Kind: captions
Language: en
how many of you have heard of the phrase
food is
medicine that's almost all of you and
how many of you actually understand it
because I know in this room there are
Physicians who actually understand
medicine but I don't see too many
Physicians who understand food what I'm
going to try to do is to bring you up to
speed on how the Two Worlds of of
nutrition and Medicine are starting to
collide and give you a glimpse at the
future of what food as medicine will
really be like before I do that though I
want to actually just um bring us all
back to the old man himself hypocrates
who uh lived in a time when people
didn't eat they ate Fresh Foods there
were no processed foods that we Ultra
processed foods uh so to speak and he's
the one that actually coed the term uh
let food be thy medicine but back then
it was really serious because they were
um they were actually um uh medicating
to themselves going forward and not
actually trying to treat disease that
had already left the barn so where do we
take uh you know 2,000 years of wisdom
and move it into the future before we go
to the Future let's look at the present
day right so uh everybody knows that
this is the unfortunate scenario uh as
was described expertly by my colleagues
uh Dari mozafarian who's the dean of the
tus nutrition school and uh and Dan
Glickman who's a former secretary of
agriculture and the idea really is that
our food is really compromising our
Health Care system in the United States
about a half a million deaths uh
worldwide about 11 million uh deaths a
year attributed to poor diet and this is
actually the study that they cited from
jamama showing that the state of the US
uh of Health in the US over the course
of 25 years if you take a look at all
those um disease entities that are in
small type on the right hand side and
look at the number one risk for
mortality it's dietary risks accounting
for for uh neoplasms cancer
cardiovascular disease and diabetes
right so these are the chronic diseases
that actually ail our system our Health
Care system that we're trying to figure
out a way as we've been talking about
over the last few years how to do early
detection how to do monitoring how to
actually do the appropriate types of
feedback so let's dive a little bit
further into dietary risk to understand
what that is because most of us think of
dietary risks as foods that we should
cut out of our lives right human nature
abhor deprivation so we don't really
want to cut things out of our life in
fact if I were to tell you something to
remove from your life you might actually
at some point after I told you that
think about adding it sneaking it in
just so that you can actually uh try
that now what are the things that we
know about dietary risk we know that
we're not eating enough nuts and seeds
fruits and vegetables uh low and omega-3
fatty acids and we're eating too many
processed foods like red meat and
processed meats and of course uh sugar
sweetened beverages but that doesn't
mean that this is a solution to health
um the solution is really coming out of
economic drivers so this is about $2 and
half trillion dollars of Burden that um
is attributed to some of these dietary
risks diet isn't the full cause to these
there's lots of other uh things we've
talked about epigenetics genetic uh
factors there's other lifestyle issues
um uh stress social issues that actually
are uh determinants of health and
disease as well but I do think that we
have to start here to take a look at
what we can actually do about it now we
are also not only interested in um our
persons and our Comm our families and
our communities we're also interested in
the planet and in January of this year
the E Lancet commission which is an
International Coalition uh made a
released a statement a study that said
basically in order to create meet
sustainability goals by 2050 we have to
have the amount of red meat and sugar
that we eat and we have to double the
amount of fruits and nuts and vegetables
in order to be good not only for the
person but also for the planet and this
kind of just raised a whole other set of
issues that in some ways are
controversial but also helped to bring
the focus of nutrition and Food and
Health into Clarity you got economics
you've got policy Global policy you've
got sustainability so it's not just no
longer about the person going up on the
podium talking about a vegan diet we're
really talking about something that has
true economic value and a driver uh for
opportunity as well now different States
now actually have food as medicine
programs now even though most of us here
said well we're not really sure what
that means I can tell you that starting
to be legislated uh even insurance
companies actually are beginning to talk
about you know cancer protection in a
bag and so the vernacular of food is
medicine is now actually starting to
reach um uh the public and corporations
and it's also on Capitol Hill there was
a bipartisan announcement of the
formation of a food as medicine working
group within the hunger caucus that is
now actually um uh uh meeting to talk
about this issue as well and then
finally even the Vatican has gotten
involved this is actually from a
conference that I um gave an address at
talking about uh uh using diet to
mobilize our defenses against the
disease and a degrading environment and
so you can kind of see this is no longer
really a bunch of extremists talking
about vegan diets and at the salad bar
we're really talking about a kind of a
global aw Awakening and that's really
what I want to share with you is that
this Global Awakening is going to drive
things into the
future so what does that mean does that
mean that we all just go to the veggie
counter at the Whole Foods to be able to
get um a plate full of healthy foods
this is actually what most people think
about as food as medicine let's let's
get rid of all the bad stuff let's pile
up a bowl and let's go ahead and Munch
down but if you think about it this is a
solution but it's not the whole solution
and it can't be because there's a lot of
science that is still unnown that still
needs to be unraveled about what it is
about food I mean are there superfoods
is there a Super Supplement probably not
there are no super drugs either what we
know is that the body actually is very
complex and actually uh uh responds to
Foods on an individual as well as a
systemic level in ways that we barely
understand so where are the good ideas
where is the uh scientific evidence the
basis for actually Innovation going into
the future coming from I'm actually not
going to talk about um uh uh the uh uh
the plant uh plant-based food movement
because there's plenty of other people
out there that are very well qualified
to talk about that I'm actually not
going to talk about sustaining
sustainable farming or regenerative
agriculture there are other people that
are talking about that important topic
as well but I will actually tell you
that um out of uh what we're thinking
about there's a in terms of science
there are some really amazing
innovations that really reflect the
singularity of food as medicine Food and
Health and the future of nutrition this
is just a a partial list of some of the
actual uh innovations that are underway
I'm showing you this picture uh really
to uh spark your imagination because
while we're here on Earth we can choose
whatever we want to eat but one day when
humans become EXT extraterrestrial and
we all know the efforts that are
underway to be able to get us there it's
just going to be us against the
environment and the environment outside
of Earth is hostile we we'll have to
actually take counter measures on a
continuous basis in order to be able to
protect our immune system protect our
bone marrow protect our uh uh our DNA uh
the radiation uh from outer space is
going to be relentless and damaging so
an interesting challenge I'm going to
give to you mental framework to think if
you really wanted to study food as
medicine and nutrition model this uh a
future human in living in space and
think about what it is when you're start
from nothing and when you're and you're
pitted against damaging forces what do
we need to do to maintain health so this
is almost the Ultimate model to think
about uh is really how humans will
actually live successfully in space so
where does that take us well that takes
us to real science you can't handwave
that answer so I'm going to suggest to
you that some of the answers to the
Future for food is medicine is going to
come out of the pharmaceutical world now
I'm a physician and also a vascular
biologist I've spent the last 30 years
working to help um develop a uh medic
medicines that can actually influence
angiogenesis which is how the body grows
blood vessels it's a common denominator
of diseases there's 60,000 miles withth
of blood vessels packed inside our
bodies it is the common denominator to
cancer heart disease stroke blindness
obesity diabetes about 70 different
disorders um and I can tell you from my
work which has actually led to a number
of uh FDA approved drugs and devices
that there are some amazing insights
that I think we can apply to
understanding how food can be used as
medicine and the reason that we have to
tap into this is because of the
investment since over the last 25 years
802 new FDA approved drugs we cannot
overlook this huge data set this
experience this experiential information
coming out of the investment in life
sciences and so what are we learning
from there and this is just a list of 32
of the of of the uh interventions I've
personally been involved with and so my
street cred is that look science can be
turned into practice but it really needs
to go through a pretty rigorous process
of validation testing and then
ultimately figuring out how to actually
get it to Market so some of the things
that we're learning over the last 25
years in fact is the genome in ways that
we've never uh even imagined we could
know uh uh previously and now of course
we can do Gene editing we've also
figured out the human kinome which is
you know sort of the interrelationships
of of self signaling Pathways and many
of the sell signal Pathways um are now
druggable targets and this is really the
bread and butter of biotechnology and
biopharmaceuticals today we've also
really more recently um broken through
the glass ceiling of immunotherapy where
it's now possible to activate um and
leverage the body's own immune system to
fight disease so now we're not actually
treating the disease using synthetic
chemicals we're actually leveraging
natural cells in fact our own body cells
to allow them to actually overcome
diseases in some cases very successfully
so look at all this information that
we've actually gained what how do we
apply this to better understand food
when you actually have a broccoli shake
with even a flu uh vaccine it increases
your flu vaccine response by 20 times it
makes your body's immune system ramp
itself up by 20 times so this is not
food versus medicine this is food and
medicine so you want to see an amazing
explosion of color take a purple potato
cut it in half um and put it in a
refrigerator it'll just light up for you
um uh turns out that that dark purple
comes from a natural Dy called
anthocyanin by the way same diet in a
blueberry as a matter of fact but that
purple potatoes been shown whether you
bake them whether you make them into
chips whether you eat them raw um no
matter what you do to whether you mash
them they target cancer stem cells which
is amazing you know we think of
ourselves as human beings but in fact we
are a complex we're not just human we're
also partly bacteria about 50/50
actually uh and and it turns out that
there's a term for humans um that is
that we're not even exactly humans
anymore we're called called Holo biot h
o l o b i o n t a Holo biot is a term
used in nature to describe an ecosystem
where the whole is not just a single
organism but composed of different types
of organisms so we are holot you know
take me to your leader kind of thing to
start I would love to talk a little bit
about the general state of health in
America as you see it and our standard
American diet well um I think that
America is one of the most advanced
nations in the world for many different
areas including Health Technologies but
we're really still playing catchup I
think uh to many other countries that
haven't really changed traditional
eating patterns and the and the research
that's been going on now is actually
taking these quote advancements that
started in 1950 in America post-war
America and everything became convenient
and boxed and ultr processed and Super
Con venient and shipped from all corners
of the country and all corners of the
globe and you know and made to be
preserved for months or maybe even years
I mean we've evolved over the let let's
say last 70 years um into a society a
nation that's been further and further
from nature hey there I want to share
another resource with you it's my free
guide on your body's five Health defense
systems these five systems and your
Genesis regeneration your gut microbiome
DNA protection and Immunity are your
Shields against disease and they're
responsible for maintaining your health
every single day of your life by knowing
about how these systems work to defend
your body you can tap into their healing
powers to live a longer better and much
healthier life I explain each of these
defense systems to you in my free guide
and as a bonus I've included some of the
best foods you can eat to activate each
defense system get my guide for free
right now in the caption below now back
to the video so I think a lot of the
health problems that we have in America
uh chronic disease and now not so
chronic disease um you know given our
experience of 2020 and the pandemic um
now of course everybody suffered from it
but but you know really um uh in America
we've got a we we're we got a long way
to go to be able to um have our
nutritional status um help our health
keep up with actually traditional
culture so you know the famous blue
zones around the world where um people
routinely live to what we what we would
call Extreme longevity you know 100
years old and not just old but vibrant
and that's what we're looking for we're
not looking to just live long we want to
live long and prosper I think the
Vulcans said that
once so what we want to be able to do is
to feed ourselves I mean and this is
where food as medicine comes in
this idea that we are nurturing our body
we are taking care of the garden of our
body three times a day I mean literally
from the time we're born to our very
last breath and our health defenses
including androgenesis are part of that
interconnected part of that ecosystem
inside us that we need to have to
nurture it's the garden of our body so
is that just a really respectful way of
saying that we are on the whole
definitely not a country with the
healthiest habits you know I we we I do
think that they the thing about America
is it's so diverse and H and there's a
lot of different pockets of a lot of
different people doing a lot of
different things I do think that there
are some really extremely fit people who
um sort of a subset of people who are
committed to eating healthy committing
to get enough sleep committing to
working out and getting regular exercise
so it's really hard in this country to
generalize because we are actually so
different but as I said I think that
there are um sea changes that need to
happen and are finally starting to
happen in the American diet where you
know you asked earlier you know what do
we think about the typical Western diet
or typical American diet well I don't
think we have a typical diet anymore but
we did come out of one I think that you
know um I know that when I grew up uh
sort of on the east coast of the United
States um with my parents a lot was
about convenience and the things that
you saw on television were about the
Fantastical nature of the TV dinner or
something you could nuke in a microwave
and you know it's only later that we
look back on this to say you know food
that is about as far away from nature as
you can make it might not be that good
for us or if you're subjecting things
into a microwave and heating
carbohydrates to a temperature that
doesn't naturally exist on Earth with
water molecules vibrating maybe we're
changing some of those things into
plastic and then when we eat them our
body can't get rid of it so um you know
I think that uh you know like uh I think
Society goes into these Cycles where we
pretty much got as far as we could with
this kind of uh embracement of
convenience and technology and now we're
swinging back to ask some really
fundamental questions that's not to say
by the way that there aren't some really
interesting and somewhat odd
advancements also going on you know the
whole um what do they call it uh
plant-based meat Revolution that's
happening um I'm actually taking look at
that and and they're even growing food
in a plastic dish in the lab so I you
know was I've been part of conferences
where because I have a background in
biotechnology so I know what stem cell
therapy is I've I've helped to try to
develop this in you know for biotech
companies um from to me I was stunned to
hear that you know we can take a biopsy
of a salmon and we can grow a fish in a
dish that doesn't swim and we can eat it
and it kind of tastes like salmon but
you know is is that really what we
should be doing or is that what's good
for our bodies we don't know so I think
part of the ethos of of of modern the
modern world is on one hand taking care
of techn taking exploring technology and
taking it to New Frontiers but on the
other hand I do think that the science
that we have to examine our health is
teaching us in many ways that simpler is
better and the some of the traditional
ways of combining foods to cook it in
ways that we've enjoyed for hundreds if
not thousands of years in fact is what
our bodies evolve to be able to function
optimally for given your Decades of
research what are some of the best of
the best foods for us to eat and how do
they work together in synchrony to give
us compound benefits I believe in your
book you call them your grand Slammers
awesome well first of all so in my book
EB disease that I write about it's not
just about angiogenesis um what I write
about is really a a what I discovered so
really I I took my experience and
research and sort of brought it to the
brought it to the to the Forefront and
that is when it comes to Food and Health
it's not just about the food in fact
what I've really discovered is that
there's no such thing as a single super
food or a single Super Supplement now
everybody wants that that's aspiration
you know um there's not even a single
Magic Bullet drug even okay um but yet
we we hear so much about superfoods it
gets confusing and I think that um that
marketing slogan tends to um dilute the
power of what foods can actually do so
what I say is when it comes to Food and
Health it's not just about the food it's
how our body response to what we put
inside it and that makes a lot of sense
because if you put something bad inside
it your body's not going to respond very
well going to react poorly when you put
something good inside it um our body
reacts well so I then asked well what is
the definition of Health what why are we
healthy why don't we get sick more often
and the answer is that our health is not
just the absence of disease but it's the
result of our hardwired health defense
systems that we're born with and they're
firing all on all cylinders and from the
day we're born into our very last breath
what are they androgenesis blood vessels
we talked about this already our stem
cells when we were kids our grade school
teachers taught us that salamanders and
Starfish can regenerate but people can't
right so that chapter is now being torn
out of the Playbook and thrown away the
new chapter says yeah humans can
regenerate we do regenerate from the
inside out slowly but there are foods
that can speed that up and enhance it
second Health defense system third one
our microbiome now everybody's talking
about the microbiome I will be the first
to tell you that we hardly know anything
about it we we are at the tip of the
iceberg and this is coming from a
research scientist right so scientists
tend to know a lot of
things that's what people think I I'll
tell you scientists are the first people
to tell you they recognize what we don't
know and I'll tell you that we do know
some interesting things about the
microbiome there's a lot more to go but
we do know that our microbiome our gut
bacteria also lives in our skin look
lives on our eyes and our mouth and our
nose but our gut microbiome actually
controls not only inflammation our
immune system our hormones our metab
metabolism but even our emotions because
our gut microbiome can release um
there's some bacteria that can actually
prompt our brain to release um social
hormones one of them being oxytocin
which is the social hormone that you see
a friend you know and you feel really
good by seeing a friend uh that's what
your brain releases and makes you feel
good more connected with your people
it's the same um hormone that your brain
releases when you have a good french
kiss and also even an orgasm so this is
coming from our gut really amazing our
gut microbiomes our third Health defense
system the fourth one is our DNA which
is much more than a genetic code our DNA
fixes itself because it's damaged all
the time and damaged DNA leads to cancer
and other diseases but our DNA is
Hardware to fix itself and to slow down
its own our cellular aging and of course
our immune system which is more powerful
than we've ever re ever realized before
so what I what I write about in my book
are more than 200 foods that activate
these body's Health defense systems and
while everybody knows there are certain
foods that damage our health I've
actually figured out which ones are why
they damage our health defense systems
but more importantly I want to focus on
the good things that you should eat
because I'm I'm kind of a foodie I love
food I wouldn't say I love eating but I
I love food and I think food tells us
something about our our childhood our
culture our families um our Traditions
um and so there's an intimate relation
ship with our food and the great news is
that many Foods um including foods that
we mix together and this is the whole
point about food synergies activate our
body's Health defenses so the grand
Slammers uh that I write about my book
are a a series of foods and by the way
that list is growing because you know
you can only put so much in a book and
the research continues are foods that
activate all five Health defense systems
at the same time and so just like a
grand slammer you know like in baseball
you you know it's a home run in every
everybody gets driven around the bases
to home um so you score big time that's
what I call the foods that actually
really knock it out of the
park AB absolutely so you know what I've
discovered in writing my book and in
doing the research is that
95 plus percent of the foods that our
body uh craves and that loves to eat
because it activates those Health
defenses so we we need those Foods are
plant-based Foods now plant-based foods
are um it's an easy term to say and very
popular but there's a lot of nuance to
actually plant-based Foods right so um
and it's easy to know how Nuance it is
when you wheel your cart into a grocery
store or if you live in Europe you go to
the weekly market and what's the first
thing that you see in one of these
markets or grocery stores the produce
section you're immediately overwhelmed I
mean I think that's probably from the
time I was a kid you know F going with
my mom to the grocery store you go in
what's the first thing you see you're
surrounded by color greens blues yellows
Reds oranges and it changes by the
season right and one of my favorite
things to do you know when I'm uh going
to a small village for example whether
it's in Europe or Asia the first thing I
do when I arrive you know after I unpack
my bags is I go straight to the market
right that's one of the first thing I
research because I'm so interested in
seeing what's there it's it's like it's
like space exploration like what's going
on you know like I I'm so interested in
again most of the stuff you see that
you're that you're surrounded by
surround sound are plant-based Foods so
if plant-based foods are diverse so too
are the ways that they can actually help
our body's Health defenses and that's
where colors make a difference and
that's where textures make a difference
and where they grow and how they grow
whether you treat them as pesticides or
not whether um you eat seasonally or not
um how you um prepare them even how you
chew them can make a big difference in
terms of releasing them for example uh
we know that a lot of the sulforaphane
containing or cruciferous vegetables
like broccoli um uh uh they're crunchy
right I mean so um I mean even if you
still have a little bite to them you
shouldn't overcook them if they're soggy
you've overcooked them and what happens
is that there are um natural bio active
chemicals Mother Nature's Pharmacy is
actually stuck inside the cells of these
plants and for like so for um
cruciferous vegetables you want to Chew
Chew Chew Chew to break down those plant
cells so you can release those natural
bioactives so that's one an example a
second one is spinach spinach um is um
dark leafy green vegetables got a lot of
great micronutrients but most people
don't realize that one of the more
powerful things that spinach contains
are natural nitrogen Mo molecules that
come out of the soil spinach loves to
grow in soil that's got a lot of
nitrogen right so we screw up our um
soil we're messing up the phosphorus and
the nitrogen and we're contaminating it
but but spinach naturally absorbs this
nitrogen so when we eat spinach and
again you don't want to overcook spinach
but whether you eat a raw leaf or you
sauté it right little bit of olive oil
little bit of garlic some shallots or
whatever you want to do okay um and you
and you eat spinach you don't want to uh
you don't want to gulp your food this is
where again the Traditions traditional
eating is eating with people eating
slowly mostly plants enjoying your meal
making it tasty because you're combining
it all together right so this is now now
we're talking about family meal right
and you're eating the foods turns out
that when you actually chew your spinach
and and and enjoy it in your mouth
there's microbiome gut back bacteria
healthy gut bacteria in our on our
tongue they live inside the crevices of
our tongue that help to digest the
nitrogen coming out of the spinach and
then that goes into the saliva that we
swallow and that nitrogen goes into our
bloodstream now not nitrogen like the
bends for for diving this is natural
plant-based nitrogen it's nitric oxide
and it causes our blood vessels to
dilate naturally it causes our blood
pressure to go down and it helps our
blood vessels to stay healthier and to
help his heal from the inside out I want
to ask you an even more profound
question okay and that question is what
is health so um let's go ahead and have
you uh uh goad and type in some of your
uh question your answers in the chat
what do you think health is you know I I
used to ask this question myself when I
was in medical school trying to figure
out like all right what is what is
actual Health right so is it absence of
disease is it um of Vitality is it
Clarity of mind I mean the answers are
pouring in and um and and I'm going to
actually tell you that although every
individual's definition of Health for
themselves is may be different and
should be different because we're all
Unique Individuals and that's one of the
importantance aspects of Integrative
Medicine is really not trying to copy
paste or try to put everybody into a
single formula but really trying to
include the individualism but I will
tell you as a researcher so I'm in
internal medicine doctor but I'm a
vascular biologist I studi blood vessels
and as a scientist I'm always trying to
figure out well how do you define
something like what does research tell
us well health used to be to me if I'm
not sick I must be healthy so health is
the absence of disease the reason that
that's actually kind of a frustrating
answer is that we all want better health
but actually trying to achieve something
that is the ABS of something else okay
that's like saying that wealth is the
absence of poverty I want to figure out
how to get rich well the absence of
poverty doesn't give you any answers
it's not useful right so so I want to
tell you that health is not just the
absence of disease that is one part of
it but health is in fact the result of
our own bodies human bodies hardwired
systems of Health defense so we actually
have health defenses that are hardwired
in our body what do we mean by Health
defense well I want to show you this
picture most of you guys have seen a
castle if not actually having gone to
Europe uh or you know you may have been
to Disney Disney's got a nice Castle as
well but of course everyone you know
who's grown up with fairy tales have
seen pictures of castles and if you look
really closely at a castle there are
lots of different elements of castles
that are designed for defense in fact
almost every aspect of the architecture
of a castle is intended for uh defense
so let me just kind of share with you a
few look at those slits in the column
The Columns that's those are Arrow slits
for people to fire arrows at Invaders
the walls of a castle are slightly
sloped which makes it difficult for
people to crawl up and I'll show you
here's the anatomy of what what's going
on there's even a bent entrance so
people can't rush in very uh hard the
spiral staircase in a castle okay it's
interesting it always goes up clockwise
okay why does the stairway goes up
clockwise think about it if you are if
you are a a knight in a castle defending
it most people are right-handed so if
you're standing defending it and you've
got your sword in your right hand you
can swing downwards on a spiral
staircase that goes up clockwise if
you're an enemy and you're right-handed
running up the stairs and a clockwise
stairs it's much more difficult to swing
up okay so every aspect of a castle is
is critically uh designed uh to be able
to to help defend um all the citizens
within well the body is the same same
way and I want to share with you the
research I've done to look at what is
are the bodies The Body Fortress our our
our body as a castle what are some of
our health defenses androgenesis how
body grows blood vessels um our
regeneration our stem cells that are in
our body our microbiome our gut health
healthy gut bacteria we talked a little
bit about bacteria in the tongue healthy
bacteria there's a lot more lower in the
gut our DNA not just a uh uh not just
genetic code but actually our DNA is
hardwired to protect us from the
environment from uh ultraviolet
radiation from the Sun from radon from
the basement uh from off gassing from
our carpet and our furniture and the new
car smell and even from the fumes that
we would Breathe In when we're pumping
gas at The Filling Station you can smell
those fumes you're standing down into
the gas and all those chemicals that
we're breathing in are actually damaging
our DNA but fortunately our body can fix
itself as part of the health defense and
of course our immun immunity like our
grandma's always told us how important
it is to have a good immune system and
certainly after the last two and a half
years we are very very alert to how
important good immunity is so I'm going
to talk about um Health defenses and
talk about what they mean for uh
diseases but these actually are really
amazing because food the food that we
eat can activate our health defenses and
that's what I'm going to show with you
hey there it's Dr Lee I share a lot in
my YouTube videos but sometimes we need
a deeper more personal dive into how
food can be used as medicine and that's
why I created my e Tob disease course
you'll have me as your teacher and guide
to unlock the full potential of food
that can be used to boost your health my
course is packed with a latest science
and practical strategies it's all
designed to be easily followed and
something you can start using right away
so whether you want to prevent a disease
or fight a disease or just optimize your
health for longevity my course has got
you covered so if you're ready to make a
positive change click on the link below
or scan the QR code on the screen right
now I can't wait to see how you're going
to get started to improve your health
using food now back to the video now I
came and worked on these Health defenses
and organize these five Health defenses
in a very honest way my background is in
biotechnology I set out 25 years ago to
help develop better treatments for
cancer better treatments for heart
disease ways to stop vision loss and
blindness ways to heal people who have
diabetes and what we did uh when I
worked with biotech companies okay is to
look at these defenses androgenesis how
do we develop a better androgenesis drug
uh DNA modification how we develop gene
therapy regeneration how do we develop
stem cell therapy okay immunity how do
we develop immunotherapy so each of
these Health defenses that I just told
you foods can activate are the focus of
a number of Drug Company pharmaceutical
efforts to develop billion dooll
Blockbuster drugs that take a decade and
oftentimes don't really work that well
and of and many times are not available
fairly to every patient and so as I was
going through my own work uh over the
decades I realized that although I have
to tell you I've been successful there I
I've been involved with the development
of 403 FDA approved drugs for one or
more of these types of systems so we
have new cancer treatments we have
diabetes we have vision loss treatments
I'm still working on other ones for
heart disease but I will tell you I
started to realize that using
Pharmaceuticals which are can be
lifesaving is really treating the horse
out of the barn so I asked if we can we
do prevention to prevent the disease in
the first place because who wants a
chronic disease if we can prevent a
chronic disease could we instead have
chronic Health that's what I want for my
patients and that's what I want for
myself when you're talking about
prevention you can't really think about
drugs you got to think about things that
are safe available inexpensive like food
so here was the unfair Advantage I had
since I worked on these Health defenses
from a drug development perspective I
had all the tools to be able to throw
Foods into these same test systems to be
able to interpret the results and to see
what foods do and what was really
amazing is that when you put them up
head-to-head in many case foods can
actually beat medicines or at least they
equivalent to medicines and in many
cases foods can combine with medicines
to bring you even more benefits so
that's what we're going to um talk about
now I want to ask you about uh what do
you what are the chronic diseases of
greatest interest to you guys what are
you interested in go ahead and put into
the chat what are some of the diseases
that interest you go ahead and put put
your own go ahead and put your own
interest in what are the diseases that
you came to hear about that you'd like
to know more about when it comes to food
cancer I'm hearing I'm seeing um heart
disease cancer diabetes long covid um
asthma autoimmune disease Parkinson's
look I mean what what's flashing through
like crazy like lightning uh uh in this
uh is exactly the things that concern me
as well concern me as a as a family
member I've got family members who are
afflicted by the diseases that you're
entering here um I'm also concerned
about as a doctor I take care of
patients with cancer and heart disease
and diabetes and uh all those kind of
conditions all chronic diseases actually
are crushing our health care System man
I would like to be able to get to a
point where the main work that we do the
heavy lifting is really helping people
um prevent the disease in the first
place and to empower everyone to take
charge of their own health why do you
need to go to the doctor's office to be
able to get the solution if food as
medicine might be able to help you take
command and Empower you to actually be
in charge of your own health so that's
what we're going to talk about before we
dive into some of the diseases I want to
share with you um some information from
the CDC the Centers for Disease Control
and these are as of last year the um 10
leading causes of death all right um and
not surprisingly heart disease is out
there cancer is still out there covid
kind of goes up and down hopefully going
down now and diabetes you know although
it isn't a leading cause of death it
definitely is a leading cause not a top
like top five it definitely is a leading
cause of morbidity as well as mortality
people with diabetes their quality of
life is severely compromised they have
vision problems they have nerve problems
they have wound problems heart problems
kidney problems anybody who's listening
who um knows somebody with diabetes
understands how important it is to
prevent uh and reverse some of those uh
some of those shortcomings that that
people that people with diabetes are
struggling with and I I think it's
really important to to say these are
people with diabetes I don't refer to
them as diabetic patients all right
patients are having diabetes and other
diseases as well so these I put in The
Orange Box I want to share with you some
of the work I've done looking at uh how
foods can actually activate your health
defenses to combat some of these
diseases let's start with the bigie the
c-word Cancer all right everyone has
been touched by cancer at some level in
their family this is like the you know
that Kevin
Bacon uh Game Six Degrees of Separation
I would say when it comes to cancer
there's almost no degrees of separation
or one degree of separation at most but
most of us know somebody directly that
actually has been touched by cancer it's
a word that actually generates fear even
among doctors okay and and we are not
immune in the medical community from uh
cancer uh either but I want to share
with you some important insights on that
what we have discovered about cancer
recently and that is and and that is
that one thing that cancer needs to grow
to become dangerous is angiogenesis
angiogenesis is how the body grows blood
vessels um angio blood blood vess blood
vessel vessel Genesis is growth one of
our body's Health defenses is actually
to make sure they can grow enough blood
vessels in the body and then stop
prevent diseases like cancer from
getting extra blood vessels to selfishly
feed themselves what do I mean by let me
show you a picture all right cancers
hijack angiogenesis so take a look at
the far left uh upper corner cor there's
this little gray dot that little tiny
little dle is actually a microscopic
cancer why did they form well the human
body is made out of 40 trillion cells
that have to replicate they have to copy
themselves and by the way that's why
we're here today and that's why we're
still going to be here tomorrow because
our body is repeating itself copy and
pasting itself now if I asked you to
copy and paste something 10 times you're
probably going to do it perfectly if I
ask you to copy and paste something a
hundred times you'll probably do it okay
but you might make a mistake or two now
we're asking the body the human body to
copy and paste replicate cells 40
trillion times almost all in a day okay
you can imagine how many mistakes get
made I'm going to give you the answer
about 10,000 mistakes are made every 24
hours that lead to these tiny little
microscopic mutation mutated cells that
are tiny cancer so in fact children form
cancer adult form cancers healthy people
athletes everyone's got cancer in their
body it's like a pimple and because you
can't see it it's microscopic it can't
get any bigger than 2 to 3 millimeters
in diameter without a blood supply
because no oxygen no food no nutrition
the cancer just stays there like a
pimple now think about it if you saw a
pimple in your face in the mirror in the
morning you might stare at it and want
to get rid of it but that pimple grew in
your back and you couldn't see it you
wouldn't even know when it goes away and
that's really what we're beginning to
understand about the biology of how
cancer develops and how our body's um uh
defense systems ward off its ability to
grow so the question isn't why did I get
cancer when you know that that's a very
common question that cancer patients ask
really the question I want you to ask um
is to think about is why don't we get
cancer more often right so you're at a
bus stop you smell somebody else's
cigarett how come you don't get lung
cancer you're breathing the fumes if
you're standing down when when you're
pumping gas how come you don't get lung
cancer well there's because your body's
Health offenses are preventing those
cancers that might form microscopically
from Ever Getting to be dangerous and
then your immune system Wings by like
cops on a beat patrolling a safe
neighborhood and sees something abnormal
like a drug dealer sitting in the corner
might not be doing anything bad but but
like a policeman would put the the bad
guy into the Patty wagon um the immune
cells will gobble up the microscopic
cancer and dispose of them that's how we
realize um how cancers form and
disappear in our body all the time the
scary cancers are the ones that actually
get a blood supply over months or years
a few will actually figure out how to
trick our body okay our defenses are
down and um and they're able to recruit
selfishly a private blood supply and
once Cancers get a blood supply they can
explode in growth in the lab that I was
working in um we found that if you um
isolated a tumor from a uh blood supply
it would stay small forever essentially
but once you let the tumor touch blood
vessels a a tiny little small cancer can
grow 16,000 times in size in just two
weeks so anog Genesis is a big trigger
all right what's interesting is that you
can actually cut off the blood supply to
cancer this is part of the drug
development work that I've done in the
past and there are now more than a dozen
anti-angiogenic drugs that starve
cancers by cutting off the blood supply
more than a dozen Pharmaceuticals but
guess what there are foods that can
actually do this as well remember I told
you I went from developing drugs to
saying could we throw some foods into
the systems and see if we get a similar
effect and this is in a lab so let me
just give you an example of one food
that can actually do that tomato
actually contains a natural molecule
called lopine okay it's a catenoid it's
what makes actually Tomatoes red and uh
uh lopine when you actually pick a
tomato off a Vine and and chew it and
bite it like eat it like an apple or cut
it into a salad most of the lopin in a
form that doesn't get really absorb that
well you'll absorb 20% of it 80% of it
just go goes out the shoot below okay
but if you actually cook it the Tomato
the heat from cooking simmering Tomatoes
like tomato sauce will change that
chemical structure into a form your body
loves to absorb like 85% absorption
which is exactly what we want for loped
now I took lopine and I went to the lab
and we tested in a system to see if it
would stop those blood vessels from
growing towards a tumor in the lab and
indeed that's exactly what we found
lopine was a potent
anti-angiogenic cancer starving molecule
okay really quite amazing um and in fact
there are research publish Publications
on this so I'm not the only person
that's done it I I did the work back in
2010 two years later other people
replicated it so this is a repeat um of
the work that we had done very important
the British Journal of nutrition highly
credible Journal now remember I told you
rubber meets the road is actually what
happens with people and here we are the
health professionals follow-up study
it's a massive study more than 40,000
men studied over 20 years and they
looked at nutrition and cancer outcomes
and what do they find they found that
those men who ate two to three servings
of cooked Tomatoes that's tomato sauce
per week now how how much was it serving
half a cup of cooked Tomatoes okay now
think about it tomatoes sauce if I gave
you only half a cup of tomato sauce for
your pasta you'd probably come back and
ask me for a little bit more all right
so not much again readily attainable
amounts of food eating tomatoes tomato
sauce with lycopene in a form you could
absorb was associated in more than
40,000 men with a reduced risk in this
study of developing prostate cancer by
30% by cutting off the blood supply to
prevent cancers from actually growing up
and in fact they look at the people who
did develop prostate cancer because look
30% didn't get it 70% did they biopsy
the prostate and they took a look and
here's what they found that those men
who did develop prostate cancer when you
biop seed their prostate and you
compared how aggressive the cancer was
how many blood vessels were feeding the
cancer those uh uh men who had more
tomato sauce um per week over the course
of the month actually had fewer blood
vessels all right this is anti an
androgenic seen in pathology in a
research study that really makes a very
strong case and that's really why this
was published in the Journal of the
National Cancer Research in the Journal
of the National Cancer Research
Institute um that um that Foods the
foods that we eat actually can have a
meaningful correlation with uh diseases
that we care about so for men prostate
cancer now there's a there's a similar
study for women in breast cancer and the
reduction was almost about 40% in a
clinical U study looking at a
Association now remember I just told you
about cooking the tomatoes this has been
studied too how long do you have to um
change the Tomato to so that's how is
available well you know you actually get
better
bioavailability um by simmering at 190
degrees that's simmering not boiling 212
is boiling and two minutes you've
actually converted about half of what
you want to do at three minutes you've
really transformed a lot you get a lot
more bioavailab but you've really kind
of supercharged it now we've actually
studied this in the human body as well
if you cook tomatoes in water right I
don't know who cooks tomatoes in water I
cook my tomatoes in olive oil by making
a sauce but then you were to actually
take a look um at the uh you temperature
will go up Lop will be changed it will
be absorbed in the bloodstream but then
you compare how much is is of lopine is
in the blood from tomato sauce cooked in
water compared to olive oil the oil
actually has a lot more now why is that
about about three times three times more
it's because lopine is what we call a
fat soluble molecule lopine um is kind
of like soap it doesn't dissolve very
well in regular water but it'll dissolve
in soapy water and when I say fat
soluble I mean it doesn't like to
dissolve that e readily in regular water
but it'll dissolve in oil really easily
so tomatoes and olive oil simmered over
a period of time what is what is that
Mediterranean Cuisine all right so no no
was right when she said eat you know
have my pasta with my tomato sauce um
it's actually cooked in a healthy way so
this is again food is medicine we can
actually study it um not just looking at
the food to say here's my superfood
we're actually able to study the food
ask what's in it look at the human look
at that and and see how do we study that
and look at the correlations this is
really what food is medicine is I'm
actually one of the people that not only
um talks about food and health but
actually does the kind of study as well
by the way
what kind of olive oils do you want to
use because olive oils olives contain
healthy anti-angiogenic cancer starving
polyphenols one of them is called
hydroxy tyrosol so how many olive oils
are out there well there's a lot of
different olive oils which one would you
want to pick one of olive oil is from
one of these three olives so olive oil
monover varial so when I go to the store
I have to go to the middle AES right and
I look for olive oil what do you most
people do you just grab the one that
they are familiar with here's what I do
I pick up each of the bottles and I look
at the side and I look for monovarietal
to see if there's any um it tells you
what type of olive the olive oil is
pressed from and these three marolo from
Italy Cori from Greece and picu from
Spain the Cori and and pel Greek and
Spanish Olive olives are quite common so
you can find those in almost any food
store you'd go to these days um that's
the kind that I used to with my tomatoes
because I want extra polyphenols
actually from the olive oil as well so
again um think about how we know the
Mediterranean Cuisine is actually
healthy now we're getting down to the
science of it as well oh what about the
tomatoes is there a tomato that's got
higher amounts of lopine absolutely San
Marzano Tomatoes uh cherry tomatoes have
a lot of lyapin those black tomatoes
that only appeared on the market in the
last few years a lot of lopeno and
ironically Tangerine Tomatoes aren't red
they don't look like they'd have a lot
of red lycopene die but they already
have the lycopene in a form where it's
chemically transformed you don't need to
cook those you eat those like an apple
you'll get a lot of lopine absorbed it's
already got the the chemical form of
lopine your body can readily absorb so
if you want to make a salad and you want
to get that lycopene make it with a
tangerine tomato which is this kind of
yellowish tomato so again you know a lot
of people talk about food and health in
kind of like a tech spooky sort of way
preachy sort of way I love to talk about
it in a way that we can relate to
because we're going to the store
summertime's coming up we're going to
see a ton of tomatoes which one are you
going to pick hopefully you'll think
about this um presentation now a lot of
foods with anti-androgenic activity
please um come to my website uh sign up
for a download I'm G have a gift for you
at the very end um or by my book there's
tables and charts these are all the
foods that we have studied with
anti-angiogenic cancer starving activity
I want to give you something to take
home and um the the first thing I you to
think about is that let food be thy
medicine is a statement that was
attributed to hypocrates 2000 some years
ago so this idea although I showed you
the science the idea has been around for
a long long time so here's what I want
you to do at home to make food your
medicine this is like my take-home
message for you three things three very
simple things number one to make food
your medicine I want you to start with
healthy food I gave you a partial list
you saw it you can watch this again on a
replay um can see it in my book I'm
going to give you a whole list about in
a second um choose healthy foods that
you already love take a sharpie Circle
the ones that you go man I like to eat
that one and eat more of it because if
you start eating the healthy food that
you already love that is healthy you're
already way ahead of the game number two
cut down or cut out foods that are
harmful for your health we didn't spend
much time doing that because so many
people actually talk about harmful foods
so I didn't want to take up your
valuable time this evening by telling
you what you've heard from everyone else
too much sugar too much soda alcohol too
much red meat Ultra processed foods
processed meats you know what they are
cut them cut them down or cut them out
and then the final thing is to eat with
moderation all right when we overwhelm
our metabolism by eating too much think
Thanksgiving dinner the seconds you go
to First plate great to go back for
seconds you Heap up the plate again only
two or three forkfuls later man you
really regret what you did you're listen
to your body um uh you know your body I
can't actually handle that so there's a
saying called harachi banme stop eating
when you're 80% full that's a good rule
of thumb eat slowly listen to your body
when you think you're going to be about
full eat more slowly then stop next time
you go to the doctor next time if you're
are a physician or a healthc care
professional and you're actually sening
your patient and like you know we're so
busy trying to handle all the medical
things or your integrative practice and
you're trying to think through how do I
actually bring the right Focus to uh my
patients think about the kind of Science
and the kind of research that I've just
talked about and I'll close with this
quote from the Nobel laurate Alberton
Georgie who once said Discovery real
Discovery consists of seeing what
everybody's seen and thinking what
nobody has thought and what I hope hope
I've shown you this evening are some of
the foods that we all recognize that we
all some of us would just really love to
eat those foods and I hope that I've
actually stimulated you to think about
the same Foods in a new way and that new
way tells us about food as medicine
thank you very much
hi there if you enjoyed watching this
video I know you'll love the next one
stay here and check it out and I'll see
you there