Daniella Chace says women with breast cancer can benefit now from new research and shouldn't have to wait for research to become routine and part of care protocols or medical therapies.
It’s why the 50-year-old Port Townsend clinical nutritionist has written two new books, one technical, one fun.
It’s why she said yes to producing to a nutrition program for National Public Radio (NPR).
It’s why she’s developed an app to help people pick foods that contain healing nutrients while they are shopping in the grocery store.
And it’s also why she said yes to writing another smoothie book, this one specifically to take on breast cancer.
“I think it’s fascinating that so much new research is available, and if the general public had access to it, it would change the course of disease in this country and the epidemics we have,” Chase said one day recently over a cup of turmeric tea at Pippa's Real Tea. “There’s new information all the time, and I get very excited about it and I want to translate it into useful recommendations.
“Breast cancer is where we have the most research right now,” she said.
LATEST RESEARCH
What that research shows, she said, is that by incorporating good nutrition into medical treatments and other care protocols, outcomes are better.
“When we incorporate these nutrition practices for those also on chemotherapy, their energy is good throughout treatment, they are able to continue exercising and they are able to continue working. And combined with physical therapies like icing [patients’] heads during chemotherapy, they don’t lose their hair.”
A graduate of Bastyr University in Seattle with a master’s degree in nutrition, and postgraduate training in environmental medicine at Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine and Health Sciences in Tempe, Arizona, Chace taps into the latest studies from all over the world and soaks up the latest research on subjects like triple negative breast cancer.
That kind of information was hard to get years ago.
“When I was in school, at the University of Washington in the mid-1980s you could access it for $60 an hour through the medical school, and now it’s subsidized, so it’s free through Pubmed,” she said.
“It takes, on average, 30 years from research to make it into protocols and into a practice. But I say, we need this now. We have this growing epidemic of breast cancer issues and we need to get this to people right now. After all, there are no harmful side effects in eating nutritious foods.
“‘Turning Off Breast Cancer’ is the result of years of work with breast cancer patients and research into the underlying cause of breast cancer. We know that there are specific toxins and nutrient deficiencies that are drivers of breast cancer,” Chace said.
Omega-3 fatty acids, found in fish, nuts and seeds, for example, inhibit the growth of certain types of breast cancer cells, studies have found.
And there's a new focus on what's called epigenetics.
“There is a real focus on breast cancer and the new science of epigenetics. This has produced proven therapeutic interventions for breast cancer patients,” she said. “Epigenetics is the science of gene expression and how genes that drive cancer and other diseases can be controlled or ‘expressed’ by their exposure to triggers, such as toxins, and how genes can also be turned off by exposure to nutrients.”
VITAMIN D DEFICIENCY
One thing Chace said women should do is be tested for nutrient deficiencies.
“When they’ve tested women who have just been diagnosed with breast cancer, almost all are vitamin D deficient. They're calling Vitamin D deficiency a carcinogenic state. We really all need to have our vitamin D levels tested.”
“Turning Off Breast Cancer, A Personalized Approach to Nutrition and Detoxification in Prevention and Healing” is, Chace admitted, a technical book for breast cancer patients and family members.
She includes a list of steps that patients can take at the end of each chapter that simplifies the recommendations into a short to-do list, for example, like getting your vitamin D level tested.
It’s been well received by professionals.
Oncologist D.B. Boyd, the director of cancer nutrition at Yale–New Haven Health System and an assistant professor of medicine at Yale School of Medicine, called it a “must-read” for patients.
RESEARCH-BASED RECIPES
For those who like colorful pictures and delicious-sounding recipes, Chace’s “Healing Smoothies,” which offers 100 research-based recipes for cancer prevention and recovery, is an easier read.
Although that book just came out on the heels of “Turning Off Breast Cancer,” Chace has just signed a contract for another smoothie book that is tailored to breast cancer.
“So I’m going back to drinking smoothies for another month,” she said, remembering when she wrote “365 Skinny Smoothies” not that long ago.
“To come up with 100 original, medicinal cancer smoothie recipes in the last book, I probably made 1,000 recipes. It takes time, especially when you are trying to incorporate something funky like adding in turmeric. And I want the sugar low, so I don’t want too much fruit. It can be tricky. When I did ‘365 Skinny Recipes,’ I probably did 2,000 test recipes.”
NPR, FAMILY
Chace is no newcomer to nutrition. She has been health-conscious for decades.
In fact, one of her first books was a gluten-free baking cookbook.
“This is in 1993, when there was nothing for me to use as a basis. I had to come up with the recipes on my own. So I spent a year in the kitchen with potato flour, tapioca flour, rice flour, garbanzo bean flour and almond meal. This was when bread machines were very in,” she recalled.
All told, Chace has written around 20 books over the years. She has also written for magazines, including Better Nutrition magazine, Women & Cancer and Self.
She is looking forward to producing “Nutrition Matters” for NPR, which launches this month. Her mother, Linda Landkammer, who has lived for 30 years in Port Townsend, is serving as her voice talent for the show, and friend Wes Eng, also from Port Townsend, announces the sponsors and host before each segment.
“He’s a gardener by day and my NPR voice talent on the weekends. I love working with my family and friends,” she said.
Friend and artist Julie Read, also of Port Townsend, did drawings for “Turning Off Breast Cancer,” and those cartoons are modeled on her and her mother, Chace said
That book also acknowledges the work of physician Sandra Poling, M.D., of Port Townsend.
When Chace tests smoothie recipes in her home, she enlists the taste buds of friends and family.
“I’d often have my mother and her friends over, so they’re in the living room tasting, too. It’s helpful to have other people's opinions about flavor,” she said.
Her own favorite smoothie recipe is The Elysemo, which is named after friend Elsye Garling, a local jeweler who inspired the recipe.
APP DEVELOPMENT
Chace became involved in nutrition and concerned about cancer years ago. After she wrote “What to Eat When You Have Cancer,” the owner of Cancer Centers of American, whom she said used the book, asked her to develop nutrition protocols for his clinics.
After creating those protocols, she moved to Sun Valley, Idaho, and while there, did a program called “Nutrition Minute.” It aired daily for three years.
In Sun Valley, she happened to rent a home from actress Demi Moore, who started sending clients to Chace’s private nutrition practice.
“I learned so much, because my clients could afford to do all the testing that I need to really get down to the cause of their conditions,” she said.
It was there that she was able to hire a crew to help her work on an app that is aimed at helping people when they are in the grocery store pick out foods that are good for them, foods that will help fight whatever illness they might have. She has had apps created that target breast cancer, prostate cancer, heart disease and diabetes, and is looking for an investor to take the grocery-store apps to the next level.
“That’s what it’s all about. For me, the books, the radio show, the apps, the classes and my website are designed to help use this information right now to change the course of our own individual health,” she said.
Chace is hosting a free breast cancer nutrition class in November to show people how to get started.
By changing diet and lifestyle, she says, it is possible to change how we feel and how we function as well as reduce the risk for developing disease.
In short, change can happen now; it doesn't have to wait 30 years for protocols to make their way into health care systems.