Welcome vibrant viewers
to Healthy Living
on Supreme Master
Television.
According to the World
Health Organization,
cancer is one of
the leading causes of death
in the world.
Each year
over 12 million people
across the globe
are diagnosed
with cancer
and 7.6 million
succumb to the disease.
The numbers are projected
to continue rising,
with an estimated
of 12 million deaths
in 2030.
Today we have the honor
to share the first
of an eight part series
featuring excerpts from
The Cancer Project’s
“Eating Right
for Cancer Survival,”
a two-set DVD
of presentations
by esteemed nutrition
researcher and author
Dr. Neal Barnard, MD
that is a companion
to the book The Cancer
Survivor’s Guide
written by Dr. Barnard
and registered dietician
Jennifer Reilly.
Dr. Barnard is the president
of The Cancer Project,
a US-based non-profit
organization advancing
cancer prevention and
survival through nutrition
education and research.
Since its founding in 2004,
the Project has strived
to promote the vegan diet
as the answer to cancer.
The Cancer Project is
an affiliate of
the Physicians Committee
for Responsible Medicine,
a group created by
Dr. Barnard in 1985
that is comprised of
physicians and
concerned citizens
in the US wishing to
improve public health.
The Committee is also
actively involved in
raising awareness
of the benefits
of a plant-based diet
through such projects
as the 21-Day
Vegan Kickstart program
and seeking to amend
federal nutrition guidelines.
Dr. Barnard has served as
the principal investigator
on many clinical studies
examining the links
between diet and health
and his work has been
published in top scientific
and medical journals.
He is often interviewed
by the national media
in the US
for his perspectives
on important issues
in nutrition, health
and medicine.
We are now pleased
to show a segment from
“How Foods Fight Cancer,”
a chapter from
the “Eating Right for
Cancer Survival” DVD.
Welcome,
thank you for joining us.
In today’s program
we’re going to zero in
on how nutrition affects
not just our risk
of getting cancer
or helping us
to stay free of cancer,
but also if we have
this condition already
how we can use nutrition
for better survival.
Now, I have two points
before we get started.
The first is
let’s set aside blame.
There is a natural tendency.
If you’ve got any kind of
serious health condition
to think,
“What caused this?
Did I cause this?
Or did somebody else
cause it?”
Well, I understand that
but for now
let’s just set that aside.
And the second point is
work with your doctor
or health care provider.
All of the information that
you are about to receive
is designed to be used
in addition to the tests
or treatments your doctor
might prescribe,
not instead of them.
Okay, let’s get started.
First of all, what is cancer?
Cancer starts
in the inside of a cell.
Inside the nucleus is DNA.
That’s the blueprint
that makes each cell
what it is, and
makes you what you are.
But that DNA
can be easily damaged.
And when it is, instead of
that cell staying put
and doing its normal job,
it starts multiplying
out of control.
It’s like a weed
that then sends roots
into the flower bed
disrupting the other plants.
And a little bit of it
can break off,
get into the bloodstream
and spread somewhere else
in the body where
it does the same thing,
spreading and
damaging other tissues.
That’s what cancer is.
But there are certain things
that make it worse
and certain things that
can help make it better.
In the worse category
are hormones.
If a woman has
breast cancer,
the female sex hormones
– estrogens, they tend
to fuel its growth and
they make it more likely
not only that it will occur
in the first place
but more likely to spread.
If a man has
prostate cancer,
the male sex hormone –
testosterone does
exactly the same thing.
It encourages its growth,
and encourages its spread.
Now the first inklings
that cancer had anything
to do with diet
came from comparisons
between different countries.
If you compare Japan
to the United States
for example,
a Japanese woman
is much less likely to
develop cancer compared
to an American woman.
But if she gets cancer
she is much more likely
to survive.
Why would that be?
Well, the first theory was
well Japanese women
are thin.
And that’s important
because body fat actually
acts as a factory
for making estrogens.
The more fat you have,
the more it cranks out
estrogens, I mean
the female sex hormones,
into the bloodstream.
And as they are coursing
around through the blood
they are just looking for
that one cancer cell.
And they act
like fertilizer on weeds.
They make it grow,
they make it spread.
They make the disease
much more aggressive.
Well, that’s part of it.
Diet plays a role even if
a woman is not heavy.
And if a woman is on a diet
that’s high in fat
and very low in fiber…
you know
what I’m talking about
when I say fiber?
I mean plant roughage.
That kind of diet also
increases the amount
of estrogen in her blood,
the amount of fertilizer
on the weeds if you will.
Well, how does that happen?
Well, researchers learned
a long time ago that
if a woman goes on a diet
that has a lot of fat in it
and not very much fiber,
the amount of estrogen
in her bloodstream
goes up within
just a couple of weeks.
It’s measurably higher
than it was before.
Part of the reason for this
is that fiber helps your body
get rid of
the extra estrogens.
Pictures this - your liver
is filtering your blood
every minute of every day
and it’s looking for things
that don’t belong there.
And it will find
extra estrogen
and it’s in the blood,
the liver pulls it out,
it sends it down
through a little tube
called the bile duct
into the intestinal tract
and sends it out
with the wastes.
So the liver
is filtering the blood,
hears an estrogen,
“I don’t think
we need you anymore,
let’s get rid of you.”
It pulls it out,
sends it down the bile duct,
into the intestinal tract,
out it goes. Good system.
Only problem is
it depends on one thing
and it depends on fiber.
If you ate plenty of fiber,
I mean vegetables, fruit,
beans, whole grains,
then that little estrogen
that the liver found,
it sent it down
to the bile duct
into the intestinal tract,
it hooked onto the fiber
and the fiber is
what carried it away.
But let’s say my lunch
was skimmed milk,
yogurt, chicken breast.
How much fiber is
in those foods?
Well, they’re not plants;
they don’t have
plant roughage.
There is no fiber
in any of those foods.
There is no fiber in
anything from an animal.
So what happens?
The liver
is filtering the blood
finds the estrogen,
sends it down the bile duct
into the intestinal tract.
Where is my fiber?
Where is my fiber?
Where is my fiber?
There isn’t any fiber!
So what does it do?
It goes back
into the bloodstream.
It’s reabsorbed again.
And it circulates
around the body
and then it arrives back
at the liver and the liver
says, “What are you
doing here?”
And the liver
actually removes
that estrogen again,
sends it down bile duct
into the intestinal tract.
Looking for fiber,
looking for fiber,
looking for fiber,
there isn’t any,
it’s reabsorbed again!
And this estrogen
does this circle we call
enterohepatic circulation.
“Entero” means
intestinal tract,
“hepatic” means liver,
like hepatitis.
And this works
not just for estrogen, it also
works for testosterone.
A man who is at higher
risk for prostate cancer,
if he can get rid of
extra testosterone
he uses that same system.
If he has lots of fiber
in his diet,
his testosterone level
will be adequate,
but not excessive
because the liver
finds the testosterone
and gets rid of it.
Same thing for cholesterol.
You’ve heard about
how oats will reduce
cholesterol, you know
what I’m talking about.
Well, this is how it works:
You ate oats,
they’re rich in fiber.
The liver
finds the cholesterol,
sends it down the bile duct
and its going down there
and if the oats or other
kinds of fiber are there
it carries it out
with the waste and
your cholesterol level
goes down.
Now that’s the theory,
does it actually work?
Well, the answer is
yes it does.
There have been
a number of studies that
have looked at the effect
of changing the diet
on not only hormones
but also on cancer rates.
And there are two
that I want to share
with you very quickly.
One was
at the State University
of New York
at Buffalo (USA).
They looked at women
who already had
breast cancer; there were
about 900 of them.
And what they found was
that as the time went by
the risk of dying
of that disease
increased by 40%
for every thousand grams
of fat the women consumed
per month.
Now to picture
what I’m talking about.
Let’s say you’re
on a plant- based diet,
without animal products,
without a lot of added fat.
There is really not much fat
in that kind of diet.
For comparison purposes
let’s take
a typical American diet
that might have
lots of cheeseburgers and
gravy and French fries,
a lot of fat in it right?
Those two differ
by a good thousand
to 1500 grams of fat
every single month.
That’s good for
a 40 to 60% difference
in whether you are dead
or alive at any time point
down the road.
Now another study called
the Women’s Intervention
Nutrition Study,
the WINS Study,
was very important.
They brought in women
who had breast cancer.
And what they did was
they asked them
to lower the fat content
in their diet,
and the women did this.
They compared
the women on the diet
who were getting about
30, 33 grams of fat.
That’s really low.
They compared them
to a control group,
that got about
51 grams of fat,
that’s lower than average
but not as good
as the people
on the special diet.
They then tracked one thing.
These women had been
treated for breast cancer,
did it come back?
Or did they get
a new kind of cancer
because as you may know,
if you’ve been diagnosed
with cancer before,
breast cancer,
you are more likely
not only to get
a recurrence but to get
a new cancer again.
And what they found was
absolutely being on this diet
did help prevent it.
It cut the risk
of a recurrence
or a new cancer by 24%.
Same thing
with prostate cancer.
Researchers have looked
at men with prostate cancer,
changed their diets,
and looked to see
does this really
make a difference for me?
The answer is yes.
Dr. Dean Ornish,
do you know his work?
He did the research studies
on showing that
you could actually
reverse heart disease.
He used a low fat
vegetarian diet, exercise,
and stress reduction
which is why
he didn’t do the study in
Washington D.C. (USA)
where I live.
And what he found is that
it does reverse heart disease.
But then he put this
to work for men
who had prostate cancer
and the results
were amazing.
Ninety-three men,
everybody had
prostate cancer…
As you may know if
you have prostate cancer
you don’t necessarily
have to have treatment
right away.
Many of these men
are older, they can
sometimes wait and
they track a blood test
called PSA –
Prostate Specific Antigen.
If it’s not going up too fast
you just wait.
If it is going up fast,
you need treatment,
you can’t wait anymore.
And what they found was
that half of the group
put on a vegetarian diet
compared to
the other half that
didn’t change their diet.
The men
on the vegetarian diet
showed their PSA
wasn’t rising,
it started to fall.
It fell about four percent
over the course of this trial.
That's good.
That means we're
re-gaining our health
and there wasn't
a single person
in that part of the study
that needed
to have treatment.
But in the control group,
their PSA was going up.
It went up
about six percent and when
you looked at the group,
out of 49 men
in that part of the study,
six of them couldn't wait,
their cancer was
aggressively advancing.
They had to have treatment.
And there’s another
wrinkle in all of this.
There's a specific effect
apparently,
of dairy products.
Men who consume
more dairy products,
seem to be at higher risk
of prostate cancer.
Now we need
more research on this
but two large Harvard
(University) studies
have shown that
when men consume
a lot of dairy products,
their risk of prostate cancer
is substantially higher
than that of other men.
And the reason, maybe, is
that dairy products change
a man's bloodstream.
What they do is they
increase the amount of
something called IGF-1.
I don't know if
you've ever heard of this?
IGF-1 “Insulin-like
growth factor number one.”
I think of it as
a little bit like cholesterol.
You know
how if I take cholesterol,
a blood sample and
I measure cholesterol,
that tells me what?
It tells me, are you going
to have a heart problem
down the road?
Not necessarily right now,
but 10 years from now.
If I draw a blood sample
and I check
your IGF-1 level,
“Insulin-like
growth factor number one,”
if it's higher, that means
your risk of certain cancers
is higher too.
Prostate cancer for men,
breast cancer for women.
Why would milk
cause IGF-1 to increase?
Which it does.
Well think about this:
What's milk’s job?
What is milk for?
Milk's job is to help a
little baby calf grow fast.
And once the calf
is big enough to graze,
there's no need
for milk anymore, right?
So, if milk's job
is to make things grow,
it includes not just protein,
not just fat,
not just sugar,
that's the lactose
that's in the milk,
it also contains hormones
and growth factors.
And inside the calf's body,
it causes the production
of more growth factors that
allow the tissues to grow.
One of these – IGF-1 is
a very potent stimulus
for cancer cell growth.
If I mix IGF-1 in a test tube
with cancer cells,
they grow like crazy!
Well, a man or a woman
who drinks three glasses
of milk per day,
has a 10% rise
in the amount of IGF-1
in his or her bloodstream.
So, it's very rapid.
It happens
very, very quickly.
So many researchers
are now saying,
"Well, if I don't want
to have things
growing in my body,
maybe I should not be
having food
that causes growth factors
to be produced.”
We deeply appreciate
Dr. Neal Barnard’s
important work
in the field of
cancer prevention
and for actively seeking
to enhance
overall public health.
We firmly support him
in his call for everyone
to quickly adopt
the vegan diet, the key to
well-being and longevity.
For more details
on The Cancer Project,
please visit
www.CancerProject.org
The two-set DVD
“Eating Right
for Cancer Survival”
and The Cancer
Survivor’s Guide,
a free to download e-book,
are available
at the same website
Thank you
beloved viewers,
for being with us
on today’s program.
Please join us
the third Monday
of each month
for the remainder
of this eight part series.
Up next is
Science and Spirituality,
after Noteworthy News,
here on
Supreme Master Television.
May you always enjoy
the very best of health.
Welcome
considerate viewers
to Healthy Living
on Supreme Master
Television.
According to the World
Health Organization,
cancer is one of
the leading causes of death
in the world.
Each year
over 12 million people
across the globe
are diagnosed
with cancer
and 7.6 million
succumb to the disease.
The numbers are projected
to continue rising,
with an estimated
12 million deaths
by 2030.
Today we have the honor
to share the second part
of an eight part series
featuring excerpts from
The Cancer Project’s
“Eating Right
for Cancer Survival,”
a two-set DVD
of presentations
by esteemed nutrition
researcher and author
Dr. Neal Barnard, MD
that is a companion
to the book The Cancer
Survivor’s Guide
written by Dr. Barnard
and registered dietician
Jennifer Reilly.
Dr. Barnard is the president
of The Cancer Project,
a US-based non-profit
organization advancing
cancer prevention
and survival
through distribution
of information
on nutrition and research.
Since its founding in 2004,
the Project has strived
to promote the vegan diet
as the answer to cancer.
The Cancer Project is
an affiliate of
the Physicians Committee
for Responsible Medicine,
a group created by
Dr. Barnard in 1985
that is comprised of
physicians and
concerned citizens
in the US wishing to
improve public health.
The Committee is also
actively involved in
raising awareness
of the benefits
of a plant-based diet
through such projects
as the 21-Day
Vegan Kickstart program
and seeking to amend
federal nutrition guidelines.
Dr. Barnard has served as
the principal investigator
on many clinical studies
examining the links
between diet and health
and his work has been
published in top scientific
and medical journals.
He is often interviewed
by the national media
in the US
for his perspectives
on important issues
in nutrition, health
and medicine.
We are now pleased
to show the conclusion of
Dr. Barnard’s presentation
“How Foods Fight Cancer,”
and segments from
“Fueling Up
on Low-Fat Foods,”
two chapters from
the “Eating Right for
Cancer Survival” DVD.
How Foods Fight Cancer
from the DVD
“Eating Right
for Cancer Survival”
Now, that's not
all there is to it.
When researchers have
looked at colon cancer,
cancer of the second half
of the digestive tract,
one of the big factors
that seems to play a role
is meat consumption
and especially
when meat is grilled,
when it's cooked at
very high temperatures.
Why would that be?
There's something
in the grilled meat
called HCA's.
You probably
have never heard of this,
it stands for
Heterocyclic amines.
And this will not be
on the test.
But HCA's
Heterocyclic amines are
cancer-causing chemicals.
Dozens and dozens
of studies have shown
that the more of these
that are in the foods
you eat, the higher
your risk of cancer
down the road.
Well, where do they
come from?
You can go into just
about any restaurant
and if you order
the grilled chicken,
grilled chicken sandwich,
grilled chicken salad,
whatever it is,
get that grilled chicken
with a nice little,
grilling lines on it,
send it to a laboratory.
They'll tell you,
there are HCA's in there.
Heterocyclic amines.
These are carcinogens.
And they come from
heating up meat at
a high, high temperature.
Within the meat is
something called creatine,
there are other
amino acids,
there are sugars, and
there are natural fats in it.
When the meat is heated
to a high temperature
and it's kept there
for long enough to cook,
that's when
the carcinogens form.
And regrettably, people
are trying to be healthy,
they don't want
to eat the fried chicken,
so we're eating
all the grilled chicken.
And the carcinogens
are there.
Americans now we eat,
believe or not, about
a million chickens per hour.
And we are getting
quite a load of
these carcinogens.
If I take a hamburger and
I grill it, what happens?
Well, the carcinogens are
likely to form.
If I take chicken breast
and I grill that, same thing,
the carcinogens are
likely to form because
it's hot animal muscle.
What if I take
a veggie burger
and I grill that?
What happens?
It gets warm.
That's about it.
It's not an animal muscle
so these carcinogens
are not likely to form.
Now it's important to say
that not every food is bad
for you.
There are plenty of things
that are good for you.
You know
about Beta-carotene?
What color is
Beta-carotene?
Orange
And where do we find it?
Carrots.
Carrots, cantaloupes,
pumpkins, okay, sure.
Now, it's an orange
coloring that's there
to protect the plant.
It protects
against free-radicals.
Free-radicals are chemicals
that can lead to cancer.
It protects you too.
And its cousin
is called lycopene.
Lycopene is in tomatoes.
It's in other reddish plants
and it's an even more
powerful antioxidant,
even than Beta-carotene.
So, how does all this
translate into something
that I'm going
to actually eat?
Well I like to use
something called the
"new four food groups."
The new four food groups
means: whole grains,
vegetables, fruits
and the bean group.
Or you might call
the legume group –
beans, peas and lentils.
So those are
our ingredients,
and on my plate
it might start with say,
a bowl of oatmeal
in the morning,
top it with cinnamon
and raisins or maybe
a half a cantaloupe.
Some rye toast,
hold the butter.
Now for lunch, let's say
I'm at a fast food restaurant.
Don't get the greasy,
taco dripping with cheese;
instead you have
the bean burrito
or something like that.
Instead of the hamburger,
have the veggie burger.
Have lots of vegetables.
And at dinner, let's say
we're out at an Italian place,
you're not going
to have the meat sauce
on your pasta
and you're not going
to have the Alfredo.
But let's say
you have the pasta with
a lot of marinara sauce
and all the doctors
leap to their feet
and applaud,
all that lycopene
in your dinner,
and have the vegetables
on the side.
So this isn't suffering
but it sure is
a healthy way to go!
And if you do it every day,
what happens?
Vegetarians have about
40% of everybody else's
cancer risk.
That's the careless
vegetarians, the French fry
eating vegetarians.
If you throw away
the French fries
and really build in
the high fiber foods
and lots of vegetables
and fruits,
you can do better than that.
But wait,
there's actually more.
Your cholesterol level falls.
When people go to
this kind of diet
they lose weight,
on average
about a pound per week,
and don't get nervous
if you're already
at your normal weight,
you don't keep losing,
you don't just blow away.
But if you've got weight
to lose,
you'll generally lose it.
Heart disease, if you
have artery blockages,
it actually tends to reverse.
The arteries actually
start opening up.
Your energy level
improves as well.
Digestion gets better.
If you have diabetes,
your blood sugars fall.
If you've got
high blood pressure,
it tends to come down.
And sometimes people find
if they've had
a little bit of arthritis,
that gets better.
If they've got migraines,
that gets better too.
Why is that?
This doesn't happen
in every case
but it happens sometimes.
And I think it's because
there are certain foods
that tend to
trigger these things, and
getting away from them
allows the body
to start to heal.
So let me encourage you
all to be part of this team.
We're learning a lot and
we're spreading it around
to our loved ones.
People all over the world
are test driving
this kind of routine,
putting it to work and
I'd like you to be part of it.
If you're thinking,
“Well okay,
I'll stick my toe
in that swimming pool,
I'll give it a try," here's
what I suggest you do.
As a preliminary,
just try some new recipes,
no long-term commitment.
You just give it a try
and see what you like
and when you're ready,
take about
a three week period and
during that three weeks
do it 100%.
Jump in head first,
make every meal
for the three weeks
a really healthy meal.
Why do I say that?
Because you know it's true.
If you have a healthy meal
on Monday and
another healthy meal
on say, Thursday
and maybe another one,
the following Wednesday,
are you going to see
any benefit from that at all?
No.
And are your tastes
going to change? No.
But let's say you do it
every single meal,
every day, even
for a short period of time,
you find that your tastes
actually change.
Your body feels different.
Most people go through
their whole lives
never having even a week
on the diet their body
was actually designed for
and this is the chance
to really do it.
So give it a go, and
if you want to, you can
try these transition foods.
I'm suggesting
you get away from meat.
So if you want to
have the veggie burgers
and the veggie hot dogs
in the transition,
on your way to
simpler foods, go ahead.
So, we've covered the basis,
I hope that you agree
that nutrition is
a really powerful force
for health.
Okay, I think
you've got the idea.
Thank you.
We now present excerpts
from the chapter
“Fueling Up
on Low-Fat Foods” from
the “Eating Right for
Cancer Survival” DVD.
Welcome,
thanks for joining us.
When researchers
have looked to find
the best means
of preventing cancer
one of the things
they’ve really
focused in on,
is how people eat
in different places
around the world and
how cancer rates differ
sometimes dramatically
from one place to another.
And one of
the first comparisons
that really bore fruit,
so to speak,
was the comparison
between Asia and
the Western countries.
In Japan the risk
that a woman
will develop cancer
is quite low,
at least traditionally,
compared to
Western countries.
And for women
who get cancer,
survival is much better,
again compared to
Western countries.
Well, that could be
because in Asian countries
women tend to be thinner,
but it also seems
to relate to their diet.
There’s a lot less fat in
a traditional Asian diet.
The staple is rice, noodles
there’s a lot of use
of vegetables, not much
of very fatty foods,
and that seemed
to play a big difference.
But it’s not just all fats
really the animal fats,
the saturated fats
that seem to be
a big part of the problem.
But, things are changing.
You don’t have to just
compare between say
Japan and North America.
You can stay home
in Japan.
Bad food comes to you!
You’ve now got all kinds
of fast food restaurants
and meaty diets,
the westernization
of the diet is causing
a change right there,
and we’ve seen
dramatic differences
as this has occurred.
Particularly
for two kinds of cancer:
The digestive cancers,
you know
what I’m talking about,
colon cancers especially.
And also the
hormone related cancers.
In man this would mean
prostate cancer,
in women breast cancer
and uterine cancer
especially.
And the reason seems to be
that when a woman is
on a high fat diet,
and a low fiber diet,
her hormones change.
There’s more estrogen
in her bloodstream
and that seems to fuel
the growth of cancers.
Same for men
if he is on a diet
without much fiber
and with a lot of fat
his testosterone level rises.
It does not
make him more macho,
what it’s going to do is
increase his likelihood
of getting cancer.
The differences are huge!
A study of Japanese women
compared those
who are affluent,
and had westernized
their diets early on,
compared them to women
who are less affluent
and stuck with
their traditional diet
of rice and noodles
and that sort of thing.
The difference
in breast cancer
was 900%.
Those women who
westernized their diets
were nine times more likely
to develop this condition
compared to
the other women.
Now, it even matters
after a person
has been diagnosed.
If a woman
has breast cancer,
if she has more fat
in her diet,
numerous studies
have shown, her survival
is likely to be shorter,
that cancer is more likely,
after treatment it’s
more likely to come back.
There was
an important study
at the State University of
New York at Buffalo (USA).
What they did,
it wasn’t a treatment study,
they were just
following the women who
were getting treatment
separately.
It was about 900 women
and they tracked
their fat intake
and then how they did
over the next 12 years.
What they found
was dramatic.
The likelihood of dying
at any time point
down the road
was increased by 40%
for every thousand grams
of fat the women
were eating per month.
Well, what does that mean?
If I take
a typical American diet
and I add up all the fat
that’s in that diet
day after day after day
for a whole month.
And I compare that to say
a vegetarian diet,
so there’s no animal fat
and I keep
the vegetable oils really low,
those two diets differ
by about 1000
to 1500 grams
of fat per month.
That’s good for
a 40 to 60% difference
in whether you’re dead
or alive at any time point
down the road.
So it makes
a huge difference.
Now in men, same story.
If a man reduces fat intake
and increases
the fiber intake,
well his testosterone level
will come down
just a little bit.
He’s still got
enough testosterone
but those excesses that
increase the risk of cancer
will be gone.
Now a lot of people
are aware of this.
They think, “Well
I’m cutting back fatty foods.
I’m switching
from beef to chicken,
I’m eating more fish.”
You hear people say that.
Well, here’s the bad news
for you.
The leanest beef is
about 29% fat
as a percentage
of its calories, which is
what dieticians care about.
The leanest chicken
is not much lower,
it’s about 23 (percent).
Now fish vary,
some are lower,
some are higher,
some are a lot higher.
Chinook salmon,
50% fat or even higher,
but broccoli is
eight percent fat,
beans are about
four percent fat,
rice is one to five (percent)
depending on the type.
A potato is one percent fat,
until it comes out
of the oven and then
of course at that point
we put on the butter
and the sour cream
and Cheez Doodles
and Bac-O-Bits,
and suddenly it’s back up
to where you started.
But you get the point,
that there are certain foods
that are very low in fat,
they’re very high in fiber
and that will help you.
Does it make a difference?
You bet!
Our gratitude
Dr. Neal Barnard
for dedicating your career
to informing people
how a plant-based diet
keeps us fit
and full of vitality.
May you continue your
important contributions
to the advancement
of public health
for many years to come.
For more details
on The Cancer Project,
please visit
www.CancerProject.org
The two-set DVD
“Eating Right
for Cancer Survival”
and The Cancer
Survivor’s Guide,
a free to download e-book,
are available
at the same website
Thank you
admirable viewers,
for being with us
on today’s program.
Please join us
the third Monday
of each month
on Healthy Living
for the remainder
of this eight part series,
including the conclusion
of Dr. Barnard’s
presentation “Fueling Up
on Low-Fat Foods.”
Up next is
Science and Spirituality,
after Noteworthy News,
here on
Supreme Master Television.
May you always enjoy
the very best of health.
Welcome radiant viewers
to Healthy Living
on Supreme Master
Television.
According to the World
Health Organization,
cancer is one of
the leading causes of death
in the world.
Each year
over 12 million people
across the globe
are diagnosed
with cancer
and 7.6 million
succumb to the disease.
The numbers are projected
to continue rising,
with an estimated
12 million deaths
by 2030.
Today we have the honor
to share the third part
of an eight part series
featuring excerpts from
The Cancer Project’s
“Eating Right
for Cancer Survival,”
a two-set DVD
of presentations
by esteemed nutrition
researcher and author
Dr. Neal Barnard, MD
that is a companion
to the book The Cancer
Survivor’s Guide
written by Dr. Barnard
and registered dietician
Jennifer Reilly.
Dr. Barnard is the president
of The Cancer Project,
a US-based non-profit
organization advancing
cancer prevention and
survival through
distribution of
information on nutrition
and research.
Since its founding in 2004,
the Project has strived
to promote the vegan diet
as the answer to cancer.
The Cancer Project is
an affiliate of
the Physicians Committee
for Responsible Medicine,
a group created by
Dr. Barnard in 1985
that is comprised of
physicians and
concerned citizens
in the US wishing to
improve public health.
The Committee is also
actively involved in
raising awareness
of the benefits
of a plant-based diet
through such projects
as the 21-Day
Vegan Kickstart program
and seeking to amend
federal nutrition guidelines.
Dr. Barnard has served as
the principal investigator
on many clinical studies
examining the links
between diet and health
and his work has been
published in top scientific
and medical journals.
He is often interviewed
by the national media
in the US
for his perspectives
on important issues
in nutrition, health
and medicine.
We are now pleased
to show the conclusion of
Dr. Barnard’s presentation
“Fueling Up
on Low-Fat Foods,”
and his talk called
“Favoring Fiber,”
two chapters from the
“Eating Right for
Cancer Survival” DVD.
If you compare
a man in Hong Kong
to a man in Sweden,
the man in Hong Kong
is about half as likely
to have cancer cells
in his prostate.
And if he gets cancer
he is about eight times
more likely to survive
compared to
the man in Sweden.
So the difference
can really be huge.
And researchers have
put this to the test and
found that indeed it works.
Dr Dean Ornish,
who became famous
for showing that
a vegetarian diet
along with other
healthy lifestyle changes
can actually reverse
heart disease.
In the arteries
to the heart they actually
open up again, when
you get the cholesterol
and the animal fat
out of the diet and you
get healthy vegetables
and fruits into the diet.
He did a study in which
he brought 93 men
into the study.
Everybody have
prostate cancer, but
they all had the form of
the disease where
you didn’t have to
have surgery right yet,
you could wait.
You track something
called PSA.
Have you heard of this?
It’s prostate
specific antigen.
It’s just a blood test and
it shows you if the cancer
is progressing rapidly
or very slowly if it’s
not progressing rapidly
you can wait.
So the men came into
the study, half of them
followed a vegan diet.
Now, vegans
are not people from
the planet of Vegas.
A vegan is a person…
is pure vegetarian diet,
okay, no animal products
and they kept the oils
very low and
that was the program.
And the other group
followed whatever diet
they came into
the program on.
Ninety-three men and
what they found was
in the control group,
I mean the people
who didn’t make
the diet changes,
their PSA levels do
just what PSAs do
in men with cancer.
They got worse.
As time went on
they went up
about six percent.
And out of the men in
that group, six of them
couldn’t wait anymore.
They had to
have treatment.
Their cancer was
getting worse.
But the vegan group,
something different
happened.
Their PSAs weren’t
holding steady,
they were actually
on average falling,
meaning they were
getting healthier and
there wasn’t a single man
in that group that needed
to go on to get treatment
in the course of this stuff.
So it really does work,
it’s a very effective thing.
Getting the fat
out of your diet is just
the first step, but it’s
a very important step.
Okay, so we’re going to
get the fat out,
we’re going to slim down
and we’re going to
make room for
all the healthier foods.
Let’s put it to work.
We now present
Dr. Barnard’s lecture
entitled “Favoring Fiber”
from the “Eating Right
for Cancer Survival”
DVD.
Welcome,
thanks for joining us.
When researchers
have looked for parts of
the diet that can help us
against cancer, prevent it
or improve survival, or
improve health overall,
one of the things
we’ve really keyed in on
is fiber. What is fiber?
Fiber means
plant roughage,
and by that I mean it’s
the part of plants that
doesn’t get digested
right away and
it helps us in many ways.
One thing you know is
it helps keep you regular,
you hear people say that.
All that means is
it moves things along,
but it doesn’t just move
food along, it moves
carcinogens along.
Let’s say there was
something not too healthy
in the food I ate,
well the quicker
it leaves your body,
the better off you are.
Now that can mean that
if something was going to
increase the likelihood of
developing colon cancer,
because it’s attacking
the cells of
your intestinal tract,
it’s gone,
it’s gone much faster,
that’s a good thing.
Now there’s
another thing though:
Fiber helps remove
things that are
circulating in your blood.
How does that work?
Your liver is filtering
your bloodstream, every
minute of every day,
blood is going through
the liver and the liver is
looking for things
that don’t belong there.
It’s looking for hormones
like estrogen
or testosterone.
You need some of those
but you don’t need
a huge excess so
your liver takes them out.
It gets rid of cholesterol,
it gets rid of medicines
and things like that.
And what it does is
the liver filters the blood,
finds a little excess
estrogen, pulls it out of
the blood, and sends it
down a little tube
called the bile duct.
And it ends up
in the intestinal tract
and there this little bit
of estrogen goes down
attaches to some fiber,
that carries it out of
the body. Very nice.
So, if you’re thinking well
a high amount of
estrogen in my blood is
linked to too much risk
of breast cancer,
a high fiber diet
helps pull it away.
One problem: a lot of
people don’t have
much fiber in their diet.
Let’s say for breakfast
I had bacon and eggs.
How much fiber is there
in that?
Well, bacon and eggs
aren’t from plants,
they don’t have any
plant roughage in it.
Let’s say for lunch I had
yogurt and chicken breast;
how much fiber is there?
None, right?
So the liver filters
the blood, the little
estrogen gets pulled out,
goes down the bile duct,
ends up in the intestinal
tract, looking for fiber,
looking for fiber,
where is it?
There isn’t any!
It reabsorbs back
into the bloodstream.
The estrogen
goes around ends up
back at the liver.
The liver says, “What
are you doing here?
I thought
I got rid of you.”
It pulls it out of the blood
again, sends it down
the bile duct into
the intestinal tract,
looking for fiber,
where is my fiber?
There isn’t any,
it’s absorbed again.
That estrogen will do
this cycle over and over
and over and over again.
It’s called enterohepatic
circulation.
Entero means
intestinal tract,
hepatic means liver,
like hepatitis.
And this works
not just for estrogen
but also cholesterol.
Cholesterol will go
around and around and
around until you eat fiber.
You hear about
oat bran and oat cereals,
they will reduce
the amount of cholesterol
in the blood.
That’s all they do.
It’s not rocket science.
What they do is they grab
that cholesterol that
the liver has sent down
and they make sure it
cannot get reabsorbed.
That’s a good thing.
Same for testosterone,
a man says, “I don’t
want those testosterone
excesses that are going to
increase my risk
of prostate cancer.”
Fiber is your friend.
It puts the lid on it.
It helps you to remove
those excesses.
Now let me walk you
through an exercise.
I want to help you to see
how much fiber there is
in the foods you eat.
And inside of just
a couple of minutes
you are going to know
how much fiber there is
in just about everything
in the store without
reading the label.
Will you do this with me?
Okay.
Let’s take something
like a banana.
How much fiber is there
in a banana?
Now you may not know
right off hand
but give me a guess.
Give me a guess.
Is there one gram,
16,000 grams, how much
fiber would you say
there is in a banana?
Anybody.
Eight...
Five? Eight?
(Two.)
10? Two?
Okay, very good.
It’s about 2.7 (grams)
in an average banana.
Okay, so not quite three.
How about an apple?
Now is it, an apple is
kind of like a banana so
it’s not going to be 25,
how much fiber would
you guess is in an apple?
Five. 10. 10.
Ten, three, what?
About 3.7.
So similar to a banana,
a little bit more.
How about cantaloupe?
Now here is a clue
for you.
If I take a cup of
cantaloupe, it’s
a little bit more watery
so a little bit less fibrous.
So if a banana is 2.7,
and an apple is 3.7,
what’s cantaloupe?
(One, two.)
Okay, one to two.
Right, good. About 1.3.
So let’s say
an average fruit,
you walk in the store,
an average fruit is
going to be about three.
Three grams per fruit.
Alright.
Let’s take some
vegetables.
How about if I have
a cup of broccoli?
Give me a guess.
Now here is a clue.
It’s maybe, broccoli is
not quite as watery
as a typical fruit is it?
A little more fibrous.
So how much fiber
would you say is maybe
in a cup of broccoli?
(Seven. Six.) Six? Seven?
(Eight.) Eight?
Okay about 4.6.
So a cup of broccoli
is about 4.6 (grams).
How about carrots?
Are they more like
broccoli or is a carrot is
more like cantaloupe?
Well it’s more like
broccoli, it’s fibrous,
right?
So, how much fiber will...
(Five.) About five?
Very good.
About 5.2 in a typical cup
of, cup of carrots.
How about
iceberg lettuce?
(Nothing. Zero.)
Well, it’s not zero.
It is a plant. Okay?
But you also know,
you’re thinking right,
it’s not huge,
it’s not like broccoli.
So give me number.
(One and a half.)
One, one and half?
Okay, perfect.
1.2. Alright.
So a typical cup of
vegetables
we’re going to say four.
Alright where am I?
Fruit, three;
vegetables, four.
Very easy, unless
it’s iceberg lettuce,
we’re going to cut that
down a little bit.
Give me beans now.
How about if I have
a half cup serving
of black beans?
How many grams of fiber
in that?
Now here is a clue.
Beans are not really
watery.
They’re pretty fibrous.
So half cup of
black beans?
(Eight. Six.) Eight? Six?
Seven? Very good.
About 7.5.
How about baked beans?
(Baked?) Baked beans.
Six? Seven? Okay.
About 6.4, good.
So a typical half cup
serving of beans
about seven. Alright.
Where are we?
Fruit, three.
Vegetables, four.
Beans, seven.
Now let’s go to
our grain group.
How about
pumpernickel bread?
Actually a slice of
pumpernickel has about
two grams about 2.1.
It’s less than you’d think.
How about white bread?
(Nothing. Zero. )Zero?
Well now it’s not going
to be zero because
it is from a plant.
Now they’ve done
their best to make sure
there is no nutrition
in there but
they did leave a little.
So let’s call it about a half,
about a half a gram
of fiber. Okay?
So a typical bit of
a white bread maybe
up to a gram or more
or whole grain bread,
maybe about two.
But does that
surprise you?
Fruits is three,
vegetables are four,
and beans are seven.
The breads which
we think of as being
high fiber are lower.
Okay.
So our fiber champions –
the bean group, at about
seven for half a cup.
And then the vegetables
at about four,
fruits at about three and
if I have a slice of bread,
if it’s white
maybe a gram, if it’s
whole grain about two.
Typical cereals
about three. Okay?
You walk in the store and
you can look on the left,
you can look on the right
and you can estimate
even for a packaged food
...food or a canned food
what’s inside and
you’re going to have
a pretty good ball-park
of whether it has fiber
or not.
Okay, extra credit.
How much fiber is there
in a pork chop? (Zero.)
Zero? Zero? We agree?
Well why? Why?
Is it from a plant?
(It’s from an animal.)
It’s from an animal.
Animals don’t have
plant roughage
so the answer is zero.
How about a cup of milk?
(Zero!)
Zero because it’s from ...
(animal.)
An animal, not a plant.
Wait, how about
if it’s skim milk?
How about if it’s
organic skim milk?
(Zero.) Still zero?
You’re with me. Okay.
How about eggs?
(Zero.) Zero.
How about eggplant?
Okay. Very good!
So there’s fiber
in eggplant. Okay.
So animal...
I always like things that
are easy to remember:
animal products
don’t have fiber,
plant products do.
So what?
Does fiber really help?
The answer is yes.
Let’s say I want to knock
off a few extra pounds
one of the best things
you can do is
pump up the fiber intake
in your diet.
I’m going to give you
a number.
Every 14 grams of fiber
that are part of
your regular daily menu,
every 14 grams of fiber
cuts your calorie intake
by about 10%.
So let’s say
a typical person
in the United States is
eating maybe 12 grams
of fiber per day.
Add 14, I get 26 (grams),
I’m going to feel fuller
and even though
I think I’m eating
the same amount,
my calorie intake
drops about 10%.
So if I go up another
14 from 26 to…
where am I now? 40.
My calorie intake
drops again.
Again, I think I’m eating
the same amount but
all that fiber fills me up,
my calorie intake falls.
Something is happening
to my scale.
I’m losing weight
automatically, without
ever going hungry.
Fiber is a good thing.
It improves
your digestion,
it slims your waist line,
it reduces cholesterol
and it will reduce
your cancer risk too.
That’s the power of
healthy fiber. Thanks.
Our deep appreciation
Dr. Neal Barnard
for starting
The Cancer Project
to inform people
how a plant-based diet is
superb protection
against cancer and
a host of other diseases.
May you continue your
important contributions
to the advancement
of public health
for many years to come.
For more details
on The Cancer Project,
please visit
www.CancerProject.org
The two-set DVD
“Eating Right for
Cancer Survival” and
The Cancer Survivor’s
Guide,
a free to download
e-book, are available
at the same website
Thank you
honored viewers,
for being with us
on today’s program.
Please join us
the third Monday
of each month
on Healthy Living
for the remainder
of this eight part series.
Up next is
Science and Spirituality,
after Noteworthy News,
here on
Supreme Master Television.
May you always enjoy
the very best of health.
Welcome loyal viewers
to Healthy Living
on Supreme Master
Television.
According to the World
Health Organization,
cancer is one of
the leading causes of death
in the world.
Each year
over 12 million people
across the globe
are diagnosed
with cancer
and 7.6 million
succumb to the disease.
The numbers are projected
to continue rising,
with an estimated
12 million deaths
by 2030.
Today we have the honor
to share the fourth part
of an eight part series
featuring excerpts from
The Cancer Project’s
“Eating Right
for Cancer Survival,”
a two-set DVD
of presentations
by esteemed nutrition
researcher and author
Dr. Neal Barnard, MD
that is a companion
to the book The Cancer
Survivor’s Guide
written by Dr. Barnard
and registered dietician
Jennifer Reilly.
Dr. Barnard, a vegan,
is the president
of The Cancer Project,
a US-based non-profit
organization advancing
cancer prevention and
survival through
distribution of
information on nutrition
and research.
Since its founding in 2004,
the Project has strived
to promote the vegan diet
as the answer to cancer.
The Cancer Project is
a part of
the Physicians Committee
for Responsible Medicine,
a group created by
Dr. Barnard in 1985
that is comprised of
physicians and
concerned citizens
in the US wishing to
improve public health.
The Committee is also
actively involved in
raising awareness
of the benefits
of a plant-based diet
through such projects
as the 21-Day
Vegan Kickstart program
and seeking to amend
federal nutrition guidelines.
Dr. Barnard has served as
the principal investigator
on many clinical studies
examining the links
between diet and health
and his work has been
published in top scientific
and medical journals.
He is often interviewed
by the national media
in the US
for his perspectives
on important issues
in nutrition, health
and medicine.
We are now pleased
to show
Dr. Barnard’s presentation
“Discovering
Dairy Alternatives”
a chapter from the
“Eating Right for
Cancer Survival” DVD.
Discovering
Dairy Alternatives
from the DVD
“Eating Right
for Cancer Survival”
Welcome,
thanks for joining us.
In today’s program
we are going
to focus on milk.
Most of us grew up
with the idea that
dairy products were healthy
but cancer researchers
are showing us a side
of dairy products that
might really surprise you.
Starting with,
“What’s in milk?”
Well if you take
a typical glass of milk
and you send it to a lab
the first thing you discover
is that about 49%
of the calories
are nothing but fat.
And most of this is what
we call saturated fat,
some people call it
“bad fat.”
That’s the fat that causes
your cholesterol level
to rise.
It’s also associated
in some studies
with a higher risk of
developing breast cancer.
So that’s why
a lot of people are saying
well I don’t want
to have whole fat milk,
I want to skim that away
and have skim
or non-fat milk, right?
Well, let’s say
I send that to the lab.
The biggest nutrient in it,
the biggest source of
its calories about 55%, is
sugar, lactose sugar.
That's where
most of the calories
in skim milk come from.
Now if you have
lactose intolerance,
meaning that you get
a real belly ache
from consuming milk,
you know all about lactose,
but for people who don't,
you have no need
for this at all and that's
the primary nutrient in it.
In addition to that,
there are proteins in milk.
And these proteins
for some people
trigger arthritis pains
or allergies,
or for some folks,
even allergies
and diabetes researchers
are showing
that early exposure
to those dairy proteins
might be the cause,
or at least a contributor
to the kind of diabetes
that starts in childhood.
Well what about its link
to cancer?
Researchers have known
for a long time, that
countries that consume
a lot of dairy products,
like Switzerland or Sweden,
the other
Scandinavian countries,
European countries;
they have a lot more
prostate cancer
compared to other countries
where dairy is not
a big part of the diet.
I'm talking about China,
Japan or Thailand.
Dairy is not a big thing
in those countries,
at least traditionally.
Well, if it's true that
a higher intake of milk
could in some way
be associated with
a higher risk of
prostate cancer,
then it ought to be true
in this country.
Let's say I compare men
who drink a lot of milk,
compare them
to the men who don't.
Is it true?
Do they really get
more prostate cancer?
At Harvard (University),
they did exactly that study.
It was called
the "Physicians
Health Study".
It was about 21,000 men,
all of them were physicians,
everybody’s healthy,
nobody has cancer.
They tracked their diet,
and then they watched
how the men did
as time went on.
And it turned out,
that those men who were
the big dairy consumers,
I'm talking about
a couple of servings
per day, which is not
out of the range
of what people do.
Their risk
of prostate cancer
was 34% higher
compared to the men who
generally avoided milk.
They did another study
called
the "Health Professionals
Follow-up Study".
It was health professionals,
but not physicians.
It was pharmacists
and other kinds of
health professionals.
But they found
exactly the same thing,
that those men who were
the big dairy consumers,
a couple of servings
per day, had in this case,
about a 60% higher risk
of developing
prostate cancer.
Well, what's this about?
Why should milk do this?
Well, think about it.
What's milk's job?
What's, what's
the purpose of milk?
Okay, it's there
to dunk cookies in.
It's there splash
on my cereal. No, no.
What milk is for,
is to help a calf grow big.
Right?
That's what it's for.
It's to help rapid growth.
So, the cow makes the milk,
the baby cow,
the calf consumes it
and that calf is going
to grow very rapidly.
Now, that's for two reasons.
One reason is there are
nutrients in the milk
that support growth.
There is a lot of fat,
there is a lot of sugar,
the lactose sugar,
there is a lot of protein.
But the other thing is,
there are hormones in milk,
there are growth factors
in milk and consuming it
causes these things
to change
inside a man’s body.
And one
that cancer researchers
are really zeroing in on
is called IGF-1.
I don't know if
you’ve ever heard of this,
Insulin-like
Growth Factor number 1.
IGF-1
it's a mouthful of a name,
but all it really means
“Insulin-like,” means
it's like insulin,
meaning it helps sugar
to get into the cells,
out of the blood,
into the cells.
Growth factor means
it is a growth factor.
If I take IGF-1
in a test tube,
I add cancer cells to it,
they grow like crazy.
That's true
for breast cancer cells,
that's true
for prostate cancer cells.
So, let's say I stick a needle
in a man’s arm,
and I measure
how much IGF-1
he's got in his blood,
and then I start feeding him
a couple of glasses
of milk every day.
Or let's say it's a woman,
and I feed her a couple
of glasses milk every day.
What you find,
is over the course
of the next several weeks,
the amount of IGF-1
in the blood rises.
So this is just like a calf,
the calf drinks the milk,
and this IGF-1 is built
in the blood, and it causes
the growth of tissues.
Now growth is a good
thing at certain times, but
it's not such a good thing
when you are an adult,
and you've got a cancer cell
waiting somewhere,
growth of that cancer cell
is a very dangerous thing.
So, in an international
comparisons,
when we look at who has
the highest risk of cancer,
it's those countries that
have a high dairy intake
with regard to
prostate cancer,
and a high IGF-1
may be the reason for it.
But other forms of cancer
seem to be related to this
as well.
There is some speculation
that breast cancer
may or may not be linked
to milk consumption.
And the evidence is
as follows.
Some studies show
higher risk,
some show lower risk,
but when people have
looked at IGF-1 levels,
I mean,
I draw a blood sample,
and I look at what it is now,
and your risk of
getting cancer:
the higher IGF-1
is associated with
a higher risk
of breast cancer.
Cancer of the ovary
has been looked at as well.
And here, I think
we need more research,
but there is some suggestion
that there is a higher risk
among milk drinkers;
higher risk
of ovarian cancers.
For colon cancer
it’s probably the reverse.
Calcium seems
to help prevent cancer.
So milk drinkers seem to
have a little bit lower risk
of colon cancer.
But the point is,
there are plenty of
healthy sources of calcium,
you don't need
to drink milk for it, so
you can get the protection
without the risky factors.
Now you might be saying,
"Well, wait a minute, so
you’re kind of suggesting
here that milk is not
a really great thing
in your diet."
Well, let me be clear
about this,
I think babies need milk,
they need mother's milk.
A baby should have
breast milk,
and we should do
what we can to
help kids to be breast fed.
After the age of weaning,
there is no physical
requirement for milk at all.
It's strictly a cultural thing.
But, “Where am I going
to get my calcium?”
Well, a couple of points.
The first is:
researchers have looked
at the countries
where people consume
a lot of milk, you think
those people are
never going to have
a hip fracture because of
all that milk they’re getting,
and bringing calcium
into their diet.
You know what?
It's just the opposite.
The countries that get
the highest milk intake,
have the highest risk
of hip fracture.
The countries
with low intake of milk
and relatively low
calcium intakes,
actually do better.
They have stronger bones,
and have less risk.
Within this country,
at Harvard (University),
the "Nurses’ Health Study,"
have you heard
about this study?
The "Nurses’ Health Study"
has been going on
for many, many years,
and tracking women
over 18 years, they found
that those who got
the most milk in their diet,
had no protection
whatsoever
from bone breaks.
It didn't seem to makes
any difference at all.
So, there are some things
that you can do
to protect your bones.
First is,
if you got calcium
in your bones now,
let's keep it, let's not lose it.
Well, how do I do that?
Well, avoiding
animal protein helps.
Did you know that?
Animal protein causes
the body to lose calcium.
Let me say that again!
Animal protein,
I'm talking about meat,
I'm talking about eggs,
even the protein
in dairy products,
animal protein causes
your body to lose calcium.
Where is it going?
It's in the blood,
it's going out
through the kidney
and into the urine.
It's leaving the body.
Sodium does the same thing.
A high salt diet,
potato chips, salt that
we add in the kitchen,
that does the same thing,
you lose calcium.
Caffeine does it too,
not the occasional cup
of coffee, but if you are
a big coffee enthusiast,
as some of you may be,
ah, a high caffeine intake
is associated with some
loss of calcium as well.
Exercise is, you know,
give your bones
a reason to live.
Exercise is really the best
friend of your bones.
If you compare
a tennis player, you look
at their dominant arm,
they've got
better bone density
in that arm
than the opposite arm.
So, exercise really does
help strengthen the bones.
And oddly enough,
vegetables and fruits do
as well.
Vegetables and fruits,
some of them have calcium,
some of them don't.
But the vegetables
and fruits seem to help
build up the boney matrix
and help the bones
stay strong.
Sunlight is also important.
Sunlight gives you
vitamin D,
so you’re out in the Sun.
Sun hits your skin,
vitamin D is made
in the skin,
and it travels around
through the body,
and as it's activated,
it helps your intestinal
tract, pull calcium in
from the foods
that you’re eating.
So sunlight is going
to help you as well.
Well, are there foods,
that aren't
from dairy products that
have calcium in them,
because I'm going
to need some calcium.
Well, let me give you
two words,
"greens" and "beans."
The greens means broccoli
and all of its cousins,
they have lots of calcium
in them.
Except for spinach,
spinach has lots of calcium,
but it's very selfish,
it won't let you have it.
The calcium in spinach
is not very absorbable.
But the other greens have
a lot of calcium in them,
and the absorption rate
is actually higher than
the absorption percentage
from milk.
And the other group is
the bean group.
Beans have a lot of
calcium in them,
you know they have
soluble fiber in them.
They've got iron in them,
they've got protein in them,
they've even got
some omega-3 fatty acids
in them.
Beans don't have
a good lobby group,
but they've got all kinds
of other good things.
So the "greens"
and the "beans",
remember them.
Now, if you really
want to have
a huge calcium intake,
you don't need this, but
you can, have you seen
these fortified
orange juice products,
fortified soymilk,
they’re adding calcium
to lots of things,
breakfast cereals,
you don't need that
huge amount of calcium,
but it's there if you want it.
The point I’m making is
that researchers are
starting to point a finger
at dairy products, and
teasing out the risks
that it might pose us.
You don't need it.
There are plenty of
good calcium sources,
and really good ways
to get away from that
and to bring the calcium
into your body
and to keep it there.
And as you replace
the dairy products
with healthier choices,
you'll keep strong bones,
and you'll keep the rest
of your body healthy
as well. Thank you!
Our sincere gratitude
Dr. Neal Barnard,
for your many years
of strongly advocating
for the universal adoption
of the plant-based diet.
The Cancer Project’s
invaluable information
on nutrition
has reached many people
and given them
a new perspective
as to why what we put
on our plates every day
has such
important consequences
to our health.
For more details
on The Cancer Project,
please visit
www.CancerProject.org
The two-set DVD
“Eating Right
for Cancer Survival”
and The Cancer
Survivor’s Guide,
a free to download e-book,
are available
at the same website
Thank you
optimistic viewers,
for being with us
on today’s program.
Please join us
the third Monday
of each month
on Healthy Living
for the remainder
of this eight part series.
Next episode…
Dr. Neal Barnard’s
Eating Right
for Cancer Survival –
Part 5 of 8
“Replacing Meat”
Monday, October 18.
Up next is
Enlightening Entertainment,
after Noteworthy News,
here on
Supreme Master Television.
May the Providence
bless all with everlasting
love and wisdom.
Welcome
health-conscious viewers
to Healthy Living
on Supreme Master
Television.
According to the World
Health Organization,
cancer is one of
the leading causes of death
in the world.
Each year
over 12 million people
across the globe
are diagnosed
with cancer
and 7.6 million
succumb to the disease.
The numbers are projected
to continue rising,
with an estimated
12 million deaths
by 2030.
Today we have the honor
to share the fifth part
of an eight part series
featuring excerpts from
The Cancer Project’s
“Eating Right
for Cancer Survival,”
a two-set DVD
of presentations
by esteemed nutrition
researcher and author
Dr. Neal Barnard, MD
that is a companion
to the book The Cancer
Survivor’s Guide
written by Dr. Barnard
and registered dietician
Jennifer Reilly.
Dr. Barnard, a vegan,
is the president
of The Cancer Project,
a US-based non-profit
organization advancing
cancer prevention and
survival through
distribution of
information on nutrition
and research.
Since its founding in 2004,
the Project has strived
to promote the vegan diet
as the answer to cancer.
The Cancer Project is
a part of
the Physicians Committee
for Responsible Medicine,
a group created by
Dr. Barnard in 1985
that is comprised of
physicians and
concerned citizens
in the US wishing to
improve public health.
The Committee is also
actively involved in
raising awareness
of the benefits
of a plant-based diet
through such projects
as the 21-Day
Vegan Kickstart program
and seeking to amend
federal nutrition guidelines.
Dr. Barnard has served as
the principal investigator
on many clinical studies
examining the links
between diet and health
and his work has been
published in top scientific
and medical journals.
He is often interviewed
by the national media
in the US
for his perspectives
on important issues
in nutrition, health
and medicine.
We are now pleased
to show
Dr. Barnard’s presentation
“Replacing Meat”
a chapter from the
“Eating Right for
Cancer Survival” DVD.
Replacing Meat
from the DVD
“Eating Right
for Cancer Survival”
Hi, welcome.
Thanks for joining us.
Researchers have tried
to tease apart
which parts of the foods
that we eat, might be
actually responsible for
increasing our cancer risk
and what kind of
dietary patterns
reduce that risk.
And one of the things
that they’ve really zeroed
their attention in on
is meat. Why?
Because in countries
with a lot of cancer
we tend to be meat-eaters
and in countries where
there’s not a lot of cancer,
I’m talking about
Asian countries, the staple
is something different.
In Japan the staple
is not a pork chop;
the staple is rice, noodles,
that sort of thing.
And as these countries have
westernized their diets,
bringing in meat
in a big way,
cancer rates have risen.
So the point is
in these Asian countries,
meat is at most
just a condiment
for other foods as opposed
to being the main dish
and in some
religious traditions,
they don’t consume it at all.
Well, why would meat
be linked to cancer risk?
One of the reasons is that
meat itself actually
delivers carcinogens
to your plate.
I mean
cancer-causing chemicals.
And it works like this:
Let’s say I take a burger or
a steak or a chicken fillet
and I put it on a grill,
and I heat it up, and
I put it then onto my plate.
Well, if I analyze it,
you’ll find
cancer-causing chemicals
were formed sometime
while it was on the grill.
What’s happening is that
the heat, the intense heat
of the grilling process
causes a change in
the animal muscle tissue,
so that carcinogens
called heterocyclic amines
actually start to form.
And if you swallow them,
they increase your risk
of cancer.
Dozens of studies
have shown that these
cancer-causing chemicals
that come from
heating up meat
are linked to
certain forms of cancer.
Now they form
in red meat, but they also
form in a big way on fish
and also on chicken.
Now Americans now eat,
believe it or not about a
million chickens per hour,
we eat a huge amount
of chicken!
And people say
“Well I don’t want
to eat red meat, I want
to eat more white meat,”
as if that’s going to be
healthier, so they’re
eating a lot of chicken.
They’re not realizing that
the biggest single source
of these carcinogenic,
these cancer-causing
heterocyclic amines
is actually chicken.
And people are eating it
grilled, because you
don’t want to eat it fried,
that’s full of fat,
that will fatten you up.
That’s all true.
But the grilled chicken
is actually
the biggest contributor to
these heterocyclic amines
in the body.
I’m just trying to
cheer everybody up. Okay.
You’re thinking back,
“Oh, what did I eat
yesterday?”
Well okay,
let’s do an experiment,
let say I take a burger
and I’m going
to take a chicken breast,
and I’m going
to take a veggie burger.
I grill the burger,
it gets nice and hot and
I analyze it, what’s inside?
You got it,
the carcinogens are there.
What if I take the chicken
breast and I grill that
and I send it to the lab,
are there carcinogens there?
You bet! What happens
if I grill a veggie burger?
It gets warm! That’s all.
The nice thing is that
plant products
tend not produce these
heterocyclic amines,
which is a good thing, but
that’s not the only reason
why meat might
contribute to cancer.
In fact, it may not
even be the main reason.
Meat has a lot of fat in it.
It doesn’t have any fiber
in it.
You know,
meat is not plant,
so it doesn’t have
plant roughage in it.
And so what that means,
is that high fat, low fiber
combination tends to
affect your hormones.
If you don’t have fiber
in your diet, and you
have a lot of fat, estrogen
in a woman’s body,
testosterone
in a man’s body
starts to increase.
And if I’m centering
my diet, not around
rice and vegetables
but around that big chuck
of meat, then
my hormones are likely
to get out of control.
So researchers
have put this to the test.
Do meat-eaters really
have more cancer or not?
And the answer is
they sure do.
At Harvard University
(USA), they’ve looked at
colon cancer.
And a man or a woman,
who eats meat every day,
particularly red meat,
has about three times
the risk of colon cancer,
compared to men or women
who tend to avoid it.
So it makes a big difference.
And you might say,
“Well what about fish?
I hear fish is okay.”
Well, fish has a lot of fat,
doesn’t have any fiber, and
if I grill fish, same story.
I’m going to find those
same heterocyclic amines
in the fish as well.
So, the other thing
by the way about the fish,
is a lot people say
“Well, yes, but
it’s got good fat in it.”
You know
what I’m talking about,
the omega-3 fatty acids.
That’s true it does.
But the omega-3’s are
only part of the story.
All fats are mixtures;
fish has saturated fat
in it, bad fat.
Saturated fat is the kind
that raises your cholesterol.
It’s the kind
that’s associated with
higher breast cancer risk.
So fish fat
brings you good fat and
it brings you bad fat too.
So by now you’re thinking.
“Well, I guess
maybe the healthiest diet
is a vegetarian diet.”
Well, it turns out
that’s true.
If you compare vegetarians,
they’ve got about
40% less cancer risk,
compared to everybody else.
And when I say
vegetarians, I mean
casual vegetarians,
the vegetarian off the street
who’s eating healthy food
but also the occasional
French fries and
barbecued potato chips
and whatnot.
They have
around 40% less cancer
compared to other people.
Well what if
I’m a careful vegetarian?
So I’m avoiding the meats
and the dairy products,
but I’m really bringing in
the vegetables
and the fruits
and the high fiber foods.
You can affect your
cancer risk even more.
And it’s a good move.
Because
if you’re just going,
as a lot of people do,
if you’re just going
from beef to chicken,
here’s exactly
how far that gets you.
The leanest beef is
about 29% fat,
as a percentage of calories,
the leanest chicken,
without the skin,
without the dark meat,
it’s about 23.
Fish vary, some are low,
some are high…
or lower I should say,
some are higher,
some are a lot higher.
Salmon, Chinook salmon
are about 50% fat.
Broccoli is eight percent fat,
beans are four, rice is
between one and five,
depending on the variety.
A potato is one percent fat.
A yam, sweet potato is
one percent fat.
That’s a way to really
get away from the fat,
really bringing in the fiber.
So if you avoid
the meat products,
what are you doing?
You’re avoiding
the carcinogens,
you’re avoiding the
hormone changing effects
that these foods have and
you’re allowing room
in your diet to
bring the healthy things in,
all the vegetables
and fruits and things
are coming in.
Now, you might say,
“Well, am I going
to get enough protein?”
You hear people say that
right?
Well, vegetarians
get enough protein.
And Frances Moore Lappé
wrote a really good book
a few years ago, called
“Diet for a Small Planet.”
Any of you
ever see this book?
She said if we follow
a vegetarian diet,
we could save this planet.
We could feed
hungry people.
And that’s true, because
instead of feeding
all the feed grains
to animals to get
this little bit of meat out,
we can eat the grains
directly.
But she made one mistake.
She said
to get adequate protein
you need to eat food
in certain combinations.
She had a list of grains
and said,
eat them with the beans,
and if one is
missing something,
the other will
make up for it.
And that’s sort of true,
except the American
Dietetic Association
looked at this and said
it’s actually much easier.
If you eat
any normal combination
of plant foods,
you get all the protein
that you’re
ever going to need.
So you don’t need to do
this protein complementing.
You don’t have to do that,
just eat any normal
combination of foods
that your tastes call for
and you’re going to get
all the protein
that you’ll need.
So if you want to
complement your proteins,
just say something nice
about them,
that’s all you have to do.
Now, people do freak out
about this a little bit.
I was flying once
and back in the old days,
when they used to
provide meals in flight,
I would always order
the vegetarian meal,
because you get served first.
And there’s a guy
sitting there next to me,
he says “Why did you
get served and
the rest of us haven’t?”
I said, “Well, I just
ordered a special meal.”
“What kind?”
“It’s vegetarian.”
“Oh, you’re a vegetarian
are you?
Don’t you feel
kind of weak?”
So the psychoanalyst
in me leapt to the fore
and I said, “Well, what’s
your image of strong?
Give a strong animal.”
“Oh,” he said “strong
like a bull or a stallion,
or a gorilla, elephant.”
These are all vegans okay.
Well you get the point.
A pussy cat is a meat eater,
a bull or a stallion
gets that massive
rippling musculature
from plant foods.
And what that means is
that plants have protein
in them.
You may not realize it,
but if you take
some broccoli,
about 40% of it is protein.
If you take beans
they’re about 30% protein
and if you take tofu
it’s about 40% protein.
So the animal protein
is the one
you want to get away from.
The plant proteins,
the same one that
makes animals strong
is the one
that you want to have.
If you look at
what is in meat,
it’s really just a mixture
of protein and fat,
there isn’t any fiber in it.
There isn’t any complex
carbohydrate in it.
There isn’t any vitamin C
in it.
It’s protein mixed with fat,
plus the occasional
parasite perhaps, but from
a nutritional standpoint,
it’s really just
protein mixed with fat.
Now, we all really grew up
with meat-based diets.
I grew up
in Fargo, North Dakota
and that was
the only way knew to eat.
Today we know better.
Today we’re discovering
the advantages
of plant-based nutrition.
Thank you.
Our sincere gratitude
Dr. Neal Barnard,
for your many years
of strongly advocating
for the universal adoption
of the plant-based diet.
The Cancer Project’s
invaluable information
on nutrition
has reached many people
and given them
a new perspective
as to why what we put
on our plates every day
has such
important consequences
to our health.
For more details
on The Cancer Project,
please visit
www.CancerProject.org
The two-set DVD
“Eating Right
for Cancer Survival”
and The Cancer
Survivor’s Guide,
a free to download e-book,
are available
at the same website
Thank you
gentle viewers,
for being with us
on today’s program.
Please join us
the third Monday
of each month
on Healthy Living
for the remainder
of this eight part series.
Next episode…
Dr. Neal Barnard’s
Eating Right
for Cancer Survival –
Part 6 of 8
“Cancer-fighting
Compounds and
Immune-boosting foods”
Monday, November 15.
Up next is
Science and Spirituality,
after Noteworthy News,
here on
Supreme Master Television.
May health and happiness
be with you always.
Welcome
energetic viewers
to Healthy Living
on Supreme Master
Television.
According to the World
Health Organization,
cancer is one of
the leading causes of death
in the world.
Each year
over 12 million people
across the globe
are diagnosed
with cancer
and 7.6 million
succumb to the disease.
The numbers are projected
to continue rising,
with an estimated
12 million deaths
by 2030.
Today we have the honor
to share the sixth part
of an eight part series
featuring excerpts from
The Cancer Project’s
“Eating Right
for Cancer Survival,”
a two-set DVD
of presentations
by esteemed nutrition
researcher and author
Dr. Neal Barnard, MD
that is a companion
to the book The Cancer
Survivor’s Guide
written by Dr. Barnard
and registered dietician
Jennifer Reilly.
Dr. Barnard, a vegan,
is the president
of The Cancer Project,
a US-based non-profit
organization advancing
cancer prevention and
survival through
distribution of
information on nutrition
and research.
Since its founding in 2004,
the Project has strived
to promote the vegan diet
as the answer to cancer.
The Cancer Project is
a part of
the Physicians Committee
for Responsible Medicine,
a group created by
Dr. Barnard in 1985
that is comprised of
physicians and
concerned citizens
in the US wishing to
improve public health.
The Committee is also
actively involved in
raising awareness
of the benefits
of a plant-based diet
through such projects
as the 21-Day
Vegan Kickstart program
and seeking to amend
federal nutrition guidelines.
Dr. Barnard has served as
the principal investigator
on many clinical studies
examining the links
between diet and health
and his work has been
published in top scientific
and medical journals.
He is often interviewed
by the national media
in the US
for his perspectives
on important issues
in nutrition, health
and medicine.
We are now pleased
to show
Dr. Barnard’s presentation
“Cancer-fighting
Compounds and
Immune-boosting Foods”
a chapter from the
“Eating Right for
Cancer Survival” DVD.
Cancer-fighting
Compounds and
Immune-boosting Foods
from the DVD
“Eating Right
for Cancer Survival”
Welcome,
thanks for joining us.
What is it that starts
the cancer process?
That's important, because
if I know what starts it,
then I can prevent it
from getting started.
Cancer starts with
damage to DNA.
Inside each cell of
your body is DNA,
that's the blueprint that
makes the cell what it is,
and makes you
what you are.
And that DNA is
damaged.
What’s it damaged by?
It’s damaged by
something called
a free radical.
Have you heard about
free radicals?
Free radicals sounds like
a complicated sort of
a thing, but what
it actually is, is oxygen.
Every minute of
every day, hopefully,
we're breathing in
oxygen, we're breathing
out carbon dioxide, and
that oxygen is life-giving.
But oxygen is also
very unstable.
In some conditions,
oxygen can even be
explosive.
It’s an unstable molecule,
so as you're
breathing it in,
as it’s used in the body,
it gets changed.
When I say changed,
I mean the oxygen
molecule, if you could
look at it very close-up,
it has too many electrons
on it.
Or electrons
in unstable orbits,
it becomes a little bit
like a piranha,
it gets inside the cell and
it wants to take a bite
out of your DNA,
or it takes a bite out of
the cell membrane itself.
If those cells are
in your skin,
free radical damage is
the cause of wrinkles.
It’s the cause
of the aging process.
If there were no free
radical damage at all,
our lives would be
very, very different.
And when it comes to
cancer,
it’s the free radicals
getting into the cell,
into the nucleus,
attaching to DNA and
taking a bite out of it.
The free radical is trying
to get stable, and
it does this by attacking
the other cells of the body.
Well, the nice thing is
we have defenses
against free radicals,
beta-carotene.
Beta-carotene is found
in which kinds of food?
Carrots.
Carrots, of course.
But also all of the orange
foods like cantaloupes
and pumpkins
and sweet potatoes.
And beta-carotene parks
in the cell membrane,
and it waits there and the
free radical comes along
and it attacks the
beta-carotene not you,
that's why it works.
Now, lycopene as well,
is in red foods like
tomatoes, watermelon,
same story, it parks
in the cell membrane and
helps protect against it,
and that's a good thing.
Now these foods also
will boost immunity.
They boost
the immune system.
How do they do that?
By protecting the white
blood cells of the body.
Think about this.
What is it about
the immune system?
We need an
immune system because
if you don’t have one,
you’ll be filled by a virus,
or by a bacterium,
or by cancer cells.
In your bloodstream
you have red blood cells,
the red blood cells
carry oxygen.
You have white blood cells;
the white blood cells
are there as sort of
the bodyguards
for everybody else.
They're swimming along
and if they see a virus
that doesn't belong there,
they engulf it.
They destroy it.
They see a bacteria,
they destroy it.
If they find a cancer cell,
they can tell
the difference between
a cancerous cell
and a healthy cell,
they try to destroy it, and
we probably have
cancer cells arising
in our bodies all the time.
But if our immune system
recognizes them, grabs
them and destroys them,
you’ll never know that
it has ever had occurred.
Well, these foods
actually protect
your immune system.
Beta-carotene
will protect you.
And the carrots
and the yams and
the sweet potatoes and
things that provide it,
will protect you as well.
Now, there is one little
caveat I have here,
and that is if you're
undergoing certain kinds
of cancer treatments,
your doctor might say
“Don't have those
anti-oxidants
in your diet,” because
they imagine they’ll
protect the cancer cell
that they’re trying to
wipe out.
The point is simply this:
that these foods are
big cellular protectors.
Well, does it work?
Does it matter?
Yes, it sure does.
There was a Canadian
study of women
who had breast cancer,
and they looked at
their diets and they
looked at who did well
and who didn't do well.
And what they found was
that those women
who had the most
beta-carotene in their
diet, and what foods
are we talking about?
Beta-carotene-rich
foods?
Carrots, yams,
pumpkins…
Carrots, yams, pumpkins,
cantaloupe, sure.
By the way, also
the green vegetables,
did you know this?
Broccoli has
beta-carotene too.
You can't see it,
because it’s got
a lot of chlorophyll in it.
Do that sometime,
leave some broccoli just
sitting on your shelf for
about two or three weeks.
What happens to it?
The green fades away,
the orange comes out,
and you can see it, okay.
It's sort like
in the autumn, when
the chlorophyll is gone,
you see these
other colors comes out.
Well one of those colors
is beta-carotene,
it’s there in the
green leafy vegetables,
not as much as carrots,
but it's there.
Okay, so in the Canadian
study, those women
who had the most
beta-carotene
in their diets
lived substantially longer
compared…
in other words, it helped
keep their cancer at bay,
compared to others.
Well, how much
beta-carotene?
How does this work?
Here are the numbers.
If they had more than
five milligrams of
beta-carotene every day,
they had double
the survival odds
compared to those
women who got less than
two milligrams
every day.
What’s five milligrams
of beta-carotene?
A half of a carrot,
about a quarter cup of
sweet potato;
it’s no big deal, it's
from a diet standpoint
very easy to do, but it
makes a big difference.
And there was a study
called the Women
Healthy Eating and
Living Study,
the WHEL Study.
Same thing.
They had a group of
individuals,
they brought them in, and
as one part of this study,
they did blood tests
on everybody, and they
analyzed them for what
are called carotenoids,
beta-carotene and all of
its chemical cousins that
help neutralize these
free radicals and
help boost immunity.
And what they found was
that those individuals
who had the most
carotenoids
in their bloodstream,
meaning they were eating
their vegetables,
eating their fruits,
they had a much higher
likelihood of
surviving their cancer,
and not having
a recurrence, doing
very, very well with it.
Now how much
beta-carotene
should I really get
from day to day?
Well, the federal
government doesn't set
any recommended daily
intake of beta-carotene.
What they do say is that
if a man gets about
11 milligrams per day,
and if a women gets
about nine milligrams
per day, he or she will
get all the vitamin A
that they need.
Did you know this?
Beta-carotene turns into
Vitamin A in the body.
And in research studies,
they will generally use
maybe about
30 milligrams per day,
which is the amount
in two large carrots,
maybe about one yam,
also a diet rich
in green vegetables
can give you that.
So, aim for about
30 (milligrams), aim for
about the equivalent
two carrots a day.
Now, I do have
one caution for you.
A lot of people will say
“Why do I have to eat
carrots?
I can go to any health
food store and they’ll
sell me beta-carotene
in a bottle.”
Well researchers
thought that too,
they figured “People
won't change their diets,
let’s just give them pills.”
Well it didn't work out
so well.
There were two research
studies amongst smokers.
Smokers are at high risk
of lung cancer,
so let’s give them
beta-carotene.
Let’s see
if this protects them.
It had exactly
the opposite effect.
The smokers who took
beta-carotene pills had
higher risk of developing
lung cancer compared to
the men who didn't.
And the researchers were
so shocked by this
they had to stop
the research study.
When they looked at
the data, here’s what
they found:
Those individuals who
got more beta-carotene
in foods had protection.
If they got it as pills,
they got worse.
Now, we don’t know why,
but here’s what I believe
happened, here’s what
we’re speculating:
is that if you take just
one nutrient and you take
a huge amount of it, then
it might interfere with
the absorption of others,
but if you get it in food,
you’re getting
these nutrients in the
proportions that nature
had in mind for you.
Now, it's not just
beta-carotene,
it’s also lycopene.
Lycopene is
the red coloring as
we were talking about;
watermelon,
pink grapefruit,
especially tomatoes,
salsa, yes, salsa, ketchup,
these have lycopene
in them, believe it or not.
They’re not necessarily
health foods,
but they’re there.
And what do they do?
They park in the
cell membrane,
the free-radical comes
along, they attack
the carotenoid, not you.
Now, vitamin E is
also similar.
Vitamin E will park
in the membrane, and
vitamin E is a powerful
anti-oxidant, however
this one I’m going to
make a little bit of
an exception on.
By that I mean
more is not really better.
I don't like the idea of
having a huge amount of
vitamin E in your diet,
and here’s why.
Researchers years ago
studied premature babies.
Little babies are really
at risk of free radical
damage, their little lungs
are taking in oxygen
for the first time,
and they really can't
handle it, so researchers
have used vitamin E
compounds as powerful
anti-oxidants and
what they found was that
these kids would start to
develop infections.
Their immune defenses
were disabled in part
by the vitamin E.
So a little vitamin E is
good, get it from foods.
I suggest people
not go to the store
and take vitamin E
supplements.
So there is one other trick
that you can do though,
with regard to vitamin E,
if you have
vitamin C-rich foods,
like fruits, citrus fruits,
and vegetables.
Vitamin C actually
restores vitamin E.
Did you know that?
You don't even need to
take the supplements of
vitamin E
to have it be restored.
Vitamin C-rich foods
help sort of recycle and
rejuvenate the vitamin E
for you. Okay. Now…
let’s say a word about
vitamin C.
Everybody knows
vitamin C is good for you
but it fights free radicals
as well.
And if the beta-carotene
is in the cell membrane
the vitamin C goes
in the watery parts of
your body, it’s not parked
in the membrane,
it’s free.
It’s going inside the cell
and the watery part
in the cell in case
a free radical gets in,
and it’s between the cells
knocking them out in the
bloodstream and other
watery parts of the body.
And if you have a diet
that is loaded with
vitamin C-rich fruits and
vegetables, you’ve got
your defenses there set.
Now the Canadian
research study that I was
just describing earlier,
where women who had
cancer were watched
to see how they did,
it turned out that
those women who had
more vitamin C
in their diets did better.
They were less likely
to succumb to their
condition, which will not
surprise you by now.
Well how much?
They didn’t have to
have a huge amount.
It turned out that
those women who had
200 milligrams or more
of vitamin C in their diet
had about double
the survival odds,
compared to those who
had less than 100 per day.
Now 200 is not a lot,
you can get that
by having a diet that’s
rich in vegetables and
oranges, one orange
has about 60 in it.
If you have typical
vegetables,
they’ll all add to it.
And you can
take supplements
if you want to.
I don’t believe there’s
toxicity to vitamin C
supplements for you.
So if you put these
all together, you’ll have
a diet that’s rich
in vegetables and
rich in fruits and you’ll
get the beta-carotene
and the vitamin C that
you need.
Now let me add
some other pieces
of this puzzle.
You know about broccoli,
brussels sprouts,
cauliflower, they’re
in the group called the
cruciferous vegetables,
and scientists love these
vegetables because
they give them
a lot of things to study.
By the way the name
cruciferous mean
“cross-like.”
The flower has sort of
a little shape of a cross.
So this will be broccoli,
cauliflower, kale,
brussels sprouts and
many, many others.
And what do they do?
They work in the liver to
sort of tune up the part of
your body,
the enzymes in your body
that eliminate toxins.
They’re called,
I’m going to get a little
bit complicated here, this
will not be on the test.
You have inside
your liver, different kinds
of enzymes that are there
to recognize things that
aren’t supposed to be
in your body.
The phase one enzymes
begin the process of
eliminating toxins,
the phase two enzymes
actually carry toxins
out of the body.
They clamp them onto
a carrier molecule and
pull them away.
It’s just like a criminal.
You take the handcuffs,
put them on, attach him
to the police officer
who carries them away.
That’s what the
phase two enzymes do.
Broccoli increases the
activity of these enzymes,
very, very rapidly.
If you have broccoli
today and I don’t mean
just like one little floret,
I mean if you gave
a normal good serving
of it today, and
if you keep that up, you’ll
find within 24 to 48 hours
the activity of these
phase two enzymes
is greatly increased.
Now there are
a few things that
I’m suggesting
we want to avoid.
And we’ve
talked about fat.
Researchers are
concerned about fat and
you know what?
They’re right.
Researchers have found
that fat interferes with
the immune system and
the experiments
are heroic.
They’ll take volunteers;
they’ll feed them
high-fat diets.
They’ll hook them up
to an intravenous
and drip fat into their
bloodstream and then,
I’m not kidding,
don’t volunteer
for these experiments.
What they do is
they then pull some of
their blood cells out,
mix them with cancer
cells and they watch,
how fast do the white
blood cells chew up and
destroy the cancer cell?
That gives you
a good clue as to whether
you have good or bad
immunity.
Well the more fat
that gets into
your bloodstream,
the more your white
blood cells have trouble
doing their job, they just
can’t work in an oil slick.
Okay?
So you get the fat
out of your diet,
your white blood cells
will thank you.
Now the good kind of diet
would be rich in
vegetables and fruits and
it wouldn’t have the fat
in it, wouldn’t have
the meat in it.
So what happens
if I’m following
that kind of diet?
Well, at the German
Cancer Research Center,
they did exactly this test.
They took a group of
vegetarians.
They thought, “You
aren’t eating any meat,
and you’re probably
eating a lot of vegetables.
Let’s test
your immunity.”
They tested something
called the NK cell,
natural killer cell.
This is a white blood cell
that is a natural killer,
it shoots first and
asks questions later.
If it finds a cancer cell,
it gobbles it up.
You want them.
And what they found was
that the vegetarians had
about double the NK cell
activity compared to
the non- vegetarians.
Meaning their cells
are vigilant, they’re
looking for cancer cells,
they’re trying to
knock them out.
So what we’ve seen is
that a diet that’s rich in
vegetables and fruits,
along with the grains
and beans,
it’s good for immunity,
it’s good against cancer
and it’s good
for overall health.
Thank you very much.
Our deep appreciation
Dr. Neal Barnard
for starting
The Cancer Project
to inform people
how a plant-based diet is
superb protection
against cancer and
a host of other diseases.
May you continue your
important contributions
to the advancement
of public health
for many years to come.
For more details on
The Cancer Project,
please visit
www.CancerProject.org
The two-set DVD
“Eating Right
for Cancer Survival”
and The Cancer
Survivor’s Guide,
a free to download e-book,
are available
at the same website
Next episode…
Dr. Neal Barnard’s
Eating Right
for Cancer Survival –
Part 7 of 8
“Maintaining
a Healthy Weight” and
“Foods and Prostrate
Cancer Survival”
Monday,
December 20, 2010
Thank you
determined viewers,
for being with us
on today’s program.
Please join us
the third Monday
of each month
on Healthy Living
for the remainder
of this eight part series.
Up next is
Science and Spirituality,
after Noteworthy News,
here on
Supreme Master Television.
May you always enjoy
the very best of health.
Welcome friendly viewers
to Healthy Living
on Supreme Master
Television.
According to the World
Health Organization,
cancer is one of
the leading causes of death
in the world.
Each year
over 12 million people
across the globe
are diagnosed
with cancer
and 7.6 million
succumb to the disease.
The numbers are projected
to continue rising,
with an estimated
12 million deaths
by 2030.
Today we have the honor
to share the seventh part
of an eight part series
featuring excerpts from
The Cancer Project’s
“Eating Right
for Cancer Survival,”
a two-set DVD
of presentations
by esteemed nutrition
researcher and author
Dr. Neal Barnard, MD
that is a companion
to the book The Cancer
Survivor’s Guide
written by Dr. Barnard
and registered dietician
Jennifer Reilly.
Dr. Barnard, a vegan,
is the president
of The Cancer Project,
a US-based non-profit
organization advancing
cancer prevention and
survival through
distribution of
information on nutrition
and research.
Since its founding in 2004,
the Project has strived
to promote the vegan diet
as the answer to cancer.
The Cancer Project is
a part of
the Physicians Committee
for Responsible Medicine,
a group created by
Dr. Barnard in 1985
that is comprised of
physicians and
concerned citizens
in the US wishing to
improve public health.
The Committee is also
actively involved in
raising awareness
of the benefits
of a plant-based diet
through such projects
as the 21-Day
Vegan Kickstart program
and seeking to amend
federal nutrition guidelines.
Dr. Barnard has served as
the principal investigator
on many clinical studies
examining the links
between diet and health
and his work has been
published in top scientific
and medical journals.
He is often interviewed
by the national media
in the US
for his perspectives
on important issues
in nutrition, health
and medicine.
We are now pleased
to show
Dr. Barnard’s presentations
“Maintaining
a Healthy Weight” and
“Foods and
Prostate Cancer Survival,”
two chapters from the
“Eating Right for
Cancer Survival” DVD.
Maintaining
a Healthy Weight
from the DVD
“Eating Right
for Cancer Survival”
One of
the most important things
that a healthy person can do
to avoid getting cancer is
to keep their body weight
down to normal limits.
And one of
the most important things
that a person
who has been diagnosed
with cancer can do, is to
keep excess weight away
as well, because
the heavier you are,
not only are you more
likely to develop cancer,
if you have it already,
you are more likely
to succumb to it.
What is body fat
doing to us?
Body fat is not just
stored energy, body fat is
a living organ and
body fat actually makes
estrogen, you can see this
on the beach.
If you look at a guy who’s
developed a little bit of
extra body fat, and
he’s now pretty chunky,
he has breast development,
that’s not just fat, that’s
breast tissue that came
because his body fat
is building estrogens
and estrogens is causing
the development
of breasts in a man,
and ultimately
it will cause impotence.
And if he loses weight
those estrogens diminish
and those problems
will tend to reverse.
Now this happens
in women as well,
both women and men.
And in women the concern
is that if there’s more and
more estrogen coursing
through your blood,
all it takes
is one cancer cell,
and that estrogen
causes the cell to grow.
Researchers
have long known
that Japanese woman
are less likely
than Western woman to
develop breast cancer and
if they have breast cancer
they are much more likely
to survive it.
Well the fact that
they are generally slimmer
than Western people
could be a big part
of the reason.
Researchers have
discovered that
indeed their hormones
are somewhat lower levels
compared to other folks,
there’s less fuel for
the cancer cells to grow.
And it isn’t just
a question of, am I
massively overweight versus
moderately overweight?
It even makes a difference
when a person is
different gradations
of normal weight.
There was study
in Shanghai (China)
that looked at individuals
of different body weights
and we would consider them
all pretty much normal.
They were using the BMI.
Do you know
what I’m talking about,
body mass index?
The body mass index
or BMI is a way of
measuring your weight,
but adjusting
for your height.
Because what’s
an ideal weight for you
depends on
how tall you are.
And an optimal body weight,
people would say
is under 25.
If you’re over 25 BMI
that’s going to be
mildly overweight.
If you’re over 30 that
would be called obese.
Okay, that’s
our frame of reference.
The study in Shanghai,
they looked at women,
everybody had
breast cancer, but some
had a BMI under 23,
that means
they’re thin women, and
their five-year survival rate
was about 87%.
But they then looked at
those women who were
between 23 and 25,
they’re still normal weight
but they’re just
a little bit heavier.
Their five-year survival
rate wasn’t 87%;
it was down to about 84%.
Then they looked at those
whose body weight was
over 25, in the mildly
overweight area
and their five- year
survival rate was
down to about 80%.
You get the picture?
The heavier you are
the greater your likelihood
of succumbing
to this condition, so
you want to stay down to
a healthy kind of weight.
So when people
are overweight
what do they do?
Often they don’t know
what to do,
so they stop eating.
You skip meals,
you starve yourself, and
you go on a punishing
low calorie diet.
And regrettably
that’s not going to last.
For any of you who,
you know this is true,
if you’ve ever been
on this kind of diet,
“I’m really going to
starve it off!”
We end up rebounding,
hunger takes over and
you’re going to end up
binging and putting back
however much weight
you lost and then some.
So don’t do that.
Look around the world
and eat the way
thin people eat.
The thinnest people
on the planet live in Asia,
vegetarians are also thin.
And they have
different characteristics
compared to what we have
in Western countries.
They’re eating diets
that are first of all
much lower in fat;
they’re not eating
lots of meat and cheese
and fried foods, they’re
eating rice, vegetables.
And if they’re eating meat
it’s little tiny amounts,
used as a flavoring.
Of course
this is all changing,
as diets are westernizing,
meat is coming in,
dairy products
are coming in
to Asian countries, with
this unfortunate process
of the westernization
of the diet.
But, when researchers
have put that kind of diet
to a test, amongst
Western populations,
“Let’s eat
a plant-based diet,”
they find
that people lose weight
in a healthful kind of way.
My research group
did a study in women
who had moderate to
severe weight problems,
and we asked them
to follow a diet that was
vegan, and low in fat.
That was the whole diet,
just avoid
the animal products,
so there’s no animal fat,
and keep
the vegetable oils low.
Now when you take those
out of the diet, that makes
room for vegetables,
fruits, beans and grains
that are high in fiber.
So the diet’s filling, low
in fat. What happened?
As time went by,
the women lost weight
week after week after week,
the average weight loss
was about a pound week.
Doesn’t sound like much,
except, after a year,
52-weeks in a year,
you’re talking
serious weight loss and
that’s exactly what we saw.
So the nice thing
about this is,
you don’t have to starve,
you don’t have to
exercise necessarily,
exercise is good,
but if you’re not able to
for whatever reason,
your joints are bad,
your heart is bad,
you can still lose weight.
So, to put this all
together, what is
a weight-loss regiment?
A good weight loss diet is
the same kind of diet
that’s good to keep
your cholesterol down,
to reduce
your cancer risk overall.
It’s getting away
from the animal products.
That means
avoiding the meats
and the dairy products
and the eggs.
And in the process,
you’re not just
avoiding their fat,
you’re avoiding
their cholesterol,
and you’re making room
for the high fiber foods.
Keep the oils very low,
every gram of oil,
every gram of any kind
of fat has nine calories.
Those calories
have your name on them,
and if you eat them it will
straight to your thighs.
Instead, bring in
the high fiber foods, the
high carbohydrate beans,
vegetables and fruits.
Carbohydrates have only
four calories in a gram.
So, that’s
a healthful regiment.
And don’t go off
on high-protein diets, the
low carbohydrate (diets),
you know
what I’m talking about,
they’ve been very popular,
they cause
short-term weight loss.
But over the long run,
people tend not to do
very well on them, and
they have, unfortunately,
some rather
bad side effects.
Because the diets are
so low in carbohydrates,
people are avoiding
starchy vegetables,
they’re avoiding fruits,
they’re avoiding breads,
they’re avoiding pasta,
they’re avoiding rice, and
instead, they are eating,
meat and eggs and cheese.
Some people’s
cholesterol will fall,
if they’re losing weight
on it, but others,
their cholesterol is up.
About one in three
low-carbohydrate dieters,
has their cholesterol
go up, sometimes it goes
right up through the roof.
You don’t want to be
one of them.
And you don’t need
that kind of approach.
So, it’s a good idea, to
follow a plant-based diet,
bring the exercise into it,
exercise is good.
Exercise, well,
for a couple of reasons,
it burns calories,
it’s also impossible
to eat potato chips
while you’re out running.
So, bring it in,
in a good way.
And if you have any
kind of health condition,
definitely
see your doctor first.
You want to make sure
your heart is up to it,
you want to make sure
your joints are up to it,
and the rest of your body
is up to it.
But when got your
green light, go ahead.
How do you start?
I start small.
About a half hour walk
every day, and
I don’t mean a trudge,
I mean a brisk walk,
and then gradually
build up from there.
And then, if you want
to do more than that,
go ahead.
If you want to do
resistance training,
you know what I mean,
like weight training,
go see a professional
and get a good regiment
that’s tailored
for your own needs.
Put it together, and
you’ve got a really good
weight loss program,
because you’re on foods
that are going to
work for you,
plus an exercise program
that works for you as well.
And that’s
the best prescription
for weight control.
Thank you very much.
“Food and
Prostate Cancer Survival”
is the next lecture
by Dr. Barnard.
Food and
Prostate Cancer Survival
from the DVD
“Food and
Prostate Cancer Survival”
Halo and welcome.
Prostate cancer is
a leading killer
and it doesn’t have to be,
because if we take lessons
from around the world
and people who follow
different kinds of diets,
we get clues about
how we can actually
reduce the likelihood
that this will happen
in our own lives.
And for men who already
have prostate cancer,
there’s a lot
they can do to hold it
beyond arm’s length.
Let me share with you
a couple of things,
first of all the good news.
There is something in foods
that is actually protective
against prostate cancer
and that is the red coloring
in tomatoes.
Anybody know
what that’s called?
Lycopene.
Very good, lycopene,
lycopene, l-y-c-o-p-e-n-e.
Lycopene is a cousin
of beta-carotene.
In the same way as carrots
get their orange color
from beta-carotene,
a tomato gets its red color
from lycopene.
It’s a powerful antioxidant.
And studies have shown
that men who have just
two tomato servings
per week
have about 23% less risk
of prostate cancer
compared to other men.
Men who have 10 or
more servings per week,
have a 35% reduction
in their likelihood of ever
developing this disease
compared to men
who get less.
And the nice thing is,
it happens even with
spaghetti sauce, salsa,
all that you don’t think of
these as healthy foods
but they’ve got a lot of
lycopene in them
and it will pass
into your bloodstream
and it will protect you.
Now there are some things
that aren’t so healthful.
Milk products
surprisingly enough are
associated with a higher
risk of prostate cancer.
And this first came out
of studies comparing
different countries.
Countries like Thailand,
Japan, and China.
On a traditional diet
there is very little dairy
products, very little milk,
very little of any kind of
dairy products in their diet.
You compare that
to Finland, Sweden,
Switzerland,
lots of dairy products and
you see a clear pattern
the more dairy men eat
the more prostate cancer
risk they have.
So researches at
Harvard (University, USA)
said “That’s interesting.
But would that be true
in this country?”
And so they did a study
called The Physicians’
Health Study.
They took about
21,000 men,
everybody is a physician,
everybody is healthy,
and nobody’s got cancer.
They look at their diets.
And what they find is
exactly what we find
comparing
different countries,
that those men who had
the most dairy products
as part of their regular diet
two and a half servings
or more per day,
they had about
a 34% increased risk of
developing prostate cancer.
Well that’s intriguing,
seems to confirm the finding.
They did another study
called
The Health Professionals
Follow up Study.
These were
health professionals
who were not physicians,
and what they found was
exactly the same thing.
Among about 48,000 men,
those who consumed
more than two glasses
of milk per day
had in this case
about 60% higher risk of
prostate cancer
compared to other men.
How can that be?
We’re talking about milk.
We grew up with this,
our parents wanted us
to consume it, you go to
the school lunch line, and
they want you to have it.
It’s heavily promoted.
Why is it linked
with cancer?
Well there are
several possible reasons
but the one that people
have really zeroed in
on the most is something
called IGF-1, Insulin-like
Growth Factor number 1.
What’s IGF-1?
This is a bit of a mouthful,
they should have invented
a shorter name for it,
but that’s the name
we’re stuck with.
Insulin-like,
means like insulin.
It puts sugar into cells.
But it’s a growth factor;
that means if I mix IGF-1
with prostate cancer cells
in the test tube,
they grow like crazy.
I think of it
as fertilizer on weeds.
So if a man is avoiding
milk, where is he going to
get his calcium?
Well, I like to think of
two sources,
the greens and the beans.
When I say greens,
what do I mean?
Green vegetables, broccoli,
kale, collard greens;
just about any of
the green vegetables,
they’ve got a lot of calcium,
one exception spinach.
Spinach is
a very selfish vegetable.
It’s got calcium but
it won’t let you have it.
It has calcium,
it’s just not absorbable.
But the others,
they actually have
a higher absorption rate,
a higher absorption
percentage than milk does.
Broccoli more than 50%
of the calcium in broccoli
is absorbed,
for milk it’s about 32%.
So the greens are good.
The beans are good as well.
Just about
any of the beans.
They’ve got
lots of calcium in them
and the greens and beans
are a good source.
But don’t feel that you need
to have an enormous
amount of calcium.
A little bit goes a long way.
Researchers have said,
if it seems to be the case
that a diet rich in
vegetables and fruits,
bringing you that lycopene,
if that’s protective;
getting away
from dairy products
and fatty food that
seems to be protective.
What if I test it in men
who have prostate cancer
already?
I want to share with you
two important studies.
One was by a researcher
named Gordon Saxe
at the University
of Massachusetts (USA).
It was a small study.
He brought in 10 men,
and what he was tracking
was called
PSA doubling time.
What is that? PSA.
Prostate Specific Antigen.
All this is, is a protein
that’s in the blood and
it’s made by prostate cells
so if it’s going up and up
and up and up and up
that means there must be
prostate cancer
somewhere or something
abnormal in the prostate
that’s causing it to rise.
It’s a good indicator
of how we’re doing
with prostate health.
And they measured
doubling time.
How long does it take for
it to go from two to four?
Four to eight?
Eight to 16?
If it doesn’t take much time,
that means the cancer
is rapidly progressing.
Okay.
They brought the men in,
they asked them to follow
a very low fat vegan diet,
meaning
no animal products at all,
very low in oils.
And what they found was
that their doubling time,
which started out
at about 6.5 months,
meaning it took that long
for it to double,
it was stretched out
in the course of this study
to about 17. 7 months.
Meaning their PSA’s
on average were rising
but very, very slowly.
And there were several men
in this study
where the PSA actually
started to fall.
Well that’s encouraging,
it looks like things are
going in the right direction.
So Dr. Dean Ornish,
who became famous
for showing that
a vegetarian diet
could actually reverse
heart disease, which is
a terrific finding,
the arteries open up again.
He said what happens
about prostate cancer?
It ought to be helpful
there too.
So he brought in 93 men.
Everybody had
prostate cancer but
they were in this group
they call
“watchful waiting,”
that means
you’ve got the cancer
but it’s not progressing
really aggressively.
You can wait
before you get treatment.
The doctor tracks
their PSA and if it’s not
shooting up too fast
they just wait.
In the control group,
this group was not asked
to make any diet change;
the experimental group
went on a vegan diet,
no animal products at all,
no dairy products,
that ought to be good
right from the standpoint
of prostate cancer.
Here is what happened.
In the control group,
people that
didn’t make diet changes
their PSA’s did
what PSA does
in cancer patients,
it was rising.
In the course of the study
it went up about six percent
and out of the 49 men
in that group six of them
couldn’t wait anymore.
Their cancer was
progressing so aggressively
they had to go
and have treatment.
But what about
the vegan group,
these people who learned
how to have oatmeal
for breakfast, and how to
have vegetables and fruits
in their diet;
how to top their spaghetti,
not with that
creamy Alfredo sauce but
with a tomato sauce that
gets away from the dairy
and brings in the lycopene.
In that group
the PSA wasn’t rising,
it wasn’t holding steady,
it actually on average
fell about four percent,
in other words
they’re getting better.
And not one of the men
on the vegan diet
needed treatment during
this research study.
Don’t get me wrong.
Prostate cancer
like all cancers
is a serious condition.
We want to have good
methods for detecting it;
we want to have good
methods for treating it.
But if we change our diet
we really can
tackle this epidemic.
Thank you very much.
For more details on
The Cancer Project,
please visit
www.CancerProject.org
The two-set DVD
“Eating Right
for Cancer Survival”
and The Cancer
Survivor’s Guide,
a free to download e-book,
are available
at the same website
Next episode…
Dr. Neal Barnard:
Eating Right
for Cancer Survival –
Part 8 of 8
“Foods and
Breast Cancer Survival”
Monday,
January 17, 2011
Thank you
esteemed viewers,
for being with us
on today’s program.
Please join us Monday,
January 17, 2011
on Healthy Living
for the conclusion
of this eight part series.
Up next is
Science and Spirituality,
after Noteworthy News,
here on
Supreme Master Television.
May your spirit always
be filled with
vibrancy and vitality.
Welcome intelligent viewers
to Healthy Living
on Supreme Master
Television.
According to the World
Health Organization,
cancer is one of
the leading causes of death
in the world.
Each year
over 12 million people
across the globe
are diagnosed
with cancer
and 7.6 million
succumb to the disease.
The numbers are projected
to continue rising,
with an estimated
12 million deaths
by 2030.
Today we have the honor
to share the conclusion
of an eight part series
featuring excerpts from
The Cancer Project’s
“Eating Right
for Cancer Survival,”
a two-set DVD
of presentations
by esteemed nutrition
researcher and author
Dr. Neal Barnard, MD
that is a companion
to the book The Cancer
Survivor’s Guide
written by Dr. Barnard
and registered dietician
Jennifer Reilly.
Dr. Barnard, a vegan,
is the president
of The Cancer Project,
a US-based non-profit
organization advancing
cancer prevention and
survival through
distribution of
information on nutrition
and research.
Since its founding in 2004,
the Project has strived
to promote the vegan diet
as the answer to cancer.
The Cancer Project is
a part of
the Physicians Committee
for Responsible Medicine,
a group created by
Dr. Barnard in 1985
that is comprised of
physicians and
concerned citizens
in the US wishing to
improve public health.
The Committee is also
actively involved in
raising awareness
of the benefits
of a plant-based diet
through such projects
as the 21-Day
Vegan Kickstart program
and seeking to amend
federal nutrition guidelines.
Dr. Barnard has served as
the principal investigator
on many clinical studies
examining the links
between diet and health
and his work has been
published in top scientific
and medical journals.
He is often interviewed
by the national media
in the US
for his perspectives
on important issues
in nutrition, health
and medicine.
We are now pleased
to show
Dr. Barnard’s presentation
“Foods and
Breast Cancer Survival,”
a chapter from the
“Eating Right for
Cancer Survival” DVD.
Welcome,
thanks for joining us.
Breast cancer is
a serious epidemic,
and we’re fighting it
on every possible front.
There are better methods
than ever
for detecting cancer, and
we have better treatments
than ever.
But I have to say
as a doctor,
what I like best
is the new method
for preventing cancer,
because if you prevent it,
you never have to treat it,
you never have to
live with this, and the fear
that’s involved with it.
Now we’ve known
for a long period of time,
that diet does make
a big difference.
Some of the first clues
came from Japan.
A woman in Japan,
compared to a woman
in the United States,
she’s less likely
to develop cancer,
and if she’s got cancer,
she’s less likely
to die from it.
She’s more likely to do well,
more likely to survive.
Why would that be?
Well, the first clue was,
well, women in Japan
are thinner,
and that’s important.
Body fat it’s not just there
to store calories, body fat
actually is a living organ,
it makes things,
it makes hormones,
it makes estrogens.
And estrogens
make things grow.
At puberty,
estrogens are responsible
for breast development,
and during all of
a woman’s cycle,
it’s responsible
for the thickening
of the lining of the uterus
every single month.
So if you think of estrogens
as making things grow,
what does that mean
for a cancer cell?
What it means is, it may
make the cancer cell
grow too.
If I take a test-tube, put
breast cancer cells in it,
and add estrogen,
the cancer cells
grow like crazy,
it’s like fertilizer on weeds.
So, let’s say a woman
has more body fat,
she has more estrogen
in her blood,
that’s asking for the cells
to start multiplying
and to spread.
So well, does it work?
If a woman is thinner,
will she actually have
less risk of getting cancer
or will she, if she has it,
will she tend to survive?
The answer is yes.
There was a big study
in Shanghai (China)
that looked,
not just at women who
were quite overweight,
but women who had
different variations,
within what we would
think of as normal weight.
Do you know
the Body Mass Index, BMI?
This is a way of
talking about body weight,
but adjusting it
for your height.
So your ideal weight
is different
if you’re six foot four
versus, say five foot three
okay?
So the way we define it is,
a BMI, a Body Mass Index
under 25, is
what we’re going to call,
normal, healthy weight.
So in the study
in Shanghai,
they had a group of women,
everybody already
had breast cancer,
and the question was,
“If they are heavier
or thinner, would that
affect how they do?”
Here’s what they found.
The women
who had a BMI under 23,
thin women,
their five-year survival
was about 87%.
They then compared them
with the women who
were between 23 and 25,
a little heavier, bit really,
but still
within normal weight.
And their five-year survival
was a little bit less,
about 84%.
And then
they looked at the women
who were over 25.
Not seriously overweight,
but just a little bit
into overweight.
Their five-year survival
was down to 80%.
So the heavier you go,
the more likely you are
to be vulnerable
to this condition, okay?
Well that’s the first thing,
but there’s more to it.
It’s not just the fat
on your body,
it’s the fat on your plate.
And researchers found
that it doesn’t just affect
whether a woman
develops cancer,
it also affects,
whether she does well
or not so well.
At the State University
of New York in Buffalo
(USA), researchers
did an important study.
They brought in
about 900 women,
everybody already
had breast cancer, and
all they did was this:
They looked at their diet,
and then they looked at
who did well, and
who didn’t do so well.
And what they found
was stunning.
The risk of dying
at any point in time
was increased by 40%,
for every thousand grams
of fat the women ate
per month.
Now, let me make
this practical for you.
If I take
a typical American diet,
I throw in all the fat
from the hamburgers
that we might eat,
and the French fries
and the salad oils
and you take all that fat
and you add it up.
You compare that
to a plant based diet,
a vegetarian diet,
so there’s no animal fat
in it, and a diet where
we keep the oils pretty low,
those two diets differ,
by anywhere from 1000
to 1500 grams of fat
every single month.
That’s good for
a 40 to 60% difference
in whether
you are dead or alive
at any single time point
in the future.
So it makes a big difference.
We’ve put this to work,
sometimes
in rather unusual ways.
I was sitting at my desk
one day
and the phone rang.
And a young woman said,
“Dr. Barnard.”
I said, “Yes?”
“I can’t get out of bed.”
I said,
“What’s the problem?”
She said, “This happens
to me every month.
For one day
my cramps are so bad,
I just can’t function,
I can’t get through the day
without taking enormous
amounts of ibuprofen,
and I’m scared about
the side effects, and
I don’t know what to do.
And can you give me
a more powerful
pain medicine
so that I can function.”
I said, “Yes I can.
Let me give you
some painkillers
for a couple of days.”
But it suddenly struck me,
what are
menstrual cramps?
Every single month,
the amount estrogen
in the body rises
and then it falls,
about two weeks in,
that’s when
a woman is ovulating.
And then
the next two weeks the
amount of estrogen rises,
thickening the lining
of the uterus.
What’s it doing that for?
Because the uterus is
the most optimistic organ
in the body.
Every single month
it’s convinced
we’re going to
get pregnant for sure,
so it gets ready.
But then about two weeks
before the end
of the month, it says
“Ah, it didn’t happen.”
So at that point,
the inner lining
of the uterus breaks up,
it’s lost in menstrual flow,
and very maladjusted
chemicals
called prostaglandins
are released.
They cause cramping and
they cause headaches
and they make you
feel crummy.
And so as she’s
talking on the phone,
I’m thinking,
“Wait a minute.
From breast cancer
research we know
that if I cut the fat out
of my diet,
if I bring in the fiber,
I can reduce
the amount of estrogen.
Less estrogen, (means)
less thickening, and
less cramps. Let’s try it.”
So I suggested this to her.
I said, “Let me give you
some painkillers
for a couple of days,
but we want
to do an experiment
for about four weeks.
How about this,
no animal products
in your diet.
If there are
no animal products,
there’s no animal fat.”
And I said,
“And keep the oils low.
Throw away your bottles
of cooking oil
and all that stuff.
Don’t eat the greasy
potato chips and things.
Keep it very basic,
very low in fat.”
She said,
“Well I’ll try anything.”
She calls me up
four weeks later,
“Dr. Barnard,
I just have one question.”
I said, “What’s that?”
She said,
“Why don’t doctors
tell patients about this?”
Her period just sneaked up
on her, virtually
no symptoms at all.
And I thought
that was intriguing.
So I wrote a book
that mentioned this
and I started getting calls
from women who said,
“This is really true!”
And she also found that if
she deviated from her diet
early in the month,
a big bag of potato chips,
something greasy,
she would pay for it
at the end of the month.
So I did a research study
with some colleagues at
Georgetown University
(USA) and we found
indeed it is true.
We brought in a group of
women who had serious
menstrual cramps.
We put them on a diet
that was vegan
and low in fat for
two full menstrual cycles.
It shortened the number
of days of pain.
It shortened the intensity
of the pain.
And PMS (premenstrual
syndrome) symptoms,
like water retention and
bloating and irritability,
all these things got better.
What I’m suggesting
is just this.
The reason
I tell you this story
is we imagine
that our hormones
are controlling us.
That’s true,
but we have a measure
of control over them too.
It’s just we never had
the instruction manual.
Well now
we know how to do it.
Now there are some times
when research
brought us in sort of
the wrong direction.
Do you know
the “Women’s
Health Initiative?”
The “Women’s
Health Initiative” was
a very large and I think,
very well designed
research study but it tested
a rather modest diet.
The idea was if we bring in
a group of women,
in this case,
not quite 50 000 women
and if we reduce
the fat content of their diet,
will that prevent
breast cancer?
Well, they didn’t
make anybody vegetarian
or vegan.
They didn’t really
cut the fat out
to a great degree.
The numbers were like this.
At the beginning
of the study,
the average woman
going into it
was eating about 38%
of her calories from fat.
That’s kind of high.
The national average
is closer to 30%.
Then as time went on,
they were able to reduce
the fat content of their diet
down to about 24%, which
is in the right direction
but it didn’t stay there.
As time went on,
they were going back up
and back up and back up
and by the six year point,
they were back up
to about 29%,
which is very much like
the national average
right now.
Well, what happened?
First of all,
their breast cancer rates
dropped just a little,
about 9%.
So that’s good,
it’s in the right direction
but it’s not strong enough.
With one exception,
progesterone receptor
negative cancer,
that’s one particular type,
dropped 24%.
So that’s good, but here’s
why the diet didn’t work.
They allowed people to
keep eating all the foods
that make
the American diet risky.
They said, have
the leaner cuts of beef;
have chicken
without the skin.
The leanest beef is 29% fat.
Chicken without the skin
is 23%.
Fish, some fish like salmon
is over 50% fat
in a typical cut
of Chinook salmon.
Broccoli is 8%,
beans are 4%,
rice is 1% to 5%.
Those are the foods,
if you really want to
test this in a serious way,
have people eating
the grains and the beans
and the vegetables
and fruits.
So don’t get me wrong,
I think the “Women’s
Health Initiative”
was a great study,
but what it proved wasn’t
that diet doesn’t work.
What it proved is
that small diet changes
do very little.
Let me tell you about
two other studies that
really tackle this problem.
One was called
“The Women’s Intervention
Nutrition Study.”
And what they wanted to do
was to see
if diet makes a difference
after a woman already
has breast cancer.
They brought in
not quite 2,500 women.
Everybody had
breast cancer and
they put them on a diet
that was pretty low in fat,
about 15% of their calories
came from fat.
That’s about half
the American average.
And then they tracked
how they did
as time went on.
What they were
specifically looking for,
was whether a woman
was likely to have
a cancer recurrence
or a new cancer.
Did you know this, that if
a woman has already had
breast cancer,
she’s at higher risk
of getting a new cancer?
So what they found was
the diet worked.
The likelihood of
getting cancer recurrence
or a new cancer
was cut by about 24%
and when they looked at
those that were estrogen
receptor negative, that’s
a particular type of cancer,
they were cut
by about 42%.
So diet, it’s not perfect
but it’s darn good
and we’ll take it.
Now there was
another study called
“The Women’s Healthy
Eating & Living Study”
or “The WHEL Study.”
And they went a step further.
It was low in fat but
they also made a point of
emphasizing vegetables
and fruits and juices
in particular,
like carrot juice
and that sort of thing.
And it wasn’t
quite vegetarian, but it
was going a little further
in that direction.
The study
as we’re recording this now
is not yet finished, but
I want to share with you
some early results
because they’re exciting.
I’ve been suggesting that
if a woman loses weight,
brings in the fiber,
cuts the fat out of her diet,
she’s going to be able to
control her hormones.
Does it work?
They took a sample
of 291 of the women
in the study and
they actually measured
their hormones
at the beginning
and the end.
I’m talking about
estradiol and estrone,
these are the estrogens
in a woman’s blood
and indeed they dropped
quite significantly just
from the diet change alone,
no medicines,
no exercise, nothing,
just the diet change.
But then they went further
and they looked at
the control group
that was not asked
to make any diet changes.
It was a large group
of women,
about 1,500 women
and they varied.
Some of them ate
more vegetables,
some of them ate less
and they did a blood test
for carotenoids,
Beta-carotene
and its cousins.
You can measure that
in a person’s blood.
So if somebody said,
“I eat a lot of vegetables,”
you know,
you can actually tell
if it’s true or not.
So they measured them,
and what they found was
that those women who
had the most carotenoids
in their bloodstream,
meaning
they had been doing it,
they had been eating
the vegetables and fruits,
they had about
a 45% reduction
in their likelihood of
having cancer come back.
So bottom line is this:
We still have good methods
for detecting cancer, we
have pretty good methods
of treating it,
but you know what,
I never want to use them.
I want to see
what we can do
to keep cancer
beyond arm’s length,
and to do that
we need to just change
what’s on our plate.
Thank you very much.
Our heartfelt gratitude
Dr. Neal Barnard
for allowing us to share
your excellent and highly
informative presentations
from the “Eating Right
for Cancer Survival” series
with our viewers.
By encouraging
the adoption
of the vegan lifestyle,
you and members
of The Cancer Project
are on the forefront of
improving public health
in the United States
and beyond.
We wish you the very best
in your future endeavors.
For more details on
The Cancer Project,
please visit
www.CancerProject.org
The two-set DVD
“Eating Right
for Cancer Survival”
and The Cancer
Survivor’s Guide,
a free to download e-book,
are available
at the same website
Thank you trusted viewers,
for joining us today on
Healthy Living.
Up next is
Science and Spirituality,
after Noteworthy News,
here on
Supreme Master Television.
May the entire world
soon adopt
the compassionate
plant-based diet and
enjoy the peak of health.