 After Dr. Dean Ornish conquered our number one killer, he moved on to killer number two. What happens if you put cancer on a plant-based diet? Ornish and colleagues found that the progression of prostate cancer could be reversed with a plant-based diet and other healthy lifestyle behaviors and no wonder. If you dip the blood of those eating a standard American diet onto cancer cells growing in a petri dish, cancer growth is cut down about nine percent. Put people on a plant-based diet for a year though and their blood can do this. The blood circulating within the bodies of those eating plant-based had nearly eight times the stopping power when it came to cancer cell growth. Now this was for prostate cancer, leading cancer killer specific to men and women. It's breast cancer, number one cancer killer of young women. So researchers wanted to repeat the study with women using breast cancer cells instead, but they didn't want to wait a whole year to get the results. Women are dying now, so they figured let's see what a plant-based diet can do after just two weeks against three different types of human breast cancer. Cancer growth started out powering away at a hundred percent and then dropped after eating a plant-based diet for 14 days. Here's the before picture, a layer of breast cancer cells is laid down in a petri dish and then blood from women eating the standard American diet is dripped on them. As you can see even the blood of women eating pretty poor diets has some ability to break down cancer, but after just two weeks eating healthy blood was drawn from those same women, so they acted as their own control. Same women two weeks later their blood dripped on a new carpet of breast cancer cells and this is all that's left. Just a few individual cancer cells remain, their bodies cleaned up before and after. Just two weeks eating healthy their bloodstream became that much more hostile to cancer. Slowing down the growth of cancer cells is nice getting rid of them is even better. This is what's called apoptosis program cell death after eating healthy their own bodies were able to somehow reprogram the cancer cells forcing them into early retirement. This is what's called tunnel imaging measuring DNA fragmentation cell death, so dying cancer cells show up as little white spots. So again this is the before with the blood of your average woman can do to breast cancer cells. She can knock off a few, you can see one dying cancer cell there on the upper left, but then after 14 days of healthy plant-based living her blood can do this. It's like you're an entirely different person inside the same blood. Now coursing through these women's bodies gained the power to significantly slow down and stop breast cancer cell growth after just two weeks eating a plant-based diet. What kind of blood do we want in our body? What kind of immune system? Do we want blood that just gonna rolls over when new cancer cells pop up? Or do we want blood circulating to every nook and cranny in our body with the power to slow down and stop it? Now this dramatic strengthening of cancer defenses after 14 days of a plant-based diet and exercise to add these women out walking 30 to 60 minutes a day. Well if you do two things how do you know what role the diet played? So researchers decided to put it to the test. This is measuring cancer cell clearance is what we saw before. The effect of blood taken from those who ate a plant-based diet, in this case for an average of 14 years along with mild excess, just like out walking every day, plant-based diet and walking. That's kind of cancer cell clearance you get. Compare that to the cancer stopping power of your average sedentary American, which is basically nonexistent. This middle group though, instead of 14 years on a plant-based diet, 14 years standard American diet, but 14 years of daily, strenuous hour-long exercise like calisthenics. The researchers want to know if you exercise hard enough, if you exercise long enough, can you rival some strolling plant-eaters over there? And the answer is exercise help, no question, but literally 5,000 hours in the gym was no match for a plant-based diet. Same tunnel imaging as before, even if you're a couch potato, eating fried potatoes, your body's not totally defenseless, your bloodstream can kill off a few cancer cells, but exercise for 5,000 hours you can kill cancer cells left and right, but nothing appears to kick more cancer-tush than a plant-based diet. We think it's because of animal proteins, meat, egg white, and dairy proteins, increasing the level of IGF-1 in our bodies, insulin-like growth factor when a cancer promoting growth hormone involved in the acquisition and progression of malignant tumors. Here's the experiment that really nailed IGF-1 as the villain, same as last time, going to a plant-based diet, cancer cell growth drops, cancer cell death shoots up, but then here's the kicker. What if you add back to the cancer, just the amount of IGF-1 banished from your body because you started eating healthier? It effectively erases the diet and exercise effect. It's like you never started eating healthy at all. So the reason one of the largest prospective studies on diet and cancer found the incidence of all cancers combined was lower among those eating more plant-based, maybe because they're eating less animal protein, less meat, egg white, and dairy protein, so end up with less IGF-1, which means less cancer growth. How much less cancer? Middle-aged men and women with high protein intake had a 75% increase in overall mortality and a fourfold increase in the risk of dying specifically from cancer, but not all proteins specifically animal protein, which makes sense given the higher IGF-1 levels. The academic institution sent out a press release with a memorable opening line. That chicken wing you're eating could be as deadly as a cigarette, explaining that eating a diet rich in animal proteins during middle age makes you four times more likely to die from cancer, a mortality risk factor comparable to smoking cigarettes. What was the response to the revelation that diets high in meat, eggs, and dairy could be harmful to health and smoking? Well, one nutrition scientist replied that it was potentially dangerous to compare the effects of smoking with the effects of meat and dairy. Why? Because the smoker might think it. Why bother quitting smoking if my ham and cheese sandwich is just as bad for me? So better not tell anyone about the whole animal protein thing. That reminds me of a famous Philip Morris cigarette ad that tried to downplay the risk by saying, hey, you think secondhand smoke is bad, increasing the risk of lung cancer 19%. Well, hey, drinking one or two glasses of milk every day, maybe three times as bad, 62% higher risk of lung cancer, or doubling your risk frequently cooking with oil, or tripling your risk of heart disease by eating non-vegetarian, or multiplying your risk sixfold being lots of mean dairy. So they conclude, let's keep some perspective here. The risk of lung cancer from secondhand smoke may be well below that of other everyday activity. So breathe deep. It's like saying, don't worry about getting stabbed, because getting shot is so much worse. How about neither? Two risks don't make a right. Of course, you know Philip Morris stopped throwing deer under the bus once they purchased Kraft Foods. Just saying.