Kind: captions
Language: en
stem cells in our body contribute to
building and repairing blood vessels.
People who have coronary artery disease,
the blood vessels in these people are
doing not that well. Then researchers
have given them two cups of
this is what's amazing has been found
not only got into the bloodstream but
they doubled the number of stem cells
circulating in your blood vessels and
they doubled the resiliency of your
blood vessels just over the course of a
month. You might be amazed to know that
one cup of a day has been shown to
actually reduce cognitive decline and
also reduce the depression that comes
with cognitive decline. We actually
discovered many natural substances in
our food that can stimulate stem cells
to help do their repair. The source of
stem cell activating substances are
[music]
>> [music]
>> we discovered early on is that stem
cells in our body contribute to building
and repairing blood vessels. So that was
sort of how I became interested in and
and quite familiar and and actually
worked on stem cell research in the lab.
um we we actually discovered many
chemical substances that can stimulate
stem cells to help do their repair. And
so when I began studying food as
medicine, one of the things that it was
remarkable to discover is that some of
the synthetic chemicals that you could
order from a a research shop could
actually stimulate stem cells. But then
it was really jaw-dropping to me. In
fact, one of the most um light bulb
going off moments that I had as a food
as medicine researcher to discover that
natural substances in our food can
similarly activate our stem cells and
call them into action. And without
necessarily putting out a distress call,
we can just gently coax our body's own
reserve into action to help repair
ourselves in a more robust way. So,
first of all, this is we're at the
beginning of, you know, a new era
looking at regenerative foods, foods
that can stimulate regeneration. So, I
don't have like the uh wrapped gift box
to give you of a laundry list of all the
foods known to man. We're still doing
research on this. But I'll tell you I'll
give you some examples because um and
when I talk by the way uh Rangan I I
really refer uh uh to both laboratory
but also to human evidence which I think
is really important. you know, something
we see in the lab is interesting and
they can actually raise an idea, but at
the end of the at the end of the day,
it's whether or not it works in people
that makes all the difference in the
world. So, I'm going to kind of flip
back and forth a little bit, but always
emphasize what we know in people. So,
first of all, um you might uh not be
surprised that the source of stem cell
activating uh substances are plant-based
foods. mother nature's sort of uh uh uh
medicine cabinet are fruits and
vegetables, nuts and legumes, and
healthy oils and seeds, you know, omega
sources of omega-3s. Um so uh
researchers have been actually mining
the same uh uh pharmacopia
uh farm with an F, not a ph. Um [snorts]
looking at what substances are in nature
that can stimulate stem cells. So I give
you an example. We know that there's a a
natural bioactive, a natural chemical
found in plants called ursolic acid.
Okay, that's uric or solic acid. It's
found in fruit peel, right? The peel of
an apple, the peel of a pear, uh the
peel of cranberries, a peer of a peel of
blueberries, right? These are fruit
peels. And most likely if you have eaten
an apple, you're not I mean unless you
were a kid and and your grandmother
peeled the apple for you, you just take
an apple and clean it and then just eat
the whole thing, right? The peel's got
good source of dietary fiber and erolic
acid. Orlicic acid has been shown to
stimulate stem cells to come out of the
bone marrow and help to stimulate
regeneration and to repair blood vessels
for example. Quite amazing. All right,
that's an example. Um there's another
substance that have been discovered
called beta dlucan. Now this is a
soluble fiber which we know is good for
gut health. Um and it does a lot of
other interesting things too that are
beneficial for the body. But betalucan
has been discovered to stimulate stem
cells. Now where do you get betalucan?
You can find them in uh mushrooms. Both
the cap and the stipe the stem of the
mushroom has betalucan. In fact, the the
the stem of the mushroom has twice as
much betal glucan as the cap of the
mushroom. So, I always tell people if
you're actually preparing food um and
you know you're you're preparing you're
cooking mushrooms, please don't throw
the stems away because they have a lot
of goodness to them. Um you can utilize
them. It's sustainable cooking. Keep all
the food parts and use them and they're
good for you. Um oats also has
betadlucan. you know, if you're actually
having um steel cut oats for breakfast,
for example, uh is another source of
beta glucan. And barley, now barley has
actually been studied uh with beta
glucan to look at stimulating the stem
cells that can regenerate your
circulation that can help to repair and
grow new blood vessels where they're
needed. And this is exactly in my
wheelhouse to study circulation. So we
took this even further to look at the
role of other foods that can stimulate
stem cells and one of them is dark
chocolate.
Dark chocolate has a very particular
benefit because first of all chocolate
is a confection. It's a candy. It's
made, you know, uh it's crafted to be
sweet and delicious, and most people
like dark chocolate, but it is contains
a plant-based uh food ingredient, and
that's cacao. Cacao comes from a
tropical tree where the seed pod of the
cacao is is shaped like an American
football. It can be bright yellow, it
could be brown. If you pick one up, it's
kind of heavy. You shake it and you can
feel the heavy chestnut-like seeds
shaking around. And that that those
seeds are the ones that are um uh dried,
fermented, ground into a powder and used
uh by percent to actually make
chocolate. So if you have a 50% uh cacao
chocolate, it's got half of the cacao.
If you've got 80%, it's got a lot more,
90%, etc. Well, what research has been
done shown that 80% or higher cacao puts
enough of a natural plant-based
bioactive called pro-anthocyanadin
into your bloodstream. So, this has been
measured and in in the clinic if you
actually give people who have let's say
coronary artery disease, so they've got
narrowing of their blood vessels and
stiff hard blood vessels. All right? So
these are these are not these are not
people at their optimal state of health.
If you um measure their stem cells and
then then see how many stem cells are
floating around their blood which is not
many and then you were to actually um do
a simple test called flow mediated
dilation FMD um to check how resilient
their blood vessels are. Basically it's
a blood pressure cuff. blow it up and
you put an ultrasound uh in your uh uh
in the crook of your arm and then you
let the blood pressure uh cuff deflate
quickly. You see what happens to your
how well your uh circulation your blood
vessels recover from compression from
the cuff. That's a reflection of
vascular blood vessel circulatory
health. If you do that at baseline to
see um how well uh the blood vessels in
these people are doing not that well
then researchers have given them two
cups of dark chocolate in the form of
hot hot chocolate that's it two cups to
have a day for 30 days and at the end of
30 days you measure take out your blood
and measure the stem cells again and
then do that flow media dilation
resiliency test again of the blood
vessels to see Have they changed? This
is what's amazing has been found that
dark chocolate, the ananthocccyanidins,
not only got into the bloodstream, but
they doubled the number of stem cells
circulating in your blood vessels and
they doubled the resiliency improved
by by twofold the resiliency of your
blood vessels just over the course of a
month with as little as two cups of hot
chocolate that's dark. So, olive oil uh
is a healthy fat as they say. It's a
plant-based food comes from plants, the
olives uh and it uh contains bioactives,
many bioactives. Some of them have been
identified. The ones that actually uh
have been best studied, one of them is
called hydroxyol. The other one's called
oolioanthol. And you know for people who
are listening you know if you're a
science geek you can write all this
stuff down but just know that there are
these natural substances that have
powerful effects on our body. And for
example hydroxyarzol
and as a molecule uh but olive oil as a
food substance. All right um has been
shown to be protective of our stem
cells. Meaning when you uh consume olive
oil and you get these polyphenols, the
hydroxy olioanthol in our bloodstream
circulating around. Look, there's a lot
of stuff in our bloodstream
that's going on, a lot of exposures that
we have. And when you've got hydroxyol
from olive oil in the bloodstream along
with your stem cells, they sort of act
as police escorts to help your stem
cells get to where they go in a safer
way. uh they they're they're they're
escorted to where they're needed.
They're protected. And so why do they
need to be protected? Well, you think
about it, there's a lot of oxidative
stress that can be in our bodies, you
know. Um oxidative stress can come from
fumes that you breathe, from vaping,
from off gasing, from carpets, from art
artificial uh flavorings and
preservatives that you have in your
food, from cleaning materials that
you're actually having. All these
chemical exposures cause oxidative
stress in our blood which can damage
your stem cells. Hydroxyol
again is one of those natural molecules
that have been shown to protect your
stem cells against oxidative stress. So
literally it's like a police escort that
helps your stem cells um get to where it
needs to go uh in sort of a safe and
efficient manner. 60,000 miles worth of
blood vessels are packed into our adult
bodies. That is so extensive that if we
were to pull out all the blood vessels
and line them up end to end in your
body, you'd actually form a line, a
thread that would wrap around the earth
twice. All right? And these literally
are the highways and byways of
everything oxygen we breathe, the
nutrients that we eat. They deliver to
every single organ in your body. Really,
really critical. And in fact, no matter
what you else you think about uh in
terms of your health, if your blood
vessels are healthy, you are at a really
great starting point to optimize the
rest of your health. But if your blood
vessels are unhealthy, you're going to
be far behind. In fact, it'll be
impossible to optimize your health in
any other part of your body. And this is
true when you're a child. This is true
when you're a young adult. This is
especially true as we get older, like 40
and above. we need to start paying super
attention to how well our blood vessels
are functioning. Now, the good news and
what people don't get right sometimes is
that we think about our blood vessels as
passive and like plumbing and then they
get clogged. they get narrowed with
lipids or plaque or atherosclerosis,
you know, and this is what ultimately
leads to a heart attack or a stroke or
for, you know, leg dysfunctions when
you've got clogged arteries in your
legs. My arteries are hard. You hear
this all the time. Well, our blood
vessels are anything but static. It's
not just piping under your sink that if
you keep pouring grease down the sink,
it's going to clog up uh your your your
sink and then you got to call the
plumber and to to open it up with a
wire. Nope. It's not like that at all.
Our blood vessels are incredibly
dynamic. And that what that means is our
body manages to maintain our blood
vessels to try to keep them optimized
all the time. Now, something that keeps
our blood vessels healthy and dynamic is
the inner lining of the blood vessels.
Our blood vessels have a sleeve in it.
It's like a layer of um plastic wrap
that is extraordinarily slippery. We
call it the endothelial layer. Um, if
you think about like a a garden hose and
you were to cut the garden hose in half
and look down the middle of the hose,
you're looking down into the hole and
and if you were to actually take plastic
wrap, the kind you would have in your
kitchen, and coat the inside of the
garden hose with a with a plastic wrap
so that when water is running through,
>> that the water is slip slipping through,
sliding through the plastic wrap. Now,
imagine in your blood vessels that same
kind of wrap made out of living tissue
called called vascular cells, blood
vessel cells. It's extraordinarily
slippery.
So, so slippery that I give the analogy
of like an ice skating rink. If you've
ever been a kid, gone ice skating, I
don't know, most many adults don't ice
skate anymore, but if you're a kid, you
might have had that experience. You know
that when you get out in that ice on the
ice and on the skating rink, it's really
really slippery. It's hard to actually
keep your balance. All right? Um and
that's what the blood vessels need to be
so that all the blood cells that are are
winging through our body, they don't
stick to the walls at all. They just
keep on going, keep on going. You know,
like there's like traffic direction. Um
this is this way to your liver, this way
to your eyes, this way to your brain.
Okay. Now, you also know that um uh if
you're and and by the way, if you've
ever been ice skating, you know that
after the ice is cleaned, there's a
machine that will polish the ice between
sessions and ice skating, right? It's
called a Zamboni. Uh a machine. They
drive over it. It heats the ice. There's
a little uh brush underneath it that
kind of polishes the ice. When the ice
is new and newly polished, you could
take a sweater cuz it's a little cold in
the ice skating rink and you can throw
it on the ice and the thing will glide.
Your sweater will glide. It's so slippy
all the way across the rink to the other
end. Now, after you have a hundred
people skating on the ice for a session
or after a hockey game, you know, where
where people the players are really
scuffing up the ice big time. All right.
when you come off the ice, if you were
to throw that sweater on it again, it
won't slide. It'll just stick right to
the ice. It'll just stay right there. So
the so you we just like the ice skating
rink, you want your blood vessels to be
really really polished and smooth
flowing. And if you don't treat your
blood vessels properly, and there's lots
of things that can damage our blood
vessels, high amounts of salt, high
amounts of sugar, high amounts of of
unhealthy saturated fats scrape up the
lining of our blood vessels. That's like
uh you know, that's the difference
between being able to have the sweater
glide all the way to the end of the rink
versus having the sweater stick to the
ice.
>> Now, when you have blood cells sticking
to the ice, that's not good. when when
when that ice is your inside your
circulation because that stickiness can
actually start to build up layers and
layers and layers and that's really how
blood vessels get narrow. So, one of the
things your body tries to do is to use
those stem cells we talked about earlier
and to try to repair those areas of the
ice where the like a piece might have
come off and smooth it out again so we
can actually restore that healthy layer.
It's very quite it's very um amazingly
dynamic. And when we need more blood
vessels, our body can naturally grow
them uh where they need to be grown and
then stop it when there's adequate blood
vessels. And if there's too many blood
vessels growing, our our our body can
also trim the extra blood vessels so we
don't have too many. It's like a
landscaper that's looking at a golf
course and and keeping maintaining a
perfect golf course. Hey, there's a
couple of patches that need some more uh
uh grass. They'll let you put the seed
in there and grow it right up so it
looks perfect. And if there's and if the
grass grows too high,
>> it'll just mow the lawn so you wind up
having just the right amount at all
times. Not too few, not too many, just
the perfect amount. That's how um our
blood vessels are maintained. That
process is called angioenesis. That's
how blood vessels grow and stay healthy.
my current research, the area that I am
working on, you know, my books are all
about the work, the research I'm doing.
I'm I'm not like I'm not reaching for
topics to cover. I'm I'm writing about
what I'm re researching. And right now,
I'm researching about aging, healthy
aging, including longevity. And I'm I'm
researching brain health and all the
things connected to brain health. And
one of the reasons that, you know, to
answer to somebody who's asking the
questions that you just stated, I would
say, listen, if you are doing pretty
well now, keep it up. All right. But
what the exciting research is showing is
that if you push a little bit harder and
try to buff up some of those areas, even
a by a little bit, you could actually be
doing yourself a service to improve your
brain health as you get older in
remarkable ways. Like for example,
here's one. Um h you know, I'm eating
plenty of fruits and vegetables. I'm
fine. Well, you know what? Uh you might
be amazed to know that um strawberries,
even a cup, one cup of ripe strawberries
a day, all right, has been shown to
actually reduce uh cognitive decline
uh [snorts] in in human clinical studies
and also reduce the uh depression that
comes with cognitive decline. What's in
a strawberry? We got elagic acid and
anthocyanins. These are natural
molecules that we're discovering. And so
we're discovering the benefits to brain
health of ripe strawberries. So, you
know, maybe you're eating healthy, but
maybe the next time you go uh by a
market and you just are walking by those
strawberries, you might want to take a
double take and go back and say, you
know, I'm going to try some of those
now. And so these little tiny extra
tweaks, if you're somebody who's already
healthy, think about what you're doing.
If if you feeling pretty good now,
great.
Now it's time to actually level up to
actually see if you can do something to
make yourself even better in the future.
And so I think thinking about our uh
what we do now having an impact in the
future, it's kind of like saying rather
than uh put all my money under my
mattress, which is sort of a depression
era thing, why don't we invest our money
in some good things? I mean, you're
going to have the money anyway, but
where are you going to put it under your
mattress? you're going to invest it in
something that's going to grow. And I
think that making healthy food choices
are a way of growing our health. And
this is where my research is now. By
growing your health, you know, you're
you're you're really investing and
you're becoming wealthier uh inside out
um uh in terms of brain health, which is
a huge dividend for you. Uh I mean,
think about it. the thing that all this
discussion about longevity and
mitochondria and glucose spiking and you
know and and and trying to get your
certuins and you know like all the
millions of things that people are
talking about now
I have one thing to say to that who
wants to live longer
if you're not able to have good brain
health you can live to 150 200 go for it
but if your brain isn't working it's not
worth living for and so that's why I
think that in this accompanying this
quest to live long. We want to live well
and the choices that you're making now,
the research is finding remarkably that
we can actually improve our future us as
well in ways that are profoundly
important. Our vision, our brain, you
know, our muscle strength, uh our
ability to enjoy life. Um you know, you
talked you mentioned the word passion.
We want to actually really enjoy
>> every year that we get.
>> Yeah.
>> And I think that the good choices, those
little tiny little tweaks we make, they
can have a big they can make a big
difference. Great topic of discussion.
I'm very passionate about this idea of
not overeing, not over consuming. Okay.
because you were we you know we're here
we're talking about uh how we have
gotten further and further away from
traditions and rituals and and
mindfulness. uh look uh over consumption
is a relatively
recent phenomenon. I say within the last
70 80 years within a last h 100red years
for sure um uh of modern society you
know because if you go further back than
that most people were most people were
still scrabbling around to actually get
enough food. They were hungry most of
the time. All right. It's only really in
our modern day and age and you know sort
of post World War II where uh relative
prosperity especially in modern
countries, developed countries actually
allowed us to essentially um over
consume uh food on a regular basis. And
so I want to talk about metabolism for a
moment because this is actually where
this squares away with healthy eating
and and overeating. Okay. So
uh I I want people to think about uh uh
metabolism
which has to do with weight gain which
has to do with obesity which has to do
with uh diabetes and metabolic diseases
and and other chronic diseases ranging
from cardiovascular disease to cancer to
dementia. So it's all connected
together. Um uh uh our metabolic health
is maintained by our body like a
machine. And in fact, it's like the
operating our our metabolism like the
operating system on your computer, like
on your laptop. And you know, there's
all these myths about metabolism. And
one of the myths is that our metabolism
is just the roll of the dice. We get it
from our parents. We we're we're born
with whatever metabolism we're we're
we're born with. And that's actually not
correct. Um you know, people how many
people have heard, "Oh, my sister was so
lucky. She was born with a fast
metabolism. She's skinny as a stick and
she can eat anything. Um me, I've
actually was born with a slow
metabolism. I've had to fight with food
my whole life and I've had trouble with
my weight. That's not me, but I'm I'm
saying what what people have what I hear
people saying and it's just the luck of
the draw. So therefore, they give up and
they say, you know, this is my fate.
Wasn't my fault. I was born I I I drew
the short end of the stick. No, it's not
true. What you know if if we are born
and our kidneys work the same and our
eyesight works the same and our nerves
work the same, what makes you think that
metabolism in the human body is a
crapshoot and just a and it's it's it's
it's rammshackle and just a game of
chance um who gets a fast or slow
metabolism. No, our metabolism is an
operating system the same as in your
laptop. And uh Rangan, if you went to
buy the same model of laptop I have, we
bought them from the same store at the
same time,
>> you and where you live and me where I
live and we plug it in, charge it up,
and then hit the button at the same
time, boot it up. The operating system
of your laptop where you live and where
I live, it's going to be exactly the
same out of the box. So the human
metabolism is hardwired in our body to
operate exactly in the same way. And I'm
telling you this because it's very
important to think about the
consequences
>> of abusing our metabolism
>> over a period of time.
>> All right? And when you abuse your
metabolism, uh you can actually slow it
down. You can actually cause problems
with your metabolism. You can derail
your metabolism and over consumption of
calories is one of the things that you
can do to to abuse your metabolism. Hey,
if you like that video, then you're
going to love this one. Check it out.