Kind: captions
Language: en
For every 5 to 6 g of if a patient with
melanoma is getting treated with
imunotherapy, it reduced mortality by
30%. When you actually have
imunotherapy, you can take people with
stage three and even stage 4 cancer.
That's like endstage game over no win
situation cancer. And you can with your
own immune system jacked up. You can
actually tackle that cancer and you can
turn stage 4 to stage zero. In an
experiment, if you allow to reach and
touch and start feeding tiny microscopic
cancer, you know what? It can grow
16,000 times its size in just 2 weeks.
So, what are the foods can help your gut
microbiome? Foods with
[Music]
[Applause]
Hi, Dr. Lee here. I'm cancer researcher.
I'm also an androgenesis researcher. It
means I study your circulation. And
today I'm going to actually talk about
how we treat colon cancer. Uh there's a
lot of different ways to do it. First,
you got to detect colon cancer. Ideally,
screen for it early with colonoscopy. I
did another video where I talked about
colonoscopy, but basically this is where
people at the age of 50 and now we begin
are thinking of even younger because
we're seeing colon cancer, cancer of the
lower bowel actually developing in
younger and younger people. But
basically a gastroenterenterologist will
take a look through a scope through your
colon and to see if they see any polyps
which can turn into cancers or cancers
themselves. Now earlier you find the
cancer the easier it is to treat.
Surgery can be curative uh colon cancer
if it's actually caught early. You can
just snip out the piece of the colon
that has the cancer in it. Now,
chemotherapy has always been the
mainstay, the backbone for treating all
cancers, including colon cancer. But
what's exciting is that there have been
an evolution of treating colon cancer.
And every patient needs to know about
this because most people who are told
that they have colon cancer and other
cancers basically just resign themselves
and are scared of just getting chemo.
Chemo. Okay. So I want to say to deal
with cancer we can use surgery right if
you remove the cancer it's out of your
body that is a really good definitive
way to actually deal with a cancer just
take it out we can use radiation
radiation is a pretty fast way to
control uh a growth of a tumor. So
sometimes you can combine radiation with
other forms of treatment like chemo.
Now, chemotherapy, most people recognize
chemotherapy and are afraid of
chemotherapy. But I'll tell you,
chemotherapy can actually work really
well. All right? Uh, basically, you're
giving these medications that are very
toxic to cancer cells. Um, and they kill
cancer cells, and you can team it, gang
it up with radiation. Cheo, radiation
actually can be a powerful one-two punch
against a cancer. Um the reason that
many people are afraid of chemotherapy
uh and and many people tolerate it for
quite a while is and and usually pretty
well in the beginning is because in
order to kill the cancer cell, these
drugs, chemo drugs also kill other
cells. Anything that's in their path,
the cancer cells will get it hardest,
but your regular cells will also get
knocked down as well. So you got to, you
know, kill more bad guys than good guys.
the good cells, the side effects of
chemo are kind of a collateral damage,
right? So, it's a bummer. Uh, nobody
wants that. But that's where um the
transformation, the evolution started
really in the 1990s and early 2000s.
There started to be a revolution in
understanding the targets, the cellular
and molecular pathways that cancers use
to grow. So we used to just think about
it as a lump and a bunch of abnormal
cells you can see under the microscope.
Now we know that there are specific
pathways that are at work in colon
cancer and other cancers as well. So
when we can find the smoking gun, the
genetic mutation, that's a smoking gun.
If there are now a growing number of
medications that actually go in like a
homing missile right after that
mutation, maybe it's a EGF mutation for
example. All right, you can go right
after that with an EGF inhibitor. So, um
maybe it's blood vessels that are
growing. All right, we can target those
blood vessels. It's called
anti-angioenic.
That's medicine that's designed to cut
off the blood supply. I was involved
with the uh very first uh anti-angioenic
cancer starvaring uh treatments that
were uh developed. The first one it was
in colorectal cancer and that uh was uh
shown in 200 uh3 and the FDA approved it
in 2004 and that was really a turning
point in the war against cancer because
suddenly we had a brand new way to
target cancers that not with chemo but
cutting off the blood supply as another
way to actually come at the cancer right
so surgery chemo radiation
anti-androenesis and targeted therapies
to cut off the blood supply to tumors.
Now, um there's some new developments
that I think are very very exciting. Uh
and that's imunotherapy, immune therapy.
So, what is imunotherapy? Well,
imunotherapy is a treatment that isn't a
it's not chemo. It's a treatment that
actually activates your own immune
system to go after the cancer, right? It
activates one of your body's own
defenses, which is your immune system.
Now, in my book, Eat to Beat Disease, I
write about your body's five health
defense systems. Andis, your stem cells,
your gut microbiome, which can lower
inflammation, has a way of fighting
cancer, your DNA protection, and your
immune system. And your immune system is
literally an army of super soldiers that
patrols your body at all times looking
for trouble. When I say looking for
trouble, they are like a cops on a beat
policeman cruising through the
neighborhood making sure there is no
trouble, but they're looking for
trouble. If they spot it, they'll write
to the site and they'll take out the
problem. And that problem in your body
could be a microscopic cancer. All
right? So, your immune system is
responsible for spotting and knocking
out little tiny microscopic cancers long
before they can grow a blood supply to
become a problem. Now, I can tell you
the blood supply issue is a really major
one. All right? Now, I came I was
trained in a lab that studied uh blood
vessels and uh and tumors. And it turns
out if you prevent blood vessels from
touching a tumor, which is what your
body tries to do, it can't grow. Okay?
It can get about to 2 to 3 millimeters
in diameter. That's about the size of
the tip of a ballpoint pen. Okay? Then
it can't get any bigger because it
doesn't have oxygen. There's no blood
vessels feeding it. it doesn't get
nutrients. All right? Uh you need you
need air and you need food in order to
grow. So the cancer sits there like a a
small microscopic head of a pin size
tumor and your body controls it that way
and naturally anti-androgenic. All
right. Now what happens? Your immune
system wings by spots that little tiny
abnormal cells takes it right out. All
right. That's actually how your body
controls it. So if there's a cancer
that's already grown, we can give
medications for colorectal cancer that
cut off the blood supply. One of them is
called bevisismab or also known as
avasten. You know it cuts off the blood
vessels feeding and it's approved for
colorectal cancer. Also works for brain
tumors, ovarian cancer, cervical
cancers, lung cancers, a number of other
cancers. It all actually has um a
benefit by cutting off the blood supply.
What we found in the lab is that when
you cut off the blood supply of tumor,
it can't grow. In the lab, there are
research studies that have shown that if
you if you prevent that blood vessel,
the tumor from ever getting a blood
supply, it can't grow. But in an
experiment, if you allow blood vessels
to reach and touch and start feeding
tiny microscopic cancer, you know what?
It can grow 16,000 times in size in just
2 weeks. So, angiogenesis out of
control. So think about blood vessels
gone wild. You've heard of girls gone
wild. This is blood vessels gone wild.
Feeding a cancer can cause explosive
cancer growth. That's why
anti-androgenic
uh treatments are a very important uh
foundation now for treating colorectal
cancer and other types of cancer as
well. Now I started talking about
imunotherapy and that actually uh is
also important because the other
knockout punch naturally in your body is
your immune system. So imunotherapy
jacks up your own immune system. All
right to and and when your immune system
is stronger it's like not just two cops
and a patrol car in a neighborhood. Now
you get the whole army the whole entire
police force is out. Now you've got a
really really strong army in order to be
looking uh out for and and capturing and
going after those bad guys which are
your cancer cells. So imunotherapy it is
literally a transformative revolution in
oncology in in the treatment of cancer
by getting your own immune system to
wipe out cancer. you're able to achieve
something that we only dreamed of
before, which is to take the most
natural process, your own immune system,
raise those shields of that defense in
order to be able to knock out the
cancer. And by the way, we've actually
been able to find that when you actually
have imunotherapy, your own immune
system working in the best possible way,
you can take people with stage three and
even stage four cancer, that's like
endstage, game over, no win situation
cancer. All right? And you can with your
own immune system jacked up, you can
actually tackle that cancer and you can
turn stage four to stage zero. It is not
happening for everybody yet. We have a
lot of work to do to figure out in
research how to make more people
respond, but we're beginning to discover
that if you actually um give people with
colon cancer who are going to respond to
imunotherapy, you can really have a
dramatic response. There's a number of
people out there on social media that
are talking about their stories on
imunotherapy. Uh one of the most
important ones are called checkpoint
inhibitors. Um you've probably heard uh
some of them uh talked about uh uh on
commercials like Katruda. Uh the actual
drug name is called Pembbrismab. But
these checkpoint inhibitors actually
they pull the cloak off of a cancer so
your immune system can spot the cancer
that's been trying to hide from your
immune system. and then your immune
system goes a after it. In order for
imunotherapy to work, these checkpoint
inhibitors, we know that one marker that
you look for is when you get the tumor
biopsy, you send it away. You're looking
for markers that would uh suggest that
you're going to benefit from
imunotherapy. So there's markers like
microatellite instability. The tumor is
very unstable. It's going to be more
susceptible to imunotherapy. Um there
are uh targets called PD1 and PDL1. Uh
those are um markers that um the
pathologist will look for after getting
the biopsy, the surgical specimen. Um
and these are things that you should ask
for if you're having if you're been
diagn with cancer, colon cancer, but
other cancers. You know, you should ask
have you should ask your doctor, has my
tumor been uh sent away to see if I can
be treated with imunotherapy. And for
the checkpoint inhibitors, you're
looking for MSI, microatellite
instability, high levels of that, MSIH.
Looking for markers that suggest a tumor
is cloaking itself, PD1, PDL1. All
right, those are some of the signals
that your cancer might be immunable to
imunotherapy. So imunotherapy, get an
infusion for these checkpoint
inhibitors, get every 3 weeks or so. um
you can get it alone, you can combine it
with chemo. Sometimes you can double up
the imunotherapy.
People are really trying to figure out
how to do this really, really well.
Again, we don't know how to make it
happen for everybody, which is really uh
one of the huge challenges in cancer
research today, but we're beginning to
have some clues. One clue is that you
need to have the a healthy gut
microbiome. Remember, uh, your gut
microbiome, these 39 trillion bacteria
that live in your gut, in your colon,
um, in the seeum, which is a pouch, uh,
in your colon, actually uh, do really
good things for us. They lower
inflammation, which is really, really
important. Help improve our metabolism.
Uh, the gut and brain are connected.
They even help us uh, be in a better
mood. But here's the thing. Uh there was
a research study that was done in 2017
looking at people that were getting
cancer patients who were getting
imunotherapy these checkpoint inhibitors
and what was found is that there were
people that responded meaning that they
did really well their immune system
jacked up and knocked out the cancer and
there were people who didn't do so well.
All right. Uh and they were
nonresponders. Okay. And nobody
understood why. And when the research
which was performed at the institute
Gustaf receiva my colleague Dr. Lauron
Zitfogle um looked at the differences
between responders and non-responders.
You know what she found? She found there
were bacteria that made the difference.
All right? It wasn't genetics, it wasn't
lifestyle. It was a bacteria. And one of
the bacteria that was discovered, I'm
sure you've heard me talk about this
before, is called acrimancia
mucinophilia. Acromancia mucinophila and
in that study which is published in the
journal of science the patients who had
acromancia tended to respond to
imunotherapy very important single
bacteria can make the difference between
responding and the people who didn't
have it tended not to respond man is
that an important finding like it was a
jaw-dropping finding because it we
started to realize just how powerful our
gut bacteria might actually be now in
2017 there weren't really any probiotics
you could
And so the way uh the research was
conducted was the researcher Dr. Zipogle
took the acromancia from patients who
responded and transplanted it in the lab
to animals who didn't have acromancia
and who weren't responding to
imunotherapy in the lab. And guess what?
When you transplanted the human
acromancy to the animal, boom, the
animal would begin to respond to
imunotherapy. That's a pretty good piece
of evidence, you know, uh that that this
bacteria becomes really important. Now,
how do you grow acromancia naturally?
It's naturally a healthy gut bacteria.
We know that you can give elagitanins.
You can eat foods with elagitanins like
pomegranate, like dried cranberry, like
conquered grape juice. Um and there are
other bioactives that we're beginning to
discover can also grow acromancia. Oats,
oatmeal can grow acromancia. whole grain
chili peppers, you know, the stuff you
put on a pizza, those dried chili
flakes, they have been found to
stimulate the growth of acromancia.
Chinese black vinegar, that's the kind
of vinegar they serve in soup dumplings,
that has been shown to grow acromancy as
well. We don't have all the answers of
of how to do everything for acromancia
and now you can take a probiotic as
well, but I can tell you that this is
the kind of research that is moving us
forward. First we have imunotherapy.
Then we look at the responders. Then we
find a bacteria. Now we're understanding
how to nurture the bacteria. Now we're
going to have a probiotic to help it. So
in the future, what I anticipate, what I
forecast is that we're actually going to
be combining probiotic therapy and
microbiome nurturing along with
imunotherapy. And this is really going
to be really a very very powerful uh uh
partnership. Your gut bacteria working
with your immune system. Oh, didn't I
tell you your gut microbiome and your
immune system are two of your five
health defenses? See, this is all about
helping the body unleash its own healing
and disease fighting capabilities,
right? And we're beginning to find this
now. So, what are the foods that
actually can help your gut microbiome?
foods with polyphenols, colorful foods,
whole plant-based foods, you know, when
you go to the produce section of the
grocery store, the farmers market, all
those colorfuls, bell peppers, berries,
all the different colorful greens that
are out there packed with polyphenols.
All right, those actually are really
favor help to grow growth of healthy
bacteria. But dietary fiber is
particularly important. In fact, one
study showed that for every 5 to six
grams of dietary fiber, which is the
amount you'd find in a medium-sized
pair, if a patient with melanoma is
getting treated with imunotherapy, a
reduced mortality by 30%. So, these are
very important little tips that can
actually make with food that can make
the drugs that are the cutting edge of
cancer therapy work even better. That's
not food versus medicine. That's food
and medicine. And I'm a big believer
that the right medicine for the right
person at the right time can be
life-saving and is absolutely important
for the medical community to use to help
patients. But what patients do for
themselves when they're not at the
doctor's office and at home looking in
the pantry or in at at the stovetop or
looking in the fridge, that can be
absolutely vital for helping your body's
health defenses get stronger so your own
body is uh able to amplify whatever it
is the drugs are uh designed to do. All
right, very very important thing. If
you're a cancer patient, you should ask
your doctor beyond surgery, beyond
chemotherapy, beyond radiation, what
else is out there for me? Can I get a
cancer starving anti-angioenic
treatment? Um, is there another targeted
treatment I should uh have? Has my tumor
been sent for analysis to see if I'm
eligible? Am I likely to respond to
imunotherapy? Can I get an immune
boosting treatment so my own body can
fight the cancer in a jacked up sort of
way? All right, you should ask about
that, right? Like anybody with cancer
should be asking, can I get
imunotherapy? Uh, and uh looking it up.
There are lots of clinical trials now as
well. So if you go to
clinicaltrials.gov,
that's a website and you type your
cancer your interest in imunotherapy,
you can do your own search to see what
kinds of clinical trials are actually
going on. All right. So, I'm not telling
you that there's a definitive answer.
I'm telling you we are at the point
where things look so promising that we
have to actually go after that direction
of hope that's real, which is
imunotherapy and foods that you eat. The
polyphenols, the dietary fiber, all
right, can amplify your gut bacteria,
gut microbiome, lowering inflammation.
So, this is exciting. This is important.
Uh cancer is a very scary topic but I
just wanted to share with you as
somebody who is a doctor who is a
researcher who's been involved with
cancer research and cancer drug
development I'm going to tell you this
is there's never a good time to actually
um have a cancer diagnosis but now
people who are facing cancer who are
being treated with cancers have real
hope and it's up to you to advocate for
yourself with your doctor to look for
those right treatments including IM
imunotherapy. All right. Now, not
everyone's eligible for it, but you
should definitely ask. All right? And
see if you can get it. And it's up to
you to know that the foods that you eat,
those anti-inflammatory foods, whole
plant-based foods, um, actually can ramp
up your immune defenses and your gut
microbiome to tip the odds in your
favor. Now, if you like this video,
please subscribe, hit the like button.
There's a lot more I can talk about this
uh topic. Let me know if you if you want
to hear more about cancer research.
There's so much to talk about. So again,
hit the like button, subscribe, and
check out my next video. Dr. Lee out.
Hey, if you like that video, then you're
going to love this one. Check it out.