Why is the Science of Nutrition Ignored in Medicine? | T. Colin Campbell | TEDxCornellUniversity

Summary

Rosa Rey emphasizes the profound impact of proper nutrition on health, asserting it can surpass the benefits of medication. She criticizes the lack of nutrition education in medical schools and the absence of a medical specialty focused on nutrition. Rey advocates for a diet based on whole plant foods, challenging the necessity of animal protein. She presents research suggesting that dietary protein levels can influence cancer development, proposing that nutrition, not genetics, is the primary driver of the disease. Rey calls for a 'Nutrition Renaissance' to refocus on the holistic benefits of food for health and disease prevention.

Takeaways

• 🍽️ Nutrition is a critical but often misunderstood concept, with a lack of consensus on its definition.
• 💊 The speaker argues that proper nutrition can create more health benefits than all medical pills and procedures combined.
• 🏥 Nutrition is not adequately taught in medical schools, and there is no medical specialty focused on it.
• 🌱 The speaker advocates for eating whole foods, particularly plant-based, and avoiding nutrient supplements.
• 🚫 The notion that animal protein is necessary is challenged; plants are said to provide all the protein needed for health.
• 🧬 Cancer is not solely a genetic disease; nutrition plays a significant role in whether cancer genes express themselves.
• 🔁 Experiments show that diets high in protein can promote cancer growth, while lower protein intake can suppress it.
• 🥗 The effect of nutrients is more complex than previously thought, with proteins found to influence multiple mechanisms simultaneously.
• 🛑 The current medical and nutrition science communities may not be taking nutrition seriously enough due to corporate influence and a reductionist approach.
• 🌟 A 'Nutrition Renaissance' is proposed to refocus on the comprehensive benefits of whole foods for health and disease prevention and treatment.

Q & A

What is the main issue the speaker identifies with the current understanding of nutrition?

The speaker identifies a lack of consensus on what nutrition truly means and the absence of proper nutrition education in medical schools as the main issues.

Why does the speaker believe nutrition is not emphasized enough in medical schools?

The speaker points out that there is no medical school in the United States that properly teaches nutrition, and none of the 130 medical specialties is called nutrition, indicating a systemic lack of emphasis on nutrition in medical education.

What is the speaker's stance on nutrient supplements?

The speaker is against the use of nutrient supplements, advocating for whole foods instead. They argue that nutrients taken out of the context of whole foods do not provide the same benefits.

According to the speaker, what is the role of plants in providing nutrition?

The speaker asserts that plants provide all the protein humans need, and there is no necessity to consume animal protein.

How does the speaker's early career experience in the Philippines influence their views on nutrition?

The speaker's experience in the Philippines, where they initially aimed to provide animal protein to malnourished children, led them to question the superiority of animal-based protein, which in turn shaped their views on the importance of plant-based nutrition.

What is the speaker's view on the relationship between nutrition and cancer?

The speaker suggests that nutrition, rather than genetics, is the primary cause of cancer. They argue that cancer genes may be present but remain silent until activated by certain dietary factors, such as high protein intake.

Why does the speaker argue that cancer is not a genetic disease?

The speaker argues that cancer is not solely a genetic disease because the presence of cancer genes does not guarantee the development of cancer; it is the nourishment through diet that can trigger these genes.

What does the speaker suggest about the complexity of nutrient functions in the body?

The speaker suggests that the amount of nutrients consumed does not directly correlate with their functional impact in the body, indicating a complex process that involves multiple mechanisms and interactions.

How does the speaker's view on nutrition differ from the reductionist approach of modern medicine?

The speaker views nutrition as a comprehensive and holistic approach where all nutrients work together, contrasting with the reductionist approach of modern medicine that focuses on single causes and treatments.

What does the speaker propose as a solution to the issues in the current nutrition and medical systems?

The speaker proposes a 'Nutrition Renaissance,' suggesting a redesign of the current system to focus on whole foods and comprehensive nutrition education, moving away from the reliance on pills and procedures.

Outlines

00:00

🍎 The Importance of Nutrition and Its Neglect in Medical Education

The speaker, with over 60 years of experience, emphasizes the broad and often misunderstood concept of nutrition. They argue that proper nutrition can lead to better health than pharmaceuticals and medical procedures. A significant problem highlighted is the lack of nutrition education in medical schools and the absence of a medical specialty focused on nutrition. This gap in knowledge among healthcare professionals contributes to public confusion about nutrition and health claims, which are often contradictory and difficult to validate.

05:00

🌱 Rethinking Protein and the Role of Whole Foods in Nutrition

The speaker challenges the conventional wisdom that animal-based protein is superior, suggesting that plant-based proteins are sufficient for human needs. They critique the use of nutrient supplements, advocating instead for whole foods. The speaker presents research indicating that diets high in protein can promote cancer growth, especially when compared to diets with lower protein content. They also discuss how nutrients function differently within the context of whole foods versus in isolation, emphasizing the complexity and interplay of nutrients in the body.

10:02

🧬 Beyond Genetics: Nutrition as a Key Factor in Disease Prevention and Treatment

The speaker explores the idea that nutrition, not genetics, is the primary driver of diseases like cancer. They describe how dietary protein levels can influence the development of cancer, even in the presence of cancerous genes. The narrative shifts towards the understanding that nutrients in whole foods work in concert, rather than in isolation, to promote health. The speaker also touches on the potential of using diet to treat existing health problems, suggesting a paradigm shift from relying on drugs to using food as a therapeutic tool.

15:04

🔬 The Need for a Nutrition Renaissance in Medical and Nutritional Sciences

The speaker critiques the medical and nutrition science communities for their reductionist approach, which focuses on single nutrients or drugs, rather than the comprehensive effects of whole foods. They argue that this approach is not only ineffective but also expensive and that it displaces the importance of nutrition in healthcare. The speaker calls for a 'Nutrition Renaissance,' urging a return to a more holistic understanding of nutrition that can be used to prevent and treat diseases. They also express concern over corporate influence on nutrition science and policy, which they believe detracts from the true potential of nutrition in improving public health.

Keywords

💡Nutrition

Nutrition refers to the process by which the body obtains and utilizes the food we eat to maintain health. In the video, nutrition is emphasized as a critical factor for achieving optimal health, potentially more impactful than medical interventions. The speaker argues that proper nutrition can prevent the need for drugs and medical procedures, highlighting the importance of understanding what constitutes a nutritious diet.

💡Whole Foods

Whole foods are unprocessed or minimally processed foods that are consumed in their natural form, such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes. The speaker advocates for a diet rich in whole foods, suggesting that they provide a more holistic and beneficial nutritional profile compared to nutrient supplements or isolated food components. This concept is central to the video's message about achieving health through natural, unaltered sources of nutrition.

💡Nutrient Supplements

Nutrient supplements are products that contain specific nutrients, such as vitamins, minerals, or amino acids, often taken to supplement the diet. The speaker critiques the overreliance on supplements, stating that nutrients extracted from their natural context in whole foods may not provide the same benefits. This term is used to contrast the speaker's preference for whole foods over isolated nutrients.

💡Medical Specialties

Medical specialties refer to the various branches of medicine that focus on specific areas of the body, diseases, or types of treatment. The speaker points out the absence of a medical specialty dedicated to nutrition, indicating a systemic issue in the healthcare system where nutrition is not given its due importance in medical education and practice.

💡Protein

Protein is a macronutrient essential for the body's growth, maintenance, and repair. The video discusses the misconception that animal-based protein is superior to plant-based protein. The speaker argues that plants provide all the protein necessary for human health, challenging the traditional view and advocating for a plant-centric diet.

💡Cancer

Cancer is a group of diseases characterized by the uncontrolled growth and spread of abnormal cells. In the video, cancer is used as an example to illustrate how nutrition, specifically protein intake, can influence disease progression. The speaker suggests that a high-protein diet can exacerbate cancer growth, while a diet lower in protein can slow or prevent it, thus linking dietary choices directly to health outcomes.

💡Genetics

Genetics refers to the study of heredity and the variation of inherited characteristics. The speaker disputes the common belief that cancer is primarily a genetic disease, arguing instead that while genetic mutations may set the stage, it is the nutritional environment that can either trigger or suppress the development of cancer.

💡Reductionist

Reductionism is a philosophical approach that seeks to understand complex phenomena by reducing them to simpler, more fundamental components. The speaker criticizes the reductionist approach in medicine, suggesting that it oversimplifies the complex interactions between nutrients and the body, leading to an incomplete understanding of nutrition's role in health.

💡Pharmaceuticals

Pharmaceuticals are drugs or medications used in the prevention, treatment, and diagnosis of diseases. The video suggests that an overreliance on pharmaceuticals may be due to a lack of emphasis on nutrition in healthcare. The speaker proposes that a focus on whole foods and proper nutrition could reduce the need for many pharmaceuticals.

💡Nutrition Renaissance

The term 'Nutrition Renaissance' is used by the speaker to describe a proposed rebirth or revival of the understanding and application of nutrition in healthcare. It implies a shift from the current medical paradigm, which often neglects the importance of diet, to one that embraces nutrition as a central component of health and disease prevention.

💡Healthcare System

The healthcare system encompasses all organizations, resources, and services that contribute to the health of a population. The speaker critiques the current healthcare system for its focus on drugs and procedures over nutrition, suggesting that this focus is misguided and contributes to high healthcare costs and suboptimal health outcomes.

Highlights

Nutrition is a broad and complex concept that lacks consensus on its definition.

Proper nutrition can potentially create more health benefits than all medical treatments combined.

Nutrition is inadequately taught in medical schools across the United States.

None of the 130 medical specialties in the U.S. is specifically focused on nutrition.

The public is massively confused about nutrition due to the lack of clear guidance from healthcare professionals.

Eating whole foods is recommended over nutrient supplements for optimal health.

Plant-based foods can provide all the protein necessary for human health.

High-protein diets, particularly animal-based, can increase the risk of cancer.

Cancer development is influenced by diet and is not solely a genetic disease.

Nutrients in their whole food form work synergistically, which is different from their isolated forms.

The consumption of animal-based foods can displace the intake of healthier plant-based foods.

A diet rich in vegetables can prevent and potentially treat existing health problems.

Nutrition is not taken seriously by the medical profession due to its reductionist approach.

The medical system is criticized for being overly reliant on drugs and procedures at the expense of nutrition.

There is a call for a Nutrition Renaissance to refocus on the comprehensive benefits of proper nutrition.

The current healthcare system is described as corrupted, with a heavy cost to society.

A shift towards first-person healthcare through nutrition can reduce reliance on pharmaceuticals.

Transcripts

Transcriber: Katrin R. Reviewer: Rosa Rey

As I was introduced, my topic is about nutrition.

A big, big topic, a word, a concept,

an idea that we've all spoken about from time to time.

But in reality, it seems to me

that we haven't been able to find very much consensus

about what that word really means.

So, I want to share with you some of the stuff

that I've learned in the last 60+ years

with many students and colleagues and others.

Honest question concerning, What is nutrition?

And what is the right kind of food to eat in order to get the best possible health?

Let me start out with a big idea.

It's one that has sort of come to me over the years

that I think is worth saying.

Namely, nutrition, when done right,

can create more health than all the pills and procedures combined.

I know that's a big startling idea but I really mean that.

If we do it right, if we eat the right food,

we get away from drugs, we can be healthy.

So, there's a problem, basically,

and this is the problem I wanted to address here.

Nutrition is not taught in medical schools.

There's not a medical school in the United States

that properly teaches nutrition - hardly at all in many of them.

Secondly, among the 130 or so medical specialties -

which is a sort of procedure by which physicians

are reimbursed for services -

of the 130 medical specialties that we now have,

not one is called nutrition.

So, here's a problem.

Here are the professionals who are supposed to be offering us

their services in the area of health care,

and not been taught the one subject

that is the most important, in my view, of all.

And secondly, even if they did know something about it

and they got some training,

they're not really going to be able to get reimbursed for services.

Therein lies some of the problem with the fact that some people,

many people in this country,

have difficulty understanding what this question is really all about.

Of course, as I mentioned, the public is massively confused.

That's one of the reasons,

and it needs to be solved

because there's so much to offer, actually.

It's very difficult to know, quite frankly -

and I think you would agree with this,

that one of the problems with this issue is about confusion -

it's very difficult to know for the average person

whether another claim, on radio, TV, conversations or whatever,

it's very difficult to know how valid that claim may be.

And I'm sure many of you know that claims are all over the map

and quite in contrast with each other.

So, as I look back over the years I have been involved in this,

I've sorted out a couple of ideas,

that if we stick to these two ideas alone,

we'll get to that sort of land that I'm talking about

where so much health could be created.

First of all, eat whole foods.

Whole foods,

not the individual nutrients and food fragments within them.

And by that, I mean no nutrient supplements.

We've done a lot of research on nutrient supplements;

it's a huge industry, multi-billion dollars a year.

Fifty percent of the population uses nutrient supplements

as a means to nutrition.

I'm not talking about that.

Nutrients taken out of the food, out of the context,

do not do exactly the same thing for the most part

that they do when they are in food.

And secondly, there are fragments taken out of even plants, incidentally,

and I'm referring to plants as a good form of nutrition.

Even the stuff taken out of plants, like oil, sugar, if you will,

maybe it's the right kind of food, in a sense,

but when you take it out and use it separately,

we get a different response in what we do, generally speaking,

than the whole food.

This is another idea to keep in mind: plants provide all the protein we need.

That's somewhere around 8-10% of total calories.

Turns out, if you look at the literature more carefully, that's enough.

We do not need to eat animal foods to get the animal protein.

Plants have all the protein we need to have.

So, just those two ideas.

Whole foods, obviously meaning plants because we don't need animal protein,

animal foods to go along with that.

That combination really works.

Now, my career started, as I said, many, many years ago,

and I happened to come across an idea when I was working in the Philippines,

helping to co-ordinate a national program to feed the malnourished children

where, in fact, our efforts were intended

to actually make sure these children got enough protein -

even good quality protein, animal protein, if you like.

And I saw something that sort of didn't exactly agree with that,

and we are not getting onto these details, but it led to this question:

animal-based protein, which was my background,

did not look to be as good as it was touted to be.

So, we organized a study.

As we started to look into this question,

Is protein as good as what we think it is, as I had thought it was?

Here is one little display of some information

among hundreds of things like this.

Cancer, we all tend to agree, starts with a gene being mutated.

It's happening more or less all the time in some of our cells.

So, it starts with a gene mutation, normal cell to a cancer cell.

As a result of it starting with a gene,

if we have a cancer gene, we will have cancer, right?

That leads to some suggestions:

we should get analyzed for genetic background and this and that.

But, in my view, cancer is not a genetic disease,

even though that's the most highly touted maxim, if you will,

of the cancer industry.

Here's what happens.

This is an experimental animal study that we used much in my career early on.

It started as a mutated gene,

and we followed the progression of the early cancer

over the first twelve weeks.

If we fed lower levels of protein, 5% -

remember I said 8 to 10% is fine, is good enough -

so, we start with 5%

and we feed the animals who had the mutated gene 5% of protein,

we get no cancer.

If we feed them, on the other hand, the higher levels of protein, 20%,

we get lots of cancer.

So, here is a striking difference between 5 and 20%.

But then we went to the next question.

We wanted to know

what would happen if we just switched the diet back and forth

between 5% and 20%.

So, starting with 20%,

the first three weeks the cancers are growing.

These are precancerous lesions, if you will.

Switching to 5% turns it off;

20%, we turned it back on again;

5%, it turns it off.

That was striking at that time, it still is today for a lot of people,

because if we assume that cancer is all coming from genes

and if you have the genes you will get cancer,

maybe if you don't, you won't.

In this particular case,

what we are showing is that nutrition is important.

So it leads to this idea here: we may have cancer genes, all of us,

whether we were born with them

or whether they were created in our lifetime,

they're sort of hanging around,

they remain basically silent until they are nourished.

So, it puts the onus then

on the question concerning nutrition being the cause of cancer, not genetics.

We think of nutrition in a very simplistic way.

We tend to think of individual nutrients doing their individual things.

We value foods

according to how much nutrients it has - this, that or something else.

Most of our thinking about nutrition is focused on individual nutrients.

In reality, it turns out - and this is just one thought -

it turns out the amount of nutrients we consume,

let's say in a spoonful or cupful or whatever,

we can know how much is there in theory,

but that has little relationship

to how much nutrients there may be at the functional site,

wherever that may be in the body.

So, the amount we are consuming here

has almost nothing to do, quantitatively speaking,

with the amount that's operating in the functional site.

Which raises a question.

There's a lot going on between here and there,

and it's sort of an activity,

a bunch of activities that's very, very complex.

And then, individual nutrients,

when they are examined for their activities,

generally, we think of - this is the way it tends to get taught -

this nutrient causes this response

and here is the mechanism by which it works.

That's the way we tend to think,

and that's the way cause and effect relationships often happen.

It turns out that, in our hands, the protein turned on the cancer;

I wanted to know what was the mechanism

by which it worked.

Which enzyme?

Which transport mechanism or what have you might be working?

That's the basis for the entire drug industry in large measure.

If we see something going wrong and we want to solve the problem,

we want to know what the mechanism is.

So, maybe we can make a chemical to block it if we wish,

or enhance it, whatever the case might be.

It turned out in our hands:

the protein caused cancer, but not by one mechanism,

every time we looked for a mechanism, in a sense, we found one.

It got up to about ten or so,

and in a couple of those mechanisms,

not only was the protein turning on the process,

it was actually attenuating or minimizing the effect of those processes

that tend to protect us.

So, the high-protein diet

was actually sort of getting the whole bucketful of mechanisms

working together like a symphony to create a response.

It was a very exciting idea.

Again, it shows some degree of complexity,

which I would suggest is really important in this consideration.

And then this leads us to the idea that nutrients work best in whole foods,

as I mentioned before.

It worked best in whole foods;

you take them out to work with them individually,

it's altogether different oftentimes.

Sometimes they work sort of the way you expect them to do,

but it's not necessarily a life-style practice.

So those three observations are pointed to a different philosophical concept

regarding what nutrition is.

It's not a function of individual nutrients

and adding up these effects;

it's all of them basically working together.

When we consume the foods, animal-based foods,

in order to get that good protein we heard so much about,

what that tends to do is to displace the consumption of the foods

that we otherwise should be consuming.

So, when we look at the totality of the food effect

on the various disease processes,

it's not just one thing working, be it protein or anything else,

it's the combination, the presence of those nutrients,

as opposed to the lack of those things that are not there.

Now we know,

we've got good evidence for this, and not generally known,

that kind of diet we heard from our grandmothers,

"Eat your vegetables and so forth and so on,

and prevent future disease."

Not sure we paid a lot of attention to that,

especially when we were young -

we figured out we'll get a solution to that problem when it comes.

But in reality, now we know, and this is not yet published very well,

namely: the kind of diet that actually prevents future problems,

when it's done right, actually can be used to treat existing problems.

So now we have altogether a new paradigm, if you will.

Instead of relying on single chemicals,

be they drugs or whatever else, to correct the problem,

now we can simply look at this kind of food to sort of do it.

And it happens very quickly,

within ten days, two weeks or so,

you can see remarkable changes occur

in sort of biochemistries, if you will.

Once we get to thinking about food as a means of treatment,

we're in a different territory.

There's something really meaningful in that case

because you can see the results so fast.

There's a lot of people now doing this.

As a result of some of the work we did with some of my colleagues,

this is now being tried by people,

and many of you here, I think, probably would agree with that:

you switch, you got a problem, you can see the results very quickly

without side-effects.

Why is nutrition not taken seriously by the medical profession?

As I said before, it's not.

It needs to be taken seriously.

Medicine, or the practice of medicine,

whether we're doing research or practicing,

is what I call reductionist.

We're looking at one thing at a time;

we're looking at just this disease - not some other disease -

just this disease.

We're looking at usually just one antidote,

this drug or that nutrient, if you will,

and also, at the same time,

we're thinking about one mechanism at a time.

And so, medicine is a reductionist process,

that's what our system is:

it's highly reductionist.

We now know we have a lot of problems with that approach.

Things are not working like they should;

there's a lot of evidence to show that.

It's also very, very expensive.

And if we are going to rely on that highly technical philosophy

to keep us well, we need third party care,

namely the doctors or others.

In contrast, nutrition, when everything is working together,

as it is simply, as I suggested,

it's working basically comprehensively;

it's not working one mechanism,

all of these seem to be changed the same way

and the same direction to create the same response.

That's a very exciting concept.

That, in turn, leads us to just wonder,

What kind of foods should we eat to get that effect.

And that's first-person health care.

All of a sudden now, the locus of control comes back to us.

What we need to do is just do it,

and in that way, we can actually eliminate

a substantial proportion of pharmaceuticals for our treatment

or other pills and procedures.

And finally, I want to ask the question:

Why is nutrition not taken seriously by the nutrition science community?

You probably thought that they are taking it seriously.

I'm not sure they are.

I've been in that community, let's say, for a very, very long time.

We have problems.

And the sense is is that the problems are largely related

to too much corporate interference and control.

Whether it's coming in the form of money that may be supplying the funding,

which sort of tethers us to that idea,

or whether it's coming from our participation

with corporate sections on the outside.

Not that we shouldn't;

we need to do that, we need to have this relationship.

That's not the issue.

But the corporate influence is such now

that we keep falling back on pills and procedures,

looking at things very specifically.

We're losing track;

we're not getting the essence of what we can learn from nutrition.

So, this happens also at the level of policy.

I spent about 20 years on national policy development,

where we attempted to translate the latest science

into something we can tell the public.

And once again, it's a very complex process.

But the center of that interaction

is again falling back on looking at things in a very, very fine way.

And so, in the whole process, whether in practicing medicine,

in policy development, or doing research,

which we did a lot of that, just focusing on one thing at the time,

we are losing track of what really matters.

And so, we're doing that - I would suggest to use a tough word:

our system is corrupted,

it's seriously corrupted from top to bottom,

and we're all part of it.

And what we really need to do is to do it right and make people well

because the cost to this society at large is huge.

The cost of health care being the highest per capita

of any country in the world.

Let's redesign nutrition - I call it Nutrition Renaissance.

I'm almost in a position of throwing away what we have done in the past,

gather the whole idea,

and then use it again to actually help to explain, basically, cancer.

And I would argue that we are in a position now

to take the evidence we now have

and just go forward and do that.

Thank you very much.