Dorothy: [00:00:00] If you love chocolate this episode is for you. Today we talk with Dr. Beata Lerman who confesses that she eats a pound of chocolate a day. This isn’t any chocolate, it’s the one that she created after her battle with cancer. Dr. Lerman is a medical researcher, a scientist, and has a long career in genetic engineering and immunology.
In fact, she invented and patented two immunotherapies with MD Anderson. She emphasizes the importance of addressing the root cause of cancer and the role that sugar plays in promoting inflammation. All of this led to her creating Sinless Treats, a company that offers delicious sugarless chocolate.
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Dr. Lerman is so wonderful to have you here on Let’s Talk About Your Breast, and I am just fascinated with your story, so you have a lot to share and I hope I can catch up with everything that you’re doing. Tell us your background, tell us how you got into science and all of that kind of thing.
Dr. Lerman: Uh, well, first of all, thank you for having me. I am truly honored to be here. I was looking forward to this. Uh, actually a lot of my friends who are also, um, for formerly people that I helped navigate medical system, they were telling me, it’s like, do [00:02:00] you know about that podcast? And I said, we’ve been trying to book the sit down time for months now.
And it’s finally happening. And so I think you’re gonna hopefully have a spike in the audience. Maybe not. Maybe they’re already been huge appreciators. But you know, As long as I could remember myself, I wanted to be a scientist. Uh, it, probably at the age of 10 years old, I already knew. And, uh, my family, I come from the family of medical practitioners.
My grandmother was a, uh, very gifted pediatrician. She saved thousands of kids and even though she hasn’t been with us for last 30 years, the legend of her still lives in the kids who are now adults who still remember her. My grandfather was a dentist and a Psychologist and also very very gifted. My mother was a nurse [00:03:00] still is a nurse in this country and I think the um point when I realized that science is something that I want to do, it’s actually very funny, but true story. I loved the series X Files. You probably remember from the nineties, you know, and I remember, you know, watching it, they were trying to, uh, uncover this conspiracy theories with the alien lives. And I remember, um, Scully doing this experiments where she would do the DNA analysis and run. And I was like, I want to know how to do it.
Dorothy: Oh my goodness.
Dr. Lerman: Yes. So true story. So I, um, started very early. I was, um, I’m from Russia. I was born in Russia. I came to United States in 90s. I was, uh, I just turned 16 years old. Uh, but in Russia we had opportunities to start [00:04:00] in, um, things that we were good at. We were basically screen for our aptitude. So we had this different Olympics on different levels in sciences. So people have Olympics in sports. We had that in different disciplines. So I was always, um, performing really well in biology, chemistry, and ecology. And it started on the school level, and then it went to city level, and then it went to region level. And then, um, you know, by the time I was 12, I was told, well, there is this school that is special for, uh, kids who are, um, very advanced in life sciences and the courses are being taught by university professors. So I, um, tried for that school. I had to place in the top places, um, in three different scientific competitions. That was the, um, Uh, admissions criteria and as a part of being there, we actually were required [00:05:00] to do research. So my very first research project was, um, understanding the chromosomal mutation caused by heavy metal pollution from a factory site. So, um, and, um, I actually have publications when I was 14 years old, I started publishing and I still have those files now and I reread it now, and I’m in my forties and I’m like, I can’t believe a child wrote that.
Dorothy: Oh my gosh, that is a great story. So you came to the U S and continued your education.
Dr. Lerman: Absolutely. So, um, actually it went backwards. So I came to the U.S. And then I needed— Once I learned English, which was, um, which took me about a year to really perfect, I first, I started to look for a job and the first thing that I did actually created a resume. I was 17 year old with a resume. And I went, [00:06:00] uh, door to door at, uh, University of Texas, um, McGovern Medical School. This is what it’s called right now. And I went to every professor of microbiology and molecular genetics office and I was like, knock, knock. Hi, I’m Beata. I’m looking to become a research assistant or a lab tech or anything, anything you would give me, I would really love to do it.
And, um, one of them called back and, um, He is, um, his name is Dr. Dale Harold. He is absolutely the most amazing mentor a future scientist and, uh, a human being could ever want for them. And he made me a scientist I am today. He taught me how to think, he taught me how to question, he taught me how to dissect data, how not to believe everything that’s in front of your eyes. And it wasn’t easy all the time. He never gave me answers. Sometimes I would, uh, an experiment wouldn’t work and I [00:07:00] would come in and I’m like, it didn’t work. And then he would be like, sit down, let’s go over why it didn’t work. And I was like, I don’t know. And he’s like, well. We’re not gonna leave this place until we figure it out why.
So I still say that I am a classically trained scientist. I was trained to know and think why certain things are there and what do they do and why is it this concentration, not this concentration, and what would happen if you change it. So I’m not the, you know, pre made kid scientist. I am. I’m not like really understanding the background of, um, and they don’t make them like this anymore, actually, it would be very, I’m always very impressed when I see somebody who goes really deep into that. But it was just, it was, it was only because of Dr. Harold, who is amazing and who really taught. Took his time to teach every student and every, um, [00:08:00] um, person that he could touch to really offer the best.
Dorothy: Now you hold two PhDs, one in—
Dr. Lerman: Genetic engineering.
Dorothy: And the other in—
Dr. Lerman: Immunology.
Dorothy: And, uh, you were doing a lot of your research at MD Anderson. And explain what you were really researching.
Dr. Lerman: MD Anderson was just one of the sides of, um, my, um, my training, actually. So I started at UT Health Science Center. And after, and I was there for three and a half years. And from there, I moved to Baylor College of Medicine. And the Baylor College of Medicine, I was actually studying, um, autoimmune diseases. Such as a celiac disease, myasthenia gravis. I was also one of the first researchers who was mapping out the bacillinum neurotoxin, you know, the one that is offered as a Botox right now is, um, we were, uh, the group that was studying [00:09:00] which part of the molecule was active and how we can neutralize it in case there would be severe nerve damage.
Also at Baylor, I was collaborating with, um, laboratory of Dr. Martin Mazak, and over there I was studying non hormonal contraceptives. So, you know, things that were related to women’s health, how the ovaries release the egg, how the egg develops, you know, can we walk away from, um, the pill and do something that would be less invasive to our body from the hormonal point of view? And so, um, at Baylor, I was for four and a half years. And after that, I actually jumped countries and I went to Israel and I was at, uh, Weizmann Institute of Science and at Tel Aviv University doing a gene therapy, um, uh, Research. So genetics was always, uh, attracting me. I wanted to solve the, [00:10:00] uh, errors in the DNA code.
And, um, at the time it was, uh, year 2005, 2006 in the United States we had the moratorium on, uh, gene therapy research because the approach we took in our country was that then the virus is a vector and there were two deaths in the clinical trials and they basically stopped for 10 years, all kinds of, um, um, gene therapy here. Um, so I went to Israel and I was, um, studying this gene replacement system. And, um, so we published at first, uh, two and a half years prior to CRISPR-Cas9 coming onto the scene. But it’s widely believed that, uh, the CRISPR Cas9 technology finding the, enzyme that is from the, uh, uh, more simple organisms to help us edit our genes came on the [00:11:00] foothills on the work that we were doing in our lab because we were working with the same organism, just different type. And I think I was the first one who showed that we can, for example, switch the, error gene that called, uh, that caused cystic fibrosis. Um, and we show that in human tissues.
Dorothy: That is amazing. So you love science.
Dr. Lerman: I do love science.
Dorothy: And, and fast forward with me now. You, you were also diagnosed with a cancer.
Dr. Lerman: Yes.
Dorothy: And how ironic you were working on that type of cancer, right?
Dr. Lerman: Exactly. So, so after I was done with Israel, I didn’t want to stay there. I came back and, um, I was immediately nearly off the, uh, Jetway of the airplane recruited to laboratory of Dr. Larry Kwak. He is an amazing scientist. He was on the list of 100 most influential people by Time magazine for [00:12:00] inventing a treatment for a type of, um, blood cancer.
And Larry tasked me with a very unique proposition. He wanted to create an immunotherapy of a molecule that didn’t exist anymore. So it would required me to tap in into genetic engineering part, which I was at the time pretty confident about, but it also required me to learn a lot of immunology. And so Larry was a chairman of Department of Lymphoma and Myeloma, and lymphoma is the first type of cancer that we validated and actually targeted this immunotherapy against.
So this was 2010. Fast forward to 2018, I was diagnosed with cutaneous T cell lymphoma. Uh, I was diagnosed very early because the presentation of symptoms were very strange. I had an unbreakable fever for two months and then I [00:13:00] started getting the tumors all over my body and they were white and they were raised. And I said, initially I thought it was some kind of prolonged flu or cold and I was coughing.
Literally nothing could break the fever and that’s what I thought was peculiar. But then when my lymph nodes kind of started enlarging and going away and I started getting the tumors on my skin, I was like, I think this is cancer.
And so I went to MD Anderson and I got diagnosed and, uh, they confirmed it was a cutaneous T cell lymphoma. So I, um, I went to my, uh, PhD committee, uh, because a lot of them were clinician scientists and, um, Dr. Kwak was not there anymore. He actually moved on to be in the City of Hope. So I went to his vice chair, a scientist that I, a doctor that I know and we worked a lot [00:14:00] together and I worked in his lab for a little bit and I said, Satva, you know, um, I need, I need immunotherapy. I need, uh, what we invented. And, um, they assembled the team and, you know, um, that was, I want to say quick and painless, but immunotherapy is not very painless, but it’s definitely quick.
Dorothy: Yeah. Well, that is. I mean, how ironic. It’s just, it’s just so incredible that this would become your diagnosis. And what did that lead you to?
Dr. Lerman: You know, um, honestly, well, I was not surprised with the diagnosis and I was not scared.
Dorothy: Really?
Dr. Lerman: Yes. So I, my family was scared. My, I, I, my husband and I just had a child. Our daughter was a year and three months old, so he was scared.
Dorothy: Mm-Hmm.
Dr. Lerman: Um, of course our daughter was not scared. She was not understanding.
Dorothy: Yeah. Right.
Dr. Lerman: But, [00:15:00] um, we didn’t tell too many people because I didn’t want that worrying energy, throwing me off base.
Dorothy: That’s great.
Dr. Lerman: I, you know, immunotherapy is a very powerful treatment for cancer, especially as a first line of defense. What makes me very upset when I hear other stories, uh, of people eventually arriving to immunotherapy, but as an either experimental treatment or the last line of defense, is that they had chemo, they had potentially radiation, they had all of this, um, protocol steps that, um, would weaken their immune system.
Dorothy: Absolutely. It’s going to impact it.
Dr. Lerman: And then there is very little to prime. It’s more difficult. It’s more expensive. You have to harvest those cells. It’s not very much talked about. It’s it’s the approach that not many people know. But because I was kind of on the front line, I was like, no, I’m [00:16:00] not doing chemo. I’m not losing my hair. Um, I, I came to it with the humor. Because, um, you know, when we were going through the clinical trials with our peptibody, it’s the official name for the, the molecule. It’s an antibody looking molecule, but it has a, instead of, you know, uh, antibody looks like this. And then instead of this, uh, Y shaped, it had two peptides that were specifically recognizing cancer cells.
Dorothy: How interesting. Oh my goodness.
Dr. Lerman: And, uh, the tail was, uh, making it detectable to immune system, and so it was done in, um, conjunction with adaptive T cell transfer is basically when they hook you to a machine and they take your T cells and they expand them in the bioreactor, but they’re yours. So you don’t have a, uh, graph versus host. You don’t have a reaction when your body rejects it [00:17:00] and basically as you get an immunotherapy, you get all of those T cells that are primed and ready to go. I always tell people it’s like they’re like a heavy fighters. They’re a marine force of the immune system and they go and they kill everything.
But, uh, I mean, there is a massive side effect to that. It’s called the cytokine storm, the same cytokine storm or cytokine release assay scientifically, which people dealt with in COVID when they had this very high fever, lethargy, they didn’t want to eat, like, um, so, um, I knew that that potentially will be a thing.
So, um, the way I kind of joked it off, I said, I’m a scuba diver and I, it’s something that I absolutely love to do. So I said, put me into the pool, into the cold pool, throw me like a bunch of scuba tanks so I can just stay in the pool for three days and survive [00:18:00] that.
Dorothy: Now they didn’t do that, right?
Dr. Lerman: They did not do that. No, that’s absolutely not. But I was like. That would be a great solution, actually. I’d be game to do that.
Dorothy: So now, how long was it before you were recovered?
Dr. Lerman: So the whole thing took, um, less than seven days. The, the, the whole spike and, um, recovery is actually over 72 hours. And then you just observed for a little longer. And, uh, that’s, that’s the amazing part of immunotherapy because you activate your own immune system to fight the invader that’s trying to root in there. And when, you know, the immune system is activating is such a fighting force that it goes and clears out everything. But, you know, uh, Therapy is only one part of being cancer free, and this is, uh, my journey of understanding the disease that I’ve spent, um, I don’t know, now, um, is [00:19:00] it 12, 14 years studying?
I used to think that cancer was a stand alone disease, but it always intrigued me how if people got cancer, we would review, um, case studies, then years down the road, they would get another cancer or the cancer would come back. And, you know, there’s this constant, um, progression when, um, Nobody really tells you that you’re cured, they tell you you’re in remission.
Dorothy: Right.
Dr. Lerman: I didn’t like, it didn’t align with me, it’s like, you know, if we did all of that, how is it a remission and then why is it coming back? And as I progressed in my learning and I’m still learning, I’m actually still very much involved in scientific research and community and development, even though that I’ve actively exited that field, is that cancer is not a disease of its own it’s a symptom of much [00:20:00] larger disease and it’s starting to be, um, accepted more mainstream right now that it is the metabolic dysfunction or they could also call it a mitochondrial dysfunction. Something that creates a perpetual inflammation inside the body and then it manifests as the weakest link.
In some people it manifests as diabetes, in some people it manifests as, um, um, fibromyalgia, in some people it manifests as cancer. But if the root cause is not addressed, the cancer will always come back and You will always have this in remission hanging over you never knowing when it’s gonna end. So, um, As part of my recovery, being an immunologist, I already knew that sugar was a very inflammatory molecule.
It made [00:21:00] The way I look at the world, uh, through my lens is I see people is a very complex molecular Legos. And when you build a Lego structure, you know, you have to put a very solid fundamental blocks at the foundation of anything you build, because all of those adornments are not going to stay in place if the blocks are wobbly.
Dorothy: Right.
Dr. Lerman: And so this is how I see, um, biochemistry of each person’s body. So if we give the body, you know, um, bad building blocks, toxic, uh, high toxic loads, you know, things that really our body can’t use to build a solid foundation, then we will have that dysfunction, that mitochondrial dysfunction that will result in one of those progressive long term diseases.
So I decided to completely cut sugar out of my diet. [00:22:00] Sugar, ultra processed foods. I don’t eat bread. I don’t eat anything that’s coming out of the boxes since, um, so I was treated in early 2019. I was diagnosed in late 2018. So it’s been five years. Since I don’t have sugar in my life.
Dorothy: So Dr. Lerman, how did you go from that to creating chocolate that is sugarless? I mean that is I know you have this fascination with chocolate, right?
Dr. Lerman: I absolutely love chocolate. So You know when I was going through both of my phds and There is a course load and then there is um qualifying exam dissertation, none of this have ever happened without massive amount of chocolate. I would, I would just eat the diet of chocolate and seafood in one to stimulate my brain and the other one just to make me happy and keep me going.[00:23:00]
And so when I cut out, uh, sugar out of my life following my immunotherapy, I started looking, I, I, I, I thought, well, surely somebody already invented chocolate that would be sugar free. I mean, I don’t believe that we in 21st century live in a world without decent sugar free chocolate. And I started looking and I would, I bought every single one that is on the market today, regardless of how expensive.
And one thing that I found is that taste was just horrible. It was either really clean, something that I would accept ingredient wise, but I just could not swallow it. Or it would be decent tasting, but then you look at the ingredients and be like, Oh, no, no, no, no, no. This is, this is to call my cancer back. And I didn’t want that. So I, I, the idea of Sinless Treats chocolate started from, how can I take a hundred [00:24:00] percent chocolate and sweeten it? Surely you can add something to a solid block of chocolate and it would get sweeter, but I would add the sweetener that I choose it. I know that is good. And, um, to put it mildly doesn’t work that way.
So I ran an experiment and it was completely ruined. I still have pictures of that. I gave it to my daughter. She absolutely refused. And, um, you know, being a scientist, I was like, but why didn’t that work? So I started going into the rabbit hole of how is the chocolate made. So I, uh, started understanding that, well, you can’t add water to chocolate.
Like you can’t sweeten it that way, but how can you sweeten it if it’s, you know, if it’s so smooth. And then I realized, um, that I actually took a trip to, um, the jungle of Costa Rica, where there’s some, um, native [00:25:00] formerly Aztec people farmer cacao. And I went to them and I’ve seen how they do it. And they have this granite stone that it’s, it’s, it’s a base.
And then the little thing, and they take cacao beans and they get the coconut sugar. And they basically grind it together in this hand motion. And it’s very, very hard. It’s very labor intensive. And I, and that was my aha moment. I was like, Oh my God! Chocolate existed since Aztecs and Mayans. It used to be their ceremonial drinks.
They actually, um, ceremonial it’s medicinal. Every part of cacao plant is medicinal. And I said. There was no chocolate when Aztecs were around. There was no sugar. There was no sugar when Aztecs were around. It’s like, how did they sweeten it? And they used the plant based, you know, the leaves of [00:26:00] stevia, the roots of certain plants, like an ajave that they had grow over there. They would dry it or, and they used the sugar cane, but the whole plant, they would, like, cut it, dry it, and then they would, basically, grind it down on that device that you use.
Dorothy: So you’re using that and you created this sugarless chocolate.
Dr. Lerman: Well, I came back and I said, well, what if I take the granite stone and I would start grinding the chocolate with the organic stevia leaf and organic chicory root and, uh, sieve? I can eat it and it worked. Um, there was a little bit of tweaking around and I said, Oh, this is good. Now I want to make bonbons out of it. And I want to make all of these different flavors, which I never got, but I absolutely like just like lychee or, you know, um, kumquat or something. And I [00:27:00] started making my chocolate for myself.
I never actually thought to make, um, the company out of it. But there came a time where, um, so I’m on sugar free lifestyle. Um, the other name for it is keto. So I measure my blood ketones to see that I am still not activating all of those sugar responses. And I, uh, thought to myself as a scientist, how many chocolates can I eat to not, to throw myself out of ketosis? So I started with five bonbons. They’re about 11 grams. So 50 grams of chocolate. And I ate them before bed. They were good. I woke up, measured, was still in ketosis. So next day I decided to double it and do 10 and nothing changed. And I was like, okay, well, it’s pushing it already.
I have to make my [00:28:00] entire dinner now out of chocolate. So I ate 15, and I woke up in the morning, and I was still in ketosis, and I’m like, what is going on? And that question wasn’t answered until months later, when people were, uh, who were diabetics and some of the friends who told the friends of the friends, and we know two out of people, two out of three people in United States are either diabetic or pre diabetic, and it’s type two, and it’s causing all of this dysfunctions and health problems and dementia and all of that. And people were like, we would like to buy your chocolate. And I said, well, if, if we’re going that route, we need to do it properly. So I sent it to a lab to get proper analysis, to really understand like, what is our macros, what are their micro elements, because I, my mission is to improve health. I cannot [00:29:00] without knowing that I do no harm start selling people something that I’m happily eating myself. Uh, and, uh, when the results from laboratory came back, it became clear to me, majority of my chocolate were under one gram off net carbs, and some of them were at zero. So considering that on key, so you have to eat 25 Um, excess of 25 grams of sugar to really start getting yourself out of ketosis, then with even 15 chocolates, I could not have enough sugar in them to knock me out. And it started making sense when I actually got the lab results back on my chocolate.
Dorothy: So you created Sinless Treats. This is now a major company. Right. And you have even a storefront.
Dr. Lerman: We do.
Dorothy: Mm hmm. And it’s in Bellaire?
Dr. Lerman: Yes. Yeah.
Dorothy: So anyone can buy this sugarless chocolate? And what is it you [00:30:00] were saying that I heard earlier, like, you eat a pound of it a day? Is that—
Dr. Lerman: I eat a pound of chocolate a day. So—
Dorothy: That’s amazing.
Dr. Lerman: We recently opened a Sinless Cafe. Where we actually offer our chocolate, coffee, great number of varieties of teas. We have a few tables where people can sit down and enjoy that moment of tranquility and Chocolate and great coffee. If that’s what they prefer to chase the chocolate with. Um, and, um, we actually just open last Monday, so we’ve been, it was a very successful endeavor. We have people in all the time and people find us on Google and they walk in and it just blows my mind, honestly.
Dorothy: Well, of course, because you’re doing something that’s honestly going to help us be healthier any way we go. That is just, that’s so exciting to think [00:31:00] that we could have “sweets”, quote, quote, chocolate and still be healthy.
Dr. Lerman: Yeah. Well, actually it’s not just quote unquote, you can make any dessert sugar free. And, um, I actually developed a lot of those recipes that are sustainable and, um, expendable, but, um, I decided to focus on chocolate because I love eating chocolate.
And, you know, actually yesterday I had a number of people inside and they’re always asking for recommendation. And they said, which one of this is your favorite? And I said, if you had five kids, which one would be your favorite? So all of them are, it’s just, sometimes I’m in the mood for this. And then sometimes I’m in the mood for this.
And these are my go to in like a very difficult day. Um, but they’re all are incredible. And you know, um, the most common comment I get people trying my chocolate, they say, if we didn’t know it was sugar free, we wouldn’t even be able to [00:32:00] tell it. And I say, that is the magic. I want to offer the same quality of experience so you don’t feel like you’re giving up something. Because that journey. The detoxification from sugar journey, I can tell you, for me, it was hard. I was like a cocaine addict. I, it took me six weeks. I was wallowing in self pity and I had all of the withdrawal syndromes and I’ve never used the substance in my life. Any kind. But getting off sugar. I don’t know how my husband did not divorce me. I was definitely, my behavior was pushing for it. It was difficult. And you know, sometimes people come to me and they’re like, we want to detox from sugar and this is a healthier way. What would you suggest us? And I said, don’t do it together. Pick up who will go first and the other one would be the support center, and then once the first one is out of the [00:33:00] woods, they can be support center and the other one will go through it.
Dorothy: Oh, that’s such great advice. Well, we can’t wait to go to your cafe. We can’t wait to share this with our listeners and there’s going to be all kinds of information in our show notes about this. And I just appreciate so much you bringing. This is so encouraging.
Dr. Lerman: I really think consumers vote with their wallets and if they demand change, the industry will cave. Uh, I was, my catalyst was solving my own problem because I couldn’t find great tasting chocolate that would be clean. But you know at the Sinless Cafe, we have a mentality to play with your food.
We educate people on different sugar alternatives so they don’t have to be dependent on sinless treats to have quality in their life if they also want health. They don’t have to experience the harmful effect of sugar. [00:34:00] They absolutely can start baking or sweetening their coffee with something else that would be organic and, uh, health supportive and supporting of the gut and protective of liver. Um, you know, something that detoxifies, um, our bodies and keeps us healthier. And we’re happy to share that information. So whoever comes, they will leave with the resources.
Dorothy: They’re going to leave with great chocolate and resources and a new way of life.
Dr. Lerman: Hopefully.
Dorothy: Wow. You have really. You found your dream. You found a new passion and we are delighted that you’ve come today to share it with us.
Dr. Lerman: Thank you. I, you know, I have invented two cancer immunotherapies. I’ve invented many other, uh, methods to help people. But honestly, I think that I will do more good with this chocolate that I ever did with my science.
Dorothy: Oh, absolutely. Yes. Well, thank you [00:35:00] again for being with us, and like I said, I can’t wait to eat more of this.
Dr. Lerman: Perfect. I look forward to having you.
Dorothy: All right.
Dr. Lerman: Thank you.
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