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Friday Favorites: What Causes Cancer to Metastasize and How to Potentially Help Control it with Diet

Palmitic acid, a saturated fat concentrated in meat and dairy, can boost the metastatic potential of cancer cells through the fat receptor CD36. Randomized controlled trials show that lowering saturated fat intake can lead to improved breast cancer survival.

This is the first and second videos in a three-part series on cancer metastasis. The third and final one is The Food That Can Downregulate the Metastatic Cancer Gene ( ).

This reminds me of my video Cholesterol Feeds Breast Cancer Cells ( ), one of many on cancer. If you’re looking for a good overview, check out How Not to Die from Cancer ( ).

I released another video on cancer metastasis. See Blocking the Cancer Metastasis Enzyme MMP-9 with Beans and Chickpeas ( ).

What else can we eat—or avoid—to improve breast cancer survival? Check out these videos:
• Breast Cancer Survival Vegetable ( )
• Breast Cancer Survival and Soy ( )
• BRCA Breast Cancer Genes and Soy ( )
• Breast Cancer Survival and Lignan Intake ( )
• Flaxseeds and Breast Cancer Survival: Epidemiological Evidence ( )
• Flaxseeds and Breast Cancer Survival: Clinical Evidence ( )
• Breast Cancer Survival and Trans Fat ( )
• Breast Cancer Survival, Butterfat, and Chicken ( )

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Have a question about this video? Leave it in the comment section at and someone on the NutritionFacts.org team will try to answer it.

Want to get a list of links to all the scientific sources used in this video? Click on Sources Cited at . You’ll also find a transcript and acknowledgements for the video, my blog and speaking tour schedule, and an easy way to search (by translated language even) through our videos spanning more than 2,000 health topics.

Thanks for watching. I hope you’ll join in the evidence-based nutrition revolution!
-Michael Greger, MD FACLM

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Leroy Johnson
 

  • @LeanOnPlants says:

    Absolutely fascinating

  • @bubblybull2463 says:

    What do they use to inhibit the CD-36 receptors during those studies ?

  • @hsot351 says:

    Dr. Greger should have a debate with fellow physicians on these topics. He loves to cherry pick his studies and omits to mention when it’s referring to processed meats.

    Nothing wrong with the meat that mother nature gave us. Meat and veggies is the secret diet

    • @superfinevids says:

      All meat has tons of protein and fat. Both of which are cancer promoting, kidney damaging and they also cause atherosclerosis. That is why all the Eskimos have atherosclerosis and dementia, Just like the ancient mummies of Egypt because the wealthiest people were the ones who could eat the most meat.

    • @kukimrmuks says:

      At least he sites studies. Nice appeal to nature fallacy going on in your fact free argument.

    • @sherril.562 says:

      You can’t get around cherry picking out saturated fat.

    • @billyblackmore4282 says:

      meat is Group 2A carcinogen, full of innate hormones, like IGF-1, fat, etc, etc. If you have cancer and you eat meat-red meat, whatever type of red meat, …. you are FUCKED UP!

    • @mulik2005 says:

      Meat differs from vegetables and fruits in that vegetables want to be eaten and provide benefits, while meat resists and does not provide any guarantee of benefits.

  • @jakeandsarahhealthnuts3299 says:

    It’s sometimes a little difficult to understand these videos if I understood the video correctly, the main messages to lower your saturated fat to keep cancer from spreading

    • @superfinevids says:

      Lower all fats. There are no good fats. Seed oils are not something pur physiology adapted for in the quantity we consume them. Fats are positively charged and your blood is negatively charged. Fat makes your blood cells stick together which raises blood pressure and thus your red blood cells can’t get past your capillaries. Once you hypoxia cells the chance of cancer skyrockets. Cancer is mainly caused by mitochondria trying to go through kreb cycle but the oxygen levels get too low so it runs kreb cycle backwards. Basically acting like a bacteria that your body can’t recognize. This was proven by taking cancerous mitochondria and putting them in healthy cells and turning that healthy cell cancerous. This same process did not play out when the DNA from a cancer cell was injected in a healthy cell.

    • @Momfasa says:

      @@superfinevids We need fat in our diet or we will die. Stop the misinformation.

    • @sherril.562 says:

      ​@@superfinevidswow, Dr Gregor should add this explanation. If only it wouldn’t disappear in the comment section, we might stop arguing and actually get somewhere with our health. I hope someone says it louder. At least we know it’s fixable, but getting it out there? Much tougher problem.

    • @Allmighty_Leshy says:

      What about Flax seeds? ​@@superfinevids

    • @ToniCroX says:

      @@superfinevids Ground Flax, Peanut Butter and algae oil capsules should be fine I think, no?

  • @Нфт-ц8и says:

    Bollux, dairy consumption reduce chances of cancer

  • @AndrewPawley11 says:

    I love this channel!

  • @AndrewPawley11 says:

    I love this channel!

  • @Cheezyquackers2 says:

    Trying to gain weight with plant fats while fighting weight loss with cancer…is that OK? It’s hard to know what to do.

  • @hulabiker21 says:

    I’m confused. I appreciate all natural products will contain a mixture of fats…but we’re given the impression that vegetable derived nut and seed oils are effectively not saturated, but mono- or poly- unsaturated…with coconut oil somewhere in between.

    It’s a bit shocking to see olive oil has 26% of its fats as palmitic acid. How does that compare to other vegetable seed oils, and to coconut oil?

    Is palmitic acid always a high percentage (approx 50%, or more) of any saturated fat? The study just detailed overall, and saturated fat intakes of the participants. Can we equate a decrease in saturated fat intake with a decrease in palmitic acid intake?

    • @Mr.N0.0ne says:

      Dr. Greger doesn’t reply to comments. Your questions are wasted here.

    • @ollewernersson3837 says:

      Vegetable oils like nut and seed oils are mostly unsaturated fats, though they contain small amounts of saturated fats. Olive oil, for example, has around 7-20% palmitic acid but is still primarily a mono-unsaturated fat, unlike coconut oil, which is much higher in saturated fats, with about 50% palmitic acid. Generally, vegetable oils have less palmitic acid compared to coconut oil. Palmitic acid is a significant component of most saturated fats, and reducing saturated fat intake will typically lower palmitic acid intake as well.

    • @peterjsmith5918 says:

      It always gets increasingly confusing to explain approaches that inhibit what the body is trying to do without understanding the cause of that behavior. Any fat/oil congests elimination pathways, and metastasis is unsuccessful elimination of waste. Enhancing elimination would heal the root cause, but their approach is to just cover up the symptoms. The right approach reverses every cancer every time without the need for complicated excuses.

      These diseases of congestion can be healed through waterfasting and/or fruit feasting. The “gold standard” generally disregards this modality because it can’t be placebo-controlled, and is unprofitable. They will only “put it to the test” when combined with damaging conventional therapies such as chemotherapy, and continuously claim they’re making progress even though cancer rose from obscurity to become the leading cause of death.

    • @chiyerano says:

      Just avoid all animal fats and refined and hydrogenated oils and you should be fine.

  • @lisabeaty2824 says:

    Thank you for the excellent reporting. As a breast cancer survivor, I need this information. I had consulted with a doctor who encouraged a vegetarian diet and the avoidance of dairy. This reinforcement helps motivate me to minimize dairy fat. I grew up on a dairy farm and I love high fat dairy so I needed a reminder to minimize it. I love having science that supports this.

  • @onionguts says:

    Thank you. Again. And again…….and again.

  • @phillippinter7518 says:

    What about exess calories, Not from fat that turn into body fat (which a large part of is saturated fat)? Is that bad for cancer?

  • @koreyb says:

    24% reduction, but that means that 76% still died from their cancers.

  • Anonymous says:

    this is fatastic learning how cancer is fatastisized

  • @NutritionFactsOrg says:

    Stay up on the latest news by subscribing to NutritionFacts.org’s free e-newsletter and receive our Care for Your Skin as You Age infographic as a thank-you for subscribing. https://bit.ly/NF_newsletter. -NF Team

  • @KJSvitko says:

    Hospitals, doctors offices and schools should be places where good nutrition is taught and provided not places that contribute to disease and obesity. It is crazy the hospitals are feeding people the very food that caused the heart disease, high blood pressure or cancer that they are treating. Every person in the hospital should receive some nutrition education before being released. Every doctor visit should be an opportunity to educate patients about how food choices impacts their health outcomes. The fact that doctors do not get nutrition training as part of their training makes no sense. Medicare and Medicaid should require nutrition education as part of patient care. Focus should be on food choices. Fasting should be investigated as a treatment for disease.

  • @ToniCroX says:

    Does Palmitic Acid affect metastasis when applied topically through skin product? I use a chamoi cream for cycling and it has cocoa seed butter in it. Should I worry?

  • @PlantbasedSilvi says:

    TEAM Gr. Grege Can you please investigate this doctor and other doctors to see if these studies, turbo cancer and RNA vaccination shed any light?
    Dr. med. Ute Krüger is a specialist in pathology with 25 years of professional experience. She has written a book for doctors.

  • @marilynNV says:

    Yet another argument against ketogenic diets.

  • @milesclark2966 says:

    Once again, poor mice.

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