Kind: captions
Language: en
one in two adults at some point in their
lifetime are going to develop cancer so
this is a pretty
alarming
rise as you say we all know people uh
who are either suffering from who have
suffered from or who even have died from
cancer you mentioned at the start about
soy I have never covered on this
podcast food and how it can help us with
cancer whether that's for prevention of
cancer or potentially as part of the
treatment regime for cancer so I wonder
if you could speak to a little bit about
food and and how we can think about that
in terms of cancer prevention and
treatment yeah well so there's a whole
field of research that was developed in
the 1970s by a researcher named Michael
Dr Michael sporn from the National
Cancer Institute looking at the
opportunity of intercepting cancer
before it becomes a clinical problem
this is this idea of cancer prevention
originally it was looking at chemicals
that could prevent cancer from starting
at its early stages then it became
angioprevention which is can we
interfere with androgenesis so the
cancers actually can't grow a blood
supply as a way of controlling it and
now we know that there's plenty of foods
that have been studied um that actually
have been shown to be associated with
the reduced risk of cancer whether it's
green tea whether it's soy whether it's
Tomatoes um whether it's stone fruit you
know peaches and um plums
um there's there's a a plethora in fact
I read about more than a 100 different
foods in my book ITB disease that
actually have various abilities to um
impact on androgenesis towards Health
now what I think is really amazing is
how foods can be used during cancer
treatment and the reason that's so
poignant and I think for people
listening who may know somebody
undergoing cancer treatment right now I
mean look you're you're a doctor we're
both doctors
how many times has a patient who has
cancer asked us um uh very earnestly hey
Doc I've got cancer I'm getting treat
I'm getting my chemo but what should I
be eating is there anything you can
advise me to right that's such a common
question it's a question that almost
every cancer patient asks their doctor
and it's a question that almost no
doctor can answer so the typical
response that a patient gets is
incredibly frustrating and and and
aggravating to them because the doctor
just say yeah you know what either they
say I don't know there's nothing there's
nothing out there because there no
evidence on food can help or they say
you know go eat whatever you want go eat
some junk food or some fast food because
at least you get some nutrition the most
important thing is you don't lose weight
well actually scientists said both of
those things are not true number one
actually cutting down your caloric
intake during cancer treatment actually
reboots your health defenses to fight
cancer so intermittent fasting and you
know ulating your metabolism by lowering
caloric intake actually is an
anti-cancer strategy number one number
two actually there are certain foods you
can eat that actually can help you fight
cancer and the best most compelling
examples all have to do your health
defenses so um there is the newest form
most profound
form of cancer treatment that's a
biggest advance in a 100 years for
cancer treatment is immunotherapy
and immunotherapy which is used
everywhere UK North America um Russia
China everywhere is a new type of cancer
treatment that doesn't poison the body
like chemotherapy does and it's not even
a targeted therapy that's like a heat
seeking missile you you infuse into the
body immunotherapy is a lot more simple
and more natural in this concept hey
let's just use the body's own immune
system and harness it to be able to
destroy cancer because remember talked
about this early on like cops on the
beat the immune system conducts
surveillance and takes out the bad guys
the drug dealers on the sitting on a
street corner well what happens if you
had cancer even if it's metastatic and
spread what happens if we allow your own
immune system to do it so this is now
reality immune therapy is being given to
cancer patients um uh and it allows your
immune system to wipe out cancer it is
so dramatic that in about 20% of people
you get a phenomenal response and in a
smaller group of people you can your
immune system can wipe out cancer
completely I give an example of in the
US one of our oldest living presidents
is President Jimmy Carter you know he's
a peanut farmer he came from the state
of Georgia when he retired from his
presidency when he finished his
presidency he went back to his Sunny
State and he wanted to build houses in
with this nonprofit this NGO called
Habitat for Humanity they spent a lot of
time Outdoors under the baking sun
building houses for homeless people okay
um and in so doing he got a lot of sun
damage which caused mutations in his
skin which led to skin cancer that
spread to his liver and his brain so he
was in his early 90s when he was
diagnosed with Mel metastatic
melanoma because it had spread and
melanoma is such a deadly cancer um most
of his doctors basically said this is
game over so he withdrew from public
life he wrote his own obituary
and it was about to sort of just you
know um make sort of meet his maker and
he be he sort of became he got he became
at peace with himself but then at the
11th hour he enrolled into a clinical
trial of one of these immune therapies
it's something called a checkpoint
inhibitor and um and he got this
infusion and remarkably at 90 years old
his own immune system reared up on its
hunches and wiped out and did what it
supposed to do it wiped out all the
cancer in his brain in his liver all
over his body and he went from having
metastatic cancer with brain metastasis
that's a game over kind of situation
when you and I are training to actually
having no cancer and he's alive today
with no sign of Cancer happened to my
mother too who had endometrial cancer
cancer in the linning of the uterus it
spread everywhere and we put her on a uh
immune therapy same kind as the
president did at pres the former
president and in three treatments only
over the course of n weeks once every
three weeks no chemo okay all of the her
her uh 80-year old immune system wiped
out every bit of cancer in her body and
she's been completely cancer free this
isn't even a cure this is a reset this
is getting back to Baseline restoring
health because that's what your body's
supposed to do this is kind of really
full circle to what we were talking
about at the start of this conversation
isn't it the body's resilience of body's
natural ability
to you know Patrol itself and actually
repair damage and be resilient and it's
it's incredible now that you're talking
about these drugs that are being used to
really help support the immune system
but it but I think I think what you're
coming to is that food can also do that
as well is that right yeah well well no
yeah yes but it's it's sort of the
combination so remember I said that for
this type of immune therapy 20% of
people have have these really amazing
responses which means that the majority
don't and for a long time we were
scratching our head saying okay uh
what's going on because there's nothing
more frustrating than a breakthrough
that only works for a small portion of
people we've got to use science to
figure out what makes the difference
well so one of my colleagues Dr laurance
Zogo in Paris she's at the um Institute
Gustaf rusi which is a one of the big
cancer research centers of Europe looked
at 200 patients with different types of
cancer all getting immune therapy and
she looked at every compared every uh
Dimension that she could between people
who responded and people who did not
respond very well to immunotherapy and
you know what she found the difference
was one bacteria in their gut it wasn't
genetics it wasn't body size wasn't
obesity it wasn't concominant disease it
was actually one bacteria that bacteria
is acromania mcop now this is out of the
39 trillion bacteria in the body this
one has been studied and it's stuck out
it's kind of like finding a fossil in
the hillside there's probably a lot of
fossils but they she found this one this
uh bacteria was present in responders
and if you had this you responded to
immune therapy and had a better outcome
for with cancer and if you didn't have
it man your outcome was not good so how
do you get this bacteria to grow well it
turns out it's all about your diet
because there's no probiotic you can
take for acromania acromania can be
grown you can grow acromania in your gut
by having uh by help by eating foods
that help your gut secrete mucus now
that sounds disgusting to a lot of
people that's gross mucousy gut but in
fact our gut naturally secretes mucus
just like our mouth normally secretes
saliva and and this bacteria acromania
it's got a its full name is acromania is
just its first name its last name is
muop so acrania mucin up means it loves
to grow mucus so when you actually eat
foods like pomegranates or pomegranate
juice or Cranberries or conquer grapes
or conc or the juice from these it it
prompts your gut to secrete healthy
mucus it's kind of like fertilizer in
the soil your Garden's going to love to
grow better that acromania growth there
um it actually makes you a responder so
that actually is a difference of how
foods can make the difference in one
bacteria now two weeks ago a paper a
landmark paper was published in the
journal science which is one of the big
credible scientific journals major
scientific journal this is like an 80
person study led by MD Anderson Cancer
Research Center in the United States uh
with the national cense of health and
they looked all again at melanoma that
had spread people getting immunotherapy
and they found that another bacteria
they found the second bacteria of
responders it's called ruminococcus all
right now I I encourage you listeners
not to stress out about remembering
these fancy names it's kind of like when
you go to a a museum you know go the
dinosaur Hall you're not going to
remember the the Latin names of all the
dinosaurs you're going to remember man
that was pretty cool that big one yeah
it's called T-Rex but you don't need to
remember all the Latin names so um rumin
a caucus uh is is is part of a responder
profile for immunotherapy and what they
wanted to find out is what dietary
intake was correlated with this healthy
bacteria with a good outcome and it was
dietary fiber and what they found is
that those people who ate more dietary
fiber had more room in the caucus and
had a better response so how much fiber
they calculated it they calculated for
every five grams of fiber per day they
got a 30% decrease in mortality 30 okay
on immunotherapy now what's five grams
of fiber a day this that's how much you
get five grams of fiber in an average
size pair that's all you need to eat a
day to make this difference now think
about that if you had melanoma and if
you were getting
immunotherapy your doctor's probably not
telling you yet to actually eat fiber
but this is the nature of breaking
research in food as medicine it's not
food versus medicine I'm not on a
Hilltop waving like thing of kale saying
everybody should forget about their
medicines and don't go to your doctor
anymore what I'm saying is that Food
Plus medicine it is another powerful
tool in the toolbox and people with
cancer need to know that yeah they
really do and you reminded me of a story
I've heard you share I think in an
interview I saw if yours in the past
where there was a patient who was due to
have some immunotherapy and you checked
out her stool and found out that she had
no aania muciniphila so you Haled things
for 3 weeks you encouraged these kind of
foods that went up and she resp
responded perfectly is that an accurate
uh reflection of that story yeah that
that you captured it exactly and and so
I think that you know as we move into
the
future we're going to be putting
together this puzzle that you know it's
it's almost like we've seen what we need
to do for years like we intuitively
we've known that foods can uh help us
get better that foods and Medicine have
got to work together there's got you
know why do cancer patients ask that
question because they know inherently
there's got to be something there and
and so one of the things that I'm really
committed to doing you know in my career
is uh trying to up the level that
doctors actually have to be able to take
the latest science and answer those
patient questions like patients don't
really want to know all the mumbo jumbo
the scientific details they're not
equipped in many cases to really go into
that l of detail but doctors need to be
sophisticated enough if you can
understand how an immunotherapy Works
which is pretty complicated then you
need to be able to understand how a food
works yeah I mean I think you've done a
wonderful job uh from what I've seen
over the last years of spreading the
word about this your book eats a beat
diseases I think it's a wonderful read
for anyone you know public or doctors to
learn more about what kind of foods can
help them I think there's over 200 Foods
in there that you've detailed is that
right
yeah that's right over 200 Foods you
know so this whole idea that our body
craves diversity our health defenses
respond to so many different foods so I
basically put together a catalog of more
than 200 foods that activate one or more
or multiple Health defenses and the
wonderful thing and this is really one
of the sort of the take-home messages I
want your viewers and listeners to have
in here that the foods that activate our
health defenses taste great many of them
are part of traditional food cultures
Mediterranean cultures Asian cultures so
you don't have to fear your food anymore
for health we don't have to think about
taking away all the foods that we love
to eat um we can actually lean into the
foods that we love that are healthy for
us and start there and so one of the
things that I do you know I've always
challenged people who go well you know
I've never really liked Dr Lee to eat
healthy so I'm kind of bummed out I give
them a Sharpie and a copy of my book and
I said go to the tables and I said Take
5 minutes and leave through here and
circle every food that you like that you
like to eat and I've never met anybody
who wouldn't be able to Circle 10 foods
at least and then I and then I I I they
come back to me and I'm like look you've
identified all these circled Foods
activate your health defenses start with
these stick with these and then explore
all these other Foods out out there
that's that's the best way to enrich our
lives and our health at the same
yeah and this knowledge you give people
Dr Lee is very empowering because it
could be that that person who does that
and circles these Foods goes oh I'm I'm
already having like mushrooms and bees
I'm already eating foods and even that
just reframes it in their mind that
they're already using food as medicine
for their body you mentioned cancer
patients of course of course they want
to know what else they can do uh whether
it's cancer or
anything patients want to feel a of
agency over their health and their life
right so you know no one does well when
they think well I can't do anything I
just need to leave it up to that
treatment or that doctor we all like to
feel that we're sort of playing a role
and participating in our house so I
think your work and research and your
books and these master classes you run
on your website I think are so helpful
at giving people that agency when it
comes to cancer Dr Lee there's a lot now
about sugar and cancer and I think this
is where there's a bit of complexity
around food because some of these foods
of course let's say kiwi fruit or you
know pomegranate juice or or the sort of
food you're talking about of course some
of them can raise our blood sugar some
of them do contain degrees of sugar I
know they come with lots of other
ingredients as well but how can you help
us look at that what's the relationship
between sugar and cancer and then how
does that impact the foods that we
consume yeah it's a great question and I
get asked this a lot
uh what I try to do is to um make people
feel comfortable with the idea that our
body uh needs sugar in fact the organ in
our body that needs the most sugar is
our brain it is it is you know sugars
fuels our metabolism and the key is that
in most people who are able to your body
is able to process
a small amount of sugar without a
problem without any problem whatsoever
and so the
sugars that you might have encounter in
your Whole Foods so fruits and
vegetables um uh those are completely
fine your body should be able to take
care of that it's the the sugars that
are dangerous for diseases and the
sugars that damage your microbiome that
uh spark inflammation that can even
damage your DNA that's the concept of
added sugar so it's a can of soda that's
got 10 tablespoons of added sugar to it
to make it really sweet no body no human
body can can can tolerate that over any
period of time and so what I try to say
is that like it's so easy so tempting
when it comes to something like sugar to
to go for that All or Nothing approach
no our body needs a little sugar your
body can actually handle most sugar when
it comes in a fruit or vegetable it's
just fine added sugar candies cakes
sodas okay um you know those are the
ones that easily overwhelm you so if
you're sensitive to Sugar just like
you've got diabetes you got to sort of
cut down or cut out those things and be
super mindful uh of of making those type
of choices but fruits and vegetables you
have to look at the human data okay
don't focus on how much sugar is in a
mango mango is pretty sweet fruit take a
look at the human data to show that
people who eat mango um and other
tropical fruits have a much lower
incidence of disease x and y and z
look it it you can't argue with the
science and you can't argue with the
data um uh sugar itself uh nothing
that's natural is by itself uh
inherently evil and I think that's the
thing that I'm trying to get people to
think about with sugar it's a matter of
source it's a matter of quantity and a
matter of degree