Starving Cancer: The Hidden Power of Food, Fasting, and the Body’s Inner Terrain

Starving Cancer: The Hidden Power of Food, Fasting, and the Body’s Inner Terrain

Author: Dr. Mark Hyman November 10, 2025 Duration: 1:09:57
Cancer can be seen as a seed that only sprouts in the right soil—the body’s inner landscape. Today, that soil is changing fast, and cancer rates are climbing, especially among young people. Our modern diet—packed with sugar, processed foods, and nonstop snacking—keeps the body flooded with signals to grow, not heal. But there’s good news: by eating real, colorful foods and giving the body time to rest between meals, we can calm inflammation, balance our gut, and make our inner soil far less welcoming to disease. The power to shift the story lies in every bite and every pause we take. In this episode, I discuss, along with Dr. Jason Fung and Dr. Thomas Seyfried, how modern diets and constant eating create a fertile soil for disease. Dr. Jason Fung is a physician, author, and researcher. His groundbreaking science-based books about diabetes and obesity, The Diabetes Code, The Obesity Code, and The Complete Guide to Fasting have sold over one million copies and challenged the conventional wisdom that diabetics should be treated with insulin. Dr. Fung is also the co-founder of The Fasting Method, a program to help people lose weight and reverse Type 2 Diabetes naturally with fasting. His work on fasting has been cited by CNN, Time, The Atlantic, Forbes, The Toronto Star, and many other media outlets. His latest book is The Cancer Code: A Revolutionary New Understanding of a Medical Mystery. Dr. Thomas Seyfried is an American professor of biology, genetics, and biochemistry at Boston College. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1976 and did his postdoctoral fellowship at the Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Seyfried has over 150 peer-reviewed publications, and his research focuses primarily on the mechanisms driving cancer, epilepsy, and neurodegenerative diseases and calorie-restricted ketogenic diets in their prevention and treatment. He is the author of Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management, and Prevention of Cancer and presently serves on the Nutrition & Metabolism, Neurochemical Research, Journal of Lipid Research, and ASN Neuro editorial boards. This episode is brought to you by BIOptimizers. Head to bioptimizers.com/hyman and use code HYMAN to save 15%. Full-length episodes can be found here:Is Cancer Caused By Sugar? How Can My Diet Help Prevent Cancer? A Radical New Dietary Approach To Cancer Treatment

Hosted by physician and functional medicine pioneer Dr. Mark Hyman, The Dr. Hyman Show is a conversation about reclaiming your well-being. Each episode digs into the interconnected systems that shape our health, moving beyond symptom management to address foundational causes. You’ll hear detailed discussions on nutrition, the roots of chronic disease, mental health strategies, and the science of longevity, all framed through a functional medicine lens. Dr. Hyman engages with leading experts and thinkers to challenge conventional wisdom on food policy and prevention, offering a practical and often provocative perspective. This podcast serves as a resource for anyone feeling lost in a healthcare system that can overlook root causes, providing actionable knowledge to make informed daily choices. Tune in for a deep, evidence-based exploration of how our bodies truly work, empowering you to reimagine your personal health potential through informed dialogue and discovery.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

The Dr. Hyman Show
Podcast Episodes
Why Your Cholesterol Is High—and How to Start Fixing It in 10 Days [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 23:46
High cholesterol is one of the most common reasons people are told they’re at risk for heart disease. But what if cholesterol isn’t the root problem? What if it’s actually a signal of deeper metabolic dysfunction—and foc…
Are You Secretly Dehydrated? Why a 1% Drop Kills Your Focus and Mood [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 18:32
Hydration affects far more than thirst. Even mild dehydration can impact your focus, memory, mood, energy, and overall brain performance—yet most people walk through the day without realizing they’re under-hydrated. The…
The 5 Root Causes of Autoimmune Disease (And How to Start Healing) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:08
Autoimmune disease is often treated as something random, lifelong, and out of your control. But what if it’s not your body malfunctioning—what if it’s your immune system responding exactly the way it’s designed to, to so…
The Real Reason You Age (And How to Slow It Down) | Dr. Eric Verdin [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:12:53
We tend to think of heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s as separate problems. But what if they all stem from the same underlying process? On this episode of The Dr. Hyman Show, I sit down with Dr. Eric Verdin, whose r…