348 Dr. William Li | Eat to Beat Disease: The New Science of How Your Body Can Heal Itself

Treatments can be game-changers but why don't we prevent disease in the first place? Yes, we should treat disease; that's important but even more important is preventing it. When you talk about prevention, you can't really talk about medicines or drugs; you have to talk about other tools and that's what has brought me to researching food as medicine. - Dr. William Li

 

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Wellness Force Radio Episode 348

Internationally recognized medical expert and New York Times Best Selling author of Eat To Beat Disease, Dr. William Li, explains his 5 Health Defense Systems against all disease, what angiogenesis is and why it's so important for our health plus the power of focusing on what healthy foods you already love rather than spending time and energy thinking about the ones you should cut out.

Listen and find out what to do next to boost your immune system with Mother Nature's greatest gift: food.

 

Listen To Episode 348 As Dr. William Li Uncovers:

 

[1:30] Food As Medicine

• Dr. William Li
• Eat To Beat Disease by Dr. William Li
• Get 25% off our new BREATHE program with the code PODCAST25
• Why food as medicine is nothing new; it's an old concept that goes back decades that we're just bringing back into society now.
• The absence of education on nutrition in medical schools yet that's the number one thing they should be discussing with students.
• What set him on the journey of where he is today with educating people about the importance of good nutrition for better health.
• His research on developing biotechnology treatments for illness and how he's applied it to studying nutrition.
• Unpacking where society went wrong about nutrition and forgot how powerful it is to help us beat disease; especially during the industrial age.
• Why it's not just about the food we eat but how our body responds to it.
• Exploring the bioactives found in the plants we eat.

 

[22:00] Fighting Against COVID19 By Boosting Our Immune System

• The moment he specifically felt called to go into research in order to help more people prevent disease.
• TED-Ed | Can we eat to starve cancer? - William Li
• How he stays grounded with all of the press and attention he receives for his work.
• What he and his team are doing to research and better understand COVID19 so that we can take action.
• His findings on COVID19 and what we should be focusing on including boosting our immunity right from our home kitchens.
• Why we shouldn't be focusing on the drugs against the coronavirus like the media and instead look at what decisions we can make right now.

 

[29:30] The Five Health Defense Systems Against All Disease

• Exploring the five health defense systems in his book, Eat To Beat Disease, including angiogenesis, stem cell regeneration, microbiome, DNA repair, and our immunity that we can boost with food instead of drugs.
• Why we should be looking at our boosting our system with natural foods; not pharmaceutical drugs.
• Unpacking what exactly angiogenesis is and how the body grows its blood vessels.
• Judah Folkman
• 275 Paul Chek
• Why we should be focusing on eating foods seasonal at Farmer's Markets instead of imported foods all year round.
• How someone can know if their food is negatively impacting any of their five health defense systems.
• Food inequality that we must address as a society to ensure everyone can receive fresh food every day.
• What healthy foods you can find in the middle aisles of a grocery store including some of Dr. Li's and Josh's favorite picks.

 

[38:00] Anti-Angiogenic Foods For Greater Health

• What anti-angiogenic foods you should add to your diet to yield even better health results.
• Why the amount of our blood vessels in the human body is so important to preventing and fighting off disease.
• Exploring the specific foods such as farmed plants and soybeans that are eaten in communities with low cancer rates such as on the Japanese island of Okinawa.
• His list of over 100 anti-angiogenic foods to keep your blood vessel number level, healthy, and prevent disease in Eat To Beat Disease, including soy, green tea, various fruits, kale, and carrots.
• Why the tops of carrots actually have twice the amount of anti-angiogenic benefits compared to the rest of the vegetable.
• Unpacking common myths and facts about anti-angiogenic foods including chicken, strawberries, pomegranates, broccoli, and red wine.
• 179 Josh Tickell 
• 345 Dr. Zach Bush

 

[48:00] How To Feed Your Inner Ecosystem

• Exploring chapter 8 of his book, Eat To Beat Disease - Feed Your Inner Ecosystem and how we can take care of the good bacteria in our microbiome.
• Explaining what akkermansia is and its important role as an exceptionally good bacteria.
• How antibiotics take out the good bacteria from our body that we really need to keep our immune system strong.
• Why akkermansia muciniphila likes to grow in natural, healthy mucus in a hydrated gut.
• How akkermansia muciniphila works with our immune system to fight off disease trying to invade the body including viruses, bad bacteria, and cancer cells.
• Unpacking the latest breakthrough in biotechnology, immunotherapy, as a cancer treatment for people of all ages yet some people won't respond to it as positively as others if they don't have the akkermansia bacteria.
• How to get more akkermansia bacteria in your system by drinking cranberry juice and pomegranate juice.
• Why having a healthy gut is so important for our mood and even mental wellbeing.
• Unpacking the gut-brain connection and how we're constantly learning new things about it.
• What lactobacillus is, how it helps stimulate the oxytocin hormone production, and where we can find it in natural yogurt, sourdough, and pumpernickel bread.

 

[1:00:30] Eat Healthy Foods You Already Love

• How to eat better by simply focusing on healthy foods that we already love rather than spending time thinking about what foods to cut out.
• Why the decisions that we eat today can have huge implications tomorrow.
• His spiritual beliefs as a scientist and doctor.
• Some of his favorite mentors that have inspired and helped guide his work.
• How he's learned to rethink the way he approaches doing research with the help of his mentor, Judah Folkman.
• What life lessons he has learned along the way that have touched his heart and let him know that he was on the right path.
• Why we have to go beyond just focusing on physical health and make sure that we are emotionally well.
• What wellness means to him and where he's at now along his journey.
• BREATHE
• M21 Wellness Guide
• Wellness Force Community

 

 

Power Quotes From The Show

A New Age Of Health

 

"The industrial era was the time when we became so flush with choices that were pre-packaged, pre-chosen, and pre-processed for us that made things wonderfully convenient in a certain way, but really for our bodies and our health, wonderfully inconvenient because we lost touch with who we actually are. Now we're at a point of rediscovery as we're focusing on the basics like cooking our own meals with local foods, creating a backlash against industrialization, and essentially coming back to who we are as humans." - Dr. William Li

 

The Body's Ecosystem

"The 5 Health Defense Systems that I write about in Eat To Beat Disease - angiogenesis, stem cell regeneration, microbiome, DNA repair, and our immunity are really quite amazing because they're all interrelated. Our health defenses are like The Great Barrier Reef; there's not just one type of coral - there are many types of coral plus other plant life, turtles, fish, and the list goes on. It's an ecosystem and everything works together. That's really what our body is; a gigantic ecosystem of health." - Dr. William Li

 

 

Making Good Decisions Today For Greater Health Tomorrow

"To live healthy and eat healthy, start with nutritious foods that you already love. If you do that, you're already going to be way ahead of the game and that's where everybody should begin. It's not only about cutting out processed foods, but it's also about what you add to your diet. In addition, food itself is not a magic bullet but a part of the equation. Stay physically active, manage your stress, and get good sleep. All of these things work together to make a happy ecosystem in your body. The decisions we make today can make huge implications for who we are tomorrow." - Dr. William Li

 

 

Links From Today's Show 

• Leave Wellness Force a review on iTunes
• TED-Ed | Can we eat to starve cancer? - William Li
• Judah Folkman
• 275 Paul Chek
• 179 Josh Tickell 
• 345 Dr. Zach Bush
• An Overview of Food as Medicine to Fight Disease
• Preparing Your Immune System for “Normal” Life
• Eat to Beat Disease: The New Science of How Your Body Can Heal Itself
• Boosting Our Immune System Through Food | Dr. William Li
• 10 Things to Eat Right Now to Fight Back Against COVID-19
• BREATHE
• M21 Wellness Guide
• Wellness Force Community
• Dr. William Li
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube

 

About Dr. William Li

William W. Li, MD, is a world-renowned physician, scientist, speaker, and author of EAT TO BEAT DISEASE – The New Science of How Your Body Can Heal Itself. He is best known for leading the Angiogenesis Foundation. His groundbreaking work has impacted more than 70 diseases including cancer, diabetes, blindness, heart disease, and obesity.

His TED Talk, “Can We Eat to Starve Cancer?” has garnered more than 11 million views, and he has appeared on: Good Morning America, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, Voice of America; and in The Atlantic, TIME, and The New York Times. An author of over 100 scientific publications in leading journals such as Science, the New England Journal of Medicine, and The Lancet, Dr. Li has served on the faculties of Harvard Medical School, Tufts University, and Dartmouth Medical School.

 

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