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Language: en
I've heard you talk about this in the
past that actually our DNA is being
damaged every single day whether it's
air pollution whether it's you know the
new carpet in our house and the fumes or
the smell and the the solvents and the
paint you know whatever it might be and
you think yes our DNA is being damaged
yet we're not all getting cancer maybe
talk to me a little bit about that
because I think that really illustrates
this point about our body's defense
systems and this resilience that we
naturally have you know there's an
inherent risk isn't there to be alive
and to be human and to exist in the
modern worlds yet despite that we're
still pretty robust in
resilience yeah no that's that's
absolutely true so here we are our our
genetic code we know is so important to
us and we know that when it functions
properly it makes the proteins that
support our life we also know that when
our genetic code has mutations and
everyone has become familiar with this
idea of mutated DNA
we you know um uh it tends to cause
problems in our body if it can actually
continue so mutations that form actually
all the time most people don't know this
but DNA fixes these mutations silently
so we are not bothered by them on
average the uh a typical person has
10,000 mistakes made in their DNA every
24 hours it's just a matter of the sheer
volume of cell divisions the machinery
cranking along chugging along listen if
you in a factory you know making a
trillion shoes every single day you are
going to actually make a few shoes that
are not going to be uh perfect right so
10,000 mistakes that get taken off the
assembly line and then the parts of the
broken get fixed up uh and then and then
everything moves forward so be without
even knowing it our body is uh is fixing
itself and fixing these natural errors
now let's subject the body to planet
Earth right so we're all born on this
planet we go outside what's you know my
one of my favorite things is to go out
on a beautiful sunny day with blue skies
you know I love the warmth of the sun on
my skin you know it just from the time I
was a kid it made me happy right well
that Sunshine is ultraviolet radiation
the same ultraviolet radiation that you
get when you get a sunburn on a beach
the same type of ultraviolet radiation
you get in a suntanning booth and we
know if you burn on a beach sunburn on a
beach or if you go to a tanning salon
you how you magnify your chances of
developing a skin cancer because
of ultrav violet radiation mutating your
DNA now the same thing by the way and
you talk about Continuum the same thing
happens if you're stuck in traffic so
think about it you're stuck on a traffic
on a sunny day and here you have the sun
just beaming right through your
windshield or maybe have your window
open it's beaming on your arm how come
we don't develop skin cancer in that
situation the the the reason is because
our body fixes any errors that that is
made by the ultraviolet radiation from
just regular sunlight and what happens
in a suntanning booth or when you burn
yourself repeatedly at the beach like
getting one or two sunburns not a big
deal but when you do that repeatedly you
overwhelm the defense systems and that's
where these mutations can actually
accumulate so DNA is actually really um
by the way you know we talk about the
genetic code only 3% of our DNA is
actually used to make the stuff that we
for Life the rest of it are all
instructions including instructions on
how to fix itself and so this idea of
repair when people hear about
antioxidant Foods what they're really
talking about is adding Foods into your
body that can assist our DNA from
warding off damage because antioxidants
kind of form like a shield to neutralize
the incoming missiles from these um
activated chemicals reactive chemicals
that can actually damage our DNA by the
same token the foods that we eat that
actually create DNA damage because they
have these chemicals that uh are can
actually generate the chemical ability
to damage our DNA our body has to fight
against those as well and so that's why
we need to be mindful you know as we
make sit down every day to make a
decision about what we eat or we go to
the store to buy some food we need to
realize whatever we put into our body is
either going to take our health down or
build our health back up and it all
works at the level of the defense
systems yeah it's so fascinating as you
were describing that Dr Lee I was
thinking about a a a bath right and I
was thinking okay well if an overflowing
bath when the water goes up and it
starts to leak out if that's the disease
or let's say that's
cancer every day we're sort of uh
filling up our bath let's say um but as
long as the drains working well you know
the water's staying down it's not
getting to the top but if I guess if
we're doing enough stuff that's actually
blocking that drain then actually we're
not going to be able to
repair the the rising water level and
that water level is going to sort of
spill out and then we've got a disease
then we've got cancer it's probably not
a Perfect Analogy but do you think
there's something in that yeah yeah let
me let me kind of um build on what you
just said so you got the drain uh
keeping the water uh flowing and clean
and at the right level and you've got
the water coming in and that balance of
where the water line needs to be now
let's add some more now let's take a
garbage pale filled of food bits and now
let's pour those in the drain as well
okay now you're contaminating the water
and if you have more of the drain
opening to remove those bits you're
going to keep the water clean but if you
actually stop up the drain then the
garbage starts to accumulate and that's
actually part of the problem as well is
damage to our body accumulates over over
time and that's why the bad decisions
that we make really take you know over
the course of months or years they have
a consequence and the good decisions
also have the same type of uh uh time uh
honored ability to build up on our
behalf well in terms of empowering
people in terms of what they can do and
this is what a lot of your work is about
food has power here you know
specifically we're talking about DNA
damage food has the ability to I guess
make that drain bigger or put new drains
in the B so there's more ability to kind
of repair the damage so you know we're
talking again about these five defense
systems I've gone straight in for number
four that you mentioned DNA could you
maybe mention some foods that we can
think about consuming that might have an
impact on this particular defense
system yeah well so some amazing
research has been done uh uh looking at
which foods can help protect our DNA and
and some of them are are very ordinary
like the a a kiwi fruit that you might
eat at breakfast you know that brown
fuzzy ball you cut it open it's got this
emerald green interior with a little
white Starburst you know it's kind of um
tart and sweet at the same time well
that uh kiwi is packed with vitamins and
antioxidants and it's been shown that
eating just one kiwi a day can actually
uh protect your cause your blood to be
fortified to neutralize about 60% of the
incoming damage from DNA and if you eat
three kiwis a day okay which is pretty
easy right I mean you peel it you cut it
up you put it into a yogurt okay it's
something that simple uh actually will
build help your DNA build itself back up
so that damaged DNA will be repaired so
don't don't forget like think about the
way of protecting your DNA
um I remember an old video game called
Missile Command and this is where from
the top of the screen there are all
these missiles that are descending down
on your planet and what you had to do is
to be able to you you know fire and and
try to neutralize all the missiles and
that's what antioxidants actually do but
it's really hard to prevent all the
missiles from coming in and so
occasionally you actually have one that
create that gets through the Shields and
creates a crater that's damage and so
neutralizing the incoming is like
antioxid but building back the damaged
DNA well that's important too because
that's like patching a pothole in the
highway in the roadside so that you so
other cars don't have a problem on it
and and so here's an example of a food a
kiwi that can actually do that but there
are other foods that can also have
varying degrees of protection of your
DNA as well yeah it makes me happy that
example because my dad who's no longer
alive I remember as a kid stter Le he
used to say to me you know keep eating
kiwi fruits he'd come back from the
supermarket with you know uh these bags
of kiwi fruits so they're really really
good for you they're rich in vitamin C
which of course is true but obviously
you're taking it Upp a notch now you're
saying yes it's rich in vitamin C but
actually it's also helping us repair DNA
and I guess to me there's a wider Point
here which
is you know my dad what 20 30 years ago
probably said it's rich in vitamin C so
thought there was value on feeding his
children that food because of the impact
on our health and as science progresses
we I guess we're learning more about the
magic of this you know quite ordinary
food the the Kiwi
fruits it makes me
wonder how much about food do we still
not know like we're we're learning do
you know what I mean it's kind of like
we think we know so much and we of
course we know more than we knew 20
years ago but what are we going to find
out in 10 years and 20 years about the
magic properties of these Foods well
what you're actually talking about is
what I'm working on which is the a new
field of research called food as
medicine so the the slogan or the saying
food is medicine was attributed to
hypocrates you know 3,000 years ago but
in fact back then there were no
medicines so food was the only thing
that was around today we have a lot of
medicines and and it's because we in the
quest to develop medicines we've
employed some really deep science
molecular biology genomics we can drill
right down inside the cell to figure out
what happens and why and what the
consequences are and how the cells work
together well one of the reasons that I
uh uh went into nutrition was because I
realized that food was something that
could be used for prevention you
wouldn't want to use drugs for
prevention but the problem with food
nutrition the criticism that many of us
in the medical world have you know about
the idea of of using food for healing
was
historically it was a lack of evidence
right so we have a lot of evidence about
drugs we almost have nothing about Foods
I mean that's the dismissive tone that I
think you probably were exposed to as
well as I uh for most of our education
however what's happening now and this is
I'm leading I'm one of the people
leading the charge of this we can use
the same technologies that are used to
develop Pharmaceuticals and instead of
throwing a drug into the system to see
what happens we can actually start to
throw Foods into those system and and
see what happens as well in fact you can
even compare foods and drugs and see
which one wins and that's something that
I've been doing for the last decade is
really trying to use the same rigorous
scientific methodology used for drug
development in order to be able to study
the impact of food yeah and I think you
are in many ways
uniquely placed to do this and move this
field on because you've got so much
experience in the development of drugs
and in research obviously you know how
that whole system works and because you
are this way inclined to see the healing
potential of foods you can actually do
that and I and I feel that's really
important to get that kind of traction
primarily with the medical profession
but also I think across wi Society you
know I've had on the podcast all kinds
of people on in the past talking about
various aspects of food you're like you
know Professor Feliz Jacka from
Australia who can so the smiles trial
showing how food can impact and in some
cases reverse depression uh Dr Drew
Ramsey this nutritional psychiatrist in
New York using food to help people with
their moods but I do think there's
something very fresh about your approach
that um I really really like and
resonate with this idea that Food and
Drugs can be
compared can you give us an example of
that where you've seen that food might
have equal benefits if not more benefits
than a drug
yeah well so we um have been developing
treatments for cancer that are designed
to starve a cancer by cutting off its
blood supply and that's the process of
angiogenesis that is hijacked by tumors
by cancer cells to get selfishly develop
their own blood supply right so I told
you the body has normal circulation to
feed healthy tissues well cancers can
sometimes hijack that so uh one of the
ways new ways to treat cancer is
actually to uh give a drug that can
intercept a Cancer's ability to recruit
a private blood supply that's starving a
cancer cutting off his blood supply
can't get oxygen and nutrients can't
grow okay so I I was one of the people
to help develop the systems that develop
those drugs there have been over a dozen
drugs that have been approved by Health
authorities to be able to achieve this
in colon cancer brain cancer lung cancer
so on and so forth now in that same
system we've actually thrown different
food substances and as an example we
took a drug
that is a designer drug to stop
androgenesis and then we actually um
also threw blinded so we didn't know
what which one was which um uh a
substance that turned out to be the
powdered extract from just regular green
tea a cup of green tea and we found that
they were um in that system they went
head to-head against each other and you
could actually get the same effect in
that test system so now the question is
you know um we we
uh looked at this in the lab how does
this actually play out in real people in
the real world well uh you know there
are studies now that show that even two
to three cups of tea a day can lower
your risk of developing ovarian cancer
for example by up to 50% this is a
gigantic study in Europe called The Epic
study that have looked at all the
different food patterns and and dietary
consumptions over time to look for these
correlations and so food is medicine
research is different from
pharmaceutical research okay
pharmaceutical research you take one
pill or one drug and you get a group of
people to make them as similar as
possible and then the only thing you do
to to people is give them that one drug
and everything else is we hope to
control it so that there's no other
variables well Foods can't be studied
like that you can't give somebody only
green tea to drink for you know months
at a time um or a tomato to eat that's
the only thing that you can eat and
Foods don't work like drugs I mean a
drug you could you could squash a
headache you know in 20 minutes with a
powerful drug or a migraine but with
food the benefits of food because it's
so much more natural and because it
leverages your body's own defense
systems the benefits take time and they
build up over time and so you're talking
about research studies that could take
months or years even to fully appreciate
just how beneficial that is so this is
how we do food is medicine research we
look for
um benefits in real populations of real
people like people drinking green tea
how well does that prevent different
types of cancer then we back it up to
say can we run a small clinical trial a
small group of people that we can
control to see if we get a similar
effect then we go back into the lab and
we kind of say well now what happens if
you feed animals that actually with
green tea that like can we you know an
animal subject um can we actually see
that benefit then we can even go deeper
and go dive that go start going that
mile deep what happens at the Cula level
what happens at the genetic level and so
food as medicine is really taking that
macroscopic CommunityWide level View and
then drilling it right down to that
molecular pathway and so I'm I happen to
be one of the people that actually can
Traverse that entire Journey yeah um
with with what I've done