Dr. Anthony Chaffee reveals the shocking truth about modern chronic diseases and their connection to our departure from species-appropriate nutrition. Non-communicable chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer now affect 90% of medical cases and cause 74% of global deaths, with cancer rates tripling in 40 years to a 1-in-2 lifetime risk. The episode exposes how countries like India, with minimal meat consumption (3kg per person yearly), have 25% diabetes rates compared to America's 9%, debunking the myth that meat causes disease.
The most compelling evidence comes from animal agriculture practices and zoo management. The same grain-feeding methods used to create pathological fat deposits in livestock for marbling are identical to what causes metabolic dysfunction in humans. Wild animals don't develop chronic diseases, but captive animals fed outside their natural diet develop the exact same "human diseases" we suffer from. Traditional hunter-gatherer populations eating predominantly meat lived as long as modern humans without chronic disease, while Native Americans experienced four times higher disease burden when switching to Western diets.
Key Takeaways
- Cancer rates have more than tripled in 40 years, creating a 1-in-2 lifetime risk, while countries eating the least meat like India have 25% diabetes rates compared to America's 9%
- The same grain-feeding practices that create pathological fat deposits (marbling) in cattle cause identical metabolic dysfunction in humans, including myosteatosis visible on MRI scans
- Wild animals never develop chronic diseases, but captive animals fed outside their species-appropriate diet develop identical "human diseases" including diabetes, cancer, and autoimmune conditions
- Traditional hunter-gatherer populations eating predominantly meat lived as long as modern humans without chronic disease, while Native Americans saw 4x higher disease rates after adopting Western diets
- Chronic Disease Epidemic: Diabetes, Cancer and Heart Disease Rising
- Animal vs Human Disease: How Food Creates Illness in Captivity
- Factory Farming Methods Making Animals and Humans Sick
- Hunter-Gatherer Health vs Agricultural Disease Patterns
- Native Populations and the Healthcare Economic Crisis
This is an auto-generated transcript from YouTube and may contain errors or inaccuracies.
The large burden of disease are these so-called non-communicable chronic diseases. So things like diabetes, heart disease, cancer, um mental health issues, uh Alzheimer's, dementia, Parkinson's, um autoimmune issues, all of these things, they cannot be passed on. They just they live in your body and and you get them or you don't. And people think, well, it's just part of getting older. You just get unlucky. It's genetic. Well, if it was genetic, then why is the prevalence of these things going up decade after decade after decade? So, there's more people in society that are being afflicted with this. Well, that's just that's just screening. We're getting better at screening. Like, I'm sorry, but um you have somebody with Crohn's disease and you have 30 bouts of bloody diarrhea every single day. Like, you're not going to miss that, you know? So, it's not there's not a screening issue. Um, and you know, cancer rates have have skyrocketed and they've more than tripled in the last 40 years. Now, one in two people throughout the course of their life will get cancer. Holy crap. One in two. That's crazy. Yeah, it is nuts. It's a coin flip. Exactly. And so then you look at, you know, places like India. I mean, they're metabolic. They're some of the most metabolically sick people in the world. They also eat some of the least amount of meat in the world. They eat about 3 kilos of meat per person per year. M they have some of the highest metabolic disease and diabetes rates in the world. America and we talk about America or we we get get painted as being the sickest country in the world and having horrible metabolic health and everyone's overweight and just eating junk food and and evil meat that makes them all sick and but our diabetes rate is 9%. And we have a lot of pre-diabetes about 40% pre-diabetic but diabetes is is is 9%. Well, India where they eat hardly any meat, it's 25%. That was published in the Lancet in 2018 and and that was looking at rural populations as well as urban populations. They were both 25%. So it wasn't just people living in the cities that were getting a higher affliction rate. It was everybody 25% and that's diagnosed. And so people in India have a have a much much less access to medicine. So it could be higher than that. there could be more people that are diabetic and they just haven't uh haven't discovered that. So uh yes I do think so 90% of the things that we treat nowadays as doctors are these non-communicable chronic diseases. 90% of the mortality of the deaths in western countries come from non-communicable chronic diseases. 74% of deaths around the world are from non-communicable chronic diseases. And so that is the major major burden of healthcare. Now you look at the animal kingdom. You know, deer don't get lupus, right? They don't, you know, typically get any of these diseases that we would see, even animals in the zoo if they're being fed their correct diet. And there are signs at the zoo that's very clear say don't feed the animals. It makes them very sick if they if they eat anything that they're not designed to eat. And so they're saying don't feed the animals the thing that you're eating right now. It makes them sick. What is it what is it doing to us? Wow. Or, you know, don't feed bread to ducks at the park because it can make them sick. It will give them diabetes. Wow. Right. And it can get diabetes and and fatty liver. I mean, how do we make fuagra? You know, that's that literally means fat liver. Right. Right. Uh we stuff a tube down a a duck or goose's throat and we pour grains down, right? How do we get marbling, intramuscular fat in steaks? We give them a bunch of grains. Well, in humans, that's called myioattosis. is a pathological sign that we see on MRI and that denotes very serious metabolic dysfunction. So we're we're causing metabolic dysfunction in the animals because it increases the fat and pathological deposition of fat in the liver and in the muscle tissues because it tastes better. Wow. Wag you. Right. Wag you. Exactly. And and it doesn't matter that they're getting sick because we're going to slaughter them anyway. But we get sick. So the exact same practices that we're doing to animals to make them sick and make get this pathological fat deposition in their muscles and organs, we're doing that to ourselves as well. Hey everyone, really happy to announce a new sponsor for the show and for everybody down in Australia, Stockman Steaks, who are delivering highquality grass-fed and finished pasture-raised beef and other meat flash frozen and vacuum sealed to your door. Something that I've been enjoying a lot of myself recently as well. They also have a great range of specialty items such as highfat keto mints and carnivore beef and organs mints with liver, kidneys, and beef heart as well. So, use code chaffy today for a free order of beef mints or another specialty gift along with your order at stockmanstaks.com.au and I'll see you over there. Thanks, guys. In the 1930s, there was an article about um getting the poundage up on pigs and increasing their fat content and making them them bigger and and bigger product. And the way they did that was giving them grains um and also skim milk, which was a byproduct of the cream and butter industry. And so they just it was just sort of a throwaway product. And they found that giving the combination of grains and uh skim milk actually increased their hunger. And so they over ate. And when you're eating grains, that can raise your insulin. That can then drop your blood blood sugar. And so you feel a little bit down. So you want to eat more, but it also blocks a hormone called leptin, which is your satiety hormone. So you're blocking that and you tend to overeat. And then milk has quesomorphines, which you know cause a baby mammal to drink more because you're trying to encourage babies to get their their weight up and grow. And so when you drink that as an adult, it still will trigger that hunger signal. So you have this combination of grains and skim milk. And all of a sudden there it says specifically in this 1930s article uh paper that that that the reason that this worked is because it they it caused them to overeat. So what what is grains and skim milk? That's breakfast cereal. Right. Right. So we're doing this to ourselves and we look at these same diseases, these non-communicable chronic diseases. Animals get them too, but only animals in captivity. Wow. And so only animals that are being fed something outside of their typical evolved species appropriate biological diet. And so you get dogs and cats, which are known carnivores, and yet we're giving them food and and kibble that has some meat in it. So they get the nutrients that they need, but it's it's packed out with grains. So that because it's cheaper and you put something on it, you know, like put science in the name and people go, "Oh, this is supposed to be Well, science actually tells us that they're supposed to eat meat." That's what science tells us. And then uh you know marketing agencies tell us otherwise, right? And and they get sick and they get obesity and they get diabetes and they get cancer and they get oimmune issues and arthritis and they get um osteoporosis and these sorts of things. But that's that's not typical. And those disease rates have gone up and up and up in recent decades. It's the average life expectancy in the US of a golden retriever in the 1970s was 17 years. Wa. Now it's 9 years. So it got cut in half. Got cut in half. And that I think that's directly because of the of the food that we're feeding them. There's a big shift. That was when you started switching over to kibble was in the 80s. And now the vets are talking about how there's a massive increased prevalence in so-called human diseases in domesticated pets. So these human diseases, these non-communicable chronic diseases such as, you know, metabolic disorder, diabetes, and all these other sorts of things, and those are human diseases. Well, okay. Well, what the hell is a human disease, right? Well, it's non-communicable. So, we know we're not passing it to anybody. Um, and yet they catch it when they eat this other diet. And you talk to zookeepers and they know you feed any animal outside of what they're supposed to eat, they get sick. And what do they get sick with? They get all the same things we get. They get the so-called human diseases. And I've spoken to some uh people and I sort of knew the answer ahead of time, but I asked him I was like, "Do you ever give them like, you know, like grains or dog food or or anything like that?" And and the guy said was like, "Are you out of your mind?" Like, you know, if you give animals that garbage, they'll get human diseases, right? So, if you feed the animal human food, they get human diseases. When you don't feed them that food, they don't get human diseases. that means directly that the food is causing the disease. And we see this in um pre-aggricultural populations. So the the Native Americans in the especially in the Great Plains when they had a lot of access to meat, bison, they would do a buffalo drop, knock over a bunch of bison, and uh and just eat those throughout the year. Uh other places, they didn't have as much animals available to them, so they had to sort of flesh out their meals with uh you know, plants that they grew locally. Um but they also had specific ways of preparing them. They uh uh maze was corn was um prepared with a process called nish tomalization which is a complex process to lower the toxic load and increase the bioavailability of the nutrients of corn. Um they uh had uh you know fermentation all these other sorts of processes that that we use to lower the toxic load of plants. So plants defend themselves by being toxic. All plants are toxic. They make about a million different defense chemicals in order to protect themselves from animals and insects. Animals are hard to catch. They're hard to kill because they'll fight back. They'll run away. Those are their defenses. But once you get them and you take them down, it's the most bioavailable and nutritious food that exists on this earth. Plants are easy to catch. They're just sitting there, right? So they they can't just be straight up nutritious. Their major defense is by being physically poisonous. And so their traditional ways of eating plants are are you know it was never raw food vegan or anything like that. It was very specific ways of preparing these plants to make them uh more nutritious but also lower the toxic load. And so when you look at these pre pre-aggricultural societies and anthropologists talk about this in these sort of huntergatherer populations that the the health issues that afflict them are very different than what we have. It's basically infections and injuries, child birth, you know, um mothers can die in child birth infant mortality rates, things like that are pretty high, but they don't get these chronic diseases. And people say, "Well, it's because they don't they only live 30 years." That's not true. you know, right now um you know, pre-aggricultural huntergatherer populations when they've been studied as long as you're not killed by something. So there's a difference between average life expectancy from birth and how long you live if you die of old age. And so since the infant mortality rate is much higher and you're, you know, fighting off panthers and maybe, you know, polar bears and things like that up in the Arctic North with the Inuit that that's obviously, you know, going to lower your average life expectancy from birth. Well, when they look at the people how long they live old age, actually people are living just as long if not longer than people today. Wow. And they don't get these chronic diseases. And anthropologists talk about this shift in the health issues and they look at just infections, chronic disease, infant mortality, things like that. And uh you know, injuries being attacked by by lions, things like that. And uh and then when they go to post-aggricultural sort of civilized sort of society, they then have a shift and they get more of the diseases of civilization, which are also called human diseases, which are also called chronic diseases. And 100 years ago, 150 years ago, they were called western diseases because we only see saw these diseases in western populations. We didn't see them in the native Americans and the native Australians and the native Canadians and Alaskans and and so on. So they're or the Messiah or the Nette or these uh these populations that are still alive today and some of them are still living a traditional way. They don't get these diseases. um in Australia when I first went down to practice there, I was told that basically day one that if you if you got a Australian Aboriginal patient, uh whatever age it said on their sticker, basically add 20 years to that because they just age so much more quickly and they develop diseases more quickly. And so if you had someone in their 30s and 40s, you had to consider them in a geriatric population. start thinking about the heart diseases and the cancers and the afflictions that affected 60 year olds, 70 year olds and things like that. Why is that? Because they well because they they age more quickly, but I think it's because they haven't been had been exposed to agricultural food uh for very long. You know, our ancestors would have had thousands of years to acclimatize and and be accusto and try to build up some sort of resistances to the toxins in plants. But the Australian natives and the American natives. Hey guys, just want to take a second to thank our sponsor at Carnivore Bar. I don't promote many products because honestly all you need to be healthy is to just eat meat. But for those times that you're out hiking, road tripping, or stuck at work and you want nutritious snack that is just meat, fat, and salt if you want it, the Carnivore Bar is a great option. So I like this product not because it's just pure meat, but also because I want the carnivore market to thrive as well. And the more we support meat only products, the more meat only products there will be available in the mainstream. So if this sounds like something you'd like to get behind, check it out using my discount code Anthony to get 10% off, which also applies to subscriptions, giving you 25% off total. All right, thanks guys. Especially in, you know, certain parts, uh, it's really only the last 150 years that they've been exposed to this. you know, some some areas they did have agriculture. Um, but the large majority of their diet was was meat, especially in the Great Plains with like the bison, like they had access to meat. All the all the historical records I found to be very consistent that when they had access to meat, they would just eat meat and they'd sort of fill in the gaps with plants if they had to. Um, but then there's places like in the Arctic North where you know the Inuit are and the First Nation people of Canada now there's no plants growing up in the Arctic Circle. You know, you're not you're not cultivating any crops. You're not growing potatoes or anything like that. And so they just ate meat and they have uh when eating a western diet, they get more sick. Native American I I heard this when I was a kid that that Native Americans when eating western diet had four times the burden of disease, chronic disease, obesity, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, all these things than uh the rest of Americans. Wow. And I remember thinking at the time that well doesn't that mean the food is causing the disease? Because if they don't eat the food, they don't get the disease and we get the food and we get the disease just at a lower rate. And what's a non-western diet? Whether they eating that we're not and vice versa. And you know, no one told me at the time, but they were they were carnivores. They were predominantly eating meat. And uh and then, you know, the the plants that they grew and prepared in in specific traditional ways, you know, on top of that as well, but they weren't having any of the the highly processed garbage. Uh they were eating a lot of meat whenever they could. And um it was just a very different different diet and lifestyle. And when you switch away from that, you start seeing a massive increase in disease. And it and I I think that is the true healthcare crisis. You we argue about what health care system we want. Do we want a public system or a private system or something new that we haven't thought of yet. It doesn't matter because any system is going to collapse and crumble under the weight of the the growing burden of the chronic disease epidemic. uh Harvard University uh school of public health published a massive study looking at the economic burden of chronic disease just five chronic diseases uh heart disease or cardiovascular disease COPD diabetes cancer and mental health disorders just those five so obviously a lot of other ones as well they're very expensive and costly just those five they found that um in 200 0. I'm going to give rough numbers here, so forgive me, but around worldwide, we spent about $8 trillion in treating that in the direct and indirect costs of treating those diseases. By 2030, it's estimated to be up around $14 trillion. Trillion with a T, right? And so that that's worldwide. So it's it's nearly doubled in that period of 26 years. Uh,