Cancer & Inflammation - 020

SPEAKER A The following program presents principles designed to promote good health and is not intended to take the place of personalized, professional care. The opinions and ideas expressed are those of the speakers. Viewers are encouraged to draw their own conclusions about the information presented. SPEAKER B Welcome to healthy living. I'm your host, Margot Marshall. What does a stubbed toe or a splinter in the finger have to do with your risk of Alzheimer's disease, s, heart attack, or cancer? More than you might think. Scientists are starting to see links to an age old defense mechanism called inflammation. So stay tuned. SPEAKER C Healthy Living is a 13 part production of 3ABN Australia television focusing on the health of the whole person, body, mind, and spirit. You'll learn natural lifestyle principles with practical health solutions for overall good health. SPEAKER B Of short duration can be your best friend. But uncontrolled inflammation plays a role in almost every major disease. And here to tell us about inflammation is my guest, Dr. Eddie Ramirez. Welcome, Eddie. SPEAKER D Thank you. SPEAKER B Lovely to have you on the program. This is a fascinating subject, and it's something I'd like to understand better than I do. So I'm looking forward to what you have to tell us about this. SPEAKER D Yeah, as I always tell my know in the top three things that you need to know, I want you to understand inflammation because, as you correctly said it, many of the common diseases such as heart disease and Alzheimer's and many more, are directly linked to inflammation. So we need to understand what inflammation is. Inflammation is basically a response mechanism of the body that responds when there are certain injuries or problems happening on the body. For example, let me give you this illustration. Suppose that you poked yourself with a torn. SPEAKER B I've done that quite recently, so I. SPEAKER D Know that I imagine somebody must have done that in the past. So what the body does, it knows there is an injury happening there. So inflammation what it does, it calls the mechanisms of repair to come and aid in repairing that area. So in that way, the body knows that there may be some pathogens there. As the torn cross the protection layers of the skin pathogens go inside. The body knows that it needs to send something to stop them. So the immune system goes there. And there are some classic symptoms of inflammation that even all the way from the time of the Romans. The physicians back then saw those four symptoms, and we can see them on screen. You feel the area, it feels hot, it's painful, it becomes red, it becomes swollen. SPEAKER B I know all of that when it comes to pricking my finger or some other injury, I've seen that. But what's the connection between that and, say, heart disease or brain problems? That's what I don't get. SPEAKER D Absolutely. Very good question. So that mechanism of defense is saying something is not right here. I need help. All the mechanisms of the body go and help. So when this is happening in an acute state, just within a short period of time, this is actually a big blessing. See, if you didn't have this mechanism, you could actually died of a torn pricking. You yes. Why? Well, the bacteria would start reproducing and suddenly you would be full of bacteria and you would literally die of a torn picking you and that used to. SPEAKER B Happen that used to happen before the antibiotics? SPEAKER D Yes, that used to happen before we had antibiotics and so forth. But still the mechanisms of the body would stop a lot of it. So what's the link between that and those current modern diseases? Well, a physician back in the 18 hundreds by the name of Bertrove he's a German physician, he started putting the pieces together and he realized that many people were having chronic inflammation. And when that inflammation becomes chronic, many times those four symptoms that we mentioned, they disappear. The person doesn't even know that this is happening to them and suddenly different problems start to come about. How do we know that? Because now with our modern understanding of biochemistry and pathology, we can trace those problems to problems of chronic inflammation. And, you know, this is something I face in the clinical practice. SPEAKER B So chronic is something that just goes on and on. SPEAKER D That's right. You don't resolve that inflammation. So, for example, I see this in the clinical practice. A patient comes there, I go ahead and take some blood tests and I check and I see that there are things there that don't look good. And I tell the patient, you know, I would like you to do a few lifestyle changes. Some of the patients say, lifestyle changes? Why do I need to change? I'm doing good. I don't need any change. They don't realize that inflammation is active inside of them and that is extremely harmful. And there's some interesting studies that have been done with populations in which we can see rates of disease. For example, there was a very interesting study done a few years ago in which they were having different groups of people. They had Japanese that live in Japan, they had Japanese that moved to Hawaii. Hawaii is part of America. And they had also the Americans per se, the Caucasian. They were comparing these three groups. And I want you to go and see that screen and you can see how similar those different cancers in the different populations are. Please notice how the Japanese that live in Hawaii and the Caucasians in Hawaii, you can see that the cancers are very similar in their rate. The only one that changes there, you can see is the cancer of the esophagus and the cancer of the stomach. And that has to do with their consumption of smoke products. Okay, when you eat smoked fish smoke, things are carcinogenic. And in a minute we'll talk a little bit more about that. But can you see the big change that happened from the one that lives in Japan to the one that came to Hawaii. The reason why this happened is because many of the habits that they acquire in that new country were inflammatory. So, point number one, understand that inflammation many times can be silent, especially the chronic inflammation. It's like the thorn that it picks you. You quickly know something is not right there. And that's why Time magazine run a whole issue about it. And Time magazine put a fascinating title, it calls it the Silent Killer. And it's know. SPEAKER B So it's there in the body for a long time, and you don't even know that it's there. SPEAKER D Well, it's not that it's in the body, but your habits are actually encouraging the growth of it. I like to use the following illustration. Think of inflammation like, know, in the winter in Australia, to have some nice warmth is actually welcome because it can get cold here in Australia. SPEAKER B Oh, yes. SPEAKER D So you have a fireplace. Some of you have a fireplace. And that's fantastic to have a fireplace sit down in front of it, get that nice heat. But what happens if the fire starts coming out of the fireplace and those flames start invading outside of your home? Is that good or is that bad? SPEAKER B I would say not good. SPEAKER D You can end up in disaster if this happened. Or the second illustration I like to use like a stove. Imagine a stove. Stove. The nice thing about a stove, compared to a fireplace to cook, is that you have the ability to control the amount of heat that is being generated. So you can adjust yeah, it's too much, too little. It's a fantastic invention. But what happens if that heat that is supposed to be contained to the stove starts going out of control, starts hitting the food flame, starts coming out of the food, or the oil disaster comes about? So the key with inflammation is that it can be very good for you because you stop a pathogen, for example, the thorn example. But it can also be bad for you if your habits are inflammatory. SPEAKER B Okay, so what are the sources? What are these sources of inflammation? SPEAKER D That is an excellent question. Let me share with you a few. There's many, but let me share with you a few of those important sources. One of them has to do with sunlight. If you get too much sunlight, it is inflammatory. Now, let me ask you, if you have gotten more sun than when you shoot, what color does your skin becomes? SPEAKER B Oh, it goes red. SPEAKER D Okay. Remember the symptoms of inflammation. Let me repeat them. You have the heat, you have the pain, you have the growth, and you have the redness. SPEAKER B Okay? SPEAKER D Ding. Some people are saying, okay, I can see the connection. So when you have too much sun, your skin becomes red. See, you can quickly put there the two by two together. So people, for example, that day by day, excess sunlight. Excess sunlight, that can be harmful. Another source of inflammation, cigarette smoking. And in a minute, we'll talk more about it. Also, alcohol. Very inflammatory. Every time you drink alcohol, it is inflammatory. A study just came in just a couple of weeks ago demonstrating how inflammation and alcohol intake is directly related. If you want to go and read the paper, visit my Twitter, evie RDMD. You can see the copy of the paper. Also, another source of inflammation, animal product intake. Animal products are very inflammatory. And another source of inflammation is having excess weight. If you have more weight than what you should, that actually creates inflammation. Now, I don't want you to worry if you have a few kilos extra. What I want you to do, I want you to get yourself on a plan to start losing weight. And this is the beauty of this. As soon as you start losing weight, your inflammation in your body decreases. Let me share a couple of more sources. Yes, go ahead. SPEAKER B So you start to get the benefit straight away. SPEAKER D Immediately, as you start losing the weight, the inflammation in the body decreases. That's why somebody that has a problem with their weight, we know very well there is many different types of cancer that that person has the risk of getting because of that link of chronic inflammation. SPEAKER B Can I just tell you one thing about my one effort to smoke? SPEAKER D Yes. SPEAKER B I was a little kid, I don't really remember how old, maybe eight or something like that. So my sister and I decided we would have a smoke, but we couldn't get our hands on any, so we had to improvise. And all we could find to improvise was some paper straws. The fire wasn't a problem. We had a wood fire, like you were just saying. So my older sister was very gracious, and she said, you go first. I went first. And so I put this thing in the fire, and it made quite a big flame at the end, and it started to burn down fairly quickly. And I thought, well, I better be quick here. So I did what I'd seen people do, and I drew back heavily, and that flame went down the straw and down my throat. And I could hardly oh, it was a while before I could speak. And when I did, I said to Olga, well, it's your turn now. And she wouldn't do. That was, fortunately, on the time I was a few years older. I had enough sense to think, I don't think it's a good idea at all. I never did, actually. SPEAKER D I'm glad you learned your lesson early. SPEAKER B Stayed with me for quite a while. SPEAKER D Other sources of inflammation virus and bacteria. For example, papillomavirus, something very common today. Unfortunately, studies show that, for example, in high schools today, here in Australia, three quarters of the young people have the Papillomavirus. How did they got it? Sexually transmitted virus. And you know, these people have a huge risk for male and female related cancers later on in the future. And even though there is a vaccination that has been used nowadays that only covers a few of the subtypes, there are more than 100 different types of subtypes of Papillomavirus. So your choices can interfere with this. Also another source of inflammation could be pollution. So be careful on exposing yourself to pollutants. And another very important one that you have a lot of control on, it has to do with your emotional state. SPEAKER B Okay? SPEAKER D If you are somebody under lots of stress, lots of anxiety, these type of situations, that mental stress by itself is a very important source of inflammation. So what I would advise you is take hold of spiritual resources. Sometimes we're in problems that makes us feel overwhelmed or that we cannot go ahead. Well, take advantage of those spiritual resources. One of the things that have been actually proven in the scientific literature to deal with stress has to do with prayer. When you pray, you're actually having an outlet for that stress to go out from your system. So be very diligent at trying to incorporate. SPEAKER B I actually read a study one time and they found that people who prayed and meditated for ten minutes twice a day significantly lower their blood pressure. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B Just beautiful. SPEAKER D So there's a very good connection with. SPEAKER B Our mind and our body and our soul, all of that. They're all very interconnected. And so what works for one works for the other. For good or for bad, unfortunately. So yes, and I love the stuff you've been telling us, the sources and the problems. Because when you stop and really think about some of those things that you've said that can cause inflammation, they're all pretty much common sense, but not that common, unfortunately. So go on. SPEAKER D So my goal is for you to try to find sources of inflammation in your lifestyle. Identify them, and as soon as you find them, then stop them. There was a fascinating study that was done a couple of years ago in which they had two groups of people. One group, well, both groups were fasting overnight. One group was just drinking water in the morning. The other group ate typical things that actually are being used commonly here in Australia. Their breakfast consisted of white bread, cheese, egg and fried potatoes. That was the breakfast that they eat. SPEAKER B And I think they got that on their way to work. SPEAKER D Probably on the way to work in a hurry. SPEAKER B It doesn't sound like a home one. SPEAKER D So there is in the body a special marker of inflammation that sounds complicated, but it's simple. It is called NF Capabeta. Basically what this long name means. It means that this is the main switch of inflammation. That's what our current understanding is as you go to your home and it's dark and you turn on the light and the light goes on. Same thing happens with inflammation when you have NF capabeta active on, we know inflammation in the body is happening. So we can see in the screen the results of this study. If you can see on the left side, you see a line that starts going up, and you can see time. One, two, three. Can you identify that? And then you see a bottom line that stays more or less flat. Okay. Yes, the line that stayed more or less flat. SPEAKER B Let me guess. Let me guess. That's probably going to be the people who just drank the water. SPEAKER D Absolutely. All right, so no inflammation in the body happened, but as soon as you ate that inflammatory breakfast, immediately inflammation showed up in your body. And this is the issue. SPEAKER B Now, can I just say this, that's when you eat something that's not a. SPEAKER D Good choice, that's when you eat inflammatory food. SPEAKER B Sure. But if someone ate a wholesome breakfast, that wouldn't happen. SPEAKER D That inflammation wouldn't go up at all. So this is the issue. See, if you were to eat this inflammatory food on sausage, I forgot to add there was sausage there also. SPEAKER B They've got a sausage egg and a white bun and some cheese. SPEAKER D That's right, some cheese. And some potatoes. Fried potatoes. SPEAKER B Fried potatoes. And so the fat would be bad thing there, too. SPEAKER D The fact that you fried the potato could be problematic. SPEAKER B So are you saying all of those elements of that meal are all inflammatory? SPEAKER D The potatoes actually wouldn't be that inflammatory a little bit with the frying, but the rest of the other food groups will be inflammatory. So let me tell you this. If you were to eat this once a year, nothing is going to happen to you. Inflammation is going to go up, and then after a few hours, it's going to come down. Everything happy. But there are people that eat inflammatory breakfast, inflammatory lunch, inflammatory supper. Man, you are putting petrol and petrol to the fire. Sooner or later, the flames are going to go out of that oven. And believe me, disaster is going to happen. SPEAKER B You missed out something. You missed out what they have in between. Because let me tell you, it doesn't matter what time of day you see people, there's something going in there. And it's all those kinds of things that you're talking about, the things that we know. I mean, we know that there are things that are good for us. So I see what you're saying. It's really just fueling the fire in an ongoing way. SPEAKER D Let me tell you the potential of inflammation of certain foods. There was also another study published in the journal Nature, and in this journal, they were trying to see how much inflammation is there. If you eat Charles Broyle steak, we can see that on screen. A Charles Broil steak, a kilo of it. When you eat that it has the cancer causing equivalent as smoking. 600 cigarettes. SPEAKER B 600. SPEAKER D 600 cigarettes. SPEAKER B One steak, one child grilled steak, one. SPEAKER D Child grill kilo of this. So can you see the potential of inflammation? This and what disaster this is happening? This is like putting filling your fireplace to the very top with fuel and wood. Man, that fire is going to start coming out. The issue is here, animal products and this is what happens. SPEAKER B Yes, I was just going to say to you what would be the major ones. You've mentioned quite a few sources of inflammation, but which would be the ones that are high on the list. SPEAKER D That's right. So animal products would be foods that are very inflammatory. And this is the reason why. It also has to do with the fact how you are cooking these foods. SPEAKER B Okay. SPEAKER D So if you are cooking these foods with things like char broil or frying it, see, vegetables have antiinflammatory agents in them. SPEAKER B Wow. SPEAKER D So when you're putting, let's say broccoli on the grill, as damage has been happening to the broccoli, the antiinflammatory agents are stopping the inflammation. When you're frying something that's a little bit worse, you do create some inflammation there in the vegetable product. So the best thing is actually not to fry your vegetables. Little bit of oil in the oven, it's fine. But frying them, that creates other cancer causing substances. You want to avoid that. But see, meat doesn't have anti inflammatory agents. Many people think that meat is a complete food. It's actually a very deficient food. It's only concentrated protein, no good source of carbohydrate, no good vitamins, no anti inflammatory agents. So people would like to take appeal for this. And you know, pharmaceutical companies have invested millions of dollars to try to come about with a pill to stop inflammation. I have bad news for you. It's not going to happen. See, we have found out that what we need is to run to the farmers market. That's where we're going to find the farmers market. SPEAKER B Not the pharmacy. SPEAKER D Not the pharmacy or the chemist. That's right. That's where we're going to find those sources of antiinflammatory. That's where going to find distinguisher. As we were talking about fire, we need extinguisher. SPEAKER B Let's hear about the fire extinguishers. This is what we need to take away from this. SPEAKER D So I want you to eat the whole rainbow. There are people that eat a banana a day and they say, oh, I ate my fruit for today. Please don't deceive yourself. There are dozens and hundreds of different types of fruits. In fact, you guys are blessed here in Australia with all these ethnic people immigrating to your country. They have brought all their vegetables and fruits. Some people look at them and say they put only a bad face. Don't be that kind. I want you to go and find on the internet how to use them. So I want you to use the whole rainbow. I tell my patients. So there are fruits and vegetables that are white, yellow, orange, purple, blue, black, the whole rainbow you have to eat. There are more than 3000 substances that help fight problems of inflammation that have been documented in fruits and vegetables. So if you wanted to take this in a pill format, imagine taking 3000 pills to have these agents. SPEAKER B Imagine paying for them too, and paying for them. SPEAKER D That's right. So yes, some people are going to try to come and try to sell you this exotic berry from South America and so forth. Don't do that. One last graphic I want to show you is how cigarettes are inflammatory. One cigarette will create inflammation for more than a day. You can see the little light turned on within half an hour of smoking. And the smoker doesn't smoke one cigarette, it smokes many more. So you want to avoid inflammation, no smoking, plant based diet, exercise and peace within will give you a nice long life. SPEAKER B Well, that's beautiful. That's a really good wrap up. And so I hope that we'll all be able to take that on board and at least some I mean, sometimes we hear a lot of things that cut across our lifestyle and we think that's a lot to take on board. So at least if we make some steps, move towards a plant based diet and look at opportunities to be able to just come into line because for some people they can do it very quickly and others, well, at least it's definitely worth taking some steps. So as lovely to have you with our viewing company today and your listening company. Our goal is to support you on your journey through life and we hope that that's been happening today and we trust it's been very beneficial to you or to someone that you love. Remember, you can watch our programs on demand. Just visit 3abnaustralia.org.au Click on the watch button and you can see them at any time. God bless you. Lovely to have you with us. SPEAKER C You’ve been listening to a production of 3ABN Australia television.