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Language: en
What if I told you that most cancer
patients don't get the full benefits
from the cancer treatments given to them
by their oncologist? Unfortunately, most
oncologists don't give the patients a
real and scientifically accurate answer.
Some oncologists even say eat whatever
you want. Doesn't really matter. Nothing
can be further from the truth. If the
cancer comes back, almost certainly it's
because the stem cells of the cancer
regenerated the cancer. So, good news.
There's foods that can kill cancerous
stem cells. Like what? Like
food. Welcome to Dr. Lee Unplugged. Real
insights from the cutting edge. This is
a stripped down, no fluff conversation
where I take you behind the scenes as a
scientist and as a doctor to break down
what's real versus what's hype when it
comes to your health. It's raw,
unscripted, no sugar coating, just real
talk and real science. And today we're
diving into foods you should eat if
you've been diagnosed with cancer. Now,
why this matters, what the science says,
and what you can do about it. That's
what we're going to get into today. Are
you ready? Let's go for it.
[Music]
[Applause]
First, let's talk about generally foods
and cancer because every individual
who's diagnosed with cancer always
wonders what did they do wrong that
actually led them to develop cancer.
Now, it could be genetics, it could be
environmental exposures, it could also
be a lifetime of poor diet. A lot of
different factors contribute to the
mutations that happen in our body that
result in the development of cancer.
Now, it is true some foods can actually
contribute to causing cancer, although
it's very rarely that it's a single food
that does it. But I want to address this
because a lot of people say, "Well, what
foods did I eat or what food should I
avoid that might be causing cancer?"
Right? Because you hear so much about
harmful foods. Well, look, there is a
laundry list of foods that can increase
the risk of developing cancer, and these
include some disturbingly common foods
like processed meat. Now, processed meat
is actually classified as a class one
carcinogen by the World Health
Organization. All right, so you might
say, well, what's a class what's an
example of a uh of a processed meat?
Well, sausages, hot dogs, deli meats,
salami, ham, bacon, corn beef, you know,
probably these comfort foods that we all
grew up with, they have been shown that
they can increase your risk of
developing cancer. If you eat them, not
once, but if you eat them over time, you
eat too much of them, you have too much
exposure to processed meats, that
actually increases your risk for
digestive cancers. So that's including
colon cancer. All right, not surprising.
The meat and stuff and the chemicals
have to go through your gut going down
to your colon. Now, here's another
cancer risk that's related to meat, and
that is grilled meats. Now, this isn't
about the meat itself. It's really about
the grilling process that coats the
meats with carcinogens or cancer-causing
chemicals, toxic chemicals. One of them
is called polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons. That's polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons. I know it's a mouthful.
I'm going to abbreviate it as p a
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. All
right. Now, these are carcinogens that
form when the oils from the fat drips
down into the flame and smokes. Right?
That what gives you that nice grilled
meat taste. Now that rising smoke
containing the carcinogens deposits the
carcinogens all over the meat underneath
it. Okay. Now high grilling temperatures
also converts the amino acids and
proteins that are found in the meat.
Proteins are actually made of amino
acids. The high heat actually converts
the proteins into another toxic
carcinogen called hetcyclic amines
HCA. All right. And these heteroscyclic
amines, by the way, and the PAH's, if
you don't carefully cook the grill
surface, they actually are all over that
black char that's left on the grates of
your grill. So, the next time you're
grilling food, all right, um uh make
sure you really really clean those uh
grates from the last uh cooking uh uh uh
period of time because that last grilled
meat um uh session left these
carcinogens on that grilled surface.
Now, you put a a fresh piece of meat or
vegetables or fish on top of that toxic
carcinogens, guess what? You're going to
transfer that right onto that next piece
of meat. Now, look, most of us enjoyed
grilled foods. All right? And it's okay
to have it once in a while. But here's a
couple of tips that will help you lower
your risk of being exposed to the
carcinogens from these foods. Now, I
promise you, I will tell you about foods
that you should eat. But I wanted to
point out um some of the foods that you
got to be really careful about. So, the
first thing you want to do, be careful
next time uh you are grilling food is to
clean that grill. Wipe down those those
grates. Okay, that black char get it off
before each use and of course after each
use so you have a better surface next
time. Coated with PH and HCAS, these
carcinogens. Number one. Number two,
don't stand over the grill too long.
Right? So, you know the classic thing
that people do when they're grilling?
You stand there with your apron and your
hat or whatever and you're sitting there
with the tongs right over the grill.
Well, that smoke is going onto your
face. That's kind of part of that
experience. Well, watch out. That smoke
that's coming off the grill, they they
that smoke contains the PH and HCAs
right into your face. You really don't
want that. So, stand back from the grill
when you're actually putting meat or
fish or vegetables on it. Now the third
thing you want to do is to lower the
carcinogens that develop during grill
grilling. One thing you can do is to
marinate your food. Meat, fish,
vegetables. All right? Marinate them
using the juice from tropical fruits.
All right? So, you know, pineapples and
and citrus too and things like that. Um
uh because I'll tell you why. The juice
from the tropical fruits can contain
antioxidants. All right, you want to
dust it with some uh cumin, turmeric,
that will also help. But these
antioxidants will help to neutralize
those harmful carcinogens that can
actually form. So, you're really kind of
fighting back against the uh the
carcinogens that can actually uh develop
during grilling. And the fourth thing
you want to do to lower your risk of
developing cancer or being exposed to
cancer-causing um elements in grilled
food is well, this is the easy one. Just
don't eat grilled foods too often. Like
I said, we most of us actually enjoy the
taste of grilled food. Kind of it's like
a human thing, right? Like cooking over
the fire. But I'm telling you right
here, right now that grilling can
contribute to some of the increase in
the risk of developing cancer, cancer
risk, uh because of the byproducts of
the grilling process
itself. Okay. Now, I want to focus on
what foods you should eat if you've been
diagnosed with cancer. All right. Now
again, I'm a doctor and virtually every
cancer patient I've ever met has asked
me or the oncologist, "Hey doc, what
should I eat to help me fight my cancer?
What should I do at home?"
Unfortunately, most oncologists don't
give the patients a real and
scientifically accurate answer. In fact,
it's uh too bad because some oncologists
even say, "Eh, eat whatever you want.
Doesn't really matter. Just don't lose
too much weight." Because you know
that's the whole thing is that over
cancer uh treatment you can actually
lose a lot of weight as a cancer
progresses. Well let me tell you when
that oncologist said eat whatever you
want it doesn't really matter. Nothing
can be further from the truth. So you
want the real deal unplugged version of
this? Let me just tell you food matters.
And this is because your body is
hardwired with health defense systems
that help us naturally fight cancer. So
when you have cancer, your health
defenses have failed and now you got to
actually shore them back up and uh
activate them so they can actually help
the medicines uh work along with the
medicines to help fight cancer. This
isn't food uh versus medicine. It's food
and medicine. You want to actually eat
foods to activate those health defenses.
Now I write about uh these health
defenses in my book, Eat to Beat
Disease. You haven't seen it, you can
get it wherever books are sold. There
are five health defenses. All of them
help us fight cancer naturally and all
of them can be activated by our food. So
what are the five? Androioenesis. That's
how our body grows blood vessels and one
of the defenses against cancers that cut
off the blood supply feeding cancers.
All right. Second health defense is our
regeneration system. So look um cancer
develops, you get your body gets rid of
it. Now you got to replace where the
cancer was. It can regenerate. All
right? And if you're getting cancer
treatment like chemotherapy, targeted
therapy, etc. or having surgery, all
right, your body has to heal after the
cancer's been killed off. And to heal
properly, it regenerates from the inside
out. Second health defense, you can
stimulate that with food. Third is our
gut microbiome. You've heard of gut gut
health? Yep. That's 39 trillion healthy
bacteria in our gut, mostly in our
colon. In fact, in the early part of our
colon area called the seeum. All right,
those healthy bacteria help to lower
inflammation in your body. They help to
boost immunity so you can actually fight
off the cancer cells. And again, all of
this actually combines powerfully and
activated by food to whatever cancer
treatment that your doctor is going to
give you, your oncologist is going to
give you. So nothing could be further
from the truth by saying, "Ah, if it
doesn't matter, just eat anything." No,
you want to eat the foods that will
activate the system. Um, next health
defense uh against cancer is our DNA
repair and protection system, right?
Cancer is basically a mutation of our
DNA. All right, mutated DNA, mutated
cell, mutant cell leads to more mutant
cells. They pile up and now you've got a
cancer, a tumor. All right. So, our DNA
protection system defends the mutant DNA
by uh getting rid of it or fixing it so
it doesn't actually become a full-blown
cancer. You want your DNA protection
system fixed and foods can activate that
too. And then finally, our immune
system. Now, our immune system does a
couple of interesting things. It raises
inflammation uh uh when it when it needs
to. But cancer is a highly inflammatory
disease. Basically, it uh if when cancer
meets inflammation, it's like pouring
gasoline onto the embers of a fire.
Whoosh. It's going to like really go up
in flames. That's why you want to
actually eat anti-inflammatory foods to
lower inflammation. Okay? Um and then
the other thing you want to do with
foods is to boost your immunity. Now,
this is especially true if you're
getting chemotherapy because you know
what chemotherapy does? It lowers your
immune defenses. So you got to counter
that by boosting your immune system. All
right. Five health defenses.
Androogenesis, regeneration, gut health,
DNA protection,
immunity/inflammation foods can actually
powerfully influence all of these
systems that can help your body
contribute to beating cancer. Pretty
simple, like a no-brainer. All right, so
each of these systems can help tip the
odds in your favor while you're getting
treatment. Now, why doesn't the
oncologist talk about this? Well, most
doctors, including
oncologists, haven't been trained to
look at these health
defenses. Doctors, oncologists are
trained to uh look at cancer as a bad um
set of cells that you have to kill using
drugs. And food is not part of their
traditionally taught toolbox. All right.
When I went to medical school, basically
food was never taught. I had actually a
whole only one week of nutrition in my
entire four years and I had to learn
everything afterwards on my own. All
right? So, you can't really blame the
doctor that was never educated about
something. But, uh, now I can tell you
that the next generation, the younger
oncologist, they're more likely to
actually pay attention to this stuff
because they care about food as medicine
for themselves. All right? So, this is
another thing that you might want to
consider when you're choosing your
oncologist. do have a young person now.
They may not have quite as much
experience as the person with gray hair.
All right, the older senior doctor, but
guess what? They may actually have a
more comprehensive, more holistic
approach. And that's actually an
important consideration when you're
choosing your oncologist. And again, as
I said, slowly the system is changing.
But the old guard that's out there, most
of the senior oncologists, they, you
know, if they're interested in nutrition
at all, they're still learning basically
from scratch. Um, so the system is going
to change, but it's going to be slow.
Now, when I say it matters, okay, this
is not uh voodoo, witchcraft. This is
not uh hopeful kale fond waving. There's
real clinical evidence that the food
that you eat can make a difference in
terms of cancer outcome. All right? So,
whenever I talk to a doctor and I say
the things I just said uh earlier a few
minutes ago, they'll say, "All right,
prove it to me." All right. Here you go.
A study by oncologists of 826 people
with stage three colon cancer, that's
pretty advanced. All right. Undergoing
regular treatment, just regular cancer
treatment, found that those people who
ate two servings of tree nuts, that's
two fistfuls of tree nuts every week,
had a
57% improvement in survival. They got
regular treatment, but they ate nuts. in
addition to that and their survival
improved. Now, why would that be? Well,
nuts have healthy fats that improve
immune system. Nuts are packed with
dietary fiber that helps your gut
microbiome, which lowers inflammation,
which tips the odds in your favor of
actually being able to beat the cancer.
Not that surprising, all right, but it
just shows you how powerful food uh can
be. Another study, all right, a study of
249 people with various types of cancers
who are all receiving the latest type of
cancer treatment. It's called
immunotherapy. This is actually not
chemo. This is actually a treatment
where you use your own immune system,
the body's own immune system to combat
cancer. You just got to wake it up and
get it kind of charged up.
The researchers who were uh uh based in
France actually found that those cancer
patients who did not respond to
imunotherapy, guess what? They were
lacking a healthy gut bacteria. They
were lacking. Remember I told you the
gut bacteria very powerful for lowering
inflammation and boosting your immune
system. Well, this one critical bacteria
is called acromancia mucinaphil. And
guess what? You can grow that by eating
food. And in fact, the only way to
naturally grow acromancia, which was
found to be needed if you want to
respond to imunotherapy, meaning helping
your own immune system fight off cancer,
is by eating foods that grow acromancia,
like pomegranates and cranberries and
mangoes and other foods like chili
peppers and Chinese black vinegar. They
can all help to grow this useful,
healthy, important, immune boosting,
anti-inflammatory, metabolism uh uh
pruning um bacteria called acromancia
mucinophila.
Now, if you're somebody who is battling
cancer or you know somebody is and
you're listening to me, you might say,
"Well, look, how how do you know if you
have acromancia? How do you even know?"
Good point. All right. you can measure
whether you have acromancia. All you've
got to do is to order a gut microbiome
test. So, how does that work? Basically,
it's a test that comes in the mail. It's
got a little tube that you're going to
mail back to the lab and it's got a
little um uh it's got a little swab and
you got to just swab your poop, put it
into the vial, screw it shut, pop it in
the mail, boom, it's gone. couple of
weeks and you're going to get an email
and say your results are ready and you
can see for yourself if you have that
acromancia. The other thing you can do
with a gut microbiome test is to see if
you have harmful bacteria in your gut as
well that might be causing inflammation.
That's a big no no. You want to actually
get rid of those harmful bacteria. You
want to grow good ones like acurancia.
Okay. If you're somebody that says,
"Well, I that's too much for me."
Because many times people with cancer
are overwhelmed. Listen, ask your
oncologist. Hey, can you help me get a
gut microbiome test? All right. And if
they can't or they won't, unfortunately,
that can happen sometimes. I guess you
got to do it yourself. All right? Or get
a friend or family member to help order
one for you and then you got to do it
yourself. But you should take those
results back to your oncologist so they
can work with you and maybe you'll teach
them something along the way as well.
But if they're knowledgeable, huh,
you're giving them more information that
they can use as a medical profession to
help to fine-tune and maybe even predict
whether you're going to respond to the
treatment. Okay. Now, if somebody's
newly diagnosed with cancer, all right,
one of the questions is, what are some
of the things that you want to be eating
right away? Okay. So, let's get into
that. First thing I want to tell you is
that there's no list of one, two, three,
cuz everybody's different. You've heard
of personalized medicine. All right.
Well, we have personalized nutrition,
individualized nutrition. All right.
That's very important to understand
because every individual, every cancer
patient is going to be different. Maybe
there's a cancer patient who's had
diabetes. All right? They're going to
need a different uh uh food approach
than uh somebody with cancer who has
celiac disease or another autoimmune
disease. Right? So, you really uh as
much as everybody wants sort of like the
the one 123 checklist, you have to
really tailor it to yourself. Now, I
actually teach a course called Eat to
Beat Disease Course. It's an online
course and I actually um take people
through how do you actually um know
yourself, know your preferences, know
the foods, and kind of match um what you
need in order to be able to fight your
condition, including cancer. All right.
So, if you're interested in learning
more, uh consider taking my course. I go
I go right into that really really
deeply. All right. So, everyone's
different, but there are some general
principles when it comes to selecting
food as medicine in somebody who has
cancer. All right. So, what are those
general principles? Well, number one, we
know that cancers grow blood vessels to
feed themselves. All right. So, it's
important to know that you can eat foods
that starve cancer by cutting off their
blood supply. These are called
anti-angioenic foods. Angioenesis is
actually the process that the body uses
to grow blood vessels and it naturally
will grow good blood vessels to healthy
organs. But whenever there's cancer, it
will cut off the blood supply normally.
Now, if a cancer has already taken off
and grown, somehow the blood vessels
have been able the cancer has been able
to sneak around the defense. It's
growing blood vessels. And by the way,
research that I've done in the lab uh
that actually discovered androgenesis,
that lab found that the moment blood
vessels touch a cancer, that tumor can
grow 16,000 times in just two weeks. All
right? So, this is a powerful trigger
for cancer growth. So, what do you want
to eat? Anti-androgenic foods that cut
off the blood supply to tumors. What are
some of them? soy, tomatoes, green tea,
coffee, oily fish with omega-3s or
omega-3 supplements, berries, berries,
raspberries, blueberries, strawberries,
blackberries, grapes, red grapes, okay?
And brassica vegetables. What are we
talking about? Brassica vegetables, you
know, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, bok
choy. All right. All of those foods
actually have naturally occurring
anti-androgenic cancer starving
substances. So when you cook them,
you're actually helping your body choke
off that cancer. You're going to be
getting treatment. All right. But this
tips the odds in your favor. All right.
Now, the second thing that you um uh can
do is remember I told you that there's a
regenerative system. All right. Your
body can grow, regenerate good cells and
it can actually get rid of bad cells.
Well, guess what? There are something
called cancer stem cells and there are
foods that can actually kill those
cancer stem cells. Now, what is a cancer
stem cell? It's a very, very dangerous
cell because these are like baby cancer
cells that live inside the cancer and
they help the cancer come back. So, you
know that person that that had cancer,
had a successfully treated and they're
just watching and waiting. It's what the
doctor tells them to do. H just let's
wait and see what happens. Mistake. All
right. Um but when the cancer comes
back, okay, what you should be doing is
eating foods and changing your lifestyle
to put you in a cancer fighting mode.
But if the cancer comes back, almost
certainly it's because the stem cells of
the cancer regenerated the cancer. Now,
our healthy stem cells can regenerate
healthy organs, but cancer stem cells
regenerate, you got it, the cancer. So,
good news, there's foods that can kill
cancerous stem cells. Like what? Like
purple potatoes. All right? The
anthocyanins that make purple potatoes
purple kills colon cancer stem cells.
Green tea kills cancer stem cells. So
does coffee. Get your morning joe. All
right? That's actually good for cancer
fighting. And as I talked to you before,
tree nuts, like walnuts, can be really
helpful. All right. Um, uh, so we know
that a strong immune system can wipe out
cancer cells, too. So, what are some
immune boosting foods that you can eat
to beat cancer? All right, ready for
some broccoli sprouts. These are the
three to four day old little baby
broccoli. They powerfully stimulate your
immune system. Blueberries. All right, a
couple blueberries will pop up your
immune defenses so that you're more able
to actually beat cancer. All right,
these are tea cells and natural killer
cells. Yeah, blueberries, little tiny
blueberries will actually ramp up your
body's immune defenses. Chili peppers,
they do that as well. All right, now
what about gut health? The gut
microbiome. Remember I told you the
healthy gut microbiome lowers
inflammation. So, how do you actually
get that to happen? Well, if you eat
prebiotic foods, these are foods um like
polyphenols. All right? Um and you feed
your gut bacteria. Another pre prebiotic
is dietary fiber. When you're feeding
the gut bacteria with polyphenols and
dietary fiber, guess what? They produce
something called short-chain fatty
acids. The gut bacteria does. And these
short- chain fatty acids get in your
blood. They lower inflammation.
Now, remember I told you inflammation is
like pouring gasoline onto um a fire.
Whoosh. When you actually get the gut
bacteria happy, they provide
anti-inflammatory substances, these
short- chain fatty acids, they release
them into the bloodstream and that calms
down the fire. It's like spraying a fire
extinguisher onto a campfire, right?
Lowering that inflammation is a really,
really good thing. and the healthy gut
bacteria boost your immune system for
cancer cell killing. All right, this is
all going in the right direction. All
right, so what are some of the
high-fiber prebiotic type of foods?
Okay, ready? Lentils, chickpeas, beans
of any sort, white beans, black beans,
uh mushrooms, even the lowly lowly white
button mushroom is good. Um avocado,
great source of dietary fiber.
Raspberries. Did you know that
raspberries, even though they're small,
they're light, they're hollow,
pound-for-pound, they're one of the
fruits that actually have the most
dietary fiber, and they taste great,
too. All right. Um, okay. And then the
other way you can actually get your gut
healthier is actually to eat probiotic
foods like fermented foods like kimchi,
sauerkraut. Okay, those might be not in
everybody's taste, but guess what? Most
people like yogurt, whole full fat
yogurt. Don't worry, the bacteria in the
yogurt will actually help to lower your
blood cholesterol. So, full fat is
actually what it's better for you. Now,
I've just told you that there are foods
that you can eat that can actually boost
your natural body's health defenses. I
gave you specific foods um and how they
actually will work to help mount your
own defense against cancer. All right.
uh powerful very very powerful way by
the way as I'm going to say it again
this is not a substitute for cancer
therapy medical therapy this is actually
to augment your own bodies you know Tony
Stark Iron Man you augment yourself to
actually you know have that shield that
that that suit um that can be helpful
that's what you're doing when you're
eating foods to boost your immune system
let the doctor give you your sick care
when you're at the infusion clinic or in
a medical center you go home, that's
health care. Now you're actually um
boosting your own health defenses. So
remember, food is not a substitute. Food
is not a cure, but it is a tool, a vital
tool in the toolbox. And every cancer
patient needs to have a good oncologist
um uh to be able to give them the best
comprehensive care. So hopefully your
oncologist will know how to talk to you
about food, but maybe he or she won't.
But they should be able to give you all
these other advanced treatment
modalities. Imunotherapy is the most
cutting edge right now. Okay? But they
should also be helping you with your
food as medicine to eat to beat cancer.
Um, and if they can't, you just do it
yourself. All right? You don't need
permission to know what to eat. Go look
it up yourself or go back and watch this
video again. All right? That's it for
today on Dr. Lee Unplugged. Now you know
the real deal behind food and cancer,
but there's even more that you can do to
take control of your health. So, if you
found this video interesting and useful,
make sure you hit subscribe and turn on
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deep dive into um as a food and medicine
subject. And if you're serious about
your health using food as medicine,
watch my next video. You're not going to
want to miss it. See you there. Hey, if
you like that video, then you're going
to love this one. Check it out.