Faith, Freedom & the Future of Healthcare: A Conversation with Dr. Jay Richards
What if our healthcare system aimed not just to manage disease but to help people truly flourish—body, mind, and spirit?
In this episode of the Believe Big podcast, founder and cancer thriver Ivelisse Page sits down with Dr. Jay Richards of the Heritage Foundation. Dr. Richards is a senior research fellow, director of the DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family, a documentary producer, and the author of more than a dozen books, including Money, Greed, and God and Eat, Fast, Feast.
Together, they unpack how culture has reshaped medicine, why innovative and natural therapies like mistletoe face so many roadblocks, and how faith and hope are essential ingredients in real healing.
Here are 7 big takeaways from their conversation.
- Eat for Metabolic Flexibility – Your Body Is Designed Like a “Hybrid”
Dr. Richards’s favorite health tip is simple but powerful: eat for metabolic flexibility.
- God designed our bodies to function like “hybrids,” able to run on both glucose (from carbohydrates) and ketones (from dietary fat or body fat).
- The standard American diet keeps most people stuck on the glucose “roller coaster,” needing to refuel every few hours and rarely tapping into fat-burning mode.
- Practices like fasting or eating more ketogenic (when appropriate and supervised) can help restore this natural, God-given flexibility.
For cancer thrivers and anyone facing chronic illness, many integrative practitioners—like the ones Believe Big partners with—see metabolic flexibility as a foundational piece of supporting the body’s healing process.
Always consult your medical team before starting fasting or major dietary changes, especially during cancer treatment.
- How We Drifted from Whole-Person Care to Symptom Management
Historically, the Hippocratic Oath and a Christian vision of the person treated patients as integrated wholes—body and soul—with the physician focused on the good of this particular patient.
Over time, Dr. Richards explains, several shifts occurred:
- A materialistic worldview took root in the 19th century, treating human beings as only physical, not spiritual.
- Increasing hyper-specialization in medicine created “silos.” Physicians became experts in parts (eyes, hormones, organs) but often lost sight of the whole person.
- Large professional and industry organizations gradually prioritized systems and interests over truly patient-centered care.
The result? A system that’s brilliant at doing complex procedures—but often less equipped to ask, “What’s the root cause?” and “How do we support this person’s overall flourishing?”
- Why Natural & Integrative Therapies Face So Many Roadblocks
Why do therapies like mistletoe, fasting, or other integrative approaches face such resistance?
Dr. Richards highlights a few key reasons:
- Financial incentives: You can’t patent fasting, sunlight, or many natural substances. There’s less profit motive to fund the huge, expensive clinical trials our system requires.
- Regulatory capture: Large corporations often help shape regulations in ways that favor expensive, patentable drugs and procedures, while creating barriers for simpler, natural therapies.
- Double standards for evidence:
- Mistletoe therapy has over a century of use and many international studies behind it.
- Yet it still struggles to gain conventional approval in the U.S., while high-cost treatments with modest benefit can be fast-tracked and covered by insurance.
That’s why organizations like Believe Big invest in raising funds to move mistletoe through all three phases of clinical trials in the U.S.—to give patients more safe, evidence-based options.
- Root Causes vs. Band-Aids: Rethinking the Chronic Disease Crisis
Dr. Richards points to our current chronic disease crisis—including rising rates of cancer—as a sign that something deeper is wrong.
Instead of only treating symptoms, he argues we must look at root causes, such as:
- Processed, high-sugar diets and industrial seed oils
- Sedentary lifestyles and reduced time outdoors
- Chronic stress, anxiety, and poor sleep
- Environmental toxins and exposures
- The impact of technology and social media—especially on children and teens
He calls this mismatch between how our bodies were designed to live and how we actually live “discordance”. The more we get back in line with God’s design—physically, emotionally, and spiritually—the more we support genuine health and resilience.
- Faith, Hope, and Healing: Why Your Spiritual Life Matters
Healing is not just physical. It’s emotional and spiritual too.
Dr. Richards shares about his wife’s bout with thyroid cancer and how listening to Scripture-based worship music and Psalms brought her profound peace in a season of fear.
Key insights they discuss:
- Faith as trust – not blind belief, but trust in the goodness of God even in suffering.
- Hope reduces anxiety, which in turn lowers cortisol and inflammation and supports the body’s ability to repair.
- Practices like prayer, Scripture meditation, and “breath prayers” can calm the nervous system and anchor the heart in God’s promises.
As Ivelisse points out, faith gives a different perspective on cancer: “Whether healing comes now or in eternity, in Christ I still win.”
- How Patients Can Navigate a Confusing System
The healthcare landscape can feel overwhelming, especially when you’re facing cancer or another serious diagnosis.
Dr. Richards offers this encouragement:
- There has never been more access to information than there is today. Patients and families can learn, research, and connect with experts from all over the world.
- Motivated, discerning patients often know more about their specific condition and options than many professionals in the system.
- Ministries and nonprofits like Believe Big exist to help you ask better questions, connect with integrative practitioners, and discover resources you might never hear about in a standard 15-minute appointment.
You are not powerless. With guidance, prayer, and wise counsel, you can become a courageous, informed advocate for your own care.
- A Vision for a Healthcare System that Honors Life and Flourishing
Looking ahead, Dr. Richards imagines a healthcare system that:
- Focuses on healthspan, not just lifespan—helping people live long, healthy lives and shortening the period of decline before death.
- Values nutrition, environment, lifestyle, and spiritual health as core components of medicine, not afterthoughts.
- Embraces integrative and functional medicine as partners, not outsiders.
- Honors the sacredness of life, the dignity of each patient, and the reality that we are more than bodies—we are spiritual beings, made in the image of God.
Until then, communities like Believe Big will continue to stand in the gap—equipping patients to face, fight, and overcome cancer with faith, wisdom, and practical tools.
If this conversation stirred your thinking about healthcare, faith, and medical freedom:
- 🎧 Listen to Episode 104 of the Believe Big podcast with Dr. Jay Richards.
- 📩 Share this episode with someone wrestling with a hard medical decision.
- 💚 Learn how you can support mistletoe research and integrative oncology initiatives through Believe Big.
