Solving the 1trn Disease

[Applause]

solving

the one trillion dollar disease so today

i’m going to be talking to you about

what led me to this topic the whole food

plant-based diet and solving dementia

and alzheimer’s

why brain disease then i’m going to give

you the evidence the evidence to what i

believe to be

the conclusion then briefly some

solutions and finally

some concluding points so a whole food

plant-based site what led me to talk

about this

well it was year 10 i was watching a bbc

documentary

and i was just quite compelled when a 96

year old comes on the screen

and tells his age and he’s got no kind

of wrinkles he’s got no health problems

and he still says he walks about no one

helps him

to walk about and i was just really

intrigued about how

his lifestyle his diet maybe maybe could

have led to that

and it was only about two and a half

years don’t worry that was never going

to be enough for me to give up koftedes

and lambs of lugia which if you don’t

know is a very

uh it’s a delicacy of the greek diet and

yogurt as well i can’t give them up

um it was only two years later that i

eventually um uncovered the china study

and uh folks overnight documentary on

netflix and various other

studies that really helped me make the

decision to make the transition

to a whole food plant-based site before

i go into why i chose to focus this on

brain disease

i’d like to first make the distinction

that this is not about a vegan diet per

se i think veganism

is a useful term it’s a very short term

easier to remember than whole food

plant-based but at the same time

it’s not really sufficient you can live

off salt refined flour and other

processed foods and still be classed as

a vegan

a whole food plant-based diet is more

sufficient and inclusive of that

so the world alzheimer’s report of 2015

uh titled the global impact of dementia

estimated that in 2015

the cost of dementia and alzheimer’s was

818

billion dollars that was going to rise

in our

three years later to one trillion

dollars and you can see it’s going to

keep on rising

46 million people had the disease then

now that in 2030 that number is going to

be 76 million people

you see unlike cancer unlike stroke

unlike

coronary heart disease scientists are

really struggling to find a cure

and prevent dementia and alzheimer’s and

not only that this is one of the most

expensive not just economically but also

emotionally the most expensive disease

that people face that families face in

trying to solve

but what if this is not a normal part of

aging what if we can actually

prevent it or what does the evidence say

so

um before i go on to the evidence before

i begin to talk about it

i don’t take any credit for this this is

the work of scientists incredible

scientists

that gave up their reputation that got

ostracized and excommunicated

by scientific institutions because of

their institutional links to the

companies that relied

on processed foods on plant-based foods

and one one such being t colin campbell

the author

of the china study essentially a

literature review of all the nutrition

studies have been undertaken in the

second half

of the 20th century and so i do admire

those scientists that stuck with their

integrity because it is those scientists

that really drive the most change of

society

but here we go so there are three types

of brain disease first we’ve got

cognitive

impairment then we have vascular

dementia and then we have

alzheimer’s let’s start with cognitive

impairment this is the slow decline of

the brain

so you know people think when you get

older you begin to do calculations slow

you begin to forget a few things

but you know we think that’s inevitable

well cognitive impairment is a disease

it is diagnosed

and it is not one to ignore once two

percent of people with cognitive

impairment gone to uh

one to two percent of people without

cognitive impairment go on to develop

dementia

ten to twelve percent of people with it

go on to develop dementia that is a

tenfold

increase there is clearly something very

significant here so

it is what is also associated with

cardiovascular disease we stroke with

the onset of type 2 diabetes and that

makes sense since it shares the same

risk factors hypertension high

cholesterol free radical activity

wreaking havoc in the body

but if we can prevent this what if diet

can have an impact on this

well one study found that higher vitamin

e intake

reduces the risk of memory loss which

then leads to cognitive impairment

higher vitamin c also was found to

reduce memory loss in another study

vitamin e and vitamin c are antioxidants

only found

in plant-based products exclusively from

plant-based nutrition

another study of 260 elderly people

came to the conclusion that a diet with

less saturated fat less cholesterol

found naturally in plant-based foods in

processed foods

and higher in carbohydrates higher

vitamin c beta-carotene vitamin e the

same kind of findings

was advisable for less memory loss a

diet lower in vitamin c was associated

with slower

cognitive ability and the diet high in

vitamin b was associated with the

opposite the same findings

different studies the evidence is

clearly pointing to one thing here

so that was about seven studies all

showing that nutrients found exclusively

in plant-based

protein can all reduce the risk of

memory loss

all about animal-based protein well one

study actually found that instead of

just lacking the antioxidants just not

helping prevent it

animal protein can actually activate

free radical activity

free radical activity is something that

leads to the decline of the brain the

destruction the deterioration

of the mind and so we’re seeing the

first links of this divergent force

animal-based protein goes on to speed up

the development of these diseases

plant-based protein um actually prevents

it reverses it

okay so this um by the way that’s the

evidence so

i’m not lying okay anyway so let’s go on

to the more serious one

vascular dementia so you may have heard

of this people just call this dementia

um this is caused by silent strokes

small strokes that incapacitate parts of

the brain

which eventually is at least a severe

deterioration of the brain

and so preventing this really overlaps

with preventing

stroke societies have found if you can

prevent heart disease

you can prevent vascular dementia as

well what cause what causes heart

disease what causes stroke

it is simple it’s plaque building up in

the arteries building up in the blood

vessels

but i just want to make something very

clear your genes don’t determine your

future if you think i have a parent i

have a grandparent develop heart disease

that had stroke i’m also going to

develop a stroke well that’s just not

true your environment has a very very

big factor to play

in which genes are turned on which genes

are turned off

this was found in a study with japanese

people japanese people in hawaii

and in california has a higher incidence

of heart disease because of their higher

blood cholesterol than those living in

japan

and guess what those living in japan

they were more likely to smoke there is

clearly

something very strange going on here

what these people and how these people

change their diet so if you want to

reduce the risk of vascular dementia you

want to reduce your risk of stroke and

if you want to do that you want to

reduce your risk

of reduce your consumption of

cholesterol and the build up of

cholesterol in

and plaque in your blood vessels and

societies have found

that you want to first to do that to

reduce your risk of developing this

arteriosclerotic like blockages in your

in your blood

um in your blood vessels you want to

reduce your trans fats trans fats found

in junk foods

found naturally in animal waste protein

you want to also reduce saturated fats

once again

found in animal based protein and also

in processed

foods and also to a lesser extent

dietary cholesterol which is found in

animal derived foods

such as eggs but hold on a minute if we

just want to reduce cholesterol why

don’t we just

take satin drugs satin drugs seem to do

the job well that’s what doctors

prescribe

well slating drugs have adverse side

effects they have negative symptoms and

studies have found

that a plant-based protein reduces

cholesterol um just as effectively if

not more

effectively than statin drugs with no

zero

negative side effects in the publication

from the famous

freemium study um it was concluded that

an extra three servings of fruit and

veggie day reduces the risk of stroke

by 22 and if you can reduce the risk of

stroke you’re reducing your risk of

vascular dementia

the health of your arteries and your

vessels is undoubtedly

linked to what you eat okay and then

we’ve got alzheimer’s disease

alzheimer’s disease you may know it’s

caused by the accumulation of something

called beta amyloid it’s

it’s a similar concept to the the

cholesterol plaque that

causes strokes and leads to vascular

dementia in that these beta amyloid

accumulation

leads to the incapacity incapacitation

of the brain

studies have links let’s bring back the

genes here studies have linked a gene

called

apolipoprotein e epsilon 4 alley we’ll

have to practice that a few times

now think about this gene this gene if

it comes from your mum you’re three

times more likely to develop alzheimer’s

if it comes from your dad as well as

your mum you’re 10 to 15 times more

likely

to develop alzheimer’s now just think

about that do you think it’s on both

sides of the family

i know it’s on both sides of my family

and that’s really scary and it kind of

makes you feel quite isolated there’s

nothing

i can do i’m just going to develop

alzheimer’s when i’m older well that’s

not true

it was found that native africans had

lower rates of

alzheimer’s than african-americans

living in indiana and if you think oh

that’s just because the

african-americans living indiana might

have lived longer

well no these scientists say control for

them variables these are like to like

comparisons there is clearly something

going on

in the diets of these people so studies

show that high cholesterol diet

cholesterol coming in again a high

cholesterol diet

increases the risk of alzheimer’s

another study a study 5000 people came

to the same conclusion

that a diet lower in saturated fat

lowering cholesterol reduced

the risk of alzheimer’s and this is the

last

scientific piece of evidence so if

you’ve had enough you know it’s coming

to an end now

this said that a risk of disease this

study said that a risk of

developing alzheimer’s was increased by

3.3 times if your blood folic acid

levels were in the lowest third of

society

and it was increased by 4.5 times if

your

blood homocysteine levels were in the

highest thirds what’s folic acid

folic acid comes from leafy and green

vegetables whilst homocysteine

homocysteine is an amino acid

found in animal based foods once again

we see

that divergence so we’ve found

that a diet high in animal protein and

low in plant-based protein

speeds up the development of these

degenerative diseases which we

so fear in western society

that is the slides for vascular dementia

and

they they are the references for

alzheimer’s disease okay so i’m not

lying not lying here you can look these

up

okay so i haven’t really focused this

talk on okay so government have this

objective

we need to make people eat more

plant-based protein and less

animal-based protein

because i think that is um we haven’t

focused on the way they can implement

that because i think that is less

controversial

than the fact that this should be their

objective in the first place the fact

the government can change our behavior

is something that’s quite

widely accepted through nudge theory

through taxes through subsidies you know

consumers change their behavior

if something is more expensive in a

supermarket

so based on that based on the evidence

with the conclusion that a diet

which is um higher in terms of

plant-based protein in terms of

plant-based consumption compared to and

reducing

animal-based consumption based on that

conclusion the government can then

tax the foods we’re saying to reduce and

subsidize the foods in the supermarkets

that we want to increase

and then not consumers to make the

correct behavior but most importantly

provide the information

the transparent evidence on how what the

evidence says

on why this is the best option for

people to make

so just wrapping up now i’ve given you a

load of evidence of why

um a plant-based diet is more effective

in preventing generous diseases

than cures than other means that people

suggest and that reducing animal based

protein is going to be key if you want

to reduce your risk of these

degenerative diseases

now if you’re not convinced that’s fine

because i’ve just touched the surface

of the evidence there is an overwhelming

amount of evidence um there and i

wouldn’t have made the shift personally

if if i hadn’t been convinced and seen

the overwhelming amount of evidence it

took a long time to give up and milk was

the last one to go it took a long time

to give up

some of those foods but don’t despair

like one of the biggest fears is that

okay this is this is a very um strong

case and the evidence is pointing in

that direction and yes there’s more

evidence to be shown

but it is really kind of overwhelming

but what about the food what about the

taste why would i sacrifice that

you know i’m here to enjoy life well

what you’ll find is your taste buds

actually

change your taste buds actually adjust

over time

if i was faced with a full spinach

smoothie i’d probably throw up the first

time i have it but if i was to have a

berry smoothie and then add one

tablespoon of spinach and then the next

day add two tablespoons of spinach

my taste bars begin to change and they

begin to adjust and therefore you begin

to enjoy

the spinach movie i can tell you that i

do actually get enjoyment from the food

that i eat now and that if that

transition is slow i’m not suggesting

to go to cold turkey and just um just

give

up all animal protein or dairy based

foods what i’m saying is

try to just increase your consumption of

plant-based foods look at the evidence

see

if you are convinced see if you are

convinced with the evidence and the

studies that have been presented

and if you don’t have the time to read

the chinese study if you don’t have the

time

to read how not to die at least go on

netflix have a look at a documentary

called forks

overnight that is false overnight in in

terms of changing what you eat

instead of cutting your body open and

going through the radical cures that

scientists have found to try and deal

with these diseases

have a look at that documentary see what

the scientists say see what the evidence

says

these scientists having no vested

interest in giving this they don’t have

any

uh business benefit from doing this see

what they say

and see if that will convince you now

i’m not seeking a southern philosophy

here i’m seeking the truth i’m seeking

the truth based on evidence and that’s

what

science should be and that is why also

i’m quite skeptical of this term

veganism of this idea of

this ideology forming where the media is

very good at bringing people who get

very aggressive

and very angry about this matter that

everyone should be vegan i i’m not

advocating that

what i am advocating is that we look at

the evidence and as university students

in particular who are here

to develop your mind to develop yourself

so that you can maximize your potential

in the future

i’m sure you’re interested in being able

to have your health that will enable you

and enable you to deliver value to

society

to go on and develop and do and be

fulfilled and do what you were

you you were made to be and so dementia

especially alzheimer’s brain diseases

that is undoubtedly

going to stop you from doing that is

undoubtedly going to prevent you from

maximizing your potential

and if there’s a way to prevent it just

as something as simple as changing your

diet then surely

surely that will be something of value

so just look at this look into it

look at the documentary maybe ask me

questions and really kind of be

skeptical and look for the truth

your future self might just thank you

for it thank you

[Applause]