Episode 20 - Understanding Death, Grief, And Healing In The Face Of Cancer with Andrea Wilson Woods

Welcome back to The Beljanski Cancer Talk Show, where we’re about to dive into one of the most emotional and eye-opening conversations you’ll ever hear. In today’s episode, hosts Sylvie and Victor are joined by none other than Andrea Wilson Woods—the president and founder of Blue Faery, an organization dedicated to tackling liver cancer with passion, purpose, and unwavering support.

But here’s the twist: Andrea’s story isn’t just about fighting a disease. It’s about resilience, love, and the power of turning grief into action. At just 22, Andrea became the guardian of her sister, Adrienne, after a devastating cancer diagnosis. And in honor of her sister’s memory, Andrea founded the Blue Faery, a nonprofit that’s changing the way families cope with cancer.

In this heartfelt episode, Andrea opens up about her personal journey, sharing the tough decisions, emotional hurdles, and vital lessons she’s learned along the way. But it doesn’t stop there. She’ll reveal the practical, actionable steps families can take to support their loved ones, both emotionally and medically, and how critical psychosocial support is in the cancer journey.

Plus, you’ll hear all about the Blue Faery’s educational programs, cutting-edge research, and its mission to tackle liver cancer head-on.

If you or someone you know is navigating the complex world of cancer, this episode is packed with life-changing insights and strategies you can implement immediately. Don’t miss it!

Episode Highlights:
🧠The Story Behind Blue Faery
🧘‍♀️ Educational and Support Programs
💥 Nutritional Advice for Liver Cancer
🌿 Preventive Measures for Liver Cancer
🔬 Funding and Research Initiatives

► Visit our Podcast Page: https://www.beljanski.org/beljanski-cancer-talk-show/episode-20-understanding-death-grief-and-healing-in-the-face-of-cancer-with-andrea-wilson-woods/

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Chapters

• 1:21 Meet Andrea Wilson Woods
• 2:33 The Story Behind Blue Faery
• 3:44 From Grief to Action
• 5:57 Educational and Support Programs
• 10:24 Nutritional Advice for Liver Cancer
• 12:36 Advice for Caregivers and Patients
• 18:41 Ad: The 2025 Beljanski Integrative Cancer Conference
• 24:07 Publishing Adrienne's Journal
• 28:08 Funding and Research Initiatives
• 31:05 Preventive Measures for Liver Cancer
• 36:25 Closing Remarks and Contact Information

Transcript

Understanding Death, Grief, and Healing in the Face of Cancer with Andrea Wilson Woods

Introduction to the Episode

Andrea Wilson Woods: For the caregivers and the parents and the siblings and all the people who are around that patient who have cancer, you have to take care of yourself first.

Meet Andrea Wilson Woods

Victor Dwyer: Welcome to today's episode of The Beljanski Cancer Talk Show. Sylvie and I are honored to have Andrea Wilson Woods, president and founder of Blue Faery, joining us for the special episode titled, ‘Understanding Death, Grief, and Healing in the Face of Cancer.’ 

Andrea is not only a keynote speaker and writer, but also a passionate patient advocate who founded the nonprofit Blue Faery: The Adrienne Wilson Liver Cancer Association.

With over a decade of experience in education and a master's degree in a professional writing, Andrea brings a profound perspective to our conversation.

Tune in as Andrea shares her insights and experiences on coping with cancer, grief, and the journey toward healing.

Sylvie Beljanski: Hello, Andrea. I'm delighted to have you today. We thank you for taking the time with The Beljanski Cancer Talk Show. You are the president, founder of a non-for-profit organization called Blue Faery. Can you tell us more about it and what it's doing?

The Story Behind Blue Faery

Andrea Wilson Woods: Yes, so Blue Faery's mission is to prevent, treat, and cure primary liver cancer, specifically Hepatocellular Carcinoma, also known as HCC, through research, education, and advocacy, and I started the organization over 20 years ago in memory of my sister Adrienne. When I was 22 years old, I was living in Los Angeles.

I had finished college and Adrienne came to visit me for what was supposed to be a Christmas vacation. And like I said, I was 22, she was eight and that vacation became a permanent stay when our mother decided she did not want to be a mother anymore. And so I actually sued for custody, became my sister's legal guardian.

I raised her all through my 20s until she was very suddenly diagnosed with metastatic HCC one month after her 15th birthday. 

Sylvie Beljanski: What a sad story but, and that changed your life for, forever. 

Andrea Wilson Woods: Forever, yes. Both getting custody of her and then losing her. 

Sylvie Beljanski: Yeah, and then you decided to create this non-for-profit.

From Grief to Action

Sylvie Beljanski: How did you make the move from grief to action? 

Andrea Wilson Woods: That is a great question. I was extremely suicidal the year after Adrienne died. That first anniversary, it was really, really tough. And someone in my life, I thought I was hiding it very well, someone in my life actually pointed it out to me and said, “Look, you can't kill yourself because Adrienne would never forgive you.”

And that person was right. And so, I just was looking for a way to channel my grief. It was never my thought to start a non-profit, ever. I was like, “I'm gonna volunteer.” And I did a lot of research and there wasn't a single organization in the U. S. doing anything in liver cancer, specifically.

And I approached the largest liver disease non-profit in the U. S. and asked if I could volunteer for them. And my background is writing and marketing, and I said, “Look, you don't have anything about liver cancer on your website.” And I knew from my sister's experience that particular cancer was only going to continue to rise, not only in the U.S., but worldwide. And they said, “No, thank you.”

And so I, I realized it was one of those things. It's a Lily Tomlin quote that I thought “Somebody should do something about that. And then I realized that somebody was me,” and that's exactly what happened. I realized nobody was gonna do anything about this.

And that's how Blue Faery started. 

Victor Dwyer: Real fast. I want to say that's an amazing way to take that and find purpose in something that's really hard. Because it's really hard to extract purpose around these awful things that happened to us in life. And it's really amazing that you were able to turn a huge, biggest negative in existence to something that's very positive for the world. I think that's amazing. 

Andrea Wilson Woods: Thank you. Thank you so much. 

Sylvie Beljanski: So, you gave us one-liner about the mission of your foundation. Can you get in, more into more details about what it is doing about treating, researching. Can you give us some example of what you are doing and why people should support your mission? 

Educational and Support Programs

Andrea Wilson Woods: Yes. So, we started on the educational component first, and that really came from when Adrienne was diagnosed. I was given all these one sheets on her chemotherapy and nothing about the disease and I told the doctors, I said, “This is all fine and good, but like I need to understand what's actually going on in her body first."

And at that time there, there was absolutely nothing. There were, there was no educational material. And in fact, the doctor who did her biopsy made copies from his medical textbooks and brought me this stack of paper and here I was, an educated person, I had a bachelor's degree at that point, but not in science.

And I didn't understand a single word. So I bought a Gray's Anatomy and a medical dictionary, which I still have and sat there and translated in this heavy medical terminology into layman's terms, and I think that always stuck in the back of my mind. So, since our inception, we've had patient education materials in layman's terms.

We ship worldwide for free, and they are available in English, Spanish, and Chinese. So that's where we began, and then we grew from there. We also have a private HIPAA-compliant liver cancer community that's available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. And I like to stress to people that it's not a Facebook group because your health information is not safe or private on Facebook.

And that's why we waited until we had a HIPAA-compliant form for our community. We have also several programs around education and also prevention. And so if you have an underlying liver disease or you're at risk for one, then you are at risk for liver cancer. And so we have programs titled, The Truth About Liver Cancer, Love Your Liver and a brand new program that debuted just a few weeks ago titled You and Liver Cancer. And they all have different components and different audiences. And then you mentioned research. We have an annual research award we give out every year on my sister's birthday, which is April 8th.

And that goes to any researcher, international, absolutely fine, as long as they're doing really innovative, creative research, and it's specific to HCC, and they cannot work for a pharmaceutical or biotech organization. 

Sylvie Beljanski: Okay, so for example, who has been, so far, the recipient of, of your awards? 

Andrea Wilson Woods: I'm really so proud of the recipients because they are the ‘Who's Who’ in HCC, and they also represent a variety of disciplines.

We have medical oncologists, two of one, gastroenterologists, hepatologists, interventional radiologists, pure researchers who are not clinicians, and they all represent this multidisciplinary team. That term gets tossed around a lot in oncology, especially. And this year's recipient, he was our third international recipient, Dr. Peter Galle from Germany. 

Sylvie Beljanski: Very good. So all those recipients, you are giving me names of doctors and institutions. I assume they are all very much conventional therapy, right? 

Andrea Wilson Woods: Yeah. I would say most of them are conventional therapy. Some of them take a more integrative approach, which is really nice to see.

And that was one of the things when my sister was diagnosed, it was 2001, and this whole idea of integrative oncology didn't even exist. And so we did, in working in conjunction, with when we finally got to an oncologist where we really liked and trusted, we did more of a complimentary approach.

And we said, okay, we're going to do these traditional treatments, but we want to compliment it with other things. And so there were some supplements we use. There was massage. There were a couple of things that we, continue to use in conjunction. And I think that's why overall my sister's health didn't really decline until the last few weeks of her life.

She really did quite well on this absolutely terrible, horrific chemotherapy. And the entire time she was sick, for example, she only had one cold. And she did so well because I think that we were using all these other modalities and that includes food, and that includes nutrition, which certainly isn't talked about enough.

Nutritional Advice for Liver Cancer

Sylvie Beljanski: Would you mind to, give here some, some advice to people concerned with liver cancer about nutritional approach, what should look for, look to avoid? 

Andrea Wilson Woods: Yes. So, one of the biggest challenges with GI cancers, more so than other cancers is that the cancers in your organs that digest what we take into our body.

And so many times, not only is your appetite suppressed because you're suffering from nausea, but your organs are compromised by tumors. And so you really have to be thoughtful about what you put in your body. And you also have to make sure that, of course, that you're not losing too much weight too fast because you become too weak and fatigued.

And so one of the things we did, and that I've recommended and seen other patients do successfully, is start with a lot of fruit, a lot of calories, and then we added milk thistle to those shakes again. We worked with her physician and that milk thistle is very good specifically for the liver.

And I was having a hard time like with many cancer patients. My sister didn't want to eat, but once I put together these smoothies with things that she really liked, but were still really good for her, I was able to, first thing in the morning, get four or 500 calories in her. And so she would have more energy and have a better day.

Also you have to stay hydrated. It's very difficult to get a 15-year-old to drink water. So she thought water was boring. And that she got dehydrated at one point, too dehydrated to the point where her treatment was delayed. And so I said, “Okay, what is it going to take to get this kid to drink water?”

Okay. And I, again, maybe this is not the best recommendation, but she liked Powerade. I was like,”Perfect, Powerade is it!” I think there's just little things, but the main thing is you can't keep fighting and your body can't keep fighting if you don't have the energy to fight. 

Sylvie Beljanski: Absolutely. And I'm sure that your love also gave her a lot of energy.

Andrea Wilson Woods: Aw, thank you! Thank you so much. Yeah it's really important. 

Advice for Caregivers and Patients

Victor Dwyer: And going off of that, I wanted to ask when you heard the news, it was like very hard, like a hundred percent. And I bet other people in the audience are either going through that, like either being the victim of it or, at least, knowing someone that is going through that. What advice would you give to that person that is going through this?

Either like, either they are a victim of it itself or from someone that is going through that from a loved one standpoint. What advice would you give to that person? 

Andrea Wilson Woods: Wow. How long do we have? I would say the first thing is get a second opinion for any serious diagnosis, but especially cancer, and especially if it's advanced, get a second opinion. Even if you love your doctor, get a second opinion. And we wanted a second opinion pretty early on because the pediatric oncologist we initially had no real experience with her cancer. My sister was technically a pediatric patient at 15, but she was a grown young woman and she did not have a pediatric type cancer. She had a very, the most common type of liver cancer, HCC, and so that's considered an adult cancer and, therefore, the pediatric oncologist did not have experience with treating her cancer. They didn't know much about it. And again, that hasn't changed much so even now today when young people get this type of cancer, I will say to their parents, “You need to get them to a doctor who treats this cancer every single day and has seen every aspect of it.”

So, get a second opinion. I think the other thing is check out clinical trials early if you have any advanced disease whatsoever. Clinical trials should be a first option, not a last resort and, most of the time, it's shocking how patients have no idea that clinical trials exist often because their doctor doesn't bring them up.

And because 85 percent of people in the U. S. are seen in a community cancer setting and so a community oncologist can't possibly keep track of all the clinical trials that are available. And then the third thing I would say is, this is more for the caregivers and the parents and the siblings and all the people who are around that patient who have cancer, but are not the patient themselves, is you have to take care of yourself first.

And that is really hard to do when you're, at least for me, when my energy, my time, everything was so focused on taking care of my sister. But if you don't take care of yourself, you can't take care of anybody else. 

Sylvie Beljanski: So what did you do to take care of yourself? 

Andrea Wilson Woods: At that time? I did not do a good job.

I did not do a good job. I did have friends that occasionally would force me to get out of the house, my sister, including, “Get out, you need to go do something different.” But I will say it's very interesting. And I would love some feedback on this from your audience. I have had trouble sleeping my whole life ever since I was a kid.

I've always had insomnia. So, it was just like part of my, I felt like it was part of my DNA and during my sister's very short 147-day cancer journey, that is the best sleep I've ever gotten. It was like my body knew that it had to shut down and had to, I had to sleep. And I'm a dreamer, I have dreams every night, very vivid, very lucid, which I think is part of the reason I don't feel rested and I wake up all the time. But during that time, I would put my sister to bed at midnight, that's when she got her last meds and I would take a quick shower, like a five-minute shower, I would go to bed, I would close my eyes, and then I would wake up by 6:45. And it would be like I was sleeping like a rock, and I wake up in time to wake her up to get her day started and her meds and everything. And it, I mean that, that's I guess the one, one of the few blessings during that time was I did actually sleep, except when we were in the hospital where nobody ever sleeps.

So nobody sleeps in the hospital, it's impossible. 

Victor Dwyer: And most, most likely it was caused by, I've been very familiar, I used to be like a huge workaholic where I would work 14 hours a day. And once I would, I basically worked till exhaustion and then I would fall asleep because of that exhaustion. And what I realized is I wasn't, I wasn't processing my emotions and that was the reason why I wasn't being able to sleep and that might be valuable to the audience as well, that it really helps if you have a time before.

It could be like, it could be driving, you could be driving, you could be like literally have a time, like you can meditate, somehow, like with the world of constant stimulation, it makes it very difficult to actually digest your emotions and process them. We're always in a state of doing this, doing that, and our mind doesn't have any time to process it.

So, when we actually lay down in bed, that's when our mind like literally floods like a dam breaks and now all the emotions are coming through us. 

Andrea Wilson Woods: It didn't during that time for me. That's what's amazing. It was truly like my body knew that you have to get some sleep. You have to sleep. And we're going to let you sleep. I can't say that's worked since. Even though I have what doctors call very good sleep hygiene, but I still struggle with sleep now, but that is the best sleep I ever got in my life was during that time.

Victor Dwyer: And so that, that was great advice from a medical standpoint of what to do. I'm curious on your thoughts from more of it, like a psychological aspect. 

Andrea Wilson Woods: Oh, yeah. That's huge. 

Victor Dwyer: What would you recommend from, like, obviously when you hear the news, what would you recommend, psychological wise? Because we know that stress is one of the biggest causes of cancer. So, obviously you don't want to either increase your level of stress. You don't want to increase the people around you level of stress. Because it is a stressful event, like without a doubt is like one of, one of the most stressful events of all time, but it's actually causing things to get worse.

So what is, in your opinion, what is the best way to approach this horrible situation, from a psychological standpoint for our audience?

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Andrea Wilson Woods: I think you do have to find that psychosocial support, and that's another piece that I think is really interesting that even when the patients I've worked with are seen at these huge cancer centers, that's not brought up, or it's brought up much later.

I'm thinking of this one guy who was treated in West Virginia for a totally different type of cancer. And he was an older man and he was embarrassed to ask for help. He was embarrassed to say he was depressed. But finally, after a year, he said, “I think I really need help. Like, I'm in bad shape mentally.”

And it turned out that the support system was three doors down, like,  he was being seen at a very small clinic, but the support services were there all along, but yet it's on the patient to ask. And I know for me, with my sister I was seeking support. I was actively looking for support.

There were no support groups for parents at that time. And this was at Children's Hospital, Los Angeles, which is shocking. And I dragged my sister to a support group for teens with cancer. And then this goes to show you that people, different people need different kinds of support. Because here I was looking for parents who, and where we all had something in common, I could talk to them.

And so I dragged her to this teen support group, and all these teenagers are there, and she hated it. She absolutely had a meltdown, and we left, and she finally said to me, she said, “Don't you get it?”

She goes, “I understand this is something you need with parents, but for me, I don't want to be around other sick people, because it just reminds me that I'm sick, like I want to be around my friends. I want to be around, our friends” and by them she meant like her, our grown up friends or her sort of aunts and uncles. She's “I want to go out and do things whenever my immune system is healthy enough. I don't want to be around other sick kids.” And so for her that psychosocial support was very different than what it was for me.

And so I do think you have to ask for it and you have to figure out what that is. So even two people who are married, let's say, and their child has cancer, one person might need a different kind of support than the other one. And you have to respect that. 

Victor Dwyer: And I think the biggest thing, the biggest actionable item from that is just to ask.

If you're the victim or if the person that is around you, if you know what you're looking for saying, “Hey, I just need a shoulder to cry on, I need to,” like whatever it may be. And just like asking that it's not easy. It's not an easy thing to do, but it's definitely something that is necessary for everyone.

Andrea Wilson Woods: And I think the other thing is in our situation, people wanted to help, but didn't know how. And I know some people disagree with me on this train of thought, but, and I think there are a lot more resources and a lot more platforms that make that very easy now, very doable now than twenty plus years ago.

But to me, people didn't know how to help. So, I had a friend who kept trying to deliver food to us, but he lived halfway around the world and every time he tried to deliver food, we weren't home. We were at a doctor's appointment or something like we were never home. And, and so it just didn't work, but he meant well.

And so what I started to do was I was like, “Okay, what, what are some errands or things we need done that would be really helpful if somebody else could do them?” And then I had this list of people, and this was all just email, and who said they wanted to help and I said “We'll find out if they want to help or not for sure, for real” and like one thing was my sister got all these wigs and she loved to wear all these fun wigs, but she wanted wig heads for them And so I reached out to someone who said they wanted to help and I said, “Hey, there is a place a block from your house,” and this is Los Angeles, so it was in traffic. It was going to be quite a drive for me, but it was really close for her. I said, “You said you wanted to help. I know it seems like nothing, but would you go pick up four or five styrofoam wig heads and would you bring them to our house?” And she was like, “Oh my God, absolutely!”

And she felt good because she had done something. And we really appreciated it because it was something we needed done, but would have been incredibly time-consuming for us because of LA traffic. 

Sylvie Beljanski: Absolutely. Takes a village. 

Publishing Her Sister's Journal

Sylvie Beljanski: You recently published your sister's journal.

Andrea Wilson Woods: I did.

Sylvie Beljanski: Can you tell us more about it? And how many years did you wait before you felt ready to publish? 

Andrea Wilson Woods: Yes, so I published my medical memoir in 2019, “Better Off Bald: A Life in 147 Days,” and that is told through my lens as her parent and sister and guardian. And, and it really follows that 147-day journey with flashbacks filling in the gaps.

And so it's that seven-year period in my life when I raised her and then lost her to cancer. And I knew I wanted to publish her journal because with my book, I used little excerpts from her journal to introduce the chapters. So, you saw her perspective versus my perspective. And there was this moment where I thought she was getting better.

And she knew she was getting worse. And it's so interesting to see that the difference in those two world views, if you will. But my sister was a, just a voracious reader and an incredible writer and also a very talented artist. And so, I knew that I wanted to put together her journals because she, she had been journaling since she was 10 and, but she started getting very serious about it a year before she was diagnosed and she kept journaling while she was diagnosed up until three weeks before she died.

And so I just waited for the right time and also I wanted to make sure that, while I still own her journals and her artwork, the book itself, all the proceeds go to Blue Faery. And so we wanted to make sure we had some funding to support the book and which we were able to obtain. And so her book is titled, “I'd Rather Be Dead Than Deaf: A Young Woman's Journey with Liver Cancer.”

And the title comes from something she said, and I think this is important too, to really listen to patients and what they want. And she said right from the beginning, when she found out this one particular nasty, still incredibly used chemotherapy drug was going to cause her to lose her hearing, she lost it and said, “No, absolutely not.”

Music was her life. She was a budding musician. And that's what she told the doctor. She said, “I'd rather be dead than deaf.” And so even though we did not like him very much, he did one thing very well in that moment. He said, “Okay, I will not give you this drug unless you sign off on it.” And she knew her signature made no difference, but it gave her some power back.

And we made an agreement with her as a family, the doctor and she and I made an agreement that if she had any hearing loss, we would stop the drug. Sure enough, after only two rounds. She started to have just the beginning signs of hearing loss and she said, “I'm it. That's it. I'm done. I'm out.” And she told the doctor, my sister has this book and it has over 200 chemotherapy drugs.

“Find another one. I'm not gonna do it again.” And so we didn't. And, and so I've gotten a little pushback on the title, but it is a direct quote from her and I think it's really powerful. 

Sylvie Beljanski: Yeah, I, I think when you explain the story behind it, it makes, it makes a lot of sense that one could miss indeed when just having the title without the story.

You have the cover of the book? You can show it. 

Andrea Wilson Woods: Yeah, I do. I do. This particular one has a line through it because it says not to sell. This is an author copy, but yeah. And this was her favorite photo of herself. And the QR code, apologies for that's from our conference. 

Sylvie Beljanski: Where can we find the book?

Andrea Wilson Woods: You can find it, of course, on Amazon and if you go to bluefaery.org, B L U E F A E R Y dot org slash review, you will, you can get a free sample and also buy the book there. 

Sylvie Beljanski: Very good. So you, how do you, you said that the proceeds of the book help finance the foundation, right? 

Andrea Wilson Woods: That's right. Yep. 

Funding and Research Initiatives

Sylvie Beljanski: What else do you, why, what else do you do to finance your, your organization? 

Andrea Wilson Woods: Oh, you have an organization, Sylvie. You know what it's like. 

Sylvie Beljanski: I know it's a lot and that's why I am asking what, do you have events? Do you have, what do you do and what can be done to support your organization?

Andrea Wilson Woods: We always appreciate individual giving and, of course, on our website, you can donate a variety of ways. You can donate one time monthly. You can, of course, list us in your will as a bequest and we can take other certain types of gifts. We get a lot of in-kind gifts of services, which is really helpful.

And then the majority of our funding does come from educational grants and then also from program service fees. So it's, it's a challenge. It's a constant challenge. You have to diversify your funding. 

Sylvie Beljanski: So tell us more about those educational grounds. 

Andrea Wilson Woods: The educational grants are usually for specific programs, so they're restricted educational grants.

When that, we apply, when that money comes in, it has to go to that particular program and I don't know what else to tell you about that, except that it's… 

Sylvie Beljanski: So, people concerned with liver cancer, they can, how do they get to you and benefit from this education. 

Andrea Wilson Woods: That's, those are two different things, right?

So, the people who fund our educational grants are not the people who are recipients of the programs. So, the programs for our patients and families are 100 percent free. Even the patient resource guides. That's our patient education. We ship worldwide for free. So, none of the people who benefit from those programs are paying for those programs.

Sylvie Beljanski: Okay. And what is the current research program that you, you are currently involved with? 

Andrea Wilson Woods: Aside from our Blue Faery Award that, as I mentioned, that we give out every year of my sister's birthday, we were involved in a lot of different things. We are part of the hepatobiliary spore at the Mayo Clinic.

We're part of a stakeholders group for UT Southwestern. So, we're involved with a lot of different medical systems who are dedicated and have the resources to be involved in liver cancer. I, personally, have served on the American Society of Clinical Oncology's guideline panel for this disease as a volunteer.

And we've had multiple renditions now because the guidelines are constantly being updated and, and that is one thing I will say is that a lot has changed in liver cancer in the past five years. There are a lot of new treatments available and I feel like there's some progress being made. Not as fast as I would like, but some progress.

Victor Dwyer: Yeah.

Sylvie Beljanski: Very good.

Preventive Measures for Liver Cancer

Victor Dwyer: Andrea, what, before we sign off, what would be your number one actionable piece of advice from everything we talked about from people, from a medical perspective of what people should do after either their loved ones or they himself have been, or it could be from a psychological aspect of “Hey here's how to be less stressed or whatever it may be.”

What would be your number one takeaway from everything we talked about today? 

Andrea Wilson Woods: Can I give more of a preventive piece of advice? Is that okay?

Victor Dwyer: Sure, yeah.

Andrea Wilson Woods: Liver cancer is one of the most common cancers worldwide. It's the third deadliest cause of cancer deaths worldwide, and it's expected to surpass breast cancer in this country by 2040, and what's really frustrating and scary about all that is liver cancer is also one of the most preventable cancers, and we know what causes liver cancer, and that's in three buckets.

There is that very rare disease, bucket of liver cancer, but it's extremely rare. Typically, liver cancer is caused by Hepatitis B or C. There are for hepatitis B. There are curative drugs for Hepatitis C. Everybody should have a one-time hepatitis B or C blood test.

And, and then it's lifestyle. And I think most people do connect liver cancer with drinking. But what they don't understand is that obesity is directly linked to liver cancer now. It's also linked to 12 other types of cancer. But fatty liver disease is becoming the number one cause that's leading to liver cancer especially in Western countries.

And it is a huge challenge because I feel like it's this topic that we're not supposed to talk about that. It's like the last frontier of topics that if you even bring it up people say you're fat shaming, for example. Someone's probably going to give me a hard time for even saying this on a podcast, but we have to talk about it.

Sylvie Beljanski: No, no, and you can develop a fatty liver, even thin people can develop a fatty liver. There is no body shaming here. 

Andrea Wilson Woods: Yeah, exactly. Thank you for that. But I feel like, there is. Guys, this is true! We have to talk about this. And so I think we really need to have conversations about obesity and how food can be an addiction just like alcohol, just like drugs, food can actually be an addiction.

And you have to address those underlying causes of overeating. 

Sylvie Beljanski: Overeating and also the toxicity, hepatotoxicity of many foods.

Andrea Wilson Woods: That, too.

Sylvie Beljanski: Even some of them are advertised as healthy. 

Andrea Wilson Woods: Yes.

Sylvie Beljanski: And they are far from being healthy in reality.

Andrea Wilson Woods: Yes.

Sylvie Beljanski: Absolutely. 

Andrea Wilson Woods: One of the toxins that is not an issue in the U.S., but it's called Aflatoxin. It's a type of fungus and it has been linked to cancer. primary liver cancer in Asian countries. Again, they consider it correlative, not causative, but they do know that Aflatoxin is a problem. 

Sylvie Beljanski: Yeah, and it's linked to molds in, in nuts and, and in coffee and a lot of things that, how you would not think this is early to, to link to cancer.

Andrea Wilson Woods: Yeah.

Victor Dwyer: Yeah.

Andrea Wilson Woods: It's, it's so challenging though, right? It's just so challenging to have these conversations with people. And now that I live in the South, I'm moving, people are always shocked that I moved from Los Angeles to the South and, but I'm from the Southeast, so I knew what to expect, but some days it is still a little shocking just how the majority of the population walking around here where I live are severely overweight or obese.

Sylvie Beljanski: Yeah, but that's what our Western food is doing to us, and… 

Andrea Wilson Woods: Yeah.

Victor Dwyer: Especially that Texas barbecue.

Andrea Wilson Woods: Yeah. Are you in Texas?

Victor Dwyer: I'm from Texas. Yeah. 

Andrea Wilson Woods: Oh, okay. Okay.

Sylvie Beljanski: Last question. In your group, in your support group do you have some people using Pao Pereira as a supplement?

It's a natural compound. It's a natural compound and there is a lot of research behind this compound. It's not, it's not specific to liver cancer because it seems to have an anti-cancer activity with a large spectrum. Actually, it has been test, researched against a number of cancer. My foundation has researched its activity on prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, and a number of research team around the world that have also been researching this compound.

I found, at least one paper on hepatocarcinoma, which is liver, the liver cancer, kind of cancer you were mentioning. There is no, no toxicity to the healthy cells. And it seems to be working on different kind of cancer, different stages of cancer and also in synergy with chemotherapy.

So I think a lot of people would benefit in learning more about it. 

Andrea Wilson Woods: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's very interesting. 

Closing Remarks and Contact Information

Victor Dwyer: Andrea, thank you so much for joining with us. The audience knows where to find you and it sounds like where to find more about your book. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Andrea Wilson Woods: No, thank you so much for having me. And just remember it's Blue Faery with an E and not an I dot org. 

Victor Dwyer: Cool.

Sylvie Beljanski: Thank you.

Victor Dwyer: This is the Beljanski Cancer Talk Show. Thank you for everyone that has joined and listened to this far, and we'll catch you next time. Thanks.