After Dr. Dean Ornish conquered our #1 killer, he moved on to killer #2.

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 drip the blood of those eating the standard American diet

onto cancer cells growing in a Petri dish, cancer growth is cut down about 9%.

But 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, the leading cancer killer specific to men.

In women, it's breast cancer, the #1 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 could do after just two weeks

against three different types of human breast cancer.

Cancer growth started out powering away at 100%

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,

and 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 controls, 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 remained.

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,

but getting rid of them is even better.

This is what's called apoptosis, programmed 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 "TUNEL Imaging," measuring DNA fragmentation, cell death.

So dying cancer cells show up as little white spots.

So again, this is the before, what 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 in 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 womens' 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 kind of 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 was after 14 days

of a plant-based diet and exercise.

They had 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.

This 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 exercise — just like out walking every day.

Plant-based diet and walking — that's the 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,

had 14 years of a standard American diet —

but 14 years of daily, strenuous, hour-long exercise, like calisthenics.

The researchers wanted 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 helped, no question.

But literally 5,000 hours in the gym was no match for a plant-based diet.

Same TUNEL Imaging as before — even if you are 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, and 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—

increase the level of IGF-1 in our bodies.

Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 is 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 — go on a plant-based diet.

Cancer-cell growth drops, and cancer-cell death shoots up.

But then here's the kicker.

What if you added 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,

may be because they eat 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 intakes

had a 75% increase in overall mortality

and a 4-fold 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 as harmful to health as 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 a smoker might think, "Why bother quitting smoking

if my ham and cheese sandwich is just as bad for me?"

(So better not to tell anyone about the whole animal protein thing).

That reminds me of a famous Philip Morris cigarette ad

that tried to downplay the risks 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

may be 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 six-fold by eating lots of meat and 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 activities."

So, breathe deep.

That's like saying, "Don't worry about getting stabbed,

because getting shot's so much worse."

Uh, how about neither? Two risks don't make a right.

Of course you know Phillip Morris stopped throwing dairy under the bus

once they purchased Kraft foods. Just sayin' . . .