In this 2010 Ted-Ed Talk Lesson, educator Dr. William Li discusses the concept of angiogenesis, the growth of new capillary blood vessels in the body and how certain foods can be used in the anti-angiogenesis process, preventing the growth of blood vessels that feed diseases like cancer.
The body’s ability to balance angiogenesis, when it’s working properly, prevents blood vessels from feeding cancers. And this turns out to be one of our most important defense mechanisms against cancer. In fact if you block angiogenesis and prevent blood vessels from ever reaching cancer cells, tumors simply can’t grow up…could the answer to cancer be preventing angiogenesis? Beating cancer at its own game…but I began asking what could we be adding to our diet that’s naturally anti-angiogenic, that could boost the body’s defense system and beat back those blood blood vessels that are feeding cancers. In other words, can we eat to starve cancer?
