Kind: captions
Language: en
When I went to medical school, it was
unusual to have somebody who was
50-year-old being diagnosed with colon
cancer. And now we're actually seeing
people in their 30s and even their 20s.
And even some teenagers have been
reported being diagnosed with colon
cancer. So, what is going on? Who are
the people at highest risk? Is it a
toxin we're exposed to? Is it water? Is
it microplastics? Is it something in our
food? Is it something we're eating? Is
it something we're not eating? Vaping is
actually in some ways a lot nastier in
terms of the chemicals that are involved
than cigarettes and tobacco. And by the
way, being also lower the risk of
developing certain forms of cancer,
including colorectile cancer as well.
[Music]
[Applause]
Today I'm going to talk about colon
cancer. It's uh something that everyone
should know a little bit about because
of how important and how common it is.
First of all, what is colon cancer? It's
a cancer of your bowel. That's the lower
part of your intestines. And it's one of
the most common cancers affecting both
men and women. And it's starting to be
diagnosed in younger and younger people.
When I went to medical school, it was
unusual to have somebody who was
50-year-old getting colon cancer, being
diagnosed with colon cancer, and now
we're actually seeing people in their
30s and even in their 20s. And even uh
some teenagers have been reported being
diagnosed with colon cancer. So what is
going on? I think to understand what's
going on, we need to review this
condition and think about the things
that we can do to lower our risk. What
are the things that if we have it um we
can actually use to treat and of course
how do we actually stay as healthy as
possible to avoid any kind of cancer in
terms of in including colon cancer. So
watch this video to the very end and I'm
going to give you some practical tips.
All right. So first of all, as I said,
colon cancer is one of the most common
cancers of the bowel. uh that's your
gut. So when you hear about gut health,
colon cancer is one of the cancers that
that makes your gut unhealthy. So what
is the gut? Starts with your mouth, goes
to the back of your throat, down your
esophagus into your stomach, right? So
then when you're eating, that's part of
our bowel, the upper part of our bowel.
Then it goes into our small intestines
and then it finally goes to our large
intestines. As our large intestines
actually starts to go up on one side of
our body, the upper right right side of
our body and then it makes a cut across
like a beam and then it descends uh on
the left hand side. That's the ascending
colon, the transverse colon going across
and then the descending colon and then
it goes to a little pouch called the
rectum and then is the anus. That's the
poop shoot, right? So basically when you
eat food that's how it goes down
literally. Now the colon is that part
that goes up on the right across the
roof and then comes right back down.
Okay? Uh is basically like an upside
down uh U. That is an area that is very
sensitive. Uh the toxins that we can
actually eat and is exposed to pretty
much everything that we do eat which is
why we really want to be careful uh
about uh our diet and make sure that we
are eating more healthy foods uh and
staying away from unhealthy foods. Now,
why does this matter? Well, the other
thing I need to tell you about the colon
is that it is the place where your gut
microbiome, a lot of it actually lives.
In fact, the first part of your colon is
called the seeum. It's a little pouch
from the small intestines connected to
the large intestines. The seeum is where
your appendix actually is and that's
where a lot of your gut bacteria, the 39
trillion bacteria we call the
microbiome, actually lives. Now, this is
a little hive of healthy bacteria that
do all kinds of good things to us when
we actually feed them beneficial foods.
And they love polyphenols, which we know
come from healthy plant-based foods, and
they love dietary fiber. I'm going to
come back to that because dietary fiber
is really important when it comes to
colon cancer and response to treatment.
But in general, when you eat
polyphenols, colorful foods, fruits and
vegetables, whole plant-based foods, um
you're feeding the gut microbiome. All
right, all these healthy bacteria, they
are thriving. When you give them dietary
fiber, which also comes from plant-based
foods, now you're really giving them the
nourishment, the sustenance they need.
Now, how do these gut bacteria pay us
back? Well, they actually release uh
they metabolize the food that we give
them, and they release these metabolites
called shortchain fatty acids or
scaffas. And you may have heard about
these. I've talked about them before,
but many people who talk about gut
health um discuss short- chain fatty
acids. Those short- chain fatty acids
get into our blood. And you know what
they do? They lower inflammation. Now,
why is that important? Is because
inflammation is one of the triggers of
actually cancer growth. Cancers are
forming in our body all the time. All
right? Uh but most of the time they
never become harmful. And in the colon,
for example, your uh the environment of
that colon makes a huge difference as to
whether the cancer is going to grow or
not. Imagine a tube. That's your colon.
All right? And you've got cells in the
middle. All right? These are the
epithelial cells of the colon. They're
normal. Okay? Uh you're born with normal
cells and they stay normal. Now, they're
pretty they're made of tough stuff
because think about it. Your colon is
getting all the stuff that you eat. All
right? has been exposed to everything.
Uh, and it's got to be able to replenish
itself. In fact, the lining of the colon
gets sloughed off. The bacteria are
growing there, healthy bacteria. That
is, um, and if you expose that area to a
lot of toxins, not only can you injure
or impair or get rid of your healthy
bacteria, then your inflammation goes
up. But if you damage that lining or you
mutate that lining, the DNA, guess what?
That is the setup for abnormal cells to
grow. So those abnormal cells um in the
colon uh actually are called displastic
cells uh which then can start to form
colon polyps and if you have colon
polyps that can also eventually turn
into colon cancer. All right so a polip
is sort of abnormal type of cell cancers
you take it to the next level of
abnormality and now it's a full-blown
cancer and it just keeps on growing.
More inflammation in that area the
cancer is going to grow even faster. Now
many of you will know somebody who has
had cancer and it may be colurectal
cancer uh and so there are many many
people who uh have been affected by uh
colon cancer. Who are the people at
highest risk? Well there are some
genetic factors for colon cancer. There
is a condition called FAP that's
familial adinobinous polyposis coli.
These are people who are colon polip
formers. They can form hundreds of
polyps in their colon over the course of
their life. And for those people, the
the more polyps you form, the more
likely one of those polyps is going to
contain a cancer. And so when you've got
hundreds of polyps forming, it's really
um you're fighting a way uphill battle
to try to um deal with that. Um
ulcerative colitis, which is an
inflammatory bowel disease, also puts
people at very high risk for colurectal
cancer. What is ulcer of colitis? Well,
it is an autoimmune condition where
actually you're um uh having lots and
lots of fissures and uh ulcers uh eating
away at the lining of the colon. It's
that repeated injury and inflammation.
Remember, we're talking about
inflammation that is a setup for cells
to become go from normal to abnormal or
displastic. They can form polyps or in
the case of ulcerative colitis, they can
just skip that polyp step and they'll go
straight into um developing an abnormal
cancer. It's kind of like a wound that's
not healing but you keep on wounding it
and those cells at in the area that
keeps on getting injured add some
inflammation to it you wind up actually
having a big setup for colorectile
cancer. So that is another condition
that puts you at high risk for cancer.
Now there are other uh uh conditions
like Lynch syndrome which is also a
genetically it's an inherited syndrome
where you can also be at very very high
risk for uh developing uh colurectal
cancer as well. But what you need to
know is that like all cancers, majority
of cancers are really due to diet and
lifestyle. Only the minority are are due
to genetics. All right? So diet and
lifestyle is what we think is the reason
why people are being diagnosed earlier
and earlier with colon cancer. All
right? That's a real surprise and a real
concern as well. It's unlikely to be a
big gene mutation that's actually
occurring. And so we're beginning to ask
the question, is it something in our
environment? Is it a toxin we're exposed
to? Is it water? Is it microplastics? Is
it something in our food? Is it
something we're eating? Is it something
we're not eating that we should be
eating that sets us up for this? Why do
we think it might be something that
we're eating? Well, if you take a look
at some of the dietary risk factors for
colon cancer, you have things like
alcohol which put you at higher risk for
uh colon cancer, but also uh eating
processed meats. Uh processed meats are
considered a carcinogen. And you know
that um anybody who is a health seeker
will hear from experts that you should
cut down or cut out processed meats, hot
dogs, bologn, salami, all those deli
meats. All right. um they they've
actually been classified as a carcinogen
by the World Health Organization,
meaning that they are linked, they are
associated, high intake is associated
with the development of many cancers,
but especially colon cancer. Think about
it. You're eating uh processed meats.
They're going down. They're parking
themselves in your colon before they get
pooped out. What's left gets pooped out.
We think that the chemicals in there,
nitrosamines, the TMAOs, all those types
of things that can be formed by
processed meats actually are setting up
for that inflammatory um environment.
Okay, lifestyle, diet can be important,
but let's talk a little bit about
lifestyle. Smoking increases the risk of
colorectile cancer. All right, so we
used to talk about cigarette smoke, but
now we're also thinking about vaping.
All right, vaping is actually in some
ways a lot nastier in terms of the
chemicals that are involved in the
vaping liquid than cigarettes and
tobacco. So if you smoke, don't smoke.
All right, that's actually something
that's good for your lungs, but also
good for your lowering your risk of
other cancers by cutting out and not
smoking anything. Alcohol is is is
another one. Sedentary lifestyle is
another lifestyle risk factor. If you're
sitting around all day, you're not
exercising, you're not moving. All
right. Um, pretty much uh your gut
microbiome isn't going to be as healthy.
Your levels of inflammation might go up.
Uh, your metabolism is going to be uh
out of whack. Your hormones are going to
be out of whack. All the things that
happen when we don't exercise. Move
regularly. All right. Uh, even taking a
walk can actually make a difference in
terms of helping your overall health,
including your immune system. And that
brings me to something that's really
important because what does smoking do?
What does alcohol do? What does a
sedentary lifestyle do? Well, it
actually not only causes more
inflammation in your body, which is a
setup for all kinds of cancers,
including colorectal cancer, but they
alcohol, smoking, sedentary lifestyle,
and eating ultrarocessed foods with
additives, preservatives, they actually
suppress your immune system. Okay? And
so if you don't have a good immune
system, you your body is compromised in
one of its most important health defense
systems against cancer. Now, I wrote
about this in my book, Eat to Beat
Disease. All right? You might have seen
this if you haven't. This is a book
that's not about disease. It's about
health, but there's a lot in here about
what you can do to lower your risk of
cancer, including colorectal cancer. So,
let me tell you, your body has these
health defense systems. Your immune
system is one of them. I'm going to come
back to that in a second. But what are
the health defense systems of the body
that protect you against developing
colon cancer? Well, there's five of
them. All right, you've got
androgenesis. That's a um your body's
circulation. And it normally feeds
healthy organs and healthy cells. And it
does not allow your body, your blood
vessels to feed unhealthy cells,
including cancer cells. Right? So your
body naturally has this control
mechanism. Feed the good ones, starve
the bad ones. All right. Second, stem
cells. Your body can renew itself. So
when you've had abnormal cells and
you're able to get rid of some of those
abnormal cells, your body will replenish
it with fresh, healthier cells. That's
your stem cell system. Third, your gut
microbiome. Now, we already talked
started talking about the gut
microbiome. Healthy bacteria lowers
inflammation, improves your metabolism,
actually puts you in a better mood, the
gut brain axis, uh, as well. And a good
healthy gut bacteria lowers the risk of
many different types of diseases
including cancer. We think that abnormal
gut flora, gut bacteria, unhealthy
neighborhood. We call it dispiosis, may
wind up being one of the contributors,
one of the factors in cancer that's been
hidden in plain sight all these years.
So now there's a lot of research looking
at that. That's your health defense
system, your gut microbiome. Fourth,
your DNA. Now, your DNA is your genetic
code, but actually, not only does it
tell your body how to make proteins, but
in fact, your DNA is hardwired to
protect itself against harms from the
environment. Ultraviolet radiation,
radon coming from the ground, um
offging, solvents that you might be
breathing, gasoline fumes,
microplastics. Listen, all these things
can mutate your DNA, which is really the
setup for cancer. But thank goodness
that health defense system can fix DNA,
can neutralize incoming stressors that
could damage your DNA, and it can also
slow down the rate of cellular aging as
well. So your DNA is a really powerful
health defense system. And then uh
finally, we're getting to the immune
system. So, androgenesis, circulation,
stem cells to replenish abnormal cells
after they're gotten rid of, your gut
microbiome, your DNA to protect itself
against uh toxins and in the
environment, and finally, your immune
system. Now, your immune system is very
important when it comes to cancer
because your immune system actually is
responsible for a little bit of useful
inflammation. When you injure yourself,
you need a little inflammation to rush
to the site of injury, clean up all the
bacteria, make sure everything is uh in
good shape and then inflammation goes up
and then your body turns it down. Your
immune system turns it down, turns it
off, frankly. All right? And now you're
back to normal. Uh healing can actually
complete itself. But when there's
abnormal chronic inflammation, now
you've got this firestorm that's
actually going on. And in fact,
inflammation is like pouring gasoline
onto the embers of a fire. If cancer's
around, um, inflammation will just make
it go whoosh and grow even faster. Your
immune system normally turns down
inflammation. It can control it. And the
other thing your immune system does is
it acts like an army of super soldiers
that go out and patrol your body with
different types of immune cells. And
these immune cells are on the lookout
trying to spot abnormal cells. So, think
about it like cops on a beat. Policemen
in a quiet suburban neighborhood just
patrolling the streets looking for bad
guys, right? There normally no bad guys
there, but whenever they see one,
they're on the lookout. What do they do?
They stop the bad guy, question him. Um,
if anything suspicious, they throw them
in the back of the patty wagon and take
them away. And that's what your immune
system does. It patrols your body for
cancer cells. When it sees one, it wipes
it out. So that's why despite the fact
that our bodies are forming cancers all
the time. All right? Because our our
cells we've got 40 trillion cells uh
dividing every mistake that a cell makes
in dividing can be a microscopic cancer.
How many of these mistakes are made
every 24 hours? About 10,000 mistakes in
our DNA are made every 24 hours. All
right. So why don't we get clinical
cancer more often? is because our immune
system looks at those abnormal mistakes
in our DNA, spots an abnormal cell and
neutralizes it, takes it out of the
equation. And so that's why even though
we would form microscopic cancers
commonly, we don't actually get sick. We
don't develop cancers uh as often as we
do. So these are five health defense
systems. Androgenesis, stem cells,
microbiome, DNA, and immunity. I write
about this in my book, Eat to Beat
Disease. And what I tell you in in my
book is that there are lots of foods
that activate all of these defenses all
five of them shields up and they protect
us against many diseases including
cancer including colorectile cancer
that's why I always say you can eat to
beat disease you can eat to beat cancer
and there's an overwhelming amount of
data that shows that uh when you eat bad
foods harmful foods ultrarocessed foods
that actually put you at risk for
developing and chronic diseases like
cancer. When you eat healthy foods, um,
think Mediterranean diet, Asian diet,
traditional Meditaran, traditional uh,
Asian diet. Okay. What winds up
happening is you're eating a lot of
whole plant-based foods packed with
polyphenols. They activate your health
defenses. Uh, they've got dietary fiber
that activates your gut microbiome, feed
your gut microbiome. Inflammation gets
lowered. All right. Um, now you've
actually raised the shields, lowered the
inflammation that would actually cause
cancer, spark cancers to grow even
faster. You've tipped the balance in
your own favor. This gave you a ton of
information about cancer in general, but
I want to tell you a little bit more
about colon cancer, and that is we can
screen for colon cancer in people who
are at high risk or people who are 50
years and older. And now even the
recommendations are going younger. By
having a colonoscopy, by doing a
colonoscopy, you are actually allowing
your doctor, a gastroenterenterologist,
to be able to uh uh take a look inside
your colon to look for those abnormal
cells. Look for those polyps, look for
any early cancers that might be going.
It's very very important because once
you get to that age where you might be
forming a colon cancer, getting a
colonoscopy can be life-saving because
if you spot a polip, okay, what we do,
so let first of all, let me just tell
you how you get a colonoscopy. If you
had one, you know exactly the the deal,
the drill. But if you haven't had one, I
want to demystify it for you. Basically,
your regular doctor, your GP, your
family doctor, your PCP, primary care
doctor, makes a referral to a
gastroenterenterologist. They basically
take um uh get your information, make
sure you're uh healthy to be able to get
uh a colonoscopy, and then before you
get scheduled um you you're scheduled to
go in, you get a clean out. And you've
probably heard about these cleanouts.
Basically, if you want somebody to take
a look, a really good comprehensive look
at your colon, you want it to be clean.
You don't want junk in there, and you
know exactly what kind of junk I'm
talking about. So, you get cleaned out.
That's why they call it a cleanout. So
basically there is a uh liquid you
drink. So you don't have anything after
dinner, the night before uh you you
start guzzling down this fluid. You know
what it does? It flushes you out, right?
You just have a lot of loose liquidy
stool. This actually just keeps keeps
the stool moving along. You get a clean
out. So the next day you've got nothing
in your colon. everything is flushed
out, which is a good thing because then
when you get to the
gastroenterenterologist's office for the
colonoscopy suite, you get a little
injection infusion of medication into
your arm and you basically um get
sedated. So like you go out like a
light, you won't remember anything, it
doesn't hurt. uh you know the classic
count backwards and then when you're out
basically the gastroenterenterologist
takes a colonoscope goes right up
through your rectum takes a look around
and can see pretty much every part of
your colon. All right? And by looking
around they're looking for polyps.
They're looking for ulcers ulcerations.
They're looking for little signs of
colon cancer. Anything that is abnormal
they'll find it. And they take pictures
along the way. If they see a polip, what
do you do? Well, a
gastroenterenterologist doing a
colonoscopy can actually put a lasso
around it, snake it, take a picture
first, put a, you know, sort of like a
p-up selfie, put a lasso around it, put
a little electric current, zap it, and
pull it right out. That then gets sent
to pathology to make sure it's not a
cancer. All right. Um, but you can
actually take out your polyps. And uh,
and this is the kind of screening that
is very important for early detection of
colorctal cancer. For colon cancer, the
earlier detected, the more likely uh
you're actually going to be able to uh
cure it. When it's later uh stage now,
you need to pull out bigger guns to be
able to tackle it. All right? So, I will
make another video that will talk about
what are the guns that you pull out to
tackle colurectal cancer. But I already
told you in this video that one of the
things that you can do to lower your
risk of colorectal cancer is you can
actually eat healthy whole plant-based
foods and that's fruits and vegetables,
nuts and legumes, herbs and spices. They
all have the polyphenols that actually
feed your gut microbiome. Healthy gut
bacteria which then lower inflammation.
Also activates your immune system. You
can cut down on uh or cut out eating
processed meats. You can actually have a
healthier lifestyle by uh avoiding
excess alcohol. Don't smoke. All right,
cut down drinking. Stay physically
active. Lower your stress. All right,
that seems to be one of the contributing
factors to developing cancers as well.
Listen, this is a tall order, right?
There's a lot of things in your life you
got to control. You can't control
everything. But when it comes to using
food, we got to eat three times a day.
I'm just telling you, there's a way to
actually eat more dietary fiber, more
polyphenols. And by the way, coffee and
tea also lower the risk of developing
certain forms of cancer, including
colorectile cancer as well. Tea, green
tea contains polyphenols called kakans
that are powerful ways to cut off the
blood supply to cancer. I write about
this in my book, Eat to Beat Disease. If
you haven't read it, I'd recommend the
book through you. It's got a ton of of
cancer preventing cancer starving uh
foods in there. Coffee also has
chlorogenic acid which also lowers
inflammation and is also uh cancer
starving uh as well. Vegetables that
actually have cancer starving
properties. Brassica vegetables. So
broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale,
arugula, isothiocyanates. These are
sulforophanes natural chemicals that can
actually cut off the blood supply
feeding at cancer and also lower
inflammation. beans, legumes, white
beans, black beans, pinto beans,
chickpeas, soybeans, edetamame, all of
those actually are rich source of
dietary fiber. Olive oil, extra virgin
olive oil contains polyphenols like
hydroxyol, olioanthol. Those also lower
inflammation and have cancer starving
properties as well. And omega-3s,
seafood with healthy omega-3s. Now, we
used to think it was only salmon or
lower on the food chain like anchovies
and sardines, mackerel, but in fact,
even cod and halibit and even shrimp and
shellfish like muscles and clams, they
also have healthy omega-3s, omega-3
fatty acids, um actually cut off the
blood supply to cancers, anti-angioenic,
lowers inflammation. All of this can
contribute to lowering your risk of
developing cancers, including colurectal
cancer. I hope I've actually given you a
little bit of information about what you
can actually do to lower your risk of
cancer and have a little bit of an
understanding about colurectal cancer
and I'll make another video to talk
about some of the more advanced
treatments for colon cancer beyond
chemotherapy. So, if you like this, hit
the like button, subscribe, and watch
for my next video. Dr. Lee out. Hey, if
you like that video, then you're going
to love this one. Check it out.