MedMacro

George W Yu, MD, trained at Tufts University Medical School and did his residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, MA. He is a  urologist at George Washington University Medical Center and has been in the practice of medicine and surgery for over 25 years. Dr Yu has had the clinical experience to focus on nutrition, detoxification and cellular regeneration with a concentration on digestive enzymes and probiotics. He continues his work as a urological surgeon, but his focus will be on men's health and endocrinology. (This interview took place this year at the Kushi Institute Summer Conference where Dr George W. Yu was guest speaker).

Dr Yu: My interest stems from surgical hyperalimentation, at the time when Jonathan Rhoades at the University of Pennsylvania finally formulated intravenous feeding without using the intestinal tract. So digestion is a very important thing, more than nutrition, because it is about what the body needs as the end product.

Marlene: Doctor, How did you get involved with the macrobiotic community and Michio Kushi?

Dr Yu: I was on my way to Tanglewood, MA to listen to a concert conducted by Sergei Ozawa, when my friend who was accompanying me said that the Kushi Institute was close to Tanglewood. So, we went to the Institute and I told the executive director at that time that there was a Best Case Series study (through the National Cancer Institute) that the macrobiotic commmunity could participate in. I told them that I could help get the case studies together. I stayed there over the weekend and ate the food and not only was I not hungry anymore but I felt better. I looked at the best cases they gave me to review and there were some incredible cases that I never would have believed (like yours, Marlene).I took a great interest and my goal was to facilitate the translation of that information into a technical level that my colleagues and researchers could understand. (This Best Case Series was presented to CAPCAM-Cancer Advisory Panel of Complementary and Alternative Medicine-, a panel of physicians and PhDs in 2002)

Marlene: I understand that you are doing a Best Case Series for another organization. Is that correct?

Dr Yu: I am in the process of doing one for the Hippocrates program. I have seen a lot of groups, involving nutritional intervention. And the bottom line that I see that is common to all these programs is that they all lose about 10% of their weight. They all have a common denominator of caloric restriction. The restriciton means that the diet consists of 1800 calories as opposed to the American diet which has 3500 calories. With that, we know that there is 70 years of research done which shows from worms to primates that this will extend their lives by about 30%, and will also retard all diseases including cancers. I first heard about this from one of my teachers in the mid-70's in which he said that caloric-restricted animals will have their tumors regress, not cured but regressed.

Marlene: To further our discussion on caloric restriction, could you tell us about the work of Stephen Spindler at the University of California, Riverside.

Dr Yu: I would say that one of the most important things going on in research today is microarray analysis and gene expression profiling (massively parallel sequencing technologies) that are being done by Stephen Spindler, PhD. He has shown us that short-term caloric restriction within three months will have 70% of their genes change in their expression! This research now gives us verification that something happens in those macrobiotic survivors in the first three to six months. Many doctors and scientists have no disagreement with that. Some are doubtful that people can survive on 1500 calories because we are used to eating a lot more! Actually you can be quite full on that few calories and your insulin and glucose don't change that much. The first time I ate the foods on the Macrobiotic and Hippocrates programs, I was not hungry anymore. That is the phenomenon you have to experience yourself.

Marlene: How do we better educate our physicians and all medical professionals about proper nutrition, so they can help their patients understand diet and lifestyle changes?

Dr Yu: Your habits start at home! Your parents teach you how to eat. Then you learn as you go through grade school, and high school and college, whether you are interested in eating properly. Eating properly means what makes you feel good. It is not easy to teach nutrition but it is getting easier with more and more literature and increased awareness. When I was in medical school, it was difficult enough to get through the curriculum within the first two years. (Some medical schools have integrated nutrition in their curriculums or provided CEU credit seminars for medical professionals). Most doctors are so stressed with time and obligations that they can barely keep up with their own specialty, let alone reading inter-disciplinary literature on nutrition, digestion, etc. I believe that it will come and I am impressed by some of my colleagues already who are becoming more aware of nutrition. For example, instead of saying Vitamin D is nothing, everybody is saying it is something. That is a big 180 degrees from 10 years ago!