When it comes to cancer awareness and activism, it’s easy to become quite upset at the fact that everywhere you look, the most popular form of activism seems to be simply raising money for cancer charities. We’ve seen a lot of corruption when it comes to cancer charities. The latest example involves Dr. José Baselga, chief medical officer for the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, who failed to disclose millions of dollars in payments from healthcare companies he received in exchange for dozens of ‘research’ articles favorable to the industry. You can read more about that here.

Furthermore, it’s truly a crime how the only approved treatments for cancer are chemotherapy and radiation, along with other cancer medications. There are a number of other aids people are using to combat cancer including lifestyle changes, food and nutrition, and substances like cannabis oil, which have all shown tremendous amounts of potential yet they’re not often prescribed to patients. At the end of the day, cancer has become a business. There are some very powerful pharmaceutical companies and people who are making billions of dollars off of cancer treatment alone. Today, we don’t have a healthcare industry, we have a sick care industry, or an industry that profits off of sickness not wellness.

One of the main reasons it’s easy to become upset with cancer awareness and activism these days is that it never really addresses the causes. It’s not uncommon to see a cookout with processed meats, for example, at a cancer fundraiser, or restaurants like KFC raising money for cancer. How ironic is that?

Why are there no awareness campaigns regarding the pesticides sprayed on our foods? What about electromagnetic radiation bombardment? What about cosmetics and all of our household items like chemical cleaners that have clear links to cancer and several other diseases?

What about Glyphosate? It’s the main active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide. It’s a substance that has clear links to cancer and is poisonous, but for years it’s been approved by our federal health regulatory agencies, similar to how DDT was back in the day.

Ask yourself, how is this even possible? Well, it’s probably because our federal health regulatory agencies are extremely corrupt.

One of the best examples would be the SPIDER papers. A group called the CDC Scientists Preserving Integrity, Diligence and Ethics in Research, or CDC SPIDER, put a list of complaints in a letter to the CDC Chief of Staff and provided a copy of the letter to the public watchdog organization U.S. Right to Know (USRTK).

Are humans supposed to eat meat and consume animal products? If you look into it, you may be surprised. Take milk, for example. The majority of people on the planet are lactose intolerant for a reason. In some parts of the world, lactose intolerance is 90 to 100 percent.(source) Humans are the only species to drink milk after weaning and the only species to drink the milk of another animal. Have we been fooled by big food marketing? Why are global food guides changing to a more plant-based foundation? It’s because things are changing.

The reason why I have a hard time believing that humans are meant to consume meat and animal products is because there’s so much science proving this. Meat eating of all kinds is linked to a variety of diseases. Some of the latest information to emerge in this area compares protein from meat and protein from plant-based sources, suggesting that plant-based protein is much healthier.

A recent study conducted by researchers in California and France found that meat protein is associated with a very sharp increased risk of heart disease, while protein from nuts and seeds is actually beneficial for the human heart.

The study is titled “Patterns of plant and animal protein intake are strongly associated with cardiovascular mortality: The Adventist Health Study-2 cohort,” It was a joint project between researchers from Loma Linda University School of Public Health in California and AgroParisTech and the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in Paris, France.

It was published in the International Journal of Epidemiology. The researchers found that people who ate large amounts of meat protein, which is a daily norm for many people, represented a portion of the human population that would experience a 60 percent increase in cardiovascular disease (CVD), while people who consumed large amounts of protein from nuts and seeds actually experienced a 40 percent reduction in CVD.

81,000 participants were analyzed for this study. According to Gary Fraser, MB, ChB, PhD, from Loma Linda University, and François Mariotti, PhD, from AgroParisTech and the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, who served as the co-principal investigators:

“Dietary fats are part of the story in affecting risk of cardiovascular disease, proteins may also have important and largely overlooked independent effects on risk.”

The authors emphasized that they, as well as their colleagues, have long suspected that the protein from nuts and seeds in the diet protects against heart and vascular disease, while protein from meat, especially red meats, increases your risk.

Fraser said the study leaves other questions open for further investigation, such as the particular amino acids in meat proteins that contribute to CVD. Another is whether proteins from particular sources affect cardiac risk factors such as blood lipids, blood pressure and overweight, which are associated with CVD.

While underconsumption of protein is harmful to the body, overconsumption comes with risks as well. In the United States, the average omnivore gets more than 1.5 times the optimal amount of protein, and most of that protein is from animal sources. This is bad news because excess protein is often stored as fat. This stored animal protein contributes to weight gain, heart disease, diabetes, inflammation, and cancer.

The study concluded that:

Associations between the ‘Meat’ and ‘Nuts & Seeds’ protein factors and cardiovascular outcomes were strong and could not be ascribed to other associated nutrients considered to be important for cardiovascular health. Healthy diets can be advocated based on protein sources, preferring low contributions of protein from meat and higher intakes of plant protein from nuts and seeds.

On the other hand, the protein contained in whole plant foods is connected to disease prevention. According to Dr. Michelle McMacken:

The protein found in whole plant foods protects us from many chronic diseases. There is no need to track protein intake or use protein supplements with plant-based diets; if you are meeting your daily calorie needs, you will get plenty of protein. The longest-lived people on Earth, those living in the “Blue Zones,” get about 10% of their calories from protein, compared with the U.S. average of 15-20%.

Multiple studies have shown the difference between animal protein and plant protein. Another great example comes from Colin Campbell, a Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University, whose experiments on laboratory rats showed cancer cell growth can be turned on or off by simply varying the amount of animal protein included in their diet. This was an enormous discovery, with implications to the diets of millions of people. His results, from what’s known as the “China Study,” have proven to be replicable.

A study conducted in 2016  by researchers at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital followed more than 130,000 people for 36 years, monitoring illnesses, lifestyles, diets and mortality rates.

They found that substituting between 15g and 19g of animal protein, the equivalent of a single sausage, for legumes, pulses, nuts and other planet protein, significantly decreased the risk of early death. Replacing eggs with plant-based protein also lead to a 19 percent reduction in mortality risk.

Researchers found that a 10 percent higher intake of meat was associated with a two percent higher mortality rate and an eight percent higher chance of cardiovascular death.

So Why Do We Eat Meat?

Again, I ask, what makes us believe we need to eat meat? Many people like to point to those who roamed the Earth before use, like Neanderthals. I found those arguments to be very weak, and they always fail to acknowledge Neanderthal groups that were completely vegan, and how animal protein wasn’t really important. They may also not even be related to us, but that’s a separate topic.

The evidence is mounting. It seems to be quite clear that our bodies suffer from meat eating and benefit from a whole foods, plant-based diet. This is why I am so confused.

“When you actually look at the way our digestive systems are constructed, we have the anatomy and the physiology of a strict plant eater or herbivore.  We don’t have any adaptations in our digestive system or in our physiology that is adapted to eating or consuming animal flesh. And that’s why we can’t consume animal flesh without the aid of technology. But when you look at the jaw structure, jaw mechanics, our esophagus, our stomach and the length of our intestines, it’s clear that we have the anatomy of a committed herbivore.”

The quote above comes from Dr. Milton Mills, an internal medicine physician who, in the video linked within this article, explains that human beings aren’t really built to digest meat, or at the very least, they have a choice. More and more research is pointing towards the benefits of consuming a plant-based diet.

The Takeaway

One thing is quite clear, and that’s the fact that a plant-based diet has great benefits for our health and impacts our biology in a very positive way, while meat eating and consuming animal products does the exact opposite. This is not really a matter to debate, we instead need to question what we are doing on this planet and how we are treating other animals as well. They are being tortured and it’s extremely heart-breaking. It’s very cruel and very bad for our planet to consume meat. All signs point to the fact  that it’s not natural at all.

Food truly is medicine, and nutrition is a great way to combat multiple diseases. What’s extremely confusing is why so many doctors still choose to prescribe medication first, without considering the power of nutrition. Many doctors are not even aware of the power of nutrition and its ability to heal diseases, and this is probably because they know next to nothing about it given that they learn nothing about it in medical school.

However, things are changing. There are an abundance of doctors who are not prescribing medication when it’s not needed, and instead prescribing a proper diet. Many of them are starting to educate themselves using the literature and science surrounding nutrition. It’s not only doctors, but patients are choosing to self educate themselves now as well.

When it comes to the medical industry, self education is important, given the fact that “The medical profession is being bought by the pharmaceutical industry, not only in terms of the practice of medicine, but also in terms of teaching and research. The academic institutions of this country are allowing themselves to be the paid agents of the pharmaceutical industry.”  – Arnold Seymour Relman (1923-2014), Harvard Professor of Medicine and Former Editor-in-Chief of the New England Medical Journal (source)

Not long ago, Dr. Asseem Malhotra, a well-known Doctor in Britain, had some choice words to say in front of the European Parliament about modern-day medical education and the overall knowledge doctors possess. He’s one of many who continues to emerge and speak out. You can read more about that here.

When it comes to type 2 diabetes, it’s one of the diseases that can easily be managed with a proper diet. The undue influence the pharmaceutical industry has on the medical industry and doctors’ lack of understanding of nutrition is why, I believe, more than 370 million people around the world suffer from diabetes, and approximately 100 million Americans have it or are likely to get it.

It’s firmly established in scientific literature and quite clear now that moving to a whole-food, plant-based diet can drastically reduce the symptoms of type 1 diabetes and can even help manage, or in many cases completely reverse, type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes. Giving up animal products and processed foods helps as well, and there is an abundance of research that shows this.

Perhaps one of the most important pieces of evidence is the fact that there are real life success stories. Forks over Knives has a plethora of examples and real-life case studies that support the notion that eliminating animal products and following a healthy, whole-foods diet can make it easier to live with diabetes.

In 2016, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health published a study that showed plant-based diets can lower the risk of type 2 diabetes by a third. This involves simply switching out animal products for plant-based alternatives. A whole-foods, plant-based diet is rich in beneficial dietary fiber, antioxidants, and micronutrients, and low in saturated fats. This is excellent for overall health outcomes, whether they’re related to diabetes or not.

Multiple studies have shown that red and processed meats (also recently linked to cancer by the WHO), as well as animal protein in general, increase the risk of type 2 diabetes. In omnivore populations, the risk of diabetes is doubled compared with vegans. Another study found that eating meat once a week or more over a 17-year period increased the risk of diabetes by a startling 74%. A follow up study was conducted and found that increasing red meat intake by more than just half a serving per day was closely associated with an almost 50% increased risk of contracting diabetes over four years.

Removing animal products and shifting to a diet consisting of whole and minimally processed plant foods can reduce the problems created by type 1 and type 1.5 autoimmune diabetes big time. Although there’s no cure for this type of diabetes, the right diet has plenty of benefits. Cyrus Khambatta, PhD, writes that following a low-fat, whole-foods plant-based lifestyle can:

• Boost insulin sensitivity and reduce insulin use by more than 40 percent after six months.
• Lead to more predictable blood glucose, making it easier to manage diabetes.
• Increase blood flow to tissues in the body and reduce the likelihood of diabetes-related nerve damage.
• Reduce the burden on the kidneys, decreasing the chances of getting kidney disease.

People have also reversed type 2 diabetes with a plant-based diet and fasting.

For more on that you can refer to the article linked below:

The Complete Guide To Fasting & Reversing Type 2 Diabetes: A Special Interview With Dr. Jason Fung.

Here are some other related articles you might be interested in as well:

9 Things That Happen When You Stop Eating Meat

Internal Medicine Physician Shares What Happens To Your Body When You Stop Eating Meat 

Plant-Based Protein VS. Protein From Meat: Which One Is Better For Your Body

Scientist: Milk From Cows Has “The Most Relevant Carcinogen Ever Identified” & “Turns on Cancer”

Scientist Explains How Cow’s Milk Leeches Calcium From Your Bones & Makes Them Weaker

Studies Show What Happens To Your Heart When You Go Vegan or Vegetarian

The Takeaway

The takeaway here is to recognize that a whole foods, plant-based diet can be life changing. There are a number of studies that have emerged and continue to emerge showing this, while many more show a strong connection between various diseases and eating meat. It makes one ponder, are humans even designed/supposed to eat meat, or has this simply been the tactic of clever marketing by the big food industry? Something to think about.