Cancer Patients Are Told to Eat Anything | That's Killing Them

Cancer patients are often told, just eat whatever you want during treatment. And this is false advice. Because food is not just fuel. Food is signaling. It talks to your immune system. It shapes your gut microbiome. That's the most important part. It lowers inflammation and it talks to your mitochondria and your cell engine. And the published research shows us something powerful. The Mediterranean diet has the ability to not only help with aging, but help us fight cancer and other chronic diseases and reduce things like oxidative stress and inflammation and build immunity and most importantly, build our microbiome. Even Robert Kennedy has talked about the focus of chronic disease and lifestyle with better nutrition, changing the food pyramid, more exercise and getting rid of this ultra processed foods and additives and dyes that is in our food. But here's the key. It's not about yo yo diets. And we can see that even in healthy fads, like people doing carnivore or doing keto or doing vegetarian diets, these can also act as fad diets. We want to find the right diet that you can live with for a lifetime. Even though those diets have some powerful tools, we need to put it all together to get the best part. And this is the way of eating that you can live with during treatment, after treatment, and with prevention. So today we're going to be ending the diet wars because yes, carnivore has benefits, vegetarian has benefits, keto has benefits. But the real question is, what can you actually do long term without failing? And what can you do to help with cancer and heart disease and dementia and diabetes, because they're all linked to good diet. And the ancient Mediterranean diet is key. Not the modern one, not the one that has pasta, gelato, sugars, cheap oils, but the version that my grandparents used to use, the old Mediterranean diet. And I'm talking about that original diet, the one that so many people use for years. My family's from the island of Sicily and I've spent many summers there. And I can tell you that the modern Mediterranean diet of today, of gelato, sugar and refined carbohydrates, that's not the diet that built these people that live over 100 years old with great energy. So let's change our whole conversation and let's talk about the ancient Mediterranean diet and what I like to call gourmet immunity. I'm Dr. Dino Prado, founder of Envita Medical Centers. For the last 25 years, my team and I have helped thousands of patients, many who failed some of the top hospitals across the country using precision targeting. And today I'm going to show you how to fix the biggest nutrition mistake in cancer care with something very simple, tried and true. The Mediterranean diet. And this is for educational purposes only, so make sure you're always working with a doctor. So now let's get started. Let's talk about diets for a minute. You've seen the fads. Carnivore, keto, vegetarian. They're everywhere. And yes, they have great benefits, but most people can't stay on them for a long time. And they also have some weaknesses. But the Mediterranean diet wins because it can take the best of all of these and get rid of the worse and make it something we can live with every day. It can taste good, it can be fantastic and easier to access, give us diversity, help our gut microbiome and build immunity. Here's a simple study they did, a large group of women, about 25,000 women, and they tracked them for 25 years. And they found that when they followed the Mediterranean diet, they reduced their entire risk of mortality by 23%. That's amazing. Just from diet alone. No exercise here in this population was just the way they ate. That means fewer deaths, about 23% less from cancer, heart disease, diabetes, you name it. Because the Mediterranean diet improves our body's markers, our metabolism, our inflammation. And the real secret sauce is it fixes the gut microbiome because of its diversity. It's so good for the gut. Now, let's be clear about one thing. The Mediterranean diet I'm talking about is not cheap seed oils or cheap olive oil or what you've seen all over the place that they call the Mediterranean diet. I'm talking about the real ancient diet. It's not breads and pastas like you think it is. I'm talking about the real high quality extra virgin olive oil sprouting your seeds. The difference, using meats that are grass fed, using fish, lamb, and all these foods that we saw that are very powerful, sprouted vegetables, legumes, if your body can digest them, the right nuts and seeds, this creates the diversity. Things that are fermented, lots of fermented foods, vegetables, olives, garlic, lemon, lemon zest. See, this is the power of the Mediterranean diet. And almost no processed food is used at all. This diet is about diversity. And it's the ancient one, the correct one. Because of the diversity of the diet, the gut microbiome thrives. And your gut controls a huge part of your immune system, 70% of your immune system. And your immune system is your last and first defense against cancer. So that's one of the big things. It's also going to help with inflammation which can fuel cancer. It's also going to fight the oxidative stress which causes cancer mutations. That's the power of the Mediterranean diet. So now let's talk about cancer. A large analysis found that following the Mediterranean diet was linked to lower cancer rates. People who ate more Mediterranean type foods and they ate these healthy, diverse diets lived longer. I'm saying this because I don't want you to just follow one diet. You to find something you can do for the rest of your life that you can live with and be happy about. Be excited when you eat. When your diet has real food, fiber, plants, polyphenols, powerful nutrients, your body can get stronger and you can live longer. And it'll help you fight really any disease and prevent it. Because remember, food is our medicine. It's our original first medicine. And here's what I learned looking at the Mediterranean diet. Not just the studies, but it actually lived out in real life. I've spent many summers in the island of Sicily. My grandparents, when they lived in Sicily many years ago and their parents before them, they did not eat the food that are being eaten right now in the Mediterranean. They're not eating farm to table as they used to. And that was the big difference. Because all of these diets, what made a vegetarian diet so great or what made a keto diet so great? In all the studies, it's because of the quality of the food. They removed all the processed foods. That's already your biggest secret weapon. No processed foods, farm to table, the way God created food. Then you can unleash the superpower of food. So let's talk about sprouting. Really easy to do. You can get all you need from Amazon or anywhere else and use these jars and you put organic seeds in them and you let them sprout. There's tons of videos on this. I won't spend a lot of time, but when you sprout the seeds, it costs less. You got a lot of nutrients being released, antioxidants. You can add things like zests of lemon and orange, which have huge antimicrobial properties, immune properties, high polyphenol, olive oils loaded with that peppery taste. Now what is that doing to the gut? Microbiome, Amazing things. You're releasing nutrients, antioxidants. These are cancer fighting foods. This is where we see things that are powerful in the world of cancer prevention. So this is the Mediterranean diet. When you hear things of pomegranate or you eat blueberries and you talk about all these resveratrol and polyphenols, even things like green tea, matcha, green tea, these are all polyphenol rich foods that are going to help you. I'm not talking about eating pasta and sugar in high quantities. I'm talking about eating healthy foods that are from the earth that we eat every day that help us to be healthy. Now let's talk about these fad diets for a minute. Most fad diets follow the same pattern. People go to extremes and they burn out. I've seen this over two and a half decades with my patients. They'll get on a diet, they're really excited. And I check in on a few weeks, they're still there. A month later, a little bit there. By three months, it's gone and they rebound back to the foods that they like. But the ancient Mediterranean diet lets us borrow the best of all of these. We want to lower our glucose. Great, we can do that. We want to get rid of refined carbohydrates. Yes. And the Mediterranean diet allows us to also do ketogenic. If we want, we can use the foods in here that are still lower in carbohydrate and in sugars and have all the nutrients we want. And it can help us to increase the fiber for our gut microbiome correctly. We can do that all in the Mediterranean diet. We get to remove all the soda, the juices that are with sugar, the refined products, all the stuff we see in the stores that are ultra processed and we can move to whole foods. And by the way, most of these diets, the biggest win of all of them is the removal of these processed foods. And we're going to get rid of those. And now we can embrace a way of living that's going to improve our health. Let's make it practical. If you're in cancer care, you want enough protein to avoid muscle loss, healthy fats or hormones and inflammation, control fiber for the gut and immune, support polyphenol rich foods. And the Mediterranean diet allows us to accomplish that. Let's take a look. Wild caught fish, sardines, anchovies, salmon, mackerel, wild caught, not farm raised, fermented foods, Greek yogurt, kefir, fermented vegetables, sprouted vegetables and broccoli, sprouts, olive oil, real extra virgin, peppery olive oil. That's organic pasture, raised eggs, grass fed meats, lamb, bison, that's all going to be okay in that category. And nuts that are healthy like almonds and walnuts and pistachios. These all help our gut. Microbiome, flaxseeds. See, this is nutrient dense foods. It keeps you full, it keeps you satisfied. It helps your brain, helps your circulation, helps your heart, helps your immune. So here's how you can put this together, because you're asking me, how do I put it all together? Very easy. Take what I've just said. The Mediterranean diet, the ancient Mediterranean diet. That's a very nice, broad diet. Put that in your ChatGPT or your Gemini, your Grok, your whatever, AI assistant, and tell it you're a Mediterranean chef. Farm to table. Giving me the old high quality polyphenol foods that I need to fight cancer to build a strong immune system. Build for me a diet program that is low in carbohydrate and high in nutrient dense foods and you will see recipes, meal planning. You'll have everything you need, even shopping lists. You just tell it what you need because it'll help you reach your goals. So instead of me telling you exactly what to do, you just use your AI assistant and it'll provide for you exactly the diet program you can follow. And now let's talk about your immune system for a minute. Because you can build this. When you're building your healthy immune system, you want to add Akkermansia as a probiotic, but you also want fermented foods throughout all the meals of the day. You want to use things if you can digest high quality yogurts and kefir, you want to help support those short chain fatty acids, butyrate. So this is only when you're eating things like butter, olives, olive oil, tallow. You don't want to be eating any other processed foods and garbage. When you're cooking, you can get great fiber, especially if you're starting to sprout your own seeds and beans. But go slow because your body has to adapt to these things. And if you want to add time restriction, which is also good, intermittent fasting, you can do a 14 hour fast or a 16 hour fast. Put that into your AI assistant and build that in. And now you've got a fasting mimicking strategy which can also help you during the times of chemotherapy. See, food should support your recovery. Your energy be something you look forward to not punishing you. And here's another key point. It has to be something you can use for the rest of your life. Something you enjoy and easily can adapt for yourself, your family, your children, so that everybody's eating healthy. So let me bring up the other factors. Sleep, sunlight, movement. Real simple. Get Plenty of sleep. And there's a lot of tools to help you with that. When you wake up, get outside, get that sunlight, get your feet on the grass, if you can, that matters. And also movement. And if you can't do a lot of movement, maybe it's just walking, maybe it's rebounding. It's simple things that keep your body moving and get your oxygen going through your body. This is important for cancer patients. You get this morning light in your eyes or resets your circadian rhythm. You do some nasal breathing. It helps your nitric oxide. You ground yourself, get some nice electrons moving in the body. You take naps if you need to during the day. This will help you reset your energy. And you eat a healthy Mediterranean diet. And this makes all the difference. Even at night, before you go to bed, sometimes you might feel like you want to wake up. This is a good time for you to eat a little protein, maybe some yogurt, so you stay asleep. You don't get hypoglycemic. Some people wake up because they're hypoglycemic. Take a little protein before bedtime. All these things will help you. And here's the bottom line. You don't need to fear diets. You don't need to be in a diet cult where you're just only eating me. You don't need to plan to cut everything out of your life. You need to find balance that works. The ancient Mediterranean diet is one of the most studied diets in the world. It has one of the greatest numbers of people living over 100 years old. And it's the forever diet that's been around forever. Anti inflammatory, antioxidant, great for the microbiome. It's a master for the gut microbiome, immune support, and you can easily incorporate it into your diet. I wish I could bring us all back to my great grandparents who used to live in Sicily. We didn't have all these contaminants, microplastics, toxins. They were living off the land and they were active and they shared community together, because that's where I believe a lot of healing happens with food, family and community. It's the way we should live. So I hope this episode was helpful and encouraged you to eat a diet that you can easily bring into your lifestyle and help boost your immune system, decrease your inflammation, and help you on your journey to healing. If you found this helpful, share this with other people. My goal is that we get this out so people know that there are options and they're not stuck to the one size fits all model of cancer treatment and they have precision and targeting that can help them. And may the Lord bless you on your journey to healing. Sam.