Dhru Purohit Show - The Top Causes of Colon Cancer and How to Reduce Your Risk Today with Dr. Elizabeth Boham

Episode Date: November 7, 2022

This episode is brought to you by InsideTracker and Pendulum. Did you know that colon cancer is the second-most common cause of cancer-related deaths among men and women combined in the United States? While traditionally a disease of older adults, it has crept into younger and younger age groups. There are also racial and ethnic groups that see its devastating consequences at a higher rate.  On today’s mini-episode, Dhru sits down with Dr. Elizabeth Boham to talk about why we are seeing an increase in colon-cancer incidence and mortality in young people. They discuss the risk factors and the importance of screening and early detection. They also talk about how to create a terrain in the body where cancer is less likely to grow through specific diet and lifestyle modifications.  Dr. Boham is a physician and nutritionist who practices Functional Medicine at The Ultrawellness Center in Lenox, MA. She is part of the faculty of the Institute for Functional Medicine and has been featured on the Dr. Oz show and in a variety of publications and media, including Huffington Post, The Chalkboard Magazine, and Experience Life. Her DVD Breast Wellness: Tools to Prevent and Heal from Breast Cancer explores the Functional Medicine approach to keeping your breasts and whole body well.    In this episode we dive into:   -What causes colon cancer  -Why we are seeing higher rates of colon cancer in younger people  -Testing and screening for colon cancer  -How to create an environment in the body where cancer is less likely to grow  -The important role physical activity plays in cancer prevention  -The connection between gut health and colon cancer  -Foods that support our microbiome and can lower our risk for colon cancer    Listen to the full episode here.   For more on Dr. Boham, follow her on Instagram @elizabethbohammd, Facebook @elizabethbohammd, on Twitter @drboham, and through her websites, drboham.com and ultrawellnesscenter.com. This episode is brought to you by InsideTracker and Pendulum. InsideTracker provides detailed nutrition and lifestyle guidance based on your individual needs. Right now, they’re offering my podcast community 20% off. Just go to insidetracker.com/DHRU to get your discount and try it out for yourself. Pendulum is the first company to figure out how to harness the amazing benefits of Akkermansia in a probiotic capsule. To receive 20% off your first purchase of Pendulum’s Akkermansia probiotic supplement, go to Pendulumlife.com and use code DHRU20. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, everyone, Drew Brod here with another fantastic mini episode for you. Today we're talking all things cancer. Why does cancer happen, especially colon cancer, which is one of the fastest growing cancers, especially amongst young people and people of minority background. What are the reasons and why is it happening and what can we do? We have Dr. Liz Boeum on the podcast today. Dr. Elizabeth Boehm is a medical doctor, functional medicine doctor, and nutritionist from the ultra wellness center based in Lenox, Massachusetts. And she herself is a cancer survivor, so she knows a lot about this subject. Dr. Lisboeum had breast cancer many years ago and through her learnings and knowledge of

functional medicine, nutrition, and getting to the root issue, was able to heal and now is on a mission to teach people that information, to help them at least create a better environment so that cancer is less likely to grow in the first place. On today's mini episode, we're going to cover a few different things on the topic of colon cancer, including what causes colon cancer, how to create an environment in the body where cancer is less likely to grow, the important role physical activity plays in cancer prevention, the connection between our gut health and colon cancer, and lastly, foods that support our microbiome and can lower our risk of colon cancer.

even if you don't know someone who's suffering from colon cancer and my hope is that you don't even if you don't have a history of cancer in your family cancers are on the rise and having this powerful information that's covered in our mini episode today could help protect you in the future stay tuned so before we talk about colon cancer and some of the stats and why we should really be paying attention to um this topic let's even start super basic like what is the colon and what is its function inside of the body? I feel like the colon doesn't always get the respect and the attention it deserves. Yeah, yeah.

So when we eat food, right, it goes from our mouth into our esophagus, into our stomach, where a lot of digestion starts to occur, then into your small intestine, and then into your large intestine, and then through the rectum, and then you pass the stool. So that's kind of the process of how the food moves through your body. In the small intestine, there's a lot of digestion and absorption that occurs. The large intestine, which is the colon, right? So after the small intestine, you have this colon or large intestine, where a lot of the work of the large intestine is to reabsorb water and electrolytes and to form stool.

So that's what the colon is spending a lot of time doing. And it's important to really recognize that the insulin, inside of our intestines is where we get exposed to our outside environment all the time. People think of it as, okay, the inside of the intestine is like inside your body, but it's where we're getting exposed to so many toxins, chemicals, also all of our food, of course, and nutrients from the outside world. So that's why we see cancers in the colon and in the intestines in the stomach because it's getting exposed to so many toxins from the outside world.

And when you say exposed to, can you break that down a little further so we can connect the dots? You know, we always talk about, you know, how health and disease starts in the gut. So when it's being exposed, what's happening there in that process where things are for the first time absorbing really into our body? Yeah. Yeah, so, I mean, one of the things we know about cancer is that it likes to grow in the face of inflammation. So when there is inflammation around, cancer sometimes can grow and develop. And so when there's exposure to some of the tissue in the inside of the body, right, inside the colon, there can be inflammation in there that can then cause, it can trigger damage to some.

and the body has to go and try to fix them and heal them. And sometimes it makes mistakes and cancer will grow. And right now, at least, from the current Western point of view, what are the thoughts as to why colon cancer happens? I've experimented with every eating approach in the book. I'm talking about raw foodist, vegan, vegetarian, meat eater, you name it, I've tried it. And the truth is, at first, I felt pretty good on all of them until I didn't. The common denominator for all these diets is the fact that they're all made up of mostly

whole foods and free from processed foods, which will do anybody good. But after some time has passed, I still didn't feel like I was thriving. I was dealing with some lingering gut issues, endotoxemia, and acne breakouts. Through a bunch of trial and error, I found that following one specific eating style wasn't the answer for me. And maybe it hasn't been the answer for you either. In my personal opinion, I think technology can be a critical part of the solution in helping us figure out what foods are best suited for our own unique genetic makeup.

That's why I was super excited when I heard about Inside Tracker. Inside Tracker helps take the guesswork out of living optimally and creates a nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle plan that's personalized. That's the key word personalized for you based on your blood work, DNA, and personal preferences. InsideTracker's cutting-edge technology gives you science-backed recommendations for positive changes to your daily habits. With their app, you can track your progress every day, and they even have an amazing support team to help you with all your questions. InsideTracker looks at everything from metabolic and inflammatory markers to nutrients and hormones. It even tests your cortisol levels to help you better manage stress, and you have the option to see how your inner age compares to your chronological age.

InsideTracker makes their results easy to understand and provides tips on how to use food first for optimal nutrition. And now you can even connect InsideTracker to your Apple Watch to unlock deeper, more personalized insights into your health. With real-time exercise, resting heart rate, and even sleep data synced with your InsideTracker plan, you can truly wear your health right on your sleep. Right now, InsideTrackers offering my podcast community 20% off. Just go to inside tracker.com slash DHRU. That's Drew. InsideTracker.com slash D.H.R.U to get your 20% discount code and try it for yourself. That's InsideTracker.com backslash DHRU for 20% off.

If you've been listening to my podcast for a while, you probably know that optimal metabolic health is one of my main MOs. So when I heard that Pendulum was the first ever company to harness the blood sugar balancing properties of Accomancia into a probiotic capsule, I couldn't wait to sign up for their monthly subscription. If you're not familiar with Acrimancia, let me back up a little bit because you're going to want to know about why this is the next generation of beneficial bacteria that we want in our gut microbiome. For starters, Ackermansia stimulates the natural production of GLP1, a hormone produced by the gut, which helps maintain healthy balance between insulin and glucose levels. On top of that, Ackermansia helps strengthen our gut barrier by feeding on musin, a protein that makes up our intestinal mucosal layer. The more acrimancia feeds on musin, the more our intestinal cells make, which strengthens our gut lining and promotes a healthy immune response.

If you want to get the gut healing, immune boosting, immune supporting, metabolic health benefits of acrimancia in one easy to take probiotic supplement, listen up. Because right now, Pendulum is offering my community 20% off your first purchase of their pendulum acrimancia probiotic supplement. All you have to do is go to their website, pendulumlife.com. That's pendulumlife.com and use the code Drew 20, spelled D-H-R-U-20, for 20% off your first purchase. Research has estimated that about half of all colorectal cancer is related to lifestyle. So, of course, like you mentioned before, there are genetic risks. There are some people who develop more of these growths or pre-cancerous polyps or, you know, growths inside their colon. and that is more likely to become invasive cancer.

So there are some people who have genetic risks for colorectal cancer, but a large portion, at least half, are due to lifestyle. So some of the risks we know that are related to colorectal cancer include obesity, smoking, lack of physical exercise. We can talk a little more about why that might be. A high meat diet, definitely high processed meat diet, high charbroil meat diet, high charbroil meat, eat diet, low, low vegetable diet. So we know that if we're eating more, you know, that classic, that sad American diet, right? That's standard American diet, that's sad diet, which is higher

and meat and lower and vegetables have been associated with colorectal cancer. And share with us, you know, I know you pulled up some of these stats, but I think especially with Chadwick Bozeman, you know, and how young he was. Tell us what you know about some of the stats and why this is something that especially I think, I mean, everybody should pay attention to, but why is it that, you know, young people should especially be paying attention to this? You know, it's a concern. Actually, I've personally lost a few very close people who were in their 30s and 40s to colorectal cancer. We are seeing more of it in young adults. We're seeing it in young people. About 12% of colorectal cancer cases in the U.S. are in people less than 50. And we've done

a really good job, I think, at getting the message out in terms of screening for people over 50. We definitely know like every cancer and colorectal cancers are the same. As we get older, our risk of cancer does increase. But we are seeing a much, a definite increased risk of colorectal cancer in our younger people, in people less than 50. In fact, in fact, they're saying like since 1990, there's been seeing this sort of exponential growth, 2% a year, I think, increased risk of colorecto cancers each year in people less than 50. So it is definitely a concern. And the problem, the problem is so often when we're younger, we're not thinking cancer. Doctors are often not even thinking cancer, they miss it in young people too. But the patients often, they get their stomach

pain or they have rectal bleeding and they're thinking maybe it's a hemorrhoid and they sort of push it off and don't get the screening that they maybe need to have. So unfortunately, many times with young people, by the time they get diagnosed with colorectal cancer, it's often later, it's a later stage. So they often have a higher mortality and morbidity from the, from the, from the, from the cancer. And when you look at our modern diets and especially, you know, young people these days and how much their diets have changed to, let's say, like, 100 years ago, do you see key trends? Obviously, diet is one, but lifestyle as well. Do you see key trends of certain things that you suspect, obviously while we wait for more and more research to come out? Do you have a hunch as to

why this might be increasing, especially amongst young people, besides or in addition to the the fact that it's just not being screened for early. Do you see any trends that you're sort of worried about? I mean, I think a huge trend is a lower fiber diet. So I think we've gone more and more processed food, and as a result, we're eating less and less fiber. And fiber is the undigested component of your carbohydrate foods, right? So, you know, your beans and legumes and your nuts and seeds and the whole grain portion

of grains and vegetables, right? When we're not getting enough fiber, that's a huge risk for colorectal cancer. And many, you know, there's been a lot of research to show that, probably because of there's increased transit time, which means the amount of time that it takes for food to go from when you eat it to when you poop it out, you know, the amount of time that that food stays in the system is longer when you're not eating as much fiber sometimes. and the fiber also feeds all the good microbiome, you know, all those trillions of bacteria that line our intestines. And so when we're not feeding them those healthy fibers, that's a huge risk.

And we can delve into that a little bit more. So I think a huge change in the diet has been the shift to a more processed diet, which is just lower in fiber. So fiber, fiber, fiber is like, you know, that the. take home is when you say, okay, what do I need to do? You need to just think about how do I get more fiber into my diet because you're going to, there's going to be so many things you're going to do, but it's going to also feed all that good bacteria in your gut. I also think the environment, you know, we can't just blame it on the individual, that is for sure. There is a huge shift

in our environment. We're exposed to so many more toxins and our food supply is, there's been so many antibiotics introduced into our food supply, which has definitely shifted our whole microbiome. You know, I'm sure that has created a more inflammatory system. You know, there's more inflammation in so many people's guts now that is just because of our environment as well. Absolutely. And we'll break that down further because, you know, I think the microbiome is such an important topic.

We used to just think of the colon as this depository for waste and the last place for the body but actually it's so central to taking care of these little bugs who take care of us. And if they don't get what they need, the environment can change. And we'll break that down a little further. So let's look into testing and screening. And first we'll talk about the traditional what we will define as sort of, I don't like the term Western because, but that's all we have. Let's say traditional medicine.

In traditional medicine, you mentioned screening a couple times, what are some of the ways that screening happens and things that people should be paying attention to? And then we'll start talking about sort of functional medicine, upstream things that we can start looking at years before, you know, we wait until the last result of like a traditional medicine screening for colon cancer. Right, right. I mean, I think you bring up a good point, right? We want to actually prevent colon cancer. And that's what we're going to delve into. How can we prevent this from even happening?

But screening is great for early detection because, you know, if we don't prevent it, we want to find it early. And it makes a huge difference. For myself, you know, with breast cancer, I was very lucky. It was found early. I had a lot of treatment I had to go through, but it was, you know, why I'm alive today is because it was found when it was found. So early detection is really important as well. So there's multiple ways to screen for colorectal cancer. The colonoscopy has been, is a great screening test because it's not only visualizing the colon, but if there is anything abnormal that is seen, a biopsy can occur.

So if there's an abnormal polyp, it can be removed and then sent to pathology to see if there's anything going on there. So many times people will choose colonoscopy for that reason. You can also do, you can also test the stool for blood. And so when people do testing of the stool for blood, they are usually doing that every year. You can also check the stool now for DNA, for DNA of cancer cells, which is kind of a cool test and is now approved for screening in the U.S. every three years. And is that something that people could get from their. regular doctor, would they have to be referred to, you know, gastroenterologist? How would our listeners,

you know, find that type of screening? They can ask their regular doctor and they can help them get the kit to get that done. So the issue with testing the stool for either blood or DNA is that if it's, if there's anything abnormal, then you'll have to go on for further testing. So, you know, that's the one reason why some people will choose to do a colonoscopy. And for, and for some people, colonoscopy is perfect, they can wait then 10 years to do it again. Not all of us are that lucky. I just had another one. They like to scream me a lot, as you can imagine.

And then there's also different CT scans and flexible sigmoidoscopies. Those are the general screening tools available. And remind us again of those age recommendations, right, of when people should be looking at screening. because again, if they're just big picture with all cancers, there's so many factors that are at play. And even for anybody who's listening that thinks that they're healthy, as you can hear from even Liz's story, there's a lot of healthy people who get cancer, right?

There's a lot of healthy people who get cancer because there's so many variations and things that contribute to cancer overall. There can be stress factors that are there, emotional factors, genetic factors. There can be environmental factors, you know. there's people that come to the ultra wellness center as patients who talk about growing up on a farm in Iowa where they were exposed to pesticides year round or people that have had their gut bacteria decimated through antibiotics because they had a lot of strep throat and bronchitis and other acids. So there's so many factors that can play into the soup of what creates cancer.

So that's why I do think that screening is still for anybody who thinks that, oh, I don't need to be screened. I'm healthy. I think it is still an important thing to talk about. So yes, could you remind us about the age recommendations? The U.S. Preventative Task Force Committee, which sets a lot of guidelines for what screening we should do and when for physicians, says between 50 and 75, we should be doing regular screening for colorectal cancer. After the age of 75, then you really work with your doctor determine what kind of screening

you need to continue to do. after the age of 85, often they think that much of the screening, like especially colonoscopy, the risk of the test outweighs the benefit of the test. So it's usually stopped at that point. But with some of these newer screening modalities, that may be, that may shift because there's some of these easier screening modalities for the older American. So the American Cancer Society, though, has lowered that to 45. They're recommending we should start screening at 45 for people.

And as I said, African-Americans, in general, everybody's recommending 45 as the age to start this screening. And depending on the type of screening you do, it will impact how often you have to get screened. So that, though, those, you know, maybe every year for certain tests, every three years for certain tests, and then for colonoscopy, it depends on what the results show in terms of how often you have to do it. But if everything looks good, then it's every 10 years during that period, during those 45 to 75 years. So, you know, thank God for colonoscopies and other examinations like that. And in addition to that, like colonoscopies, they're actually just looking for visual, right? They're looking for what they can visually see that is an indication of either inflammation, damage, bleeding, whatever it might be.

They're looking for visual items. And as we know, that can only go so far. So it can either tell you that something is going on or something's not going on, but there's this gray area in between, which is that something's kind of happening in the background. Inflammation can be building up in the background. The environment can be created in the background that can ultimately lead to cancer cells, you know, developing. So in functional medicine, they have a little bit more of an upstream approach when it comes to prevention. So can you talk about the difference of, you know, like exactly what upstream is and how you think of colon,

colon cancer when it comes to functional medicine and screening for it and prevention? Absolutely. So, you know, when somebody comes to see me, I'm trying, I'm working in the best of both worlds, right? We're doing the screening to detect cancer early, but we're also thinking about upstream medicine, right, which, as you said, we're looking to see how can we actually prevent this from occurring? And the way I like to think of it as how do we create a terrain in the body where cancer is less likely to grow? And we can do that. There are a lot of studies to show that we can create a terrain or a soil, so to say, in the body where we're not going to feed cancer cells. So we're going to feed, you know, cancer is less likely to grow in certain environments in the body.

We think of it as like the, you know, cancer being a seed and the soil around that seed is going to influence whether that cancer is going to grow or not. And so we can create a soil in our body or a terrain that's anti-cancer terrain, right? So, you know, of course, we've talked a lot about how what the screening recommendations are to pick up cancer early. we've talked a lot about if you have symptoms of abdominal pain, any rectal bleeding, anemia, low iron, change in your bowel habits. All of those things should trigger. I need to talk to my doctor about what screening I should do. And all of that's very important.

But we also want to say, how do we help our patients reach their optimal health? So cancer is less likely to grow in the first place. And one of the ones that you were mentioning, just even starting off there, I'm sorry to interrupt is like a huge percentage of Americans are constipated, right? Right. What is, you know, we're talking about transit time being so important. And when transit time is reduced, talk about that connection between constipation and, you know, not directly related to colon cancer, but eventually could be connected to, you know,

somebody increasing their risk of colon cancer. Yeah, I mean, think about it. You know, there's, we are putting so much stuff in our mouth every day, which it contains so many potential carcinogens, maybe toxins, whether it's pesticides or herbicides or just different inflammatory components. Our intestines, the inside of our intestines are being exposed to all these chemicals and toxins all the time. And the longer that they stay in the intestine, the more likely they are to irritate the lining, cause inflammation, trigger the start of cancer in the body. And so transit times really,

interesting thing to think about. That's one of the reasons we said fiber is so good is it helps to bind toxins and get them eliminated from the body. But in physical exercise is great too because when you're active, when you're doing more exercise and being active every day, you're more likely to have regular bowel movements. So that's important to pay attention to. Yeah, and that's not just a theory. I'm just looking here at a study that I pulled up. We'll link it in the show notes from the Journal of Physiology, acute high intensity interval exercises reduces colon cancer cell growth inside the body. And, you know, there is research that's out there talking about the power of movement.

And when you look at some of that or you've come across research, what are some of the reasons why you think movement could be impacting the growth of cells related to colon cancer? Right. So the first thing we were just talking about was transit time. It just helps food move through. And so if there were any sort of potential carcinogens in that food, it's going to help get moved through the body. Just moving the body is going to help move the body. Yep. Moving the body helps move the stool. And we know that happens. We definitely know that happens. The other reason that exercise is so critical is because it creates. It helps our body become more insulin sensitive. It helps our blood. blood sugar stay more stable. It helps our insulin work better. And we know that insulin resistance, you know, our insulin not working well, our blood sugar being high, is related to multiple different cancers, including colon cancer. So that anytime, you know, when when people are active every day, their insulin works better. So then when they eat a meal, their insulin doesn't have to go up as much. And their whole metabolism works better. They're less likely to get type

2 diabetes or even that whole insulin resistance that comes before type 2 diabetes. And so that's critical for creating that healthy terrain in your body. You know, if you keep your insulin working well, that's probably one of the best things we can do to decrease our risk of cancer, including colorectal cancers. And insulin is so key. And for anybody who's listening right after Liz's episode, the next week, we have a deep dive with Benjamin, Ph.D. researcher, all in the area of insulin. And we do like a masterclass on just that.

So such an important topic that's there. Let's talk about, you know, one of the things that they do is done by functional medicine physicians, physicians like yourself, is understanding and measuring the terrain and actually looking at the stool and doing a breakdown of the type of bacteria that are common, both good bacteria and quote unquote bad bacteria in the stool. Talk to us a little bit about the gut microbiome and colon cancer and how the bacteria play a role in that. Yeah. So, oh, there's so much to talk about here. So one of the things we like to test when I'm working with my patients is when we're looking at the stool, we can measure many different markers, as you said. So we know that we can look at all of our bacteria. And there's a lot more to learn about in this area.

but we're starting to get, start to see patterns that have an impact on somebody's health and risk of disease. One of the things we measure is a substance called butyrate. And buterate is actually a postbiotic, right? So when we eat a lot of high fiber foods, we feed, that fiber feeds our probiotics, right? All of the microbes in our gut. And what gets produced are these short chain fatty acids, one of which is buterate. And a lot of research has shown that buterate, when you have more buterate, you have a lower risk of colorectal cancer.

So butyrate has this tremendous anti-inflammatory impact on the colon. It also can help prevent, it's called apoptosis. It helps cause those cancer cells to die when they're supposed to. It lowers inflammation and buterate feeds. Think of it as the food for the epithelium. So the cells that are lining the colon. So it's kind of like the good, healthy, anti-inflammatory food for the colon. And so when we eat enough fiber, that fiber is the prebiotic, right?

and it feeds the probiotic, which are the bugs, and it produces the postbiotic, which is the buterate. And so, buterate is phenomenal for that. And the research there is really dense in terms of all of the great benefits of buterate. And that's something we can measure. So we can measure buterate in the stool, and then we can see as we change somebody's milieu or terrain, as we help them increase the amount of probiotics in their body, we can actually measure. measure in C, is that butyrate improving? Yeah, and as, yeah, it was really cool.

And as you mentioned, the research is evolving in this category. I put up here a really cool New York Times article called gut microbes combined to cause colon cancer study suggests. And the article goes on to talk about how the interplay of these specific strains of bacteria and how, again, it's the chicken and egg situation. and that's what functional medicine is a little bit better at, but in the study, finding that certain type of bacteria is present in the instance more commonly with colon cancer patients that are there.

So again, going back to this idea of the terrain and the terrain being highly modified through stress, life-delfactors, food, increased transit time, not enough fiber, all the things that you've mentioned, not enough movement, and how we could end up growing more the bacteria that we don't want, which who knows what we'll find out in the future of if that's linked to inflammation or, you know, changing the environment for certain cells that were healthy to become cancerous now. So just really fascinating what is being discovered out there with

bacteria and it's linked to colon cancer. Yeah, I mean, they can measure, they can measure the microbiome of somebody with colon cancer versus somebody without colon cancer. And they see that there's very different patterns in people with colorectal cancer. So that there's more, they've been looking at this one bug, the fusobacterium nucleotum and also bacterioreides fragilus. They've been looking at some of these bacteria that are more pro-inflammatory. They can actually cause some damage to some of the cells in the colon and actually start that process of cancer development, maybe, right? So they've been noticing that there's these

very different fingerprints, so to say, in people who have colon cancer than in people who don't. And in fact, I think that's fascinating. We also know that the breast tissue, right, we've looked at this with breast cancer too, that the microbiota, that the microbes in the breast tissue are different in women with cancer versus women without cancer. Like if they remove breast tissue for non-cancerous reasons, it has a very different pattern of body. and that that may be one of the things that's influencing the inflammation in the gut and everything from digestive issues, inflammatory bowel disease, and colorectal cancer. So we want to take care of.

We really want to take care of those good probiotics because there's also been shown, okay, this bacteria, this strain of probiotic is really healthy for us. us. This strain of probiotic can lower inflammation in the gut. This strain of probiotic helps us be healthier. And that's interesting too. So, for example, they've looked at, there's this one bacteria bifidot, bacteria, and amalus. And it's low in patients who have colorectal cancer. And so we want to do, what can we do to feed the good bugs that lower inflammation in our gut and create this more healthy terrain. Yeah.

What I love about this approach, you know, the functional medicine approach is that it often feels with all cancers, the way that we've kind of, as human beings who are doing our best, the way that we've portrayed it is that cancer is this external threat like a terrorist that's coming and invading our body and it's a battle. And we often say we have to have a war on cancer. We need to win the battle. You know, we need to march for the battle against cancer.

And obviously that's well-intentioned. But when you go deeper into some of these things you're talking about, it's actually that cancer, the more that we look at it through the lens of functional medicine starts to seem like it's more of a survival mechanism, that these are cells because the terrains, the terrain in our body has changed so radically. The toxins, the inflammation, the everything that's there, there are these cells that are becoming cancerous. Is it to attack us to make our lives miserable or is it to survive?

They're just responding to the situation and the terrain being completely out of whack. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that, you know, the amount of antibiotics that we've introduced both just for, you know, from for patients when they come in and, you know, we started using antibiotics more in like the 50s and 1950s, both. And we realized that they caused our. cows to grow bigger, faster, and stronger, right? So as a result, we wanted to make bigger cows

faster. And so we started using tons of antibiotics into our, you know, with our food supply. And of course, all the antibiotics that we started using as physicians. And as a physician, I know, you know, we weren't as careful 20 years ago. That's for sure. We were like, oh, you know, let's just throw an antibiotic on it, right? And now we're all becoming more careful. But what has happened in the interim is there's this huge shift in our microbiome. And as a result, I think we're seeing a tremendous load of diseases because of it. You know, everything from more eczema and autoimmune disease to inflammatory bowel and irritable bowel as well as colorectal cancer. I'm sure there's this whole connection that we just have to sort of tease out and try to,

how can we restore this healthy microbiome? It's true. And food is really want to, you know, stress, I would say first, right? Because I feel like even sometimes I see people who eat healthy, but they have a significant amount of stress in their life. And stress and mindset will overpower any kind of healthy attempts you try to make with food. So stress, food, movement, you know, the lifestyle factors that are there. With food, you've highlighted and put a list together of some foods that seem to be superfoods when it comes to, not just benefiting our body as a whole, but specifically our gut microbiome and taking good care of our bacteria, which seems like it would lower our risk of colon cancer, maybe even help us prevent it. Can you talk about some of these foods and their properties? Absolutely. So, you know, one superfood, right, is pomegranate. Pomegranate is rich in elagetanins.

And these are phytonutrients. So in our plant foods, we have, of course, there's vitamins. and minerals, but we also have these tremendous phytonutrients. These are these components in our plant foods that have been found to have tremendous health properties in the body. And this Alagitanin's found in pomegranate has been shown to increase the growth of this good bacteria called acrimancia. And acrimancia has been shown to lower inflammation in the gut. And actually, they've even done studies to show that when you increase acrimancia, that can help patients, do better on certain cancer therapies.

So that's kind of an interesting connection as well. So really, I always encourage people, you know, pomegranate, it's a wonderful food. Choose the seed. Seed is rich in fiber also. You can get powders of pomegranate that are rich in this phytonutrient. And if you do go for the juice,

you want to keep it 100%, you know, no sugar added, 100% pomegranate juice and keep it to a little, like a quarter cup or less a day, because you don't want to get, you know, too much sugar because that, of course, causes its whole spike in blood sugar and insulin. So that's a great superfood. And there's many others, like green tea. Green tea has been studied for a long, long time in terms of its anti-cancer properties. It's green tea contains this phytonutrient called EGG, epigalcate. So it's phenomenal. EGCG. has anti-cancerous properties because it's anti-angiogenic, meaning that it can prevent the growth of blood vessels to a cancer cell so that cancer can't grow. So it's anti-angiogenic. It also is anti-inflammatory, green tea, really high in antioxidants. And it also can epigenetically impact the tumor suppressor gene. So we've got our genes in our body, and tumor suppressor gene, as you can imagine is a good thing, right? It suppresses tumors. But you can epigenetically,

you can influence the expression of it. You can increase the expression of this tumor suppressor gene with this EGCG found in green tea. So with green tea, we're typically recommending two to four cups a day, probably four cups if you're really needing to do cancer prevention. If you need, if you don't want to drink all that green tea, there are supplements. Typically 225 milligrams of EGCG is what we're what we're often recommending. Definitely go organic whenever possible with green tea. And try, I always say to people, try different formulas. So sometimes people are like, oh, it's so bitter.

I don't like it. And, you know, sometimes that's because people pour the water they put on to see if their green tea is too hot. Or they leave it in. They leave it in too long. They leave it in too long. Exactly. Or it's just a, you know, there's lots of different forms of green tea out there.

So try different ones. Yeah, and one thing about the tea that's becoming a lot more well known is avoid the microplastics, right? Look for tea that's in a cloth, you know, unbleached bag because we don't want to get this organic, beautiful green tea in our body with all the microplastics that come from these plastic linings, which is super key to, you know, in cancer prevention. Yeah, we thought it was so cool to have these tea bags that stood up on their own or, you know, And then we're like, we're pouring hot water on this plastic tea bag. Silly, right?

Not a good move. Not a good move. So I think you were going to share another. Were you going to get into another one? Yes. Sulfuraphane is probably my favorite. It's actually a phyter nutrient that I take every day as a capsule. Sulfurifying is found in your cruciferous vegetables, especially broccoli and broccoli seeds.

So furophene is amazing. It helps the body with production of glutathione. Glutifion is like the master antioxidant and detoxifier in the body. So it helps with prevention of cancer, helps our immune system tremendously. So sulfurophane is really the key there. It also feeds the good bacteria in the gut. Like it's been shown to feed the good bacteria in the gut. And we know that people who eat like one cup of cruciferous vegetables,

every day have a better, they have less of the unhealthy bacteria in the gut and more of the healthy bacteria in the gut. Sulfiraphan also is epigenetically increases those tumor suppressor genes as well. And it's just, it's phenomenal. So it's great antioxidant capacity, really great anti-cancer properties and feeds all those good bacteria in the gut. So think of all of your plant foods as the prebiotics that feed the probiotics. So they feed it both because of these polyphenols or these phytonutrients in the plant foods and they also feed it because of all the fiber. Yeah, absolutely.

There's a play a huge role in that process of maintaining that good terrain that you were talking about. There's a few others that you didn't get a chance to touch on and maybe I'll just mention them and you can just rapid fire like give us the top line, you know, around them. Let's talk about curcumin. Oh, curcumin's amazing, right? It's found in your turmeric, and it's really anti-inflammatory. It's got a lot of anti-inflammatory properties in it. It's been shown to decrease polyp production or those pre-cancer polyps in the intestines in mice. So it's been shown to stop the growth of those polyps or cancers in mice. And it's, as we've known forever,

it's got a lot of anti-inflammatory properties. And as we've said before, cancer likes to grow in the face of inflammation. So we're always working to create a terrain where there's lower inflammation in the body. That's amazing. Let's talk about quercetin. You know, it's a name that some people have heard of, but they don't really maybe know what it is or what it does in the body and where you find it. Yeah, corsotin is, you know, we've been talking a lot about quercetin recently because

there's been some interesting research in terms of quercetin having a benefit with COVID-19. So people who have get COVID-19 have, you know, don't get as sick maybe if they have more quercetin in their system. So there's been a lot of research looking at that. It has a lot of anti-inflammatory properties as well. It's a natural antihistamine. But you can take it as a supplement. A lot of people take quercetin as a supplement anywhere. from 500 to 3,000 a day is typical doses, but you also find it in a lot of your plant foods,

berries, capers, onions, apple peel, you know, it's in a lot of our fruits and vegetables. So there's so much there, but I feel like the one that in it, we always get excited about superfoods, but it's really the day-to-day fiber that plays the biggest impact overall. And yes, you know, I think pomegranates, all these things are great. And we should be looking at ways to variety of them. They're not just going to help us when it comes to reducing our risk of colon cancer. They're going to help us with all aspects. A lot of the foods that you mentioned are great for the brain.

They're great for, you know, you mentioned COVID-19, you know, and reducing our risk for that. Let's come back to fiber. You know, sometimes fiber seems people feel like that have it all figured out. And on a practical level, are there amounts in terms of either grams or serving sizes that you try to hit for fiber every day, especially as somebody who has faced a battle with, you know, cancer in the past. What is, what do you try to shoot for and what do you tell your patients? Yeah, so with fiber, we always want people to get at least 35 grams of fiber a day. But sometimes people are like, well, what does that mean?

You know, what does that mean? So we kind of go over, okay, what is fiber? So, you know, what foods are rich in fiber? Beans and legumes are really rich in fiber. Of course, whole grains are rich in fiber. Ground flaxseed is a wonderful fiber source, also rich in omega-3 fats. Nuts and seeds are rich in fiber. And all of your vegetables and fruits are rich in fiber.

So what we work on, we work on with people, is getting more plant foods into their day. So another way that you can think about it is you want eight to 12 servings of those phytonutrients in your day. So eight to 12 servings of the vegetables, fruits, spices, and teas. Those are those, all those phytonutrients. We always say to people, eat from the rainbow. I always say, eat from the rainbow, meaning that you want to get something that's red in color, naturally, something that's orange, yellow, blue, green, white and tan, you know, every day, something from every color of the rainbow.

And variety is great. This is a way that you can ensure that you're getting. getting a lot of these different diverse phytonutrients in your diet and lots of fiber. So the other thing I talk to people a lot about is protein. Because, and people get, you know, have a lot of questions around protein and cancer. Because it's, there's a lot of interesting research there on both sides. What we do know is that too much meat in the diet, you know, too much, a red meat has been associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer, especially the processed red meat, right,

and especially the charbroiled red meat. It has this heteroselic amine that occurs when the meat is cooked at a really high temperature, really fast, and it gets charbroiled. It shifts in a way that it becomes a carcinogen. And so I don't typically recommend that my patients go vegan or need to go vegan or vegetarian if they don't want to, or I often don't even recommend it. But I definitely want them to decrease animal protein and increase some of their vegetable proteins because this is a great way to get more fiber, first of all, because all your beans and legumes and nuts and seeds, right? They are your fiber-rich foods that are also good in protein.

So it's a way to get more fiber in your diet and to sort of substitute some of that animal protein with some of the vegetable proteins. Vegetable proteins are wonderful. They really should be it. So I try to help people work toward a balance where they're getting some animal protein and some vegetable protein every day. And so, you know. And one question or comment on that.

I think there's also questions about quality when it's come to some of those studies. Because, you know, people who are probably eating, there's the, as Dr. Hyman talks a lot about, there's the healthy user effect, right? People who are eating a lot of red meat also maybe more likely to be doing other habits that are there, right? So is it more red meat or is it just the absence of fiber that's been there or they're not actually the quality? They're not eating grass fed without eating pasture raised chickens or, you know, lamb and other sources like that. You bring up a great point, Drew. And I don't recommend, I don't think that most people have to stop eating red meat.

That's for sure. I eat red meat. I enjoy good quality grass-fed, grass-finished red meat, you know. But I like having it with, you know, I also love having a lot of vegetable protein, too, and having that nice balance because then you're not overdoing it about one thing. And you're getting, you're getting some benefits from each of them. Yeah. And I think the other point that you bring up that's worth touching on is the char broiling of any foods. It meats, vegetables.

Anytime you make something look like coal and you get all that carbonization on the outside, we know that all those things are going to be more likely to be carcinogenic. And so you've seen even this movement, even amongst people that are doing the carnivore diet, where they recommend, you know, trying to go towards situations that don't increase that charboiling, like using a suave, right, a suvi, using a suvi to cook. foods, you know, slow cooking foods, as our ancestors, you know, all did to reduce the likelihood that our food is going to become carcinogenic through the cooking process. Absolutely. You know, the one thing that concerns me around with the suvi is just the plastic. So often that, you know, it's getting cooked in plastic. And I'm like, well, that's, we know is not good.

So, you know, I know there's ways to do it without cooking it in plastic. Right. You could do it in glass or you can do it in silicone, which is not that much better than. plastic that's out there. But like you said, you know, you're just trying to balance out and try to figure out the right, you know, components that are there for you. That's an important point, Drew, because, you know, so often people come to me, and I know this, just being a cancer survivor myself, is it's overwhelming. You just look at the world around you and you go, oh, no, there's toxins everywhere and I don't know what to eat and this has mercury and this is,

this has, you know, this toxin and this has this toxin. And I think it's important to try to just do the best you can all the time and reach for lots of different diversity and healthy whole foods. And because you can, you can sometimes drive yourself nuts with all this stuff, right?