What the Health

1

Worldwide, we're looking at approximately

315 million people with diabetes.

There's no question that we're in

the midst of a diabetes epidemic.

Right now, one in three

Medicare dollars

is spent in the care

of people with diabetes.

One in ten total health care dollars

is spent on people with diabetes.

There's no question that

this is a major problem.

[Kip] What in particular is the

correlation for diet and diabetes?

I'm not gonna get into that.

- Into diet?

- No.

[Latin music playing]

My name's Kip.

I'm a filmmaker from San Francisco,

and I have a confession to make.

I'm a recovering hypochondriac.

Like so many of us, I have a

family history of diabetes,

heart disease and cancer.

My dad had his first heart bypass

at 49, his second at age 50.

My grandpa died young from

diabetes complications,

and both my other grandpa

and grandma died of cancer.

I was always paranoid that I would

also get one of these diseases.

Like any good hypochondriac, WebMD's

symptoms checker was essentially

my browser's home page.

Even in my teens I took Metamucil

every day and a daily aspirin.

I read all the latest

self-diagnosis books,

I ate every multivitamin

I could get my hands on,

and I was obsessed with

bodily functions.

I followed all the large

health organizations'

recommendations for

preventing disease.

I exercise regularly, don't smoke,

don't drink soda, get enough sleep,

reduce stress and grew up eating what

I thought was a healthy diet until...

[tires screeching] The World

Health Organization this morning

has classified processed meat such as

bacon and sausage as carcinogenic,

directly involved in

causing cancer in humans.

[male anchor] Processed meat is clearly

linked to an increase in cancer.

Hotdogs or, bacon could be just as

dangerous as smoking cigarettes.

[Kip] The World Health

Organization had looked at over

800 studies from

ten different countries,

finding a direct link to consuming

processed meat and cancer.

Just one serving

of deli meats daily

increases your risks of

colorectal cancer by 18%.

I had no idea that what we

ate affected cancer rates.

But I never felt like I had eaten a lot

of processed meats until I realized that

processed meat includes

hotdogs, bacon, sausage,

salami, ham, pepperoni,

cold cuts and deli slices,

basically everything

I grew up eating.

The World Health Organization

classifies processed meat

as a Group One carcinogen,

the same group as cigarettes,

asbestos and plutonium,

and classifies red meat

as a Group Two carcinogen.

Was this like I had essentially

been smoking my entire childhood?

If processed meats are labeled

the same as cigarettes,

how is it even legal for

kids to be eating this way?

I thought this

was new information,

but, many of these studies

have been around for 50 years.

I couldn't believe I'd

been eating processed meats

virtually my entire life and was just

now finding out how dangerous they are.

Why hadn't I been hearing about it

from the American Cancer Society,

the largest cancer group

in the nation?

When I went on their website,

I was shocked to see that

none of this information was

featured on their home page.

But, even more shocking,

on their Eat Healthy page,

they actually encouraged eating

Group One carcinogenic foods

like processed turkey

and canned meats.

This is after the World

Health Organization

reviewed over 800 studies definitively

linking processed meat to cancer.

[man] Thanks for calling your American

Cancer Society. My name is Sam,

I'm a cancer information specialist.

How may I help you today?

Yeah, I was calling

because I was wondering why

you all recommend people to eat

processed meat on your website,

which the World Health Organization has

classified as a Group One carcinogen?

Which is the same class as tobacco

smoking, asbestos and plutonium.

This would be like

a lung organization

having a How to Roll Your Own

Cigarette section on their website.

It's kinda the same thing.

[Sam] Well, let me just place

you on a brief hold because...

[Kip] He wasn't able to answer my questions

and said someone would get back with me.

I had always been concerned

about cancer

because both my grandma

and grandpa died of cancer.

I wondered if things would've been different

had they known the link between diet

and this terrible disease.

In the US, one out of every

four deaths is from cancer.

Oh, sweet!

American Cancer Society rep

confirmed an interview this week.

So, we just went in for the interview

with the American Cancer Society rep,

and the security guard said

there's no interview scheduled.

So, I went into my phone

and it turns out last night,

after I told her that the

interview's gonna be about

the correlation between

diet and cancer,

she said she could no

longer do the interview.

[Kip] After repeated emails

asking why she was declining

my interview to simply

talk about diet and cancer,

she stopped

responding altogether.

Why would an American Cancer Society

rep not want to talk about this?

I was, however, able to connect

with a growing movement

of doctors who are willing

to talk about the link

between the standard

American diet and disease.

And it goes

beyond just cancer.

I took my old trusty van Super

Blue once again out on the road.

2/3 of adults are now

overweight or, obese.

And we have an epidemic cascade

of debilitating disease

that's overcoming the country.

There's no way we can sustain

the current style of care

with the epidemic that we're creating

with our diet and lifestyle choices.

The diabetes, the arthritis, the

heart disease, the dementia,

the obesity, the cancers are

affecting about 70% of deaths.

All the data is that those

70% of deaths and morbidity

are largely lifestyle

related and preventable.

Most kids by

age ten in the US

already have fatty streaks

in their arteries,

the first stage of atherosclerosis

leading to heart attacks, strokes.

Here in American medicine, we

operate from the disease model.

We are in the business

of treating sick people,

we are not in the business of trying

to prevent people from becoming sick.

When you look at

chronic disease risk,

all the things that we

walk around worrying about.

Actually, dietary choices trump

smoking when it comes to those risks.

If I could deliver one

message to the researchers

who are looking for the cause of diabetes,

and the cause of clogged arteries

and the cause of high blood

pressure and the cause of obesity,

I would tell them the

answers in three words:

It's the food!

It's what

the Americans are eating.

[Kip] Today, with 2/3 of

Americans being overweight,

clearly there's a food issue.

In the next 25 years, one out of every

three Americans will have diabetes.

My name's Michael Abdalla.

I'm from Atlanta, Georgia.

And unfortunately, I was diagnosed

about 10 years ago with diabetes.

And eight years ago

I had two stents put in.

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