an emergency landing at a nearby place. we bet you have never seen anything like this before. this is a cat. you see him there, right? he was caught by prison guards in brazil and discovered trying to enter the prison with saws, drills, batteries and a cell phone all taped to his little body. guards intercepted the feline felon before it could make its way inside. officials say they don't know who the intended recipient was and that all 250 inmates are suspects. pretty darn clirve. a feline felon. cnn sunday morning continues at the opof ttop of the hour. dr. sanjay gupta says what a father's helping a brain injury using fish oil.

hello and thanks for watching. the new year is here. a new chance to do things right. you know, i watched the doctor make this case that sugar is basically toxic. i want to talk about that today. he brings some new advice on what to eat. also, deepak chopra is here with tips how to distress and how to be happier. and how to keep a new year's resolution. here we go. ♪ we're going to get to all of that, but first, every year, about 1.7 million people in the united states suffer a traumatic brain injury. sports, from falls, car accidents. i see it every day in my line of work. and in severe cases, i can tell

you, there is no drug, there is no pill that offers any help. but i'm about to tell but two dramatic cases of crippling brain damage that may have been reversed. how? by simply using fish oil. bobby's story begins almost three years ago, with a phone call. >> toughest call that any parents can get. >> it's about your son. there's been an accident. come quick. >> i told my younger brother to hold his hand until i get there. >> bobby's car had careened off a dark and winding road. paramedics assessed the wreckage and body. >> when i'm looking at the reports, they report a glasscow

coma score of 3. a brick or a piece of wood has a coma score of 3. it's dead. and somehow the paramedics miraculously managed to revive this kid. >> this was the scene. when his parents finally arrived to bobby's bedside. >> we realized that he could be going any time. >> there had been so much bleeding within the brain. his skull could not contain the swelling. every part of his brain was affected. but peter and marjon shrugged off the horror of the situation to fight. >> our motto during the whole time that he was in coma, you fight your way and you come back to us. >> little did they know that that fight would link them to the sole survivor of an infamous mining disaster. >> tonight, 13 coal miners trapped nearly two miles inside

a west virginia mine. >> a few years before bobby's car barrelled off that road, 13 miners huddled together after an explosion. as deadly carbon monoxide crept into the air space around them. 41 hours later -- >> the only confirmed survivor is randall l. mccloy jr. >> dr. julian bales was randy mccloy's neurosurgeon. >> he had methane poisoning. he was in liver failure, kidney failure, had a collapsed lung. >> mccloy's body somehow recovered. the question was, could his brain do the same? can you quantify the likelihood that someone like a randall mccloy would recover, that he would have a meaningful neurological recovery? >> we felt, and i think everything since then supports the fact that he was truly a long shot. >> but bales was concocting an unorthodox plan to try and save randy mccloy's brain. high doses of omega 3 fatty

acids. fish oil. >> so the concept was then trying to rebuild his brain with what it was made from when he was an embryo in his mother's womb. >> rebuild his brain. >> yes. we gave him a very high, unprecedented dose to make sure we saturated and got high levels in the brain. >> had that ever been done before, to your knowledge? >> no, it had not. >> bales was going out on a limb. but he had a hunch. in other studies, omega 3 seemed to restore balance in the brain, helping some patients with depression or suicidal thoughts. could an injured brain be similarly restored? and if so, how? >> if you have a brick wall and it gets damaged, wouldn't you want to use bricks to repair the wall? and omega 3 fatty acids are literally the bricks of the cell wall in the brain. >> during a traumatic brain injury, the brain swells, and nerve cells stop communicating, and die. omega 3 fatty acids, the theory goes, can rebuild damaged nerve

cells, reduce inflammation, keep those brain cells from dying. the problem, few human studies had proven this theory. ten days after his accident, bobby was still in a coma. >> if he ever comes out of the coma, we don't know what kind of shape he's going to be in. and it was really hard to hear that, okay, he lived. he survived, and then now what? >> so they saved his life. but we don't have anything that helps from that point forward. >> and i would love to have you on the show. >> dr. michael lewis, a former army colonel and omega 3 researcher, believes fish oil could be the missing link. >> ultimately, we need to get it in the scientific literature by doing the good science and the studies to prove it. >> after bobby's accident, he got a desperate call from peter ghassimi, and after some explaining, asked him. >> what do you think about the idea of using high-dose fish oil

like julian bales used with randy mccloy? [ applause ] the carbon monoxide level was really high. and i have no explanation of how i escaped it. >> but mccloy, whose remarkable recovery is well-known, was just one case. and it remains unclear whether omega 3 was truly the key. the next hurdle for ghassimi, convincing bobby's doctors. >> it was a fight. they didn't believe, and they said fine, the west virginia miner was one case. i need 1,000 cases to be proven for me before i can give this to your son. >> he literally had to lay down in the middle of the floor and throw a tantrum until they started to put the -- put it down his child's feeding tube. >> the tantrum worked. in two weeks after starting his fish oil regimen, bobby ghassimi, case study number two,

began to emerge from his coma. >> woo! >> about two months after that, he attended his high school graduation. >> they all stood up and were screaming and cheering my name. i took my graduation cap off and waved it around. >> the common denominators for ghassimi and mccloy, devastating brain injuries and then omega 3 fish oil. but did the omega 3 hasten their recovery? for now, we do not know. >> i absolutely believe that it made a huge difference in bobby's recovery. >> after treating bobby ghassimi and randall mccloy, the coal min miner, they both became paid consultants to fish oil companies. but since then they have seen other cases where this treatment has helped. it is fascinating stuff. but it does need to be said, this is still very early.

we're going to need large-scale clinical studies to see if these benefits can be reproduced. coming up, dr. robert lustig and how to eat better and why calories are not created equal. this was the hole my waist was on. but since i've been on alli, am i on this one? nope. am i on this one? no, no, no, no, no. i am on this one. [ male announcer ] for every 2 pounds you lose through diet and exercise alli can help you lose one more by blocking some of the fat you eat. simple. effective. belt-friendly. let's fight fat with alli. learn more, lose more at letsfightfat.com.

>> i think i speak for almost everybody. if it's in front of me, i eat it. i love cheesits. if you put a bowl in front of me, i would probably eat them all. that was one of my favorite interviews, mayor bloomberg of new york. not immune, apparently, to temptation. this time of year, a lot of us vow to eat right but we don't have a plan. and it is tough. i try and keep it simple, try and focus on things that are easy to remember and support these things with real evidence. i'll tell you, one man who really opened my eyes is dr. robert lustig. >> i hope i will have debunked the last 30 years of nutrition information in america. >> this simple lecture by professor robert lustig of the university of california-san francisco has been viewed nearly 3 million times. the basic message, sugar is toxic. at least in the massive amounts most of us eat it. >> can your liver handle it, and

the answer is, no it can't. >> the average american eats 130 pounds of sugar in a single year. that includes the white stuff. but in case you're curious, also the high fructose corn syrup. lustig says for most people it makes no difference. of course, the sugar growers and the corn growers say sugar is like anything else. fine. in moderation. and that's true. but it's not the whole story. and now dr. robert lustig joins us. he's written a new book. in his spare time. it's called "fat chance: beating the odds against sugar, processed foods, obesity and disease." with regard to sugar, and you've talked about the fact that sugar, sweets and stuff, can be bad for your heart. it can ultimately get turned into this very bad sort of cholesterol particles. what happens? you think of fatty foods doing that. but a sugary drink? >> right. the problem is that people think

that sugar is a carbohydrate. the glucose part is a carbohydrate and it can go to liver, starch or glycotion. and that can be fished out of the liver for a rainy day on the gridiron. that's the ready energy source. but fructose, sweet part of the sugar, the molecule we seek, the reason why everybody likes sugar, that does not get turned into glycogen. it gets turned into liver fat. and now one-third of america has nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, a disease that wasn't even described until 1980. it is the biggest epidemic in the history of the world. >> it's -- and it's stunning to think about. and again, i think more people need to hear that particular message. the history of it, as well. but sugar, it's not just the amount of sugar, but it's the rate at which it's absorbed in the body. you really talk about these sugary drinks as opposed to a piece of fruit, for example. which also has sugar in it.

>> the reason fiber is so important -- the reason to eat your sugar as whole fruit and not as fruit juice, not as smoothies, is because the fiber helps reduce the rate of absorption from the gut into the bloodstream. when you juice it, it's all going to you and your liver gets overwhelmed and you get sick. >> so what do you do? >> well, i think the government has to get involved. the problem is, government doesn't want to get involved. because there's money involved. >> right now, what do you do? how do you eat? >> very simple. i tell my kids that if they see something advertised on tv, that means they're not to eat it. because that's -- advertising is for something you don't want and don't need. because if you wanted it or needed it, they wouldn't have to advertise it. >> you've told me before, eat real food. >> eat real food, exactly. my kids know, if there is something sweet, it's a piece of fruit, they can have a treat once a week on a weekend, that's just fine. okay. but we plan for it. we make it special. and, of course, no soda or juice. >> just really quickly, there's

obviously a lot of books out there about nutrition, about diet. you've read them, you know these authors. how is your book different? >> what i try to do is i try to make peace. every diet book espouses a diet. i don't. because there are a lot of diets that work. there's the paleo diet, the atkins diet, the ornish diet, the glycemic index diet, the south beach diet. they all work, except for one thing. they don't. and the reason they don't work is because after two months, every diet regresses. christopher gardner at stanford showed this nicely in his a to z study. bottom line, we can't stay on a diet and the reason is because of what's available. no one can stay on a diet. the question is, what's wrong with the western diet? and when you answer that question, you see what all of these diets actually share in common, they share two things. low sugar, high fiber. and low sugar, high fiber is called real food. >> i love that.

you've told me this before. i've adopted it in my own lifestyle, feel healthier as a result. eat real food. great to see you. thank you. next up, deepak chopra stops by to talk about how to reduce stress. also a trick to improve your memory, something i'm using in my own life now.

how would you like to have a user's manual for your brain? seriously, who

seriously, who wouldn't with a this, a way to train your brain to cooperate? earlier i spoke with deepak chopra and we spoke about perceptions and reality. >> even the perception of a simple object can be wildly different. >> and if you change your perception of time, for example, you slow down your experience of time, your biological clock is influenced by, that so if you're running out of time, and your mental dialogue, internal dialogue is i'm running out of time, your biological clock actually speeds up. you have a higher blood pressure and platelets with high levels of adrenaline and when you suddenly drop dead of a heart attack, then you've run out of time so if you have all the time in the world. a mental attitude. i'm still going to make my flight this morning, but right now i'm with you. >> you made one comment in the book that i paid attention to as a journalist is attaching emotion to something is going to make it behave differently in the brain. >> yes.

the more you attach emotions and healthy emotions are love, joy, compassion, empathy, equanimity. in eastern traditions these are called divine emotions because they move you out of your skin-encapsulated ego and connect you with the world so these are very healthy emotions. >> if europe teaching a child, even the concepts they learn in grade school, not the most exciting, but should emotion, either through story telling or otherwise, be part of the way kids are taught? >> story telling, stories of great heros, heroines, mystery, mythology, religion, which we grew up with. you know, these were part of our culture, and somehow, you know, because we're living in this very highly technological society, story telling is not getting the importance it should get. >> right. >> and this idea of attaching emotion even to, you know, math, god forbid. >> to math, music, emotion. >> right. >> to anything. also it's important to parcel

out time, so, you know, the critical brain cannot multitask. your automatic brain can, but your cortical brain can't, it's a myth. do one thing at a time with focused attention. there's work time, sleep time. >> you are saying i shouldn't be looking at my blackberry when i'm talking to my wife. >> no. >> no for a lot of different reasons. >> doing neither. >> that's what she says as well. >> something i thought interesting and very specific was i love to make lists. i make lists if i go to the grocery store and things like that, and i'm very dependant on those lists. you say that's not such a good idea? >> yeah, because, again, those who have very good memories, they connect those lists with images in the brain, or with emotions, and that's -- you know, that's a good photographic memory. >> you told a story of a guy in there, had a pretty good memory and started making lists and found when he forgot the list he

couldn't remember anything. >> yeah. >> so it was almost a case that our brains become dependant on things. >> yes. >> and you also call these -- the stuckness or the mental groove in the brain. >> mental groove in the brain. >> what does that mean? >> it msnbc you become a creature of habit. you become a bundle of conditioned reflectiones and nerves that's constantly being triggered by people and circumstance into predictable outcomes which means you don't have any creativity anymore. >> that's bad. >> that's bad. >> sounds bad, obviously. >> yeah. >> but in terms of our brain itself, it's bad. >> it's bad because there's loss of creativity. you don't -- the more you are unstuck, the more unpredictable you are. the more comfortable you are in embracing uncertainty, the more creative you are. >> you know, if you want a healthy outlook, you can do a lot worse than the man you're about to meet. for most people cancer is a scary word, but this expert chef

beat cancer five times, and he now continues to pay it forward. >> i'm the executive chef of encore catering. >> eric levine got off to a rocky start on the food network's chopped, but the fact that he showed up to compete at all defines resilience in the face of adversity. >> the night before i had the chemo radiation treatment i found out that i had six to eight months to go. at that moment it was like a light bulb went off. it was wow, look at the opportunities that i have. most people would give their soul to have what i have. >> eric survived the chopping block, and he won $10,000, but more importantly he's now survived cancer five times. he was first diagnosed when he was just 29 years old. >> after i had beaten the cancer for the fifth time, i wanted to have something to remind me every day of life, so the five on the outside represents the five times i've beaten cancer and the im is the indestructive

master of one theory that i have, and for that, if you take responsibility for your happiness and actions and what you do in life, pass that out to one person every day. >> good afternoon, ladies, how are you? how are you doing? >> how are you enjoying your dining experience so far? >> levine, now 43, using his new-found celebrity to inspire and push others to reach their full potential. >> throughout the kitchen we have different phrases and different signs and things that are important to the kitchen, the mindset of the kitchen. >> the stems, cut it off. we'll use that -- >> levine shares his cull terry and cancer survival experiences at events at his restaurant as well as he lends time to the american cancer society. >> for me it's all about paying forward and paying it through a good cause and very involved with the american cancer society. >> in the end, he says, fight the fight. do what you love every day, and above all have some fun. >> i think the fun factor is

what it's about. besides the hokey pokey. i mean, the hokey pokey is what it's about. i look at me and i go, okay. i get it. i'm not winning any, you know, sexiest men of the year awards, but i'm the happiest person on the universe. >> that attitude, despite being beating cancer five times. good luck. four out of five americans don't stick with their new year's resolutions. i'm talking to you. so let's change that together, next.