[00:00] When it comes to cancer, everybody says the&nbsp; same thing. Eat your vegetables, exercise,&nbsp;&nbsp; and don't smoke. And that's great advice. But&nbsp; there's other foods that have impressive evidence&nbsp;&nbsp; behind them that don't get any love. So, in this&nbsp; video, we're covering seven surprising foods that&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:16] help fight cancer. First on our list are nuts.&nbsp; We often think of nuts as heart food. Some people&nbsp;&nbsp; even worry about nuts because they're fatty.&nbsp; They have concentrated calories, so maybe they&nbsp;&nbsp; lead to weight gain and excess weight is a risk&nbsp; factor for cancer. But nuts are actually linked&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:33] to less weight gain, possibly because they're&nbsp; satiating and the fat is wrapped in fiber. And we&nbsp;&nbsp; consistently see lower risks of cancer in people&nbsp; who consume more nuts. One meta analysis found a&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:46] high consumption of nuts was associated with lower&nbsp; risk of developing cancer. This protective effect&nbsp;&nbsp; was especially seen for cancers of the digestive&nbsp; system like colorectal cancer and pancreatic&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:58] cancer and it was specifically seen for tree nuts.&nbsp; So almonds, walnuts, cashews, not peanuts which&nbsp;&nbsp; grow underground. And they saw what we call a&nbsp; linear association. So the more nuts consumed, the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:12] lower the cancer risk up to about 20 grams a day,&nbsp; which is less than the palm of your hand. They've&nbsp;&nbsp; also seen lower risk of dying of cancer with high&nbsp; intake of nuts. Now, cancer is really difficult&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:25] to study because it takes so long to develop. It&nbsp; takes decades. So we usually don't have randomized&nbsp;&nbsp; trials. So we do two things. We look at this type&nbsp; of link between intake of the food and risk of&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:37] cancer. And we carefully try to rule out obvious&nbsp; explanations like differences in smoking, alcohol,&nbsp;&nbsp; BMI, total calories, exercise. And after we take&nbsp; those out of the equation, this relationship&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:51] between high intake of nuts and lower risk of&nbsp; cancer still remains. And the second thing we do&nbsp;&nbsp; is we try to understand how a certain food might&nbsp; affect cancer risk. So nuts for example contain&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:04] tocopherols which are powerful antioxidants and&nbsp; nuts are also good sources of ellagitannins which&nbsp;&nbsp; are converted by your gut bugs, your microbiome,&nbsp; into compounds that have anti-inflammatory&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:17] effect. So these compounds together with the&nbsp; tocopherols are thought to play a role in this&nbsp;&nbsp; cancer protective effect of nuts. Caution. When&nbsp; it comes to nuts, we're talking about the actual&nbsp;&nbsp; nuts with no additives, not chocolate covered, not&nbsp; honey roasted, not an excessive amount of salt,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:35] just the nuts, unprocessed. Okay. Another food&nbsp; with impressive evidence when it comes to fighting&nbsp;&nbsp; cancer is coffee. I know coffee is not really a&nbsp; food, but who's counting? Coffee gets a really&nbsp;&nbsp; bad rep. Maybe because it contains caffeine. We're&nbsp; very suspicious, it's a drug. But we consistently&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:51] see lower risks of cancer in coffee drinkers,&nbsp; especially liver cancer where we see up to a&nbsp;&nbsp; 50% lower risk in high coffee drinkers consuming&nbsp; around five cups of coffee a day and endometrial&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:06] cancer which is a type of cancer of the uterus.&nbsp; In fact, coffee shows one of the strongest links&nbsp;&nbsp; between a specific food or a specific item that we&nbsp; consume and cancer protection. Interestingly, we&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:19] see a similar relationship for decaf. So, it's not&nbsp; the caffeine, it's something else in the coffee.&nbsp;&nbsp; Okay. How would coffee protect against cancer?&nbsp; Well, coffee is a good source of polyphenols,&nbsp;&nbsp; which are potent antioxidants. Coffee also helps&nbsp; reduce insulin resistance and liver fat. So,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:37] it improves overall liver health. There's some&nbsp; concerns with acrylamide in roasted coffee,&nbsp;&nbsp; but scientists have measured it, the levels&nbsp; are far below the thresholds where it causes&nbsp;&nbsp; any problems. Do pay attention. Avoid very hot&nbsp; coffee because it can raise risk of oral cancer,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:55] damage to the cells in the mouth and the throat,&nbsp; and also the additives. When we start adding a&nbsp;&nbsp; boatload of sugar and cream to coffee, that's&nbsp; often when we ruin it. All right, moving on.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:08] When it comes to fighting cancer, we hear a&nbsp; lot about green vegetables and some fruits like&nbsp;&nbsp; berries. But another type of fruit that doesn't&nbsp; get as much attention is citrus, like oranges,&nbsp;&nbsp; tangerines, grapefruit. We see lower risk of&nbsp; stomach cancer with high citrus intake and lower&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:27] risk of lung cancer among smokers. One reason&nbsp; citrus is beneficial is their high content of&nbsp;&nbsp; vitamin C which is a powerful antioxidant and&nbsp; also their content of carotenoids which also&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:39] have antioxidant function. All right, what if&nbsp; I just drink a glass of OJ instead of actually&nbsp;&nbsp; eating the orange? As a general rule, it's better&nbsp; to eat the actual fruit because the juice lacks&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:51] the fiber which feeds our microbiome. We also get&nbsp; a lot more of the naked sugars in the juice than&nbsp;&nbsp; we would the fruit. It would take three or four&nbsp; oranges to get the same amount of those sugars&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:03] as we do in a large cup of orange juice. Now,&nbsp; sometimes this is exaggerated. I've heard people&nbsp;&nbsp; say drinking fruit juice is the same as drinking&nbsp; soda. That's not true at all. The fruit juice&nbsp;&nbsp; still has a lot of vitamins and other nutrients as&nbsp; long as it's actual fruit juice, fresh squeezed,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:20] or just 100% fruit juice without sugar added.&nbsp; Bottom line, drinking a glass of orange juice&nbsp;&nbsp; is much healthier for you than Mountain Dew.&nbsp; It's not even close. But as a general rule,&nbsp;&nbsp; if you can, favor the actual whole unprocessed&nbsp; fruit. Okay. Next, we have another food that&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:37] lights the internet on fire, and that's whole&nbsp; grains. So, oats, barley, quinoa, whole grain&nbsp;&nbsp; bread. I've heard people say all kinds of things&nbsp; on the internet. Whole grains are just sugar.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:49] They contain no nutrients. They cause diabetes.&nbsp; But the actual scientific evidence tells a very&nbsp;&nbsp; different story. We see a consistently lower risk&nbsp; of colorectal cancer with whole grain intake. This&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:02] link is strong enough that the American Institute&nbsp; for Cancer research has stated there is probable&nbsp;&nbsp; evidence that whole grains decrease risk of&nbsp; colorectal cancer and the evidence is strong&nbsp;&nbsp; enough to justify dietary recommendations. And&nbsp; these organizations are pretty strict. They don't&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:19] say this for just any food. Whole grains provide&nbsp; viscous fiber which our microbiome then converts&nbsp;&nbsp; into short chain fatty acids like butyrate which&nbsp; feed our gut wall and protect the gut barrier.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:33] Short-chain fatty acids also reduce inflammation&nbsp; and promote insulin sensitivity. And whole grains&nbsp;&nbsp; are also a good source of resistant starch&nbsp; which is very powerful in reducing liver fat.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:45] Caution with instant oats. They come in different&nbsp; flavors: strawberry flavored, chocolate flavored,&nbsp;&nbsp; and these are processed forms of oats that&nbsp; have been chopped, pre-cooked, and have a lot&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:57] of refined sugars added. So, you want to favor the&nbsp; actual unprocessed grain, steel cut oats or rolled&nbsp;&nbsp; oats with no additives. Okay. At number five, we&nbsp; have one of the most misunderstood foods when it&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:09] comes to cancer, and that is soy. Soy contains&nbsp; phytoestrogens. So, it sounds like estrogen&nbsp;&nbsp; and so the belief is it causes breast cancer,&nbsp; but we don't see that. In fact, if anything,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:21] we see the opposite. In women diagnosed with&nbsp; breast cancer, those who consume more soy have&nbsp;&nbsp; a lower risk of death and recurrence, the cancer&nbsp; coming back. This is because in breast tissue,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:35] phytoestrogens actually do the opposite of&nbsp; mammalian estrogens. They counter the effect&nbsp;&nbsp; of estrogen. In addition to the effect on breast&nbsp; cancer, there's also some suggestive evidence of&nbsp;&nbsp; lower risk of lung cancer in never smokers with&nbsp; soy intake. The dose recommended is about 1 to&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:52] two servings a day. Examples of what one serving&nbsp; of soy would look like would be, for example,&nbsp;&nbsp; a cup of soy milk, 3 ounces of tofu, or half a&nbsp; cup of edamame. And we'll wrap up with two more&nbsp;&nbsp; foods where the evidence isn't quite as strong as&nbsp; some of the others, but there's some suggestive&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:08] promising evidence there. Tea is linked to lower&nbsp; risk of bladder cancer, especially green tea.&nbsp;&nbsp; And flax seeds show promising early results for&nbsp; breast and prostate cancer, possibly because of&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:21] their high content of lignans. What about dairy?&nbsp; Is it true that dairy causes cancer? We covered&nbsp;&nbsp; that question and a few more in this previous&nbsp; video, so check it out. I'll see you in there.