What You Need to Know About Cancer and Diet! | Dr Anthony Chaffee, MD

hey everyone we are back with the plant for 
emd dr anthony chafee uh it's been a week   or so since we've last spoken and um first of 
all happy birthday thanks man i appreciate it   my pleasure and even though you're in your 
home in scrubs so that's just fantastic yeah   well i just i just came home i just had a 
had a minute so i was able to to run back   it's much easier to talk here than in the office 
yeah absolutely okay so today's topic is a heavy   one and and somewhat a technical one as well 
so we'll we'll step through it slowly so that   everyone myself included can understand what's 
going on we're going to talk about cancer and   this is a topic that is particularly interesting 
for me because at mckenzie's meets two of our um   most loyal customers who buy every single week are 
both recovering from cancer they buy fatty thief   they like the high fat content they're both women 
um and i know for a fact that a strict carnivore   diet has been absolutely crucial to their 
recovery from life-threatening cancer so when   dr chaki suggested this topic i thought it was a 
really interesting one to dive into so welcome dr   chaffee i'm looking forward to getting into this 
yeah thank you very much yeah i'm looking forward   to it as well cool so um i know this is basic 
but could we just do a very short and simple   explanation of what cancer is uh yeah so you know 
cancer is is a it's basically a misdevelopment of   your own tissue so your tissue starts behaving 
abnormally so you may have skin cells that start   behaving as not skin cells so there's generally 
considered eight cardinal mutations and changes   that you know cause or define a metastatic cancer 
so it has to be able to do a lot of different   sorts of things these cells have to behave in 
a certain way and all together these things   are able to you know act as metastatic cancer so 
these are formerly uh normal cells that have then   changed in some way for some reason there's 
there's contention on exactly what causes that   and what precipitates that but either way these 
started out as your own tissue and then have   changed in form and function and are now acting 
abnormally and the problem with them is they   they grow abnormally as we know but they also 
move around and they spread through different   systems in your body and they can start growing 
in different organs and they cause multi-organ   failure they can damage you in multiple different 
ways you can get sick easier and eventually   you can succumb from this for various reasons 
either because this has caused so much damage   to so many organs you get multi-organ failure 
or you know because you're just so susceptible   to infections that you you die from an 
infection and obviously not everyone   does succumb thankfully uh quite a lot 
of people can recover we're made up of   millions of different cells and they effectively 
aren't functioning properly they go bad and then   we become sick and we're susceptible to 
all sorts of other things going wrong um   throughout our body and that's fair yeah exactly 
and and generally you know the the ultimate cure   is complete excision so if you if you cut out all 
of the cells then those cells don't exist anymore   and they go away but you know when these things 
because they can spread they can spread very   easily and you you are able to see microscopic 
evidence of this while you're doing surgery   you know they they can spread and then they can 
metastasize but you get something early you cut   it all out generally you can cure for basically 
everything except brain cancer we find that if we   even remove entire hemispheres containing cancer 
it'll pop up on the other side potentially for   primary brain cancers so that suggests either this 
stuff is spread very quickly or it's a an overall   disease process that's happening and this is 
just going to keep popping up in different   parts of the central nervous system as well okay 
yeah sure i mean yeah brain cancer terrifying   that's why if you had cancer you know skin cancer 
happens all the time particularly in australia so that's yeah okay cool now i want to 
talk about cancer and ketogenic diets when we spoke earlier you mentioned 
that there were studies done   80 to 100 years ago into this very topic i'm 
wondering if that might be a good place to start   yeah so you know there was a you know very famous 
guy nobel prize winner in medicine otto warburg   he got a nobel prize and i believe 1931 
for discovering that cancer cells don't   use oxygen so they don't have aerobic respiration 
they use anaerobic respiration we you know can   look at this now and we now know that cancer cells 
have to open these glucose channels so they run   out they still run on on you know glucose blood 
sugar or whatever but they need massive quantity   you know increased rates of it so they generally 
pull in about 400 times the amount of glucose   that your normal cells would do and so that's 
because they run on anaerobic respiration because   they don't really have functional mitochondria 
and that's something that that will come into the   something we talked about later with with the you 
know the the the causes behind cancer is something   that people are approaching it so just to stop you 
there so anaerobic does that mean that it's using   glucose for energy and and so if we're doing 
anaerobic exercise we're using glucose for energy   is that the difference yeah so anaerobic anaerobic 
just means without oxygen okay that's that's   anaerobic so aerobic means with you know air with 
oxygen okay so aerobic respiration means that   you're using oxygen in the you know the krebs 
cycle and so forth and you're in producing atp   so when you use oxygen in aerobic respiration 
you get you know 36 atp molecules when you're   anaerobically doing this you only get 
two okay so it's much more efficient to   use oxygen which is why you know you know animals 
use oxygen cancer cells don't and so they need way   more glucose so this is a per unit of glucose 
right so you know one molecule of glucose   you know anaerobically will get you 36 um 
molecules of atp whereas anaerobically we only get   two for the same molecule and they're byproducts 
right like lactate and so forth and that's why we   get that burn because you have this lactic acid 
buildup but then you have just called your oxygen   debt you breathe heavily for a while then you 
stop breathing heavily and that burn goes away   and um and so that's why it's kind of stupid when 
people say they work out and then two days later   like oh it's all this lactic acid like that 
was gone days ago but so that's the thing with   with cancer is that they only work by anaerobic 
respiration that's what otto warburg found   um and so this is something that's come 
into play with the sort of ketogenic diet   because you're limiting your amount of glucose 
that's available to these cancer cells so there's   a guy dr thomas seyfried out of boston he's doing 
a lot of work and other people as well but he has   a lot of published data and has a lot of talks uh 
available on the internet and youtube and so forth   talking about this and talking about how if you 
put people on a ketogenic diet and you you limit   the amount of glucose that's in their body because 
you'll make glucose but it will cap at a certain   level they also run on you know glutamine as well 
and so he has developing pharmaceuticals that that   you know block out glutamine in your 
body and so these are two of the major   energy sources food sources for cancer cells and 
he's finding that you get extremely good results   um if catching on and he's not suggesting 
that you you forego you know chemo and   radiation all the traditional things and i'm 
certainly not either but this is something   adjuvantly that you can use to help yourself 
and what i talk to my patients about when they   always ask me well here are the treatments 
and here's everything we're going to do   but you know is there anything else i can do and 
you know well you can you can be as healthy as you   can be you want your body to work as well as you 
can because your body and your immune system are   really what's what's fighting this stuff off you 
have people that have autoimmune disorders or   are immunosuppressants their cancer rates are 
way up so our bodies are fighting this stuff   off and if you support yourself and support 
your body your body's going to support you   so uh yes dr seaford has found that um is quite 
helpful in in treating cancer and he's showing   histologically so he's taking up cell samples look 
at this and these cancers are just just receding   and receding on their own in hungary as 
well that treats people specifically treats   them with ketogenic or carnivore diet and 
and they find that that these cancers are   really just uh being eliminated much faster at a 
much better rate than traditional therapies alone   that was very interesting i might just unpack 
that a little bit um because on one hand we're   talking about making sure that we're as healthy 
as possible and you mentioned that people who've   got like metabolic illness or other issues are 
more likely to have cancer and then on the other   hand we're talking about restricting the glucose 
that the cancer cells actually feed on so sort of   coming at it from both of them well you can come 
at it from both those angles with uh ketogenic   or carnivore diet yeah which uh i think yeah i 
think is is very interesting i think did you you   also mentioned uh like irritable bowel disease 
and sort of gut related gastrointestinal issues   that a lot of people suffer from and you're saying 
there's a correlation between those issues and   and cancer rates is that is that i mean there 
are yeah i mean well if you look at especially   like ulcerative colitis and so forth this is a 
chronic inflammatory process and if you don't get   that resolved basically you you have a 100 chance 
of getting colon cancer and so quite often when   people have ulcerative colitis in their early 20s 
they just get a total colectomy ulcerative colitis   you know definitionally only affects the colon 
and so if you remove all of that then your risk   of cancer is eliminated but you know we know since 
you know the 1800s with dr salisbury who was you   know curing these people and other autoimmune 
disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis and so   forth uh that putting people on a pure red meat 
and water diet you know eliminates this and we   even have studies more recently showing that like 
an elemental diet you know really like eliminating   out most things and getting you know very basic 
diet has a better efficacy in treating ulcerative   colitis in crohn's than even steroids so high dose 
steroids for acute instances of and flare-ups and   you know so it's better at settling down those 
flare-ups and it's also better at maintaining   people um you know without flare-ups so you 
know diet is very much involved in these sorts   of things as far as a ketogenic diet and you know 
preventing ulcerative colitis from causing cancer   maybe you know ulcerative colitis is is very 
devastating illness and it's going to cause   serious damage kind of no matter what you do but 
if you you know put people on like a carnivore   diet your people are just eliminating their 
ulcer colitis without the need for surgery   which is you know fantastic same with crohn's 
and in terms of limiting the glucose that the   cancer cells can feed on so does that mean that 
they will effectively starve what's the process   that happens there yeah well it definitely slows 
them down and so you know they're not able to get   that 400 times uh you know glucose level that they 
want and so they aren't able to grow at the speed   you know that they would have otherwise and this 
gives your body a chance to fight these off more   effectively this is just growing out of control 
you know then your body's gonna have a really   hard time containing that if it's more mitigated 
and slowed down your body has a fighting chance   and um you know it gives the you know chemo 
radiation you know better chance to help as well   um you know the other thing you know comes into 
into play is that there's this whole idea of you   know like the genetic theory of cancer where you 
have these genetic mutations whether you you have   some sort of exposure or you have a genetic issue 
that makes you you're more susceptible to getting   genetic changes in your cells and eventually 
you get all these genetic changes and you have   cancer right and if things are pre-cancer they're 
almost there but they're not quite there that's   being challenged by people who are arguing for a 
metabolic theory of cancer where there's something   they say there's something going on in your 
metabolism that's actually helping to precipitate   these genetic changes and the formation of cancer 
and the behavior of cancer so uh joshua secretary   again has uh done different working other people 
have as well showing that the respiration of our   mitochondria which make our atp which which 
you know use glucose and oxygen to either   respirate by aerobic respiration or anaerobic 
respiration depending on what we're doing   find that these acting dysfunctionally 
is is very much implicated in   you know the propagation and behavior of cancer 
so sippy did uh you know did some studies looking   at because you know cancer cells when you have 
a tumor you know people think it's like oh this   is just monoclonal this is all the same cell and 
you have this change and all of a sudden this is   a cancer cell and that cancer cell boom but that's 
not the case actually you know you look at these   different cells they don't all have the same exact 
genetic changes they have certain ones that have   these markers but they're all behaving the same 
even though they have different genetics you know   to an extent and so he was taking these things he 
was taking the the nuclei that has the you know   the dna of these cells he took those out and put 
those into a healthy cell with normal mitochondria   in normal organelles and it did not behave as 
cancer but he took the the mitochondria out of   the cancer cells and put those into a normal cell 
with normal dna and normal nuclei and the rest   of the organelles normal and it did behave as 
cancer so there's something else going on there   there have been multiple studies on the ketogenic 
diet that look at specifically mitochondrial   respiration and they find that on a ketogenic diet 
basically just getting rid of carbohydrates and   sugar and so forth makes your cellular metabolism 
work a lot better now i you know i've mentioned   this a lot that i think that carbohydrates 
fundamentally disrupt our our macro metabolism   our energy uh mobilization and and usage in 
our body by increasing insulin and so forth   but it also works on a cellular level as well and 
so it disrupts down to the mitochondria how our   energy systems work so it's it's not it's not good 
stuff and that's why i completely avoid it but   they found that in these studies that 
the respiration efficacy and efficiency   of these mitochondria you know up to four was 
up to four times as efficient and effective so   they're working much better but they found that 
you actually had more mitochondria as well up to   four times as many mitochondria as well so you 
now have basically a 16-fold increase in the   energy efficiency and metabolism of your cell and 
so when you put these two things together that you   have these you know dysfunctional mitochondria 
precipitating genetic changes and behavior and   cancerous behaviors or at least suggestive of so 
and you know you have a ketogenic diet that shows   that you get much better cellular respiration and 
mitochondrial respiration and function you know   then you have to sort of wonder okay you know 
does is this gonna is this gonna matter so you   know warburg found out that this stuff runs on on 
anaerobic activity so it needs massive amounts of   glucose and that's what what seafood found and you 
know so if you limit the glucose that's going to   help starve out the cancer but if you are getting 
you know if you're getting rid of carbohydrates   that's going to make these cells function more 
normally anyway so that might be a factor that   that actually helps actually reverse the disease 
process which is cancer and that's something we   need more uh studies on that we need more data on 
but it's certainly uh a very interesting avenue   definitely okay so that that was fairly 
technical for you for your average person um were we talking about again like both starving 
the cancer cells by knocking in the glucose   and then also helping our existing 
body cells function better without   because they're not receiving the 
carbohydrates in the glucose was that yeah and also you know potentially these 
cancer cells you know potentially these cancer   cells can start you know reversing themselves 
because if their if their cellular metabolism   starts correcting itself it could be that 
they revert i don't know i haven't seen a   study that says that that's about the potential 
mechanism the cancer cells could revert back to   being regular health but well potentially i mean 
i think i think that's that's a potential thing i   think that's a very um you know important 
uh avenue for research and to look into   uh but yeah the potential is absolutely there 
and you know that's you know a potential for   you know like the model for you know why 
these things behave as cancer and and you   sort of you know reverse that you take that 
away you're you know getting to the root   of the disease process you know and so instead 
of instead of treating a symptom or treating   you know we're treating a cause and so if that's 
one of the causes and you take away that cause   you can you're knocking the legs out from the 
disease process i'm sort of thinking about like   your average person how they can how they can take 
this information and apply it to their own rights   i suppose like the obvious way is to make sure 
that you're metabolically as healthy as possible   um and perhaps experimenting with 
a ketogenic or a carnivore diet   could be you know a really good way to ensure 
that you're as healthy as as you possibly can   be and you know that that can be body composition 
and then also just like how much energy you have   i found this big communication about how healthy 
you are and i mean i'm trying to think that if i   if i was diagnosed with cancer i would certainly 
do a hell of a lot of research and try and find if   there was something that can help me i mean should 
people be reading into more of dr thomas seaford's   stuff or where where where should people go to 
get more of this this information yeah i think   i think dr seyfried is the you know is a very good 
uh source for this he's published a ton of stuff   uh spelled s-e-y-f-r-i-e-d and now you know we 
can use some um put some you know show notes and   things like that with links to some of his stuff 
um where people can find him but you know it's   obviously you know people should do their own 
research as well um there's a lot of conflicting   data out there there's a lot of people that tell 
you like a vegan diet is really going to help you   and so forth and maybe it does but in comparison 
to what you know that's always my argument with   the vegans say well i feel so much better you're 
having these better outcomes like okay compared   to what you know were you only did you only drop 
off meat you know usually not usually they say   oh i've gone whole food i stopped eating sugar i 
don't drink soft drinks i don't go to dinner like   you know i make all my food and so forth i'm not 
really eating you know carbs and processed crap   so they're changing a lot of things most of the 
things that they're eliminating is actually you   know plant and sugar material okay not meat they 
may have gotten rid of meat as well but you know   that's throwing the baby out with the bath water 
you know they they shouldn't have done that um   but they've eliminated things off that are quite 
bad for them and so they feel better of course   they feel better you know they've just gotten 
rid of some things that are very toxic to them   so you know compared to people eating 
really the wrong thing the worst things   you know people eating you know a vegan 
diet and you know that isn't optimal   you know is going to give improvement obviously it 
will but that's not to say that's the best thing   that they can do and so it it's important for 
people to sort of you know look at the evidence   and weigh the evidence and see how strong it is 
and and see uh what they think and what they they   believe because one of the most important things 
with cancer treatment is is you really need to   buy into your treatment whatever your treatment 
is whatever you're going to do you need to believe   this will work because that it just seems to be 
one of those things that when people are just like   yep yep positive attitude this is going to work 
we're going to do this we're going to go right   after this they they do better than the people 
that have just basically succumbed and just say   there's no hope there's nothing i can do 
about this this is me i'm not going to make it   they they do quite a lot worse generally when 
they when they give up hope like that totally   yeah that's really powerful i mean like 
most things i suppose it's between the years   if you if you're willing to do the work and you 
believe that whatever you're doing will work and you're gonna survive i imagine that would 
be that would be a massive factor um and the jew   would flow through everything you know you'd be if 
you are gonna do a vegan diet as you say make sure   it's a really clean whole foods vegan diet if you 
can do some form of exercising make sure you're   doing your exercise every single day to make sure 
you're not drinking alcohol and you're giving   yourself the best chance so yeah that's obviously 
a huge factor you know not not immediately obvious   that diet plays such a role or that even 
our environmental influences cause all that   of an influence on uh cancer rates but you know if 
you look at the cancer rates before 1980 they were   about one-third of what they are now in america 
okay so you know something's gone up and that's   not our genetics you know our you know we haven't 
had enough you know and your populations united   simply don't change that quickly so something 
happened in the environment that increased you   know our cancer rates by three-fold i think that 
that's uh to do a diet you know that's right   around the time that the usda said that um fat 
and cholesterol were bad for you can cause heart   disease so people stopped eating that and they 
stopped eating meat along with it because meat   has fat and cholesterol same with eggs and then 
they started eating more fruits and vegetables you   know they we reduced our uh cholesterol intake by 
33 percent you know reduced red meat by 30 percent   to 35 percent and increased fruits and vegetables 
by 30 and 40 respectively and and grains and sugar   as well dramatically you know the the effects were 
that you know among other things the cancer rates   have tripled but also obesity rates have tripled 
stroke rates have tripled heart disease rates   have tripled type 2 diabetes increased by you 
know six-fold autoimmune disorders alzheimer's   parkinson's autism these things all have increased 
in x you know exponentially almost didn't exist   before then the fine part that i find interesting 
is they all increase at roughly the same time they   all had this big big curve up uh at about the 
same time and so that's i mean that's completely   abnormal um people say oh well we probably just 
weren't you know keeping track of this but you   know we were we were keeping close ties on these 
sorts of things we've had you know some of the   most amazing doctors who have ever lived you 
know lived during that time and a lot of people   were noticing these sorts of things and noticing 
these trends go up and so forth and then we're   talking about it i think another way of kind 
of validating it is when you look at indigenous   populations who clearly work in a totally 
different diet and then their their life and   their diet just goes completely off track as soon 
as they hit that interesting processed food era   which um yeah same time period sort of halfway 
through the last century when things started   to go really off the boil in terms of lifestyle 
diseases yeah and yeah and they had you know their   uh disease uptake was far higher than you know uh 
western caucasian even even most asian populations   because they hadn't been exposed to these sorts 
of foods uh for as long as we have you know people   from you know european descent and so forth have 
had the agricultural revolution you know around 8   million sorry 8 000 years ago so you know we have 
some defenses but they're not they're not complete   and so we still get these problems from eating 
species appropriate diets but they get a far   more dramatic impact and so this is why you know 
in medicine in australia you basically consider   um you know a native person's age to be 20 years 
older than it is if you know their their sticker   says 40 years you just treat them as you would 
someone who is 60 because that's probably the   the problems that they're going to have is that of 
a 60 year old um that doesn't need to happen and   and when you go back to your you know when they 
go back to their you know nutritional routes and   they start eating traditionally as many still 
do they reverse those problems they'll reverse   them it's not just that they slow them down or 
stop them they reverse them they go away and   there is is something that you know if we can you 
know increase it we can triple the rates of cancer   then you know we figure out what that is we can 
you know slash it by two-thirds quite quite easily   as long as we recognize that what that is i think 
that it's dietary related i think that's you know   looking at the data and looking at what happened 
and the timing of it all i think that is is the   most likely culprit but it is something something 
happened and you know if we identify that and get   rid of it you know we'll be in much better shape 
you know the other thing is you know people say   that just on the subject of cancer you know people 
talk about how well red meat causes bowel cancer   and it's like no it doesn't you know that was 
a really crappy epidemiological study it only   showed an 18 increase in uh you know correlation 
again it's not causation and these epidemiological   studies they're meaningless unless you get at 
least you know a doubling like a 200 percent   increase in in correlation again correlation this 
didn't even have that it didn't even it didn't   even meet you know didn't even get on the radar 
you know but people latched on to that and they've   just been repeating this for so long that just you 
know people who haven't actually looked into this   are just doctors as well you know i hear you know 
colorectal you know surgeons talking about oh you   got to avoid red meat i was like no you don't 
you know these epidemiological studies have been   redone because there's a lot of confounding 
factors and you know there weren't great   studies and they cherry-picked out which you 
know data sources they wanted to use very   you know unscientifically and when these things 
were redone they didn't even find a correlation   they didn't find any increase uh in in bowel 
cancer rates or any other kind of cancer rates   well with red meat or any other kind of 
meat so there isn't even a correlation   between eating meat and red meat and cancer 
especially bowel cancer um then there's a ton of   other studies as well looking at different aspects 
of this so you know people that have higher there   was a study i saw that people that had higher ldl 
cholesterol had much lower uh all-cause mortality   and specifically breast cancer rates and breast 
cancer mortality so it's multifactorial there's   a lot of things that go into it but all these all 
roads lead to roam and you know you have higher   cholesterol you have you know less carbohydrates 
you have you know better cellular metabolism you   have better um you know macrometabolism these 
are all getting you back into your natural state   that you would be in if you are on a high fat 
carnivore diet or even a ketogenic diet but you   know carnivore i would argue is is much better 
you know because you're getting rid of all plant   toxins and and so forth this is this is just how 
our bodies are supposed to run and when we start   eating things that aren't good for our bodies it 
throws a wrench in the gears and our bodies start   working abnormally cancer is our body working 
abnormally now you can have people that have   genetic conditions and you know they just are 
going to get cancer no matter what you do you   know you get babies being born with brain 
tumors that's awful but you know the ones   outside of that you know are preventable you there 
are preventable cancers we know that you know   there's a whole bunch of different things 
you know smoking and so forth even then when   when the babies are born with cancer or major 
issues like that like it's likely there's some   sort of environmental impact that's going on there 
you know whether it's radiation or whether it's   poor nutrition from your mother or what have you 
if it's you know i can't imagine that's something   that would occur naturally in a very primitive 
environment no i don't i don't yeah i don't think   so either i i think that there are going to be 
some because you're going to get some de novo   mutations and and problems that you can have and 
then that that baby dies and doesn't pass that   gene once you get you know a once-off fluke that 
the you know the fetus didn't develop properly   and had these severe problems um that can happen 
but i i do wonder you know as you suggested like   how many of these are preventable as well based on 
the diet of the mother you know if the mother was   was eating like a you know carnivorous diet you 
know would her child have had that i don't know   it's impossible to answer that uh right now but 
you know you once you get enough people having   fully carnivorous pregnancies maybe you can start 
seeing that you know that that instance where you   have you know cancers forming a child you know 
that young and that early is super rare so it may   not be that we'll we may not be able to get the 
you know the population numbers that we need to   really look at that for quite some time if ever 
but i you have to wonder because you know this   certainly affects us as adults it affects the 
elderly much more than then it affects the   you know middle-aged people and young 
adults but it affects the developing   the most so developing fetus is going to 
be hit hardest by an inappropriate diet and   you know you can you can only wonder what 
we all would have been like if if we had   all developed as as carnivores and i think a 
lot of the tragic early childhood issues uh   could have been avoided obviously not all of 
them but it's uh you do have to wonder how many   of these would have been prevented or preventable 
yeah that's a it's such an interesting topic that   early childhood development like you know what 
what could we all have been if you have that   i mean you're gonna have a perfectly 
optimal scenario but if you did have   sort of something close to it in terms of 
you know body and mind development yeah   um all right is there is there anything else you 
wanted to add on the on the cancer topic dr chad   no i i think i think that covered a lot of it 
i think you know i would encourage people to go   look at um you know dr thomas seyfried's work his 
papers and his talks um i you know i brushed on   uh you know a bit of it and hopefully i didn't 
misrepresent his work uh too much but um we're   getting you know many of the specifics wrong 
but um if you want you know in-depth analysis   on on those sorts of things definitely check 
his at his his workout he's on on youtube and   his papers or you know you know peer-reviewed 
major major publications awesome yeah i'll be   doing some research into that and i'll share some 
links in the show notes too sounds good as well   excellent all right dr chaffee the plan 
freemd thank you very much for delving   into that complicated topic i feel like i know a 
little bit more than i did before um and i realize   there's a lot more to know as well so i really 
appreciate you sharing that yeah not a problem   i'm happy to happy to uh have a chat and yeah 
obviously it's a massive massive subject and   there's much more to cover but you know that's 
that's good for uh the broad strokes anyway