Participants: Timothy Howe and Sheryl McWilliams
Series Code: WM
Program Code: WM000397
00:01 The following program presents principles
00:03 designed to promote good health 00:04 and is not intended to take the place of personalized 00:06 professional care. The opinions and ideas 00:09 expressed are those of the speaker. 00:11 Viewers are encouraged to draw their own conclusions 00:14 about the information presented. 00:35 Hi and welcome to Wonderfully Made. 00:37 My name is Sheryl McWilliams. 00:39 Our guest today is Dr. Timothy Howe from Parkview 00:41 Adventist Medical Center. Welcome Doctor Howe. 00:44 Thank you Sheryl it's a pleasure 00:46 to be with you today. Good, we are gonna be talking 00:49 about the Immune System today which 00:50 I find intensely interesting. 00:52 It's a system that I don't know a lot about, 00:56 but I understand it works really hard to keep me 01:00 and all of our viewers healthy. Absolutely, 01:03 so help me understand how it works? 01:05 The Immune System is a very complex 01:09 and interesting system. I suppose the easiest way 01:14 to understand it is to think of your 01:16 Immune System as you are military. 01:19 As in the military, there are various branches 01:23 of your Immune System. You have the Command Center 01:28 that would be a specialized type of lymphocyte 01:33 called the T lymphocytes. You have the infantry 01:39 if you will. The ground forces called them 01:43 what you will those would be the phagocytes. 01:46 Phago means to eat, cyte means cell. 01:49 Those are the cell eaters or actually the cells 01:52 which eat neutrophils and macrophages. 01:55 Then you have B cells. They are type of lymphocyte 01:59 as well and they work under the direction 02:04 of the T cells and they manufacture antibodies. 02:08 Antibodies are very interesting compounds. 02:11 They have two arms and they have 02:15 if you will hands. These hands are very specialized. 02:19 They are particularly designed to identify one 02:25 and only one invader in from that would be coming 02:30 into your body. Let's say that someone comes 02:35 or a bacteria comes and tries to get into 02:38 your body. If your body has been exposed to that 02:42 before and made antibodies to that bacteria. 02:47 Once that bacteria is picked up by a macrophage, 02:51 which is really the macrophages or eaters, 02:54 but they are also border patrol. 02:57 The macrophages are found under our skin, 03:00 they are also found along the blood vessels 03:03 when they are inside the blood itself, 03:05 we give them a different name, 03:07 we call them monocytes, but they do the same thing. 03:10 They pick up these invaders, 03:13 these not you if you will. Bacteria, viruses, 03:18 pollen on occasion they take it in their hand 03:21 and present it to a T cell for identification 03:26 unless it's been there before. If it's been there 03:30 before the body recognize it almost instantly 03:34 and the B cells start turning out millions 03:39 and millions of antibodies. A B cell, one B cell 03:43 can make as many as ten million antibodies 03:47 in an hour. Wow. That flood into your system 03:50 any of those foreign invaders are tagged 03:54 as soon as the antibody latches on to them 03:59 they are marked for death. The antibody attaches 04:04 that marks them as an invader and then the host 04:06 of phagocytes come out and chew, chew, chew 04:10 and eat them up and destroy them. 04:13 Actually, they pull them inside and dissolve them 04:18 inside the macrophage or the neutrophil primarily. 04:23 It's a very interesting system. 04:26 It's important for the system to be able to tell 04:29 the difference between what you and what's not you 04:33 and in the not you category to tell the difference 04:37 between what's a danger and what's not a danger. 04:42 Of course, there are many things that find their way 04:45 inside that aren't danger like dust particles. 04:50 They are not a danger, but sometimes the immune system 04:54 gets a little bit confused and mounts a reaction 04:59 to that we call that allergies. 05:01 Allergies are really the immune system 05:04 on hyper alert and a little confused as to what is you 05:10 and not you and in that not you category 05:14 what's dangerous and not dangerous. 05:17 So it sounds like this is a pretty complex system, 05:21 but its one that is in very, very, very important 05:24 to keep me safe and to keep me well? 05:27 Absolutely you know Sheryl if you don't have 05:29 an immune system. If you are born without one, 05:32 you don't live long, even if you are in total 05:36 isolation from any bacteria or viral particles 05:41 and fungus or any other pathogens as we call them. 05:45 Even if you are in total isolation from those 05:48 you still have cancer and cancer is almost 05:52 you in fact it was you, but it has changed 05:56 and become something that is not good for you 05:59 and the immune system needs to identify that too. 06:03 Interesting, so how does the immune system 06:07 try to keep me free of cancer? 06:10 The immune system has specialized cells 06:14 that look throughout your body, 06:16 looking for aberrations in the coding of the cell, 06:21 the cell wall because when you have the mutation 06:24 inside the cell often you have a mutation outside 06:28 the cell as well. When you are small, 06:31 your body has to get to know you and it does 06:35 that primarily through the T Cells. 06:37 T Cells are lymphocytes that come 06:40 from the bone marrow and go to the thymus gland, 06:43 which is right here low in your neck 06:46 high in your chest and there they are instructed. 06:50 God knows how, we don't understand it completely 06:55 in what is you and what is not you 06:57 and for the rest of their lives which T cells 07:01 are very long life. They help us detect what's you, 07:06 what's not you, what's cancerous 07:09 and what's not cancerous, but if the immune system 07:12 gets depressed by anything and they loose 07:17 that sharp ability to detect the cells 07:21 in your bodies that have changed 07:23 or if on the other hand more and more cancer cells 07:27 are produced and they are overwhelmed 07:30 in their ability to identify the cancer cells 07:34 then we are at increased risk for cancer. 07:36 So whatever you are saying is that, 07:39 we are all exposed to cancer cells 07:43 on a fairly regular basis and something happens 07:47 that causes these cells to not be identified 07:51 by the immune system or to not work well? 07:53 That's correct they estimate that each of us 07:56 has a cell or two or three as many some people think 08:01 as six or more incidences per day of cells developing 08:06 a mutation and becoming potentially cancerous. 08:10 Fortunately our immune system gets the 08:14 majority of those and destroys them before 08:18 they can become a problem for us. 08:20 We are incredibly well made, well designed 08:24 and despite the multiple problems our immune system 08:29 can go in there, destroy the cell that's changed 08:33 and we keep living very well for many years. 08:37 Okay I now have a very strong respect 08:40 for my immune system. What can I do to strengthen it 08:44 or to make sure it stays healthy? 08:46 You know we talk a lot about diet 08:49 and diet is important, but let's start with an article 08:54 that was published in the summer issue 08:57 of Journal Advancement in Medicine in 1995, 09:00 a very interesting article. In this study, 09:05 they took a group of people and they wanted to test 09:09 their immune system function specifically 09:12 they wanted to look at an antibody called IgA. 09:16 IgA that they measured was found in the saliva, 09:20 but IgA is also found in the nasal secretions. 09:24 It's found in the tears of the tear ducts. 09:27 It's found in the alimentary canal 09:31 or in the GI tract, it's found under the skin. 09:34 In essence IgA is the first line of defense 09:38 against infection, so it's very, very important. 09:42 They took these people and they said to them, 09:45 we want you to think back to a time in your life 09:48 when you felt very distressed, 09:52 when you felt unloved, when you felt hurt, 09:56 someone had done something terrible to you 09:59 and it was just a very bad time in your life. 10:03 Now Sheryl I don't want you to think about a time 10:06 like that and you will see why shortly. 10:09 They measure their salivary IgA levels before this, 10:13 then they had them concentrate really get 10:16 into relieving that bad experience 10:18 for just five minutes, after five minutes 10:21 they measure their salivary IgA levels 10:24 and they found that within 15 minutes of that 10:27 five minute time when they thought back to that 10:30 bitter bad time in their life their salivary 10:33 IgA levels fell by 70 percent. Wow, 10:38 and did not return to baseline for five hours. 10:42 It's very important what you think about? 10:45 A Merry Heart Doeth Good Like a Medicine. 10:47 A Merry Heart Doeth Good Like a Medicine, you know, 10:49 they took the same group of people. 10:51 Fortunately, they didn't end with that study alone, 10:55 they took the same group of people and they said now 10:57 we want you to think back to a time in your life 11:00 when you felt really loved and it was just 11:03 a wonderful time. It was, you felt accepted 11:06 and it was just the best. Get into those feelings 11:11 for five minutes and relive that experience 11:14 and they found that their salivary IgA level 11:18 of the people that thought back to a time 11:20 like that in their lives went up by 80 percent 11:23 and didn't return to normal for five hours. 11:27 Now there are several very important things 11:30 in the study. One is of course its careful; 11:33 we need to be careful what we think about. 11:35 We need to chose our thoughts carefully 11:38 and the memories we have we need to be careful 11:42 that we don't take time reviewing all the bad stuff 11:47 in our life, now maybe some of you never 11:49 had a bad happening that's wonderful. 11:51 I have a few things its important for me 11:53 not to think about in my life because 11:56 I want my immune system healthy, 11:57 but the other interesting thing about the study 12:00 is it points out that every single while blood cell 12:06 has neurochemical receptors on it. 12:09 Every white cell is under the direct control 12:14 of our minds. As the Bible says as a man 12:19 think of in his heart so is he we could add as you 12:24 think in your heart or as you think 12:27 so is your immune system very, very important 12:32 and we find that many people come down 12:35 with cancer not just because of exposure, 12:38 but after a stressful time in their life, 12:41 when they instead of dealing with it 12:46 and moving on and concentrating 12:48 on the better things of life focused 12:51 on the negative. Their immune system 12:54 was depressed and cancer escaped surveillance 12:58 and grew very, very important for us 13:02 to be careful what we think about for our immune system 13:07 strength and health very important. 13:11 So there really is a connection then between 13:15 the mind and our body. I know we say this, 13:18 but there are very tangible connections there. 13:21 There are very close links between our mind 13:24 and our body. Sometimes we forget this, 13:27 but it's important that connection 13:31 is almost instantaneous. You think about 13:35 what happened, it's the B cells that were making 13:38 those antibodies. They got the signal from the brain 13:42 bad time, oh painful time and the B cells 13:48 stop making IgA. The IgA levels fell on the route 13:54 second experiment the B cells got the message 13:57 from the brain good times, wonderful times 14:01 and they started producing IgA and made lots more. 14:06 It reminds me of that wonderful chapter 14:10 in Ministry of Healing Mind Cure. 14:13 In that chapter Ellen White makes the statement, 14:17 nothing tends more to promote health of body 14:23 and soul than does a spirit of gratitude and praise. 14:28 You know, I used to need faith to believe 14:32 in that book Ministry of Healing. 14:34 I don't really need faith anymore 14:37 because I have science that shows me page after page 14:42 then what that book says is true today. Absolutely. 14:46 And that study shows it, but it's good for us 14:49 to remember if you wanna be healthy, 14:52 if you want to have a healthy vigorous 14:55 immune system think positively, 14:58 change the very cells in your body 15:03 with your thoughts. And I appreciated you bringing up 15:07 the Ministry of Healing for any of our viewers 15:09 who have not have the pleasure of reading 15:11 that book I highly recommend it. 15:14 I find it absolutely fascinating that it was 15:17 written more then a 100 years ago 15:18 and science is just now validating everything 15:21 that's in there, so very good information. 15:23 I recently had a family member who was diagnosed 15:27 with breast cancer and so this whole cancer 15:30 conversation is very interesting to me. 15:33 Tell me a little bit about breast cancer and maybe 15:37 how the immune system works with that? 15:40 Well Sheryl let's take a moment and step away 15:43 from the immune system and look at population 15:46 studies on breast cancer. Anyone with cancer 15:50 of course we want to have a vigorous immune system 15:53 even if you have been diagnosed with it, 15:56 if you take steps to improve your immune system 15:59 function with diet, with exercise, 16:02 with careful thoughts, you will improve your chance 16:05 of survival, if you don't have cancer 16:08 you will improve your risk or decrease 16:12 your risk to get cancer, but let's step away 16:15 from that for a moment and look a little more at diet 16:18 and what it does because it influences the rate 16:23 at which those cells become cancerous and of course 16:27 if you have a military in your body 16:31 the immune system and the world is at peace, 16:34 your immune system can rest. But even if you have 16:40 the best immune system in the world 16:42 they are going to be some casualties 16:45 if there is war broken out, so what can we do 16:47 to reduce the chance of a breakout of cancer 16:52 or if you will a conflict erupting in our body. 16:56 Let's look at that for a moment and look at it 16:59 with breast cancer. Breast cancer is very closely 17:04 linked to estrogen levels. Now, we know this 17:09 because men have breasts as well. 17:11 They are just not developed. The reason 17:14 they are not developed of course is because 17:16 men don't have the same level of estrogen 17:19 that women do and men have a 100 times less risk 17:23 of developing breast cancer than women. 17:26 In the last 20 years, I have diagnosed two men 17:30 with breast cancer, but many more women 17:33 unfortunately. Why is it of course that some women 17:38 get breast cancer and others don't? 17:40 We hear a lot about genetics today. 17:43 There is the BRCA that stands for 17:45 breast cancer gene. There is a BRCA 1 17:49 and the BRCA 2 genes and those are very important 17:54 if you have one of those genetic abnormalities 17:57 you have a 50 percent risk plus or minus in getting 18:01 breast cancer and some people say 18:04 well breast cancer is all in the genes not really. 18:08 In fact only about two to three percent 18:12 of all cancer, breast cancer included is genetic. 18:16 The BRCA gene occurs only in one in 500 women 18:22 another question to ask with that is why 18:25 do only 50 percent of people with the BRCA gene 18:30 get cancer. What about the 50 percent 18:34 that don't? What are they doing in their lives 18:37 not to get cancer? I think one of the most interesting 18:41 studies in breast cancer was done 18:43 by Dr. T. Colin Campbell it's called the China Study 18:47 and he found that in Chinese they had a much 18:51 lower risk Chinese women of breast cancer 18:55 than their Western counterparts that is you 18:58 take Chinese women and move them from China, 19:01 Rural China as where he did his studies 19:03 and move them to the west and the rates 19:06 of breast cancer go up markedly. 19:08 You don't change their genetics that fast, 19:11 but you do change their risk of breast cancer 19:14 and what he found is in the rural Chinese women, 19:19 he found about a 26 to 63 percent lower 19:27 estrogen level than in their Western counterparts 19:31 that is than in Chinese women who had moved 19:34 to the West and were eating our diets. Interesting. 19:37 If the estrogen level is lower the risk 19:41 of breast cancer is lower. The other thing 19:44 that was interesting about these people 19:47 is their menstruation started later. 19:50 The average age for a woman to start menstruating 19:54 in this country is 11 years of age. Wow. In China, 19:59 rural China the average age in T. Colin Campbell study 20:04 was 17. A huge difference if you think about it. 20:09 Six and more years without estrogen 20:11 and he found on the end of life, not the end, 20:15 but the end of menstruation, 20:17 the Chinese women stopped menstruating 20:20 or went through menopause about four to five years 20:24 earlier than their Western counterparts. 20:27 So you have two factors here in the Chinese study. 20:31 You have a shortening of the exposure to estrogen 20:35 and you have a lowering of the total 20:38 amount of estrogen. The interesting thing 20:42 that the Chinese study pointed out was it was diet 20:46 that made the difference in the estrogen levels. 20:49 If you change the diet, you change the estrogen level 20:54 and the biggest factor in breast cancer development 21:00 being estrogen, the biggest dietary factor 21:03 was animal protein. As the animal protein 21:08 intake increased, the estrogen level increased 21:12 as the estrogen level increased 21:15 the breast cancer risk increased. 21:20 The take home lesson from the Chinese study 21:22 isn't really about immune system that is 21:26 critically important it's about diet. Interestingly, 21:31 if you have a lower animal protein, 21:34 you also have a lower animal fat, 21:37 you are also eating more complex carbohydrates, 21:41 more fresh fruits, and fresh vegetables 21:44 and your immune system is doing better as well. 21:47 Cancer risk goes down and your ability to resist 21:52 cancer also goes down. That explains why in rural China 21:56 the breast cancer rates are much much lower 22:00 than they are in Western Chinese women 22:05 and in American women as well. 22:06 Interesting, I had a great fortunate living in China 22:10 for quite sometime and definitely found 22:12 the difference in the diet there compared to where 22:15 I grew up, in fact I don't think 22:17 I have ever eaten quite as healthfully as I did there 22:19 with the fresh fruits and vegetables, 22:23 very little animal protein and it was unaffordable 22:26 there so fascinating. Whenever I think of 22:31 breast cancer that generally also cause me 22:34 to think about prostate cancer in gentlemen so, 22:37 what is, what is effect or role there? 22:39 Well you know its interesting Sheryl, 22:41 not many men get breast cancer and not many women 22:45 get prostate cancer. That's right. 22:47 And that's a good thing you know. 22:49 Prostate cancer is another interesting disease 22:52 and it's also looked out in the China study 22:56 to some extent, but there are many studies 22:59 now on prostate cancer. Prostate cancer 23:02 is increasingly diagnosed in this country 23:05 because of a new enzyme as they called the prostate 23:10 specific antigen that's actually not so new today, 23:14 but is still used very widely and we can detect 23:17 cancer quite early with this. We also detect 23:21 the lot of things that aren't cancer, 23:23 prostate hypertrophy, prostate irritation, 23:27 but it's a good screening tool. 23:29 The question comes what can we do 23:32 to lower prostate cancer risk and the development 23:37 of prostate cancer because you know about 50 percent 23:41 of men 70 years of age have prostate cancer 23:44 that doesn't mean that all of them will die 23:47 with it. Fortunately not all of the men 23:50 70 years of age that have prostate cancer 23:54 will die from it. Many will die with it because 23:58 prostate cancer is different than breast cancer. 24:01 It's usually though not always, 24:04 it's usually slow growing and a chronic disease 24:08 that doesn't take your life, not always 24:11 and what they found in every study just 24:15 about is that there is one factor that increases 24:19 your risk for prostate cancer and it increases 24:23 your risk of having aggressive form 24:26 of prostate cancer. Harvard published 24:29 an interesting study review of all 24:33 the literature on prostate cancer and they said 24:36 there is one thing that is universally associated 24:41 with increased risk of prostate cancer 24:44 and increased risk of aggressive prostate cancer 24:48 and that one thing is dairy intake, diary intake, 24:54 if you want to avoid prostate cancer 24:58 avoid intake of dairy protein. 25:02 Now many people are vegetarian and think 25:05 well I'm fine I don't eat meat. Well no, 25:10 but how about dairy protein. 25:12 Dairy protein not only increases prostate cancer 25:16 in men it also increases breast cancer in women, 25:21 and as T. Colin Campbell found in his research 25:24 on liver cancer and on aflatoxins is that casein 25:30 the dairy protein that increases 25:32 your risk of liver cancer and many other cancers 25:35 because in milk not only do you have the protein, 25:39 you have an insulin like growth factor 25:42 that signals growth and frequently increases 25:47 your risk for developing any cancer. 25:50 Interesting, I recently had my very first colonoscopy 25:54 and it was not very exciting and I immediately 25:59 thought about colon cancer, so let's talk about 26:02 that briefly. You know as far as colonoscopy 26:05 is concerned many people come into my office 26:08 and they say I really don't want a colonoscopy. 26:11 I say good you are normal if you wanted a colonoscopy 26:14 I really worry about you, but as Tim Sample 26:18 in Maine says a colonoscopy is sort 26:21 of like a main winter. It's not fun, 26:23 but you will get through it. Colonoscopy is a really 26:27 important for screening, but more important 26:30 than screening is prevention, isn't it? Yes. 26:33 You know it's the same story again. 26:35 We use to think it was fiber. 26:38 Dr. Burkett many years ago did wonderful research 26:42 looking at fiber, but we now know that fiber 26:45 is really a marker for something else. 26:49 Same thing is in the other two cancers 26:52 its protein intake. Protein intake raises 26:57 your risk for colon cancer that was found very clearly 27:01 in a study done in South Africa. 27:03 A 17 fold increase in cancer in the 27:09 white South Africans because of the meat intake. 27:13 All we need to be careful what we eat, 27:16 we need to be careful what we think, 27:18 we need to remember God loves us, 27:22 he has given us the best diet possible in Genesis. 27:26 Fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, whole grains, 27:30 and nuts. If we eat those we will reduce our risk 27:35 of cancer. We will feel better now 27:37 and in the future. So, A Merry Heart Doeth Good 27:43 Like a Medicine and we have focused on the information 27:47 that we have been given not only in this program, 27:51 but in books like the Ministry of Healing 27:53 then we can prevent our risk of cancer 27:56 and other diseases as well, so thank you for being 28:01 with us today Dr. Howe and thank you 28:03 guests for joining us today on 28:05 Wonderfully Made and may God bless you. |
Revised 2014-12-17