Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.
Angiogenesis is the creation of blood new vessels. Tumors use it to keep growing. Well, our fatty tissue also needs a blood supply to expand. So, might an anti-angiogenic approach work for weight loss, too? I’ll explore that in this video and the next.
Many of our modern front-line therapies against cancer incorporate “anti-angiogenesis” strategies, from the Greek words angio-, meaning vessel, and genesis, meaning creation. So, anti-angiogenesis is opposing the creation of blood vessels. In other words, fighting cancer by cutting off tumor supply lines.
Some cancers are only able to grow to about the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen without a blood supply. Tumor growth then stalls. Autopsy studies show that virtually everyone has these tiny tumors in them by age 70. Cancer-without-disease can, therefore, be considered the normal state during aging.
To commandeer a blood supply, tumors diabolically release angiogenic factors, chemicals that cause new blood vessels to sprout toward the cancer. Once a blood vessel reaches the tumor and attaches, it’s off to the races—the tumor can then take off exponentially. By starving cancer of its blood supply, chemotherapy that blocks this process can sometimes cause tumors to shrink. But ideally, we wouldn’t have to wait until such a late stage to nip them in the bud. That’s where our diet can come in. Many of the phytonutrients we know and love in tea, spices, berries, broccoli, and beans have anti-angiogenic properties. Given the power of plants, the foundation of an anti-angiogenic approach to cancer has been considered a whole food plant-based diet.
But the title of this video is, “Targeting angiogenesis to lose weight.” What does this have to do with obesity? Well, think about it. Tumors aren’t the only tissue in the body with expanding volume. The average tumor picked up by mammograms is only about the size of a marble, and it can take breast cancer decades to grow. Whereas, overfeed people, and you can easily add an entire pound of fatty tissue in a matter of days. And, body fat is highly vascularized. Each fat cell in our body is essentially surrounded by tiny blood vessels. In large liposuction operations, a third of what’s vacuumed out is straight blood.
Throughout adulthood, our fatty tissue is constantly remodeling, expanding, and shrinking based on our day-to-day energy demands. This requires the development and retreat of extensive networks of new blood vessels. The human body already contains 60,000 miles of blood vessels. Imagine how many more miles have to be constructed when we gain weight. Without angiogenesis, without the sprouting of all these new blood vessels, we wouldn’t be able to add all that fat. Now, do you see where this is all going?
To expand, fat cells release the same kind of chemicals that tumors do to swell its blood supply. Fatty tissue is so angiogenic, open-heart surgeons have even tried grafting fatty tissue directly onto the heart after a heart attack, in hopes it would foster the growth of arteries to bypass the blockages. You can take fat samples from obese individuals during bariatric surgery, place them on living membranes of a fertile chicken egg, and within a week, the fat is literally engulfed in blood vessels. That may even help explain why excess body fat can accelerate cancer growth.
Obesity increases the risk of more than a dozen different cancers, increasing the overall risk of getting and then dying from cancer by about 20 percent. All those angiogenic factors released from our increasing body fat may spill out into our bloodstream, resulting in higher blood levels among overweight individuals, which can then drop back down when we lose weight. So, maybe we could get the best of both worlds if we treated obesity like a tumor, using anti-angiogenic strategies to prevent the expansion of our fat mass in the first place. There are anti-angiogenic drugs, as well as anti-angiogenic foods. We’ll explore both, next.
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