Brain Cancer with Dr Charlie Teo

Charlie Teo is a very well known Neurosurgeon with a reputation for tackling difficult cases. In this episode Charlie opens up about his professional career and navigating the medical system. He also discusses how a holistic approach  helped his patient with a Grade 3 Anaplastic Astrocytoma. These cancers usually offer a lifespan of 2-3 years post diagnoses.

Transcript

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Daniel Baden: 0:13

Over my years in natural medicine, I've come across many patients that have benefited from Charlie Teo's interventions. Often the person will seek help with diet and lifestyle after surgery, and comment how grateful they are to have met him. Charlie to is a passionate man. He's a neurosurgeon with an international reputation of developing and refining minimally invasive otherwise

Charlie Teo: 1:58

Thank you, Daniel's lovely introduction. Anything I would take a difference too is that you said it creates ripples, I would say creates tsunami waves.

Daniel Baden: 2:09

So on that note, and that's a fantastic sedgeway. I've noticed in the media, it's hard not to notice that the media has absolutely torn you apart lately. Left, you hung to dry. And I'm just wondering how you are personally holding up?

Unknown: 2:23

Well, I've said to my friends, Daniel, that I'm either a sociopath or I have a very strong mental fortitude. It hasn't affected me, I wake up happy every day, happy to be alive, wanting to continue my passion to help people with brain cancer. So you'd think that I've been depressed and worried about all the negative press. I'm not quite sure why I think it's probably because I expected

Daniel Baden: 3:17

I suspect that you stuck your head out too far.

Unknown: 3:19

I did. And you know, if I have any sort of criticism, that would be it, that I got a big mouth. I'm not scared to open it. I don't shy away from the media. At first, certainly don't shy away from a fight. And you know, I'm paying the price for it now, I guess

Daniel Baden: 3:35

But we need people like you to look at things differently. Otherwise, we just go along doing the same thing every day, and nothing ever changes. So thank you for that. Charlie, you know, the old line. When someone asks a simple question, they'll often say, it's not rocket science, or it's not brain surgery two of the comedic lines people throw at you. But at the end of the day, brain

Charlie Teo: 4:21

Now, you're absolutely right. I think it's incumbent on a doctor to provide his best service. With long service, your best service is surely served well by being physically fit, and not being unwell or unfit. And so I think it's my responsibility to my patients to be as fit as I can so that those long surgeries don't tire me out or make me lose my focus. My mom's operation has been

Daniel Baden: 5:14

Okay, so you do get some mini breaks. And what do you do in those breaks? I mean, do you go and eat something? Or do you just go to the bathroom? Or do you try to have a micro sleep or what happens it's a long day out.

Charlie Teo: 5:25

Ideally, you don't have a break, because again, it's imperative to stay focused. And when you take a break, you tend to lose focus. Sometimes you just have to to have a toilet, take toilet break, or you're getting a bit hypoglycemic and you need something to eat. But mostly No, I don't take a break. And that in that case, I took a break for about half an hour, lay down, ate an

Daniel Baden: 6:08

The physical aspect is one thing, but what about the mental aspect you have to stay focused for so long? And you literally have someone's life in your hands? What do you do? How do you mentally prepare for something like that? Or is it just built up over time?

Charlie Teo: 6:23

No, it hasn't built over time I found I could do it even as a young neurosurgeon. I guess it all revolves around how much you care for your patient. I mean, if you assume that their patient is your child, or your loved one, then you would want your surgeon to be 100% focused and not be distracted at all. Not to be physically unwell or unfit. So that's what I do, I just I assume and buy another toothpaste? Well, and again, it just struck me that I do I have this amazing ability to when I when I've got a job at hand, I get it finished. Even if it's going to take me 26 hours, I'll get it finished

Daniel Baden: 8:33

present in the circumstances?

Unknown: 8:36

Well I don't know what it is. And you know, I'm not being boastful because I really don't I would have thought that everyone could do it or should do it. Yeah, it is it appears to be a unique talent.

Daniel Baden: 8:48

Well, that's a good one to have in your profession. Let's talk about your patient. So the patient sorry, male or female, and what was their age?

Charlie Teo: 8:56

Male, he was a pharmacist at the hospital that I was working at in Little Rock, Arkansas, a very good chap, educated, who came in with a single seizure and had a scan that showed what looked like an anaplastic astrocytoma. Right, or arrange him. And I told him that, you know, this is a brain tumor. I don't know what it is because you can't really tell until you do a biopsy, but what's happening. Again, oh my god, it's gonna look terrible. Six months later, I'm sure it's gonna be twice as big. Anyway, we did the scan and it's twice as half the size as the smallest half the size and less incriminate unusual, I've never seen a tumors shrink. I've seen them stabilize, and get bigger slowly, but I've never seen them shrink. So I might be wrong may not be a tumor. But either

Daniel Baden: 12:37

In my 35 years of working in the naturopathic profession, I have come across many cancers of different types that have shrunk, or as their oncologist say, go into mysterious remission. That's all good, except for a lot of brain cancers. That's been one of the most difficult areas to holistically approach. So I'm really interested in this case, because that's contradictory to my

Unknown: 13:07

Yes, but the trouble is Daniel, I can only count them on one hand. Yep. So given that I've done 11,000 operations, I've seen 1000s and 1000s of people, the fact that I can only count on one hand, the number of patients who have shrunk a tumor using alternative therapies is pretty sad, really. So you're absolutely right. It's not a common phenomenon. But fact is that it does happen. I that because, you know, it wasn't it was never done properly. We never, we never did a placebo controlled, double blinded trial. And they're right. There's no evidence now in terms of scientific evidence, but anecdotally, certainly, it seems to have some role in the treatment of melanoma, at least

Daniel Baden: 15:33

discussion around pH has been something fundamental to naturopathic medicine for a long time and causes division with naturopaths as well. However, it is fascinating. And there's more literature coming through at the moment, particularly around chronic inflammation, and pH adjustment, chronic inflammation, I feel, has a significant finger in the whole cancer area.

Unknown: 15:55

Look without being too specific law such as hot, unique water, there is no doubt in my mind that our knowledge of cancer by our mean, Western society is knowledge of cancer is just the tip of the iceberg. There is just so much as unknown. And there's so many treatments out there, that could be the magic bullet. And you've got to keep an open mind to it. You just I mean, you know, while

Daniel Baden: 17:09

So this patient came in and they had their tumor removed, you open up someone's skull, you look inside, what does a grade three, anaplastic astrocytoma look like?

Unknown: 17:21

Well it looks as nasty, and as aggressive and as virulent and as deadly as the tumor itself. So brain cancer, as you correctly alluded to, is a risk of all cancers. It's the deadliest of all cancers. It is intelligent. It has the MDR gene that builds resistance or any chemotherapy. It has a gene that codes, where grows faster when you're deprived of oxygen, it actually grows faster when

Daniel Baden: 18:10

When you say looks really nasty and horrible, does that mean if you can see the difference in color is a black? Is it? Is it highly vascularized

Charlie Teo: 18:19

or some of them are some of them are easily discernible from normal brain. But I guess the reason why I've developed a reputation I have is because I have this amazing ability to differentiate even the low grade gliomas from normal brain and the low grade gliomas look very much like normal brain. So I guess with experience and observation, I've managed to differentiate the

Daniel Baden: 18:47

That leads me to my next question, which is really in this particular patient or any other similar patient, you go in, you sometimes can sometimes can't see an obvious change in in cell tissue. But what I suppose critically important to the success and longevity of the patient is defining the margin and knowing how far out to cut. And because it's such a sensitive area of the brain,

Unknown: 19:21

Well, you just nailed it Daniel, that's why brain surgery is considered the hardest of all the specialties because we call an unco functional balance. Yep. And you find this very fine line between oncological good outcome in other words, longevity during the month of cancer, and functional outcome, in other words, not hurting them, or maintaining quality of life. And the fact that

Daniel Baden: 20:43

I understand so many cancer patients use natural holistic medicines and the word integrative oncology, using chemo radio supplements, diet lifestyle, to my mind is finally gaining momentum in the medical world. We're seeing associations of integrative medicine popping up, we're seeing more journal articles around it. So you've expressed your thoughts around diet and lifestyle.

Charlie Teo: 21:15

So I'm not as optimistic as you and I'm not as I may not be as up to date as you but I have been disgusted with the way mainstream medicine has disregarded and disrespected doctors who have suggested an integrative approach to their patients. The example I use, is that poor orthopedic surgeon from Tasmania.

Daniel Baden: 21:42

Oh, yes.

Unknown: 21:45

Who's only crime was that he recommended a patient should reduce sugar load and reduce their caloric intake rather than have a hip replacement. He was trying to avoid surgery for them. And because he was such a good blog with good results, his colleagues, of course, were jealous. And they started filing complaints about him about how he was giving nutritional advice to his patients. And widely. My H index is the second highest in Australia. I have intellectual cred, academic cred. I'm a full professor of neurosurgery at visiting hospitals all around the world and universities around the world. So I have cred I've got great results they published and yet I'm vehemently opposed by my colleagues. So what is it? Daniel, what is it?

Daniel Baden: 24:14

Well, people don't like change. In 2008, I was organizing a cancer conference and brought out from Europe, a famous integrative oncologist. And he told us that he told the audience that, you know, he took a biopsy of somebody's prostate and realize that you get when you do a biopsy, you get millions and millions of free cancer cells hitting the bloodstream. And they all laughed at him

Charlie Teo: 25:35

Oh, absolutely. No, no, absolutely. There were about five or six years and from Australia who signed a letter to support me when this first started happening two years ago. And every one of them have been targeted by their colleagues and told that they did the wrong thing. And we're going to punish you for it. Now. Every one of them. And you know, for example, one of them is a spine a chance. The same thing, was the first plastic surgeon ever to re implant a finger successfully. It was fired from the hospital next day, and never got the recognition in Australia that he deserved. He was recognized all around the world as being the pioneer in reimplantation, he was asked to be on the medical team to re implanted the transplant the first face and yet never ever given the

Daniel Baden: 28:00

At St. Vincent there was an oncologist who halved the dose of the chemo drugs, getting the same results with less side effects and they kicked him out for not following protocol.

Unknown: 28:12

His name was Keiren Phadke and he's the nicest, most intelligent, caring doctors you'll ever meet. So here it is, patients loved him. He was trying to reduce the dose in order to improve their quality of life and serve the same results. And he was lambasted for it. Because basically he was making the others look silly. So they had to ruin him.

Daniel Baden: 28:39

I actually interviewed Tom Brady for an article. I used to write a health column for magazine 30 years ago. So I was one of the first people to interview him. He was he was an interesting guy back then. And he still is an interesting

Charlie Teo: 28:53

as many geniuses are viewers to think that I'm putting myself in a category. I'm not I'm not a genius. And I'm certainly not doing anything that revolutionary. All I'm doing is occupations hope, when others have offered them not most at all. That's the only thing I can do that's different to my colleagues.

Daniel Baden: 29:13

Well, that brings me to probably a really important question and an opportunity for discussion. And that question really is about what is chance? What is hope? How do you define it? When the other doctors and neuro surgeons say no can't be done? What makes Charlie to go actually, I think there's some hope here.

Unknown: 29:35

Okay so firstly, there's no such thing as false hope. So, again, there's that bullshit. There are false promises. Sure. And some doctors are guilty of that, where they try and influence patients to what they believe is the right thing when it may not be. I am the first to concede that you've got to protect the public against those doctors. But most of those are good people. And most completely change the narrative from death to long life and dying of old age.

Daniel Baden: 31:44

And what about what about the quality of life?

Charlie Teo: 31:50

Absolutely, absolutely. You've got to make sure that you tell them, you've got to make sure you say to them, Listen, this operation, which could be totally futile, but also make things worse, fleeting, I mean, death is bad, but there's things is worse than death. And you know, like being vegetative or paralyzed, not being able to speak or blind. And as long as you make sure your

Daniel Baden: 33:08

Yeah. Do you ever say no, I can't do anything for you to a patient.

Charlie Teo: 33:13

Oh, yeah. I mean, I'll probably do that more times than I say, yes. Yeah, there are times. And again, it would curve probably more than 50% of the time where it's just not in the patient's best interests. Now, sure, the family loved that person so much that they didn't want to see them die, and that and they're willing to take the risk. And they go, yes, we want you to do it.

Daniel Baden: 34:21

yeah, I get that. Charlie, if you don't mind, let's talk about money. Because the media has putting you out there as a greedy bloke who just charge a fortune for things. I imagine that there are significant cost structures in what you do for a living. Would you like to make any comment about fees and charges?

Charlie Teo: 34:41

You're absolutely right. They had to destroy my character. And the way they did that was to paint me as being a money hungry bastard. And it's very hard to cry poor when you're a neurosurgeon. So if I was living in a one bedroom apartment, not being able to fill in the table, then I think everyone will be able to see that you're not money hungry. But the trouble is that, as a recently. Well, one of them, I didn't even charge them. I mean, so here they are trying to pay me out to be a money hungry boss doing this operation that was totally wrong. Well, why did I do it? If I didn't charge money for it? If I don't want my reputation to be tainted? If I don't want to do high risk surgery, if I don't want to waste my time, then what would I do an operation unless there's one

Daniel Baden: 38:24

get that. Thank you just going back to the patient that we were talking about, or patients like at D and you didn't ask this earlier? Do you ever recommend any supplements? Or do you dissuade people from supplements? Or do you refer them to somebody like a naturopath or a dietitian after your surgery?

Charlie Teo: 38:43

Well, the trouble is, because of what happened to Gary, you know who Yeah, I'm very reluctant to make recommendations because I'm not a natural therapist. So what I do is this, I say to my patient look, I'm going to speak to as Charlie to the neurosurgeon, the scientists, the akademischen You know, you should do the following You should have radiotherapy, you should have

Daniel Baden: 40:37

Yeah, no, I understand. I've heard that before as well. Right, Charlie, Thank you. That was amazing. What are you doing now, and tell me about the Charlie Teo foundation.

Charlie Teo: 40:48

Well, I'm going through a bit of a Zen time in my life where I don't want to focus on the negatives, and I want to stay positive and still pursue what turns me on. And even though I'm 65 now, and I should be sort of one down, I guess, I still get turned on by helping people. I mean, it just turns me on. It's what I do best. And I just can't see myself retiring. And I can't see myself way we think and the way changing when we treat patients with depression and anxiety. And I think we may we may have the the the answer.

Daniel Baden: 43:27

Yeah. Well, that's wonderful. good on you. And thank you for your continued work. And thank you for the work that the foundation does as well. Is there a website for the foundation that people can look at?

Charlie Teo: 43:38

Yeah, there is. It's a challenge to foundation.com.au. Yeah, I'm very proud of it. I'm proud that the foundation has stuck to its founding agenda. Now founding agenda was to try and stay lean. In other words, don't waste money and keep our overheads below 20%. And we've done that. And that's a well, first actually, the second agenda was to stay transparent. So people knew exactly

Daniel Baden: 44:31

I love left field

Unknown: 44:37

Daniel a lot of people dont

Daniel Baden: 44:40

I'm so grateful. You spent so much time with me today. It was so instructive. And I learned so much. And I hope that the listeners will also learn and understand what goes on in someone's head. So thanks, Charlie, and I look forward to catching up with you again, another time.

Charlie Teo: 44:55

It's a pleasure. Thank you, Daniel.