Dr. Trisha Pasricha

And of course, the rise of ultra-processed foods has not just been isolated to the United States.

It's been happening all over.

What we've also found, and they've done some really big studies here at Harvard in the Nurses' Health Study, they found that people who drink more, for example, sugar-sweetened beverages, as children, as teenagers, they're more likely to develop early-onset colorectal cancer.

once they become younger adults.

And we've been drinking more and more of these sugar-sweetened beverages as a society.

We've seen that trend happen over time since the 1980s and 1980s, alongside with ultra-processed foods.

And so it's probably a combination of a lot of different things.

I also, you know, I tell all of my patients, especially when I'm making this diagnosis, that first of all, cancer is not your fault.

It is never someone else's fault.

Cancer is the result of so many things, some of which we have control over or some control over, many of which we do not, right?

And sometimes you say to yourself, it can't be ultra-processed food.

I hear this a lot.

It can't be alcohol.

It can't be ultra-processed food because- How can it not, honestly?

People will say like, well, my aunt drank seven drinks a day or whatever, and she lived to be the age of 90.

And what I try to explain to people is that think about cancer as building a tower of building blocks.

That's how I explain it.

Some people start out life with five blocks stacked against them, and it only takes 10 to get cancer.

You, your aunt, may have started out with just one or two blocks.

And then suppose you eat a lot of processed meats every day.