The Alarming New Risks of Cancer Everyone Needs to Hear

**Oprah Winfrey** (0:00)
I'm joined by world-renowned oncologist, Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee. So we're seeing younger and younger people diagnosed with cancer.

**Siddhartha Mukherjee** (0:10)
So you're getting a spike in cases, and you're getting a spike in deaths. So that is real. You cannot really, you can't turn your eyes away from that. That is a real number.

**Oprah Winfrey** (0:20)
Joining us now is actress Olivia Munn. You learned you had breast cancer at what age?

**Olivia Munn** (0:27)
I was then diagnosed with multifocal, multi-quadrant bilateral breast cancer.

**Oprah Winfrey** (0:33)
When Chadwick Boseman died after colon cancer, the world was stunned.

**Simone Ledward Boseman** (0:38)
Yeah, Chad was 38 when he was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer.

**Oprah Winfrey** (0:44)
He was at an age where normally he wouldn't have even been getting a colonoscopy.
You can live a healthy lifestyle. You can eat well. You can exercise. What is going on?

**Siddhartha Mukherjee** (0:55)
It turns out there are lots and lots of sleeper cancer cells in everyone's body. The new theory or one new theory is that they need to be woken up. The Sleeping Beauty Wake Up Potion is at least one of them is chronic inflammation. This is very new research.

**Oprah Winfrey** (1:16)
Hi everybody. It's great to be with you here on the Oprah Podcast.
I am really glad that you joined us for this episode because we're talking about a health issue that I know has impacted every single family in the United States in some way or another and all over the world. It's the word that makes your blood run cold if you ever hear a doctor say it to you or to anyone you love.
It's the big C. It's cancer. And now doctors and researchers are seeing an alarming rise in the rates of cancer in younger adults in their 20s, in their 30s, in their 40s. And I have experienced that within my own family and circle of loved ones. The question is, why? Why is this happening? And what does this mean now for how we live? And at what age should people start paying attention? So I'm joined by world renowned oncologist. He's world famous and author of the Seminole Pulitzer Prize winning book on cancer, The Emperor of All Maladies, Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee. And I just welcome you and so really, really, really excited that you would be willing to sit with us and talk about it.

**Siddhartha Mukherjee** (2:34)
It's my pleasure.

**Oprah Winfrey** (2:35)
Yeah. I first want to talk about your book because as we were just talking before, it's an astonishing work and The Emperor of All Maladies, you all, as I just said, won the Pulitzer Prize. It spans 4,000 years through the history of cancer. In the author's note, you say, this is a chronicle of an ancient disease. Once a clandestine whispered about illness that has metamorphosed into a lethal shape-shifting entity imbued with such penetrating metaphorical medical, scientific and political potency that cancer is often described as the defining plague of our generation.
That's what you say in the author's notes. But it helped me and if you have read it or will read it, it will help you understand cancer and particularly if you have somebody who's going through it, help you understand it not just as a disease, but as a story, one that is deeply human, deeply complex and still unfolding. So the idea for this book came from one of your patients.

**Siddhartha Mukherjee** (3:40)
It came from one of my patients. Cancer is my Moby Dick.
I've hunted it for 20 years. I will spend my last breath hunting it. I have spent every waking moment of my life thinking about cancer and thinking about cancer patients. But this book boils down, comes down, I sometimes say Moby Dick began with a journey and a question. And this book begins with a journey and a question. And the question was a very simple one. I was a fellow, you know, in the hierarchy of cancer doctors. My fellow is pretty low down on the list. I was a fellow tending my patients. And I had a patient that I had developed a very warm relationship with. A woman who was dying, who had, you know, gone from trial to trial to trial, extended out her life possibly by three or four years. And then she turned to me one day and she knew and I knew that the end had come.
And she turned to me and she said to me, where did all of this come from and where am I going? Very simple question. And to my astonishment, I realized that there was no book or a show or a podcast or anything on the planet that would tell the full story.