The connection between diet and cancer is hardly a new one. But some truly eye-opening and life-changing research is taking that idea to a whole new level. Basically the idea is this: cancer (and a slew of other diseases) are linked in an important way: they all involve excessive or otherwise defective angiogenesis (the process of forming new blood vessels). Thus, "curing" or preventing a number of these diseases--including many cancers--may require little more than "correcting" or controlling angiogenesis, something that has been accomplished not only through synthetic drugs, but also by including specific foods in our normal diets (see slide) (note also the connection with the discussion of "antioxidant" foods).
Listen to pioneer researcher in this field William Li as he lays out the theory and some of its implications--all in about 20 minutes!:
Another connection I'd like to see made--but that I haven't found much info on--is a possible relationship between animal protein (meat and dairy) to angiogenesis. More than a few folks (e.g. Colin Campbell in The China Study) have made pretty convincing cases connecting higher levels of animal protein consumption with the prevalence of many "diseases of civilization," including cancer. He and others go so far as to characterize animal protein as a "carcinogen" (focusing largely on aflatoxin and lab studies on the animal protein cassein). But aside from Campbell and a few others, I've been able to find little on this animal protein/cancer connection, leading me to be a bit suspicious on jumping to this conclusion.
Rather, it may well be that the connection between dietary animal protein and disease/cancer is more indirect; the more animal protein in your diet, the less "room" for anti-angiogenic foods (most of which come from plants rather than animals). This might imply that at least from a health perspective (obviously ethical/animal welfare and environmental impact issues still loom large), animal protein need not be entirely avoided to avoid the "diseases of civilization" so long as plenty of anti-angiogenic foods are consumed in the daily diet. Thus Michael Pollan's recent credo of "Eat Food. Mostly Plants. Not Too Much" would be right on target.
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I saw this video and just happened to be also reading The China Study. I'm not at all vegan and don't want to be. But I am a hospital pharmacist who provides counseling to heart attack patients. I see at least 100 patients per year. Diet, exercise, and drugs are what will prolong these patients life. I feel it is my obligation to look at the best science about diet. You mention perhaps there is less room for certain foods if you eat animal protein. The China Study has research in rats on this. They compare animal protein versus plant protein directly at the same percentages (20% vs 20%) and at high versus low (20% vs 5%). There are so many iterations of how they looked at this that it seems clear that the animal protein itself is suspect. But I'm only starting the fourth chapter.
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