Speaker 0 If we understand now, this is an evolutionary process which goes back towards our origins, then you have to say what drives evolution. And it's not just genetics. So if you think about evolution darwin winnie evolution, which is the survival of the fit is, for example. So what he had observed was that in the Gala islands, it had these birds. And if they had these short beak, which were really ideal for eating knots, and there birds that these had these long beak that were really good for eating fruit.
Speaker 0 And in the areas where there's a lot of knots, you found a lot of these short beak animals and where the areas you had a lot of fruit. You had a lot of these long beach animals. And that what he said was that's not a coincidence. What happens is that the animals the environment selects the genes that are most successful. So if you have a lot of knots, you select for the genes, that's a selective pressure, which favors the survival of those genes that produce this short thick and the areas that have a lot of fruit, have exert a selective pressure on the genes that give you the long narrow beats.
Speaker 0 Right? That makes sense. And it's just sort of basic evolution and cancer does sort of the same thing. So if it's an evolutionary process towards this sort of original being, caused by chronic damage to the cell, then it's not the genetics which is the important part, but it's the environment, right? And that is the seed of cancers there.
Speaker 0 But if you don't provide that environment that, you know, selects for this sort of survival cancer is sort of, you story, then you're not going to get cancer. So yeah, what you have to do then is to say, this is not just a genetic disease because for years, we been sort of thinking about as a genetic disease. So we think, well, it's just sort of pre programmed into us. But it's not because the rates of cancer, we've depend on your environment more than it does on your genes. That is if you look at say breast cancer, breast cancer, if you go from Japan, a Japanese woman in Japan, when they when you move that person to San Francisco, their rate of breast cancer like doubles or triples within a couple generations.
Speaker 1 Crazy.
Speaker 0 Hai. It's the environment to But that's fantastic because then if you can figure out what part of the environment is what's selecting for the damage. So you in some cases we know, it's smoking. It's tobacco. It's viruses.
Speaker 0 Right? In many cases, we don't know breast cancer colon cancer, What's damage prostate. Cancer. We don't know. There's if we can figure out what part of the environment is driving this evolutionary process.
Speaker 0 Yes then that's how we're going to reduce the risk of cancer. And so the question is, what is it in our environment? So they've studied this question for a long time. So back in 19 81, they did a study where they're going to estimate, The risks so we do something called an population attribution factor, which is what percentage a certain risk factor will contribute to cancers. So tobacco smoke is the biggest, 35 percent So tobacco is responsible roughly for 35 percent of cancer.
Speaker 0 Or overall. But number 2 was the diet at around 30 percent Right? So really like very, very close to tobacco and dwarf almost everything else. So all the stuff like the pesticides and the chemicals and stuff Like 1 or 2 percent radiation, 1 or 2 percent. But cancer, was caused in large part due to 1 tobacco, which we know about and 2, the diet.
Speaker 0 The question
Speaker 1 never really got that... Like, people didn't get that. You know? Like, something in. They didn't get that.
Speaker 0 And and and and so they were looking for what part of the diet, that was what the tricky part was. So if it's diet, then what part of the diet is causing cancer. Right? So they looked at fiber wasn't wasn't the case. They looked at dietary fat.
Speaker 0 It wasn't the case. They looked at vitamin deficiencies. And we've done so many studies like you have vitamin a, vitamin b, fo acid, vitamin c, vitamin d, vitamin e, you know, omega 3 fatty acids millennium. We've tested all of those in multi dollar trials and it wasn't efficiency of vitamins that was causing cancer. And the answer came somewhere around 2000, what part of the diet was the most important and we didn't know this really until about 2003, and it turns out that it was obesity was the biggest biggest driver of cancer.
Speaker 0 And probably more specifically is that it was the hyper insulin nina. That is the too much insulin which is very typical of obesity is probably the what's driving cancer in those cases, which The reason I say we didn't know is because... So I went to medical school in the mid 19 nineties and we never talked about this stuff. But in 2003, a very large study came out, which showed that obesity actually raises the risk of all kinds of cancers. So now the Who, class 13 different types of cancer as obesity related, including breast cancer and colorectal cancer, which are after lung lung cancer sort of the most common cancers.
Speaker 0 So really, really important causes. And this is what's important is now you what we're doing is we have to go pass again. So this paradigm which gets us to evolution, which gets us to the seed and the soil, which is this sort of evolutionary ecological, ecology being the study of how the environment interacts with an individual, how you can change that environment in order to prevent cancer. And that's sort of what's sort of exciting about this is that now, hopefully we can start to understand. And then make some changes that are going to minimize our risk of developing these types of cancers and start know, hopefully preventing them in the future.
Speaker 1 Yeah. And I mean, and even question basic premises, you know, I was on the mayo clinic website. I've in preparation of this interview, you know, there's like a a myths and there's like a myths and fact section on cancer and diet. And like, 1 of the questions inside of there was sugar, you know, somebody saying, you know does consuming less sugar have any impact on cancer. Right?
Speaker 1 And it was like There's no research. There's no evidence at all that consuming less sugar has anything to do with cancer. And again, mayo clinic, well established place. They're doing the best they can based on the research and the evidence that's out there right now. And part of the thing that you're bringing in is that highlighting, especially with your previous books that we're really talking about insulin resistance and what that relates to, diabetes, especially type 2 diabetes is, Well, if we know that obesity through this big study that you were talking about plays a major factor?
Speaker 1 And then what is it as part of that also contributes obesity and how do cancer cells get their energy, then, of course, we're gonna wanna pay attention to the level of you know, sugars as 1 example that we're having inside of our diet because that's gonna cause a whole chain of effects that ultimately supports the growth of cancer.
Speaker 0 Yeah. Exactly. And so 1 of the the so Dr. Luc Can, who's a very... Prominent researcher, cancer researcher.
Speaker 0 You know, he was 1 of the ones who sort of uncovered the length, between sort of what sugar does, which is you know, it contributes to this high insulin state and insulin other than being in meta poly hormone is actually very very potent growth factor. So it tell cells to grow. And if you're going to tell cells to grow, then you're going to tip the scales towards increasing growth of cancer cell. For example. So, you know, here's a guy who's sort of, like, 1 of the most prominent cancer researchers and he's like, Sugar scares me.
Speaker 0 You know, that's what he says. In 1 of his articles, he's read. It's like, okay That's all I need to know. Right?
Speaker 1 Totally totally. And and also too on the basic premise of like, what is chemotherapy? Right?
Speaker 0 Yeah.
Speaker 1 Keep... Could could you explain like that link on that? Like, how do they get these well intention poison into cancer cells. Can you explain that to like, our audience through, you know, like exactly like what goes into chemotherapy that takes advantage of exactly that. That we're talking about.
Speaker 0 Yeah. So, yeah. Exactly. So when you look at the cancer cells, you can do something called a pet test, which is a pause emission test. And it basically looks at at how avid cells take up glucose.
Speaker 0 So when you do these tests, things that light up are eating a lot of glucose and those are what are identified as cancer. So they're taking in, you know, like 5 or 10 times the amount of glucose, which is a type of sugar compared compared to normal cells. So it's like, okay, when you look on these sophisticated sort of scans. You can see the cancer cells basically devour sugar like there's no tomorrow, And it's like, well, you know, if I had cancer, I certainly wouldn't be trying to eat too much of the stuff because you know that the 1 place in the body that that loves it. 10 times more than the next guy is the thing.
Speaker 0 Right? And then you have certain chemotherapy, which you take advantage of this, they try and get in you know, by because they're you know, they they may make the sugar and that's how the they they do it on the pos emission tom testing, for example. They may make the sugar so that the cancer takes it up and then it lights it up. And then people are trying to use that to sort of target the cancers as well. But interesting, you know, it's it's an interesting story of how this sort of this new paradigm explained so much more about the phenomenon cancer and how...
Speaker 0 You know what implications it has for screening and this sort of evolution of and this is sort of the promise of this cancer paradigm 3 is that if you now understand that, what is happening now is that the cell is evolving, away from normal cells evolving into a foreign species. Because... And people always think go, that's so weird, Right? But that's the way the body actually looks at the cancer cells. So when our immune system looks at a cell, it has a way to tell between self.
Speaker 0 And non self. That is the the immune system is a very powerful weapon. You don't want to use it on its own cells. That's like friendly Fire. Right?
Speaker 1 Oh no. You wanna type behavior.
Speaker 0 Exactly. And it's very, very bad if that happens. So your body has these. Ways to distinguish between your own cells and everybody else. So bacteria viruses, it will try and kill it.
Speaker 0 And when it sees a cancer, it will try and kill it. That's just the way that's what happened. So it has evolved this cell, so so you take a lung cell. This lung cell, which was originally your own cell. Has evolved into basically a new species that is foreign.
Speaker 0 That that's why
Speaker 1 Hide in your own body.
Speaker 0 Exactly. And that's the reason that instead of trying to the third paradigm, which is like, okay. Now we have these these cells that were originally part of us, but they've basically broken away and they've become their own sort of, you know, invader. Now you say, well, instead of trying to just get ind discrimination killing, which is paradigm 1 or genetic targeting, which is paradigm 2. Now what we're going to do is enhance the immune system to identify it.
Speaker 0 So basically you have these sleeper cells like you we have terrorist, sleeper cells of terrorists in your city, and now what you're trying to do is uncover them, so that you can get your police and your swat teams in there. To kill these sort of domestic terrorists. That's what we're doing with immunotherapy. So these new drugs, these check inhibitors are basically uncovering. So there are certain ways that these cancer cells hide and they're basically trying to cover them.
Speaker 0 Right? And this is the new paradigm. What we're gonna to do is trying to uncover these sleeper cells. These hidden sleeper cells and that they can be identified. Targeted.
Speaker 0 We can, you know, direct the immune system. So something like those those new drugs you're talking about the, you know, those checkpoint inhibitors, then you get Car T, where you're actually going to take the cancer and then engineer sort of a swat team that is going to identify and kill that, Right? That's a new therapy based on this immunotherapy, but it's based more specifically on this new paradigm of looking at a cancer. As a new foreign species. And it's very, very interesting because it's the promise is is sort of immense.
Speaker 0 Like, we're not there yet, and you know, I hope that there's a lot more to come, but it's a totally new way of targeting cancer. And treating it based on a whole new paradigm, and that's what gives me hope for the future that there's more going to be able to be applied because you can apply these lessons of evolutionary biology and say, well, you know, what can I do to to change the environment for example, because that's evolution? That's biology, so things like losing weight and you know, intermittent fasting, which is another weight and lose weight, you know, trying to reverse your type 2 diabetes type 2 diabetic, of course, get much higher rates of cancer because it's also hyper. So getting reversing the type 2 diabetes that's going to likely reduce your risk. You know, to other things like chemo preventative agent, So there's not a lot.
Speaker 0 They've been studying stuff to try and prevent cancer, but there's not a lot. So the only things that might work, that metformin gets a lot of research, which is a diabetes drug may be useful and then green tea, probably a very small effect, but there's some data from, you know, from Japan where they do drink a lot of green tea, that some the compounds in that are maybe may be effective. So may, maybe that's a great you know, great thing to do Drinking and green tea is probably good anyway.
Speaker 1 And really the the the 2 central themes that I got out of your book after really going through that history is 1, the future is hopeful in a way that is really understanding more of that central question, coming back to how we start off the podcast, which is what the heck is cancer. So we're better shape for what we're developing in terms of treatments and drugs in the future because where where more... We have a we have the most robust answer that's actually getting to the source and the root of what is cancer. And the second component is exactly kind of what you were just talking about, which is what are the things that you can do today to both enhance, you know, whether it's some of the work of, like, Walter Long or other people that are out there that are showing that fasting could support. Right?
Speaker 1 Targeted fasting, especially before chemotherapy can or and enhance the the potency of of these drugs if somebody actively has cancer, cutting off the source of the supply of food, which is significantly reducing the amount of glucose so that we're not in this place of you know, hyper anemia. And if you don't have cancer right now, and you're is something that you're paying attention to in the future, you what would be your biggest recommendations? You know, somebody who's healthy, who's listening this podcast right now and they're like, wow. This is all super... Fascinating?
Speaker 1 I've never understood this before, But now I get it. It's almost like you just gave us a masterclass class on cancer. What are fascinating the 1 or 2 things to do today besides not smoking, that will help us be the most resilient to potentially avoid this disease in the future or greatly minimize our risk.
Speaker 0 Yeah. And and so you you get back to those sort of attributable risk, which is number 1 tobacco smoke. So course, that's probably the single most important thing. It still is is to not smoke. And then 2 is the diet, so avoiding hyper anemia, which is, of course that sort of what I talk about more in the obesity code and type 2 diabetes in the diabetes code is that insulin is this hormone which tends to make us gain weight and also causes insulin resistance and too much insulin is a bad.
Speaker 0 Is a is a very potent growth factor, so that's gonna... So if you're... You know, you want to avoid things that are gonna try that are going raise insulin, which is eating a very diet that is very high in refined carbohydrate grades, for example, sugar is probably something you should best take you know, in small amounts. And then this other idea is that you really should be having a regular period of fasting every day. That's really sort of basic.
Speaker 0 It's the word breakfast. It's the meal that breaks your fast, because really you're supposed to be eating at say dinner. Time, which is say 06:00 and eating at breakfast time, which is maybe 08:00. So you're getting somewhere between 12 and 14 hours of fasting every single day time that's what's supposed to happen. That's what that's buried in the word breakfast, right?
Speaker 0 And break fast. That is what's supposed to happen every day. That's not what happened. Happened to most of us in 20 20. Because if you look at sort of happened side norms and stuff instead of having 3 meals and then no snacks.
Speaker 0 We sort of g through it the day, believing that it's actually healthy for us I don't think it is, because every time you are eating, you're stimulating your insulin, which is giving growth signals, To the cells, including the cancer cells, which love insulin. You know, you look at a breast cancer cell instance apple has, like, 5 or 6 times a number of insulin receptors compared to a normal breast cell. They love this stuff. They love insulin, They love glucose. Apple So therefore, you wanna know it.
Speaker 0 So eating sort of whole un processed foods is important. That's probably the most important thing. Not eating all the time is the second probably the second most important thing. And you maintaining a normal weight as best as you can I mean, that's not always the easiest thing to do? But if you are overweight and try to lose that weight if you are type 2 diabetic, try to reverse that type 2 diabetes.
Speaker 0 And And that's the 2, you know, the tobacco and the diet are so overwhelmingly more important than everything else. Like, you could also, you know, look at the viruses, for example, you can get the... You know, try to avoid the hepatitis B and hepatitis C, which cause cancer and human pap virus, but those are sort of given, but the diet and the tobacco are sort of on in a class of their own, everything else is like 2 percent and they're at like, 30, 35 percent.
Speaker 1 And, you know, I I think I just wanna say from somebody from the outsiders has been an observer of your work and consuming it and just super appreciative. The cigarette is peace easy z, you know, tough to break, but actually, there's really lot of really interesting stuff that's coming out of Johns Hopkins and other places of using psychedelics to help break cigarette succession, you know, maybe those things will incorporate and we'll figure out new ways to help people. I think it's about 15 percent of the adult population smokes here in the United States. So it's gone down massively and cancer rates have gone down for that. The diet, sometimes people listening here, if they're not familiar with you work can think smokes Okay.
Speaker 1 She's just talking about eating healthy, but really you're talking about getting out of this central paradigm to use the word. Where we're eating sugar in all its other forms. So people who are listening are like, I don't really have a lot of sugar in my diet, you know, maybe a little bit like coffee, some birthday cake here and there when I'm at parties, but, you know, how often are you eating those meals of refined, starches that are a regular part of our daily life, the big bowls of of rice or ultra process foods or or breads or other things like that, that fine. You know, how those things every so often as, you know, parts of your diet. But when they become the norm, now you understand why so much of America is in that pre diabetic state where they think they might be eating healthy because they're just a little bit overweight, but actually, their diet is constantly spiking their blood sugar, which leads to all these problems with insulin that you're talking about.
Speaker 1 So you're not just talking about eating healthy, let's be a little bit more mindful. You're talking about really actually leaning in and getting your blood sugar under control.
Speaker 0 Yeah. Exactly. And and, you know, 1 of the ways... I mean, a lot of people talk about diets and there's all these different opinions on diets, but what people hadn't focused on really at all, I think until a few years ago was this meal timing that is is eating all the time, really the same as eating you know, a few times. And I think the answer is know, because the point is that you need to let your body sort of digest, let your insulin levels fall so that you don't get all these problems with the insulin resistance and so on, because insulin is not intrinsically bad, but it is a hormone that goes up when you eat.
Speaker 0 So if you eat constantly, is that a bad thing. And that's not been talked about a lot, and that's what we I've really focused on is that I think it's highly detrimental to be eating constantly. It's just not the way that you're supposed to be doing it. And which was never done it.
Speaker 1 Which was a little bit of the trend of some of the advice especially in like, the nineties and 2 thousands, eat 6 meals a day, you know, great. Out the day and and really, you know, we're backing away from that largely through the work that people like yourself are doing and just educating well, Let's actually look. Is this actually helpful or could it be harmful and it's looking like it's not supportive of our overall health goals inside the body?
Speaker 0 Yeah. I mean, I think the whole idea was sort of silly that you should eat eat, eat, eat. To lose weight? And it's like, well, how's that gonna work Exactly? Right.
Speaker 0 You're eating all the time? How are you expecting to lose weight And you know of course, that if you eat a little bit and then stop, that doesn't suppress your appetite, it increases it. That's what an appetizer is. It's a small portion of food to make you more hungry, Not less hungry, more hungry, Right? So if you're gonna eat small portions of food, you're gonna stimulate your appetite, then you're gonna stop.
Speaker 0 Right? It's like it's like when you start urinating. You just wanna finish. Right? When you start eating, you just wanna finish.
Speaker 0 If you were to to go pee and you just stop. And start and stop and start. Like, why would you wanna to do that? Like, that's the dumbest thing ever. Right?
Speaker 0 So it's like you're gonna make yourself hungry by taking a little appetizing portion of food. And then you're gonna stop. Right? It's like, oh, well, that's not really useful, and then you're gonna do it again. And again, and again, 6 times a day.
Speaker 0 Well, why would you want to do that? That's ridiculous because it's never been done before because prior to, like 19 77, Nobody Did That. So Why would You even Think That It's A Good Thing to Do.
Speaker 1 What Role Can Fasting Play When It Comes To? Optimizing our health and maybe even longevity.
Speaker 0 Yeah. That's really interesting question because a lot of the researchers. Still coming out. But, you know, fasting does a lot of different things. And remember when we're talking about fasting, it's really just any period of time that you're not eating.
Speaker 0 So there's no specific sort of, oh, you must do sort of like, 40 days and 40 nights thing. There's no necessarily set limited. It all depends on the different type of person. However, there are several interesting things that happen as you get into sort of you know, 24 hours plus of of fasting. And the thing that most people talk about most commonly or the sort of most topical thing is Auto.
Speaker 0 And that's 1 of these things that has really in the last, say, 5 years has really broke taken through into the consciousness public consciousness because in 20 16, 1 of the big researchers in auto was awarded the Nobel prize medicine. So of course, it brought a lot of publicity to it a lot of people heard about it. And what it is is auto is this process where when you don't eat, your body starts to eat itself. That's what the word actually means auto meaning self and fake on meaning eat. So you eat yourself.
Speaker 0 Sounds really bad. Sounds like, you know, you're you're you're top, you're cannibal yourself. But that's actually very Good. Because it... What it does is in a time where you don't have a lot of access to foods or such as fasting.
Speaker 0 Your body's going to break down sort of the the the the sort of low level stuff. So the the the proteins that are not working too well. They're really. Old, they're sort of junky, and it burns it off for energy. And it happens to the sub cellular organ, and basically, what you're trying to do is get rid of all the junk.
Speaker 0 So it's 1 of these mechanisms that's very hard activate otherwise. And it's very important because a lot of the research was done on yeast. So this is actually a a mechanism that has been conserved through evolution basically through all sort of living things from yeast onwards. So very very important to health if you look at it from that standpoint. So what happens, of course, is that your body, like most people think breaking down is bad, but it's generally very good as you get older.
Speaker 0 So when you're young, you want to build things up. Right? You're getting bigger, you're getting stronger, you know, everything's growing in size. As you get to be an adult, It's not good to have a lot of growth. Extra growth is generally bad for you.
Speaker 0 So whether you're talking cancer, whether you're talking, you know, heart disease and stuff, which is you, you know a lot of growth factors are actually going to be make worse. So 1 of the things that is really important to do is actually get rid of these sort of old junky parts. And then what happens, of course, during fasting is that as you sort of get rid of all that old junk, then your growth hormone is high. So as you eat again, your body is going to start rebuilding whatever is necessary. So you start with getting rid of stuff, then your body says, okay.
Speaker 0 So what do I actually meet and then it's gonna rebuild it. So when you think about that whole process of getting rid of old stuff and then bringing back or rebuilding new stuff, it's the process of rejuvenation. So if you think about renovation, for example, you think that a building is good, but you can't renovate that way. If you have an old, you know, bathroom that you want renovate, like the first thing you gotta do, is throw out all the old stuff. You gotta get rid of that avocado green tub and matching, toilet kind of thing.
Speaker 0 You gotta throw it out, so you can put in a newt hub and new floors and all that sort of stuff. But the first step is to get rid of the stuff. And that's why it is so corn hub without that, you can't actually rejuvenate yourself. If you don't get rid of the old stuff, you can't get new stuff in. Right?
Speaker 0 It's like the spring cleaning for your body until you throw out all the stuff, you can't do anything. So that's why it's so important this process of rejuvenation. So you're actually trying to make yourself sort of almost younger in that sense because that's what that fasting does. And you might say, okay, well, you know, what what is the most important thing in terms of turning off and on? And it's really protein.
Speaker 0 So when you eat protein, that process of toffee. Some amino acids, which is the the sort of building blocks of proteins. That is really just gonna be turn off a off and g just like that. So if people are eating sort of, you know, a little bit all the time and they're eating protein bars and all that time. You're really never getting into that age of a.
Speaker 0 And that's that's 1 of the things that people have talked about recently. And of course, the other things is that as you age fast. What you're doing is you're tam down and this is another area of sort of very important sort of breakthroughs in the last 05:10 years. Is that We have in our bodies, certain nutrient sensors that is we sense what food energy is available. So we have insulin, if you take carbohydrates, you have M to, which is sense if you take proteins, that kind of things.
Speaker 0 We have nutrient sensors. It turns out, that these nutrient sensors are also growth factors. So when you're eating, you are turning up growth signaling that So anytime you eat, it's it's just built into our system. So if you look back for instance insulin. If you look back, Insulin didn't start off as a nutrient sensor the way we think of it now.
Speaker 0 Right? You eat, you know? Bread insulin goes up. It's a nutrient sensor. It didn't start out that way.
Speaker 0 It started out as a growth factor So what we've learned recently is that both the growth factors and the nutrient sensors in the human body insulin To are exactly the same molecule. So anytime you're eating, anytime you're taking nutrition. You're actually ramping up growth. And again, growth in most cases for adults is not a good thing. You don't want things to keep growing.
Speaker 0 That's that's how things break down. You actually gotta to get rid of stuff and then g stuff. So a lot of these a lot of these things like cancer, which is a disease of growth are not going to be improved by insulin say example because that's that's going increase growth and cancer love skin insulin, so it it ramps up very quickly. So the thing is that when you do fasting, of course, you're going to reduce those nutrient sensors, which is going to intrinsically reduce growth. And potentially reduce your risk of cancer because we know that there's a number of cancers that are highly insulin sense of breast cancer colorectal cancer, for example.
Speaker 0 So those are 2 examples of how fasting sort of through auto and through reduced growth signaling, are gonna to be super super important for longevity and you know preventing disease, preventing cancers, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 You know, you've shared before in other interviews that to really understand the importance of all this, we have to also understand and ask the most basic of basic questions, which is why do we age. And you talked about how growth is not great as we get older. But for a long time and maybe still a little bit right now, there's People that are not really clear about why is it that We age and what are The common things that contribute to that? If we don't understand why we age, it's hard to understand how we can encourage longevity. So can you just take us through maybe a quick little history and lesson of just what were some of the theories that were out there of aging and what do some of the more contemporary ideas say around aging and why are they so important?
Speaker 0 Yeah. And it's still sort of not well sort of known. I mean, there's there's a lot of theories of aging, like, you know, it's built in, so that, you know, you get this constant replenish. Replenish of genes and so on. Initially it thought well, it's just sort of like a machine.
Speaker 0 Right? It gets old, and then it breaks down, and there's nothing you can do about it. It's not quite true. Because our cells actually don't break down. We don't have the same cells.
Speaker 0 They they they sort of our ourselves grow. They die like red blood cells. Right? Every 30 days sort of replace your blood cells. They're not the same cell.
Speaker 0 So it's not like a machine. It's not like a, you know, a staple. You use it and you use it and use it eventually just breaks down and there's nothing you can do. That's not like ourselves. Our our cells actually rejuvenate.
Speaker 0 So then within cells, we actually have this sort of built in sen mechanism which is that after certain number of replication, the cells can no longer divide and therefore they start to get the problem with aging and this is controlled with it tel mirrors, for example. So in the in the genes, you have in the in in the Dna, you actually have these in the chromosomes. So Dna is package within a chromosome, at the ends of the chromosomes, you have these tel mirror caps and, you know, sort of like an eraser on top of a pencil sort. Just sits on top. And every time you replicate the salad sort of shrinks and then once it gets down.
Speaker 0 To nothing, the cell can no longer replicate and basically, it's sen or it can no longer do anything, then it gets replaced with safe scar tissue and so on. So you get less functional tissue and you get more scar tissue But in that's sort of this built in sen mechanism. Cancer actually circumvent that by getting rid of that. You know, problem of the tel mirror cap. It doesn't it doesn't reduce each time.
Speaker 0 And that's 1 of the reasons that cancer can actually replicate and indefinitely you know and that's 1 of the interesting things you see with uni cellular organisms as well. You, as we talked about with the cancer code. But the... So aging seems to be this sort of built in sort of clock, but it doesn't necessarily have to because Again, 1 of the things that people now talk about is 1, you can't do anything, but that tel me thing. That it used to be very popular used to see it all the time.
Speaker 0 But tailor me are based science and all this stuff. It was just a big marketing ploy. You can't do a lot about unless you really wanna give yourself cancer or something like that. But the the whole idea is that, you know, with aging, it's not just about the sort of age, it's about the health as well, so people talk now about the health stand and in terms of aging, can you really slow it down by increasing this sort of rejuvenation of this is not of the salvage of a sub selling parts as with. And fasting.
Speaker 0 And also to some extent slowing down metabolic rate, which I actually think is kind of interesting as well because 1 of the things that people always talk about, and this is a bit of a sidebar, but people always talk about how they want to keep their men metabolic. Rev up. And I always think, okay, sure. It's easier to lose weight that way. I get you on that.
Speaker 0 But if you're not trying to lose weight, is it really beneficial to keep your metabolic rate rev up because, you know, it's like a car. Right? You rev the engine, you can run faster, but you're gonna burn out sooner. So it's like, are you really sacrificing 1 way or the other. So the way a lot of people look at it now, is sort of this Seesaw between growth and longevity.
Speaker 0 So you know, you can either grow really fast, but you're going to live a short time or you're going be on the other side of the Seesaw, which is you're not going to grow and you're going to live long. Right? So that's that's where people are looking at, you know, trying to slow down growth, you know, trying to say, okay, let's let's make sure that we're not. Right stimulating these things that are going to increase growth factors and those are all the new centers. So you look at some of the longest sort of lived people in the world, you know, Aka okinawa and stuff where they talk about you know, eating 80 percent.
Speaker 0 You know, until you're only... Until you're about 80 percent full and, you know, people in Japan who also eat very little, their metabolic rates are likely lower, like, if you ever go to Europe or Japan or some of these places, like... They don't eat much. I mean, comparing to an American meal. Like you go to a restaurant.
Speaker 0 And you go, whoa, I just pay a lot of money in that's... All the food I get. So they don't eat a lot. So clearly, they're used to it. So therefore, if they're not eating a lot, then since their weight is stable.
Speaker 0 They're also their metabolic rates probably are not running as fast either. So therefore, they may be by by eating smaller amounts by by tradition, they may be choosing sort of to slow down growth and trying to go for that longevity as opposed to that growth, which is where Americans, North Americans, Canadians tend to be more, let's let's let's hit the growth and then we maybe we don't hit that longevity as as well. If you're talking long longevity, it's it's tied in very tightly to growth factors, growth signaling that kind of thing. So
Speaker 1 Well, it seems, you know, putting the 2 pieces of the questions together that you've answered so far. It seems like fasting has a very unique role both when it comes to the Health span aspect of improving your overall metabolic health, which is gonna to be 1 of the pathways to keep your metabolic rate down because if you are better health, you're not struggling with processing food all day long, you're gonna be able to keep your metabolic rate a little bit lower, which is gonna improve your metabolic health, the way that I understand it, And then there's this other aspect where fasting also can play. It's not fully understood, but at least some evidence that's there. It can play a role with longevity. So it's both the health span and the lifespan.
Speaker 1 And is that a good way to think about it?
Speaker 0 I think so. I think so. So you know, and fasting, interesting the enough has always been. Sort of used as this way of staying healthy. Right?
Speaker 0 You look back at all these traditions that we have and, you know, so like religious fasting, for example. So you know in most religions, they have a period of fasting. And of course, at the time that these religions were established, there's not a lot of obesity. In fact, starvation is, the the predominant is much more common than obesity back, say, 02/03/4000. Years ago, whenever these religions, and there's tons of them.
Speaker 0 Right? That that do the fasting. So it's interesting because when they talk about the fasting, it's it's a form of Like, they're not trying to punish themselves. Right? It's not that they're trying to do something bad.
Speaker 0 They're usually trying to do something healthy for the body. So whether you're talking. Buddhism or hindu or christianity or you know, whatever it is. Sometimes it's it's couch in terms of sort of self denial, but a lot of times it's just something that's it's supposed to be sort of intrinsically healthy for you. And it's it's interesting because this is outside of weight, loss.
Speaker 0 So for North Americans, particularly the weight loss thing a huge impact. Like that's a huge health benefit right there from fasting. So but in terms of longevity, it may be that that also it it's gonna have a like this massive improvement in longevity by doing something. And it's it's it's it's sort of always been recognized that it is something that's healthy for you whether they talked about a detox or whether you're talk about a purification or, you know, a cleansing or something. It's it's always termed in the same way that it's something that you're sort of clearing out the old junk sort of thing, and interestingly enough that's exactly what a is.
Speaker 0 So in the last sort of 10 years, we've actually recognized the science time all of this old sort of terminology of cleansing and detox justification that, hey, maybe it's actually true maybe we've only just sort of put the scientific term on what all these other people who, you know, they didn't know the science, but they knew the benefits of what they were doing and then cod it within these religious. Practices that various people follows. So it's it's an interesting interesting way to to look at it. So not only as you said, with the health, you know, in terms of weight loss and all that stuff that's immediately, you obvious, but there may be that sort of hidden thing that that takes a little longer for people to understand. Yeah, hey, this is something that's really, really highly beneficial for us.
Speaker 1 Let's talk about caloric restriction and the importance of first of all, for people that don't know what it is, just explaining. And how it fits in to the conversation that we're having here.
Speaker 0 Yeah. So caloric restriction is probably the only really well established scientific way of increasing longevity. And it's mostly animal studies. So they do this in animal studies, they take rats or something and they have 1 that eats whatever they want and 1 group where they just strict how much they eat. And the group that restricts how much they eat, generally live longer, so fruit flies and you know, they've done it in all kinds of animals.
Speaker 0 So that this has been shown for ages. And that was, sort of this really interesting and and and the first studies that I came out with, you know, king, you know, like, you know, 30, 40 years ago. As a real shock to people because people thought, well, hey, if you're more more nourished, right? More nutrients, more vitamins, you're gonna live longer, but they didn't. They all live shorter.
Speaker 0 And that was quite a shock, and this is that whole that's what sort of is that whole. Seesaw between growth and longevity sort of thing. So Caloric restriction is well established in most animal models as a way to increase longevity. In humans, of course, it's really hard to do those studies There was a few ina sort of ways to do it. But the problem is that you have to go between mountain.
Speaker 0 You don't wanna get mountain nourished. So there's there's this, you know, continuum between calorie restriction where which is okay, and now where you're just not getting enough vitamins and minerals and stuff, and then you actually do very badly. So sometimes they've crossed over, there is a couple of biosphere experiments where they they sort of crossed that line. I think, you know, remember those older experiments where people would live in a in this contained dome stuff. And it was a little controversial at the time, but they wound a sort of fairly severely calorie restricting themselves.
Speaker 0 And it wasn't always pretty. It wasn't great. So that was sort of an ina inadvertently human experiment into it. A fascinating sort of study for like sort of thing to look at sort of 20 years ago. But the whole idea is that if you are well nourished, as most people in, you know, North America say are, then the calorie restriction may, actually improve your lifespan and health span by a fairly significant amount.
Speaker 0 So caloric restriction and the question then is how do you do it? And this is 1 of the big questions. So you can do it like the Oc okinawa do it where you say, I am going to sort of eat to 80 percent. And so you impose that sort of that sort of structure so that you can do it. If you don't impose any kind of structure you think day to day, I'm just gonna stop eating.
Speaker 0 Like you know, a little bit, if you have to keep thinking about it, it's never gonna to work. Fasting is another way of course, to impose that sort of caloric restriction, by giving you the structure. So if you say, oh, I'm not gonna eat today, then you're almost automatically going to, you know, calorie and restrict yourself. There there's some interesting studies on fasting where they they try to get around that because people always try to say, well, is it the fasting or something? Calories.
Speaker 0 It's like, I don't really care. Like, if you do fasting properly, then you are going to be calorie restricted, Right? But so what, if I tell people, okay, cut 500 calories a day. And it, you know, it just doesn't work to lose weight. Then it doesn't matter.
Speaker 0 It's it's just a failed strategy. So why do I care that if I can do it through fasting that I reduce 500 calories a day by by saying, just gonna eat once a day, and that's gonna do a 500 calorie a day restriction. If it's successful, it's successful, like, it doesn't matter what or or not you restrict calories, how you restrict calories, if it works, It works. Right? So so don't don't worry about it so much.
Speaker 0 Whether So there's some interesting studies lately that have tried to look at fasting. What they do is they try to they try to get around that whole calorie part by saying, okay. You'll fast, but then you'll eat more when you... When you're eating. I'm like, but that's not really the point of it.
Speaker 0 Right? The whole the whole point of the fasting is that when you're not eating, you're gonna activate these mechanisms, you're gonna get rid of some of this old stuff, you don't need to eat more because you're you're using up your body fat and all that sort of stuff. So the calorie restriction part of things is is certainly part I think part of the fasting. So therefore, I think you just have to take it all together and rather than try to sort tease it out and say, well, is it the calories? Is it fast?
Speaker 0 It's all part of the same thing. So it's just not the... That easy if he eat once a day or he, you know, if he wants every 2 days, it's not easy to pack all those 3 meals into a single 1. If
Speaker 1 Yeah. I think what's important about what you're saying and please correct me if I'm wrong, because I I definitely get things wrong sometimes is that, you know, we call it. Caloric restriction, and it is the most studied model for increasing longevity, specifically in animal trials, But we don't wanna get too caught up in the idea of the calorie component. It's really just taking a break from your body doing that work, so it can enter into the... Pair mode.
Speaker 1 And when you understand that, you can take advantage of it because even the idea, we've talked about it a bunch of this podcast that the primary you know, recommendations and guidance from whether it's the Fda or the World Health organization that weight loss is primarily a math equation, And if you wanna to lose weight, it's just about eating less and exercising more is really not you know, the the the full picture. And it might actually be very misguided in its approach because there's so many other aspects that go into weight gain like insulin, the mechanism of insulin and how that plays into it. So it's it's important to understand calorie, restriction and caloric restriction as a concept, but really we're talking about taking advantage of your body going into the right environment so it can go into repair mode.
Speaker 0 Exactly. And and that's that's the whole idea of this Seesaw saw. Right? You're either going sort of sort of in growth mode or you're going into sort of repair mode. Right?
Speaker 0 And that's that's 1 of the things that, you know, it's been a real shift in the last sort of number of years because of course, this whole idea of, you know, rejuvenation, repair and stuff, was probably only about 5 or 10 years. Like before that, everybody was like growth, growth, growth. So it's like if that's your what you wanna do, then it's eat. Eat. Eat.
Speaker 0 Eat eat, which is, you know, of course, then then you wound up with this whole Bc epidemic, then than this kind of thing. But you're you're absolutely right. I mean, this whole calories thing... This whole calories debate is you know, to my mind always a little bit silly. So the whole thing about calories is that is not a a concept from...
Speaker 0 Physiology. It's a concept from physics. So it's a unit of heat energy. That's purely what it is. Right?
Speaker 0 But it doesn't tell you anything about what your body does with that energy. So for example, if you eat a block of wood, It has a number of calories, because if you burn it, it has a lot of calories because it's it's energy, that's energy. But your body cannot do anything with it. Right? So you block a wood, It comes out your your rec thumb and that's it.
Speaker 0 That's all... There's no energy associated with it, even though within that wood, there is a lot of potential energy. So it's the same thing, Right? The calories, your body doesn't say, oh, you have this x x number of calories. So I'm gonna to do this.
Speaker 0 Now, your body has to translate that. Into something else. And that's that piece that's missing. Right? It translates it into hormones, which is why you always have to look at the hormones because that's sort of the language of the body.
Speaker 0 That's physiology. Right? You can't take a unit of energy like physics, and say, well, all calories are the same because calories do different things, so that block of wood does nothing for you. If you eat a cookie, it's going trigger off hormones that are incredibly different, then if you're to eat, say an egg, for example. Right?
Speaker 0 So e eat protein and fat, the hormonal profile that you get is completely different than if you eat a cookie, which is completely different than you've eat a block of wood. Yet the calories are all equal. So how is that the same? Because those those hormones are what tells our body what to do, go into growth mode, go into repair mode. Or don't do anything at all, Right?
Speaker 0 With a piece of wood. So so so the that whole thing about calories is you know, III say it just because that's what people are used to. It's it's easy for people to understand what's going on. But truthfully, the whole concept is quite... Useless to understand what's going on with the body.
Speaker 0 Like you take, you know, a hundred calories of cookies and a hundred calories of an egg for example. Right? The minute those foods go into your mouth, the hormonal response is totally different. Therefore, our bodies are gonna to be doing something completely different with those 2... Foods, even though they're the same calories.
Speaker 0 Right? If your insulin goes up, your body says, store that calories as fat. If it doesn't go up, your body will say, take those calories and use them. Burn it for energy. Right?
Speaker 0 So it's it's totally different. And you know, I think that that's where people go. So messed up is because we're so ingrained in this idea of calories that calories are equal because when you put them as the same thing. Right? Hundred calories of cookies, hundred calories of broccoli.
Speaker 0 Well, now they're both a hundred calorie. So you can treat them the same. You cannot treat them the same. There's no. There's no ph physiological way, like, that they are the same in any degree.
Speaker 0 Like, yes, there's an overlap, sure. There's more overlap between that and a hundred calories of wood. But those calories is nothing. It's just energy, right? What her body does with that energy, is what's important?
Speaker 0 Do you store as fat? Do you build new proteins, right? Do you just increase the metabolic rate and burn it as heat for example? It's all different, Right? And in 1 case you're gonna get stronger, right?
Speaker 0 In 1 case you're gonna get fatter. And in 1 case, your your metabolic rate's gonna go up. Completely different from the same hundred calories.
Speaker 1 Such an important point and this idea, which was really a... Theory, the calorie in calorie out model of obesity and sort of why we gain weight, It's so ind into society that a lot of individuals, including well established experts and doctors, took it as just settled science. And recently, you know, there was a big paper that was done review paper in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition by dr David Ludwig at Harvard, including a bunch of other doctors that were there too, and really they took you through the whole journey of how we got there, how it was shaky science that sort of led to that, understanding. And you've talked about this as well too. Just highlighting it, because that paper was published recently.
Speaker 1 We'll have the link in the show notes. And then all the way to the idea of understanding exactly what you shared about how hormones is the missing piece of the puzzle. You know, when I read that, and I hear your example, I often think about, you know Nasa has the largest vacuum that they used to test devices that they're gonna put in space. A largest vacuum in the world in its side. I think and I think it's might be in Georgia, but I'll have to double check that.
Speaker 1 And if you take a bowling ball, it's and you take a feather and you drop it in a vacuum, they both fall at the same rate. But in the real world, if you're in a Boeing 07:47 and you drop a Bowling ball, and a feather at the same time, they're not gonna fall at the same rate. And our body is like that. It's a bunch of moving parts and pieces. It's not just physics that are in isolation.
Speaker 1 That's what I'm hearing from your message.
Speaker 0 Well, exactly. And and this you know, I think the whole calorie thing is sort of physics envy v sort of thing. Right? We want to be as clean and as precise as physics is. Right?
Speaker 0 Because you look at physics, wow, they're building spaceships and you know, computers and all this stuff. And it's like, this is great. Right? So physics is all very precise. It's all very math based, And when physiology wants to be sort of, you know, has all this physics envy.
Speaker 0 They're like, we wanna be precise, just like physics. But then you ignore the whole messi ness that is human physiology because, you know, does insulin go up, you know, take those hundred calories. Right? Does insulin go up? Does it not go up?
Speaker 0 Does peptide Y y, which is a satiety hormone of go up? Does it not go up? Do the stretch receptors in your stomach. Go up or down if you eat a big fibrous meal like a big... You know, if you eat a lot of say, say vegetables and your stomach stretches out, Well, it doesn't have any calories because you could eat hair and your stomach will stretch and turn on your satiety signals.
Speaker 0 Right? So there's there's stretch receptors in the stomach. Does does do those hundred calories, Do they increase c kind and which is in response to fat for example. What does it do to leptin? Like, it's it's messy like crazy, But that's reality.
Speaker 0 Right? And all it means is that, you know, because every food is going to have a different hormonal profile. All it says is that certain foods for the same number of calories are more fat than others. Which is actually just common sense. Right?
Speaker 0 I don't think anybody would really doubt that cookies and ice cream, is more fat than salmon and salad. It's, you know, it's hard to get fat eating salad. It just it just is. Right? So that's very common sense.
Speaker 0 It's totally in line with what the physiology is that, hey, all these foods have different hormonal profiles. Some are going to lead to more. Body's increasing fat stores. Right? And others are not.
Speaker 0 So therefore, some foods are more fanning than. That's all it says. Right, I don't see how that's so non scientific. Because some people say oh you're a calorie deny, or something like that. I'm like, I'm just telling you that calories is not a concept of physiology.
Speaker 0 It's a concept of physics. And it's this whole idea that they are equal, and this whole idea of, oh, creating a caloric deficit. I mean, that's another really stupid stupid idea. I have to sit So this idea of oh to lose weight, you have to create a cohort deficit. Now that's always true.
Speaker 0 The question is how do you create the core deficit. Remember. When you take that energy balance equation? You have body fat, which is a storage form of energy, right? It's a storage form of calories.
Speaker 0 It's stored calories. That's basically what it is. Body fat equals calories and calories out, So when you look at that, it's and it's it's in quality. Right? X equals a plus b or whatever.
Speaker 0 Right? So body fat equals. Calories and minus calories out. That's always true. The question is, so it's not 2 things.
Speaker 0 You have 3 variables there. And those always have to balance. So you can never have a deficit. You either have storage, you have calories in, You have calories out. So the question is how do you create that inequality?
Speaker 0 If you wanna lose body fat, you wanna have calories in minus calories out. So if you... That's true. So... But then they take that next step and they say, therefore, all you have to do is reduce your calories in.
Speaker 0 Well, 2 things can happen when you reduce those calories in. Either. Right? So you have 3 things you have. Storage, you have calories in.
Speaker 0 You have calories. So you reduce calories in. 2 possible things can happen, Either body fat goes down, which is what they tell you is gonna to happen or which is perfectly in line with math. Right? Either when calories in goes down, either body fat goes down, or calories goes down.
Speaker 0 Both are both are possibility because there's 3 variables here. What they don't tell you, which is what the science of the last hundred years has told you, is that every time you reduce calories in just by focusing on calories and not focusing on the hormones. What happens is not that the body fat goes down, but that the calories out where your metabolic rate goes down. So we know this from... I don't know.
Speaker 0 There's there's hundreds of years of research of this. The the the first research looking at this was from 19 17. So more than a hundred years ago, they showed this exact thing. Reduce calories in, reduce calories out. Your calories out goes down.
Speaker 0 So you, you know, you take 2000 calories in drops down to 1500. Right? So 2 things can happen. Either your body loses 500 calories of body fat or your metabolic rate goes down by 500. Guess which 1...
Speaker 0 Almost always happens is that the calories out goes down. That's just science. We know that. We've been proven that over and over again. So therefore, the question is not about whether or not caloric deficit reduces body fat?
Speaker 0 Yes, it does. The question is, how do you create that caloric deficit? You cannot do that by reducing calories in. You similarly cannot reduce it by trying to increase calories out, by exercising, which is the other thing that people always talk about, because yes, when you exercise, you are going to increase the rate of energy that your skeletal muscles will use. But there's all these other parts of your body.
Speaker 0 That exercise does nothing for. So So there's your bladder or there's your kidneys, like this exercising increase the metabolic rate of your kidneys, not in the least. So your liver, your heart, your lungs, your brain, like, there's all these other organ systems that you use energy, all the time. The skeletal muscle is only a single system. Right?
Speaker 0 So, yeah, if you exercise for 6 hours a day you can sort of overwhelm that effect. Remember most of us are say earning 2000 calories a day, you go for a iran or something, you might burn what you've seen those treadmill mills, that that calorie counter goes up really, really slowly. Right? So if you have somebody... Okay.
Speaker 0 So you burn 200 calories, 300 calories. Treadmill like, you're not even at 10 percent of what your body does, using your kidneys, your liver, your body heat generation, all that kind of thing. So this idea that you're gonna exercise your way out of it is also similarly false. And the other thing is that remember there's 3 variables. You increase your calories out by exercising 2 things can happen.
Speaker 0 1 is that you're gonna use, take that energy from your body fat stores. That's what they want to happen. That's what almost never happens. What happens is that you eat more. Right?
Speaker 0 And that's perfectly in balance with this energy balance equation. 3 variables. They always only look at 2 of them, right? As if 1 of them is fixed, as if your calories are fixed. And that's the whole thing that's that's that's that these people never seem to understand that.
Speaker 0 I don't know why it's very obvious when you just, you know, put it out. It's there's there's 3 legs on the stool. Right? You change 1, 1 of the other 2 can change. It's it's not it's not for sure that.
Speaker 0 You know, they say, body fat equals calories and minus calories out, reduce calories in. Calories out, if it stays stable, then you'll lower your body fat. But it doesn't stay stable.
Speaker 1 You say and you start off in the book, you say the most pressing question in cancer research is the most Elusive question. What is cancer. So can we start off there because it's still a question that we're asking today, which is what exactly is cancer.
Speaker 0 Yeah. And that's sort of the most important thing is to understand a disease. You really have to understand what it is, like what causes it, what, you know, what the disease is. And really for the of the common diseases, cancer stands virtually alone because we had no idea what this disease actually. Yes.
Speaker 0 So you look at other diseases like Covid or, you know, infections. So we've identified viruses. We've identified bacteria. We've, you know, figured out fungi and so these are external invaders for heart disease and stuff. These are, you know, blockages and our blood vessels which starve the heart or the brain of blood, you get heart attacks or strokes.
Speaker 0 So we sort of understand what the disease is, how it develops and that kind of thing, But for cancer, this is sort of a very, very strange disease. So it's unlike any other disease we've ever faced. It's not a faster disease, like heart disease, it's not an external invasion, like bacteria or viruses. You know, it's not a, you know, stones and stuff. There's all these other diseases.
Speaker 0 But what is this strange disease? And it's not that it's 1 of these sort of rare diseases. It's unfortunately extremely common. So lifetime risk of cancer somewhere around 1 and 10 and it's so gonna to, you know affect everybody's life in that if you don't get it, you will know people who will get it. Almost everybody does.
Speaker 0 But we don't know what this is. And this is the whole sort of discussion in the book, is what is this disease? Because it's a disease where the you have a normal cell which is part of your own body because it it's derived from your own body. And for some reason, this normal cell breaks off and becomes cancer to the point where it can kill you. And it kills, of course, many, many people.
Speaker 0 It's the second biggest killer of people. So our concept of what this disease action is has been changing. So, you know, has changed throughout history. But really even in the last sort of 10 years, there's in this massive change in the way that we look at this disease. And this is what I call the paradigm of cancer.
Speaker 0 That is, you know, I'm not arguing about oh, this you know, this is how to treat cancer. We've done lots of studies on you know, use this drug and this drug and these drugs in combination with surgery and chemotherapy and radiation, you put them in this sort of regimen and you can treat cancer. And I'm not disputing any of that. But in the end, it doesn't help you answer the question of what is. So if you want to understand what it is, then you have to start a start sort it from beginning, go through it and say what is this disease and that's where we've really made a bought, progress within the last sort of 15, 20 years.
Speaker 0 And most people haven't to even really appreciate that and that's what I wanted to bring forward is that sort of recent research and bring it to the people. So they at least understand what this disease is that that is affecting so many people.
Speaker 1 And you do that, we were chatting a little bit before the interview started. You do that. So eloquently in there. And you've outlined basically the 3 major paradigm shifts that have been there in the world of cancer. And before we get into kind of like the central thesis of you highlighting, the work that really has been understood in the more recent years, let's take the listeners of the podcast through this this journey.
Speaker 1 Right? Let's take them through the paradigm 1, 2 and then eventually number 3. So they can understand and really go back to that central question, which is what is Cancer.
Speaker 0 Yeah. So this is such an interesting story because this is sort of the the whole crux of the mystery That is cancer. So Where we started was, you know, the question and say, what is cancer? Because cancer has been around a long time. We can go back you to mum and stuff, and you'll so be able to find archaeological evidence of cancer even back in antiquity.
Speaker 0 So it's been it's a disease that's been there forever. And the first sort of modern paradigm. So we start... We can start actually even before that with the ancient Greeks and age Greece thought it was this sort of excess of this humor, so they leave in the humor theory where all diseases were caused by an imbalance of the 4 humans. And too much black bile was caused by cancer.
Speaker 0 That turned out not to be true. But they did give us the name cancer, which is derived from the word, which is crab, which is very interesting because it you know, the cancer does sort tend to sc around the body and meta. Then through the eighteenth century 19 century they develop the microscope, so they really focused on the cell and they could see that this is this cancer cell is related to a normal cell, but bizarre and different in certain ways and they're able to categorize the ways in which these cancers cells were different than normal cells. So for example, if you had a lung cell normal lung cell. You can you can look at it under the microscope and then you can look lung cancer cell you'd identify the differences, even though there's a lot of similarities between the 2 because the that the hands cell and is originally derived from the healthy cell.
Speaker 0 So that was the first big sort of paradigm cancer as well. These are cells that really just grow too much. So normal cells don't grow. Like if you have a normal lung, your lung does not just keep going bigger j until your head tops off your neck. Right?
Speaker 0 It just sort of stays the same size, which means that the number of cells that are dying is equally matched by the number of cells that are being. Born every day. And there's about there's a lot. I mean, the body has maybe 10000000000000 cells that are being sort of born every day and that many have die every day. In order for us to maintain a normal sort of lung, for example, so that it doesn't just keep getting bigger.
Speaker 0 Lung cancer, of course, is totally different. That is, it will just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger until it affects everything around it. So that's the big problem with cancers that just grows. And then after it grows for a while it actually spreads around the body. And then by by spreading it affects the normal function of those organs or just by the sheer size, it's going affect other things.
Speaker 0 So that was the first grade paradigm was. This is a disease of cells that grow too much. And that by taking that paradigm, you can say this is our understanding of what the disease is. And therefore you design treatments around that paradigm. So if this is a disease of too much growth then this logical solution solution kill cells.
Speaker 0 Right? That's it. So the treatments that we derive were surgery, so basically cutting out the cancer. It had radiation, which is a more sophisticated way of burning the can. Sir, and that's developed in the 19 tens, 19 twenties for example.
Speaker 0 And then in the 19 30, 19, forties, fifties, you started to see the beginning of chemotherapy, which are basically selective poison. So they kill certain cells faster than they kill other cells. So the the the the idea is to kill the cancer before you kill the patient. These are all poison. Like don't be, you know, don't not to put too find an edge on it.
Speaker 0 These are all ind criminal ways of killing. Cells they're burning in point. Okay?
Speaker 1 Almost almost a little bit like you you sometimes give the analogy of like like warfare. Right? We we talk about the war on Cancer. This Is Warfare on Parts Of our body That We've Deemed To Be Out of Control.
Speaker 0 Exactly. So what what what we're doing is We're Taking This Sort of paradigm of excessive growth and applying logical solutions to excessive growth, which is ways of killing cells. So that makes a lot of sense. And it's not to take away from this paradigm. I mean, these are still the basics of treatment today, like even though this was from a while ago.
Speaker 0 A lot we still use chemotherapy we'll do use surgery still use radiation all the time. These days, it's sort of a backbone of what we do. But it very soon came to the limits of where you could go. So 50 60 seventies, There's a huge explosion and a number of chemotherapy 8, the way you combine them, so that was a huge advance, for example, when you're able to combine 2 or 3 different ones in specific way. So you get this and this and then 3 weeks later, you get this this at this and then 3 weeks later, you get this this and you can combine it with Chemo, you can combine it.
Speaker 0 With have surgery, you can combine it with radiation. And come up with this whole sort of cocktail and regimen that you go through in survival of cancer, especially pediatric cancers really improve dramatically through that period. But it Reaches A limit.
Speaker 1 And and just to Jump In, pediatric cancers Because Again, kind of like in the book, You talk about there's always consequences with these items, so pediatric cancer, these young children who tend to have in general, more resilient, bodies more ability to produce stem cells can with the storm of this warfare on their system compared to somebody who is much older who's going through these treatments.
Speaker 0 Yeah. Exactly. And so that was 1 of the things because if you're able to give a higher dose of these sort of poison... On, because children are more resilient than 80 year old, for example, then you're going to be able to kill off these cancer cells sort of more successfully. And...
Speaker 0 But it shouldn't reach this limit. So the... You know, you could really go no further because it didn't answer the questions. And this... This paradigm of cancer as a disease of growth is good, but it really leaves the question of why.
Speaker 0 Like, why are these cells growing so much? Like, we don't know the answer to that. Right? So you have to take that next. Step and say, well, what is it that's causing cancers.
Speaker 0 And what is it that's that's driving these things to grow so much? So that was throughout the seventies. We had this revolution in genetics, so genetic and engineering and genes and Dna in chromosome. That all came through the 50 60 seventies as they identified Dna and so on. And this seemed to be the answer.
Speaker 0 So we knew all these things cause cancer. So we knew smoking, for example, caused cancer renew as best as caused cancer, new radiation, caused cancer, we knew you know, lots of these different things that cause cancer to identify viruses that cause cancer. And but the question is okay, why are these separate things? So tobacco smoke and viruses, for example, which Have feel nothing to do with each other? Why are they causing cells to grow too much?
Speaker 0 Like, it's it's it doesn't make any sense? Why would that even happen? And this is the the second sort of huge paradigm shift, which was the genetic paradigm. That is within each cell, you have genes that basically control everything. So they control the color of your eyes, the color hair.
Speaker 0 And everything's been controlled genetically. But a cell is going to have certain genes that turn on growth. That is and there's also genes that turn off grow. So if you have a mutation in this gene that causes growth, that is either the it tells the cell to grow too much or the gene that stops the growth is turned off. So either you're basically hitting the accelerator for growth or you're taking your foot off the brakes, right?
Speaker 0 There are genes that you know, slam the brakes on growth and if you take the foot off if you mobilize if you negate that gene, it will also be pro growth. So this was sort of was a fantastic paradigm. Like, it was such a sort of huge advance because it took this first paradigm with cancer and answered the question of why. Well, it's a disease of genetic mutations that caused too much growth. And the question would be like, well, what's causing these genetic mutations, well, these are random genetic mutations caused by things like tobacco smoke and viruses, which are basically causing damage to genes.
Speaker 0 Right? So as you damage a cell, you're going add damage to genetic material, and this virus or tobacco smokers asbestos. If by I chance 1 of those mutations hits a growth sort of sensitive area of the gene, you're going to get increased growth, which is going to cause cancer because it's a disease of too much growth. So it wasn't sort of ne the second paradigm. It was sort of building.
Speaker 0 Right? So it's building an extra layer of understanding on this first paradigm.
Speaker 1 And also that layer of understanding started to help, at least some parts of the question, which is why do some people get cancer and why do they not? Where previously it was a little bit of a crap shoe. You know, you weren't exactly sure. Why was it that 1 person got it versus another? I mean, cultures had superstition, you know, that some people were evil or deserved it or whatever it might be?
Speaker 1 You know, spirits inside the body. And now through science, we're starting to understand that, no, actually, there are some factors that are playing into why some people get in and some people don't.
Speaker 0 Yeah. Exactly. So then you we could identify these genetic syndromes, for example, where cancer is a very big part of it. But then... The question is say for tobacco smoke, well, that's not purely.
Speaker 0 It's not targeted genetic, damage, right? When you smoke, you have damage all over the place. Why is it damaging these specific parts of the gene? And the answer this paradigm was that, well, it's not really? It's just that by chance, it's hitting that that gene because he can't say that asbestos is not...
Speaker 0 It's not genetically targeted much the way we can do it editing engineering go in and specifically target an area. This is just sort of random damage to the genome. But what they're saying is that well, because tobacco smoke causes damage, the more times you damage the more likely if you are by chance to hit this critical. Area. That is just like if you buy a lot of lottery tickets, you have more chance to win the lottery, Right?
Speaker 0 But at in the end, it's sort of just by chance or sometimes in some mid may not get a lot of smoke, but just by chance has it's a critical area. So throughout the, you know, seventies eighties, this genetic paradigm sort of took over from the sort of first paradigm, which is just excessive growth, built on that knowledge. And this is what a lot of people still say today. That is... You know, if you look at the american cancer Society website, they say, oh, can't is a disease of genetic mutations that causes too much growth.
Speaker 0 This is sort of the paradigm that that that's that we've sort of lived through most recently. So there's a huge huge optimism. So clearly, this was true. We could... We went to the cancers.
Speaker 0 We found a lot of genetic mutations. We said this is it. This is the... The answer as to why we're getting it. So the first few treatments of this genetic paradigm.
Speaker 0 So now we're saying this is a disease, not of excessive growth. That's just sort of the effect of that. Where this is a disease of genetic mutations. Let's go in and find these mutations and fix them. So the first drug of the sort of genetic paradigm was, which was used in a disease called chronic leukemia.
Speaker 0 And it was incredible Like, it basically just cured the whole thing and was ridiculously good this drug. And sort of was 1 of the... And and, you know, was was everything that was promised in this. So this was fantastic. Right?
Speaker 0 So we developed this new paradigm, then we applied that knowledge to bring a drug, which wasn't an ind killer of cells. It was a fixer of genes. And therefore, that's how it worked in this first sort of validated the whole paradigm. And then shortly after did that, there's another drug for breast cancer, called trans, which was fantastically successful. It didn't apply to all breast cancers, but then what they did was they develop the genetic test to see if you had this mutation and if you had the mutation, you would get the drug in.
Speaker 0 Again, just incredible what they're doing was sort of just incredible. So really a huge advance. So what the thought was is that, hey, we're just about to cure cancer. This is the 2 thousands. So it's...
Speaker 1 You're on the verge.
Speaker 0 We're on the verge. Like, it was the excitement was like pal. It's like, we are very, very close because this is genetic disease. We figured out what this disease is and now we're gonna to use you know, our sort of ingenuity to find it. So all we have to do is find the 3 2 or 3 mutations that cause each cancer find the 2 or 3 drugs that will go in and fix those.
Speaker 0 And that... That's it. Right? So if you have... For cancer, for example, we'll find the 2 or 3 genes that are responsible for growth, and then we'll design drugs or antibodies to go in and fix them.
Speaker 0 And that'll be it. Will, that cancer will be done. And so that was sort of huge sort of thing, but it took a lot of time. So there the human genome project. So remember at the time the gene sequencing technology was very, very primitive.
Speaker 0 So there is this project called the human genome project where we're gonna sequence the genes of an entire human and that finished in 2000, and was a huge deal. Look millions of dollars. And actually, you or I could do the same thing for, like, 20 bucks right now. Right? It's like you go to 23 and knee or something like that Right.
Speaker 0 But you could probably get your whole Genome sequence for, like, 50 box. That's how far the technology has traveled. But back then it was a huge deal. So we like, okay, well, we're gonna sequence the genes of 1 entire human being and that's going to lay out the map of what we need to fix. We're going to be able to pinpoint these growth genes for each specific cancer boom done.
Speaker 0 It didn't quite work that way. So then they went sort of double down on this genetic paradigm, and we went to the cancer genome atlas, which came about sort of in the mid 2 thousands. So by the mid 2 thousands, this technology in advance and aren't going to sequence 1 humans genes. We're going sequence cancers and we we're going to sequence thousands of them. Technology So you could take, you know, say breast cancer and take the thousand samples of breast cancer and then just put them all together and look for the commonalities like this is the this gene is what we need and this gene and this gene and then you find the drugs block them and then you're done.
Speaker 0 That also didn't pan out the way we thought. Because pause, what happened was that what we discovered through these huge genome sequencing things is that there weren't 2 or 3 mutations in a specific cancer, there was like a hundred. So if you took a colon cancer, for example, and you said, okay, well, what genes are important for colon cancer. There was like a hundred different genes that were mutated. And worse, the patient next to that you know, if you have patient a with a hundred mutations patient b with the exact looking same looking cancer, would have a hundred completely different mutations.
Speaker 0 And it's like, whoa, okay. Well, this is tough because my paradigm has just in like s because you cannot develop a hundred new drugs for 1 patient, And Then Have A hundred different New drugs for The Second patient like Sitting right next to him.
Speaker 1 We were Hoping To Find A Few Commonalities And Yet There was All these differences that were there.
Speaker 0 Exactly. The cost
Speaker 1 time of drug drug development being hundreds of millions of dollars. And multiple years.
Speaker 0 So Side effects too Side effects. Exactly. So you really couldn't do that because the thing about the first few drugs like, in ina for C is that virtually, if you took, you know, C that disease, you would find that 1 specific sort of genetic difference in, like 95 percent of Cms sort of thing. Right? So that's 1 specific change in the whole cancer, which is what which is why you could develop such a great drug.
Speaker 0 If you go to colon cancer and you say, okay, well, what are my... You know, how many different mutations it's like, well, there's a hundred. It's like, well, that's a lot harder than 1. And it's like that 1 mutation may not affect all hundred percent of colon cancers, it may affect like 0.5 percent of them. Right?
Speaker 0 So you're gonna develop a drug, which is effective for 0.5 percent and 99.5 of the percent of people are not gonna benefit. That's not gonna be worth your time even if you could do that. Right? It's it's just not feasible. So in 20 18, if you look at the sort of the to have this database of all the genetic mutations of cancer Last number was somewhere are close to 12000000 different genetic mutations.
Speaker 1 Incredible.
Speaker 0 In cancer, So this whole you're gonna find 2 or 3 different mutations and then you're gonna be able to cure them. Was it? And this is the reason the genetic paradigm, completely failed to bring new treatments because the success of the paradigm is to bring new and effective treatments and he had started out really great, but then what happened was that as you started to look deeper and deeper, those were the exceptions, and not the general rule. The general rule was that there's is tons of mutations in these hands.
Speaker 1 And if I could read a little act, or from your book that I feel like just so eloquently shapes this sort of in the second paradigm. You say, Cancer Paradigm 2 it had hit rock bottom. Cancer was still undefeated and the situation look bleak. Millions of cancer research dollars over several deck Aids producing an abundance of drugs. Some truly great, but most marginally effective yet fantastically And this just goes to the cost of me jumping in, the cost of cancer care.
Speaker 1 So back to your sort of statement, but most marginally effective yet fantastically ex expensive benefits, borderline, toxicity, high and cost still higher.
Speaker 0 Yeah. That's unfortunately what happened because When these drugs sort of fizz. This paradigm sort of fizz a little bit. There's still drugs that are still, you know, mark... They're not very useful, but the the the way that the cancers are, if you have so many different mutations, each different drug is gonna be much more much you know, more marginally effective, like it's just not gonna make the same difference.
Speaker 0 So in order to recruit the costs and it is money they just kept raising prices. And that was you sort of where we are today, unfortunately. So they got these drugs they didn't work that well. So in order to make up, they just, you know, just kept cranking up the cost. And so now if you looked at the drug sort of 20 years ago in 2000, those drugs that were developed like a, they came out, you at a certain cost, the cost of that drug this kept going up and up and up.
Speaker 0 And it was ridiculous because the cost of drugs should go down. It's like your iphone, right? If you have a, you know, original iphone, the price of that technology goes down over time, like computing power, right? It goes down over time. With drugs, that drug is now sort of like 5 times the cost of what it was in 2000.
Speaker 0 Yet, it's the same drug. So why are the costs so high? Because there's no more research into it. There is no more technology to make this drug? The reason is they just wanted to make more money.
Speaker 0 And every drug company sort of said, well, it's a lot more profitable if we just keep it going than if we were to compete with each other on price. Let's just keep racking up the prices. So now you have drugs that are like, a hundred thousand dollars a year sort of thing. And and unfortunately, which would be fine if they were.
Speaker 1 Right.
Speaker 0 If you look at how well they work, it's very, very, very limited usefulness. So they took I think 15 or 16 drugs in 1 study and said, well, what's the average increase in survival with using these drugs. And I think it was 2.1 month? Or something like that. It was very low.
Speaker 0 And if you think about it, so remember that cancer affects mostly older people. So or you have to think, okay, say you're 80 years old, and you see when you get a cancer, and you take a drug, which is gonna cost you 2 300000 dollars. And so you will live instead of living from 80 to 81, you'll live to 81 and 2 months. And you'll have waste, you'll have spent like 253 hundred thousand dollars. You'll have sold your house.
Speaker 0 You'll have bankrupt in your family. Is that really worth that
Speaker 1 not side effects of every additional drug that comes in, especially when people are considering quality of life at that endpoint.
Speaker 0 Yeah. And remember that that those dollars that go towards paying those exorbitant sort of fees. Are dollars that don't go into other things that could make a difference. That is, you know, nursing care, ph therapy, you know, personal support workers, right? That that will make a difference to your quality of life.
Speaker 0 Right? Instead you're just paying that money. I mean that's why you have that show breaking bad where the guy wound up self and cocaine to afford his lung cancer treatments. Right? It's so expensive and everybody knows it that it's basically out of range of the system and And there's a lot of reasons for that I get into some of them.
Speaker 0 In the book. You know, 1 is that they, you know, there's a... Change in the way they approved the drug, so you could get drugs approved with much more marginal effectiveness than before. So the food and drug administration normally has a certain bar that you have to cross before you get approved for use. And that bar got really lowered a lot because people wanted to see new drugs.
Speaker 0 So their answer to getting new drugs is to lower the bar for effectiveness. So you got new drug. You just didn't get more effective drugs. And the problem was, of course, the paradigm that they were under. Just looking at these sort of genetic.
Speaker 0 So treatments just didn't really work. And that's where I said, you know, that's where we were in about 2010 it was rock bottom like that the whole thing was like, okay, cancer still just as bad bad as it was because the treatments we've developed, were not that effective. And the entire field was basically going was just spinning around in circles because they couldn't find this... They needed to replace that paradigm because that paradigm was not leading them to effective treatments.
Speaker 1 Right. And they weren't necessarily sure where it was going, so they just kept on doubling down on the things that they thought were working or
Speaker 0 Exactly.
Speaker 1 In some cases, business decisions. You know, driving driving the the the roadmap for for research.
Speaker 0 Exactly And that's why understanding the. Paradigm are so important because if you get the paradigm wrong then you're going going the wrong directors are all those drug companies, are spending money to really look at developing great drugs for cancer and it's billions of dollars. It's not like chu change, But if you get that paradigm wrong, and you're just chasing, you know, phantom. Right? So if you're not facing in the right direction, It doesn't matter how fast you run.
Speaker 0 You'll still never get there.
Speaker 1 There's an architect. His name is William Mc, Very renowned gentleman who does a lot of you he wrote a book called Cradle to Cradle about building building buildings like really with the environment in mind and not just sustainability but buildings that good for the environment. He says this analogy says, you know, if you're in a car and you're driving a hundred miles per hour good towards Canada, but you really should be going towards Mexico. It doesn't really do you a lot of good if all of a sudden you just slow down 60 miles per hour if you're still heading in the wrong direction.
Speaker 0 Yeah. Exactly. That's exactly right. And this is the whole idea is that you need to set a direction. So if you're doing research, if you're looking for a drug.
Speaker 0 Yeah You have to set it a direction and say, okay, I'm gonna attack the genetics of this problem. But if the genetics were not the main issue. Then you're going in the wrong direction and you'll no matter how much effort you put in, you'll still never get to where you're going. And that was the reason from about 2000 to 2020, you know, they're 2010, you know, they're because these some of these new drugs they developed sort of in the nineties. So for for for years, there's just nothing coming out that was making any difference.
Speaker 0 And that's where the sort of... That's where that's where most people think we are, but that's the sort of untold story is that you know there's this new paradigm that's sort of changed. And this is what's really important is that now we've got this new understanding, which is hopefully gonna lead us to better treatments and it already has in some some degree. So that's sort of cancer paradigm 3, this which again takes the core of what the genetic paradigm was, cancer 2. And again expands it to try to under scan, what the point is of these diseases.
Speaker 0 So if you look at what happens to the you know, to the to the paradigm. First paradigm was cancer cells like grow and the question is why. So you get genetics and it's genetics. Now you take the same sort of extra layer of understanding and say, well, why are these genes mutating? So the answer in cancer Paradigm 2 was that they were randomly mutating.
Speaker 0 And that was clearly not true. Like it was obviously not true because remember that these cancers that come from you know, say you to have a breast cancer. If you have a breast cancer in a sort of American woman in 19 20, versus the Japanese woman in 20 20. They're half a world apart, they're sent apart, and they will look exactly the same. And yet, they've derived themselves from originally normal human breath, tissue.
Speaker 0 So they look come to the same point that is they look exactly the same. So there is nothing random about it. That is if you have, you know, colon cancer which effects say a million people. A million people have independently, generated this cancer, which looks identical on pathology. There's nothing random about it.
Speaker 0 It's sort of like if you have you know, you have a classroom of children. And you say paint a picture. Well, you're gonna yell different types of picture. Right? You're gonna get, you know, someone will draw a house and some will draw flower.
Speaker 0 Right? You're gonna get all different pictures. But what if every single picture was a picture of a white elephant. Or something like that. Right?
Speaker 0 That's not random. Right? That's you're last.
Speaker 1 Something bigger is going on.
Speaker 0 Something bigger is going on. There's something clearly or guiding these mutations towards a predetermined spot. So if you go to a classroom, analogy maybe, those children pulled out a picture and the picture was already drawn, Right? It's already there and they simply color it in and that's why everything is exactly the same. Right?
Speaker 0 So this is the point is that this was not this was not random at all, this is something that is guided and what is guiding it towards this thing. And that's where we start the understanding of the next, paradigm of cancer, which is the evolutionary sort of ecological view of cancer. So it starts a back in 2000. So a couple of researchers. We're talking about cancer and what they decided was that what they wanted to do was back determine basically a sort of consensus on what is cancer.
Speaker 0 So they they met and they said, you know what's interesting is that there's different kinds of cancer. There's breast cancer, There's lung cancer, it's liver cancer. There's all different types of cancer. And, you know, we look at the differences between these cancers, but what's the same about these cancers? What's the same about breast and colon and liver and pancreas and leukemia, What's the same about all these.
Speaker 0 Cancers. So in terms of a problem, this is called the lump splitter problem, sometimes That is when you're doing classifications, do lump categories together, pretty split them apart. So say you have mammals. You could put whales, chimpanzees and humans all in 1 category because for all mammals, you'll help be there. So you lump them all together.
Speaker 0 You can also split them apart and say, well, you know, chimpanzees, and humans live on land and whales else live in the water. So you can split them parts. Can split categories you can lump them together. They give you different information. So the lump together highlights the similarities.
Speaker 0 You and when you split them part it highlights the differences. So cancer medicine had always split, breast cancer versus colon cancer versus lung cancer versus whatever. What was different about this paper than anything else was was really the first attempt to lump them together and say, what is the same about all these cancers? And therefore this wound up being the most cited paper in all of oncology. So it was basically the most important.
Speaker 0 And article in research article in cancer history. So it was seeing how all these cancers are the same. And what they came up with a list of 8 hallmarks, but it basically comes down to this, cancer cells differ from normal cells because they grow that is they don't stop growing, whereas normal cells should stop growing. Right? Second thing was that they they are immortal.
Speaker 0 So that is if you take a cancer cell, you can actually keep growing it and growing it and growing it in lab, and you can do it forever. If you were to take 1 of your normal cells and try to grow grow grow. It will only grow it will only divide a certain number of times before it stops. And that's called the h limit. It'll just stop.
Speaker 0 It'll die off. So it's not the immortal. It's it's mortal. Cancer cells are completely immortal, so they'll just keep going. Third thing is that these cells tend to move around a lot, that is meta.
Speaker 0 That is a lung cell stays in the lung. It doesn't go around into your big toe or something. Whereas a lung cancer cell will float around and go wherever. Right? And then the fourth thing is that it uses a different way of entered energy, which is gl.
Speaker 0 So those were the really core important thing. There's always differences between the cancers, of course, But the core things that link all cancers together the best sort of scientific consensus of what cancer was was these sort of hallmarks of cancer. So in 2000, they've sort of started to say, okay, well, this is what cancer is from a scientific standpoint and how does this develop? And so they would, you know, in about 2010 or so, they brought in some sort of scientists from the outside. And the idea the National Cancer Institute had asked all these other places physicists and astro and so on.
Speaker 0 About, you know, give us some insights into cancer. So they ask this astro by the name of Paul Davies, He studies life on other planets. That's saying. It's like, I don't know anything about cancer and they're like, great. So from an outside point of view, we wanna see what is your take on it because physicists look at thing differently than say a biologist will.
Speaker 0 And so the first thing he noticed was and this was you know, very interesting because it's so sort of fundamental. Is that cancer is not a human disease. So it's actually a disease whose origins run way past humanity. That is you know if you looked at more evolution primitive animals, they still get cancer. In fact, almost every multi cellular animal in existence practically gets cancer.
Speaker 0 That is dogs get cancer, cats get cancer, rats get cancer, even the most primitive organism, which is called the hydra, they found hydra this microscopic thing, you look at in the microscope. And even that gets cancer. So if you
Speaker 1 have maybe not the same rates as human beings, but they all still get cancer Yeah.
Speaker 0 Exactly the
Speaker 1 ability to get cancer.
Speaker 0 The ability to get cancer. And this was what's so... Interesting is that there doesn't seem to be any multi celled animal that can't get cancer. Like virtually, every cell in your body can become cancer. But that's very strange because it's not like you get the same thing with other diseases.
Speaker 0 Right? So a gall stone is a gall stone doesn't affect your, you know, thumb or something like that. Right? But every cell your skin cells can become cancer, Your eyes can get cancer, your, you know, heart can get cancer, your lungs can get cancer. Every single cell even the placenta can get cancer.
Speaker 0 So it's like, okay, half single cell can get cancer and that not only in the human body, But practically every cell in a multi seller animal has that ability to become a cancer. So whatever this thing called cancer is, is ab embedded, extremely deeply way past humanity in human genes. So don't look into your human genes because the origin of cancer went way back to evolutionary times. And this was the sort of insight that's set into motion this sort of next understanding of cancer as an evolutionary disease. So if you look at the differences between a single celled organism, and a multi celled organism.
Speaker 0 There's a very fundamental jump that needs to happen when you go from a single cell to a multi celled organism. That is single celled organisms compete with each other for food. So say you have a slice of bread and you have mold on a slice of bread, which is a fungus. Right? Those mold will eat with each other, compete with each other until the food is gone then they'll die.
Speaker 0 There's no cooperation but they just are basically each each mold or each fungi or each bacteria. They're all basically out for themselves. So they compete with each other. When you get into a multi cellular system, there are some important changes in that you have to learn how they operate together. So when you have several different cells, you have a lung cell which does 1 thing and a liver cell which does another thing, but they need to coordinate.
Speaker 0 Because the liver can't get oxygen and the long can't detox. So they rely on each other. But what you can do is you can specialize and you can dominate your environment. And that's the advantages that you have specialization, you have, you know, you can get bigger and so on, so you're going to compete more successfully, so it's the difference between competition, which is the domain of the single celled organism and cooperation. Which is a multi celled organism.
Speaker 0 So the cells within a multi cell organism, they have to cooperate. So it's like the difference between, say an individual, like who plays an individual sport like tennis. Everybody else is a competitor. Right? You can't have 5 winners of the french open or whatever.
Speaker 0 Like, you only have 1 winner. That's individual sports. When you get to a Teams sport what happens is that you have to learn how to cooperate with your other team members and say you play soccer or something like that. Right? Then what's gonna happen is that use...
Speaker 0 Specialize, you have forwards and defense and midfield and goalie. Right? And it gets bigger, but you have to learn to cooperate, The other players.
Speaker 1 The system, the more cooperation that's needed.
Speaker 0 Exactly. So that's a huge fundamental shift. In the way that multi cellular life is done. And there when you compare cells in a multi celled organism compared to what single celled organisms do. They differ in several fundamental ways because of this you know, competition versus cooperation.
Speaker 0 So if you look at single celled organisms, they tend to grow. They will grow and grow and grow and they will never stop until they sort of run out of resources. The second thing is that they move around. So single celled organisms, if they exhaust their food source, they need to move around for Right? Nothing stops them from moving around.
Speaker 0 In multi celled organisms, you want people to stay in the same place because your lung depends on your liver being in certain place. And they have to be in the same place. And they can't grow. You can't have the lung keep growing and growing and growing. Right?
Speaker 0 The third thing is that they're more they're immortal. So if you look at bacteria, they're completely immortal. You can grow a bacteria in a flask in a lab, and just keep growing them and growing them and growing them. As long as you keep putting in fresh fresh medium, you're gonna keep growing. So they're model whereas cells and a multi cellular organism don't.
Speaker 0 They will die after a while. And then the fourth thing is the way they generate energy, bacteria tend to use gl, which is a you know, which is different from this thing called ox oxygenated pho. But if you look at it, it's like, wow, The way thing that the cancer cell differs from a normal cell. Is exactly the same way that a multi that cells in a multi celled organism differ from a single celled organism. That single cell organ is the evolutionary ancestor of all the original cells.
Speaker 0 That is all that programming in that single celled organism to grow to move around to be becoming immortal. That's all there. That was never in evolutionary time. That was never changed. They just built new programs on top of it.
Speaker 0 So that old... Original sort of kernel of programming of that single cell sort of survival mentality all still exists, in all of our cells.
Speaker 1 The the source code has been there since the beginning.
Speaker 0 Right? Exactly. And what for
Speaker 1 this cancer cells.
Speaker 0 Exactly. And and so what people said was that, well, this is not a coincidence because what's really how happening now is that you have that original source code that's very deep and you have all of this other programming on top, which sub converts all your programming to happening to change the sort of competitive nature to a cooperative nature. But when you get damage to all of this other code then this original source code sort of comes through. And that's why all the cancers in history all sort of look the same. Because all of it was buried there already, whether you're live in Japan or whether you live in America, whether you're in 20 20 or 18 20, this stuff goes back millions of years all the way back from the jump from uni cell to multi cell.
Speaker 0 That's because cancer is is the way that cancer differs is fundamental that that difference is fundamental to the way that life evolved on
Speaker 1 earth. Right.
Speaker 0 That's why it affects everything.
Speaker 1 And and you know, jumping a little bit ahead, but part of the question that comes along with it is that is cancer something that happens to us? Or is it a survival mechanism. Right? That's not maybe the words that you would use, but just using, like words for the sake of this conversation, is this an inherent sort of thing that was programmed. It's in all cells, not just human beings And is it some sort of survival mechanism that cells have?
Speaker 0 Yeah. I think that's exactly right. So it's actually the... The most sort of sur way that a cell can be. So a lung cell.
Speaker 0 If you stretch back from the original cell from when it originally came from a single cell to a multi cell. There's all those genes that are programmed in there which are sort of survival genes. These are the genes that will survive on its own, not being part of us this sort of cooperative team, And when all of this damage happens to everything else, you start to activate these sort of survival genes. And that is the way that cancer develops. So the reason that a lot of these these things like tobacco smoke and viruses and stuff.
Speaker 0 What they do is that they exert a sort of selective pressure. It's it's got to be chronic and it's got to be a sub lethal damage so that you're you're basically providing the environment that is necessary for this sort of survival tendency to succeed. That is the only the only powerful the only sort of thing that is powerful enough to drive this change in cancer. From a normal cell to cancer cell is evolution. So what you need in evolution is a selective pressure, and that's what these chronic car, so chronic exposures cause is a selective pressure.
Speaker 0 That is it has to be chronic because it needs time for evolution to happen, and it needs to be sub lethal because if you just kill all cells, then everybody's dead, Right? Nothing survives to become cancer. If it's too weak, it just gets it's just not strong enough. And it's actually somewhere in the middle. So this sort of chronic damage, to a cell like you get with tobacco smoke with
Speaker 1 Tobacco viruses. Ultra processed food that that is known to be have a car effect. Air poll that are there, lead ars sn like all in that same category.
Speaker 0 Exactly. So these chronic sort of sub lethal damaging. Things will actually cause this cell to say, okay, Well, now you know, how am I gonna survive. Right? If I...
Speaker 0 If I just keep doing what I'm doing. I'm gonna die. So therefore, I'm going to start to activate some of these this old programming, which is sort of in the way back. I and I'm gonna to activate those genes that are similar to being a uni cellular organism. So in other words, the cell is actually evolving sort of in a backwards manner, which is called an activism towards it sort of original form, and that's what the cancer is is basically a single celled organism because that's that's that's what was programmed and all of us.
Speaker 0 And explains actually a lot of the phenomena, that we see in cancer. That is why does it affect so many people. That is because it's in all of us. The the seed of cancer actually lies in every single 1 of our cells. And that's why it's so common in terms of it affects all animals, all multi cellular animals and it affects every cell.
Speaker 0 Every different type of cell in our body can become cancer. Why Because that was there from the beginning.
Speaker 1 For the person who's out there, who doesn't know about all the debates that are there. They just want to improve their health. They're just trying to break free of obesity, or type 2 diabetes or feel a little bit better, and they've been trying and they've been following the standard device for years, and they actually feel like a failure because everybody around them has been telling them. You're not doing it hard enough or maybe even your lying maybe you're secretly cheating. Yeah.
Speaker 1 Maybe you're not cutting your food enough and you're not exercising enough. And that is a failed message. So I'm just so happy that people can get information that actually can make a huge difference in their life directly from the sources of individuals who are willing to ask and re question what they were taught about in school. So just another way of me saying that I'm grateful for your work and message.
Speaker 0 Oh, thanks. Yeah. And I talk... And yeah. I tried to talk about a lot of this sort of physiological stuff on my Youtube out.
Speaker 0 Like, you know, talking about things, for example, last week, I was talking about sort of the role of mono monopoly diets and varieties and, you know, how variety actually makes it more, you know, harder to lose weight because you've got all these sort of delicious foods because we eat sort of for 2 reasons. Right? You eat for hunger, but also eat for pleasure. Right? So if you take away the pleasure because you're eating the same thing, day after day after day, then you're just gonna eat for hunger.
Speaker 0 When you do that, you stop eating as soon as you're not hungry anymore. And and that's gonna play a role. In the end. So you have these drugs, for example, that can suppress the appetite, nicotine farley is a classic 1 Right? Just didn't make...
Speaker 0 You just didn't really wanna eat as much when you smoke. So people lost weight. And then when they stop smoking, of course, they gain some weight. But you know, obviously, that's not good for you. But the other thing is that, you know, this whole idea of...
Speaker 0 Oh, it's all calories in calories out, so it's all willpower. Like, it's a it's a horrible message. It's a horrible message. Because now you have all these people who, you know, they they listen to them and they say, okay, I cut 500 calories a day. And what happens, of course is that their metabolic rate goes down.
Speaker 0 So your body burns 500 calories less then the weight loss stops. But because you're burning 500 calories in day less, you feel horrible, and you have no energy, you know, you're feeling cold all times. So you increase that a little bit. So instead of... You know, going 500 down, you go say, I'm gonna eat 300 less.
Speaker 0 But your body has burning 500 less. So now you're regaining that weight. Right? So... But instead of those people saying, you know, there's something wrong with this treatment of just cutting 500 calories a day.
Speaker 0 Instead of that, they say, well, you must be cheating on your diet. It's your own fault. Right? And it's like, no, it never was. You know, all these millions of women who blame themselves for the failure of the diet.
Speaker 0 When the when the blame should have been on the diet, the the calorie restricted low fat diet, eating 6 times a day. Those are the things that were the problem, not trying... Instead, they were trying to shift that blame onto them, which is horribly disrupt Right? You have people with, you know, emotional problems and self esteem problems all because they thought that obesity equals sort of lack of willpower. Right?
Speaker 0 And and it's it's it was a horrible message and it's still promoted by a lot of these sort of fitness guys and stuff because they're... They don't understand the sort of science of, hey, if you take 500 calories a day less you could either 1 lose body fat or 2, lower your metabolic rate by 500 calories. And option 2 is 95 percent of people go, you know, their bodies tend towards option 2. So therefore, that's not good. You're not going lose body fat.
Speaker 0 Your body fat stays the same. Your metabolic rate goes down. It's not a failure of willpower. They're still doing that diet. Right?
Speaker 0 It's... Like like on that show the biggest loser, for example. It's always interesting to me because you look at them and they're doing all this... Stuff. They've got obviously lots of willpower.
Speaker 0 Like, they their minds will do it if they set themselves to it Right? They'll run until they p sort of thing. You can see it. And yet, we're supposed to believe that these people gain weight because they had no willpower, but like but just look at them. They clearly have a lot of well willpower.
Speaker 0 It wasn't a failure of well willpower. It was a failure of understanding that this sort of approach of calorie restriction without understanding the hormones is actually a failed sort of theory. It doesn't work. And it's not that it it falls outside of thermo thermodynamics. Right?
Speaker 0 There's 3 variables here. Either of those 2 things will satisfy that condition. So therefore, you have to do something else. And that's that's you know, that's why I talk a lot about it, sort of I get very sort of into it because I think it's so unfair to blame these people. You know, it's like, think about it this way.
Speaker 0 Suppose you have a classroom of a hundred children and 1 of them fails. Sure. That might be his fault or her fault. Maybe they didn't study, Maybe they lazy. But what off all of a sudden, you have 70 kids who fail.
Speaker 0 Do you think all of those kids were lazy? Or is it the teacher's fault? Because I think it's more likely the teacher's fault? So you take the same thing and say, okay, you have Americans or North Americans or the world for that matter now because world, it's becoming a worldwide thing. So and if only a few people are obese, you might say, well, those are lazy people.
Speaker 0 But if now, 50, 60, 70 percent of the we're all these obese. It's not an individual failure. It's a failure of the system. You go to look at the system and say, what is it that word doing, which is sort of focusing obsessively on calories. What is it that we're doing that we could do better?
Speaker 0 Because if we can do that, then we will have served those 50, 60, 70 percent of people. Instead we don't, We we we say our system is perfect. It's all calories and calories out. It's all willpower. You're just not following the advice.
Speaker 0 And we turn that blame, which should have fallen onto to the system onto the the the people who are suffering, which is blaming the victim. And that's what I... That's the problem I have with a lot of these things is that it's all blaming the victim. It's all trying to turn our own failures a as a as as a, you know, scientific community, our own failure to understand the hormonal basis of obesity and we're trying to turn the blame on these people who are suffering from it. Right?
Speaker 0 And it's like, if you're blaming people, you're not helping them. Like, it... It's not gonna work. Right that. Right?
Speaker 0 And unfortunately, that's the way Bought of academic medicine and, you know, you look at a lot of these... You know, Usda guidelines. Oh, just eat less. Right? It's like, yeah, that's not gonna work.
Speaker 0 Like that advice is not useful. If it was useful. I'd be the first 1 to give it, But it's not useful. It hasn't been useful, it has never been useful. So let's let's do better.
Speaker 0 Right? That's that's what I always think.
Speaker 1 Such an important message, and I think that 1 way of doing better is limiting and having different sources of information that's out there. So again, another reason that I'm just happy that you're putting out the content, the books that you do. Wanna return back to longevity if that's okay with you, and I wanna return back to to fasting. Yeah. For somebody like yourself, who's not facing, and you've written whole books on...
Speaker 1 The topic of helping people with type 2 diabetes, helping people and showing that it can be, you, reversed through food, lifestyle intervention in the corporation of fasting, obesity as well to for somebody that maybe is not battling those things, which fasting and very much as a is a part of, and they are looking to take advantage of some of the topics that you brought up in the beginning. Some things that our ancestors knew were apart. You know, they weren't dealing with obesity rates. The way that we were, but fasting was still incorporated into their life because there was some innate understanding of its benefits, the And I'm sure you're in that category as well. Right?
Speaker 1 You're not facing type 2 diabetes. You're not facing obesity. And you're regularly incorporate fasting into your world. Now, I know you have apps and coaching in a whole sort of system in methodology and it's so personalized and individualized, but would you be willing to share how you incorporate fasting into your own life right now for your unique goals.
Speaker 0 Yeah. I mean, I'll tell you that my goals. I I mean, it's it's funny because my goals when I started, were not longevity at all. It was... I usually skipped breakfast because I would...
Speaker 0 I wanted to sleep until the last minute and then. Roll out of bed and get to work sort of thing. Right? So I skipped breakfast because, hey, why would I get up half an hour early every single day, just to make myself practice, eat it, I'm not even hungry. Right?
Speaker 0 Why don't I sleep for that extra hour. So... And and to me, it's... Still remains a... It's an important reason to fast.
Speaker 0 It's like, you get so much time. Like, this podcast, I put it on my lunch hour. So 1, it makes fast easier because I'm not thinking about it. I'm talking to you. Right?
Speaker 0 So it makes the fasting easier. So put it on the schedule. That's a great way to just get right through it. But 2, it means that I don't take another hour out of, you know, the next hour and have to go to go home like an hour late. I can go...
Speaker 0 Home, I can read a book. I can do a puzzle. I can, you know, play with my kids. I can exercise, like, it gives me that time back. Makes your life simpler.
Speaker 0 Right? So there's these benefits that come, which, you know you know, and perhaps it plays into longevity too because by getting home earlier, I can do the things that I wanted to do, which is gonna lower my stress level, which is huge, right? Stress is a huge killer of Americans. So you're simplifying your life. You're getting time back.
Speaker 0 You know, outside of the purely ph logic stuff of what fasting does in terms of obesity of type 2 diabetes and other stuff, but, you know, you get better focus, you get, you know, a much simpler life, you get a lot and for time back, you save money. Like there's all these others. Side benefits of fasting that you don't even start to realize. Against that you have to plot. Okay.
Speaker 0 So If you have all these benefits, why aren't you doing this and this is what we talk about a lot in approaching is that it's not just about the knowledge. Okay. So there's 3 things if you wanna change behaviors. There's 3 things that you gotta remember. There's the mind, which is the knowledge.
Speaker 0 So of course, 10 years ago fasting was severely frowned upon. But now assuming that you know fasting hey, It's not that bad for you and you wanna do it. But just knowing about it is not enough. The second thing is sort of the... You know, the the the body.
Speaker 0 So what is it that's stopping you from fasting? Is it the hunger? Because that's... Even if you know you should fast, you may or may not fast because, hey, if you're hungry. So you gotta know what to do about that hunger.
Speaker 0 And then you gotta put in systems that are going to circumvent. So if you gotta know what you're gonna do if you get hungry. So in my case, for example, I, you know, I drink some green tea usually or have some coffee. And then by the time I finish it, I get a hot cup coffee by the time I finish it to hunger passes. And I know that and and and, you know, that's that's part of the system.
Speaker 0 1 of the other systems putting it on the schedule, like, like we're doing right now. Right? So even if I was hungry, I wouldn't even be thinking about it about, hey, where am I gonna go for lunch? Because I've already got you on the schedule now. So by the time I finish here, I'm gonna start my office, and I'm all done.
Speaker 0 So that automatic system is what's gonna to get me through. And that's... Those are the systems that the lot of religions had put in. You're doing it with the supportive group. Right?
Speaker 0 You're it's it's on the schedule. So good Friday comes around. You know it's on the schedule, is the fast. Yeah. It's a hard yeah.
Speaker 0 But you can get through it. Right? You know, same with Rama same with, you know, yam poor. These other, you know, things. It's on the same schedule, right?
Speaker 0 You've got something to do. And the third thing, so there's the the the knowledge or the mind, there's the body, which is what are those systems, How you're gonna deal with the your body not wanting to do it. And then there's the third thing which is sort of the spirit, which is what are those emotional things that are gonna stop you from doing it. Right? So again, do We eat for all kinds of different reasons, only 1 of which is hunger.
Speaker 0 So you eat... Because it's so, for example, You go out with friends and you eat? That's what you do. Right? When you're fasting, do you have that supportive group?
Speaker 0 And again, that's how religious groups got through it. That's how millions of people do fasting every single year, whether it's on good Friday or young for or rama. They do it because they do it as a group. They have that group support that's going to give you that emotional support that's gonna let you do it. If you don't have that emotional support, and that's 1 of the things we try to do at the fasting method is build this community.
Speaker 0 If you set those norms, that hey, this is our normal. You set that baseline, this is what our baseline is, then you can get through it. And that's not thing to do with knowledge that fasting is good for you or bad for you. Right? These are totally different because that's the mind.
Speaker 0 This is the body. And the spirit. So those emotional supports, those those constructs that you're going build to allow you to do that. So for example, 50 years ago, wasn't so hard to get from, you know, breakfast to lunch to dinner without snacking in between. There's the social construct that we had didn't allow that.
Speaker 0 Like you took your cigarette break, but you know, people were not eating muffins. At that time. They went outside and smoked or whatever. But that construct where you don't eat snacks was ingrained. Now you go to, you know, you have a 02:00 meeting and somebody orders plate of cookies for you.
Speaker 0 Well, even if you're not hungry, the cookies are staring you at the in the face. Right? You're listening some some boring guy go on about, you know, this and that, right? Or you know, what's the next thing you have to do and you're looking at the cookies. Right?
Speaker 0 You're gonna eat that cookie. That's just the way it's gonna be. Right? But you didn't have to because you'd nobody had to order. Right?
Speaker 0 So those those constructs that allow you to do it is also what's important. And this is where... You have to really dig deep into... Okay. So let's let's find a way so that it will work because it is not only about the knowledge that it's good for you.
Speaker 0 We we we have that knowledge. We know you should eat cookies. Right? But when you put in the other things like, oh, don't have cookies in the house, no no no snacks or if you're an employer, I always think, you... What you wanna do is say, look, there's no eating at your desk.
Speaker 0 There's no eating except in the designated eating spots, right, cafeteria and so on. There's no snacks in the boardroom room. There's no snacks. On the das, no candy bowls. That's probably the best thing you can do.
Speaker 0 Then people are gonna go from breakfast to lunch and not do anything. No donut shop in the, you know, coming by, no snack are coming by. Like those are not things we need. And with obesity so important, not gonna be really important for the health of your things. And I've I was an employer with a lot of people.
Speaker 0 That's the first thing I would say. I say, look, it's not fair to... Our employees who are trying to get healthy and lose weight. So therefore, I am actually just gonna get rid of all of these things. Is it easy to absolutely.
Speaker 0 You make the rule, who's gonna disagree with you. And everybody's gonna be healthier because as soon as you get busy, all of a sudden, no snacks, Nothing. You're not you're not looking at the guy eating a cookie at at his desk. Right? Not allowed.
Speaker 0 Those are the constructs that you can put in. To make things successful for yourself. And those are the constructs that we used to have in our offices and so on that we no longer do and makes it hard.
Speaker 1 Hey, Youtube, if you enjoyed what you just saw. Keep watching for more great content on how to improve your brain and your life. A whole foods diet.
Speaker 2