c-span2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend, booktv, television for serious readers. .. >> it is now my pleasure to introduce sam was on the faculty of the ma science rating program at johns

hopkins. and then not creative writing in journalism at university of pennsylvania holding the ma in english and creative writing and the msa. and then a wide range of topics the primarily read about science and health the atlantic wired and from the l.a. times. and of course the author of ravenous and that's what we're

talking about today. so welcome. >> thank you so much for inviting me. >> i love your book. and how you came up with the idea of writing the book. it is about the nobel laureate the nobel chemist the jewish homosexual living openly with his partner in nazi germany. so this reads like fiction but it is true so there are many parts that it starts with the

family dynamic. let's start their tell us about the family. >> and part of the famous were buried family and the cousins of these others and then to rise to a high academic position. and rising to the top of the physics world. and was a regular einstein.

and those that go on to win nobel prizes. and with the natural surroundings. so not is the going to be and he does feel a sense of competitiveness with his father. but that's not easy to do but einstein loved his father and he actually help to show that showed the evidence so saying

he will n out to his father and not in the realm of physics but throughout his life he continues to approach biology from the lens that he's always interested in energy. so that is the background almost like a religious devotion. he could not imagine it. so that's the world that he grows up in. host: a little pressure from the family or not. but that was just ingrained in him. so i went to talk about hitler

about how to very different people so in order to understand the relationship you need to understand hitler's childhood but then i learned a lot about hitler that i did not know. but mostly about his mother. i didn't plan to write about hitler's life but the more research i did and then they run a collision course. and as we talked about that those weree wrapped around cancer but that is a

relatively rare disease in the early 19th century but then they were born in the 18 eighties and is becoming more common and a preoccupation with the german people. this is the environment they both grew up in. so as a disgruntled teenager and the father dies when he is 13 and he wants to be an artist that nobody really likes him but his mother the only human being h he was capable of. but then his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and is absolutely shaken has

never seen anybody look so depressed the plan that you wish doctor who is very grateful to have that relationship that then is devastated and has never seen that and so his mother dies of breastnd cancer and then the central focus he is an extreme hypochondriac but none more so than cancer so at one point

hitler stops everything and then he is sure he will die of cancer but then there's always all sorts ofim conditions and part of that aspect is that one of the reasons they are in such a hurry and so those stories are bizarre to even have an obsession that is somewhat speculative. so it's a word for cancer. >> so evidently his mother died along painful horrific

death so what he talks about did he stop everything to launch a big battle wasn't that during wartime? >> it was a different period but i can talk about that as well with that remarkable period i could talk about that now or that comes later. >> what do you think is it more family quick. >> that comes up a little bit later. >> so now we understand a little more what is driving

these two peoplee and their hefocus that is their passion and in this particular case i think it is appropriate so let's talk about his lab so not only this amazing lab that he designed that was interesting. but how he behaved in the lab so walk us through. >> by the 1920s to have a reputation of a biochemist and in 1831 the rockefeller foundation gave you the personal lab of your dreams

and it was and is extraordinaryy after not too long after world war i from nationbuilding he doesn't really want academics but the's technicians and has a team of expert technicians to does whatever he says. then they have these meetings but then they go back to the lab and it is incredible because they are changing the world of biochemistry and he

is under incredible pressure. >> and he was the man like the arch of the furniture in the horses but so now bringing up worldt war i that part almost didn't fit and i was surprised of his service world war i. >> sure. he was a german patriot and like many he believed in 1914 it was a just cause for germany and also of jewish descent and he was a homosexual was about as out as you couldit be at the time but

particularly looking at german jews in 1914 they were very anxious to prove they were full-fledged germans and they signed up by the tens of thousands and also signed up for the calvary unit that was thee aristocratic unit and was drawn to it in a lot of ways i don't think he was a great soldier think he served admirably and got the iron cross. >> yes he was on the frontlines so one of the remarkable parts of the story is by 1918 if he was really

paying attention that it's a disaster for germany and their desperate to get them out of the german army and they are sending letters and talking to the ministry of interior to say, home and do research for german food production but albert einstein of all people wrote a y letter to say you're too important for science you need to come home after einstein asked them to you and says you are too important for science and einstein understood in so sure enough he comes home and it's possible if he doesn't he will

die in the war so i do like to think that einstein in theory could have played a very important role. >> so back to the lab. so was it see urchins? and then explain kids work. what was his goal them overseas searching for quick. >> to see urchins research even before his own lab when he was still in training they

he goes with all the famous peeuropean scientists and a lot of famouss scientist at the time is using it as an experimental tool to understand chromosomes in the very foundation that then was there with all the famous scientists at the same time. he's always focused on energy and to understand to grow that you need energy and comes up with the innovative devices to measure how much oxygen is used and how much carbon dioxide is given off and he finds is taking up a lot of

oxygenyo saying that you are growing and need energy so that is always in his mind to understand and from the very beginning to understand cancer you to understand cell growth and so when he turns a full attention to cancer that see urgent experiment to seed urgent a and that the cancer cells will do the same thing and seven that discovery in 1923 actually doing something very strange and surprising to take up a lot of glucose actually breaking it down turning it into lactic acid

and that is the same fermentation process from beer and wine and cheese and yogurt very strange cancer cells were doing this and scientists were trying to understand why and what sets it off. >> yes and we could take some time talking about that but there were a couple aha moments in the scientific community talking h about this what was the reaction from his fellow scientists. >> so in the early years such a new surprising discovery

that it was like the yeast growing on the grains but over time accepting this is true and that they were looking at cancers and in that same effect with human cancer so this is valid in a very unusual way just like micro organisms but what remains controversial is sure if the cell is not using oxygen then it must be broken it is truly the aristocratic role and that

is what it is supposed to do the proper way and if a cell does this and must be broken so is there a problem with respiration or are cancer cells doing this for another reasons so in time just the fact that they were doing this and to consider a very important discovery so they are taking up all the glucose and the blood sugar at it is possible to starve a cancer cell it is all extremely important science to be discussed so then after the war he disappears which is

another weird part of the story. >> he is making a name for himself and is getting attention by the rockefeller institute so a jewish man, we're in a war now, a lot of his scientists. you have to hand it to him, he was sure nobody could catch him he was too important and the basic purse on it is he wass harassed. so tell us about that. >> in a way that is the most extraordinary part when 1933 comes around winning the nobel prize really at the top of the

scientific world with the scientific nation and as a top german scientist everything that he talks about living with histn partner in a beautiful partner one block away then hitler comes to power now suddenly with many of his colleagues leave right he thinks about it. but he decides to stay. there are many different reasons he believes that not see phenomenon can be short-lived so just give him enough rope to hang himself so a lot of people believe this

and he says i was here before hitler. so he is harassed again and again in the early thirties so why are you sending your researchers to buy don't but they tolerated him because he was such an important scientist with all of the backing. and then in the early thirties not caring about the international reputation he had advantages over other scientists so after 1935 there

were rules so there's a lot going on not only a jewish father but the nazis put up with him and harassed him but don't take them out of the institute but those oregon and it's too late and they are closing in on him and comes in an extraordinary way where finally and literally with the well help society and is running it like a dictatorship

and a lot of people disliked him before the nazis. she had a lot of enemies. so then it looks like the beginning of the end for him. and is called to not see headquarters but they call him in and he knows what will happen but then he tells them

as long as you agree to focus on cancer so that extraordinary moment that what makes it more extraordinary is that then we find out to discover the daily planner to be met on that same day. so that is interesting in any event but it's june 21, 19411 of the most important days in all of the the project only hours later at don the next morning which is the biggest military operation in history ouso hours later rolling into soviet territory but then on june 21st talking about the cancer signs and sure

enough latete that night he and hitler talk about how they announced to the german people invaded the soviet union and then they stop and talk about cancer science. and how strange then not see worldview is even at this critical moment. and is truly bizarre. >> is almost fascinating and and that's what happened but maybe my timeline is wrong but he left the lab and then just

did not know what to do and then whaten happens and then afterward. >> so after this event and makes it through the and not only surviving that he has moved to a new institute which is a refurbished mansion and this is t at a time when late

forties and that the war efforts building that material. but he is arrested again but in the end survives. and then they are caught in between w the two worlds and then that institute with military headquarters and doesn't know where to go so trying to find something to do

in a place to go ends up managing and late forties from the university of illinois. but it was hard for him to find a place because people thought he must be a not see and work with them and hated them butok did not look good he stayed the whole time. and then he brings his partner. and thehe most aristocratic

human being. and then he gets involved with aot huge debate and then everybody in the laboratory but he says so to put on the n heat in the winter and everybody is walking went winter coats. and so at one point driving emerson crazy. and his from everything i have read about him.

there are not very many funny parts in the book and so that is thef comic relief if you can put up with his antics but so meanwhile he is alienating but to say it's the only thing that matters and it appears before nobel laureates that all you need to know is that is oxygen so they ferment and literally uses thehe word garbage and insist that if only the cancer world would just pay attention but it is

incredibly important that science is already changing and so in the fifties we have the structure discovery of dna and cancer viruses taking place in the sixties and then we have a real breakthrough of the modern molecular biology is born as mutated genes can cause cancer so he dies in 1970 that is considered old world science. so sure these metabolic enzymes but they don't really matter but that's not basic

biochemistry so it's amazing quickly it happens but to be soed much more sophisticated and then by the eighties there are these famous papers and textbooks even as late as 2006 and then a wonderful book with the hallmarks of cancer in the neck comes down in 2000 and then even the ship of fermentation. so it's amazing.

>> andha that's what i would like toik talk about now. and the members who are listening to this i like to give people something to take him in the story in your book it makes it so interesting that you put science and great information. so talk about how it shifted andab why we are talking about eit again. talk about fructose and metabolism so all those things and then why again now? >> the story really picks up

again and in the late 1990s them molecular biologists focus on cancer in the modern sense of how the signals go out from one protein to the next but then they follow those s genetic pathways and then that causes them metabolic enzymes to change and why are these they literally call them housekeeping enzymes. but that is the afterthought.

and then so a few scientists is irrelevant but why is metabolism being connected so they look at those connections between the cancer genes and it really is remarkable that everybody is skeptical but over the next decade then they start to see that these networks are linked to metabolism that is the most fundamental role to get the nutrients into the cell that the proliferation process occurs but then thinking the

metabolism is thess afterthought but actually thatnd is the process. so it is remarkable it starts to divide and doesn't have the way to take the nutrients that is integrated into the process if you think of it as before but then the cancer cell acts like a single cell organism. so that is what you put yeast onto andt it grows because it has the nutrients and if it doesn't it goes into that

proliferation mode so we start to see a fundamental link with the nutrient uptake can growth in proliferation and so then they started to rediscover what was found but another hypothesis but then it causes it to overheat as glucose shifting into a growth mode and others fundamentally a different way to think about cancer it really hit home for me when i saw the president and ceo so this is what cancer

does. so that issc the rediscovery. so those. cancer cells get more glucose than they should so how does that happen? but for some cancers scientist so this is what is happening so let's create a drug that is important that hasha come out of this but i was interested in the cancer cells but overeating so that helped so what is really interested to me as it comes together in the late 1990s at the same time

rediscovering and that is fundamental to cancer it just shows you where in the body for glucose but at the samede time they study cancer and populations finding obesity was profoundly linked to cancer so probably is just the tip of the iceberg so this is the fundamental question is there something about the obesity connection that is the most predominant part of cancer and are these two stories connected and that was

to see if there was a connection there. but what ica can do or try to do is connect the dots because they are often talking to each other focusing on the same thing so these really are part of the same story and what connects them is the hormone insulin. >> no. this is right wanted to be at this point. so theog real question is, if you think about a cancer or a microorganism that getting

into a multicellular organism it's more complicated because if they did it would be anarchy so thinking of a multi- cell organism it's almost an agreement because they eat only when they are told to eat. because they all have the ability and we have the food distribution system so first and foremost to say which cells to take up nutrients so to understand cancer and this fermentation of glucose so what makes them take ups glucose and first and foremost so if it is overheating so is

there too much of an insulin environment from the warburg effect? and sure enough there is a remarkable body of evidence it is a gross hormone to divide and grow and for decades people with elevated insulinn have higher levels of cancer so it only became clear in the 1990s. and a number of fascinating discoveries first of all it became clear insulin drives obesity which is linked to cancer but it also activates all of the networks that we talked about before so it

activates than in the same way. and it causes them to rev up and so then with insulin resistance and then you have 24 hours a day and then to activate those cancer pathways so then just think of it and then to be more sensitive to insulin. but instead of being starved but insulin keeps them alive

so it is striking to the extent with all the obesity linked to cancer and one of the more provocative things in the book that it used to be a rareno disease but insulin resistance was fairlytu nonexistent so now sure enough you can see in lockstep with obesity growing in the 20th century. it is very clear that cancer is tied up into the metabolic diseases i don't think that is controversialof and it is a piece of the puzzle and that

is one layer back but the obvious question how do we end up with 50 times more? and to me that is the real question and it is a little bit controversial. so first and foremost the most worrisome part of the story i also mean sucrose that sweet white stuff one half fruit toasts and then to cause that internal metabolic around thoseio internal organs speaking to the insulin resistance. so to me there is some new

ones but there is one simple take away that it said be insulin should be elevated if you want to keep it low then the first thing you should do is avoid sugar. >> and carbohydrates and over processed foods. they thought hamburger is just beef ground up c but also processed foods. but then it goes back to sugar. and with sugar and removing it from her diet. so wouldn't it be interesting?

and then working on the fundamentals and then the dial down of the genetics which is amazing but now we go back to the fundamentals and could not have guessed what is in the food system right now otherwise my guess he may have dial down into this a little bit but so what is it? we know sugar in ultra processed foods i know you touched on this little bit i am a nutritionist but not on people's eating styles other than i hope they eat real food.t it doesn't matter their diet but you talk in the book and

another mutual friend is into the quito diet and low-carb so basically with all of these different eating styles we have to make a decision that works for asset may not work for me if it works for you. and how do we work through to remove ultrara processed foods what about proteins and carbs and fats i'm sure you'll focus on carbohydrates. and one other thing on that mode but rob's new book to protect the liver and feed they get.

so carbohydrates bringing proteins and healthy fats. >> rob is most famous for his talk on sugar and that is a credit for waking everybody up to the arms one —- the harm of toot much sugar in our diet so from my perspective i'm really talking about prevention not necessarily cancer treatment but from my perspective i spent five years working on this book pointing strongly in the direction that it is a causal factor so we have to think of this as a carcinogen and something that causes cancer and if it was a man-made chemical if it was in

our food or pans it would be terrified or it would be band but now it's part of our biology it is a growth hormone ramping up to levels that should never be so think that is a carcinogen that is metabolic dysregulation any dietary strategy should be avoid that carcinogen so you eat a diet which causes insulin printed resistance in one study found that if you want to avoid that to have a sensible strategy and it would be healthy for many different

conditions making it less likely to get cancer. some are inherited but so what causes insulin to rise over that dietary fat and proteins causes some spikes but not like carbohydrates that is the most but if you are metabolically healthy to have a fairly normal diet so once sugar is introduced into the diet and once you have those think getting rid of sugar

then may be focused more on healthy fats and proteins so that is in terms of prevention and lowering insulince resistance as the evidence suggest and some scientist at this point but the agreement so the one thing you want to watch out for is too many carbohydrates. but i really likee the notion that think of it as a condiment. and that is hitting the liver

and fat storage. >> people need to be very careful i guess there is labels on broccoli or roasted chicken that be careful of the added sugar. but with the word carbohydrates that is in pasta and in bread but they are intact that they have not been put back to gather the wheat bay area these are whole and intact and they think party

here are on carbohydrates i am not on the quito diet but there is no root vegetables that do have some nutrients so there are different carbohydrates out there and everybody has a different story so what is your take on that or do you have any research done from your perspective other than avoid sugar? >> yes it is very clear more refined carbohydrates and so think about this and most scientists are comfortable because if we talk about the cell structure and then you

don't get the same metabolic impact i don't think all carbohydrates need to be bad but to figure out that glycemic effect and some people if you don't have insulin resistance but if you are then you don't have to worry that much but then you can tolerate carbohydrates there are many societies in human history that so once you have these problems you can certainly process

carbohydrates but you can get a pretty good sense of what is working for you with your body and are you losing weight and is ank it one-size-fits-all but to focus on to keep that insulin lower the traps fat inside the fat cells so the insulin is lower that it comes back into the fat cells but the fat is gettingg locked in. and i'm only talking about

cancer. >> years agooc i did some volunteer work. and we would all recommend a very low sugar diet. because that is a cancer feeder. not everybody agreed with so you were working primarily on prevention so if you want to avoid any type of metabolic disease so healthy fats and then whatever protein that you

eat but that you recommend limiting the sugar and sugar drinks and to stay low on the carbohydrates if you have cancer that's even more so important so that is probably a summary so we just touched on some of these details and then to into food but watch your sugar and know that it is everywhere your sugar drinks and soda and the fatty liver disease nonalcoholics showing up in kids metabolically and

cancer speaking it is a nightmare. we already talked about fiber. is insulin the culprit? >> the growth factor one is another hormone that is part of the story and there is new wants - - a new wants to that. and that isem for the sake of simplicity but so i just focus on the insulin when i talk about it but one of the interesting things i thought

the whole damaging effect of sucrose was insulin resistance and emerging evidence that actually can consume the fructose directly so the case against sugar continues to build even as i was working on the book. >> a fascinating book and we could talk for b a few hours but hopefully everybody listening has a reason to go purchase your book and look at how your work from a very difficult and brilliant man is front and center and what that means to us so basically thank you so much for your comments here today and i want to thank all

of you who are listening today this will be on the commonwealth club website and now this meeting of the commonwealth club of california commemorating 118th year is adjourned.