john marvin in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture a new report out says the global cancer rates will increase seventy five percent by twenty thirty how does your diet affect your risk of developing cancer and what are some of the most effective ways to protect yourself from that disease will pose those questions and more to dr mitchell gaynor in tonight's conversations with great minds also have republicans convinced americans that obamacare has to go i want to be better in company hate minimum wage increases so much that and more internets big picture rubble and what does the teapot dome scandal of the one nine hundred twenty s. have to do with speaker of the house john boehner today i'll tell you it take.

for tonight's conversations in the great minds i'm joined by dr mitchell l. gainer dr gainer is founder and president of gainor integrative and oncology and clinical assistant professor of medicine at weill medical college affiliated with cornell university in new york hospital dr gainer is also former medical director and director of medical oncology at the weill cornell medical center for complimentary and integrative medicine is been listed consecutively in the best doctors in new york since one thousand nine hundred seventy and has served on the board of advisors for all the living magazine the sas medical foundation as well as the editorial board of integrative cancer therapies dr gaynor is board certified medical oncology hematology and internal medicine and is the author of four bestselling books including nurture nature nurture health your health and the

environment dr gainer joins me now from new york city dr gainer welcome. great great to be with you thank you so much for joining us tonight i'm curious what drew you into the work with integrative on college integrative cancer therapies to begin with how did you get into this well i was trained. in very traditional allopathy medicine i went to one of the best medical schools in the contrary i did my medical residency at cornell medical center i did my fellowship at cornell medical center i was chief medical resident at cornell but as part of my fellowship i was also at rockefeller university and studying how different genes could literally be turned on and off and those genes were responsible for either preventing or leading to cancer and i was

fascinated about the study of what's called nutrient gene interactions so everybody realizes that they're born with the genes they're born with but most people assume falsely those genes are their destiny there's really nothing they can do about it the fact of the matter is you're controlling your gene expression by what environmental toxins you're exposed to and by the foods that you're putting in your body so this was like a complete revelation to me here i had had the best medical training available in the western world and no one ever talked about the role of nutrition in preventing cancer or really any other disease for that matter and i was fascinated to see that the most fundamental level at the level of our d.n.a.

literally we could control. the gene expression first thousands of different genes related to every aspect of our health and so i really pursued that after i finished my fellowship and wrists search has really borne out the fact that we are what we eat that there is a field called epi genetics which is the field of gene expression and a lot of people think that gene therapy is something that maybe in fifty or one hundred years is going to have some use the fact of the matter is everybody is doing gene therapy on themselves every time they're putting food in their body either for good or for harm so by gene expression what you mean is the gene i mean i think people know that genes like cause the color of their hair or the color of their eyes and that's probably why they think genetics are so fixed yet genes

control virtually every process in our body and you're suggesting that genes can be flipped on or off in ways that alter those processes as a consequence of how you have success right and it goes to such a fundamental level that is let's take for instance the detoxifying genes there and and every cell of the human body that help the talks of by against all the environmental toxins that could be mercury arsenic dioxin pesticide residues all the things that all of us are exposed to in our air on our food and our water and these get deposited these can cause mutations in the genes that could lead to problems decades or even generations later but your body's first line of defense is the detoxifying enzymes to rid it. but these genes that control the

detox affine enzymes are very dependent on nutrients so they're something for instance called the a r e r antioxidant response of element that's part of your d.n.a. that antioxidants like retta noids vitamin a vitamin c. vitamin e. and other nutrients like rosemary and garlic and fish oil literally buying to increase the body's production of detoxifying enzymes and this isn't some abstract concept there was a paper published in the journal of the national cancer institute nine hundred ninety eight they compared women with and without breast cancer and what they found was is women with the lowest levels of the most common detoxifying man's i'm had a four fold increased risk of developing breast cancer so we can control so many of these processes for our immune system for nutrients that

allow cancer cells to die normally one thing a lot of people don't realize they've done autopsies studies in young adults that are twenty's in either wars or car accidents and they find in the vast majority that there are some dormant cancer and some were going to the body maybe it'll be in the fire roid the prostate the breast but it's dormant so the vast majority of people are walking around with some dormant cancer in their body clearly the vast majority of people are not getting cancer or dying of cancer so the whole goal should be to keep dormant cancer cells dormant again there is a whole science of nutrition and epi genetics that tells us exactly how to do that there are nutrients to promote which called. a pop ptosis normal cell death so

a normal cell say in your colon that's going to mature it's going to divide and then it'll die to make room for the new cells cancer cells they just keep dividing so they're all these nutrients the promote a pop doses like inter-marriage term america's would give scurry its yellow color promotes a pop hostess in the water ways there are ample found in things like grape seed extract promote a pop whosis there's reza vera troll found in the skin of red grapes promotes a pop doses then there's a whole row of implementation so just being overweight puts your body in an inflammatory state so you can measure this with certain blood tests like c. reactive protein and the inflammatory mediators of these also promote cancer so there are

a number of things you can do to lower that also on an epi genetic level and those are things like fish oil flaxseed pumpkin seed all those types of things will do that so there's a whole host of things that people can be doing to lower their risk of ever getting cancer in the first place is this is this why i mean you talk about some of the cancer promoting enzymes. tyra's seen can a. cox two cox two there's probably some general familiar people with that knowing that you know aspirin for example is a cox inhibitor. is that why low dose aspirin studies the really long laundry toodle studies show lower rates of colon cancer breast cancer you name it for people who take low dose aspirin is that the sort of thing that should be done or is are there natural forms of salissa lates that people can incorporate into their diets i mean one of the things how do you get a how do you put together

a diet that optimizes your body can. i guess is the question as well beth's vets ideal question to be asking because there are very simple things and this isn't something that you have to spend a lot of money on to do there are very simple things let's take one thing like green tea green tea will lower has been associated epidemiologically with lower risks of breast cancer and a number of other cancer it contains poly phenols again it decreases abnormal angiogenesis so for a tumor to start to grow it needs new blood vessels but those blood vessels are very abnormal they're not like the blood vessels in the rest of the body they're very dysmorphic and it's just like a random mass of blood vessels and so there are certain nutrients that decrease abnormal and genesis again these are things like term eric green tea you

mentioned aspirin psycho oxygen a stew or cox two which a lot of people know about for arthritis because it's activated and it promotes inflammation equally promotes abnormal angiogenesis associated with cancer and that's why low dose aspirin has a numerous studies been associated with not only a lower risk of cancer but a lower risk of recurrence once you've already had cancer. equally important to the inflammatory compound it is the glucose compound it the sugar component and that's important for a number of reasons you're mentioning a k t so there are are a number of enzymes that are very dependent on something called insulin why growth factor so if you have refined sugar or refined flour

those types of foods candies cookies cakes that requires a lot of insulin to metabolize every time your pain korea says making insulin to break down motion of hers your liver is making a corresponding i'm back out of something called. insulin y. growth factor that's like giving gasoline to a car more you give the more it grows so people with high circulating insulin levels high circulating in stone like growth factor levels have a higher risk of prostate cancer breast cancer colon cancer and we know that just eating the wrong types of foods that have very high glycemic index really rage those insulin like growth factor levels and there are a number of things people can do to lower that to make your body more efficient

well let's let's get into those right after the break more conversations with great minds of dr mitchell again right after the break. there hasn't been anything yet on t.v. . it is to get the maximum political impact. before source material is what helps keep journalism on us when.

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conversations with great minds with dr mitchell again are dr gainers founder and president of gaynor integrative oncology and clinical assistant professor of medicine at wild medical college affiliated with cornell university in new york hospital dr gainers board certified in medical oncology hematology and internal medicine is the author of four bestselling books including nurture nature nurture health your health and the environment so let's get back to this dr gainer you were you were talking about some options that people should consider and pursued you want to continue that train of thought for a moment. sure the important things about sugar you have to realize not all sugar is bad so it's mainly the ones that require a lot of insulin to metabolize so i tell my patients you can have all the fruit you want that's a different kind of sugar you can have honey you can have things like stevia or

a gobby nectar there's a great sugar substitute called coconut crystals that comes from coconut that has a lower glycaemic index also the same thing with white flour go with more whole grains so sprouted whole grain breads are good instead of white flour pasta go with semolina or buckwheat or brown rice pasta there's a lot of simple food choices you can make and there's a drug actually called metformin metformin was first. developed in one thousand nine hundred fifty five in europe it originally came from an herb it came from the french a while back it had been used in european medicine for hundreds of years to treat diabetes now they noticed over the ensuing decades that people that were on metformin had forty percent less cancer overall than the general population for

pancreatic cancer it went up to sixty two percent reduction and then a very surprising finding was published about three years ago in a major oncology journal. the doctors were looking at diabetic patients with very large breasts cancers that needed to have chemotherapy first before they could even consider surgery so in that setting we give chemotherapy now some of the diabetic women were on insulin some more on metformin and some were on some of the newer anti diabetic drugs what they found quite surprisingly was that the women on metformin had an almost three fold increase pathologic complete remission rate compared with all the other women that means when they did the surgery and they looked under the microscope there wasn't even microscopic cancer there so then a lot of interest was generated metformin and it's found in him but m.

tor it's found to make your insulin like growth factor go down by making insulin metabolism sugar metabolism more efficient and it is very very associated not only with prevention but also in people that already have cancer it's even been found that smokers that were taking metformin had smaller one cancer and less spread to the lymph nodes than other smokers so again you know a lot of these things you talk about low dose aspirin that's pennies a day metformin for certain people they can talk to their doctor about it because it's a prescription drug metformin we're talking pennies a day green tea including things like garlic in your diet and then one very over one thing when we're talking about cancer prevention is coconuts now in thailand

that's the largest per capita coconut consuming country in the world they have the number one the lowest breast cancer incidence in the world what is coconut half coconut. loaded with something called warrick acid lorch acid is found in two places nature mother's milk and coconut milk so i put a lot of my patients on coconut milk powder it tastes great it's not expensive you can mix it in with the shake then there are foods like black raspberry so black raspberries aren't always in season you can get black raspberry powder for the shake black raspberries are loaded with cancer fighting nutrients again there are so many simple things that people can do to really take charge of their health and we know that for every ten percent above your ideal body weight you are your risk of cancer goes up

a lot and we have an epidemic of type two diabetes in this country an epidemic of obesity in this country and that's one of the reasons that we're approaching almost one in two americans getting cancer currently one in three it's approaching one in two if that's not an epidemic i don't know what is and part of it has to do with our diet part of it has to do with environmental pollution there are a number of things though prevented to flee the we can do because there are really two major fields that most people haven't heard of one is called nutritional genome looks that's about how all the nutrients you're putting in your body affect gene expression and there's something called talks to go juno mix which is how all the different environmental toxins adversely. affect gene expression so you really have these two competing processes going on and with

a little bit of knowledge you can shift the balance against cancer interesting i'm curious your thoughts on the the debates and it is presented as a resolved debate but i remember a day. kater two ago was it was a big debate about whether biopsies could spread cancer and the whole theory that cancer is not just one cell run amok but it's a cell that creates its own ecosystem and that the whole bodies involved you know what what should somebody do if they're looking at options like that and also are these supplements the kinds of things that somebody could use while they're on chemotherapy. well again that is you know the whole. field really because. when somebody is on chemotherapy for instance you still have an immune system that you have to keep strong i have all these patients come in completely confused because they say you know dr gaynor

i don't i can't find anything to eat because my doctor told me no antioxidants and if you look at what no antioxidant means a carrot has hundreds of antioxidants a tomato has hundreds cup of tea has dozens anything that comes out of the ground of fruit a vegetable watered with dozens or hundreds of antioxidants so literally if you were to avoid all antioxidants i think you could probably have distilled water and maybe some pepperoni i can't think of much else that doesn't have antioxidants in it so no wonder people are confused and if you really look at what the goals and i use chemotherapy i use monoclonal antibodies we do bone marrow transplantation you know all these kinds of things with allopathy medicine are

necessary if you have cancer but they're not sufficient so by themselves it's not enough you have to make the individual stronger you have to support the body's systems mainly the immune system and i was just at the national cancer meetings this past weekend in chicago there's all these new therapies now geared toward boosting a person's immune system toward not harming normal cells so much so literally we're moving that way in oncology but i think the missing link is is what each patient can do for themselves to stay cancer free longer you have to remember everybody's going to have some dormant cancer so. in their body the idea is to keep them dormant so if you never had cancer you want to put nutrients in that are going to keep them dormant if you've had it you want to make them dormant and then keep

them dormant that's the goal thoughts on you know you hear a lot of conflicting things about both coffee i've seen studies suggesting that it actually is you know that has any accidents on it. or on the other hand that you know caffeine is bad for you and alcohol particular wine because i've seen you know red and white wine pitched as being anti-cancer or as being awful things what are your thoughts on. well again moderation is the key here coffee contains caffeine which contains cafe a cast of which is actually an anti cancer substance most of the studies actually show coffee drinkers have a lower risk of many of the most common types of cancer on the other hand coffee is one of the most heavily sprayed crops in the world so you know if you're going to be drinking coffee try and include some organic coffee in there as well. usually if caffeine is going to bother you you could have maybe one or two cups

a day you don't have to overdo it i think tea is also a good choice tea has about one third the caffeine a coffee black tea white tea green tea all loaded with poly phenols but i certainly don't tell my patients to avoid coffee as far as alcohol again it's the amount that makes the difference we know especially with breast cancer the drinking come promote breast cancer my own feeling about it is because it's a very high caloric intake requires a lot of insulin it raises insulin like growth factor so if you're going to have like four ounces specially if you've had cancer cancer of a glass of red wine within a twenty four hour period i wouldn't go over that and i think for most people they definitely shouldn't have more than one drink within a twenty four hour period but i think for most people one is ok interesting what

are the what are the top in your in your mind the you've gone through a variety of foods here and and lifestyle things what other things beyond foods that people should do to prevent cancer or to deal with that once they have it and i'm thinking of things like exercise or where they choose to live or stress or it one of the other factors that are really significant or that there's a lot of mythology around. we have we have one well that it's it's it's really hard science so we know regular exercise both weight bearing and a robot is very positive for the immune system especially the part that fights cancer i tell everybody the foundation for good health for recovering your health or keeping it is to be peaceful and side so stress reduction is key i work with stress reduction with new patients breathing exercises guided imagery

music therapy i've written a book on music therapy it's very important adjunct and i have to say the vast majority of my patients over the last twenty five years have told me that in retrospect having had cancer was one of the best things that ever happened because they really learned how to live each day they learned how to have inner peace they learned how to really start seeing more with their heart and not just to go into worry and fear about everything that's a huge gift to get so cancer can also be a very huge blessing if you look more deeply into it that's a remarkable refrain thank you so much sir thank you very much dr venter thank you to see this for the conversations the great minds go to our website of conversations the great minds dot com. coming up after the break this week house democrats propose raising the minimum wage to ten dollars an hour conservatives are in favor of tax cuts that help americans keep their hard earned money where are they in favor of being americans

a living wage for all that hard work all that more in tonight's big picture rumble . there hasn't been anything yet on t.v. . it is to get the maximum political impact. the food source material is for soaps. journalism on us when. we want to present. something else.