottsdale, AZ, where he practices full-time as a naturopathic oncologist. At present, Naturopathic Specialists has served the clinical and logistical oncology needs of people from all 50 states as well as 19 countries.

 

Dr. Rubin is an expert at the integration of traditional and naturopathic medicine for people with cancer and services both the adult and pediatric population.  He is also an expert in the naturopathic approach to people with cancer who either are unable to undergo conventional therapy or who choose not to.  His selected positions include those from the regulatory, education, advisory and community sectors and his main philanthropic interests are focused on children with cancer as well as post-graduate education.