• the major risk factors associated with prostate cancer,
• the critically important role of diet and nutrition, and
• how to minimize damaging and cancer-feeding toxic build-up in our bodies

KC: Welcome to Living Fuel TV. I’m KC Craichy with special guest, Dr. Leonard Smith. Leonard, it is awesome to have you back.

Leonard: It’s great to be here. Thanks, KC.

KC: You think you have prostate cancer, or you think you’re at risk for having prostate cancer, or you’re just getting older and you want to prevent prostate cancer. What do you do? That’s what we’re talking about here today. In the past segment, we talked to you about the issues, and I strongly encourage you to go back and watch that. But now Leonard, if someone’s got it, or someone’s just getting older because they’ve read all the news and they’ve heard all the situations, or they’ve got a blood test that tells them they have prostate cancer, or they have restricted urinary flow, or something that’s indicating that, really, the approach is pretty similar?

Leonard: Yes. It really is. As we were talking in the other segment, diet is really critical. Actually, the New England Journal of Medicine several years ago had an article showing that major risk factors are too much dairy and too much meat. They’re not saying you can’t have those in your diet, but they ought to be minimal, not maximal. I basically tell people that I see with any type of a health issue that 80 to 90% of their diet should be plant-based. That’s not just vegetables, it’s also some fruits, seeds and nuts, legumes, grains, but the legumes and grains need to be either soaked or sprouted in their more natural form. Then if you are going to eat animal products, they really do need to be organic free range in moderation.

KC: It’s interesting because there were a lot of researchers out there, and a lot of people today will tell you that high protein diets cause inflammation and all kinds of problems like that. The research has really come to show that really is not true, that people with a high protein diet score better in virtually every measurable way, but they’re thinking now that it might be high animal protein, that also has animal fats, that are soaked with toxins and so on and so forth. That’s not been proven yet, but it’s certainly an interesting perspective.

Leonard: There have been several brilliant researchers that have said that basically all protein isn’t created equal because of how it comes. You said it perfectly. The excess of saturated fat, of course, the other problem with animal protein that we really have to face is animals, just like we do, bio-concentrate the toxins. Whether is Bisphenol A, or PCBs, or phthalates, the fat soluble ones, or there’s lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, aluminum, these are getting concentrated in every body in very minor amounts. But as the planet gets more toxic, it becomes more of an issue. Plants also would concentrate some toxins, but nowhere near to the extent that animals do. Fish is a classic example of that. I think eating fish is probably the best animal protein to eat, but you want the little ones, like sardines, or krill, or something like that. I’m not saying you can’t eat a medium sized fish, but what we do know is that tuna, king fish, or king mackerel, sail fish, swordfish, the really big fish that are several hundred pounds, have definitely concentrated enough mercury in their tissue. Even if you go to EPA.gov, they’ll say that an eight ounce can of tuna fish is your week’s allowance for mercury.

KC: You mentioned krill. I’m not really a fan of shellfish like that because they basically are filters of toxins and so on and so forth, but I do agree on the other. The processes that we touched on the last segment, anti-oxidation, inflammation, glycation, angiogenesis. These really are interesting in that they are wildly different processes, but they’re all really regulated by the same dietary approaches.

Leonard: It’s that simple, isn’t it?

KC: It’s that simple.

Leonard: It’s not just diet. I have many friends and patients that are moving more toward the plant-based diet that still have problems with inflammation and what not, and to some degree, I deal with that myself. We do have to look at genes. Genes do matter. There’s certain genetic testing people can do looking for these little single changes called SNIPs. That’s an acronym for Single Nucleotide Isolated Polymorphisms. All that’s saying, in the hundreds of millions of nucleic acids in the gene, you can have one admine [SP], go to thymidine, and that would be enough to change how you might process folate from regular folate to 5-methyl folate. As a matter of fact, 20% of the people may have problems with their B vitamin metabolism. If you know those, then you might actually consider supplementing with certain vitamins, in addition to eating a healthy diet. The other really, really big one is stress because our blessing is our curse. It’s computers, cell phones, telephones, televisions, too much information, too fast. Not enough down time. We can control that if we choose to.

KC: We talk about, in “Super Health,” the seven keys, hydration, nutrition, exercise, stress, sleep, environmental hazards, meditation and prayer, being really key in balance. It all comes back to balance there.

Leonard: Absolutely.

KC: We talk about, nutritionally speaking, to control the four markers, we talked about, the oxidation, inflammation, glycation, angiogenesis. The four corners really does address that when you’re talking about low calorie, nutrient density, high broad spectrum antioxidant intake, low sugar, low glycemic response and healthy fats, such as fish oil, and so on. It’s really important and really key in reversing these processes. These processes are a basis of diseases like prostate cancer and so on. So we’re trying to get the inflammation out, quench the oxidation. It really has a profound effect.

Leonard: The oils are so critical. If there’s one overview of the problem, it is the fact we got way too much Omega-6, not enough Omega-3, and we’re certainly not ingesting enough Omega-3. It’s actually been shown as a mechanism of inflammation that the Omega-3s literally get incorporated in the cell membranes of white blood cells, and at a time of challenge, which we’re going to be, the white blood cells actually will release the oils that are in their membranes. If there’s too much Omega-6, what they’re releasing is Omega-6 that didn’t convert to arachidonic acid. That’s the whole inflammatory pathway.

KC: Highly inflammatory. Incredible. We’ll talk about more of that in the next segment. Leonard, that was awesome.

Leonard: Thank you.

KC: We sure hope you enjoyed it and God bless you and have a great day.