Dr. William Li On How To Protect Your Health: What To Eat, What To Avoid & The Daily Habits That Help Fight Disease & Slow Aging

The Bossticks

Dr. William Li joins The Bossticks to discuss how dietary choices and lifestyle habits can bolster the body's natural defenses against disea

Key takeaways

• The human body makes roughly 10,000 microscopic DNA mistakes every day that the immune system must manage.
• Microplastics are a significant environmental exposure, often originating from car tires rather than just water bottles.

Main topics

• Cellular mutations and cancer defense
• Microplastics and oxidative stress

Notable quotes

Cancer's normal. We all have cancer from the time we're children all the way until we are as old as we can get.

Conclusion

The episode provides actionable, science-backed nutritional advice foc

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:01) Welcome to The Bosticks. Starring Lauren Bostick and Michael Bostick. Together, they are The Bosticks. Speaker 2 (0:14) Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Boss 6. It is a long-awaited episode with someone who we admire very much, Dr. William Lee. We've been trying to make this happen from a scheduling perspective for a very long time. He is an internationally renowned physician, scientist, and New York Times bestselling author. His groundbreaking research has led to the development of more than 40 new medical treatments that impact care for more than 70 diseases, including diabetes, blindness, heart disease, and obesity. His TED Talk, Can We Eat to Starve Cancer, has garnered more than 11 million views. And he is also the president and medical director of the Angiogenic Speaker 2 (1:03) How Speaker 4 (1:04) are the gut and cancer and overcoming cancer related? Speaker 1 (1:11) don't appreciate the fact that our gut pretty much controls every aspect of our health, from our brain health, that's gut brain, to our heart health, to our metabolism, to our lipids, and to our body's ability to resist cancer. And so when I went to medical school X number of years ago, I can tell you that cancer was something that suddenly appeared and was diagnosed when a patient had some symptoms and went to the hospital or felt a lump. And we now know that cancer actually is a normal state. I'm going to repeat that again. Cancer's normal. We all have cancer from the time we're children all the way until we are as old as we can get. People talk about longevity. And let me explain that to you because it makes people, it takes people back a little bit. Our body is made of 40 trillion cells. It's a lot of cells, more cells in our body than the stars in the sky on a clear night. And those cells have to divide so that they can reproduce themselves. So that's why we're still going to be around tomorrow. And that's why we're still here today compared to yesterday. Our cells are dividing, copying and pasting themselves. And if they make a mistake when they're copying, you create a mutation, an error. of copying and that's the beginning of a microscopic cancer. Now our body is amazing because it has these copy paste detectors. Let's call them a spell checker. So if I asked you to record Mary had a little lamb and write it down 10 times, you'd get a perfect. If I asked you to write it down a hundred times, you'd probably make a mistake. Spell checker would have to get it. Now, if you're the human body and you had to write that, copy that 40 trillion times, even after you ran the spell checker to fix the mistakes that will result in microscopic cancers, do you know how many the spell checker is going to miss on average every day? 10,000 mistakes are still going to sneak through. So every single day in our lives, on average, we're carrying 10,000 mistakes that just happened because we're trying to copy ourselves. Each of those mistakes can turn into a microscopic cancer and they just sit there harmless. They never cause disease for the most part. Because our body is able to resist and defend our health against those cancer cells growing. And our gut plays a role in that defense. Speaker 2 (3:54) And so this may be a dumb question, but on that line of reasoning, are there things that we're doing to our bodies to increase the amount of mistakes that our body makes? Speaker 1 (4:04) That is an amazingly insightful question. Oh. And the reason I'm saying that that's... insightful is because you're now you're getting it you're you're putting the pieces together what can we do that might make mistakes well look um every time you have a cellular stress we call it an oxidative stress um and it could be from anything it could be from ultraviolet radiation why do you think we actually increase our chances of getting melanoma from getting lots of sunburns over the years It could be from alcohol exposure that causes oxidative. Why does heavy drinking lead to a higher risk of liver cancer? It could be from chemical exposures, all right, that we see. And it also could be from, and we really begin to believe this now, it's true, not a theory, that eating ultra-processed foods with a lot of these synthetic chemicals, artificial preservatives, artificial sweeteners, artificial coloring, flavoring. that these things contribute to inflammation in our body, but some of them directly can cause oxidative stress that increase the odds that there'll be more mistakes or that your body might not be able to defend as effectively against them. The other thing besides ultra-processed foods is the stuff that they're packaged in, plastics. Now, we are just beginning to have, I think, consciousness that microplastics are everywhere. Do you know where microplastics mostly come from? Not from water bottles. That's not where we mostly get them. Do you know where we're exposed to them primarily? Source. Speaker 4 (5:47) I'm going to guess take out food that's hot. No. Speaker 1 (5:52) That's a good guess because when you actually have really, really hot food, you actually basically leach the plastic out. From like if you nuke something in the microwave and it always says, you know, perforate the top with a fork, heat it until it's piping hot, peel it open and do it again. Yeah. And then when you look at the plastic, it's kind of melted, right? Do you Speaker 4 (6:13) know what it says when you open my microwave? There's a little note in there that says, don't even think about it. Speaker 1 (6:19) Listen, I use my microwave as a storage shelf. A little container. I wish you wouldn't do a microwave Speaker 4 (6:25) in the next house. Maybe you can convince them of that later. Go ahead with it. No, Speaker 1 (6:29) no, no. Well, listen. So actually, the most common source of microplastics that we're exposed to are car tires. Believe it or not, as cars are driving down the road, they're spinning off microplastics and they are everywhere. So if you live by a highway or you open a window when you're on a drive or you're just taking a jog and there's some cars nearby, you're getting. Microplastic center box. You Speaker 2 (6:52) know, she Speaker 1 (6:52) was Speaker 2 (6:53) mad at me this morning because I was freaked. I wasn't freaking out, but there was one of those, you know, in New York City, they got the big street sweepers and it sweeps and sprays. And it was right next to me and it was spraying up all the stuff. And I was like, I didn't want to breathe it this morning. And she was like, calm down. I was like, this is just shit Speaker 1 (7:04) everywhere. I didn't Speaker 2 (7:04) know this Speaker 4 (7:04) until today. Should I not roll the window down when I'm driving? Speaker 1 (7:08) No, you know, I think that you just want to be aware that this is the reason. There are some things that you can't really. dodge as much as you could like look you can you can dodge the microwave you could dodge packaged foods and plastic avoid artificial preservatives as much as you can coloring probably not going to be able to avoid microplastics from in the air. All right. You could get an air purifier in your house. You could turn on your HEPA filter in your car to try to catch some of the stuff that's in your car. But I will tell you, this kind of knowledge shouldn't provoke fear. This kind of knowledge should basically just make you say, you know, I'm going to double down on doing simple, easy things so that my body can fix. those spellcheck mistakes faster, better, and I can shore up my health defenses so my body will protect me against cancer and against inflammation. Speaker 2 (8:04) Let's talk about those simple fixes. So the way I discovered you was years ago. Love your content. You were talking about kiwis at the time. Oh Speaker 4 (8:11) my gosh, you're the kiwi guy. You got me Speaker 2 (8:13) hooked on the kiwis. He loves kiwis. You also talk a lot about blueberries and a lot of things. But then you talk about a million things. But what I loved about your content, I think what a lot of people like about it is... you introduce things and then you explain the benefits that those things can then you know do to enhance your body or your overall health and i think you make it easy and digestible so on this line of of thought what are some things that if you could wave a magic wand you could get people to do right away what would those things be i'm Speaker 1 (8:39) i'm going to stick the landing at the beginning by talking about kiwi again all right and i'll tell you why kiwi is a great source of vitamin c Vitamin C is a natural antioxidant that reduces the chances of a DNA mistake, right? So you start today with some kiwi, and you're way on your way there. The second thing that kiwi is actually good for is dietary fiber. A lot of people don't realize that, you know, that soft green kiwi that's kind of sweet, not too sweet, but it's actually sweet enough, actually it's got good dietary fiber. Dietary fiber feeds our healthy gut bacteria. And when our gut bacteria are well fed, I say we offer room and board to our healthy bacteria. We've got about 39 trillion bacteria in our body. So, in fact, we're composed of half human cells and half bacteria, more or less. Okay. We give them room in our gut. We give them board, meaning like when we eat food, we're feeding them as well. When we feed them kiwi, they love it. And the reason a bacteria love it is because it's got fiber. All right. And when bacteria eat fiber, they are really happy. They're stronger. Their ecosystem, their neighbors are better. They feed their neighbors as well. And then what happens is that they pay us back for room and board. by being fed, like with kiwi especially, by making their own substances that lower inflammation, so lowers the chances of creating mutations, raises our immune system, boosts our immune system, so our immune system can spot those runaway, escaped little microscopic cancers and wipe them out. And so eating something as simple as kiwi, start the day. with something that can actually tip the odds in your favor, kiwi is one of them. Are Speaker 4 (10:34) we eating the skin of the kiwi or just the inside? Speaker 1 (10:38) I eat just the inside, but I will tell you that it's been found that if you can actually, if you're going to eat kiwi in a blender, like nobody really wants to eat the kind of like the scruffy outside of the skin of a kiwi, but you toss into a blender with all kinds of other things, it'll disappear right in Speaker 4 (11:00) the Speaker 1 (11:00) background. And that skin will double down on the amount of fiber that you actually get. Speaker 4 (11:06) How do you clean your kiwi? Because it's a little hairy. So you want to make sure you're cleaning the pesticides because the pesticides are leaching to the hair. Speaker 1 (11:13) Well, okay. This is my own theory. Let's back up and say it. Your question is really, how do you clean any kind of produce you bring into the house, right? And so I'll tell you the things that you want to clean off. You want to clean off. the dirt and the grime and the stuff that's been sitting around in the boxes or in the grocery store, somebody coughing when they were coming into the aisle. You want to clean that stuff off. So you want to rinse it off really, really well. You want to take everything you buy from the produce section or farmer's market, and you want to run it under cold running water for about 60 seconds. So you know the old sing happy birthday twice, that. Okay, so here's what I do. And it's so easy. I pretty much take all the produce I bring back. And before I'm going to eat it, I will take a big metal bowl. You know, the kind of bowl you mix, you know, dough and whatever you're making, like a baking bowl, baker's bowl. And I'll put it in there. I'll stick it under a sink and I'll run cold water for it. So it overflows for about 60 seconds. Then I'll wipe it with my hands, rinse it in my hands. You want to get a little scraped, all that kind of stuff, all the stuff off of it. And if you actually take a look at the water, you'll see all the things in the bowl, which is why I like to do it in a bowl and not just over the tap. Speaker 4 (12:25) Watsum and jetsam are floating in there. Then Speaker 1 (12:27) you can actually see exactly what the scum that came off of it actually is. And it makes you feel better to know that you actually washed it off. So part of the confidence that you build in handling your food and treating your food is actually to see what you've been able to do for yourself to the food. Okay. Speaker 4 (12:45) Right? Speaker 1 (12:45) So anyway, so that's one of Speaker 4 (12:46) the Speaker 1 (12:46) things. So whether it's a kiwi, whether it's peaches from the summer, pears in the winter, whatever it is, I like to just suggest to people, wash it off. It's not just the pesticides, but yes, also the pesticides. Now, let's talk about pesticides for one second because you brought it up. Speaker 4 (13:03) I love this topic. Speaker 1 (13:05) Pesticides are now being recognized as... not just potentially harmful to the body, but they're definitely things that can trigger inflammation. And we know inflammation when it comes to cancer of any sort, breast cancer, brain cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer, you name it. Inflammation is just not something you want in your body. So you don't want these pesticides. Now, I know the critics out there to health and wellness statements will say, well, it's FDA approved or EPA approved or, you know, there's a safe limit. something you don't want in your body, there's no safe limit. You just don't want it, right? So what can we do as individuals to make that decision to just make our home a healthier place, our kitchens a healthier place? So pesticides, let's talk about that. Pesticides, even organic, they still use organic pesticides. So you still want to wash those off too. But studies have been done to show that rinsing with water can still... not get all the pesticides out. So there was a study at University of Massachusetts that looked at apples, right? Apple day is supposed to keep the doctor away. Actually, the number is about two apples a day. It will actually lower your risk of a lot of diseases. Where is the benefit of the apple? It's in the flesh of the apple. Sure, it's got something called chlorogenic acid, but the skin of the apple is also quite beneficial. Apple skin, which most of us don't eat, right? We peel it off when we were kids, throw the peel away. I Speaker 2 (14:35) like the skin. Speaker 1 (14:36) I like the skin too. The peel actually has something. So the flesh has chlorogenic acid, which is good for metabolism and lowers inflammation. The skin of an apple has something called ursolic acid. Ursolic acid helps your body regenerate. It actually helps to grow new cells in your body. So if you want to talk about regeneration. Use your own stem cells. Apple skin can actually help to pull out some of your own stem cells. Do Speaker 4 (15:03) not start crunching apples. I don't like that sound. Do not start crunching apples. Go for the kiwi, but go on. I can't do the apple crunch. But Speaker 1 (15:10) here's a study, and this was done at University of Massachusetts in Worcester. They sprayed apples with pesticides, the same kind of pesticides used in the fields for most apples, and they washed them off, and they couldn't wash out