Resilience After Cancer: A Conversation with Dr. Liz Hart
By Dr. Cynthia Libert, Functional Medicine Physician | Caring for the Body, Center for Functional Medicine
This post is adapted from the Re-Think Aging podcast. You can listen to the full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGDGMEzXUPk
Today's conversation is very special to me personally. I sat down with my dear friend and trusted colleague, Dr. Liz Hart, a medical doctor and certified functional health coach based in South Africa. We bonded initially over our shared faith, and over the years we've come to share a perspective that we are whole human beings who need care not only for our bodies, but for our minds, emotions, and spirits as well.
This topic, breast cancer, is close to my heart. I lost my mom to it about a decade ago in her mid-60s, and we have other family history of it too. So while this conversation centers on cancer survivorship, I believe it applies to all of us who want to prevent cancer, extend our health span, and live long, flourishing lives.
From Family Medicine to Functional Coaching
Dr. Liz trained in family medicine and worked for years in emergency and family practice before something shifted. As she put it, she began to feel like she was "seeing a patient for 10 minutes, writing a script, and sending them out there," without the tools to address the lifestyle diseases she was seeing every day.
Then her own health broke down. She developed chronic fatigue so severe she was sometimes bedridden for weeks. When she searched the medical literature for guidance, she found almost nothing. That search led her to one of the first functional medicine practitioners in South Africa, and to a new way of practicing medicine centered on nutrition, lifestyle, and root causes.
Eventually she completed a year-long functional medicine health coaching course and was asked to start the survivorship program at the Milpark Breast Care Centre of Excellence, where she has now worked for two and a half years.
Why Coaching Is a Different Skill Than Clinical Medicine
Dr. Liz described the shift from clinician to coach as genuinely difficult. Clinicians are trained to diagnose and fix. Coaching, she said, "is a very different process because it's very collaborative. It's all about us and the client or patient, in collaboration, working out what works for them long term."
That collaboration takes time, and time is exactly what our current healthcare system rarely allows.
Life After Treatment: Closing the Gap
One of the most important things Dr. Liz shared is how common it is for women to finish cancer treatment, hear "you're cancer-free," and still not feel like themselves.
Her first step with every client is normalizing that experience. As she explained, "You are not the same person. You're not the same physically, mentally, emotionally, because you faced a life-threatening disease which has got huge emotional and mental effects."
She also named something many survivors feel but rarely say out loud: abandonment. During treatment, patients are surrounded by a full care team. Once treatment ends, that support often disappears almost overnight. Dr. Liz's work begins right there, helping people process what happened to them and figure out what a new normal looks like.
The Six Pillars of Recovery
Dr. Liz walks her clients through six pillars: nutrition, exercise, stress management, sleep, relationships and community, and, once someone is further along, past trauma. She collaborates with a network of specialists, including an oncology dietitian, a physiotherapist trained in oncology and biomechanics, a neurologist who works on brain fog and cognitive retraining, a breathwork specialist, and a psychologist who helps patients understand how trauma is held in the body.
She shared her own experience here too. Her chronic fatigue didn't fully resolve through nutrition and lifestyle changes alone. It ultimately took years of addressing past trauma to get there.
Cancer Treatment and Accelerated Aging
We spent time discussing something many people don't realize: cancer treatment places enormous stress on the body and can set it on a path of accelerated aging.
One major piece of this is mitochondrial injury. Many cancer treatments directly impair mitochondrial function, which can produce the profound fatigue, brain fog, and exercise intolerance so many survivors describe. Dr. Liz approaches this through lifestyle modification, exercise, and targeted supplementation, and refers clients to a functional medicine practitioner for testing and more targeted intervention when needed.
Chronic, smoldering inflammation is another factor, one that can persist for years after treatment ends. In my own practice, I track inflammatory markers like CRP closely in cancer survivors because inflammation accelerates aging in the vascular system and raises long-term disease risk. Dr. Liz addresses this primarily through nutrition, generally favoring a Mediterranean-style, anti-inflammatory pattern of eating, along with stress management, since cortisol and inflammation are so closely linked.
Bringing Joy Back Into the Process
One of my favorite parts of this conversation was talking about joy. Cancer treatment often carries so much fear. Dr. Liz's approach starts with helping people stop being so hard on themselves, and finding movement they genuinely enjoy rather than forcing exercise they dread. For her, that was rediscovering her love of dance through Pilates.
She also spoke about how many survivors stop taking life for granted. As she said, "If there is a gift in cancer, it is that they realized how precious life is."
Faith as Foundation
We closed with a conversation about faith, and Dr. Liz shared that this year marks 30 years since she gave her life to the Lord. Looking back, she sees clearly how her own path, including her chronic illness, prepared her for the work she does now.
She told me, "I don't see how you can navigate such a life-threatening diagnosis without it." In her experience, the survivors who come through this journey with the deepest sense of purpose are often the ones who have found a spiritual foundation to stand on.
Connect With Dr. Liz
If you or someone you love is navigating a cancer diagnosis or survivorship, Dr. Liz welcomes you to reach out through her website, heartreach.life, where you can contact her directly by email.
Ready to take a root-cause approach to your health? Start with a free strategy session with the Caring for the Body team.
Whole-person care. Science-backed. Faith-informed.