Speaker 1: You want to be in a Mexican idiot, that'd be
Speaker 1: fog Day slash President's Day. Good Marti Scott's loan back
Speaker 1: on seven hundred WWD driving. Yeah, that FOG's no joke
Speaker 1: this morning. There's there's still a fog out there. Obviously.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's gonna burn off till like ten eleven,
Speaker 1: twelve o'clock today. For sure makes sense with the warm
Speaker 1: weather moving in, all that snow and ice and rain,
Speaker 1: o the grap you know, the moisture is what's causing this. Obviously,
Speaker 1: definitely two hands on the wheel and turn the fog
Speaker 1: lights on if you have them. So, if you are
Speaker 1: in the under the age of fifty, in that cohort
Speaker 1: sub fifty, you are seeing an eighty percent increase over
Speaker 1: the last thirty years of cancers, in particular digestive cancers.
Speaker 1: You're twice as likely to have colon cancer, four times
Speaker 1: more cases of rectal cancer than people born in nineteen fifty.
Speaker 1: That's unreal. What's driving this is the question? He is
Speaker 1: Randy Drusik, He's the president of HC and ken Wood.
Speaker 1: Good morning. How are you? Those are all seeing rapid
Speaker 1: increases as well as a matter of fact, today, in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, young adults are twice as likely to
Speaker 1: be diagnosed with colon cancer and four times more likely
Speaker 1: to be diagnosed with rectal cancer as those born in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty. What the hell is driving this trend and
Speaker 1: how do we fix it? Randy Drosick is the president
Speaker 1: of HC here in Kenwood. Doctor Drosick, Good morning, How
Speaker 1: are you?
Speaker 2: I'm fine, Thank you and thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate it. Weird paradox here, we're getting better at
Speaker 1: finding and treating cancer as much earlier than ever before.
Speaker 1: But why then are people developing cancers younger than ever before?
Speaker 1: Or is it because that we are discovering them at
Speaker 1: an early age because of that treatment. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like a self fulfilling prophecy here.
Speaker 2: That's good. We don't really know why people are being
Speaker 2: diagnosed younger, but we definitely have a trend in colon, breath, cervical,
Speaker 2: and a few other cancers that we are seeing this.
Speaker 2: It's being studied. We're concentrating. We've been concentrating for detection
Speaker 2: so long. This isn't something that we've we've been working
Speaker 2: at very long.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Or are we just catching it earlier. I guess
Speaker 1: it's the point, you know, the cancers that we wouldn't
Speaker 1: see develop and maybe slow moving cancers that would develop
Speaker 1: over the course of a few years, we're catching so
Speaker 1: much sooner now, and therefore it seems like, Okay, we
Speaker 1: are getting maybe we always had it, but is there
Speaker 1: evidence that that's the case.
Speaker 2: That may be part of the case. The other thing
Speaker 2: is we are better at genetics, so we do screen,
Speaker 2: like you said. But the interesting thing, the cancers that
Speaker 2: we see in these people who are under fifty tend
Speaker 2: to be much more aggressive than the cancers that we
Speaker 2: see and people who are over fifty.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, oh paradox. It is a paradox. But as
Speaker 1: I looked at these numbers, what jumps off the page
Speaker 1: to me is there's like fourteen cancer types that were
Speaker 1: screened in the study that did. Eight of them are
Speaker 1: digestive based, right, So it's it's upper lower GI, stomach, throat, esophagel,
Speaker 1: all that stuff. And does that tell you maybe it's nutrition, diet,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: I think you're absolutely correct. I think it's our seventy
Speaker 2: lifestyle and you know, we have a lot of obesity
Speaker 2: in this country, smoking heavy alcohol, use a lot of
Speaker 2: processed foods. I think all those contribute to GI cancers.
Speaker 1: How much do you attribute this to the to the
Speaker 1: diet because smoking numbers have been declined for a long time.
Speaker 1: But I look at that and go, although I should say,
Speaker 1: before the diet thing, let's talk about smoking. Vaping is
Speaker 1: a thing.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's a tie there? Now there's no.
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's any scientific data to back
Speaker 1: that up, but smoking vaping is there something there?
Speaker 2: I think vaping is definitely not good for you, and
Speaker 2: I think you're you. Also, it's the nail on the
Speaker 2: head again that diet. Our diet in US is just
Speaker 2: not very good. We're a fast food country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we still are, right despite an effort to try
Speaker 1: and need better. I know in my advanced stage that
Speaker 1: I am trying to do the best I can. Doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that I don't enjoy pizza or you know, burger
Speaker 1: and fries or something like that, but not not every day.
Speaker 1: And people hear that moderation, moderation, But physicians like yourself
Speaker 1: have been preaching that for a long time. Why do
Speaker 1: we tune that out?
Speaker 2: I think Americans tend to work longer hours than other countries.
Speaker 2: When you look at the number of hours the American
Speaker 2: worker works compared to other countries, I think our free
Speaker 2: time is left and I think we try to cram
Speaker 2: as much into a day as we can.
Speaker 1: I think that's an interesting analysis. I mean, if you've
Speaker 1: ever been overseas, for example, you go to Europe Italy,
Speaker 1: I've been to a few times, and it's just a
Speaker 1: whole different thing over the UK. Maybe a pretty similar
Speaker 1: to us here, but you know, you go there, things
Speaker 1: shut down for a couple hours in the afternoon, you
Speaker 1: want a cup of coffee. If there's no drive through there,
Speaker 1: you got to sit down and enjoy your coffee, and
Speaker 1: you come back in a super chill and I think
Speaker 1: there's something to be said about that.
Speaker 2: I definitely think we're working ourselves into bad health, but.
Speaker 1: We have for a long time. Maybe the generations figure
Speaker 1: out because you hear about, wow, the work ethic of
Speaker 1: these young people. They just want to go on vacation,
Speaker 1: and maybe there's maybe they're going to live longer as
Speaker 1: a result of that as opposed to what we were doing.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, they may, that's that's for sure. You know,
Speaker 2: we tend not to exercise as much as other countries. You.
Speaker 2: I think that plays a huge role in it also.
Speaker 1: And I think the older you get, the more sedentary
Speaker 1: you are too. But you know, we're talking about cancer
Speaker 1: and young people. What is it specifically about our diet
Speaker 1: Western diet? Is it the saturated fad? Is the processed
Speaker 1: nature of foods? As a physician, doctor do I said,
Speaker 1: can you finger? Can you point the finger at any
Speaker 1: one thing? Or is it all those things?
Speaker 2: I think it's I think it's everything. I think high
Speaker 2: fat diet definitely plays into it. Processed foods play into it,
Speaker 2: high sugar content. You know, with we see processed foods
Speaker 2: and snacks, you're you're probably better off eating a carrot
Speaker 2: for a snack than the bag of chips.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but between me and you, the chips are so
Speaker 1: much better.
Speaker 2: You know, particularly if you have French onion dip.
Speaker 1: I hard to argue with with.
Speaker 2: French onion dip and chips, I agree, yeah, but.
Speaker 1: It can't be every day. It has to be you know,
Speaker 1: I know people my age that are you're probably having
Speaker 1: a bag of chips a day, or a six pack
Speaker 1: of beer or twelve pack, as the case may be.
Speaker 1: And I mean, that's all and good if you've don't
Speaker 1: plan on living long, but that's the unfortunate part of
Speaker 1: this thing. How much is alcohol use playing into this?
Speaker 1: Especially for people under the age of fifty are developing cancer.
Speaker 2: Heavy alcohol use, particularly as the sovageal cancer and the
Speaker 2: softageal cancer. Alcohol and smoking together is a very lethal combination.
Speaker 2: So we definitely see that not only that, you know,
Speaker 2: you get cerrosus and deliver you get centripleal obesity. All
Speaker 2: those things contribute to poor health. But the key is
Speaker 2: what you said earlier, moderation moderation.
Speaker 1: Do you think that sleep deprivation, poor sleep quality factors
Speaker 1: into this too? And that you mentioned we're going and
Speaker 1: going and going all the time. Most of us are
Speaker 1: not getting as many hours as we need. Most I
Speaker 1: think the average American has lessened seven hours of sleep. Now,
Speaker 1: is that a factor here that your body doesn't have
Speaker 1: time to repair those hells?
Speaker 2: Well, again, you're corrected. I don't know if it has
Speaker 2: as much effect with cancer, but it certainly does with
Speaker 2: our overall health, not just that, but our mental health
Speaker 2: and risk of Alzheimer's, you know who. In our brain
Speaker 2: just needs to be compressed just like an athlete's body
Speaker 2: needs to decompressed.
Speaker 1: It just because you know, you work out, let's say,
Speaker 1: a lift weight. So we got to take a day
Speaker 1: off before you do anything else because you're sore and
Speaker 1: your muscles have to in order to grow your muscles,
Speaker 1: you have to rest. That's part of it. Another paradox here,
Speaker 1: sounds like you're saying the same thing with this.
Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah, your brain needs to be worked, your brain
Speaker 2: needs to be relaxed, and finding that balance is very difficult.
Speaker 1: And we don't like that right the whole olm yoga right,
Speaker 1: take a calm time relaxation technique. I got an iPhone
Speaker 1: that nags me like a like a second wife about
Speaker 1: you know, stand up, sit down, do this, do that.
Speaker 1: It's like we just turned that stuff off and we
Speaker 1: just want to plow through it. And especially men, we
Speaker 1: just want to plow through that wall. We'll just keep
Speaker 1: going when we fall over.
Speaker 2: Oh, I agree. I have a bad habit of at Also,
Speaker 2: I did hot yoga for a year or two prior
Speaker 2: to the pandemic, and I can tell you you want
Speaker 2: to talk about something that will let your brain decompress.
Speaker 2: It's unbelievable and I'm sorry that haven't gone back to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I tried it actually before I backsurgery years ago,
Speaker 1: and I just I can't do the yoga thing. It's
Speaker 1: too much of me. I can't spend that much time
Speaker 1: with myself. Doctor.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan of me.
Speaker 3: I'll be honest with you. I got, like, you know what,
Speaker 3: enough of this stuff. I got me with my voices
Speaker 3: in my head, by myself. It's a it's not a
Speaker 3: good combination. I just I got to get away from
Speaker 3: me sometimes.
Speaker 2: But you know, you have to stay active. I always
Speaker 2: tell people, once you sit, you stay seated. And I'm
Speaker 2: sixty four and I ran the pig this past year.
Speaker 2: Good and you just have to keep doing that. If
Speaker 2: you're I should say age properly about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I uh, well you're a you're a freak then,
Speaker 1: because I'm thinking man running it that uh. And I'm
Speaker 1: younger than you are. Although I still box, I may
Speaker 1: have to give that up because I got, you know,
Speaker 1: ostri arthritis, and everything hurts now, but I'll find something
Speaker 1: else to do, uh, in order to keep active. And
Speaker 1: it's good for your brain, it's good for your body.
Speaker 1: We're talking to doctor Randy Drusick this morning. He's an ecologist.
Speaker 1: He's also president of OHC Cancer Specialists all all all over.
Speaker 1: The one here in Kenwood is fantastic, by the way,
Speaker 1: firsthand experience there. They are the cancer specialists in Cincinnati
Speaker 1: talking about a weird paradox here. We're getting better at
Speaker 1: finding and treating cancers, but we are seeing cancer developed
Speaker 1: earlier than ever before. Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales, Hamlin
Speaker 1: County Auditor, Bridget Kelly. There's Chadwick Boseman, of course, James
Speaker 1: Vanderbeek from Dawson's Creek who just died days ago. How
Speaker 1: much of this? You know? I mentioned the diet element
Speaker 1: of this thing too, and then I started thinking about
Speaker 1: you know, I just mentioned when I had surgery and
Speaker 1: I had seed iff and it's a gut back. We
Speaker 1: don't think about our back here and our gut until
Speaker 1: things go really, really south. Is that also part of
Speaker 1: this too? We're eating the processed foods and alcohol and
Speaker 1: smoking and lack of exercise, probably over prescribed antibiotics and
Speaker 1: stuff like that have a factor in your gut health.
Speaker 1: How important is that with cancer?
Speaker 2: Sure your gut has natural bacteria in it, and if
Speaker 2: we disrupt that mal you you can have all kinds
Speaker 2: of problems. You can have an infection called clustered and different. Still,
Speaker 2: there are certain types of guests to intestinal cancers that
Speaker 2: we know are related to helicobactor. So yes, there are,
Speaker 2: and you can actually treat those cancers by treating the
Speaker 2: helico factors. So bacteria certainly can play a role, and
Speaker 2: so conviruses.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so you're yeah, does HPV for women.
Speaker 2: Fit in this too, Yes, yeah, it definitely does. They
Speaker 2: plays a very big role in cervical cancer and now
Speaker 2: we're seeing it in some all cancers also.
Speaker 1: Right right right, I think, and it all fits together
Speaker 1: that the the the bacteria in the gut, and it
Speaker 1: sounds kind of like new agy, but you know, stuff
Speaker 1: like yogurt and kafir and anything like that that's a
Speaker 1: probiotic that you can consume is definitely gonna help help
Speaker 1: move the needle for you, especially if you maybe you
Speaker 1: are cutting corners when it comes to diet and exercise.
Speaker 2: I agree, and I think we don't know exactly why,
Speaker 2: but it may have to do with what we call
Speaker 2: transit time. If you have a bowel movement every day,
Speaker 2: all the bad stuff gets out of your gut. If
Speaker 2: there's someone that has an every five or six days
Speaker 2: or what we with a lot of people would consider constipation,
Speaker 2: you're more exposed to those tox in your gut. And
Speaker 2: there's a question whether that may increase your risk of
Speaker 2: these GI cancers.
Speaker 1: Is that metabolism though? Can you change that? But the
Speaker 1: way your body metabolizes I.
Speaker 2: Think you can with with high fiber diets. I think
Speaker 2: there's a lot of things you can do to increase,
Speaker 2: increase your time.
Speaker 1: More veggie and more exercise. And it makes stuff, uh,
Speaker 1: it makes stuff move through, if that makes sense. I
Speaker 1: mean if it hangs around, it takes a chance to
Speaker 1: you know, essentially just sit there. And there's a reason
Speaker 1: why your body's getting rid of it. I guess that
Speaker 1: makes sense. You can't take the garbage otlet's put that way.
Speaker 1: Why not be too too messy here? Yeah, And we're
Speaker 1: seeing this alarming trend. Now, how concerned are you as
Speaker 1: a as a oncologist doctor drawsick that we're seeing these
Speaker 1: numbers and people getting cancer earlier and earlier than ever before.
Speaker 1: How bad is it really?
Speaker 2: From your perspective, it's devastating because the cancers are much worse.
Speaker 2: If you take a colon cancer and a forty year
Speaker 2: old for colon cancer and a seventy year old, the
Speaker 2: prognosis is much worse. The stage tends to be picked
Speaker 2: up a little bit later, you know, because we don't
Speaker 2: really screen for colon cancer nless, you have a known
Speaker 2: genetic risk until you're forty five. So you take a
Speaker 2: thirty five year old, it's not expected. You're not screening.
Speaker 2: It tends to be later, tends to be more aggressive,
Speaker 2: they don't respond as well the treatment, and some of
Speaker 2: the markers of this tend to be the genetic markers,
Speaker 2: both from the family genetics and the genetics. The tumor
Speaker 2: tend to be different and.
Speaker 1: It's just some more aggressive therefore harder to treat.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when it comes to cancers that you see, which
Speaker 1: is the I guess you know, we talk about lymphatic cancer,
Speaker 1: which my mom had, but there's you know, there's a
Speaker 1: host of ones that are like, oh that we just
Speaker 1: have the treatment for that. The ones that you're seeing
Speaker 1: that are just not survivable or we're not there yet
Speaker 1: as first treatment goes.
Speaker 2: Or what I think the young well, I think we've
Speaker 2: made headway in every cancer. And I'm an optimist because
Speaker 2: I'm an oncologist, but I think if the ones that
Speaker 2: I see that I find to be devastating is our
Speaker 2: younger patients with colon cancer. You know one that's it's
Speaker 2: on the rise one to two percent year. They don't
Speaker 2: respond quite as well. And to me, that is that
Speaker 2: is a very heartbreaking when you see it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're seeing a rise in colorectal cancer, which is
Speaker 1: normally something you would see in middle age or beyond,
Speaker 1: and now we're seeing in patients, as you said, as
Speaker 1: young as forty and certain under fifty.
Speaker 2: Now that's yeah, that's exactly correct.
Speaker 1: That's horrible. I saw something else too recently, and it's
Speaker 1: called the birth cohort effect, in that each group of
Speaker 1: people born at a later time, let's say ten years apart,
Speaker 1: had a higher risk of delphing cancer and life. We're
Speaker 1: seeing that trend now that it should be going the
Speaker 1: other way, but it's the exact opposite.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's alarming. In our survival rates for some
Speaker 2: of these cancers, particularly like breast cancer, have gotten better,
Speaker 2: and I think some of that's due to early detection,
Speaker 2: but you do wonder whether this curve is going to
Speaker 2: slide back the other way now that we're seeing it
Speaker 2: in younger people.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean prostate cancer for example, right is like
Speaker 1: now we're not doing the you know, post COVID, not
Speaker 1: doing the exam anymore, thank god. And it's it's it's
Speaker 1: blood work, it's it's a fecal study, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So I mean that technology is amazing.
Speaker 2: Yes it is. And one thing is when you're broke
Speaker 2: about COVID, we have a thing here at OAC and
Speaker 2: we try to preach this to the hospital. Cancer is
Speaker 2: not going to stop because there's a virus and a pandemic.
Speaker 2: Don't stop your screening, don't stop your mammograms, don't stop
Speaker 2: your colonostrophies, don't stop your your yearly cascans of the
Speaker 2: chest for smokers because there's a pandemic. Because this is
Speaker 2: going to catch up to us later when they're diagnosed.
Speaker 2: These patients are diagnosed at a later stage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no one likes to go and have that prostate
Speaker 1: screening if you're a guy, or you have your colonoscopy
Speaker 1: done to check. But you know, I've known people before
Speaker 1: that have said, man, I wish I would have because
Speaker 1: they're they're now gone and they died way too young
Speaker 1: because they never did that that work, and it's uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Who likes to go and I'm sure it's not pleasant
Speaker 1: for the physician either, but it's something you have to
Speaker 1: go and do and it's it's not it's uncomfortable and
Speaker 1: no one likes to do it, but the end result
Speaker 1: is catastrophic because you're living, your family and a lot
Speaker 1: of life left again. It's doctor Ran Drosic. He is
Speaker 1: the president. He's an oncologist at o HC Cancer Specialists
Speaker 1: and Columbus and ken Wooden across the state as well.
Speaker 1: Doctor Drusick, thanks so much for taking time out and
Speaker 1: you're really busy, but appreciate the information this morning, and.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, certainly the best awareness campaign we have for this
Speaker 1: are young people getting cancer and dying. And I don't
Speaker 1: think you'll mentally we put it together because James Vanderbeek
Speaker 1: I mentioned, just died at what forty eight, And there's
Speaker 1: a pretty consistent pattern of people under the age of
Speaker 1: fifty getting and dying from cancers. Because you don't expect
Speaker 1: there was a nineteen year old, nineteen year old Miranda
Speaker 1: McKeon I think her name was, and with a nie.
Speaker 1: She's an actress, had stage three breast cancer. And that's
Speaker 1: that's extremely young, right twenty two. Lea died at twenty
Speaker 1: two Dustin Diamond members saved by the bell. I think
Speaker 1: he was in his early forties from carsonoma. And it
Speaker 1: just it's a steady drug me to this. We just
Speaker 1: wanted to go, wow, there's there's a trend going on here.
Speaker 1: When you do that, though, you're you're surprised, I think,
Speaker 1: and if you're younger, you also thinking we all were
Speaker 1: at some point fallible that we can eat and drink
Speaker 1: and do whatever we want. We're good. Well apparently not
Speaker 1: because whatever it is and somewhere in our environment and
Speaker 1: maybe also in our DNA, we don't know. These things
Speaker 1: are coming together with catstrok results, you know, when you
Speaker 1: see the cancer rates go up eighty percent over the
Speaker 1: last forty years, there's certainly something in the water and
Speaker 1: in the food and maybe within us as well. So
Speaker 1: you know the best thing you can do is go
Speaker 1: get those screenings. At a time as we debate healthcare,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna look at congresshutting down again and curely
Speaker 1: not for health care. But you know, the one before
Speaker 1: this was that people are pinching pennies and going lo
Speaker 1: I really can't afford this. And if you don't have
Speaker 1: health care, you're not going to go get the screenings,
Speaker 1: and you may wind up becoming a casualty, becoming a
Speaker 1: statistic I think the healthcare system is somewhat negligent in
Speaker 1: this as well too. Yeah, we got to engage in care,
Speaker 1: and if you're fortunate to have the care, you still
Speaker 1: have to go. I know people who have insurance don't
Speaker 1: go to the doctor and all the less they're sick.
Speaker 1: That's a mistake. Especially used to be like over the
Speaker 1: age of forty you got to go once a year
Speaker 1: at least. Hell now it seems like at twenty you
Speaker 1: should be going once or twice a year, if indeed
Speaker 1: you have the insurance, which is another big part of
Speaker 1: the problem. Let me do a news update here. We
Speaker 1: still have pretty heavy pockets of a fog. We'll find
Speaker 1: out when that burns off and more. Scottsland on this
Speaker 1: President's Day twenty twenty six, seven hundred ww