HEALTHY FOODS That Heal The Body, Starve Cancer & PREVENT DISEASE! | Dr. William Li & Lewis Howes

1. 0:00 – 6:28

   Why a Doctor Turned to Food as Medicine

   1. WLDr. William Li0:00

      Things that used to be like instant foods, gotta be really careful about that because if you take a look at the packaging, and I'm telling you, there's one thing your viewers can get from me about things to watch out for

   2. SPSpeaker0:13

      I think you gotta have a dream. The School of Greatness. Really? [laughs] Yeah. Please welcome Lewis Howes. You share a lot of science behind how we can beat cancer and other diseases by changing our diet, but it doesn't seem possible for most of the population to even think about that. So how is this possible?

   3. WLDr. William Li0:32

      Yeah. Well, you know, uh, first of all, have a... thanks for having me on. I love talking about the, uh, the making the impossible possible, and usually, first of all, you just have to kind of think through, uh, what your goals are. And so I'll explain sort of what my goals were when I got into this whole thing. So I'm a-

   4. SPSpeaker0:50

      Okay

   5. WLDr. William Li0:50

      ... I'm a medical doctor. I'm trained as an internal medicine doc, and that means that I take care of men and women, young and old, healthy and sick. And one of the things that I, uh, trained myself more or less to do is a little bit different than how most medical doctors think, which is, you know, we're trained to, uh, diagnose disease, chase it with drugs, and keep chasing it with drugs, right? [laughs]

   6. SPSpeaker1:15

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   7. WLDr. William Li1:16

      So my view has always been we start healthy. Every now and then we get sick, but the real question is how can we actually get back to health, and how do we prevent getting sick in the first place? So little bit of a different orientation, and my goal has always been to s- keep health, protect health, or to, to get you back to health. Um, I'm also a researcher-

   8. SPSpeaker1:37

      But as a med- as a medical doctor, you're not... what I've been told is you're not taught about nutrition and actually teaching how to eat properly to reverse disease or to prevent disease, I should say. So how come you seem to be o- you know, one of the, the few that have tried to... have gone outside of the box to say, "Hey, listen, we're not gonna just pump everyone with drugs a- and put a Band-Aid on something. We're gonna get to the root cause"?

   9. WLDr. William Li2:01

      Yeah. Well, so here- here's a little bit of the kind of the under the skirt truth about this. Um, medical schools teach, um, m- med- medical students that usually get less than one month worth of nutrition education in their entire four years, and then it never gets revisited throughout your entire career. And in fact, nutrition, when I went to medical school, was kind of dismissed as something that, that dieticians actually did. And when I trained in the hospital... Now, I trained at Massachusetts General Hospital. It's one of the Harvard teaching hospitals, okay? So I can run a COVID unit. I could run an emergency room, not a problem. But what I realized o- after many years of taking care of patients is that when my patients would ask me, "Hey, Doc, what should I do for myself," I realized I, I was never taught that answer, so I thought that was wrong. Now, my background as a researcher actually comes into play in terms of how I got into this whole field because, um, I'm what you call a vascular biologist, so that really means that I study the science of blood vessels.

   10. SPSpeaker3:06

       Okay.

   11. WLDr. William Li3:06

       And, uh, blood vessels are important because we've got, uh, 60,000 miles worth of blood vessels packed inside our body. So you can imagine how important this network actually is. It delivers every bit of oxygen we breathe, and a- all the nutrition we eat that goes through the bloodstream, you need the circulation to bring it to every cell and every organ. So that's what I study, my science. So when I actually started, uh, you know, almost 30 years ago, uh, uh, in medicine, my, my, my goal was to figure out how could we actually first conquer diseases. So-

   12. SPSpeaker3:39

       Mm

   13. WLDr. William Li3:40

       ... I, I went into the biotech area, and, you know, we tried to figure out common denominators of disease. And, uh, and it comes back to food because food is one of those common solutions. But common denominators of disease actually means when you take a look at how we do research on Alzheimer's and diabetes and obesity and aging and heart disease and cancer, these are vertical silos. They're about an inch wide and a mile deep, and you get specialists that actually come in, and they are really knowledgeable about what makes one disease different from another.

   14. SPSpeaker4:14

       Okay.

   15. WLDr. William Li4:14

       A- and I thought, "Look, you know, we should actually look at what makes diseases the same." So if you drain the Pacific, you get to figure out how the islands are connected, right? And so that's what I was interested in because I figured if you could figure out the common denominators of a disease, then you had a shot at pulling the bow back and sending a single arrow through multiple diseases. Now, I looked at angiogenesis, which is how the body grows blood vessels, that's my area, um, as one of those common denominators, and we were right. So I run the Angiogenesis Foundation. We figured out that when the body loses its control over its circulation, either you don't have enough blood vessels and wounds don't heal, or you have too many blood vessels and you either go blind or cancers grow. And so through biotechnology, uh, over a, a couple of decades, I actually have been in- involved with developing 41 FDA-approved new treatments for cancer, diabetes, and, and prevent blindness, prevention of blindness.

   16. SPSpeaker5:15

       Wow.

   17. WLDr. William Li5:15

       Okay. So that's my street cred. So when somebody basically says, "Oh, you know, how'd you get into nutrition?" Uh, you know, like, "Are you one of those doctors that don't believe in modern medicine?" And I basically say, "No, I, I actually develop modern medicines."

   18. SPSpeaker5:29

       Right.

   19. WLDr. William Li5:29

       But what I realized when I was actually working with my patients is that although we can actually come up with better, more sophisticated, more higher tech treatments for diseases these days, the fact of the matter is we should be preventing disease in the first place. And when you're talking about prevention, you can't talk about drugs. You gotta talk about something like food. And when I thought about it, and this is how I got into nutrition, I realized I wasn't e- taught about it, but I did have the skill set of actually having developed drugs and having invented many of the systems that drugs are be- are tested in.

   20. SPSpeaker6:04

       Mm.

   21. WLDr. William Li6:04

       You know what? Why don't we just throw some food ... into those systems and see what happens. And so for me, I'm one of those people that actually not just says food is medicine, but I actually study food as medicine.

   22. SPSpeaker6:16

       Interesting.

   23. WLDr. William Li6:16

       That's how I got here.

   24. SPSpeaker6:17

       Okay. Very cool. So what are the... I mean, so it is possible through food to beat cancer and diseases. And is that what I'm hearing you say?

2. 6:28 – 10:00

   Food as the Medicine We Take Three Times a Day

   1. WLDr. William Li6:28

      Well, here's basically what I, I actually learned myself, is that when it comes to food and health, food is actually a medicine that we all take-

   2. SPSpeaker6:39

      Mm

   3. WLDr. William Li6:39

      ... three times a day, right?

   4. SPSpeaker6:41

      Right.

   5. WLDr. William Li6:42

      We, we try not to take prescription meds whenever we can avoid it. And even if you write prescription meds, you don't wanna be taking them forever. But food is something that you take three times a day from the time we're born to our very last breath, and when it comes to food and health, there is... Uh, it's not just about the food. It's actually about how our body responds to what we put inside it.

   6. SPSpeaker7:04

      Mm.

   7. WLDr. William Li7:04

      So that's the real kind of underlying secret. If you feed your body something that's not good for it, it's gonna res- it's gonna react poorly, not gonna be good for you. If you feed your body something that is good for it, it's gonna activate its health defenses, and that's what I write about in my book, Eat to Beat Disease, is, uh, how does a body actually r- uh, maintain its health, and then what can we eat to help the body do it better?

   8. SPSpeaker7:30

      Interesting. So I mean, what are the key things we should be knowing about the body? You know, are all bodies the same when it comes to how foods, I guess, are consumed and assimilated through the body and the bloodstream and all these different things, or is everybody different, where some nutritional foods might impact positively but negatively in other bodies? What should we be knowing about the body?

   9. WLDr. William Li7:52

      Yeah. It's a great question, and first of all, I'm a scientist. So I will tell you how you can tell that I'm a scientist is that real scientists tell you we don't know everything, okay?

   10. SPSpeaker8:02

       Mm.

   11. WLDr. William Li8:02

       And it's a kind of humility that we have to start with because so often you think about, you know, scientists being very smart and things. Real scientists spend their time talking about what we, what we don't know, not what we do know.

   12. SPSpeaker8:15

       Right.

   13. WLDr. William Li8:15

       So but you're asking me what we do know, all right? So I'll give you that, [laughs] so I'll give you that answer. Look, um, uh, our bodies are hardwired to be healthy. So when we're growing in our mom's womb, our body as we're forming our bones and our heart and our organs and our limbs, inside the form of the human that's being created, uh, are these health defenses. So you think about the body like a fortress. You know, you've seen a m- we all seen a medieval fortress, a castle, right? And basically, like it's a happy community that lives inside there. You got a king. You got a queen. You got a princess. You got everything else going inside there. But that fortress has gotta protect itself, so it's designed to repel enemies. It's got a moat. It's got a drawbridge. It's got the little slits you throw, you fire arrows out of. It's got sloping walls so enemies can't crawl up. It's got traps. It... By the way, you know, like in a medieval fort, um, the thing that I never realized having been to quite a few castles is that when you go to the entrance, there is a hole right above you-

   14. SPSpeaker9:22

       Mm

   15. WLDr. William Li9:22

       ... and it's called a murder hole.

   16. SPSpeaker9:24

       Ew.

   17. WLDr. William Li9:24

       And it's basically if the, if people breach the, the drawbridge, they would just drop rocks, boulders-

   18. SPSpeaker9:29

       Oh my gosh

   19. WLDr. William Li9:29

       ... down through that hole. All right. So the body is designed better than a medieval castle.

   20. SPSpeaker9:37

       Oh.

   21. WLDr. William Li9:37

       We've got our own defense systems, and there's five of them that I know about, and I helped to kind of put together this picture partly because I studied the biotechnology. How do you actually treat diseases using these systems? And when you forget about the disease part and you think about the health part-

   22. SPSpeaker9:55

       Mm

   23. WLDr. William Li9:55

       ... these are the systems, these five systems that maintain our health. So I'll tell you what they are.

   24. SPSpeaker10:00

       Okay.

3. 10:00 – 11:50

   Defense One: Angiogenesis and Starving Cancer

   1. WLDr. William Li10:00

      First health defense system is called angiogenesis. It's what I study. Blood vessels, a 60,000-mile channel that delivers oxygen and nutrients everywhere. Gotta have enough of them, um, uh, or your, our body is in trouble. Second-

   2. SPSpeaker10:14

      It's called angiogenesis.

   3. WLDr. William Li10:15

      And-

   4. SPSpeaker10:15

      This is the bl- this is the channel of blood vessels, or is this is the-

   5. WLDr. William Li10:19

      This is how. This, this is how the body grows blood vessels.

   6. SPSpeaker10:22

      Okay.

   7. WLDr. William Li10:22

      It is a whole system of growth.

   8. SPSpeaker10:25

      Okay.

   9. WLDr. William Li10:25

      When we have just the right amount of blood vessels, our body is healthy.

   10. SPSpeaker10:30

       Mm.

   11. WLDr. William Li10:30

       Now, when you gonna go to work out, all right, you're gonna pump some iron.

   12. SPSpeaker10:33

       Yeah.

   13. WLDr. William Li10:34

       Your, your muscles gotta grow. Now you need a few more blood vessels, all right? Um, if you skin your knee and fall off a bike, gotta heal that wound. Underneath that scab, you got new blood vessels growing to heal. Now, the body never lets too many blood vessels to grow or it causes problems. For example-

   14. SPSpeaker10:53

       Mm

   15. WLDr. William Li10:53

       ... cancers are forming in all of our bodies because we're filled with these dividing cells, and some of them make mistakes. But a microscopic cancer is completely harmless because it doesn't have a blood supply. And so our body prevents cancers from growing naturally by controlling the angiogenesis. So we, we just got-

   16. SPSpeaker11:14

       Mm

   17. WLDr. William Li11:14

       ... enough for our good cells, not enough for the bad cells.

   18. SPSpeaker11:17

       Right.

   19. WLDr. William Li11:17

       So that's one of our health defenses. And there are treatments, including ones that I helped to develop, that can cut off the blood supply to cancer by cutting off it, by starving it.

   20. SPSpeaker11:27

       Mm.

   21. WLDr. William Li11:28

       So that's called anti-angiogenic therapy, and the same treat- same approach has been used to prevent blindness, all right? So you don't have blood vessels leaking in the eye.

   22. SPSpeaker11:36

       Mm.

   23. WLDr. William Li11:37

       However, turns out that sometimes your body needs a little help, so now you can actually use foods to actually amp up your body's angiogenesis defenses. So that's just one of the defenses.

   24. SPSpeaker11:47

       Okay. That's the first one. What's the second one?

4. 11:50 – 16:46

   Defense Two: Stem Cells and Dark Chocolate

   1. WLDr. William Li11:50

      All right. Second one is our stem cells, right? So our s- s- when we were kids, uh, Lewis, you know, like our grade school teachers told us salamanders can regenerate. Starfish can regenerate. But people can't regenerate, right?

   2. SPSpeaker12:04

      Mm-hmm.

   3. WLDr. William Li12:05

      Wrong.

   4. SPSpeaker12:05

      You lose your, you lose your hand, it's not gonna grow back.

   5. WLDr. William Li12:08

      Well, it turns out that people do regenerate. We can't regenerate that quickly, but we... And we regenerate from the inside out. Like, a lizard can regenerate, like, a limb or a tail, but we regenerate our organs continuously. Our lung regenerates. Our liver regenerates, okay? Uh, the lining of our mouth regenerates. If you've ever eaten a chip, all right, and scratched the inside of your mouth and it hurts, next day all fixed, right? Because of regeneration. All right. Now, here's the thing. Uh, um, turns out that the way we naturally regenerate is through stem cells.

   6. SPSpeaker12:45

      Mm.

   7. WLDr. William Li12:45

      Not the kind you go to a strip mall to have injected into your knee, but this is the kind that we're-

   8. SPSpeaker12:50

      [laughs]

   9. WLDr. William Li12:50

      ... born with.

   10. SPSpeaker12:52

       Okay.

   11. WLDr. William Li12:52

       'Cause, you know, like, when, when we were... When you and I were b- were like sperm and egg meeting in our mom's womb and dividing, that's what we were. These are stem cells. We were all formed from these primitive cells that could be anything. It could be an eye. It could be a nose. It could be a heart. And they, and they formed our whole body and, and there's always some overage, okay? And so you have more than you need to form your... in, into a person, and when we're born about 750 million stem cells are left over, and they are packed up in a suitcase and stuffed into our bone marrow. All right? And so when we're born, even a little baby, inside their bone marrow, in the hollow of their bones, are 750 million stem cells, and they are stored there like a, uh, like bullets in a bandolier, waiting for when they're needed so that when we grow up and we need to be regenerated, you know, you have too many, too much to drink, now your liver needs to be regenerated.

   12. SPSpeaker13:51

       Mm.

   13. WLDr. William Li13:51

       You cut yourself, now you need to actually heal that wound. These stem cells come flying out of our bone marrow like bees-

   14. SPSpeaker13:57

       Wow

   15. WLDr. William Li13:57

       ... out of a hive-

   16. SPSpeaker13:58

       Wow

   17. WLDr. William Li13:59

       ... to regenerate us, renew us from the inside out. And there are biotech efforts that I've been a part of to try to grow new heart, grow new brain, regenerate nerves. Not ready for prime time yet, but it turns out that foods can coax these stem cells out of our bone marrow so we regenerate faster.

   18. SPSpeaker14:19

       Huh. Which, which foods? This is the second one, but I'm curious. Which foods can help us-

   19. WLDr. William Li14:23

       There, there are, there are a number of them. I'll, I'll give you one, uh, right from the get-go, is dark chocolate.

   20. SPSpeaker14:30

       Oh, you're speaking my language now.

   21. WLDr. William Li14:32

       [laughs]

   22. SPSpeaker14:32

       Okay. So dark choco- [laughs]

   23. WLDr. William Li14:34

       Yeah.

   24. SPSpeaker14:35

       Can you eat, can you eat too much dark chocolate? That's the question. [laughs]

   25. WLDr. William Li14:38

       Y- you know, I, I have never seen anything about an overdose of cacao, but I will tell you that cacao has been shown to actually double the number of stem cells flowing in your bloodstream just by having two cups of hot chocolate made with 80% high flavanol chocolate, dark chocolate.

   26. SPSpeaker14:57

       Come on.

   27. WLDr. William Li14:58

       Yeah. It's been done in people, 60-year-olds with heart disease.

   28. SPSpeaker15:02

       So wait, what happens when you, when you drink or you, you eat this dark chocolate-

   29. WLDr. William Li15:07

       Dr-

   30. SPSpeaker15:07

       ... what happens?
5. 16:46 – 21:09

   Defense Three: The Gut Microbiome

   1. SPSpeaker16:46

      Third one?

   2. WLDr. William Li16:48

      Third one is our gut microbiome. Now, people have been talking about gut health and microbiome. It's almost like a buzzword these days, and people are saying, "Well, we can actually scoop your poop, and we can actually measure your microbiome, and we can tell you what you need to eat and what you don't need to eat." Again, I'm a scientist, so I will tell you that there are 39 trillion bacteria in our, in the typical body. That's more stars than in a night sky, all right?

   3. SPSpeaker17:17

      Wow.

   4. WLDr. William Li17:18

      So we barely understand, uh, the gut bacteria, but what we do know is that this gut bacteria actually controls our metabolism, communicates with our brain, um, actually can help us heal from the inside out, and very importantly, our gut bacteria basically lives... If y- if you think of your gut like a, like a garden hose.

   5. SPSpeaker17:43

      Mm-hmm.

   6. WLDr. William Li17:43

      It's a tube, and you were to cut a garden hose in half, and you look inside it, there's a lining, okay? Uh, the bacteria's inside the hose, but inside the wall of the garden hose, that's where your immune system... 70% of our immune system lives inside our gut. So our gut bacteria-

   7. SPSpeaker18:01

      70%.

   8. WLDr. William Li18:02

      Yeah.

   9. SPSpeaker18:02

      So if you're, so if you're feeding your gut a lot of bad foods, it's probably-

   10. WLDr. William Li18:06

       You're pois-

   11. SPSpeaker18:07

       Yeah

   12. WLDr. William Li18:07

       ... you're poisoning your immune system.

   13. SPSpeaker18:08

       Wow.

   14. WLDr. William Li18:08

       You're preventing your gut bacteria. Now, I'll tell you what's interesting about the gut bacteria. Your gut bacteria talks to the immune system right through the walls of the, of your gut. Immune system's in there, 70%, right? Like a jelly roll. Like a, like the jelly in a jelly roll, and the gut bacteria's inside. So think about like a college student in a freshman dorm. They are talking to their, a roommate by pounding on the wall, right? "What do you want? What kind of pizza do you want?"

   15. SPSpeaker18:33

       [laughs]

   16. WLDr. William Li18:35

       [laughs] All right? And they can answer you, and that's basically what our gut bacteria says to our, uh, our, our immune system. So we gotta keep that gut healthy. By the way, interestingly, uh, and I've done research on this, um, certain gut bacteria, uh, can actually signal to your brain, it's a gut-brain axis-

   17. SPSpeaker18:54

       Mm

   18. WLDr. William Li18:54

       ... and f- uh, cause your brain to release social hormones.

   19. SPSpeaker18:59

       Wow.

   20. WLDr. William Li18:59

       Okay? And can affect your mood. So, you know, when you've got a crappy gut and you feel crummy in your gut, I guarantee you, like, it's not just 'cause you're irritated. It's affecting your brain as well.

   21. SPSpeaker19:13

       That's crazy.

   22. WLDr. William Li19:13

       So...

   23. SPSpeaker19:14

       Yeah, we had, uh, we had Dr. Emeran, uh, Mayer on, wh- who has got the gut, I think it's the gut-brain connection or the gut-immune connection or something like that, so he's, he's got a lot of great research on that.

   24. WLDr. William Li19:25

       Yeah. So, well, the key thing, though, is that foods can actually help m- right-size your gut health.

   25. SPSpeaker19:33

       Mm.

   26. WLDr. William Li19:33

       Think about like an ecosystem, the Great Barrier Reef. So certain foods can support the ecology, the ecosystem, the Great Barrier Reef, and certain ones actually kill the coral. All right?

   27. SPSpeaker19:43

       Right.

   28. WLDr. William Li19:44

       And so our... uh, continuously wanna keep it in good shape all the way through our lives. And by the way, even, uh, conditions like autism, alz- Alzheimer's, and schizophrenia are all now seemingly connected to our gut bacteria.

   29. SPSpeaker20:00

       Really?

   30. WLDr. William Li20:00

       Yeah.
6. 21:09 – 25:56

   Defense Four: DNA Repair and Telomeres

   1. WLDr. William Li21:09

      Number four, our DNA. Now, if you watch CSI, DNA is just sort of like a genetic fingerprint, a code that you can find on a crime scene. Or if you're actually trying to do ancestry, look for your ancestors, you figure out how m- how much of you is Neanderthal, right? [laughs]

   2. SPSpeaker21:29

      Yeah.

   3. WLDr. William Li21:30

      So- [laughs]

   4. SPSpeaker21:30

      I think I was 1% Neanderthal-

   5. WLDr. William Li21:31

      [laughs]

   6. SPSpeaker21:32

      ... when I did it, yes.

   7. WLDr. William Li21:33

      Uh, so the, the, the key, though, is, it's, DNA is a lot more than our genetic code. It actually protects us from the environment. Now, what am I, what do I mean by that? Well, you know how if we are exposed to, uh, uh, we get a sunburn, ultraviolet light. You damage your DNA, and what happens? Cancer, skin cancer, right?

   8. SPSpeaker21:55

      Mm-hmm.

   9. WLDr. William Li21:55

      Um, if you inhale lots of fumes from a chemical plant, it's gonna actually damage your DNA in your lungs. You get lung cancer, right? But think about it. If you are in Los Angeles and you're driving on the I-10, or if you're actually, um, uh, just walking on a beach, uh, uh, you are actually getting ultraviolet radiation, so how come we don't get skin cancer all the time? Because our DNA is hardwired-

   10. SPSpeaker22:20

       Mm

   11. WLDr. William Li22:20

       ... to fix itself-

   12. SPSpeaker22:22

       Mm-hmm

   13. WLDr. William Li22:22

       ... from damage. And so the DNA's a protective mechanism from the environment. I always tell people, when you're pumping gas, if you still drive a gas vehicle, as opposed to an EV, um, I always ask people, "Do you stand upwind or downwind?" Wh- what do you do? Are you upwind or downwind? Do you know?

   14. SPSpeaker22:39

       Right. Up, up, uh, well, upwind, right? So you're not getting the, the fumes in. Is that what you mean?

   15. WLDr. William Li22:45

       Right, right, right.

   16. SPSpeaker22:45

       Yeah.

   17. WLDr. William Li22:46

       Well, if you're standing downwind, you can smell the fumes.

   18. SPSpeaker22:50

       Yes.

   19. WLDr. William Li22:50

       Right? And if you're smelling the fumes, you are poisoning the DNA in your lung.

   20. SPSpeaker22:55

       Mm-hmm.

   21. WLDr. William Li22:55

       So how come we don't develop lung cancer after pumping gas? Because our DNA is hardwired to fix itself. And so our DNA is-

   22. SPSpeaker23:02

       Gotcha

   23. WLDr. William Li23:02

       ... sort of like a self-defense mechanism against the environment. Radon from your basement, okay? Off-gassing from the, from the new car you just got, or the Uber that you're riding in.

   24. SPSpeaker23:13

       Mm.

   25. WLDr. William Li23:14

       You know, or the furniture that you got, right? So, like, it, this is, this is this incredible defense mechanism against our environment. And then, uh, and foods can actually speed up the repair, help fix holes that are in our DNA, and then the other kind of piece de resistance for our DNA's defense is that there's something called a telomere. I don't know if you've ever had anybody on your show talk about telomeres.

   26. SPSpeaker23:37

       Telomeres?

   27. WLDr. William Li23:38

       Yeah.

   28. SPSpeaker23:39

       Yes. Which is the-

   29. WLDr. William Li23:40

       These are, these are-

   30. SPSpeaker23:40

       ... which they see if you're, the longer the telomere, the, the, the longer you can live or something, or they can-
7. 25:56 – 31:30

   Defense Five: The Immune System and Broccoli Sprouts

   1. WLDr. William Li25:56

      And our fifth defense is our immune system, which, you know, after two years, uh, over the last two years, we all know how important our immune system is.

   2. SPSpeaker26:04

      Mm-hmm.

   3. WLDr. William Li26:04

      But what if I told you that your immune system is so powerful that when it's in its best shape, even when you're 80 years old, it is strong enough to fight cancer? In fact, it can even wipe out metastatic cancer that's spread all over your body. That's how strong your immune system is if you give it the chance. And so here's what the immune system does. It's like an army of super soldiers, so, uh, Rangers, SEALs, uh, you know, uh, uh, Marines, Special Forces. They're all, they've all got, uh, these are all parts of the immune system, all, uh, cells of the immune system, and like the Special Forces, they've got their own weapons, their own training, their own tactics, but they all work together for, you know, the collective good. And what happens is that, uh, when you've got good, strong defenses, you can fight off invaders from the outside, bacteria and viruses, for example, and but it's not just, uh, outside invaders. You got inside invaders as well, and those little microscopic cancers are inside invaders.

   4. SPSpeaker27:07

      Mm.

   5. WLDr. William Li27:07

      And so our immune system patrols our body, okay? Cops on a beat, and they're looking for things that are, don't look right, and you see that microscopic cancer that isn't, can't grow because it doesn't have a blood vessel, blood, blood vessels feeding it, angiogenesis. Basically, it, the immune system goes there and takes them right out, okay?

   6. SPSpeaker27:26

      Wow.

   7. WLDr. William Li27:26

      Uh, and takes a sniper shot, and it's gone. And so that's why we gotta protect our immune system, and there are lots of foods that can actually boost our immunity as well.

   8. SPSpeaker27:34

      What would you be those, what would be those top three that boost the immune system?

   9. WLDr. William Li27:38

      Uh, blueberries are a food that definitely boosts the immune system. It's, uh, in young people as well as older people, uh, uh, the, they, they boost the natural killer cells, which is really cool. Um, broccoli sprouts-

   10. SPSpeaker27:53

       Mm

   11. WLDr. William Li27:53

       ... can boost our immune system. Now, these are the three-day old-

   12. SPSpeaker27:56

       I love broccoli sprouts

   13. WLDr. William Li27:56

       ... these are like the three-day old sprouts, right?

   14. SPSpeaker27:59

       Okay.

   15. WLDr. William Li27:59

       Um, okay. I mean, okay. Here's something, here's something most people don't know. The big broccoli that... When we eat broccoli, we're really, you know, our moms told us to eat the tree tops, right? Those, the, the, they're all the same. You go to the freezer section of a grocery store and you buy some frozen broccoli, and they all look the same. They, they, they're all the same size. That's not really what broccoli looks like. If you go to the gr- farmer's market and you see a, a, a real broccoli is this gigantic stem-

   16. SPSpeaker28:26

       Mm-hmm

   17. WLDr. William Li28:26

       ... with a little bit of tree top.

   18. SPSpeaker28:28

       Right.

   19. WLDr. William Li28:28

       Okay? So what's in a broccoli? It's called sulforaphane, so that's what gives broccoli that unique taste of broccoli. It's a little sulfurous, okay? So you gotta put a little olive oil, a little bit of-

   20. SPSpeaker28:41

       [laughs]

   21. WLDr. William Li28:41

       ... garlic, you know. Uh, you could, uh, saute it up. Okay.

   22. SPSpeaker28:44

       Yeah.

   23. WLDr. William Li28:45

       So the sulforaphanes. We've done research now looking at what, what's in the tree tops, and it turns out that these sulforaphanes can starve cancer, anti-angiogenic-

   24. SPSpeaker28:55

       Really?

   25. WLDr. William Li28:55

       ... help, help your body cut off the blood supply to cancer. Broccoli tree tops have it, but guess what? The stalk of the broccoli has twice as much-

   26. SPSpeaker29:04

       Ooh

   27. WLDr. William Li29:05

       ... of the good stuff than the tree tops.

   28. SPSpeaker29:07

       Eat the stalks.

   29. WLDr. William Li29:08

       Eat the stalks. So man, like, if you don't wanna eat, if you don't wanna saute the stalks, like a lot of cultures will just cut the stalks and saute them. Stick it in a blender. You can make it into a smoothie, or create, make a soup out of it.

   30. SPSpeaker29:19

       Mm-hmm.
8. 31:30 – 36:13

   Cancer Prevention, Whole Foods vs. Supplements

   1. WLDr. William Li31:30

      Okay. So let's take a look at what we know from the cancer treatment perspective. So I, I work in this area, uh, and, uh, you know, I, I've been involved with helping treat cancer patients. So we do know that there are, there is a new type of medicine that's not chemo, that if you, uh, they're called anti-angiogenesis, so they cut off the blood supply feeding the big cancers. By the time... So here's a research experiment that was done, uh, a couple of decades ago in the lab that I worked in. If you grew tiny little cancer cells and up to the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen, that's about three millimeters in diameter, and you kind of floated them in, uh, a broth and didn't allow them to touch blood vessels, they would just stay there at that size almost indefinitely.

   2. SPSpeaker32:21

      Mm.

   3. WLDr. William Li32:22

      Okay? And in our body, that's the size that the immune system would wing by and take out. The moment you allow blood vessels to grow into that microscopic mass, that tumor will grow 16,000 times in two weeks. It'll explode. This is like a trigger that's get pulled in order to have cancers grow up.

   4. SPSpeaker32:42

      Mm.

   5. WLDr. William Li32:42

      And for that reason, biotech companies started to develop anti-angiogenic drugs to ta-

   6. SPSpeaker32:51

      Mm

   7. WLDr. William Li32:51

      ... c- treat cancer by cutting off the blood supply. So there are about a dozen anti-angiogenic drugs that have changed the game for treating kidney cancer and liver cancer and lung cancer, and even brain cancer. All right? So we know that we can actually do this, uh, with drugs. The question is, can we do it with food?

   8. SPSpeaker33:10

      Mm.

   9. WLDr. William Li33:10

      Not so much when cancer is out of the barn, horse is out of the barn.

   10. SPSpeaker33:14

       Yeah.

   11. WLDr. William Li33:14

       But what about prevention? What are foods that can prevent cancer? Well, it turns out that two apples a day actually can lower the rate of, of lung cancer-

   12. SPSpeaker33:24

       Wow

   13. WLDr. William Li33:25

       ... and colon cancer. Why? Because there are natural substances in apples like quercetin, that's one of the natural chemicals, that actually are naturally anti-angiogenic. Green tea actually has been lowered, lowered risk of colorectal cancer, okay?

   14. SPSpeaker33:40

       Interesting.

   15. WLDr. William Li33:41

       Uh, uh, particularly in women. And, uh, and what's in a, in a cup of green tea are these polyphenols, EGCG. And when you drink it, it gets in your bloodstream. Why? Because the blood vessels are carrying it, and now your blood vessel is loaded with this cancer starving stuff.

   16. SPSpeaker33:58

       Mm.

   17. WLDr. William Li33:58

       These little tumors don't have a chance.

   18. SPSpeaker34:00

       Wow.

   19. WLDr. William Li34:01

       Yeah.

   20. SPSpeaker34:02

       Okay. Is it the same as eating two apples a day and, and, uh, you know, eating these specific foods as it would be just putting all those ingredients in a supplement and taking the supplement? Would, would that work just as well-

   21. WLDr. William Li34:15

       It-

   22. SPSpeaker34:15

       ... to have, like, the super supplement that is just the, the killer of all cancer and diseases, you know, of all these different nutrients?

   23. WLDr. William Li34:23

       Well, look, I, I'm a researcher and so, and I've been involved with drug development. And so if it were that easy, it would've been done a while ago.

   24. SPSpeaker34:31

       Right.

   25. WLDr. William Li34:31

       But I can tell you that the whole... What I tell people is that the whole food is always gonna be a little bit better-

   26. SPSpeaker34:37

       Okay

   27. WLDr. William Li34:37

       ... for the following reason. Number one, uh, for a supplement, you reduce it to a couple of different elements, you know, that, that you try to pack into a capsule.

   28. SPSpeaker34:45

       Mm-hmm.

   29. WLDr. William Li34:45

       The whole food, man, it's got hundreds if not thousands of natural goodies and chemicals, including, like, an apple's got the skin, it's got ursolic acid. It's got fiber, which feeds your gut microbiome. It's got quercetin, which cuts out the blood supply. So you're getting all that in there, um, compared to just one thing you try to pack into, uh, a little capsule. That said, supplements are useful, and I'm in- I'm involved with, you know, designing and developing supplements as well. What we wanna do, supplements, uh, the term means topping off.

   30. SPSpeaker35:19

       Mm.
9. 36:13 – 40:09

   Understanding and Calming Inflammation

   1. SPSpeaker36:13

      I've been told, uh, many times that inflammation is the, is, uh, also a big, I guess, warning sign for diseases and cancers, and the more inflammation, the more your body is less capable of defending itself, and its immune system is weaker, is what I've been told. Um, what would you say are the best ways to reduce inflammation in the body quickly? Is it through food? Is it through medicine? Is it through fasting? Is it through, you know, less- ... you know, more sleep? Is it through better environment? What would you say is the best way?

   2. WLDr. William Li36:46

      So, you know, a lot of people, I, I think, um, when they hear about inflammation, they think about it as a bad guy. And what I wanna tell you is that inflammation is normal, and it's just part of our immune system.

   3. SPSpeaker37:00

      Mm-hmm.

   4. WLDr. William Li37:00

      So when you actually have a bacteria or virus invading your body, uh, let's say you get, get a cold, your immune system, uh, sets up a little bit of inflammation in your nose, okay, which is why we have a stuffy nose, a runny nose, and then it takes... it tackles the invader right then and there-

   5. SPSpeaker37:18

      Mm

   6. WLDr. William Li37:18

      ... and then hopefully that's all, that's all matters. And by the way, uh, another sure sign of inflammation is if you, um, cut yourself, uh, in the kitchen, and you see that little cut will pretty quickly swell up, turn red and swell up, inflammation. That's your immune system trying to tackle all the bacteria that might be trying to get into your skin. Inflammation's good, but it goes up to protect you, and then it comes right down. I think ab- I call it like a, like the volume switch in a car radio, like-

   7. SPSpeaker37:46

      Right

   8. WLDr. William Li37:46

      ... you get in a car, you wanna hear some tunes, gotta turn it on. But what the problem with inflammation is when it doesn't go back down. It keeps on going more, more, more. It's chronic, and it keeps on going up, and that's like getting in your car and having somebody, a passenger, turn up that volume and keep cranking that volume-

   9. SPSpeaker38:05

      Mm

   10. WLDr. William Li38:05

       ... and you're like, "Hey, man, turn that thing down," right?

   11. SPSpeaker38:07

       Right.

   12. WLDr. William Li38:07

       Doesn't go down, and you just can't go on.

   13. SPSpeaker38:10

       Right.

   14. WLDr. William Li38:10

       And that's what happens inside your body. So what's it, what are some of the different ways to actually deal with that? Well, the first thing to do, uh, is think about lifestyle, 'cause w- we can actually give anti-inflammatories. I could tell you to go out to take some Motrin, Tylenol, whatever.

   15. SPSpeaker38:27

       Mm.

   16. WLDr. William Li38:27

       That'll take down your inflammation, but actually, there are ways of actually doing... If you actually just, um, if you stopped and just calmed yourself and took some breath, did some breaths and start to meditate, your inflamma- your body's inflammation will start to calm down.

   17. SPSpeaker38:43

       Mm. Mm-hmm.

   18. WLDr. William Li38:44

       Okay? If you actually got a good night's sleep, your body will start to, the inflammation will, uh, start to calm down. It's, it's kind of like, you know, everything is going crazy, just let everything, let the things settle a little bit. So that's your inflammation settling down. Now, there are foods that have a lot of anti-inflammatory properties that can be very helpful. So for example, cranberries, um, uh, are, have a lot of anti-inflammatory polyphenols. Um, chocolate even also has anti-inflammatory properties. Vitamin C is pretty anti-inflammatory. Strawberries, guava, red bell peppers, all really good, uh, really good. Um, and, uh, uh, and, uh, I, you know, I think the, the other thing to think about is, uh, lots of fruits and veget- lots of fruits in particular have anti-inflammatory, uh, properties.

   19. SPSpeaker39:36

       Mm.

   20. WLDr. William Li39:37

       So the key about inflammation is that you don't wanna get rid of it altogether.

   21. SPSpeaker39:41

       Okay.

   22. WLDr. William Li39:42

       Okay? Like, if you, if you got pumped up on steroids, it would shut down your inflammation.

   23. SPSpeaker39:48

       Mm.

   24. WLDr. William Li39:48

       You might get infected because you don't have any inflammation.

   25. SPSpeaker39:51

       Interesting.

   26. WLDr. William Li39:52

       You want your body to get its set point. You wanna get back to balance. So I think that, you know, there's lifestyle, there's, uh, diet, uh, foods you can choose, there's sleep. All these things can actually help to calm inflammation. It's, uh, not a single on and off switch.

10. 40:09 – 45:27

    Foods That Harm: Soda, Sweeteners and Better Alternatives

    1. SPSpeaker40:09

       I'm curious, what would you say are the, the most harmful foods, then? If you said, "Here are three foods that we should be eliminating," what would be those most harmful foods that cause the spike in inflammation consistently and causes a lot of these other diseases and cancerous, uh, cells to occur?

    2. WLDr. William Li40:25

       Right. Well, I'll tell you three foods that actually harm the body's health defenses, and including the immune system by ratcheting it up inflammation and then lowering the defensive properties, but also harm your DNA, also harm your microbiome, also blunt and stun your stem cells, and also wreck your body's ability to control its blood supply. So it's a lot worse-

    3. SPSpeaker40:48

       Okay

    4. WLDr. William Li40:48

       ... than simply, uh, uh, causing, triggering inflammation. And by the way, that's the whole point, right? Like, we try to take the silver bullet approach to everything.

    5. SPSpeaker40:57

       Oh.

    6. WLDr. William Li40:57

       Let's match this with, match that. What I'm telling you is that the body is this system.

    7. SPSpeaker41:01

       Yes.

    8. WLDr. William Li41:01

       So either you introduce something good to it, and you'll probably light up a lot of sy- good systems, and if you put something bad to it, you'll probably trash a lot of it, right? Okay. So, uh, what are some three foods that actually we know, uh, can trash your body's health defenses? One is soda. So sugar-

    9. SPSpeaker41:21

       Mm

    10. WLDr. William Li41:21

        ... sweetened beverages like soda. All right? So, uh, you know the-

    11. SPSpeaker41:25

        Yeah

    12. WLDr. William Li41:25

        ... favorite ones. It's tough, right?

    13. SPSpeaker41:26

        Yeah.

    14. WLDr. William Li41:26

        Because you-

    15. SPSpeaker41:27

        I wish I could, I wish I could go back to my younger self and say, "Put down the Dr. Pe- eight cans of Dr. Pepper a day," you know, when you're, like, eight years old. Man.

    16. WLDr. William Li41:35

        Well, and, and I'm, I'm telling you, like, this is one thing that, um, I always try to coach people on. If you really, really love sodas, okay, try to come off it, you know, just by going down one can a day-

    17. SPSpeaker41:47

        Mm

    18. WLDr. William Li41:47

        ... 'cause most people drink multiple cans. Go down one can a day and, and get to as low as you can because the added sugar actually overloads your body-

    19. SPSpeaker41:56

        Hmm

    20. WLDr. William Li41:56

        ... uh, your body's ability to be able to handle the sugar, and then it makes you inflamed-

    21. SPSpeaker42:01

        Yeah

    22. WLDr. William Li42:01

        ... just by the nature of the sugar. Eventually-

    23. SPSpeaker42:03

        I cut out, I cut out, I cut out soda years ago. I mean, maybe I have it once in a, a couple months or something for, like, a treat, but-

    24. WLDr. William Li42:09

        Yeah

    25. SPSpeaker42:09

        ... it used to be almost an addiction probably for how much I drank it growing up as a kid. In the summers, you're just drinking it nonstop, like water. Um, but then when I learned about nutrition more when I was playing sports and realizing this is making me tired, it's not quenching my thirst, that's when I said, "Oh, okay, I need more of a competitive edge," and kinda cut it, cut it out of my life, so.

    26. WLDr. William Li42:29

        Well, not only, not only does it, does soda actually, the sugar in soda cause inflammation, it really wrecks your microbiome, your gut bacteria as well. Your gut bacteria just can't tolerate that much sugar.

    27. SPSpeaker42:41

        Yeah.

    28. WLDr. William Li42:41

        Okay? Um, uh, and then guess what, uh... And, and then, you know, you say, "Well, wait a minute," uh, uh, that's why we have diet-

    29. SPSpeaker42:49

        [laughs]

    30. WLDr. William Li42:49

        ... uh, the soda, right?
11. 45:27 – 49:37

    Processed Meats and Ultra-Processed Foods

    1. SPSpeaker45:27

       Okay, that's number one. Number two?

    2. WLDr. William Li45:29

       Uh, processed meats.

    3. SPSpeaker45:32

       Mm.

    4. WLDr. William Li45:32

       Now, all of us that were kids grew up, you know, at the, you know, eating deli meats.

    5. SPSpeaker45:37

       And the turkey and the ham and the yes.

    6. WLDr. William Li45:37

       Turkey and the ham, right? I mean, like, that's basically... You, you, what did your mom-

    7. SPSpeaker45:42

       Childhood. [laughs]

    8. WLDr. William Li45:42

       What did your mom pack in your lunch bag, right?

    9. SPSpeaker45:45

       Yeah, exactly.

    10. WLDr. William Li45:46

        Okay. Well, that's, that's a relic of the 1950s-

    11. SPSpeaker45:50

        Mm

    12. WLDr. William Li45:51

        ... you know, of the sort of ultra-processed foods that are everywhere, laden with chemicals. That's not what we wanna be doing. Now, I have to say, it doesn't mean categorically that, uh, that, uh, uh, hams or sausages are bad for you because if you go to Italy or if you go to places in Asia or Latin America where they create, they, they create dried meats kind of the old way, they're not putting chemicals in there.

    13. SPSpeaker46:22

        Mm.

    14. WLDr. William Li46:22

        And they're not manipulating it. But here, you know, where you go to the deli counter and, you know, like-

    15. SPSpeaker46:28

        Yeah

    16. WLDr. William Li46:28

        ... take, take a look at that deli meat. Like, that's not... Meat doesn't come like that. [laughs] Okay?

    17. SPSpeaker46:33

        Yeah, exactly.

    18. WLDr. William Li46:34

        So here's the thing. Uh, processed meats are actually classified by the World Health Organization as a carcinogen.

    19. SPSpeaker46:43

        Mm.

    20. WLDr. William Li46:44

        Uh, you know, linked to the, uh, causation of cancer. You gotta eat a lot of it.

    21. SPSpeaker46:48

        Wow.

    22. WLDr. William Li46:48

        But a lot of people actually eat... I mean, how many hoagies or subs?

    23. SPSpeaker46:52

        Yeah, a lot. Yeah. [laughs]

    24. WLDr. William Li46:53

        Right?

    25. SPSpeaker46:54

        Wow.

    26. WLDr. William Li46:54

        Um, and I gotta say, you know, like, when I was growing up as a kid, I, I loved those kind of, like, s- fancy kind of, uh, the, like, the deli meats and stuff like that.

    27. SPSpeaker47:02

        Absolutely.

    28. WLDr. William Li47:02

        Totally not good for you. So-

    29. SPSpeaker47:05

        Wow

    30. WLDr. William Li47:05

        ... that's not good for you. Uh, it also damages the gut microbiome. Uh, a- and, and it can actually damage your DNA, so you wanna kinda be cut down or cut out, uh, sodas and processed meats. And then the other thing is really a category, and I call these ultra-processed foods.
12. 49:37 – 57:14

    New Discoveries in Metabolism and Fat Burning

    1. SPSpeaker49:37

       Dr. Li, what do you think has been the, the biggest aha for you in your decades of work through or from medical school to your research to your practice to all these things? What is... what was the biggest aha, when you learned this thing, it, it changed everything for you?

    2. WLDr. William Li49:58

       You know, there've been so many instances of that, like, 'cause as a scientist I'm seeing new things, uh, literally on a weekly basis. Things are like-

    3. SPSpeaker50:07

       Really?

    4. WLDr. William Li50:07

       ... my jaw drops vir- virtually every... You know, like last week, uh, Lewis, I read about a new discovery that we just discovered a new type of human cell in our heart.

    5. SPSpeaker50:20

       Really? [laughs]

    6. WLDr. William Li50:20

       Last week.

    7. SPSpeaker50:21

       Wow.

    8. WLDr. William Li50:21

       Like, you know, like that, that's like I hit my head, like, oh my God, really? We, uh, a couple years ago we discovered a new, uh, brain cell called the rose hip neuron.

    9. SPSpeaker50:31

       Mm.

    10. WLDr. William Li50:31

        Okay? And it seems to be linked to depression. So I, I'm always amazed. I mean, as a scientist, I'm amazed by the, um, uh, by the marvelousness of the body and how much we don't know about it and still, so we have to respect it. Did you know, by the way, that we had a... Also, um, this is just this past year, 2021, there was a landmark discovery that changed everything we knew about our metabolism.

    11. SPSpeaker51:00

        Mm.

    12. WLDr. William Li51:01

        Right?

    13. SPSpeaker51:01

        What is that?

    14. WLDr. William Li51:02

        Well, so everybody says that, you know, like, um, when you're, uh, uh, a teenager you're growing tall and you're-

    15. SPSpeaker51:11

        You got a high metabolism, you're just burning calories

    16. WLDr. William Li51:13

        ... you have a high metabolism, right?

    17. SPSpeaker51:14

        Yeah.

    18. WLDr. William Li51:14

        Okay. Totally wrong. Metabolism's going down when you're a teen. Okay? And then, and then people say when you're, um, in your 20s or 30s, you know, and you're starting to gain weight and getting out of shape, and they're like, "Man, my metabolism is slowing down." And then some people basically say that, uh, you know, "I was unlucky because-

    19. SPSpeaker51:33

        Mm

    20. WLDr. William Li51:33

        ... I was born with a bad metabolism. Look at my sister, or look at my cousin. She's rail thin. She's so lucky she's got a fast metabolism."

    21. SPSpeaker51:41

        Right. Right.

    22. WLDr. William Li51:42

        Right? All that has been tur- upended completely. It turns out that all humans go through only four phases of metabolism in their whole life.

    23. SPSpeaker51:54

        Ooh, tell me.

    24. WLDr. William Li51:54

        Okay? I'm a- actually I'm gonna show you this, 'cause it's actually right here on my desk.

    25. SPSpeaker51:58

        You got a chart? You got a, you got a graph? You got a chart? You got anything?

    26. WLDr. William Li52:00

        No, no, I, I got a, I got a paper. This baby right here. It's in the Journal of Science, okay? This is how researchers do it. Like, I, all around my office, man, like I am reading this stuff, and this paper, uh, I tell you, I, I gotta look at this. It, it studied 8,000 people from, like, 30 countries.

    27. SPSpeaker52:17

        Mm.

    28. WLDr. William Li52:18

        And it studied people from eight days old to 90 years old across 20 different countries. All right? This is the largest study of human metabolism ever undertaken.

    29. SPSpeaker52:33

        Okay.

    30. WLDr. William Li52:33

        And here's what they found, that if you subtracted out body fat, uh, and which is different for everybody, okay? And you were to just go right down to the core of real metabolism, energy usage, uh, energy generation are... Oh, oh, here's, here are the four phases. When we're born, we got the same metabolism as our mother. Makes sense. Synchronized.
13. 57:14 – 1:04:31

    Living Without Medicine, Regeneration and the Future

    1. SPSpeaker57:14

       Absolutely. Uh, I've talked about this many times on, on my show before, that I grew up, uh, in a r- a specific religion called Christian Science, where it was more the practice of s- of spiritual awareness, and that were spiritual ideas and, and less on using medicine to heal, but more using the mind and awareness to heal, you know, thought, which would then heal the physical body. Um, so medicine was never really a thing I studied or really took growing up. Uh, it was just kind of like when we got sick or when something happened, we, we used thought prayer, spiritual prayer, to kind of remind ourselves of who we are. But the, uh... I, I'm curious, do you think that people could live without modern medicine if they eat properly? Like all the things that you talk about in your book, Eat to Beat Disease, do you think we could live longer lives, healthier lives without the need of certain medicines? Um, or are you saying we should be using medicines-

    2. WLDr. William Li58:13

       Well, here, here-

    3. SPSpeaker58:14

       ... and eating food when we need them?

    4. WLDr. William Li58:18

       Well, w- we should be eating to enrich our lives-

    5. SPSpeaker58:24

       Mm

    6. WLDr. William Li58:24

       ... from the time we're young all the way until our last breath. And that should actually be able to tackle about two-thirds of all the chronic diseases. And by the way, about a third of all cancers are thought to be due to diet and lifestyle. One third of cancers, all right, we ought to be able to dodge. But you gotta start early, right?

    7. SPSpeaker58:46

       Yes.

    8. WLDr. William Li58:46

       I mean, this is not one of these things where I've been smoking my whole life and now I'm gonna actually turn over a new leaf. It's never too late to quit, by the way. However, the fact of the matter is, is that, uh, uh, you know, like so you grew up, uh, uh, you know, as, in Christian, in the Christian Science, um, uh, framework.

    9. SPSpeaker59:02

       Which you're in, you're in the Boston area, so you-

    10. WLDr. William Li59:04

        Yeah. That's where the hub is

    11. SPSpeaker59:05

        ... the mother church is in Ch-

    12. WLDr. William Li59:06

        Yeah

    13. SPSpeaker59:07

        ... uh, is in Boston, yes.

    14. WLDr. William Li59:08

        It's a- it's amazing, it's an amazing place. A, a really, uh, a spectacular, uh, place to visit and, and a, and a very special place actually. Um, but I w- I will tell you that the idea of, of, um, a- a- having formative years, uh, uh, groomed in a healthy mindset-

    15. SPSpeaker59:32

        Yes

    16. WLDr. William Li59:32

        ... which is, I think, what you're talking about-

    17. SPSpeaker59:34

        Yes

    18. WLDr. William Li59:34

        ... uh, is so important. So that if you've got kids, and if you're, um, involved with teaching, and if you're involved with a business where you can actually impact on kids, think about the impact that you have now-

    19. SPSpeaker59:47

        Mm

    20. WLDr. William Li59:47

        ... could actually influence their health 30, 40, 50, 60 years from now. And that, to me, is a big responsibility. It's a giant opportunity to make a better society.

    21. SPSpeaker59:58

        That's beautiful. I'm curious, we've got a few more minutes left, um, what do you think... You're telling me that every week you're essentially finding these aha moments based on the research papers you're finding and things that you're discovering yourself, and what do you think [clears throat] in your mind, if you could predict the future 10 years out, five, 10 years out, what are gonna be the brown- groundbreaking things that we as humans discover in the next five to 10 years that is gonna transform our health?

    22. WLDr. William Li1:00:28

        Wow. Um-

    23. SPSpeaker1:00:29

        Based on what you've seen in the last five to 10 years and where you're like, "These are unbelievable."

    24. WLDr. William Li1:00:33

        Yeah.

    25. SPSpeaker1:00:33

        Every month there's new findings. What do you think is on the horizon for us?

    26. WLDr. William Li1:00:38

        Well, one thing that I think is most, uh, one of the big aha jaw-droppers for me in the kind of the journey that I've actually had in my career is the fact that we can regenerate ourselves, okay? And I never thought that was even possible. I had been working in stem cell therapy and regenerative medicine and, you know, it's a real struggle. It's an uphill climb to really try to show that we can actually regenerate the heart or the brain or nerves, and yet the body does it every single day. And when I discovered that, you know, you could regenerate, um, uh, tissue- By, uh, uh, barley. You know, eating barley, which has beta D-glucan. Or with, uh, uh, chocolate, as I mentioned too. C- cacao polyphenols, or even olive oil. The, there's something called hydroxytyrosol. It's a natural chemical in extra virgin olive oil. It helps to kind of make that distinctive olive oily taste. Um, uh, that that can actually help to protect your stem cell. Or if you are not a vegan, but you eat seafood, um, uh, and, and you've, and you're really adventurous, you know that black pasta squid ink, uh, that they have sometimes on menus? Uh, I, I happen to, uh, I, you know, I like to explore different kinds of food. Squid ink actually protects your stem cells.

    27. SPSpeaker1:02:02

        Wow.

    28. WLDr. William Li1:02:02

        It's like a shield, okay? And so the fact that you, we can actually eat to regenerate. So I'm very excited by this idea that we can, um, uh, eat foods, and we're still discovering what foods can help our, propel our body's regenerative capacity. I think that's gonna actually be, um, uh, uh, groundbreaking. And then something that I'm actually working on that is really, you know, future forward, right? So you're asking, like, what, what's gonna be mind-blowing in the future?

    29. SPSpeaker1:02:31

        Yes.

    30. WLDr. William Li1:02:32

        All right. Well, look, um, I'm a, I'm kind of like a pretty down-to-earth guy. Like, I believe that we should be protecting our planet, doing everything we can, we can to, um, take care of, nurture this ball that we live on. Uh, and we should be doing better for our community. Um, but I also, I think from the time I was a kid, I appreciated and I was excited by this idea of space travel, which is now-
14. 1:04:31 – 1:11:42

    Three Truths and Defining Greatness

    1. SPSpeaker1:04:31

       this is a question I ask everyone at the end of our conversations. It's called the three truths question. So I'd like you to imagine a hypothetical scenario, um, that it's your last day on Earth, Dr. Li, and it's many, many years away. You get to live as long as you want to. Your telomeres, uh, they continue to extend, so you live as long as you wanna live, right? But for whatever reason, it's your last day, and you've accomplished every dream and goal that you can think of. But for whatever reason, you've also gotta take all of your work with you to another place. All your books and your content and masterclasses and videos and TED Talks and this interview, it all goes away. Uh, but you get to leave behind three things you know to be true, three lessons that you've learned from your life that you would share with the world, and this is all we have to remember from your content and your information. What would you say would be those three truths for you?

    2. WLDr. William Li1:05:32

       Well, that is a big, heavy question. Um, I, I would say one of the truths is that, um, we gotta be good to the people around us.

    3. SPSpeaker1:05:45

       Mm-hmm.

    4. WLDr. William Li1:05:46

       And at the end of the day, one of the things that I try to do is to make sure that I, um, uh, practice acts of kindness, uh, to the people around me.

    5. SPSpeaker1:05:58

       Mm-hmm.

    6. WLDr. William Li1:05:58

       Um, and I think that that's just an important thing that, uh, makes the world a better place-

    7. SPSpeaker1:06:04

       Yes

    8. WLDr. William Li1:06:04

       ... uh, and makes me a better person, and because I remind myself of it, it keeps me on my toes, um, you know, when there's all these stressors around. So that's one thing is just sort of be kind to people around you. The second thing I think is, um, that I would leave with people is believe in the impossible.

    9. SPSpeaker1:06:25

       Hm.

    10. WLDr. William Li1:06:26

        You know? Um, you know, the impossible actually contains the word possible in it, inside it.

    11. SPSpeaker1:06:33

        Yeah.

    12. WLDr. William Li1:06:34

        And so for me, part of what I've realized in my, my own life journey professionally is that, um, and I've, and I see this, I've seen this as a doctor. You can take people who, like, nobody else thinks there's any hope for, and they're at the end of the line, and every doctor's given up. "There's nothing else we can do for you." And if you believe something is possible, and you're informed, and you're, and you got the audacity to think that maybe, maybe we can do it, I, I'm just telling you, I've, I've personally snatched victory from the jaws of defeat-

    13. SPSpeaker1:07:14

        Wow

    14. WLDr. William Li1:07:14

        ... in people who had no hope. Uh, by the way, including my own mother. Uh, who had metastatic cancer, and we got her on this immune therapy. And three treatments, nine weeks later, all of the cancer melted a- away

    15. SPSpeaker1:07:26

        Wow

    16. WLDr. William Li1:07:26

        ... because we allowed her immune system to rear up and clean up the act. And her, and she's alive today, seven years later, zero cancer.

    17. SPSpeaker1:07:36

        Wow.

    18. WLDr. William Li1:07:37

        Okay? That's... Y- you gotta put... You gotta believe.

    19. SPSpeaker1:07:40

        Yes.

    20. WLDr. William Li1:07:40

        I mean, this is not, this is not just hope. It's informed hope, and you have to commit yourself to actually doing it. So I've... And by the way, I've done that a mo- a number of times, so that's something that I think that I would leave people, uh, you, you b- believe... Just remember that, that, that, you know, you can convert the impossible into the possible. And then the third thing I think is, that I believe as a truth, is that science leads the way, and, uh, uh, it's gonna take us to the future. And if you're somebody who's hopeful, and you're somebody who believes in a better place and, and a, a better existence in the future, follow the signs of science. And, and, um, one of my mentors, a guy named Judith Volkman, uh, used to end some of his lectures with this great quote from an American novelist named E.L. Doctorow. He, um... And he was describing his process of writing, right? So I'm an author, and I went through this whole process. And what he, what he, what Doctorow said was that, "The act of writing is like driving at night. You can't see beyond your headlights-

    21. SPSpeaker1:08:45

        Mm

    22. WLDr. William Li1:08:45

        ... but you can make the whole journey that way."

    23. SPSpeaker1:08:48

        Mm.

    24. WLDr. William Li1:08:48

        And that's what science is like, research is like. You know, you gotta follow the headlights of science just to kind of see where it's gonna go, and you're always gonna get to a different destination than where you started.

    25. SPSpeaker1:09:00

        Mm.

    26. WLDr. William Li1:09:00

        So those would be my three truths.

    27. SPSpeaker1:09:01

        Those are beautiful. And your second one sounded like, uh, Christian Science was rubbing off on you.

    28. WLDr. William Li1:09:06

        [laughs]

    29. SPSpeaker1:09:06

        The mindset, the belief, belief when there's no hope. Um, Dr. Li, I want to acknowledge you for a moment before I ask a final question. Uh, for your continued, uh, trust and faith in directing your headlights in a certain way without seeing too far ahead of them, and being consistent with that for many decades, and finding these solutions to help us heal the body, help us heal the different, uh, causes of inflammation and disease and cancerous things, um, with your research. So I really acknowledge you for your consistency on this. Um, and I'm just grateful that you continue to put it out there in, in ways that we can consume it. You know, a lot of this science and research seems overwhelming. You're holding up the research paper. I'm like, "I don't know how to read this stuff." But your ability to translate that into tangible, uh, bite-size information for us to, to start taking those actions is really powerful. So I acknowledge you for, for all that you do to communicate this wisdom. Um, and my final question is what is your definition of greatness?

    30. WLDr. William Li1:10:13

        Wow. I, I... You know, you're like, you're like the, uh, you're like the, the college professor that gives all these extra credit questions. [laughs]

Episode duration: 1:11:42