>> Dr. Terry Simpson: M. This is episode five, the final episode of our

miniseries, Food Isn't a Prescription Pad. Today

we're going to make sense of the madness of diet

and cancer. You've probably heard it all. Green

tea, broccoli, soursop, apricot pits, and even

coffee enemas from Mexico, all sold as nature's

chemotherapy. Here's the truth. The Mediterranean

diet is associated with a lower risk of cancer.

>> Dr. Terry Simpson: And.

>> Dr. Terry Simpson: And if you already have cancer, following that

diet lowers the risk of recurrence. That's

powerful, but it's not medicine. Food lowers risk.

Medicine treats disease.

And that's where we begin today's episode. I am

your Chief Medical Explanationist, Dr. Terri

Simpson, and this is Fork U Fork University, where

we bust a few myths, make sense of the madness,

and teach you a little bit about food and

medicine. People love the idea that food is

medicine. It feels safe, it feels natural, it

feels empowering. But here's the truth. Food is

not chemotherapy. Food is powerful. It can lower

your risk of cancer. It can support healing. But

once cancer starts, food cannot replace treatment.

Broccoli won't shrink tumors. Green tea won't cure

the disease, and apricot pits are coffee. Enemas

will not save you. Let's dig into what food can

and cannot do. Let's start with broccoli or the

whole group of cruciferous vegetables. Broccoli,

cabbage, Brussels sprouts, they all contain a

compound like sulforaphane, and that, in the lab,

slows cancer cell growth. And yes, people who eat

more cruciferous vegetables often have lower rates

of colon, lung, and breast cancer. That's

prevention, but it is not cure. Don't mistake the

two. There's not an oncologist in the world that

will tell patients to skip chemotherapy and eat

broccoli. Cancer doesn't work that way. Now let's

talk about green tea. Green tea is loaded with

certain chemicals, one called egcg. In test tubes,

EGCG slows cancer growth. In some population

studies, people who drink green tea regularly have

lower rates of. Of certain cancers. That sounds

good, right? But here's the catch. The effect is

modest, and it's prevention only. Once cancer

begins, green tea won't treat it. And in the

supplement form green tea extracts it can actually

cause liver damage. Last thing you want to do if

you have cancer is they'll damage your liver. So

green tea is fine as a drink, but let's not

confuse it with medicine. And to be honest, I

prefer black tea. Green tea tastes like pond water

to me.

Let's talk about scam supplements and Gearson

therapy. This is where grifters step in. They will

sell you broccoli pills, green tea capsules, or

apricot pits. They call them nature's chemo.

They're not nature's chemo. First, let's start

with the Gearson therapy, which is still sold in

Mexico. It claims to cure cancer with organic

juices, supplements and multiple coffee enemas a

day. And people are told to avoid chemo. There is

zero credible evidence this works. Coffee enemas

can only cause infections, electrolyte problems,

and even death. And the biggest danger? Delaying

real treatment while chasing false hope. Yes,

coffee enemas. I remember when the old joke about

the person getting the coffee in them and saying,

oh my God, no, no. And the person said,

administering. And said, what? Too hot? Said, no,

too sweet. Anyway, scams don't end there. Soursop

called Graviola is pitched as a cancer killer in a

petri dish. Maybe in humans. No, worse. It has

been linked with neurologic disease that mimics

Parkinson's. Ivermectin, a drug for parasites, has

been sold as a cancer cure. It might be

interesting in lab studies, but it is useless in

human trials. Yes, human trials. It's useless.

Taking Ivermectin instead of proven therapy will

cost lives. And then there's those people who talk

about the Warburg effect. Otto Warburg was a Nobel

prize winning scientist. He noticed that cancer

cells often use sugar for fuel, even when oxygen

is present. It's a true observation, but modern

gurus twist it, saying that sugar feeds cancer. So

cut out carbs and cure it. Here's the reality.

Cancer is not a metabolic disorder. It is a DNA

disorder. It is a disease of mutation. And cancer

cells are not picky eaters. Not only will cancer

cells consume sugar, but they'll also consume

ketones and they will thrive on vitamins. You

cannot starve cancer with diet. Warburg gave us

some clues, but science has moved on. Cancer is

not cured with the keto diet. And multiple studies

have shown this. And here's the final tragedy of

this. I have seen people tell the parents that

they shouldn't have their child eat fast food

while they're undergoing chemotherapy. Do you know

what? When kids are undergoing chemotherapy, we

just want to get calories in them. We want the

kids to survive. So if you are not their parent or

their doctor, stop spreading misinformation.

People who are undergoing cancer chemotherapy

sometimes just need calories. And I don't care if

they're eating ice cream or pizza or anything.

It's their time. Leave them alone. Stop

moralizing. You're not a doctor. And people have

often asked me, if we've landed on the moon, why

can't we cure cancer? The truth is, we have cured

some and we have transformed others. Childhood

leukemia used to be almost universally fatal, and

now most kids survive Hodgkin's disease. My

brother Jimmy was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease

in 1969. It was universally fatal. At that time.

He was saved by an experimental protocol of

chemotherapy and radiation and lived 37 more

years. Sadly, my brother eventually died of lung

cancer in 2006. But the Hodgkins didn't kill him.

By the way, my son jj, named after my brother

Jimmy.

Let's talk about hairy cell leukemia. Once it was

untreatable, universally fatal. Today it is cured.

One of my biology professors when I was a student

at the University of Chicago, died of hairy cell

leukemia. I remember seeing him in the hospital

and visiting with him, and he told me, hey, Terry,

if you ever get something, I hope you don't get

something weird like I have. Get something that's

treatable, like pneumonia today, if he were to

have it, if he were to be alive and got hairy cell

leukemia, he would survive. I had pneumonia, by

the way, wasn't fun. But breast cancer caught

early is often cured. In the past, breast cancer

wasn't caught early, and often it became fatal.

Colon cancer. A colonoscopy can remove it before

it even spreads. Lung cancer now has targeted

therapies and immunotherapies that can save lives.

So, yes, cancer deaths are going down, recurrences

are going down, and that is progress. There is no

one single cancer that we cure. There are multiple

diseases. When my brother was treated,

chemotherapy was like carpet bombing. It was

brutal on him, but it was effective. Today, modern

therapy is far more precise. We now have immune

checkpoint inhibitors, medicines that let your

immune system recognize and fight cancer. We have

targeted therapies that hit the exact genetic

mutation driving a tumor. Our outcomes are better,

and side effects are often easier. And here's some

of the exciting part in vaccines, take the HPV

vaccine. That's been around for a while, like

Gardasil. My son JJ has been vaccinated with

Gardasil. Now, while he's not going to ever get

cervical cancer, it does prevent the spread of

human papillomavirus that has been linked to oral

cancers, anal cancers, and now studies suggest it

may even reduce melanoma risk because melanoma may

have ties to hpv. Human papillomavirus and the

pipeline is growing. Research are working on

vaccines against glioblastoma, the deadly brain

cancer that killed John McCain, that killed Edward

Kennedy, and even killed some friends of mine.

Here's the thing. They have now had patients with

glioblastoma that they have pulled out a biopsy

of, made a vaccine against, and they are saved.

Others have developed vaccine cancer strategies

against pancreatic cancers, one of the hardest

cancers to treat. So no, apricot pits didn't do

it. Peach pits didn't do it. No powder in a bottle

can do that. Only modern medicine.

Now back to food. The Mediterranean diet. It

doesn't just lower the risk of getting cancer, it

lowers the risk of cancer coming back. A, uh,

massive epic study in Europe found that patients

who followed this diet had fewer cancer

recurrences and they lived longer if they had

cancer. Yep. Fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole

grains, olive oil and fish. The pattern is clear.

But let's be very clear. The Mediterranean diet

empowers you, but it's not chemotherapy. It lowers

risk. It does not replace treatment. And another

food story. Colon cancer in young adults is

rising. Why? Diet is a likely reason. Low fiber

diets leave the colon vulnerable. Fiber feeds gut

microbiomes that help sweep out waste and provide

anticarcinogenic targets to prevent colon cancer

from even arising. For example, fiber feeds some

of the gut microbiome that releases a substance

called butyrate, which is a tonic to the colon,

which prevents colon cancer. At the same time,

ultra processed food, the sugary, starchy fatty

filled with additives, has crowded out real food

among younger people. And that shift may be

fueling the rise of cancer among younger adults.

So, yes, fiber matters. And so does cutting back

on ultra processed foods. The bottom line,

broccoli and green tea are healthy. The

Mediterranean diet is the best diet. Fiber

matters. But none of these are chemotherapy. Food

is food. Medicine is medicine. And together, they

protect us. But only medicine treats disease. This

has been our final episode in food isn't a

prescription pad. I hope you have enjoyed this.

I'm Dr. Terry Simpson, your chief medical

explanationist and fork you is researched and

written by me, Dr. Simpson and all things audio

and production by simpler media. For references

and More, visit your doctor, simple disorders.com

and 4Q.com and check out my substack newsletter

for deeper dives. And remember, I am a board

certified physician, but I am not your physician.

This podcast is for education, not personal

medical advice by me. Always talk to your doctor.

A board certified doctor and a registered

dietitian. Before making changes to your health,

there are some diets that you should not be eating

certain things on. All right, everybody, have a

good week. Please don't drink the green tea if you

don't want to. I'm just having cold black tea.

Have a good day, everybody. Hey, Evo. I'm just not

gonna eat the broccoli, but I will drink my black

tea, because I'm gonna skip that pond water

tasting stuff. So if I get cancer, I'm calling an

oncologist, um, not some guy from Mexico. So tell

me, Ivo, broccoli, black tea, or green tea? What's

your pick?

>> Dr. Terry Simpson: Hey, I like broccoli. I like green tea, I like

black tea. Come on, man. Everything in moderation,

including moderation.