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Language: en
welcome to Dr Le unplugged real insights
from The Cutting Edge this is a strip
down video where I share behind the
scenes insights as the scientists and as
a doctor on different health and
wellness topics it's raw it's direct
unscripted no sugar coating just real
talk and real science and today we're
going to talk about prostate cancer okay
so before we talk about the prostate
which is an organ that sits
uh sort of um right between our cheeks
uh in men all right uh and has a
critical role for Reproductive health
and overall health let me actually
introduce another topic that's going to
connect to prostate health in a second
and that topic is angiogenesis all right
and I study angiogenesis in the lab and
so I want to sh share with you what that
is angiogenesis sounds like a
complicated term but Ango blood blood
vessels genis how our body grows blood
vessels um uh is a really important
process uh for uh Health in our body
because we have 60,000 miles worth of
blood vessels and these blood vessels
your circulation these are the highways
and byways that bring the oxygen that
you breathe and the nutrients that we
eat to every single cell in the body
including the prostate now when we um
need androgenesis our body is going to
be able to deliver deliver that to us so
for example if you cut yourself fall
down scrape your knee cut yourself in
the kitchen on a knife you know uh
you'll form a scab all right after the
bleeding stop you'll for start forming a
scab and it'll heal but if you ever had
a scab come off too early what do you
see you see lots of bright red stuff
underneath there that's called
granulation that is new blood vessels
and your Genesis occurring new blood
vessels growing to actually deliver
oxygen and nutrients survival Factor as
we call them right to heal that wound
but when you've got just enough blood
vessels healing up that's it it'll stop
our body basically will just shut that
baby down all right now on the other
hand uh if there's too many blood
vessels uh our body can actually control
those as well we know how to inhibit our
bodies know how to inhibit angiogenesis
how to cut off the blood supply when you
don't want too many uh that's sort of
taming uh blood vessels in the body now
where are the places where that taming
process occurs really um powerfully well
occurs in your eye all right our eyes is
a crystal clear ball um we do have blood
vessels in there but they're really
really very few and they're tightly
controlled if you had out of control
blood vessels growing there the blood
vessels would bleed and you go blind and
in fact this is what happens in some of
the blinding diseases and diabetes and
aging macular degenerations the body
loses control over androgenesis that's
not a a good thing um another place
where uh androgenesis is tightly
controlled normally is in our joints
guess what our joints don't have blood
vessels they're avascular and that's by
Design because you don't want anything
interfering with those that joint it's
just like supposed to move really
smoothly but when you actually have
blood vessels growing in there
abnormally body loses control of
androgenesis you know what happens those
blood vessels leak fluid now your joints
swell and the blood vessels also bring
in inflammation inflammatory cells that
release enzymes and you know what that
is that is arthritis okay and you can
wind up having uh joint swelling and
pain and destruction of the joints so
that's another example of where the body
loses control it's normal control over
androgenesis now the other place where
androgenesis is tightly controlled is in
the situation of tumors so we form
cancers all the time including in our
prostate all right I mean our bodies are
are 40 trillion cells that are copy
pasting itself all the time and so when
it makes a little mistake or has a
mutation uh that abnormal mistake in
copying pasting leads to a microscopic
cancer happens all the time children
adults um most of the time uh we'll
never notice it's like a pimple that
forms on your back maybe somebody else
behind you will notice it but you'll
never know it and then the body takes
care of it all by itself and this is
actually how we're beginning to
reconceptualize re have a new
understanding of cancer in the body it's
not like we were just hit with a javelin
one day nope we're foreign cancers all
the time and our body our immune system
and our body's ability to block the
blood supply to Growing cancers are
really really powerful for our health
now all cancers including prostate
cancer start as microscopic these
microscopic tumors and they because they
don't have a blood supply when they
start they can't get bigger than about
two to three millimeters in diameter you
know how small that is that's like the
tip of a pencil pencil tip all right or
maybe a small grain of rice the tip of a
half of a grain of rice all right and
without a blood supply no angiogenesis
cancers can't grow right they need
oxygen they need nutrients no blood
vessels no nutrients no oxygen that's
about as big as they can actually get
all right then what happens and our body
can do that it can actually prevent
angiogenesis from happening and then
what does a body do their immune system
uh is conducting surveillance swings by
sees that microscopic cancer aha I see
it and then your immune system takes it
out and now you've gotten this
microscopic cancer that's eliminated and
so it's not dangerous at all so cancers
can't grow without
angiogenesis but sometimes these
microscopic cancers are sneaky all right
and they find a way to stimulate and
grow their own uh blood supply they kind
of hijack um your body's blood supply in
order to be able to feed themselves hey
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back to the video now let me tell you
how powerful this is in the lab I
trained at there was a a classic
experiment all right that looked at the
relationship between tumors and blood
vessels and just how powerful um uh
blood supply is to cancer
growth what the lab found the research
found is that if you actually kept a
small microscopic cancer isolated from a
blood supply no blood vessels all right
no oxygen no nutrients it pretty much
stay there forever like at that size
just couldn't get any bigger but if you
allowed blood vessels to grow up towards
and touch that tumor guess what bringing
oxygen and nutrients that cancer that
tumor would explode in size it would
grow
16,000 times in size just in two weeks
all right so androgenesis is a powerful
explosive growth engine and that's why
our body's defense against cancer is
anti- angiogenesis it knows how to cut
off the blood supply to cancers now it
knows how to grow them where you need it
like if you have a wound but it Al can
also cut it off um cut off the blood
supply where it's dangerous it's
sometimes however all right when you
actually get clinical cancers that's
where the body generally has lost
control over this system and now blood
vessels are growing and feeding the
cancer and what uh researchers are
trying to do is to figure out how to how
to regain control all right uh get these
cancer cells out of the cockpit so you
can take control of the of the uh of the
uh uh of the stick again all right uh in
order to be able to uh get those cancers
starve by cutting off the blood supply
it's anti-angiogenesis give it Ted Talk
on it uh at one point if you want to
hear all about tumor androgenesis all
right now here's a thing prostate the
prostate needs a blood supply just like
every organ and prostate cancers uh can
form uh over the course of a lifetime in
fact you know these microscopic cancers
are forming all the time as I mentioned
to you but autopsy Studies have shown
that 50% of the men between the ages of
50 and 60 years old so that's you or if
you know somebody between the ages of 50
and 60 half of you all right half the
people your age
already have microscopic prostate
cancers most of them will never become a
problem for you okay you're not going to
need chemo you're not going to need
surgery most of them are not going to
become a serious problem for you
life-threatening problem because uh the
the body including the prostate can cut
off the blood supply and prevent it from
uh taking off all right that is the
body's ability to stop tumor
angiogenesis so I just give you a little
Peak at some new biology that we're
beginning to understand is so critical
for cancer prevention okay um now we can
treat cancer by cutting off the blood
supply that's work that uh my
organization the Andro Genesis
Foundation has been involved with for
the last 30 years but treatments to stop
androgenesis are not as good as foods
that can stop androgenesis to prevent
the cancer from growing in the first
place all right now some of the work we
did in the early days was to just find a
way to cut off the blood supply to
tumors uh there was a lot of efforts
that happened in the 1990s and early
2000s lots of drugs pills uh infusions
uh Gene therapies a lots of exciting
different ways of of doing it and
finally there was a treatment called
avastin bisam that broke the glass
ceiling introduced a brand new way of
starving cancer by cutting up the blood
supply that be became a landmark in
modern medical history that was in
2004 that the FDA the US FDA approved it
and it it's used to treat colon cancer
all right so in addition to all the
other Cancer Treatments that are out
there you can you can cut off the blood
supply to cancer all right now prostate
uh cancer tends to be slow growing uh in
many cases not all cases but it's also
related to angiogenesis and in fact
research has shown that the more
aggressive uh the prostate cancers the
more blood vessels that are there so
aggressive prostate cancers tend to have
aggressive angiogenesis which makes
sense right you're bringing more oxygen
more nutrients more survival factors to
prostate cancer cells they're going to
take off um a lot faster as well
remember I told you without a blood
supply uh you know microscopic cancers
are stuck when once you touch that tumor
they'll explode in size in fact in
prostate cancer research what was found
is said the the more number of
microvessels blood vessels you see under
the microscope when you do a biopsy of
prostate cancer the worse the prognosis
is all right meaning that you got a more
aggressive type of cancer so the
question is what can you do with food as
medicine all right and I will tell you
that there are are foods that have uh
natural bioactive these are natural
chemicals that can cut off the blood
supply to tumors all right and there's
clinical evidence that show that this
work the best
example I think is a substance called
lopine lycopene is a carotenoid it's
found in watermelons found in tomatoes
it's found in guava papaya all right and
lopine is anti-angiogenic means it cut
off the blood supply to tumors it won't
starve your heart it won't starve your
wound healing all right your body knows
how to actually get all that stuff to
happen the right way but if you actually
have a tumor the lycopene will cut off
that tumor angiogenesis in fact a study
of 49,000 men showed that those who ate
more cooked Tomatoes this is over about
25 years or so had a lower risk of
developing prostate cancer by
29% all right and the lycopene cut off
the blood supply and in fact when the
people in that study who did go on to
develop prostate cancer right um when
they bu did the biopsy the fewer the uh
blood vessels that were in the biopsy
specimen turned out those are the people
who actually
ate more Tom Tomatoes as well how much
tomato do you need to eat well the
clinical study showed to get this
lowered risk about almost 30% uh these
were men that are eating cooked Tomatoes
two to three times a week all right
that's not very often and not very much
tomato each time either so this is
tomato cooked Tomatoes let's call it
tomato
sauce each serving that these men had
two to three times a week was only half
a cup each time that's a serving now if
I invited you to my house to have some
pasta and I only gave you half a cup of
tomato sauce you'd ask me for some more
you say hey Dr Le can I have a little
bit more sauce I'd give it to you
because the more research has shown that
the more cooked Tomatoes you have the
more anti-androgenic benefits you have
when it comes to prostate cancer as well
all right but it's not just lopine there
are also other foods that also have been
shown to be beneficial turns out that
tree nuts all right walnuts peans
almonds cashews pistachios macadamias
all right they all contain another
substance um that are the plant version
of omega-3 fatty acids um the plant
version is ala the body will convert to
Omega-3s guess what Omega-3s once it's
converted in your body from eating nuts
also are anti-angiogenic that cut off
the blood supply to cancers all right
including prostate cancer in fact a
study of 1253 men in Canada showed that
those who those men who ate one serving
of tree nuts every day had a 31% reduced
risk of developing clinical prostate
cancer as well all right so that's kind
of a preventative piece of data it's a
correlation but it actually shows you
that the stuff in our food uh when we
eat it helps our bodies uh Health
defenses overcome some of these diseases
including tumor angiogenesis and in fact
another study of 340 men so a smaller
study showed that there was a lower risk
of prostate cancer in men who had high
consumption of foods containing another
bioactive called ferulic acid that's Fu
l i c ferulic all right now what foods
contain ferulic acid eggplant spinach
beets all right um and also they found
that men who consumed high amounts of
cafeic acid where do you get cafeic acid
acid well you can maybe tell from the
sound of cafeic acid it's found in
coffee all right spinach beets eggplant
coffee all right guess what ferulic acid
and cafeic acid are all angiogenesis
Inhibitors are all anti-androgenic they
cut off the blood supply uh to cancer as
well all right so um we started off by
talking about lopine so um I told you
that tomatoes have lopine watermelon has
lopine these things that kind of have
this red uh Hue to their flesh guava
pink grapefruit also has some lopine in
it as well so look for the pink look for
the red okay um those are great uh ways
of getting uh lopine by the way lopine
is also an antioxidant protects you from
protects your DNA from damage from
environment for example like ultraviolet
radiation think about uh sunburn uh or
sun exposure uh at the beach all right
all right so the question is is Diet a
reasonable way to prevent slow prostate
cancer or maybe both and the answer is
yes a healthy diet that contains foods
with lycopene ferulic acid cafeic acid
Omega-3s all right you're talking about
Seafood you're talking about nuts and
legumes you're talking about tomatoes
sounds an awful lot like the things that
are in the Mediterranean diet and it
turns out a healthy diet that contains
foods containing these bio actives
actually amplify your body's natural
anti-androgenic cancer starving systems
and it can actually slow and down and
prevent prostate cancer growth now
there's food as medicine for prevention
but what if you actually have prostate
cancer and you're getting treated maybe
with uh Androgen treatment maybe with
radiation maybe with beads all right uh
maybe with surgery all right here's the
thing you should think about using diet
as a way of enhancing your chances of
overcoming that disease right don't just
leave Health Care to the doctor Health
actually that's called sickcare when you
go to the doctor's office or the
operating room Health Care is what you
do at home so if you got prostate cancer
whatever the kind of treatment you're
getting you should be eating these other
foods that can amplify your body's
Health defenses while you're getting
treatment that's called food and
Medicine not there's food as medicine
prevention food and medicine to amplify
treatment as well okay
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now here are some other foods that can
inhibit uh angiogenesis and have been
shown to have substances that directly
kill prostate cancer cells all right
this is mostly lab research but check it
out what are the foods I'm talking about
celery oregano okay Capers love Capers
uh apples apple a day keeps it doct away
right here's another reason um to like
apples um they all have natural
compounds shown in the lab that can kill
prostate cancer cells the other foods
that are actually beneficial against
prostate cancer um are foods that
actually have a lot of dietary fiber now
why is that important because dietary
fiber feeds our gut microbiome these are
the 39 trillion healthy bacteria you've
heard of good gut health they live in
the colon way down all right but when
you feed them dietary fiber the fiber
feeds the bacteria so think about your
gut bacteria like pets if you got a pet
dog pet cat pet bird pet goldfish you
make sure you're feeding them every day
right so we should be feeding our
microbiome our pet bacteria uh every
single day with dietary fiber when we do
that and we feed the microbiome and
they're wellfed they pay us back by
releasing substances called short chain
fatty acids that lower inflammation when
inflammation is lowered that actually
tips the odds in your favor against
cancer because cancer loves inflammation
so if you want to have an anti-cancer
effect lower inflammation in the body
eating foods with dietary fiber is a
great way to do it now the other thing I
told you is that you know um DNA uh when
it's mutated can set you up for cancer
those little mutations that can occur so
eating foods that are antioxidants can
also be incredibly beneficial right so
they say eat the rainbow colors of the
rainbow you know the red bell peppers
the uh uh the berries all those colorful
Foods the strawberries the blueberries
the blackberries um the greens you know
a lot of people say ah it's just leafy
greens nope think about the shades of
green that you can find in the grocery
store it's a it's a myriad of green if
you had to paint your uh a room in your
house uh color green and you went to the
not the paint store but you went to the
produce market you'd have a hard time
deciding which color green you would
actually want to choose from that's the
diversity of colors there they all
contain antioxidants that lower
inflammation protect your DNA and are
anti-angiogenic all right now finally
foods that actually can directly support
the immune system can protect against
prostate cancer as well so what are some
immune boosting foods that activate your
immune cells remember I told you the
immune system conducts surveillance and
your immune system naturally is
hardwired to try to wipe out cancer
cells even if you've got very Advanced
cancer very Advanced prostate cancer can
so whether you have microscopic cancer
or Advanced cancer you want your immune
system to be as strong as possible so
what are some of the foods that have
been shown to boost your own immune
system in a way that could tip your odds
the in favor of fighting cancer
mushrooms mushrooms contain beta glucan
which actually fights uh uh which is
anti-androgenic uh uh and um and also
boosts immunity um broccoli Sprouts have
been shown powerfully to boost uh immune
function extra virgin olive oil can also
boost immune function and pomegranates
um you know whether you have the seeds
which I love put them in a salad you
could cook with them or pomegranate
juice just don't drink too much of it U
make sure it's pure and it's not cut
with other sweeteners um but uh it's
very very sweet so just a couple days
enough that's been shown to actually
lower the rise of PSA which is a
prostate cancer marker
now I've talked a lot about food but you
know that food isn't enough for health
right you want things like exercise as
well turns out that exercise can slow
the growth of prostate cancer and I'll
tell you what why that is exercise is a
lot of benefits all right and including
General protection against cancer
including prostate cancer and we think
that this is partly due to the fact that
when you exercise you're stimulating the
body to lower inflammation now let me
give you a little Nuance to that when
you're exercising and working out
actually you raise inflammation in your
body but just for a short period of time
right so because what you're doing when
you're really working out is you're
ripping the muscles that's how you grow
more muscles and get stay in shape you
kind of stress out your muscles that
causes a little inflammation but we
think that once you start that
inflammatory reaction to acute exercise
the body rears up and then sends out
anti-inflam infammatory signals to lower
it afterwards so if you're when you're
exercising yeah you're actually working
your muscles and stimulating them maybe
tearing them a little bit then they have
to be repaired well then the body surges
anti- inflammation and that can actually
be beneficial as well by the way
anything that can cause inflammation can
set you at a higher risk for cancer um
uh for example environmental toxins
drinking too much alcohol smoking these
are all risk factors for prostate and
other cancers uh as well so one of the
things I've been telling you is that you
want to eat the right Foods eat healthy
foods colorful Foods foods with dietary
fiber you want to have regular exercise
by the way if you don't actually want to
work out join a gym get a trainer even
brisk walking which anybody can do after
dinner all right don't go to bed right
away don't sit on the couch right go out
and walk for 30 minutes all right that
can ramp up the body's Health defenses
because that's a that's and that's can
be protective against uh cancer as well
exercise not only lowers inflammation it
boosts immunity which then against
protects your prostate um and it also uh
exercise also helps your boost your
body's ability uh to cut off the blood
supply to starve cancers uh as well
right and by the way obviously exercise
also improves your overall health and
fitness your cardiovascular system your
brain function your overall strength
these are all things that are very
important for healthy aging and since
prostate cancer tends to be a cancer of
Aging men right you want to exercise
anyway just so that you're in overall
better shape so that's actually a really
important uh thing to consider right the
right Foods the right exercise I'm not
going to actually spend a lot of time
talking about it right now but lowering
your stress getting enough sleep all
those things uh count as well to tip the
uh environment inside your body against
can cancer and in your own favor to be
able to prevent successfully treat and
overcome uh prostate and other types of
cancers all right that's it for today on
Dr lean pluged I hope you learned
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