Cancer Hacks Revealed: Dr. William Li's Grocery & Supplement List for a Longer, Healthier Life

[00:00:00] Dr. William LI: What we found was that 50%, five zero of the foods that we were testing were as or more potent than the cancer drugs in the same system that we use to study cancer. So for me, when I talk about food as medicine, like I'm talking about the actual study of food as medicine in the same system to study medicine,

[00:00:19] Dr. Melinda Ring: This is Next Level Health. I'm your host, Dr. Melinda Ring, director of the Osher Center for Integrative Health at Northwestern University. On this show, we explore ways to take actionable steps towards optimizing our health with leaders in the integrative, functional, and lifestyle medicine fields who believe in science-backed and time-tested approaches to wellbeing. Let's take your health to the next level. Hi everyone, and welcome back to Next Level Health, where we explore how to unlock your body's potential. Through integrative evidence informed strategies so you can feel your best and live with purpose. Today's guest is someone I'm truly honored to have on the show, Dr. William Li. You may know him from his New York Times bestseller Eat to Beat Disease and Eat to Beat Your Diet. Or from his TED Talk that's been viewed more than 13 million times. What you may not know is that his latest work is shifting the conversation on metabolism, moving beyond just weight, to focus on how food can help us heal, energize, and thrive. Dr. Li's a globally renowned physician scientist, founder of the Angiogenesis Foundation, and a passionate educator helping millions understand how food can be a powerful tool to prevent disease and optimize health. I'm also thrilled to share that Dr. Li will be joining us in person this fall as the keynote speaker at the OSHA Center's September 18th fundraiser at Northwestern University. This event will support our efforts to bring integrative health into our local communities, combating things like nutrition, insecurity, and supporting mental wellness. So if you're in Chicago or wanna sponsor our work, we would love to have you involved. Dr. Li, welcome. I'm so excited to have this conversation with you.

[00:02:15] Dr. William LI: Thanks for having me. It's a real pleasure.

[00:02:17] Dr. Melinda Ring: So let's, let's jump right in. One of the things I have always appreciated about your work is how practical it is. If you were helping somebody build a grocery list for the next few days. What things would be your go-to picks and what would you absolutely leave off?

[00:02:34] Dr. William LI: I'm gonna give you that list for anybody watching or listening, but before that I wanna tell you why. So you understand what. So basically we all want energy. We all want to feel sharp in our brain. We all want to actually not feel so sluggish or inflamed, and we wanna. Really carry on with our lives the same way that we always remember our younger, more energetic selves to be. Right. Okay. Yeah. So if you assume that the real question is what is critical for us to be able to move our lives forward, and you know, my research has actually taken us deep inside the body, not just inside food, but inside the body to try to figure some of this stuff out. And it turns out that in order to have great metabolism, one of the most important things we can do. This relates to the shopping list, to buy food, to eat foods that are actually good for our gut health. Now, our gut health, our microbiome, the 39 trillion bacteria that live inside our gut, do us a huge favor when it comes to energy, when it comes to actually lowering inflammation so that we don't feel quite so worn down and fatigued. I mean, basically inflammation in our body makes us feel fatigued, and most of us have, are walking around sort of like bags of chronic inflammation. It just has to do with the normal lifestyle that we live in. Normal developed Western societies, especially in the United States where we sit a lot, we don't exercise as much. Our social connections are not as robust as in other parts of the world. Our diets are naturally the product of how we grew up and all the things that have influenced the choices that we make. We now know they're not as good choices as we could make. So, you know, so what, this is what we're dealing with. So for what I'm saying is that people shouldn't feel bummed out. They're starting, they feel like they're starting behind the eight ball. What I'm saying is that if you wanna. Get in front of the eight ball. We want to catch up and then move forward when you get into the grocery store, the natural thing that we are in front of is the produce section. And the great news is that a lot of things that are amazing for our gut health, that lower inflammation help us get more energy. And by the way, that energy also comes from just good glucose metabolism. Being able to draw the energy from our food into our cells, they're found in the in the produce section. So they're the first thing you could put in your cart. I always say the no-brainer to actually help gut bacteria lower our cholesterol, lower inflammation, improve our energy level text, message our brain to put us in a better mood. All the things that we want are found with dietary fiber, so foods that can die, dietary fiber, you know, the leafy greens, the broccoli, the kale, the bok choy. All of those things have great dietary fiber and the fruit section. Pears apples, you know, uh, most of the fruits that you might eat, kiwi, they've have dietary fiber as well. Some of the softer surprise foods that also are good sources of the dietary fiber are avocado, nothing creamier and smoother than avocado. You can turn a toast, good source of dietary fiber, and of course, uh, mushrooms. A lowly, lowly white button mushroom that you can find anywhere. If you saute that up, I like to just put a little extra virgin olive oil there, throw some herbs, and you just put 'em in a pan very briefly, cook them up. They are also a good source of soluble dietary fiber, and of course, if you have tree nuts, usually when you turn 90 degrees in the produce section, you'll find a wall that contains bulk tree nuts, your almonds, pecans, walnuts, et cetera. Those are also great to buy a canister or a small amount as well. And basically you're loading up with dietary fiber and, and the, the great news, mother Nature is super smart. What's good for the gut, fiber is often always packed with what is good for supporting the polyphenol requirements of our gut bacteria as well. And that's the colorful fruits and vegetables, you know, the carrots, the pep bell, peppers of different shades, the eggplant. You get all these polyphenols in colorful foods, the berries. Strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, you might not know this, but raspberries are one of mother nature's densest sources of dietary fiber. They look like they're hollow, but they're, and, and you know, so easy to eat. So again, you haven't even wandered into the depths of the grocery store and you're already surrounded by things that are good for your gut health, good for your energy level, good for your metabolism, and basically giving you the front gate, I would say. Of health to be able to go deeper and explore further in the market.

[00:07:16] Dr. Melinda Ring: So these are the swapping foods that you, you mentioned in the book,

[00:07:19] Dr. William LI: human Nature Abhors deprivation. So if I tell you what not to eat, don't eat this, don't eat that. You're bad. Worth to eat this. You're gonna get fat of you. Eat that. Listen, this is the message that we've all been inundated with when it comes to food, nutrition, and health. And I mean, as doctors, you and I know like this is the kind of conversation that many doctors have with their patients and inevitably doesn't work. Because when you tell somebody not to do something, our little devil on the shoulder basically taps our brain and says, Hey, you know what? Maybe you should do it all right. And it's, and it's really difficult to, to deprive yourself. So what I say is, rather than swap things out, let's swap things in. Let's focus on the good things that you already love. And, you know, I, I write about more than 200 foods in both of my books. Eat to Beat Disease and eat to beat your diet. The one you were just referring to. I always tell people if you, if you can find a list of healthy foods, somebody's already done the heavy lifting for you, take a pencil or a pen or a highlight and go for the ones that you already love. All right. Yeah, I like that one. My mom used to make that, and I can see myself eating when I'm at a restaurant. I will definitely always go for this. Start by identifying the foods, the healthy foods you already love, and that is your first step because you are already ahead of the game.

[00:08:36] Dr. Melinda Ring: Now, what if somebody, you know, we know that we're in a place where food is very addictive, sugary foods, ultra processed foods are really addictive. So when, when they're looking at a grocery list, they, they tend to circle those things. How I, I mean, I think about kids, like they always say, oh, you need to try something X number of times before you like it. What would you say to somebody who's really new to eating this way?

[00:09:03] Dr. William LI: Yeah. So you're, you brought up two very important things. The first one I wanna just touch on, we'll probably come back to is the ultra process package. Mm-hmm. Foods that, you know, are actually quite tasty. Gotta admit they taste good. Yeah. And, and they're addictive. Um, partly because they're designed that way to make you want to eat more of it. So first of all, ultra processed food were a miracle product. Of 1950s and later sixties and seventies and eighties, where the food industry, you know, uh, experiences this revolution of being able to actually engineer foods, shape them in ways that don't appear in nature. Give them artificial orders and flavors and preserve them so they'll last, like mummies forever, uh, on, on the store shelf. And, and then. You throw in a, you, you lacquer on this incredible marketing campaign. I can remember lots of jingles to this day from when I was growing up advertising breakfast cereals. Anyway, the point is that we are, we, we grew up in this world. Uh, I I don't, I, I try to give people reassurance. Me too. Uh, I also had this, but you know, here's the bottom line. In today's world, we in the research and medical community have, you know, uh, discovered by looking more closely and carefully at what is in these foods that they unfortunately contribute to the chronic diseases that we see in our grandparents or in our parents, or in our friends and colleagues that we wanna dodge those diabetes, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, cancer, dementia. A lot of these chronic conditions we're beginning to as, uh, realize are associated in large population studies with higher intake of these ultra processed foods. Among the things they do, and this goes right back to our last comment has to do with they raise inflammation, they also damage our gut bacteria, which then raises our inflammation and causes all kinds of other systems to be dysregulated that normally protect our our health. Man, you know, eating something good causes something bad that we're paying for years later. You know what? I think the conversation now, I mean, there's a lot of conversations going on, but the good news is that people, I think in the public are willing to have that conversation. Should we be rethinking our food supply, our food system, what we buy in the grocery store?   So, I'm so grateful you asked this question. You know what, what happens if you're. Addicted to this way of eating. So what I would say, you know, for anybody who is feeling like they're at the end of the height, the, the, the, the diving board, you know, and they haven't jumped in before and they're really not certain, like, Hmm, do I, do I take that leap or not? What I would say is that here's a piece of reassurance. If you look at the healthiest food cultures in the world, which are found in the Mediterranean or found in Asia. Thousands of years, tens of thousands of years where people have been eating fresh foods, uh, uh, local, seasonal, and they prepare them in fresh ways and they share the meal with their community. They're proud of their meals. If you ever look at those communities, the foods that they eat on their menu, the recipes that they use, time held traditions, okay, are not that difficult to make, and they taste amazing. In the United States, when we think about plant-based eating, the natural thing we think about is, oh, you mean I gotta be at the salad bar all day long? Breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Yeah. What a bummer. Well, that's not true in the Mediterranean, in Asia. Vegetables, while some of them are consumed raw, like a salad, most of the time they're cooked together, combined with a little extra virgin olive oil, a little bit of garlic, a little bit of, uh, fresh herbs and spices mixed together with different sauces. I mean, they are so, they are mouth wateringly delicious. And I think that for the person on the edge of the diving board, not sure if they're gonna jump in. I would say, you know what? You know, somebody who has coming from an Italian family or a Japanese or a Thai or a Chinese family, and you ask them, do they, is there any vegetable dish that you really love that that's really, that you think I would love? They're gonna start whipping out the dishes that are their favorites. Like, I mean, even thinking about it for me makes me salary. Like it makes me hungry. Um. There's no shortage of good foods. That tastes great.

[00:13:44] Dr. Melinda Ring: Yeah. That, that was one of your 10 tenets of eating right, was the open mind. So it's really like one of those things we talk about in mindfulness too, just being curious, like letting yourself be curious about what others, how things might taste.

[00:14:00] Dr. William LI: I, I'll give you, I'll give you a great, great example of something, 'cause I do this all the time, even for myself. The other day I went to a farmer's market. I saw a spring vegetable that you only see for a few weeks a year. I knew what they were. They're called fiddle heads. They're the, the curly stem of a fern from the woods before unfurls into like a sail. It's actually curled up like a chameleon's tail. If you didn't pay close attention, you'd probably walk right by it. But I, I paid attention to it. 'cause I've had them before and I've cooked with them before. But I looked at it and you know what I did? I was curious. So I had my phone. I looked up fiddlehead and micronutrient, and you know what? He discovered something new myself, even for myself. And I studied food as medicine, so I was like, I, I was like really happy and proud. I did this. I discovered that fiddleheads, these ferns, spring ferns, uh, locally forged actually our mother nature's highest source of natural Omega-3 fatty acids.

[00:14:59] Dr. Melinda Ring: What?

[00:15:01] Dr. William LI: Wow. So you and I, look, we here, here work doctors in, in the integrative medicine, functional medicine. We, we, we study food as medicine. I just shared with you something I learned at the farmer's market and now you know

[00:15:13] Dr. Melinda Ring: it. Wow.

[00:15:13] Dr. William LI: So I bought, I cooked them. And then I, I, I recorded my cooking of the fiddleheads I posted on Instagram, and now I'm actually sharing it with other people. This is the idea that you can share something, a discovery that you made with somebody else that, that might not know about it, but if you're curious, you just might learn something new and it might just, might be your new favorite food.

[00:15:37] Dr. Melinda Ring: That's funny. So this just 'cause we were talking probiotics, so this is Beat Kavas, which I shared with people. I learned about this from a Polish friend after I had a bad cold and was out for a while and she's like, you are low in energy. You need to start making this. It's rich in, you know, it's fermented, it's got the beats and. Tons of garlic and dill, and now I'm making it all the time. And I posted me making it because it's so easy and I'm like, I feel so much better.

[00:16:10] Dr. William LI: Right. And listen, I'm, I'm, and I'm, I'm gonna hit you up offline to actually get the recipe set. Oh,

[00:16:16] Dr. Melinda Ring: so good

[00:16:17] Dr. William LI: about it. But I will listen. I mean, this is part of the modern conversation about food and health, uh, and energy and longevity, which is what I'm studying now, which is that this is a glorious, joyful. A journey to take. This is not about suffering and deprivation, not about, oh my God, how am I gonna actually follow that diet? You know, I'm so confused about food. I think that the science is teaching us that you, we can be quite clear about the foods that are actually good for us and that we enjoy, and then it's not work to actually follow that eating pattern.

[00:16:52] Dr. Melinda Ring: Right, right. Well, I love it. I love that your message is not about restriction, that it's really about empowerment and going back, because when I first met you years ago, it was. Um, I had learned about your work at the Angiogenesis Foundation and, uh, the slides that you had about the effect of, um, angio, you know, food on cancer. So can you share a little bit about that, about how your research uncovers the way that food literally rewires our biology?

[00:17:25] Dr. William LI: Yeah, so my background as an internal medicine doc like you, is that. We take care of men and women, young and old, healthy and sick. My own orientation has always been, despite the fact we're trained specifically to diagnose and treat disease. My personal orientation has always been on health. I've always been curious about what makes us healthy and because that wasn't taught to be in med school and I feel, I felt as a researcher. I'm a vascular biologist, which means I study your circulation, the 60,000 miles worth of blood vessels that are packed in our body, the highways and byways of health as I call them, because I studied that I felt compelled to try to figure out. How it is. Our body maintains our health. Health isn't just the absence of disease. It is a result of our own biology working really hard on our behalf. Okay? Uh, firing at all cylinders from the day we're born until the, our very last breath trying to keep us healthy, right? So people say, if, let's let, let's use cancer as an example. I'm a cancer researcher, so I, I have no qualms talking about cancer. I know it's a scary topic. Even for health and wellness influencers to talk about. But I, I, this is sort of like my, my wheelhouse. People always ask me as a doctor if they're, if I diagnose, I'm like, why did I get cancer? Right? And, and you know, you try to give the most compassionate, empa empathetic answers possible based on their situation. But I walk away from that kind of, kind of situation by, by asking, you know, why don't we all get cancer more often? Why don't we all get cancer? Right? You, you pumping gas at the gas station and you're breathing in these fumes because that can cause mutations. Or you're doing your fingernails, you're moving your polish, you're inhaling all that, all those solve. How come we don't get lung cancer more often, right? Or all the microplastics and all these other things we're exposed to? Well, it turns out the reason that we don't get sick more often, including cancer, is that we have these health defense systems that are working on our behalf shield like shields up. Alright, uh, uh, protecting our ship, the ship of our body, and when we eat foods, okay, and this is my research that activate those shields, they make the shields stronger. It's like putting two deadbolts on your front door as opposed to having what it is like having a lock on your window as opposed to just the latch to prevent, you know, somebody from crawling in your window. Alright? It's like having multiple smoke alarms in your house rather than just one. Stuck in your basement. All right? And this is really what Food as medicine is doing when you hear about antioxidants and polyphenols and dietary fiber. Let me kind of give you the subtitle and easy to understand English. Okay? You know, you watch those movies and you're looking at the subtitle. Look, when we eat Healthy crudes, what they're doing with all those polyphenols and dietary fiber and all that kind of stuff, they are activating, lighting up, turning on the switch. Doubling down on our body's health defenses. So our body's just a lot stronger to fight against disease and to protect our health. So when it comes to cancer, one of the things that I did as the cancer researcher while studying drugs to treat cancer, and I've been involved with over a dozen new cancer drugs that were FDA approved during my career. One of the things we did is we removed about half of the drugs that we were testing, and we snuck in. Foods instead of the drugs. And while we tested them side by side against the cancer drugs, what we found was that 50%, five zero of the foods that we were testing were as or more potent than the cancer drugs in the same system that we use to study cancer. So for me, when I talk about food as medicine, like I'm talking about the actual study of food as medicine in the same systems that study medicine, that that experience dropped my jaw. Opened my eyes and made me realize, you know, this is what, what everyone needs to do. Mm-hmm. Learn about how foods can activate our own body's ability to heal.

[00:21:38] Dr. Melinda Ring: Yeah. And, and you know, I was at a talk at the NIH and Elaine, Dr. Elaine Longan was talking about whole healing and talked also about. The number of infections. Our body fights off every, you know, we always think about like when we get sick, but we're exposed to harmful bacteria and viruses all the time. But we have these natural defense systems, so it's the same thing that fights off cancer, fights off all of these infections. And so I, I think these compounds are so interesting, these bioactives, but there's always questions that people have about life. Because he, should I take resveratrol? Should I take ECGC? You know, you can get. Sulforaphane supplements. Do you think there is a role for those in addition to just saying like, eat a lot of grapes and drink your green tea for the ECGC? Like what EGCG? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:22:37] Dr. William LI: You know what I'm, I'm so glad you're asking this question because I get asked it all the time, probably you as well, which is, Hey doc, what supplements should I actually take? Or which ones do you actually take? So what I actually say is that, you know, most of what we need, you can actually get from whole fresh food. Yeah. And even foods that are actually canned or, you know, uh, frozen preserved or fermented. So, you know, I think for most of our, most of what we need for our health, we can actually get that by eating in a very natural and delicious sort of way. As we're talking about, however, I. The reason there are supplements actually has to do with the, the, the, the term itself supplement. The term supplement means topping off. And, and yes, there are some micronutrients that are very, very difficult to eat enough of, including myself. Alright. It's very difficult to eat a lot of Omega-3 fatty acids, even though I live on the East coast and I'm close to the ocean. Um, you know, I, I just don't eat seafood. Often enough to be able to make a big difference. So that's an example where we know that high levels of omega threes in our blood benefit, our brain lowers the risk of dementia, benefits our heart, lowers the risk of cardiovascular disease, um, uh, lowers the risk of, of metabolic syndrome as well. So that would be an example of a supplement that is hard to eat enough that you can top off by getting the supplement number two, another one. Um, and, and I think that, you know, like you can count the number of supplements that I take. On one hand, uh, because most of it I try to get from food, but vitamin D is another one that's very, very difficult to get enough. Vitamin D, you can eat mushrooms. It's got some vitamin D and a few other natural sources. Of course, milk for example, for those of you who eat dairy products, um, are fortified with vitamin D. So there are products that are you where you inject Vitamin D, by the way, I took a tour once of a dairy factory or a farm, family owned dairy factory. And I saw the cows and I saw the milking and I saw the little tubes carrying the milk into the system and cleaning up the milk and pasteurizing the milk and squirting it, and then into the bottle and it was done. And, and we walked outta the factory and, and the owner, who's a friend, basically said, is there anything else that you wanna see while you're here? And I said, Nope. Well wait a minute. Wait a minute. Where does a vitamin D come in? Oh, alright. So, and he is like, oh, I had no idea you'd be interested in that. So we walked me back, we went back into the factory and there was like this little, it looked like a, a container on the wall. Mm-hmm. That you would have a fire extinguisher in. You know, you've seen them in schools and airport. Yeah. Um, it was a closed box. He opened it up and there it was the bottles of milk going through it. There was a little pipette squirting with vitamin D into it before it was capped up and thrown and gone on. So listen, vitamin D can be supplemented in dairy products, but you can actually get vitamin D supplements, you know, pretty easily. Just pop on in your mouth. And I like, I know I don't have enough, I don't eat from enough vitamin D in my food. So that's another supplement. Now, a couple of other things that I would actually say. Are worthwhile considering and they go into the probiotic realm. And because I do research on this,

[00:25:51] Dr. Melinda Ring: yeah,

[00:25:52] Dr. William LI: my, my radar is lit up with the importance of specific bacteria. So I've studied lactobacillus rii, which is a normal gut bacteria. Healthy gut bacteria does so much, and it's not regularly found in our diet anymore. Used to be found in our diet. So I will take that as a supplement. I get the CH children's chewable version because, um, uh, it turns out this bacteria also kills. It's good for your gut, good for your immune system, good for your brain health, but it also kills a bacteria that causes cavities. Mm-hmm. So I get a chewable version. Um, so I can actually have a treat the, uh, gut microbiome in my mouth as well before I swallow it. And then there's another bacteria that I've done research on and that I have lots of colleagues that are working in this space called Akkermansia. Phi. Um, I think I'm one of the first people that actually brought this to the public because I, I heard about it, um, in Paris at a conference that I convened where there was an embargo to the breaking news that Akkermansia can make the difference of in cancer patients being treated with immune therapy, which is the latest, most hopeful, uh, type of cancer treatment around not chemo. It lights up your own immune system, um, to, to wipe out cancer. People who don't respond to immunotherapy are missing a bacteria. The Akkermansia, people who do respond have got Akkermansia. Wow. And then Akkermansia then was shown to improve your metabolic function. Probably improves your brain function and brain performance as well. So for me, I was like, I don't wanna be subscribing to all kinds of stuff. I, I don't love, I, I'm personally somebody who doesn't wanna pile. Of pills in front of me in the morning, but, you know, based on my own research as a scientist

[00:27:43] Dr. Melinda Ring: mm-hmm. You know,

[00:27:43] Dr. William LI: there are some things where I'm, I'm willing to practice what I preach.

[00:27:46] Dr. Melinda Ring: Yeah. So, Kerman Yeah. And I, I also know that there's some data about it being maybe a natural GLP one.

[00:27:55] Dr. William LI: Oh yeah. Yeah. So Kerman is really amazing. So it's a bacteria and bacteria. You think about bacteria having a little shell around it. Like we knew in medical school, it turns out that when you take Akkermansia and you pulverize it, okay, and then you pick through all the pieces like uh, like uh, NTSB, right? So looking at the different pieces through the forensic analysis, there's one particle of Akkermansia called P nine, like Peter, P as in Peter, number nine. And that piece of Akkermansia causes your gut to release its own natural GLP one. There you go. So like, like this is the bacteria that's carrying in its own backpack on its shell. Something that helps you regulate your appetite, improve your vascular health, and help you get metabolically healthier. So often we talk about a. Gut health and products like, you know, it's a done deal. We know everything there is. Don't know about. What I would tell anybody listening or watching this is that we are just at the beginning of a new frontier. These are discoveries we're talking about. Yeah. Um, we don't know everything there just to know about it, but how exciting is it? To realize how much we, like, how much has been hidden in plain sight. And because it's food and not pharmaceuticals, they have immediacy. They can be applied to our bodies right away.

[00:29:15] Dr. Melinda Ring: I always think it's so fascinating because, uh, east Asian Medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, you know, for them the gut health always starts in the gut. And of course functional medicine, that was one of their very early tenets too. And it feels like now western medicine, it's finally like. Oh yeah. Health starts in the gut. Like we need to start focusing on the gut. So I appreciate that a lot. You mentioned dairy, and I remember reading in your book because you're a big fan of coffee, which I am too, since it has lots of natural antioxidants. I, I also like to start my day with a good cup of coffee. Um, but you, you mentioned the interesting idea that dairy in coffee.May actually take away some of the benefits. And, and so I, you know, of course we don't want people to be like, oh, I can only eat this with this and this like this. But you also have uncovered some really interesting research about how combining certain foods amplifies their effects or diminishes them.So are there a few surprising examples you might wanna share?

[00:30:23] Dr. William LI: Yeah, well look. Coffee. You just gave a great example. So when I was in medical school, I drank so much coffee. Uh, it was ridiculous just to stay awake and do all the things. And by the way, before I went to medical school, I did a gap year in the Mediterranean.I lived in Italy, in Greece, and that's actually where I picked up my coffee habit. 'cause we get up in the morning with my host family and we would always get one small cup of espresso, maybe two. Uh, uh, down the hatch and we would be off to the races for the day. All right? Um, and, uh, and so I, I continue that and to this day I love to make my own espresso.In the morning, what's in coffee are polyphenols one of the po, one of the many thou of the thousand polyphenols in there's called chlorogenic acid. Not only is it an antioxidant, but it also improves our metabolism. Uh, by helping us become more sensitive to insulin, um, to burn down excess body fat. It's just is a, it's a beneficial thing and it improves our vascular health, our, our blood vessel health, which is what I study, and it can even cut off the blood supply to cancer. So nothing wrong with your cup of your little cup of Joe or Jane, or however you want to call it in the morning. Okay? But here's the thing, as we've been doing more research. I realized that something that I used to do all the time, it's a no brainer, which is to put some milk or cream or half and half in my coffee actually was countering what those benefits of chlorogenic acid. Here's how it worked. And I know most people watching or listening are not, uh, probably never wanna go to chemistry class. Or maybe you never had to, oh no,

[00:32:00] Dr. Melinda Ring: I geek out on this stuff, so let's go for it.

[00:32:02] Dr. William LI: Alright, so dairy cow milk contains natural fent. From animal fat. Right? And, and that's how you make butter. That's how you make cheese. And that fat, when you put it in your coffee, actually microscopically, okay? Mm-hmm. Chemically forms little soap bubbles 'cause fat sticks. The fat, it repels water, right? So that's the polar versus the, you know, non-polar affection as we call it. And then the little fact parts form, 'cause they stick to each other, they form little soap bubbles. So that's what actually happens. Think about it. If you were to actually make salad dressing, you put oil and vinegar together, vinegar's water, shake it up. What do you have? Little tiny bubbles. So that's what happens when you put dairy milk into coffee. You don't, you can't see it with your, uh, with the, with your, with your naked eyes. But basically you've got these little tiny fat particles floating in there, and the fat particles will trap some of the chlorogenic acid, the, the good stuff, the bioactives and the coffee, the stuff you want. And then when you. Swig and sip on your coffee. And you drink the coffee because the polyphenol is trapped in the soap bubble, it just kind of runs down your system. You don't get a chance to absorb it into your blood, and you might only get 20% out of the a hundred percent of value of that cup of coffees that you would have it if you had it black. All right, so. You don't get, don't, you don't, or you don't, not deprive of it all altogether, but you miss a lot of it. Most of it actually. So what can you do if you wanna have your coffee cut with a little bit, something that's not so potent? A lot of people are like that. In fact, I'm like, that turns out that nut milk, plant-based milks, soy milk, almond milk, cashew milk, you know, uh, you name it, don't have the same kind of fatty properties that a cow does cow dairy does. So you actually get. Most of the nutrients that you want and you get the cut. So that's one example. A powerful example I want people to remember is that if you like your coffee black, you're in good shape. If you wanna actually have something to cut your coffee with, look, I mean, you know, some people like dairy, it's okay, but just remember you're, you're actually depriving your body of getting all the good stuff it could get absorbed. But if you use, just take one step to the side and you swap it out or swap in. Not milk of any sort oat milk. Um, you'll actually be oat

[00:34:22] Dr. Melinda Ring: milk latte.

[00:34:23] Dr. William LI: Oat oat oatmeal. Oat milk is a good one, right? Yeah. And oh, and by the way, here's the other thing I want everyone to remember. If you're gonna buy oat milk or soy milk or any kind of other milk dairy substitutes that you would put in your coffee, they're flavored, they're sweetened. Mm-hmm. Always check the ingredient label, make sure you're getting the pure, pure thing and not. Doctored with all kinds of artificial natural flavors or artificial flavoring or, or, or thickeners or all kinds of stuff. I'm also trying get the pure stuff. And this kind of boils back to what we talked about, you know, probably, uh, our grandmothers didn't actually buy these ultra machine, ultra designer nut milks to flavor that they wanted to get nut milk. They probably pressed it outta the nut themselves.

[00:35:05] Dr. Melinda Ring: Any other like combos to either like lean into or avoid

[00:35:10] Dr. William LI: Oh yeah. It's a leaning, leaning into, it turns out that if you are wanting to get the most out of a tomato. Mm-hmm. Okay. Tomatoes have carotinoids. Well first of all, tomatoes are a great source of hydration, so to get, give water to your body. Tomatoes also have a lot of vitamin C. Which is anti-inflammatory and helps to build collagen, so that's really good if you're thinking about aging. But one of the most impressive properties of tomatoes come from the carotinoids, which are natural bioactives that they have in them, specifically one of them that's been best studied called lycopene. Now, lycopene isn't like other poly, other polyphenols or other bioactives because it doesn't dissolve in water very easily. It actually prefers to dissolve in fat. You eat a tomato, like an apple off the vine, you slice it into a uh, salad. Okay? You know what? You're gonna eat it. And because it prefers to dissolve in oil, you don't get to absorb all the lycopene that you could have. So you'll get some in your bloodstream, but not as much as you could. You wanna get that lycopene in your bloodstream? Guess what? Cook that tomato in. Extra virgin olive oil. Now the lycopene goes right into the olive oil mixes, right into the cooked tomato, tomato sauce. So go. All right, and now you put it on your pasta or you put it in your tomato juice if you're making a tomato juice. Okay. Um, like most of the commercial tomato juices, by the way, are cooked tomatoes. They've already been cooked. All right? So, but do it yourself and, um, and now you watch with some oil in it, you actually absorb it. In fact, this has been studied with tomato sauce. You get three times more of the lycopene if you actually cook the tomatoes. A little extra virgin olive oil, which carries it right into your bloodstream. So that's a little, little kind of pro tip. Um, if you want to actually do it. And a, this is the grandma's recipe, right? Tomato was extra virgin olive oil, and you can add a bunch of other stuff when it, and if you came over to my house, um, uh, and I offered you some, you probably love the tomato sauce that I make. And then the question is, how much should you actually have? What's a dose of tomatoes or lycopene that you'd want to have? Turns out large epidemiological studies like the uh, health professionals follow up study were selected at more than 30,000 men found that those men who ate tomatoes, cooked tomatoes just two to three servings a week, each serving being a half cup, all two to three times a week could have a lower risk of developing prostate cancer by about 29%. Now, how does all that work? Well, it turns out that the lycopene cuts off the blood supply. Cancers, it's anti-angiogenic prevents cancers from getting nutrition. Keeps 'em small, alright? And the more tomato saturate, the, the, the less, um, the, the lower the risk of, of prostate cancer, the less aggressive it actually is. So if you came into my house and I served you. Some pasta or some other dish and I only gave you half a cup of tomato sauce, you would say, Hey, could I get a little more please? Right. Because that's pretty chinsy, half a cup. And that's okay because in the case of tomato sauce more actually gives you more benefit as well.

[00:38:15] Dr. Melinda Ring: You also brought up earlier this idea about the sourcing and there's, there is a lot of fear around food and you know, you mentioned going to a farm, of course, like there's like, oh. Are the cows pasture raised? You know, when we're thinking about things like organic, conventional, local, or imported, how much does the source of the food matter versus just what we're doing on the plate?

[00:38:40] Dr. William LI: There's so many layers to our food system between how food is grown and where it's grown, and how it's transported to how we buy it, how we prepare it before it gets to our plate, before it gets into our mouth. So at every step in the way, there's always something we can do to tweak it to be a little bit better. But I'm, I'm a real practical person. Um, I like to make things really feel like they're easy and accessible and relevant to the average person. Most people, to most people, the food system itself is invisible. It's just whatever I'm putting into my grocery bag and taking home and, and making for dinner tonight. Right? And so what I would say is that put the control. In your own hands where you can have choices in a grocery store, at a farmer's market of, you know, go for the best quality that you can afford, that you can find. Um, if you can get it organic and you can afford it, do it. If you can actually get it, um, uh, pasture raised and, and you can afford it, get it. Like those are sort of good choices that you can make. Just like if you went to the, uh, department store and you're gonna buy, um, a, a a shirt or a dress, you know. You're probably not gonna be able to buy the most expensive one, but choose a. Of all the choices you have, pick the best one that you, that will fit suit your needs, that that suit your budget as well. I also think that then when you take it home, what we do with our food that we. We take home. Okay, like our larger, that's a hundred percent in our control. Are you gonna use butter or are you gonna use extra virgin olive oil? Are you gonna use, you know, a seed oil or some other oil? Are you gonna spray it out of a can? You know, or are you gonna actually, you know, take it out of a, a bottle or a tin? You know, those are all little things that, again, the grandmas knew intuitively, right? But we, we actually now are beginning to rediscover the science behind why. Sort of the old, older ways kind of make sense. And those are those choices that if you listen to, you know, um, the, the, the podcast, the, the, the videos of your lectures or mine or many other people that are really trying to do responsible messaging, you said something that's so important. Um, Dr. Ring, which is, I, you know, there's so much fear people are afraid of, of their food. I would say listen, um, the best way to counter fear, I. Take control of the things you can control. And that is the choices you, of what you put into your gro, into your cart at the grocery store. That is when you bring it back, how you choose to clean it. By the way, a lot of people don't even think about it, but you know, when you buy fresh produce, all right, it might be tempting to, you know, bite something out the bag or take a nibble on something. I was working with, uh, food safety experts. From the USDA once, and they made it absolutely clear to me. They gave me a pro tip that I never forgot, which is simple thing. If you get a big metal bowl in your kitchen, which I recommend everybody to get when you have produce at home, okay, I. Wash it before you're going to eat it for 60 seconds in cold running water. Learn how to do it that way and you'll be amazed at all the stuff that comes off the food, even the organic or farmer food. And that is actually a great way to avoid food contamination, inadvertent food problems, and bacteria, and nobody wants to be food poisoned. So that's another control point is cleaning your food and then the recipes you cheers and the ingredients you put in there, whatever is more elemental. If you get spices, dried spices, don't get the pre-season spices. Season it yourself. Mix it yourself, get them pure. I like to use extra virgin olive oil and I like to get, you know, um, mono varietal, meaning the olive is oils pressed from one variety of olives. It could be Spanish. I use chua olives. It could be Greek. I use Cari olives, could be Italian. I use like, I like more iola olives and I don't press 'em myself, obviously, but I make the choice. Where I order it. So that gigantic, uh, selection of olive oils, that's so overwhelming. By the way I used, what I used to do is I used to just pick whatever my mom used to use or whatever I was used to using, or the familiar bottle. No, there's a much better way to do it. Look for olive oil that's extraversion pressed from just one kind of olives. Again, PQL from Spain, KKE from Greece, Ello from Italy. Those guarantee you those are the highest polyphenol levels. And then now I'm beginning to discover, because I've done the research on this, the manufacturers who are actually measuring the polyphenols with every batch box check number two, looking for, uh, microplastics, that there's no microplastics from the netting that is used to catch the hour. Box check. Alright. And by the way, you know, some olive oils are but in squeeze bottles now that are plastic. No, no, no, no, no. That's not a good idea. Glass or tin. Number three, and this is also, I think, kind of like something that I, my attention is being raised to foods that don't actually contain heavy metals. Turns out that there's heavy metal contamination that can be found in extraversion of olive as well. So I'm looking for, you know, who's making the best, highest level. Press from one type of olive extroversion is no microplastics and no heavy metals, and so I'm just learning my own way through this.

[00:44:01] Dr. Melinda Ring: I think that brings up also an interesting thing, which is that I know my sons now that they're out of the home and on their own, they do exactly what you said they pick when they're grocery shopping. They will pick the brands that I raise them on. And so parents should think about that. Like there is an influence that they're having on their kids going forward in terms of their decisions,

[00:44:25] Dr. William LI: even those little things. Well, we were, we're, we're the most responsible marketers, right? So we sell the, you know, we've complained about food marketing and the industry and all that kind of stuff. Listen, we we're, we are the 24 7 example set setters, but we're also marketing for our kids. They recognize the stuff that we choose, and if we make healthy choices, they're gonna grow up recognizing the color and the size and the label on the bottle where the can, and that's what they're gonna go for next week.

[00:44:53] Dr. Melinda Ring: Yeah, absolutely. They'll go for the easiest thing, which is what they recognize. Well, you already shared so much wisdom with us. Is there any last tip of wisdom that you would leave with our listeners to help them reach their next level of health?

[00:45:09] Dr. William LI: Yeah. I, I love that question because my research now is looking at longevity. Mm-hmm. Um, but not just adding the number of, uh, years to your life, but adding more life to your years, which is really our health span. And I'm looking at the biology of health span now, which is very exciting. And there's a lot of new things we're discovering about food. But I wanted to leave something with everyone about, about how you can actually lower the risk of disease. That's prevention. How you can enhance the effectiveness of medicines that you might be on and how you can extend your life and the quality of life no matter how many years you actually have. 'cause you know, nobody has a, has a calculator that gives you the exact number of years. When you hear that, you know, that's kind of aspirational. Like nobody really knows. So I like to, I like to just leave people with this idea that when it comes to beverages, there's a holy trinity. All right, and that Holy Trinity is drinking water, and you wanna get the purest water you can that isn't, doesn't have contaminants, including microplastic. So please stay away from plastic water bottles. I used to drink 'em all the time myself. Hot weather. Go into a tourist site. Go to a sports game, you know, or drinking out of a plastic cup. Don't do it. All right? But find the purest water possible. Good hydration is so important for our body's own detox system, our kidneys and our liver, um, and good for our brain health as well. Number two, the second of the holy trinity of healthy beverages is tea. Green tea, black tea, oolong tea, fermented tea are all actually really good for us because of the polyphenols that they add cha in them and some of the ferment entities that I write about in my books. Actually have their own back healthy bacteria. So they're even probiotic tea that are out there, which are really good. But if you're gonna drink tea, two things. Um, I prefer, I recommend using loose leaf tea that you can put into a tea ball, a metal tea ball, because in tea bags have now been discovered that they shed microplastics into a billion particles. So, you know, these are these small little tweaks that you can actually do and don't add cow dairy if you wanna get the most of the polyphenols. A oat milk, soy milk. All, all fine. And then the the third Holy Trinity beverage is we talked about already. Coffee. All right, coffee or turns out a lot of people, we talked about chlorogenic acid. It turns out that organically grown coffee beans will have more chlorogenic acid than conventionally grown coffee beans. So this is where there is more positive bang for your buck. It's not just less pesticides, it's more of the good stuff. I'm willing to invest myself in that a really great cup of coffee. And if you can find it, you can afford it. This is a really great choice. Coffee slows down cellular aging. You actually, you're gonna age, but you're gonna age better. Your, you know, your skin can look better. Your heart's gonna function better, your muscles will be better. That's worth it to me. And then here's a little, again, we talked about the cream and, and plant-based milks and stuff, but here's a little extra pro tip for you. I wanna get even a little bit more out deliciousness and healthfulness out of, uh, coffee. Well combine it with some dark chocolate. God really, really good dark chocolate, 80, 85% and higher. It's pretty bitter. Most people like, I don't mind it, but a lot of most people go, ah, I don't know if I can do 85% dark chocolate. But if you get pure dark chocolate and you have a square of it with a cup of coffee, even if you just pop it right into coffee, let it dissolve, coffee plus chocolate equals mocha. Now you get the pro anthocyanin in the. From the dark chocolate, which are anti-inflammatory, which stimulate regenerative healing with the chlorogenic acid, which actually is good for your metabolism and anti-inflammatory. That's just with a, a cup of mocha that you make yourself so holy Trinity water, tea, coffee. Treat it the right way and make the best choices, and you'll live long and you'll live well.

[00:49:16] Dr. Melinda Ring: So thank you again for all of your time today and I'm. Really looking forward to being in person with you. Thank you again for being here.

[00:49:25] Dr. William LI: Thanks for having me.

[00:49:27] Dr. Melinda Ring: Thank you for joining me on this episode of Next Level Health. I hope you found some inspiration and practical insights to enhance your wellness journey. Don't forget to leave a comment on YouTube or review on Apple Podcasts. I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions for future topics or speakers. Be sure to follow Next Level Health with me, Dr. Melinda Ring as we continue exploring the path to healthier, happier lives together.