The Chronic Disease Expert: We Can Now Reverse Stage 4 Cancer! This Is Feeding Your Cancer Cells!

Dr. William Lee, a Harvard-trained physician and medical scientist, discusses the transformative potential of food as medicine in combating diseases, particularly cancer. He highlights the body's natural defense systems, which are often undermined by modern lifestyle choices, such as excessive consumption of processed foods and exposure to environmental toxins like microplastics. Dr. Lee emphasizes the role of dietary choices in enhancing these defenses, citing over 200 foods that can help starve cancer cells and boost immunity. He also explores the impact of stress and sleep on health, advocating for a balanced, plant-forward diet similar to Mediterranean or Asian cuisines to support long-term well-being and longevity.

• The human body is equipped with inherent health defense systems that protect against diseases, including cancer.
• These systems are continuously active, detecting and eliminating microscopic cancers and other threats.
• Modern lifestyle and dietary habits can compromise these defenses, but they can also be strengthened through proper nutrition and lifestyle choices.

"The reason that we don't become more sick from all kinds of diseases, including cancer, is because our body is hardwired with its own health defense systems."

• This quote highlights that our bodies are naturally equipped to fend off diseases, emphasizing the importance of maintaining these systems.

• Historical dietary and lifestyle choices, especially from the 1950s to the 1970s, have long-term effects on current health trends.
• The consumption of processed foods and environmental degradation contribute to increased prevalence of chronic diseases.
• Positive changes in diet and lifestyle can counteract these negative effects and improve health outcomes.

"We are presently seeing the fallout of some of the not so good moves that we made in the 1950s and 60s and 70s."

• This quote underlines the long-term consequences of past lifestyle choices and the need for corrective actions through healthier living.

• Cancer is a common occurrence at the cellular level, with the body making numerous mistakes daily that could lead to cancer.
• The body's defense systems typically manage these errors, preventing them from developing into full-blown cancer.
• Understanding and enhancing these defenses can lead to better prevention and treatment strategies.

"Every 24 hours, there are 10,000 mistakes that are made in your body. Each of those is a microscopic cancer."

• This statement provides a new perspective on cancer, suggesting that it is a constant but manageable threat through the body's defenses.

• Certain foods can enhance the body's natural defenses against cancer by boosting immunity and regulating blood vessel growth.
• Foods like coffee, tea, and those rich in polyphenols can help starve cancer cells by cutting off their blood supply.
• A balanced diet with a focus on anti-androgenic foods can significantly reduce cancer risk.

"There are more than 200 foods that I've studied that can actually starve cancers."

• This quote emphasizes the potential of dietary choices in cancer prevention and highlights the importance of food as a therapeutic tool.

• Excessive consumption of salt, sugar, alcohol, and processed foods can compromise the body's health defenses.
• Stress and lack of sleep further weaken these systems, making the body more susceptible to diseases.
• Maintaining a balanced diet, managing stress, and ensuring adequate sleep are crucial for optimal health.

"What are the things that take your shields down, right? What are the things that turn off the smoke alarm in your house that unlock the doors?"

• This quote prompts consideration of lifestyle factors that diminish the body's natural defenses, encouraging proactive health management.

• Quality sleep is essential for the body's repair processes, including brain detoxification and metabolism regulation.
• Chronic stress can lead to poor sleep, weakened immunity, and increased vulnerability to diseases.
• Strategies to manage stress and improve sleep quality are vital for maintaining health defenses.

"When you're sleeping, even though our muscles may not be moving like we are during the day, in fact, a lot of other systems including our health defenses are being repaired, renewed, regenerated, rebooted."

• This quote underscores the critical role of sleep in maintaining and enhancing the body's health defenses.

• There is a significant rise in early onset cancer rates, particularly among younger populations.
• Factors contributing to this trend may include lifestyle changes, dietary habits, and environmental exposures.
• Understanding these trends is crucial for developing effective prevention and intervention strategies.

"Globally early onset cancer incidents has risen by about 80% by 1990 and 2019."

• This statistic highlights the alarming increase in early onset cancer cases, prompting a need for further investigation and action.

• Exposure to toxic elements in the environment is increasing, potentially leading to earlier clinical cancer diagnoses.
• The balance of health defenses is being compromised by harmful exposures and other factors, leading to increased cancer risk.
• Historically, certain cancers, like colorectal cancer, were rare in younger populations but are now being diagnosed in teenagers.

"Are we exposing ourselves to something that is more commonly encountered today than before? Number one. Number two, are our defenses being taken down by forces that we didn't appreciate are compromising us? Most likely both."

• The speaker highlights the dual impact of increased exposure to harmful substances and weakened health defenses contributing to cancer risk.

• Microplastics are being ingested through everyday items like plastic food containers and utensils.
• These microplastics can embed in the body, causing inflammation and other health issues.
• Studies have found microplastics in various parts of the body, including the brain, blood vessels, breast milk, and reproductive organs.

"The amount of plastic that was found in the average human brain is about the amount you'd find in a typical plastic picnic spoon just distributed throughout the brain."

• This quote underscores the alarming extent to which microplastics can accumulate in the human body, highlighting the potential health risks.

• Simple lifestyle changes can reduce microplastic exposure, such as using ceramic or glass instead of plastic for food and drink.
• Avoiding foods packaged in plastic and being cautious with products like tea bags can also help minimize exposure.

"The easiest way to lower your exposure to microplastics is to throw out your plastic cups, your plastic plates, and your plastic silverware."

• The speaker provides practical advice for reducing microplastic exposure through everyday choices.

• Certain foods have protective effects against diseases like cancer due to their anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.
• Green tea, especially matcha, is highlighted for its health benefits, including reducing cancer risk and improving metabolism.

"Drinking green tea in its most healthful form raises your body's health defense systems."

• Green tea is emphasized as a potent dietary choice for enhancing the body's natural defenses against disease.

• Angiogenesis is the process of blood vessel formation, which plays a critical role in cancer development by supplying tumors with nutrients.
• Certain foods can inhibit angiogenesis, potentially preventing cancer growth.

"Foods have potency just like drugs."

• The discovery that foods can influence angiogenesis similarly to drugs highlights the potential of diet in cancer prevention.

• The speaker shares personal stories of family members affected by cancer, illustrating the emotional impact and the evolving nature of cancer treatment.
• Advances in treatments like immunotherapy have shown promise in effectively managing cancer by harnessing the body's immune system.

"We were able to save my mom. And I can tell you, I literally had dinner with my mom two days ago, and she's 90, 91, 10, 11 years later, completely healthy, completely cancer-free."

• The speaker's personal experience with immunotherapy demonstrates the potential for new treatments to transform cancer care and outcomes.

• Traditional cancer diagnosis relies on tissue biopsy, providing limited treatment guidance.
• Emerging techniques involve sequencing the entire cancer genome to identify all mutations.
• Artificial intelligence and machine learning can differentiate between normal and tumor cells, identifying the mutations driving cancer.
• Personalized cancer treatment involves creating a "pearl necklace" of mutations, leading to individualized immunotherapy.

"What if I told you that where we are headed with cancer therapy is a new frontier where you take the tumor with the biopsy, sure, look it under the microscope, call it out, uh uh define what it is, and then you send it to a lab where you do complete full-on genetics. You sequence the entire cancer genome."

• The speaker introduces the concept of using comprehensive genetic sequencing to revolutionize cancer treatment.

"Now imagine, and I'm going to give you an analogy here. Do you remember that Tom Cruz movie uh Minority Report? Yeah. So you remember like he was wearing these gloves and you have a glass pane and you can actually move the uh things around on the glass with your fingertips, right?"

• An analogy is used to illustrate the interactive process of identifying and connecting cancer mutations.

• Immunotherapy uses the body's immune system to fight cancer, with promising results in clinical trials.
• Personalized vaccines can be created by printing proteins from identified cancer mutations.
• Patients have shown significant improvement, even in aggressive cancers like glioblastoma.

"I have a a colleague named Saskia Biscup that is actually developing peptide vaccine treatments against cancer."

• The quote highlights the development of personalized peptide vaccines for cancer treatment.

"So between my mother, Rebecca Divine, I'm just telling you like I've had well over a dozen people who there's no way they'd be here today if it wasn't for the scientific advances that all shore up the body's health defense systems, specifically the immune system."

• The speaker shares personal experiences to emphasize the effectiveness of immunotherapy.

• Gut bacteria, particularly Akkermansia muciniphila, play a crucial role in the success of immunotherapy.
• The presence of specific bacteria can enhance the immune response against cancer.
• Dietary choices can influence the growth of beneficial gut bacteria.

"The research that was presented showed that there was no differences between the groups of responders, people who did well versus people who didn't do well for immunotherapy, except for one thing. That one thing was one bacteria. The responders had one bacteria called Akkermansia muciniphila."

• The presence of Akkermansia muciniphila is identified as a key factor in successful immunotherapy responses.

"Pomegranate. Pomegranate juice. Pomegranate seeds will grow Akkermansia. Cranberries, uh, cranberry juice, dried cranberries will grow Akkermansia."

• Specific foods are noted to promote the growth of Akkermansia muciniphila in the gut.

• Various diets exist, but many are difficult to maintain long-term.
• Sustainable eating practices, such as Mediterranean and Asian diets, offer health benefits.
• These diets emphasize plant-forward, fresh, and seasonal foods.

"I find that it's much more healthy in the long run if you can find a sustainable way of eating that works for you personally that you can maintain and that you're going to enjoy your life as well."

• The speaker advocates for sustainable and enjoyable eating habits for long-term health.

"Mediterranean is what how I tell people I actually eat. That's my quote diet."

• The Mediterranean diet is highlighted as a model for healthy eating practices.

• Body fat is an important organ with functions beyond energy storage.
• Visceral fat is dangerous due to its inflammatory nature and association with chronic diseases.
• Brown fat can help burn harmful visceral fat, activated by cold exposure and certain foods.

"When you have too much of it, not only does it fill up that the suitcase of your body, the tube of your body, but it starts to push on organs, which is not healthy because it's all packing inside the between the spaces, the potential spaces in there."

• The dangers of visceral fat are explained through an analogy of packing a suitcase.

"Brown fat actually is metabolically as a active and it fires up a process called thermogenesis to burn down harmful visceral extra body fat."

• The role of brown fat in burning visceral fat through thermogenesis is highlighted.

• Cortisol, a stress hormone, affects metabolism and fat storage.
• Chronic stress leads to prolonged cortisol secretion, disrupting metabolic processes.
• Cortisol influences where fat is stored in the body, impacting health outcomes.

"Long-term stress uh will lead to excessive prolonged unabated cortisol secretion. And when your cortisol levels are up up and and relentlessly that then actually changes your metabolism."

• The impact of chronic stress and cortisol on metabolism and fat storage is discussed.

"It's not the short-term cortisol, it's a long-term cortisol that's actually the most damaging."

• The distinction between short-term and long-term cortisol effects is emphasized.

• Excess visceral fat is linked to an increased risk of various cancers.
• Inflammation from visceral fat creates an environment conducive to cancer growth.
• Managing visceral fat through lifestyle changes can reduce cancer risk.

"And they actually found that women who did not have extra body fat had you know normal risk of breast cancer but women who had skinny fat remember all the women in the study and so 3,000 women actually were normal body size not I mean they weren't super models but they were they were just normal-sized women some of them were slimmer than others but none of them were obese none of them were overweight just normal size."

• A study is cited linking visceral fat to an increased risk of breast cancer.

"Turns out that excess visceral fat has been linked to 14 other cancers. Increased risk of 14 other cancers."

• The quote highlights the broad range of cancers associated with excess visceral fat.

• Illness Anxiety Disorder (formerly hypochondriasis) significantly impacts mortality rates.
• A study examined 45,000 individuals over 24 years, comparing 4,000 with IAD to those without.
• Findings indicated an 84% higher risk of death and an average of 5 years earlier mortality in those with IAD.
• Anxiety may elevate cortisol levels, influencing dietary choices and overall health.

"Those with IAD that were anxious about health and getting checkups had an 84% higher risk of death during the study period, dying on average 5 years earlier than those without the disorder."

• The quote highlights the significant impact of health anxiety on mortality, emphasizing the importance of proactive health management.

• Every meal is an opportunity to choose ingredients that support health defense systems.
• Tomatoes, particularly cooked, reduce prostate cancer risk by 29% with 2-3 servings per week.
• Lycopene in tomatoes cuts off blood supply to tumors, supporting health defenses.

"Men who eat tomatoes regularly, cooked tomatoes, actually have a 29% lower risk of developing prostate cancer."

• This illustrates the potential of dietary choices, like eating tomatoes, to reduce cancer risks.

• Coffee contains polyphenols like chlorogenic acid, which is anti-inflammatory and activates brown fat.
• Brown fat activation through coffee consumption aids in burning harmful white fat.
• Recommended coffee intake is 3-4 cups per day for optimal brown fat activation.

"Chlorogenic acid is anti-inflammatory and turns on your brown fat, causing it to burn down harmful white fat."

• The quote underscores coffee's role in weight management and fat metabolism.

• Fasting is an age-old practice beneficial for metabolism and overall health.
• No universal fasting protocol fits all; it's about finding what suits individual lifestyles.
• Simple fasting can be achieved by extending overnight fasts and delaying breakfast.

"When you're sleeping, you're not eating. When you're not eating, you're fasting."

• This emphasizes the natural occurrence of fasting and its metabolic benefits.

• Brain health is closely linked to vascular health; 400 miles of blood vessels supply the brain.
• Vascular dementia, more common than Alzheimer's, results from poor blood flow in the brain.
• Foods like dark chocolate and beets improve blood flow by producing nitric oxide.

"Vascular dementia is by far the more common type of dementia."

• The quote highlights the prevalence of vascular dementia and the importance of maintaining vascular health.

• Before pharmaceuticals, food was the primary medicine.
• Modern science can now identify which foods support health and prevent diseases.
• Food choices should be personalized, focusing on foods that resonate personally for health benefits.

"We should love our food to love our health."

• This statement stresses the importance of enjoying healthy foods to maintain well-being.

• Supplements should complement a diet rich in micronutrients.
• Vitamin D, omega-3 fatty acids, and certain probiotics are beneficial supplements.
• Personal supplementation choices should be based on individual dietary needs and scientific evidence.

"Supplements can be helpful in the literal translation of the word, supplement, which means topping off."

• This highlights the role of supplements in enhancing dietary intake when necessary.

• Coffee and tea for polyphenols and antioxidants.
• Tree nuts for fiber, protein, and healthy fats.
• Tomatoes for hydration and lycopene.
• Berries for fiber and anti-inflammatory properties.
• Leafy greens for a Mediterranean and Asian diet influence.

"I would bring coffee... tree nuts... tomatoes... berries... leafy greens."

• The selection reflects a balanced diet rich in nutrients supporting various health aspects.

• Over 200 foods are identified as beneficial for health in "Eat to Beat Disease" and "Eat to Beat Your Diet."
• The focus is on individual preferences and integrating enjoyable healthy foods into one's diet.
• The books offer recipes and guidance to make healthy eating accessible and enjoyable.

"You should love your food to love your health."

• Emphasizes the importance of personalizing diet choices for health and enjoyment.