E204 – Dr. William Li: The Body's 5 Health Defense Systems, Cancer, Microplastics & Healing From the Inside Out

**André Duqum** (0:00)
Is it true that we all have cancer growing inside of us right now?

**Dr. William Li** (0:03)
Yeah, it is absolutely true. But actually, the more interesting question is, why don't we get cancer more often? Why are we always sick? And I will tell you, I'm a medical doctor. I have been involved with drug development, clinical trial, so I know quite a lot about that. Our body has its own hardwired systems. There are five of them firing in all cylinders, warding off disease. We have the angiogenesis, stem cells, gut microbiome, immunity, and DNA, and that's what we're going to talk about.
But here's the thing. The reason we have these health defenses is because just existing on planet Earth is exposing us to toxins. For example, people with the most microplastics in their blood vessels have a three to four fold higher risk of having a fatal stroke. When our shields go down, that's when the enemy missiles can come right in.

**André Duqum** (0:48)
You've dealt with this in your own personal family life, including my own mother.

**Dr. William Li** (0:52)
She had stage four cancer. That's a game over. And I said, no, no, she's got health defenses. Her own 80-year-old body wipe out stage four cancer.
The power to stay healthy actually lives inside us. But at the end of the day, people just want to know what to do. So let's just tackle some practical things. If I had to tell you one thing, I would say watch your...

**André Duqum** (1:19)
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Know Thyself podcast. Our guest today is a Harvard-trained physician, co-founder, president, and medical director of the Angiogenesis Foundation. He is a New York Times best-selling author, and he's an incredible voice, needed now more than ever, reminding us about the power that the body has to heal itself. Dr. Lee, thank you for being here.

**Dr. William Li** (1:42)
Thanks for having me.

**André Duqum** (1:43)
At this stage of your life, how would you articulate the core focus of your work, and therefore what everybody who's listening right now can get to expect from spending the time with us today?

**Dr. William Li** (1:57)
You know, I'm a scientist by training, and I have to say I'm passionate about discovery and science. I'm always looking for, what are we finding out that's new and meaningful that can be life-changing, and then finding out what you can do about it. And so it's that combination of curiosity, excitement, passion, and application I think we're going to talk about.

**André Duqum** (2:26)
Health is not just the absence of disease. Can you say more?

**Dr. William Li** (2:31)
Right.
I'm a medical doctor, a physician, internal medicine is my training, and when I was in medical school, I was inundated with professors teaching me about one disease after another, diabetes and pneumonia and Alzheimer's and cancer. And I always wondered, why are we being taught about health? What's the definition of health? And some of my professors used to laugh, maybe even sneer at me when I asked them, what is health? Teach me about health. They would say, well, you know, that's kind of silly. Health is just the absence of disease. And I knew that couldn't be true because the absence of something doesn't explain a state of being, right? Absence of money doesn't really simply explain poverty. Absence of war doesn't explain peace, right? So the absence of disease doesn't really explain health. And so I carried that question with me really from the beginning of my medical career all the way to present day. I'm interested in understanding why it is that we're healthy most of our lives, and only part of our lives do we wind up getting sick. In other words, if I see a patient and they say, Dr. Lee, why did I get cancer?
There's a stock answer to that, and there's probably an intelligent answer that I could personalize. But actually the more interesting question that I ask myself is, why don't we get cancer more often? Why aren't we always sick? And the answer to this, which is really, I think a light bulb being turned on in the room of my head and my career is that health is actually the result of our body's own hardwired systems, firing in all cylinders, helping us heal continuously, warding off disease, helping us dodge the things that we want to avoid most of our lives, until inevitably, no one lives forever. And so you sort of take a little bit of an existential view. At some point, disease will come get us.
But what a remarkable instrument our body is in terms of being able to navigate our entire life journey, healing.