Why would we be getting cancer younger

now than before? Yes.

Cancer

boy, is it scary. Like, it's the one

it's the it's the it's the disease that

you really want to try and prevent as

much as you can because once you have

it, it's particularly because it's

usually caught later, you don't know you

have it. It's one of those things where

they're just growing inside of you.

So,

this

cancer in at a at a younger age I have a

lot of

ideas why I think cancer is happening,

you know, earlier and in younger people

and I think they're pretty

evidence-based. I'm going to go I'm

going to go back to the obesity,

you know, answer because again, you

know, children are are obese,

adolescents are obese. We're talking

about,

you know, 40% of children or no,

an increase of 40% over, you know, back

in like the 1990s. So,

you're having

inflammation and you're having, you

know, oxidative stress and all these

things that are causing cancer happening

not in your 40s or 50s. Now, they're

happening when you're a child. Um

obesity is associated with 13 different

types of cancer.

And 40% of all new cancer diagnoses in

the United States each year are

attributed to obesity. It's like half.

Like, half of all of cancers right now

are attributed to being obese. That's a

lot. So, when you think about obesity,

um happening now in children, what's

happening is you're the inflammation and

the oxidative stress, what that means is

it's able to damage your DNA. And

for the most part, cancer is an

age-related disease. There are some

genetics that can lead to childhood

cancers. But by and large, cancer hits

at like 50, 60, 70, 80, right? Like,

it's an age it's an age-related disease.

That's most of the time when you're

getting cancer except for now, it's

happening in their 50s. Um

and that is because, you know, you get

damage and it happens, but it might not

be in the right part of a gene that can

cause cancer. So, it's kind of a

statistics game. You know, it can

happen. And then as it keeps happening

year after year after year after year

after day after day after day, right?

Eventually, it's going to happen in the

right part of the genome where a cancer

cell crops up. And even then, when it's

one cancer cell, not a big problem

because we have our first line of

defense, which is our immune system. Our

immune system recognizes this cell,

"Hey, this is not a normal cell." And it

kills it. The problem is is that obesity

what happens is not only does it

increase the things that damage and

initiate the cancer,

it it increases growth factors like

insulin, IGF-1, hormones, estrogen, you

know, this is very obviously relevant

for breast cancer.

Um these growth factors and hormones

allow cancer cells to survive even when

they otherwise maybe would die. And

obesity suppresses the immune system.

So, what you have going on here is like

the perfect storm for cancer. And it's

starting earlier in life, right? And

that eventually that perfect storm, one

of those tumor cells is going to slip

through, it's going to make it, it's

going to survive, and then it divides

and it makes two more, and those two

divide, and it's exponential growth, and

then you get, you know, over 5, 6 years,

you have you have, you know, a breast

tumor, you have a colon cancer tumor.

So, obesity I think is is a big big

driver of why younger people are getting

cancer now. The other thing is diet, and

it's also very diet and obesity are very

much intertwined, right? Because

you can eat a very poor diet, and it can

lead to obesity. So, diet,

ultra-processed foods, high refined

sugar, you know, added sugar foods,

these these types of foods are also

playing a role in colon cancer in

particular.

Um so,

you know, there are studies showing

things like if you're eating processed

meats, there's things in meats,

nitrites, that can form nitrosamines,

they damage colon cells, and you know,

they're carcinogenic, basically. If

you're, you know, eating all these

ultra-processed foods, which takes away

the fiber. So, the food matrix, if

you're eating a whole food, you know,

even if it's like cheese, like when you

think of fiber, you always think of like

vegetables, but like food matrix is in

whole foods. And

young people are not eating enough of

fruits and vegetables. They're not

eating enough whole grains like quinoa,

amaranth, buckwheat, you know, that

oats.

Um 95% of Americans don't meet like the

fiber intake, which is like it's like 14

g per 1,000 calories you take in.

Why is that important? Why is fiber

important? It's probably one of There's

pro- It's probably one of the one of

most well-studied macronutrients in

terms of preventing colon cancer.

There's so much evidence. Like you can't

ignore it. Um

fiber does a lot of things. One, it

moves stuff through you quicker. So,

when you have chemicals in your food

like nitrites or heterocyclic amines,

like those are found in meats that are

charred. So, if you charbroil your meat

and that blackened taste, you know, that

some people like, there's something in

that called heterocyclic amines, which

are carcinogenic.

When you eat that food, it sits in your

gut.

When it sits in your gut in the colon,

it damages it. It can cause that

mutation that can lead to cancer, right?

Fiber moves stuff through you quicker,

so it's not sitting around in your gut

and like being able to damage those

cells. It's getting it out. It's like in

and out, in and out, right? The other

thing is there's different types of

fiber. So, there's insoluble fiber,

which is moving it through you, and then

there's soluble fiber or what's now

called fermentable fiber. That type of

fiber is it's basically fuel for the gut

bacteria in your colon, the gut

microbiome. A lot of beneficial bacteria

will eat that soluble fiber, and they

form a viscous like coating around the

gut. It prevents those chemicals, it's

like a barrier, it's like a wall. It's

preventing the chemicals from being able

to physically damage your colon cells.

The other thing it does is it prevents

your colon from being able to absorb

microplastics and nanoplastics. Fiber is

one of the best defenses we have against

absorbing both microplastics and

nanoplastics. So, it's really um

important for helping us prevent a lot

of the damage that's being done by these

toxins, these chemicals, whether it's

plastics or, you know, some of these

things that are in our ultra-processed

foods from damaging our colon.

And so, I think that diet also is a

really important factor here. Alcohol is

another one is especially when it comes

to um breast cancer and also colon

cancer. But but breast cancer in

particular. So, a woman's lifetime risk

for breast cancer

on average is one in eight. So, if you

have eight women in a room, one of those

women is going to be diagnosed with

breast cancer within her lifetime. Mhm.

If you add obesity into the mix,

that's going to increase the chances to

like one in six. You add in alcohol,

you're going even up, right? So, all

these factors, they compound.

You know, and you're if you start out

with a one in eight chance, like by

golly, you better be doing everything

you can to lower your breast cancer

risk, not increase it. And so, obesity,

losing weight is the biggest thing, you

know, not consuming a lot of alcohol

also really, really important when it

comes to lowering your risk for breast

cancer. So, I think those are three

important, I would say,

diet, lifestyle

factors that are playing a role in

younger people getting cancer earlier

and earlier. You said

increasing fiber leads to you being more

resilient against uh

some of these different toxins going in

your body. Like, what are the main, I

guess, foods that people are not eating

to have proper fiber intake? And then,

how much fiber should they be getting?

Fiber,

again, there's multiple types of it. So,

if you're just wanting the kind of

insoluble fiber that moves stuff through

you quickly, which does also play a role

in preventing your body from absorbing

plastics, but also, you know, chemicals

from being able to damage your colon.

That's found in like every fruit and

vegetable

and whole grain, okay? I would say fruit

and vegetables are great. Whole grains

are like oats, really, really good.

The the the fermentable fiber is really

something unique to fruit skins of

berries, um mushrooms,

onions, artichokes, oats,

resistant starch like green bananas or

potatoes that are cooked and then

cooled. This is like you're getting this

fermentable type of fiber that is a very

different type of than just the move

stuff through you, make you poop kind of

fiber, right? This is the stuff that's

feeding the gut bacteria. And making

that gel, that viscous gel. And so you

want to you want to be eating berries,

you want to be eating mushrooms, you

want to be eating like artichoke or

onion, garlic. You want to be eating um

oats.

You want to quinoa, you know, like those

sorts of things have the fermentable

type of fiber. You know, the other thing

that that's doing

is when the gut bacteria are eating I

say eating, they're fermenting it,

right?

Not only is it making a viscous,

you know, barrier in your gut,

it these these bacteria are like little

chemical factories. They're like little

pharmaceutical factories inside your

gut. And they're making compounds called

short-chain fatty acids, things like

butyrate, things like acetate,

propionate. These things are getting

into your circulation

and they're acting as signaling

molecules to the rest of your body. It's

a way it's a way for the bacteria in

your gut. It's so interesting like these

bacteria in your gut can communicate

with other organs in your body,

including the immune cells. And so what

happens is when you're when the gut is

is fermenting these and making these

short-chain fatty acids, it's causing

your immune cells to make a very

specific type um of immune cells. First,

it's causing them to make T regulatory

cells. These are cells that are very

important for preventing autoimmune

disease, you know, preventing your your

body from attacking its own tissue.

And the other thing they're doing is

it's causing your immune system to make

cytotoxic T lymphocytes. These are

killing cancer cells. So, again, fiber

is at the is at the core for helping you

prevent colon cancer so through many

different ways. And another way is that

it's actually increasing the production

of a type of immune cell that kills

cancer cells. So,

you ask how much fiber to get. It's like

literally it's about you know, the men

and women differ based on their body

weight. It's also you can think about it

based on how many calories you consume.

So, you're supposed to get 14 g for

every 1,000 calories you consume. I

think on average like, you know, 25 to

30 g is a good place to be.

And

people are not getting that.