Chapter 1: How did Julia Bradbury's cancer diagnosis change her perspective on health?
I have said, and I knew it would be a controversial line, but I really did mean it, cancer saved my life. I was living. at breakneck speed, couldn't have children, IVF. Wanted that job, find a way, phone somebody, you know, talk to your agent, hustle, you know, we can't have that job. Can you orchestrate this job?
Can you, if you can't, somebody won't commission that program, can you co-develop that series? Need to be in four different places? Yes, okay, we can do that. We can get a car on standby, then we can get on a plane. Invincible. You can do it. You can do it all. I lived that life. Sugar. Loved it. Loved sugar. Breakfast, lunch, in between lunch, dinner, after dinner.
Sugary cereal, elevenses doughnut, brownie on the road, pasta, carbs, refined sugar. You would have called yourself healthy though, right? I called myself healthy because I was slim and I exercised every now and again and I didn't have a problem with weight. Now I know I was far from healthy. So I know that you've had an issue with sugar as well.
And I cannot impress upon people, the more experts you talk to about sugar and refined carbs, so the pastas and the pizzas and the breads, Those are refined carbs that turn to glucose very, very quickly. Is that white bread or brown bread?
Is brown bread fine?
Refined bread. Sourdough, you might have... Sourdough is fermented, so there's a difference and it has benefits. And people talk about that. But it's not what you want to do every day. No. So I have to tell you what sugar does to you. Sugar affects your immune system. Your immune system is present in every cell of your body. When you eat something refined, a refined sugar,
A message comes through your gut. This is very simplified forms. I'm not a doctor. This is stuff that I've learned as well from a host of experts. It sends out a message, and your immune system doesn't understand this onslaught of refined foods, because that's not what we've evolved to eat. Whole foods, vegetables, nuts, seeds, meat, fish.
I mean, there's a whole, you know, we could go vegan or not. There are all these debates you can go down. But whole foods, our bodies understands. Refined foods, sugars, sugary drinks, the immune system doesn't understand. So it has a choice. It can either break up the cell, which causes inflammation, or if it understands the food, the whole foods, it can repair and replace.
That's the good thing. No inflammation with that. So it's inflammation that is causing the damage. And these foods cause long-term inflammation. And the only way I can describe it is sugar makes your blood sticky like Velcro. and then it doesn't work properly.
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Chapter 2: What lifestyle changes did Julia implement to improve her wellbeing?
And what you need to be doing is your immune system, we've all got thousands of cells, cancer cells, to deal with every day. Your immune system needs to be working on those. It's busy with all the other stuff that you're doing, the toxins, the sugar. You're making your blood sticky. The immune system isn't working properly. You're clogging up your liver and other bits of yourself.
You're basically jamming everything. By the way, also has an impact on your brain health. They're talking about diabetes three being Alzheimer's. bit sugar. And if you're constantly full of sugar, if your blood levels are very high with glucose because you're snacking the way I did, and it's always a refined carb or sugar, then you're also feeding your brain.
Your brain needs glucose.
Refined carb. Yes. Well, and they're fried. And they're fried. It's a processed food. It's not great.
You can get fried. I mean, I hardly eat crisps anymore, but I was just thinking that's also... Yeah.
It also affects your brain. So not at the same level, but what you've got is this inflammation going on everywhere. And that is when disease makes its way into your life. Diabetes, type 2 diabetes is on the rise. It's going up and up and up. It costs about £3,000 a year to take care of somebody with type 2 diabetes.
And at the moment, you've got people as young as 30 who are being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. And their life cost, you can go blind. It affects every organ in the liver.
I think that's the thing that people are like, well, it's, you know, you can treat diabetes. You can... you can kind of take something for it. But actually, there's a lot that goes on other complications from diabetes.
You're at a much higher risk of cancer if you've got type 2 diabetes. So I went, OK, I'm not going to snack anymore. So I'm not going to eat in between meals because I don't want that sugary roller coaster and I don't want that constant flat line of sugar. So I stopped snacking, which I found easy... to do after three weeks. It was hell for the first three weeks.
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Chapter 3: Why is understanding nutrition crucial for preventative medicine?
So that's good. And change your breakfast. I do a double breakfast. I have eggs, I have avocado, I'll have a bit of protein from the night before, maybe some leftover chicken, free range chicken or some sustainably caught fish or a little bit of that. And I'll put that on my plate with my veggies. I drizzle my olive oil because it's good for my cancer.
um, polyphenols, high in polyphenols, squeeze some lemon, great for the veggies, mixed of greens, big plate. Love it. Then my pudding is blueberries. Yes. And my yogurt. Um, I do a coconut yogurt and nuts and seeds. And I, but I love it. And I used to about 11 and I, and people go, where'd you put it? But they've always said to me, you eat so much, but I love that.
That carries me through to the evening. Amazing. And I don't get sugary cravings. It took about four weeks for that to become a habit and for that to make sense. Now when I have a sugary craving, I only eat the dark chocolate after I've eaten my main meal. And I will use dark chocolate and blueberries. And there are some really good keto things out there that are low carb.
And they are naughty and they have got sugar in them, but they've got honey maybe or maple syrup. And I'm not saying they're healthy, But if you do want that sugary thing, they're so much better than zero cocoa milk. bars which have got all this crap and emulsifiers and texturizers and all that in it.
Cortisol is driven by stress and if you've got an inflamed body environment that's going to drive the cortisol as well. So stress is something that isn't spoken about enough when it comes to health. One of my close friends who was diagnosed with breast cancer her very old school oncologist, who's not into the nutrition and the genetics and all the stuff I care about.
But he said to her, stress, handle your stress. Don't be stressed.
I wonder if you're a bit like me in that we're very busy, you've got lots of things, hustle, hustle.
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Chapter 4: How do refined sugars affect our immune system?
I don't think I'm stressed.
That you are.
I don't know. Am I stressed?
Yes, we are stressed. We are. Yes, you are. We are because of our lives. Show me somebody in today's world that isn't stressed. If you've got social media, you're stressed. If you've got emails, you're stressed. If you've got a career, you're stressed. If you've got a family to look after, you're stressed. If you're not sitting around, I mean, our tribal ancestors were stressed.
Any moment there would be an attack or they have to get up and move because another tribe is coming to take their territory. They might be not eating for days and they don't know where the next bit of food is coming from. Stress is a part of life, but it's that resilience and it's that handling it, but also accepting it and trying to find a way of dealing with it.
So our tribal ancestors walked all the time. They were outside most of the time. They ate a very healthy diet, which had no refined carbs, no sugar, apart from the fruit. They were counteracting their stress with this outdoor moving lifestyle. We don't do that. We stay inside. We look at blue screens. We don't move as much. I know exercise is incredibly important to you.
But there are certain types of exercise that make you more stressed and get your heart rate going. Do you do the other non-stressy exercises? Do you do the yogas? Do you do the walking? I have sort of an exercise jigsaw now. I do weight training twice a week, really important. Muscles, as you know, are not just to look the way that they do.
They actually, they now know that muscles pump proteins, healthy proteins into your blood. The muscles have been redefined as an endocrine system, part of your hormonal buildup. We need muscles not just to look the way that we do. So really important to stay strong. Signs of longevity, strong legs, grip strength. And can you do the farmer's carry?
Can you carry more than half your body weight in both hands? Oh, I didn't know that. Can you hold that for more than a minute? Sign of longevity. Oh, wow. Getting up off the floor. Can you get up off the floor without using your hands? Sign of longevity. All of these things, people go, oh, I can't, I'm 60. Why not?
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Chapter 5: What role does stress play in health issues?
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I am talking, and I'm sure you talk to a lot of people in the medical field or who, like you, started training as a conventional GP or doctor or even specialist, but who become disillusioned and exactly the same as you. See, there must be a way of preventative medicine becoming more of a thing. Does it drive you? nuts, that there does seem to be a much better way of treating people.
And what an enormous difference it would make if we could do this on a much larger scale. I mean, I know you've reached 250 million people. That is amazing. But I do feel like the general public are still out there not making the changes that they could make that would really change their lives.
Yeah, it used to drive me nuts, okay? Because when I first started, particularly when I started talking about this in public, you know, when I look at old videos or someone sent me my TED talk the other day, which I haven't seen in years, and I watched it, I'm like, wow, you were young and passionate back then. And I'm a lot calmer these days.
So yes, it drove me nuts back then because I thought there is a better way and I want people to see this. I want to help people. And I still do, but it doesn't drive me nuts anymore. I feel I'm a lot more emotionally grounded these days. And I just feel that there is a lack of understanding.
Like we believe that when we have a set of symptoms, that we have a thing, that we have, let's say, a disease, right?
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Chapter 6: How can chronic stress impact our physical health?
Without understanding that that disease or that set of symptoms is an expression of of a variety of different things. So yes, your genetics, right? So we're all born with certain genes. But then along with genetics, you have your nutrition, your movement, your sleep, your stress, what I call the four pillars of health, food, movement, sleep, and relaxation.
You've got your environment, your relationships, how you think about yourself, all those things interact with each other. And the expression of that is your symptoms. And so... Whilst diagnoses can be helpful for some people, I'm never a big fan because if you label someone, they feel that, okay, I've got that hat now. Okay, I've got depression.
So everything they see then is through the lens of the fact that I have depression. Whereas if a patient came in with symptoms consistent with depression, I may not use that word. I might say, for example, look, In your lifestyle, there are all these things going on. I think they're contributing to the way that you're feeling.
Yeah.
Would you like help? Would you like me to help you understand what those things are and how we can start changing them? And then often if they're able to, and if I can connect well enough with them, they change those things and they don't have as many symptoms. So, but the whole medical model, the modern medical model relies on us labeling people. And I've always had a slight problem with that.
I understand why it's helpful for some people, why it can be necessary. But I think it also means it's harder for some people to heal because they think, well, I've got the depression hat now and I'm stuck with it for the rest of my life.
How many people do you think? Because I think this was definitely me due to, I think, my upbringing was that I was in a constant state of high alert. Like... All the time. But to the point where I thought it was my superpower. I felt like I'm so on it. I'm so, oh, go, go, go. My leg's always going. I'm like, what's about to happen? And I used to think I can work harder. I was ambitious.
And I love all of those things. And I like being ambitious. I like loving working, all of that. But I have come to realize that my constant state of high alert was making me ill. It was actually having a physical effect on my body. How many people do you see or do you meet who are in this?
I mean, I've worked hard to try and help myself change that with some of the things that you've talked about, thanks to you. How many people do you meet like that?
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