I've had patients go from stage four

cancer to stage zero. So, I have now

seen where the end of cancer's coming

from. I've seen how the war is going to

finish.

And here's how.

Dr. William Li is a Harvard-trained

physician and medical scientist.

Whose work is revolutionizing the way we

understand

and fight some of the most devastating

diseases facing our world today.

I'm going to give you a brand new view

of thinking about cancer. And this is

shocking to some people to hear, but

every 24 hours there are 10,000 mistakes

that are made in your body. Each of

those is a microscopic cancer. But the

reason that we don't become more sick

from all kinds of diseases, including

cancer, is because our body is hardwired

with its own health defense systems. But

here's a problem. We are presently

seeing the fallout of some of the

not-so-good moves that we made in the

1950s and '60s and '70s. For example,

people might consume as much as a credit

card's worth of plastic every single

week, which is very worrying, and I will

tell you why. But there's also the foods

you eat, which contribute to taking your

health defenses down.

But the good news is that you can

actually put shields up as well.

So, this is like our experiment. And

we're trying to discover drugs that

could be developed as cancer treatments.

So, we said, "Let's remove half of them,

and let's swap them out with food." I

was a skeptic, but when I saw these

results, it made my jaw drop. Because

the holy grail in the pharmaceutical

industry is to find something that can

kill cancer stem cells. And we don't

have a drug that can do that. Turns out

mother nature beat us to the punch. And

there's more than 200 foods that I've

studied that can actually starve

cancers.

And if you had to pick five based on the

science you've seen, what would those

top five be?

The good news is that it's food that we

can eat every single day. So, number

one,

This has always blown my mind a little

bit. 53% of you that listen to the show

regularly haven't yet subscribed to the

show. So, could I ask you for a favor

before we start? If you like the show

and you like what we do here and you

want to support us, the free simple way

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to you is if you do that, then I'll do

everything in my power, me and my team,

to make sure that this show is better

for you every single week. We'll listen

to your feedback. We'll find the guests

that you want me to speak to, and we'll

continue to do what we do. Thank you so

much.

Dr. William Lee.

If someone has just clicked on this

conversation, and they're asking

themselves, they're wondering what

they're going to get out of spending

this time with us for the next couple of

hours, what would you say directly to

them that they

will learn, gain, and how will their

life improve?

I would say that you're going to hear

about food in a brand new way that you

didn't realize that a decision that you

can make after this, listening to this

or watching this, that you could put

into action to your life immediately

could actually help you for the rest of

your life. It could stave off disease,

help you feel stronger, even help you

with longevity. Uh, so there's no single

moves that you can make, but it's the

beginning of taking steps that can

actually allow you to live the rest of a

long, enjoyable life.

And what are the the key diseases that

people are and should be most concerned

about today based on their correlation

to the food that we eat?

Yeah, if you look at the biggest health

crises in the world today, in developed

countries, um, you know, you're really

talking about cardiovascular disease

being the number one killer, diabetes,

and all the consequences, the

devastating consequences that come out.

Listen, your blood sugar is not being

very well regulated, that's the

definition over time of diabetes, but

the knock-on effect of having high,

uncontrolled sugars is really underlying

metabolic chaos. There's a whole litany

of

terrible conditions that happens every

downstream from that, from eye disease

to wounds that don't heal, etc., etc.

Cancer is another one. Dementia is a big

bigger and bigger problem as our

population ages. And a lot of people

don't really recognize this, but you

know, the the saying that inflammation

is a root cause of chronic disease

scientifically correct.

But there are many many inflammatory

diseases that are out there that don't

get enough airplay that really take away

the quality of your life as you get

older. And so I think all of these

things it's not just about mortality,

it's about morbidity. It's not just

about living long, it's about living

well and feeling good along the way.

And where do you think we are as a

society, you know, especially as

Westerners as it relates to our

relationship with health and food?

Because when I look at some of the stats

around life expectancy,

there's been a bit of a been a bit of a

stagnation in the I think it was

2020-ish

time. But then also when you look at a

lot of these chronic diseases, whether

it's diabetes, whether it's cancer,

these things seem to be on the rise. So

as a nation it feels like we've got more

information than ever before, but when

you look at the objective numbers, yeah,

for some reason we're not going in the

right direction. What's your your

30,000-ft view on it?

30,000-ft

There's more and more people in the

world. So once you get the huge numbers,

uh the diseases that affect most people

are going to magnify. So just as a a

matter of math, we're going to see more

of these chronic diseases.

Um but we're also going to be seeing two

things that are happening that uh

actually oppose each other.

One thing is that the lifestyle and

dietary harms that have occurred over

20, 30, 50 years from in the

industrialization of food, from the

industrialization of health care, from

degradation of the environment, those

are all things that take time to

manifest. And so to some extent, we are

presently seeing that the fallout of

some of the not so good moves that we

made in the 1950s and 60s and 70s and so

on and so forth. So, decades later we're

beginning to see the consequences, the

devastation of things that happened

decades ago. That's one side of

elevating, increasing the

incidence and prevalence of of health

conditions, bad health conditions.

There's another side that is

countervailing. And the other side,

which is the side I That's the team I

play on, is it really exciting because

one thing that's different is that we

have now have tremendous scientific

power to get in there and probe diseases

and also indeed probe probe health,

which is something we're not doing often

enough. And in so doing, we're actually

able to find solutions to the problems

that that counter some of those harms.

So, we're beginning to discover now how

do we actually prevent diabetes? How do

we prevent cardiovascular disease? Can

we reverse heart disease? And even

conditions that seemed like no-win

situations. And I like to talk about

this is that

in my career, I never thought as a

physician I would actually see

the cure to cancer, the end of cancer.

But actually I have to tell you, I have

now seen where the end of cancer's

coming from. I've seen how the war is

going to finish. And because I've had

well over a dozen patients and there are

hundreds of people like this that are

started in form that can go from stage

four cancer, that's game over cancer, to

stage zero. We can do this. And it's not

for everybody yet, but we're beginning

to see where the light at the end of the

tunnel is and it involves your immune

system. And some of the remarkable

scientific breakthroughs are teaching us

that our body heals itself against

diseases as serious as cancer in ways

that the pharmaceutical industry can't

by itself do, but it really relies on

the body. So, when you talk about food

as medicine or medicine as medicine,

none of them are as powerful as what the

body is hardwired to do by itself.

When I think about something like

cancer, it's slightly terrifying because

it feels like a game of roulette. It

feels like the the people that get

cancer, it's completely random, and that

our outcomes are also a game of

roulette. And this is as someone that

knows very little about cancer. I hear

someone that I thought was very very

healthy get cancer, and then their

outcomes, whether they they beat it or

not, also seem to be largely down to

chance sometimes. That's how it seems.

What do you think of that view?

Yeah, I'm going to give you a brand new

view of thinking about cancer.

And that is that we are all forming

cancer in our bodies all the time, from

the time we were kids. You don't have

clinical cancer, you haven't gone to the

doctor to get a diagnosis, still started

forming cancers. And let me tell you

why. Cancers are like pimples in our

body.

All right? And this is shocking to some

people to hear, but our the human body

is made up of about 40 trillion cells.

That's more cells in our body than stars

in a clear sky. All right? And these

cells have to divide

uh to be able to reproduce themselves,

copy and paste. Every cell has its own

genetic material called DNA. It's our

instructions for how our cells are work.

So, you got to copy and paste your DNA.

All right? Now,

copying and pasting is a tricky thing to

do really well. So, if I gave you a

sentence to write, Stephen, and I said,

"Copy it 10 times on a word document,"

you'll do it perfectly.

If I get told you to copy it a thousand

times, you're going to make a few

mistakes.

Good thing that we have spell check to

fix it to catch it and fix it. But if I

asked you to copy a single sentence 40

trillion times,

you're going to make so many mistakes

that your spell check isn't even going

to be able to catch all of it, okay? And

that's what's happening in our body

every single day as we are replicating

ourselves. We're going to make mistakes,

and whenever there's a mistake that's

being made that isn't caught and fixed,

that's a mutation.

And so we have mutations that are

forming in our body just a matter just

as an outcome of being alive and doing

our thing, and we're not sick from those

mutations, but every mutation is the

beginning of a microscopic cancer.

Take a guess of how many mistakes

in DNA of copying and pasting your own

body

are made every 24 hours. Take a guess.

This has been calculated.

Randomly.

I you there's so many cells in my body,

so

it's going to be a big number, a

million?

Okay.

Every day, every 24 hours, there are

10,000 mistakes

that are made in your body that your

body doesn't catch, that keep on that

propagate in the document of our body as

it goes on. 10 10,000. Each of those is

a microscopic cancer. A microscopic

cancer is just that, it's microscopic.

It's too small to be seen with the naked

eye,

but it's abnormal, and that thing could

turn turn into a big tumor that could

eventually kill you.

So why don't we die from cancer all the

time? Now this is actually something

that I see as a physician.

I have a patient diagnosed with cancer,

they always ask me, "Dr. Lee, why me?

Why did I get breast cancer, colon

cancer, pancreatic cancer, brain tumor?"

A very, very natural question, and I do

my best to try to provide an empathic

answer to that question. But as a

researcher, I have a more interesting

question.

Given the number of mutations that occur

in our body every single day, why don't

we get cancer more often? Why don't we

all get cancer as kids? You know,

cancer can happen in children, but not

as often as we have mutations. And it

turns out this was the great unlock for

me

in terms of health.

The reason that we don't become more

sick from all kinds of diseases,

including cancer, is because our body is

hardwired with its own health defense

systems. So, that we've got these

swashbuckling defenses that are firing

on all cylinders all day long from the

from the moment we're born until our

very last breath, these systems that are

inside our body defend our health,

including the microscopic cancers,

spots them, takes them out, kind of like

a police cruiser patrolling a quiet

neighborhood, sees a drug dealer on the

corner, pops him in the back of the

police vehicle and takes him away,

cleaning up the neighborhood. That's how

our body naturally cleans up these

microscopic cancers. And so, when you

talk about cancer as a scary disease,

you're thinking about the person whose

body has failed to detect and eliminate

the microscopic cancers and it's become

large enough to actually become a

threat. Now, here's a question for you.

So, we tell women to actually do a self

breast exam when they're taking a

shower. You know, look for lumps or

bumps and you know, if you find one, you

know, certainly go to your doctor

immediately for an exam.

The smallest cancer that you could feel

with a trained person can feel with

their with their hands in the breast is

1 cm in diameter.

A 1 cm breast cancer already has 1

billion cancer cells that have already

multiplied. That microscopic cancer

multiplied a billion times. That's the

smallest one you can feel.

Now,

immune system's not taking that them

out, all right? So, you need a better

immune system if you want a shot at

this, not just chemo or hormonal

therapy.

And that's where some of these

incredible advances are taking place.

But, there's another one.

In order to feed a billion cancer cells,

you need blood vessels to feed them. So,

the cancers as they get bigger, they

hijack our own circulation to feed

themselves, okay? It's kind of like

terrorists kicking in the cockpit door

to take over the controls of the plane.

They want to actually get your blood

vessels to feed themselves. Now,

normally the body knows how to control

those blood vessels. It's called

angiogenesis. Angio blood blood vessels,

genesis how the body grows and controls

them. That's my area of research. So,

naturally our body knows how to prevent

blood vessels from feeding cancers, and

yet knows how to direct blood vessels to

feed healthy tissues. So, guess what? A

1-cm tumor with 1 billion cancer cells

is fed by

100 million blood vessels coursing into

the tumor to feed them. And we've

studied this in the laboratory. The

moment that a single blood vessel

touches a tumor, tiny microscopic tumor,

it will grow 16,000

times in size in just 2 weeks.

Wow.

All right. So,

I've told you some scary statistics, but

now let me kind of give you the where

the breakthroughs are coming through,

right? So, with this kind of knowledge,

what do we what can we do with cancers?

Not just breast cancers, but in general.

Number one,

we know that if you boost your immune

system

with foods, with exercise, diet,

lifestyle, you're going to actually make

your immune defenses a lot stronger to

patrol your body to wipe out those

microscopic cancers. That's why healthy

diet lifestyle lowers the risk of

cancer. That's why eating the right

foods that boost your immunity can

substantially lower your risk of cancer,

as well. We also know that you can eat

foods that support prompt up fortify

your body's natural ability to control

blood vessels.

Keep those blood vessels where they're

supposed to be and get rid of those

blood vessels where you don't want them

to be, which is kicking in the cockpit

to take over your circulation to feed

cancers. So, if you eat foods like that

are anti-angiogenic foods like at on

stable, you've got um coffee and tea.

Both of those contain natural substances

that cut off the blood supply and starve

cancers. That's a good thing. So, that's

why we know our what we do with our diet

can actually help to lower the risk of

cancer as well.

I'm assuming the opposite also applies.

I mean, I can eat foods, I can drink

things that cause my body to

malfunction. I mean, makes the blood

vessels unregulated, makes and starts to

feed the cancer, right?

Yeah, absolutely. So, let's talk let's

talk a little bit about that. So, So, I

told you the body's hardwired with these

defenses, shields up, right? That's what

we want to do. Cuz shields are already

normally up, you want to raise them

higher. But, what about and this is a

brilliant question you're asking, a very

probing question. What are the things

that take your shields down? Right? What

are the things that turn off the smoke

alarm in your house, that unlock the

doors?

Can I take a guess?

Is it this?

Okay. Now, I know the answer that you're

setting this conversation up for, which

is a burger with meat. Uh is that

actually uh disease causing? And I would

I would tell you that yes and no. A

burger is something that many people

enjoy eating and I would say eating

meat, eating burgers, even eating

ultra-processed foods once in a while is

not going to harm you if your health

defenses are naturally

strong. But, if you make it a habit, a

regular habit of eating this

at the expense of eating healthier

foods,

more plant-based foods, less processed

foods, okay? Um you are actually going

to tip the uh your odds where the

diseases are more likely to get you.

What that What that means is that

overeating fast foods like burgers

will actually contribute to taking your

uh health defenses down. Shields down.

So what are those things then that bring

the shield down you were saying?

Okay, excess sodium, too much salt,

which it can be present in a lot of

restaurant foods. People eat out a lot,

go to restaurants all the time. You ever

You ever go to the back of a kitchen of

a restaurant to see how they're salt and

season their food? Patrons love salty

food. It makes food taste really great.

There's a you know, our brains uh

respond very well to salty food. That

high sodium levels actually speeds up

accelerates our cellular aging. So we

actually age faster, but it also um uh

is a huge wear and tear on our health

defenses, specifically our circulation.

Our our blood vessels, our angiogenesis

system is taken down by excess salt.

Okay, I've got a question here.

Obviously there's a a big movement at

the moment around hydration

Mhm.

and electrolytes. And these electrolytes

have magnesium, potassium, they have

sodium in them. Yeah. So a lot of people

are now taking electrolytes to hydrate

themselves.

Is there a a risk here?

So the great news is that the healthy

body has got its own titration system

for electrolytes. If you drink uh a

electrolyte-fortified beverage, you get

Your body's going to take everything it

needs and it's going to pee out the

rest. You're going to eliminate through

your urine, all right? However, sodium

uh

is one of those electrolytes is present

like you're not drinking electrolyte

fluid all day long, but sodium you're

eating it in almost every food that you

actually have, except perhaps dessert.

But maybe even then. And so, this is one

of the things that we realized is sodium

is a high risk for hypertension, high

blood pressure, inflammation of the

lining of your circulation, and that

that sets up for a lot of badness

downstream when it comes to your health,

and it takes down your circulation

health defenses that we talked about.

High blood sugar can also do the same

thing. So, if you're eating an excess of

added sugar, we all have heard by now

glucose spikes and glucose crashes. I

don't actually use those words, by the

way. I don't like to actually cast our

body's metabolism in terms of spikes and

crashes. I think those are fear words

that get attention.

They they do make you pay attention to

it, but in fact, really our the healthy

body sort of has, you know, smooth ups

and smooth downs. They're gentle slopes

up and down of our blood sugar, and

that's completely fine. All right? And

and it should be like that. However, if

you have an uphill climb of your blood

glucose, and it continues to stay up,

that can actually happen if you're

eating too much added sugar.

Okay? Added sugar, ultra-processed

foods. What happens is that your blood

sugars your intake of the sugar,

glucose, rises up up up up up, and now

your body has to your metabolism has to

chase that blood sugar down, and it's

got to work harder and make more

insulin, and eventually you just wear

out that system, and then you have a

high high blood blood glucose and an

insensitive metabolism, and that's the

beginning of sort of the the dominoes

starting to fall apart in your body. And

so, sugar, high blood sugar, added sugar

is a problem. You get it from fruit, not

a problem. Okay? No one's going to be

eating a crazy amount of fruit. This is

why extremes aren't good. Diversity.

Switch it out. Keep it interesting for

yourself. This is what our human nature

wants anyway. It's how we're hardwired.

You'll actually be fine. So, salt,

sugar, those are two offenders, okay?

Alcohol is another one that actually can

take down your health defenses over

time. You know, people say, "Well, what

about red wine? Isn't red wine healthy?"

What I would say is that actually the

fermented products the or the bioactives

that come out of red grapes from the

skin of red grapes that's found in red

wine,

those there can be some healthful

properties of the resveratrol and other

polyphenols that come out of that are in

wine, but it's never the alcohol. It's

not the alcohol in the beer, the wine,

the whiskey. Nope. None of that is The

alcohol is is a universal toxin. Toxic

to your brain, toxic to your liver,

toxic to your heart.

Can't get away from that. Your body will

recover. Shields up.

Little it can take a ding. It's like a

you know, like a drink is sort of like a

driving behind a truck and it flings a

little pebble right into your

windshield. You might get a little

spider in the windshield. Okay, don't

worry. It'll repair itself. You'll

you'll fix yourself. You'll bounce back.

It's not going to break your windshield.

But if you keep on drinking, you're

actually going to smash your windshield

and that's why alcoholism is so

devastating to the health. But you know,

regular a small amount of alcohol So,

alcohol itself is is a toxin.

Do you drink?

Uh I I rarely drink and when I drink,

it's in a moderation.

Mhm.

And I was thinking about stress as well.

Does that

bring down the

So, besides the foods you eat, other

things that can compromise your health

defenses.

And by the way, there are five health

defenses. We talked about blood vessels,

we talked about immunity, but there are

three other ones that are core to

functioning in the healthiest way

possible. You want to If you want

longevity, you need all five of your

health defenses and more to be working

in your favor. But stress, what does

stress do? Lowers your immune system.

Shields down. All right? Those

microscopic cancers, whoa. That's why

stressful people are more vulnerable to

developing diseases like cancer, all

right? Stress also causes your blood

pressure to go up and causes

neurotransmitters, hormones to be

released from your brain and your

kidneys, your adrenal glands that

actually wear down your circulation.

Now, your angiogenesis system is also

not functioning as well to protect

yourself and keep good blood flow going

where it needs to go. Now, your

circulation is actually down. Um so,

again, stress also can actually damage

the DNA. We talked about naturally

copying, pasting, and having errors. Add

some stress to it. Now, it's kind of

like

you're trying to copy that sentence I

was telling you perfectly. Now, I'm

going to come and just smash your

fingers down every now and then and

let's see if you actually make a

mistake. You will, all right? Stress

will actually do that. It's devastating

to have so much stress continuously.

Listen, by the way, I want to be really

clear to anybody listening or watching

this.

A little stress is actually good for

you. You know, like just being coddled

all day long and living in a happy

bubble, that doesn't That's not That's

not good for our health, either. We kind

of get lackadaisical, we let our guard

down. Little stress, I mean, anybody

who's hardworking, you know, successful

knows that, you know, it's not the no

pain, no gain. It's that the the the

grit that goes along with it, which

gives a little stress. Keeps us sharp,

you know? Which is a Which is a good

thing. You want to be on You want to be

on. So, little stress is good, but when

that stress is unabated,

it literally sinks your health defenses.

It is just taking those shields down.

Yeah, I I've noticed that with myself.

I've I've spent the last 10 years

running businesses, a little bit more

than 10 years now, but probably like the

last 13 years running businesses. And

the only times when I really get sick,

where I'm like out for a week, and I

really, really feel it,

is

1 week after

2 weeks of stress.

So, when I say 2 weeks of stress, what I

mean there is when something happens in

my life,

business, where that it's kind of

chronic and it's enduring stress, I can

deal with having a stressful day. I can

deal with having two stressful days in a

row, but when I've had like 2 weeks of

an enduring issue, like an enduring

angst or a problem,

almost perfectly predictably, a week

later, I'm sick. And I'm extremely

rarely sick, cuz I think I sleep really

well. Like, I think I eat really clean.

And so, it's taught me something about

if I zoom out on that and see what's

going on in my body. Well, eventually,

like my body's kind of my immune system

is running out of energy almost.

More than your immune system. So, when

you're super stressed, it also

interferes with your ability to sleep

well.

Yeah.

When you're sleeping well, you know,

sleeping is something that I was taught

when I was a kid, when you're sleeping,

you're resting, and when you're resting,

you're not active, right? Well, that's

just our physical self. It turns out

when we're sleeping, even though our

muscles may not be moving like we are

during the day, in fact, a lot of other

systems, including our health defenses,

are being repaired, renewed,

regenerated, rebooted while we are

sleeping. So, in those ideally 8 hours,

7 to 9 hours, 8's the sweet num- sweet

number, you know, our brain is cleansing

itself, detoxifying itself, releasing Do

you know about the glymphatic system in

the brain?

No, it's what it's you do.

Okay. Well, the there's a there's a um

sewer system of the great of in our

brains that's called the glymphatic

system, and it's shut tightly during the

daytime when we're using our brain,

doing our work, uh whatever we're doing.

And during the day, we accumulate a lot

of uh toxins in inside our brain during

the day. It's just a matter of

functioning. All right? And what happens

is that those toxins accumulate, which

is that, you know, at the end of a

really, really tough, hard day,

you got if not a headache, you've got

your you feel like your brain is

it's full. It's cup runneth over, right?

All right. So, when you go to sleep,

guess what? This sewer system, it's like

the sewers of pair underneath Paris. The

grates open up suddenly and it drains

those toxins out while you're sleeping

and only when you get good sleep. So,

when you're stressed and you're not

getting good sleep, you start to

accumulate these toxins that are never

quite cleaned up and your brain is not

that cleaned up. When your brain's not

that cleaned up, you're feeling foggy.

So, think about the you know, when

you're in college, you're pulling

all-nighter or go to a party or whatever

and you're and you're staying up all

night. You're never quite the same. It

takes a while for your brain to clean up

itself.

When your brain is foggy, you tend to

not make as good decisions.

I'm too tired to work out. I'm too tired

I don't care what I eat. I'm just

hungry. I'm going to eat anything. You

start to make bad decisions when it

comes to diet and lifestyle. You see?

So, it's

the stress can cascade on your health

like that.

Is there a certain stage of sleep where

the glymphatic system kicks in?

Yeah, it's during like the deep REM

sleep.

Okay.

That dreaming sleep.

Okay. And that usually comes later in

the night as well.

Correct. Correct.

And and in more quali- quantity later in

the night. So, you need to really be

getting a lot of sleep.

Now, the other thing about about deep

sleep is while you're sleeping really

deeply, your metabolism is also burning

down fat. So, you think that you're not

working out during the night? You're

right, you're not actually exercising,

but in fact, your metabolism is burning

fat. Because while you're sleeping

and your insulin levels don't need to be

high because you're not eating, insulin

levels go down, your metabolism is

shifts gears. I I started to give people

the analogy, it's like your your body is

a race car, sports car, like a Ferrari.

During the day, you are in gear to

drive, accumulate speed, and and your

your revenue engines

at night, you shift gears where you're

actually burning down fat.

You you don't need to accumulate more

fuel. Now you're burning down the fuel.

So when you're sleeping, aren't you

burning away fat?

But when you don't sleep well,

when you don't sleep long enough, you're

not burning down that fuel. That fuel

accumulates.

Day or two of not good sleep, that's

that's okay. Think about flying

overseas, getting some jet lag, you got

to catch up once you get Catch up, you

feel better. All right? But think about

this like day in and day out chronically

stressed people are never getting good

sleep, add a little booze, alcohol to

the

to the equation, you can kind of see the

problems that are going to build up.

Your brain's going to be foggy, your

metabolism is going to be out of whack,

you're not burning as much fat from the

calories that you ate during the day.

Now inflammation starts to

rise in your body, and that inflammation

really takes down your health defenses,

and now you're much more vulnerable. So

in your own example of where

chronic stress leads to poor sleep, and

then you get sick, no surprise.

If we go back up the thread that we were

talking about the sort of individual

perspective on cancer, and I was looking

at some stats here, and it says that the

number one Google search related to

cancer is breast cancer. One in two

people will develop some form of cancer

during their lifetime. That's according

to the NHS. Cancer is the second highest

leading cause of death worldwide, and by

2040, there will be 28 million new cases

of cancer each year worldwide. But one

of the most shocking things that I saw

was that globally early onset cancer

incidence has risen by about 80% by 1990

and 2019. And there was an article which

I had sent to my team a couple of weeks

ago.

It's it's called the worrying puzzle

behind the rise of early onset cancer.

And it says that there are rising cases

of breast, collateral, and other cancers

in people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.

And it posits the question, what is

going on? Over the last 10 years, rates

of colorectal cancer among 25 to 49 year

olds has increased in 24 different

countries including the UK, US, France,

Australia, Canada, Norway and Argentina.

I mean what is going on?

Yeah.

That's a big question. So,

are we seeing

the results of more harms in our

environment that we're being exposed to

that are more toxic and leading to

earlier incidence of clinical cancer?

They're talking about clinical diagnosed

cancer, not the invisible microscopic

ones that are forming all the time.

Um it's yes, it's very worrying. Are are

we being exposing ourselves to something

that is more commonly encountered today

than before? Number one. Number two,

are our defenses being taken down by

forces that we didn't appreciate are

compromising us? Most likely both. It's

most likely

uh I mean the human makeup hasn't

changed. And so it's got to be the fact

a combination that we're being exposed

to more harmful things and

though some of those harmful things are

actually that they are provoking more

cancers but and we're also being exposed

to things that take down our health

defenses. So, the balance is being

tipped against us and it's true. I can

tell you that when I went to medical

school, I mean colorectal cancer was

something that you rarely saw in people

even in their 50s. It was for much older

uh people.

Uh now to see uh I mean there's even

teenagers that have actually developed

colorectal cancer which was

unfathomable.

So, I will tell you one thing that's

actually arisen in terms of like what

are some of the clues of these things

that could be a happening, right? So, we

are talking about climate change and all

the things that are happening in the

environment. That's a that's almost too

big

a conversation to have to answer a

question like this but we I think we

cannot afford to ignore the fact that

the environment, the climate that we

live in has changed.

But, there are other things that we're

beginning to unearth

that we didn't realize until just within

the last few years. And one of them is

the is how many inflammatory

microplastics we are ingesting.

When I was growing up, uh my mom, very

uh well-intentioned, would store foods

in plastic, leftovers.

Uh and we'd buy foods that came in

plastic packages, right? We didn't think

a think second have a second thought

about it. A plastic cup, Styrofoam cup.

Go to a picnic, you're eating off of a

plastic plate, right? I mean, these are

all common

uh experiences that we all have uh in

the modern developed world. Well,

what if I told you that we now realize

that the plastic touching food can shed

the plastic itself as microparticles

into the food, and then we eat the food?

And okay, we've known this for maybe

more than a decade. Maybe there are

small plastic particles uh that come

off. But, you know, hey, there's no

harm, right? We don't We haven't been

able to discover it. I I used to say

that. Now, just within the last few

years, we're beginning to pinpoint that

number one, it does plastics can

actually embed themselves in our body.

We you know where.

We also know that these plastics uh are

associated with inflammation.

That is a big red flag. The clock's on

alarm should start going off. And third

is that the volume of plastics that

we're consuming is crazy. There was a

study that came out recently

that showed that in normal autopsies of

people that

didn't die of a brain problem, that when

they were doing the autopsies and

looking for plastic, that we could find

them. And the amount of plastic that was

found in the average human brain

is about the amount you'd find in a

typical plastic picnic spoon.

Just distributed throughout the brain.

This is like normal It's a person who

has died of something else. Wow. Does

that mean that, you know, like you and I

are actually you got a plastic spoon

worth of plastic in our brain?

There's been some people that

calculated, and this has been the actual

calculate the math has been challenged,

but there was an estimate that, you

know, some people might consume as much

as a credit card's worth of plastic

every single week in their food if

they're not careful about it. And let me

just tell you where we're finding

microplastics. And, you know, I want to

get to the point where we're talking

about the healthy foods that can

actually turn the ship around. How do we

turn the battleship of of unhealth back

to health? So, we're back on the course

that everybody wants to go to. We want

to go to that north We don't know how do

we find our north star for health? So, I

do want to get to that, but let me just

say something about microplastics.

We've now found microplastics in the

brain, as I mentioned to you.

We found it in the bloodstream. A group

in Italy actually looking at men who had

narrowing of the carotid artery. That's

the blood vessel feeding the brain from

the comes from the heart right to the

brain, the carotid artery.

Up through the neck.

Through the neck. They found that the

narrowing that can occur in some men can

accumulate plastic. They can actually

find plastic particles as photographs of

the chunks of plastic, the particles,

fragments of plastic in there. And they

followed them over a period of time.

Those men who had plastic embedded in

their blood vessel lining had a fourfold

increase in the chances of having a

fatal heart attack or a stroke

like years later. Okay.

400%

Four fourfold, yeah. Okay. Now, that's

that's not kidding, right? So, now

you're Now, we're beginning to take

notice of this, but we're also finding

microplastics in breast milk. We're

finding microplastics in testicles.

We're finding microplastics in human

semen.

How's it get there? And urologists who

are doing surgery on the penis are

finding that in in the human flesh, when

they look into the microscope, we never

used to look for this. Now we're looking

for it. That there's even microplastics

in the flesh of the penis. Okay? So,

if anybody listening to this isn't

taking notice about microplastics now,

it's time to start thinking about this.

So, one of the questions is I and I'm

not saying that the rise and rate

of cancers that we're seeing is due to

microplastics. What I mean What I am

saying is that we're beginning to wake

up

to the fact.

So, let's close off on microplastics.

What are the the easy wins in our lives,

do you think, when you think about

microplastics? Is it just removing

anything plastic that I eat from? Or are

there some sort of easy, cheap wins? Is

it my shampoo? Is it my frying pan? Is

it a container?

Yeah, so I always tell people that the

easiest way to lower your exposure to

microplastics is to throw out your

plastic cups, your plastic plates, and

your plastic silverware.

Mhm.

Okay? And get ceramic or glass. Uh

that's the best way to actually avoid

those. And also, when you're buying

food, try to avoid food that comes

clearly packaged in plastic. All right?

Now, I do want to point out one thing

cuz right here on this table, we are

looking at a tray full of beverages, and

I can already identify the matcha, and

this looks like a cup of coffee, and

we've got English breakfast tea. I've

done a lot of research on tea, all

right? But I'm noticing something that

green tea, which is universally healthy,

the polyphenols in green tea

lower the risk of inflammation, they

actually improve your metabolism, lower

your risk of cancer, they're heart

healthy. Before you take that sip,

though,

let me tell you, I see a tea bag in

there.

Okay? And there's different ways of

brewing your tea.

It turns out research from the

University of Montreal have now shown

that

tea bags can shed microplastics.

So you can have a billion particles of

microplastic shed from a single tea bag.

Okay.

All right, so I just changed your mind,

right? So look, this is the power of

awareness and understanding. I probably

should have stopped you before I would

have you were like, "Why didn't you save

my life?"

You let me drink it first, but I I spat

it out.

I I I just as you were doing it I was

like, "Uh uh."

All right, but look, there's another

there's another one there that's got

lemon ginger tea. This is like a herbal

tea, that's fine. Listen, I I would also

tell you with flavored teas

just be cautious. Like always check

anything that's been machined to be a

little bit more than nature. Tea bags

are supposed to be paper, right? Well,

in order to prevent the paper from

ripping, the manufacturers of the tea

bags spray with a small amount of

plastic to

have it hang together better, and that's

the plastic that comes off. But what

about the lemon and ginger in this lemon

ginger tea that that sounds so appealing

and calming, right? And and something

that most people would find nice as an

herbal tea. Well, listen you're you're

relying on a factory to actually put

that lemon flavor, ginger, ginger

flavor.

Is it real lemon or is it real ginger?

Always look at the ingredient label to

know what's in there, or just buy your

own tea and squeeze your own lemon and

and add your own piece of ginger. These

are ways to actually kind of avoid the

potential exposures to toxins that come

from ultra-processed food. So all this

conversation about, you know, avoid

ultra- ultra-processed foods and watch

out for all those harmful things, you

know, it's actually quite easy to dodge

them if you just have in your mindset

that you're just going to make it

yourself and it's absolutely easy. Now,

I would tell you in something

interesting about English breakfast tea.

We did research at the Angiogenesis

Foundation, a nonprofit I I looked at to

look at

different types of teas, different types

of green tea, Japanese tea, Chinese

jasmine tea, uh

English tea.

And we were always assuming,

again, this is the power of food as

medicine research. We were always

assuming that the green tea is going to

be the best.

I'd always heard that Japanese green tea

is going to be like the ultra best.

And what we found was that English tea,

specifically Earl Grey tea,

actually was the most potent when it

actually supported your blood vessels,

your body's defense system for

angiogenesis to keep your circulation

healthy. Wow, what a surprise that is.

And this spoke to me

about the fact that we can't make

assumptions. We need to look at facts.

We need to look at data. And so, I'm a

big fan of Earl Grey now.

Now, what could what what might make

Earl Grey give Earl Grey its superpower?

Well, this is where knowing a little bit

about what you're eating is actually

useful because Earl Grey is a fermented

uh is a is a black tea. It's got

bergamot in it, and bergamot is a kind

of a citrus, so maybe it's combining

those uh ingredients that actually

provides the superpower. But I do see

matcha on this uh

uh tray.

I want to tell you about matcha cuz it

is a Matcha is truly a super enriched

polyphenol enriched tea. A lot of people

don't realize it. There's I don't No tea

bag in it, so don't worry.

So, a lot of people think about matcha

uh as just another green tea, but it's

not another green tea. It is made with

green tea leaves, the same kind of green

tea leaves, but uh the as you would find

in any green tea. However,

it's what's the composition of matcha.

Matcha is green tea

that is before it's ready for harvest is

grown under a shade

that changes its chemical structure,

natural chemical structure a little bit,

so it's got a lot of potency to it. And

what happens with matcha is they take

the tea leaf

they take out the stem of the green of

the of the green tea leaf and they

ground up the actual leaf into a powder.

Now, what's in that green tea leaf?

You've got not just some of the

polyphenols that might steep out in the

cup whether you're using a tea bag or

loose leaf tea, you are getting all the

polyphenols suspended in that. So, now

you get 100% polyphenol, okay, in

matcha. So, go ahead you're Go ahead do

it.

Okay, good.

That one's good.

All right. Okay, for matcha. And because

you're getting the tea leaf ground to

it, you're also getting your dietary

fiber. That dietary fiber's good for

your gut health, your microbiome, good

for your metabolism, good for lowering

inflammation. And the polyphenols found

in green tea have also been uh matcha

matcha tea

have also been found in the lab to kill

breast cancer stem cells.

What's a breast cancer stem cell? What's

a stem cell cancer stem cell? Well,

look, stem cells are these renewable

cells. All right. And um cancers contain

stem cells that help the cancers come

back, right? If you got cancer, you get

it treated, one the one thing you don't

want it to do is to come back. So, um

and by the way, other foods can also do

kill cancer stem cells.

Purple potatoes

uh that you might have seen in the

market, they're um kind of purpley

looking on the outside, slice it open

dark purple on the inside. All right.

Turns out that those purple potatoes

have something called anthocyanins.

Purple potatoes have been studied in the

lab, okay, at Penn State University and

been shown to kill colon cancer stem

cells which contribute to the colon

cancer coming back.

So, full disclaimer, I am I made a very

very big investment uh a seven-figure

investment into a matcha company a

couple of years ago.

And if you look at the search trend data

on the subject of matcha. I don't know

if you've seen this, but that's

I'll throw it up on the screen for

anyone that's watching on video, but you

can see how it's just come out of

nowhere, it seems, it's exploded.

And when you say that matcha cells have

an impact on breast cancer cells,

what does that mean in reality? Does it

Cuz obviously the the

the conclusion one might jump to is that

if you drink matcha, you're lowering

your risk of breast cancer.

But that's not necessarily what you're

saying.

What I What I mean What I am saying is

that drinking green tea in its most

helpful form,

okay, um raises your body's health

defense systems. And by having better

health defense systems, better immunity,

better control of your blood vessels,

better control over your DNA and those

mutations, and if you can actually kill

some of those stem cells, cancer stem

cells, that's going to be in your favor

as well. That is overall going to

actually lower your risk of cancer. And

so, I think that And by the way, the

other thing that green tea and matcha

can actually do is improve your

metabolism. It It's really pretty much

all good. My My great uncle, by the way,

lived to 104 years old. Vital, intact,

uh independent. He told me that he

attributed his longevity and his

vitality to the fact that he lived at

the base of a mountain that grew

tea.

That every morning he got up and he

walked up He walked up stone steps, a

stone path, to a tea garden, and he had

freshly picked tea. It's all organically

grown and everything. And he And he

drank tea all day long. He probably had

10 cups of green tea a day. And this has

been his whole life. He sat with his uh

uh

close friends who are also very vibrant

and and elderly, um social connection,

all right? Watch the sunrise. It's very

calming.

Do you drink it?

Absolutely.

Um I've got to just going up the the

thread again a little bit. You mentioned

the word colorectal.

Mhm.

Where is the

colorectal cancer?

So, we have a little um model here.

Cuz I'm asking this because I'm

wondering why that type of cancer is

increasing. So, is there is there a

particular reason why?

Well, okay. So, let's do a quick

uh medical school

uh course crash course for podcasters.

Um

the the gut

When we talk about gut health, most

people think of the gut as sort of lower

down in your belly or maybe even just

your stomach. But, the gut actually

starts in your mouth.

And it runs down down down about 40 ft

worth of stuff, organs. Uh your

esophagus, your stomach, your small

intestines, your large intestines. By

the way, these squigglies are your small

intestines. All right? This blue is your

large intestines. This is like a It's

shaped like a horseshoe. It's big, thick

uh tube that that's kind of framing your

small intestines. And then, it goes down

the poop shoot, the rectum, the anus.

That's the end of your gut. All right.

So,

the colon is really the large uh framing

thick part of the gut. It's near the

very end. All right? So, all this

squiggly small intestines winds up here

uh at the beginning of the colon. The

colon goes up. It's called the ascending

colon. And then, it makes a sharp angle

turn right across your belly, kind of

like a belt, right across your belly.

This is colon here. And then, it goes to

the descending colon. Take the elevator

down down down down down down. You see

the blue down it's going down. And then,

it kind of takes a little jog at the

very end and goes down into your rectum

and your anus. Okay.

Right. So, the blue thing is my colon.

So, this is where

cancer incidence is rising in young

people.

So, you're talking about the rising in

instance of colorectal cancer. That

could be a cancer that's typically

uh either on the right side of the colon

either the going up up the up side up

the elevator

Yeah.

or down the elevator on the right side

of the left side.

Okay.

And okay. And it turns out that we've

known for a long time

that unhealthy diets are linked to a

higher risk of colorectal cancer,

specifically processed meats. So, the

World Health Organization contain

considers processed meats, salami,

bologna, ultra-processed, you know, kind

of deli meats, delicatessen meats you

find at a delicatessen. All right.

Um tho- those would be uh considered uh

carcinogens.

And and they're they're they are uh

highly linked to an increased risk of

bowel cancers. Now, why would that be?

Well, it turns out that think about it,

if you're eating a ton of meat, all

right, you're actually exposing the gut

to a lot of those processed meat

carcinogens that when it sits around in

your colon, not one not not once in a

while. Go to the ballgame, have a hot

dog, enjoy yourself, but if you eat it

day in and day out, you're giving a lot

of exposure uh to your gut.

This time, angiogenesis.

You've talked about the link that that

has to cancer. Angiogenesis, from my um

novice understanding, is how the blood

cells provide blood to different parts

of our body, right? And in the case of

cancer, there's this

the angiogenesis system

is making a mistake.

Is that simplified version of it?

Yeah, so angiogenesis, which is a field

I study study, you break it down uh

it to what its elemental parts of angio,

blood, blood vessel, genesis, how the

body grows and maintains them. So,

angiogenesis is how our body grows and

maintains our circulation. A lot of

people don't know this, but our

circulation is one of our body's health

defense systems, and it's so extensive

that in a typical adult, there are

60,000 mi worth of blood vessels packed

inside our body. These are the highways

and byways that deliver blood to every

organ and tissue. But, that means that

they also deliver the air we breathe,

the oxygen we're breathing in, and the

nutrients that we're eating. So, we eat

good things, they're going into our

bloodstream, and our blood vessels are

angiogenesis system develop delivering

to every cell in the body. Now, you eat

something bad,

similarly, or you breathe something in

bad, similarly, your those blood vessels

are delivering negative. Now, inside the

blood vessels

is a lining. It's called a the lining is

like a clear, like a plastic wrap inside

the blood vessel called the endothelial

layer.

That's like a layer of ice, like on an

ice skating rink, to ensure that

everything in the blood vessels are

flowing smoothly without getting caught

on the walls.

So, when you have cardiovascular

disease, too much

too much salt, to hypertension, when you

have diabetes, where you're actually

wearing down the lining of the blood

vessels, endothelial layer is being

damaged. It's like damaging the lining

of your angiogenesis defense system has

really deadly consequences because it's

like scraping up the ice on an ice

skating rink. You know, if you actually

have a lot of ice skaters on a rink,

after a while, it's unskateable, right?

You can't get on it. And what will

happen in your bloodstream is then

elements in your blood get caught

Oh.

along the walls, and they build up. And

that's actually how blood vessels narrow

up. So, that's one of the areas of

So, angiogenesis actually is intended to

deliver

oxygen and nutrients to the tissues that

need it for to maintain your health.

But, because it's so critical, it's also

very, very carefully controlled, so you

don't have blood vessels growing where

they should not be growing,

like in your joints, in your eyes, or of

course to cancers. You don't definitely

don't want to be feeding cancers by

delivering oxygen and nutrients to them.

I've got this graph which shows

different things that cause more or less

angiogenesis.

You've seen this graph, but

Okay.

So, you are showing a graph that I I

generated, my my organization generated.

And this is

actually, you're looking at the

experiment that got me into food as

medicine.

Let me explain to you the experiment. Um

I'll just put it I'll put it over here.

So, um so, we were studying

at one point

drugs.

And we're trying to discover drugs that

could be developed as cancer treatments.

So, we were looking for our drugs that

could cut off the blood supply to

tumors.

So, we were screening

uh lots of chemicals that biotech

companies were developing and inventing

and professors were inventing and said,

"Hey, can you take a look at this see

this could be a worthwhile drug that

could cut off the blood supply to a

tumor as a cancer treatment?" All right,

and at the time there were no such

treatments, so it was all discovery.

Like this was, you know, a like the like

the golden age of discovery when it came

to angiogenesis. We were testing, "Oh my

gosh, this thing could really stop blood

vessels. Could we develop this into our

cancer treatment?" Ultimately, yes. The

answer was yes, but we were looking for

them. And we would And so, we developed

a system where we could add a substance

into a laboratory test system to see if

blood vessels would grow or shrink.

And so, here on this graph, you can see

at the very top a very long bar of blood

vessels growing. That's normal healthy

blood vessels growing out as long as

they can.

And then what we would do is we'd throw

drugs into it. And we would see if we

could actually shrink them up. And so,

some of the

uh shorter bars uh

are cancer drugs. Uh you can see them uh

in this color in blue.

Not surprisingly, some of the cancer

drugs were making the blood vessels

smaller. Hey, this could be a good

candidate drug. And we were also testing

other

uh drugs that were available, not used

for cancer, to see if they would work.

Sure, we discovered some of those, too.

But,

I did something a little bit subversive,

and as you know, you know, if you want

to be disruptive, you got to sometimes

um disrupt yourself in order to be able

to do this. So, this is like our

experiment that we were doing at the

Angiogenesis Foundation. We decided to

disrupt ourselves. So, we said,

"We have a whole system of drugs to

test. Let's remove half of them, and

let's swap them out with powders that

came from food."

All right? Just to see what would

happen. And when we actually tested

foods in the same system used to develop

drugs, food as medicine, tested in the

same system that medicines are

developed, we found what you see on this

bar chart in red, we actually found that

dietary factors, stuff that's found in

food, could actually

cut down the blood supply that would be

growing to feed a cancer. In other

words, there's anti-angiogenic foods.

You could see the green tea, you could

see the onions and garlics and red

grapes and strawberries. Um it was

really an eye-opener to me for when I

saw these results,

it made my jaw drop. And I said, "My

god, foods have potency just like

drugs." I I I was a skeptic. All right?

And I And it made me just kind of

realize like this is something that I

had to pursue. This was an area of

research that I absolutely

had to actually look further into.

A drug takes a decade and a billion or

more dollars to be able to develop from

uh from scratch to reaching a patient,

and then not everyone who needs a

treatment can actually get the drug.

But, a food has immediacy. You discover

something amazing about a food, whether

it's matcha, whether it's purple

potatoes, whether it's a strawberry,

that could be that that that immediacy

could be used beneficially without

toxicity.

All right? Uh and affordably. And so I

just saw this as this was this

experiment is what brought me into the

realm of food as medicine.

So I'm going to ask some stupid

questions here. So on here I can see

that for example soy extract

or this less angiogenesis, which is what

I understand is the the growth of these

blood vessels. But does that mean that

if I have lots of soy extract or arc-

artichoke or parsley or berries, that

it's going to

cause other parts of my body not to grow

blood cells?

this is the great question. But let me

kind of reframe the question as you're

asking it.

If

uh experiments are able to show that

certain foods can uh prevent blood

vessels from growing, will that actually

cause a problem with your body's health

defenses to keep uh blood vessels from

growing in healthy tissues? All right?

Answer is no. And here's why.

As a health defense system, our

angiogenesis system is completely

designed to yoke in the right number of

blood vessels to give just amount just

the right amount of blood flow. Not too

much, not too little. I call it the

Goldilocks zone. You know Goldilocks the

fairy tale? Um you know, the bears were

home invaders, they broke into the

house, and they were looking for chairs

and porridge and beds. Not too hot, not

too cold, but just right. All of our

health defenses, including the

angiogenesis health defense, is

hardwired to keep the body just right.

So, what that means is that eating foods

like artichokes or strawberries or soy

can actually help your body prevent

extra blood vessels from growing towards

cancer, for example, and and other

disease tissues, but it will not

override the body's natural ability to

get the right amount of blood vessels to

the right tissue. So, you don't have to

worry about starving your healthy

tissues, you're just uh cutting off the

uh uh bad blood vessels that you should

I can I call it like a landscaper on a

golf course that that breaks out the

lawnmower to mow that uh the the golf

course so that it's got a perfect level

um of the lawn. You're not going to

actually uh carve out a bald spot uh uh

in on in the country club. You're going

to get just the right amount. Similarly,

and um we're not talking about this

graph, there's another graph that can

actually show foods that you can eat

that can grow blood vessels, healthy

blood vessels where you want them. And

it turns out things like fruit peel uh

uh can actually do that, and barley can

grow new blood vessels, and dark

chocolate can actually help to support

blood vessels as well. And some of these

things can also work on both sides of

the equation. They can prune away the

bad extra blood vessels, and they can

grow them whenever you need them. So,

your body is sort of like the gardener

extraordinaire. It knows exactly how to

actually tend. You give them the right

ingredients, they know exactly where to

put the grass seed, and they know

exactly where to mow the lawn.

Have you ever had cancer in your family?

Yes.

Um cancer has touched my family like it

has for most people. Um

I had two uncles

uh

years ago that passed away. One passed

away from colon cancer, one passed away

from liver cancer.

And I you know, I was a doctor at the

time, and so I felt so

uh

helpless

uh because as a doctor I could

I could diagnose, I could lay hands on,

I could feel the hard liver, I could

feel the masses, and I felt at the time

helpless. Even though I was doing the

research cancer research and finding

future paths, I felt like this is we

we're we're not there yet, and we can't

I couldn't help him. I felt I felt

powerless.

Fast forward.

We're now at a point where we're

beginning to see the light at the end of

the tunnel.

And my mother when my mother had cancer,

so my uncle's sister, my mother, wound

up having endometrial cancer. She was 80

years old. One day um

had some bleeding, went to the hospital,

found a mass. She had a hysterectomy to

remove her uterus and ovaries and they

found in there an endometrial cancer.

That's a cancer of the lining of the

uterus. The surgery and a little bit of

radiation is supposed to take care of

it. Unfortunately,

in her case, those little cancer stem

cells, and it was microscopic cancers

that were present, took off, raced off

in her

80-year-old body, which, you know,

weaker immune system when you're 80. All

right, and within a few months after

successfully recovering from the

surgery, she had stage four cancer

everywhere.

All right. And her oncologist told me,

uh

uh Dr. Lee, you know, you're a doctor as

well. You know this is serious and this

is pretty much the time of game over.

And now,

times have changed. Science had

advanced. Progress has advanced.

At that time, when my mother was

diagnosed with stage four cancer,

immunotherapy,

the latest and greatest, I think,

advancement in cancer treatment had just

broken through and become approved.

Immunotherapy is not chemotherapy.

It doesn't actually poison the cancer.

Immunotherapy is a medicine that you

give a cancer patient that wakes up your

own immune system.

Whether you're a young person old

person, it can wake up your immune

system, all right? And my mother had

immunotherapy. She was one of the early

patients to get immunotherapy.

And her own 80-year-old immune system

woke up

like a super like an army of super

soldiers and went after that cancer.

Now, we completely adjusted her diet to

so that her body between treatments

would be as strong as possible, shields

raised as we've been talking about. And

we give her a little bit of radiation to

to to help the

the her immune system spot the cancer.

Guess what happened?

Three treatments

of immunotherapy, three three weeks

apart. So, time zero is the first

treatment three weeks later, the next

treatment, three weeks after that, the

next treatment. All right? So, we're

talking about you know, like total of

nine weeks of three treatments, all

right? Of these three treatments, we

scanned her.

Stage four went to stage zero.

And she never had chemotherapy. Now,

chemotherapy can be helpful, too, with

immunotherapy, but this was where I saw

first hand, close up, in my own family,

the ability to harness your body's own

health defenses

in a way that I couldn't do for my uncle

15 years ago before,

and we lost him.

And we were to save my mom, and I can

tell you I literally had dinner with my

mom

two days ago, and she's 90

91, 10 11 years later,

completely healthy, completely

cancer-free.

And by the way, this immunotherapy,

if we could only get this to work as

well for everyone. This is where we are

in the history of medicine.

We can see an end. We know how we can

get to an end. We've actually seen

successes. We just can't get it to work

for everyone yet, and there are

different ways to actually wake up your

immune system. Another way that I'm

working on now that

um a colleague of mine

in Germany is working on is

also absolutely jaw-droppingly amazing.

Imagine this, somebody has cancer and

you're going to they're going to get a

biopsy no matter what. They're going to

take some tissue out to look at it under

the microscope. What kind of cancer is

it? Is it brain, is it breast, is it

colon, is it pancreas? Where is it

coming from? You're going to get a

diagnosis. Right now, up until recently,

that's all we did with the tissue, the

biopsy. You just got a result and it's

kind of like a death sentence depending

on what type of cancer and you're

supposed to then go to the guidelines

and open up the

the the the treatment book to say,

"Well, what's the pathway we should

What's the recipe we should follow for

treatment?" Too often, those recipes

don't work very well or for very long.

And what if I told you that where we are

headed with cancer therapy is a

new frontier

where you take the tumor with the

biopsy.

Sure, look at it under the microscope,

call it out,

uh uh define what it is, and then you

send it to a lab where you do complete

full-on genetics. You sequence the

entire cancer genome. All right? Right

now, we do sequence. We take a dozen,

two dozen, three dozen. I'm talking

about doing 20, 30,000 genes. Right?

Right now, most people say it's not

worth it. We don't know what we do with

all that information. What if I told you

if you took a tumor and sequenced all

the genes, you'll find every mutation,

every

typographical error that we talked about

earlier that's in that cancer. Those are

the smoking guns of the cancer. Now,

what if I took a piece of a a little

normal blood, normal cells, and

sequenced that, too? All right? Now,

people are be hearing me talk who are

oncologists or scientists would say, "I

don't know what you're talking about.

That's a double the waste of effort cuz

now you're going to sequence the human

genome twice in a single patient. And

what are you going to do with all that

information?" Ah, this is where

technology fits in.

Artificial intelligence, machine

learning. Let's now have a computer

compare normal cells with tumor cells

back and forth and back and forth and

back and forth, subtract out all the

mutations that are found in normal

cells, leaving only the smoking gun

mutations in the cancer. A couple

hundred going to be left. Those are the

smoking guns. Those are the doers that

led to this cancer. Now imagine,

and I'm going to give you an analogy

here.

Do you remember that Tom Cruise movie,

uh Minority Report?

Yeah.

So you remember that like he was wearing

these gloves and you have a glass pane

and you can actually move the

things around on the glass with your

fingertips, right? So now imagine you

can take these human uh the the the

cancer mutations on the bottom of this

glass screen and you can just randomly

with your fingers pick out 20 random

mutations

and move them up on the screen.

All right. Now you've just picked out

the mutations and now you can connect

the mutations together. I call it a

pearl necklace. Imagine every mutation

is a pearl and you connect them together

with the string that connects a pearl

necklace.

Now now you get what I'm saying? Like

now we've taken the tumor,

find out the doers, the the the the the

smoking guns. Now we've strung them

together. Okay? This is the most wanted

sign that you would actually place out

for the criminal.

And now imagine you hit print.

Technology. And now you have a protein

printer that prints out those smoking

guns as a protein.

As a protein full of your own individual

cancer of that particular person.

Now you take that protein and you inject

it under the skin

and you're challenging your own immune

system. You're vaccinating yourself with

the with your own cancer. And you're

causing your own immune system to say,

"Aha!

This is a bad guy. We're going to

develop antibodies to go find our immune

system. We're going to get ratcheted up

to go find that cancer." Well, this is

happening right now in clinical trials.

I have a colleague named Saskia Biskup

that is actually developing

peptide vaccine treatments against

cancer. And if you want to see some

amazing results, there was a paper we

published in nature

communications

about a year ago that showed in more

than 100 people with glioblastoma. That

is a game over brain cancer. Nobody

lives

more than a couple of years with this.

All right. That with this treatment

we've been able to actually show that

some patients with their own immune

system woken up can actually keep them

alive

and cancer-free.

Brain cancer, like that is no-win

situation, impossible to possible. And

actually somebody who I've just

recruited as an ambassador to my

nonprofit organization, the Angiogenesis

Foundation, I strongly encourage people

who want to have a modicum of hope, who

wants to see what I'm talking about in

real life on social media, there's a

woman named Rebecca Devine. She's okay

with me giving her name. Her handle is

that brainy blonde. It's a it's a triple

entendre. She's blonde, she's very

smart, but she had a glioblastoma 7

years ago, and she is thriving, alive

with this immunotherapy. So between my

mother, Rebecca Devine, I'm just telling

you like I've had well I've known well

over a dozen people who

there's no way they'd be here today

if it wasn't for this scientific

advances that all shore up the body's

health of health defense systems,

specifically the immune system, but

that's a but the drugs alone aren't

enough. You really can take advantage at

home of your own diet lifestyle to be

able to tip those odds in your favor.

I've heard you say that immunotherapy is

more likely to be successful if you have

certain bacteria in your gut.

Yeah.

Is that

Okay. So, in 20

17

I helped to convene a cancer research

conference in Paris.

Uh and we called it Rethinking Cancer.

And we brought the world's best minds

out there. And one of the um researchers

uh

named Dr. Laurence Zitvogel, she's at

the in Paris, works in Paris at the

Institut Gustave Roussy. She is an

immuno-oncologist. So, she studies

immunotherapy for cancer.

And at the time, we had uh we we asked

her to present