Health
3 biggest health hazards threaten all Americans, says oncologist
Oncologist warns of biggest threats to Americans’ health
Ahead of RFK Jr.’s confirmation as head of HHS, Dr. Dino Prato spoke with Fox News Digital about what is putting people’s health at risk — and why he supports the new administration’s efforts to Make America Healthy Again.
The American healthcare system is “broken,” says an Arizona oncologist — and he’s sharing what he thinks needs to change.
Ahead of RFK Jr.’s confirmation as head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Dr. Dino Prato spoke on camera with Fox News Digital about what is putting people’s health at risk — and why he supports the new administration’s efforts to Make America Healthy Again.
“MAHA is really a nationwide movement, where people are fed up with big pharma and big food,” he said.
MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN: WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE MOVEMENT
As CEO of Envita Medical Centers in Scottsdale, Prato’s focus is delivering “personalized, integrated medicine” to cancer patients, as well as taking steps to prevent the widespread disease.
As CEO of Envita Medical Centers in Scottsdale, Prato’s focus is delivering “personalized, integrated medicine” to cancer patients, as well as taking steps to prevent the widespread disease. (Fox News)
“Our focus is getting rid of chemicals, toxins and all the things that are carcinogenic that have been ignored in the United States,” he said.
Prato shared what he sees as the top three hazards to Americans’ health.
Obesity and metabolic disease
“I think the No. 1 problem in America is the chronic disease of obesity,” Prato said, largely due to “insulin receptor sensitivity issues,” which is when the body’s cells become less responsive to insulin.
“I would call it metabolic disease — and that can be simple and sometimes complicated, because everybody reacts to food differently,” he said.
WE ALL JUST WANT TO SEE THE ‘CRAP’ OUT OF OUR FOOD: MAHA MOM
“And we know that people’s risk for cancer increases if they have bad metabolic disease, because insulin and glucose feed tumors.”
Eliminating processed foods is “critical” to ending the obesity epidemic, according to Prato, along with exercising regularly and eating more nutrient-dense foods, including “good quality fruits and vegetables, and grass-fed meats.”
Infectious diseases
In terms of preventing cancer, heart disease and diabetes, Prato said that infectious diseases is a “very huge” risk factor that is often overlooked.
“A lot of people will falsely present with an autoimmune disease, like fibromyalgia or rheumatoid arthritis, when the underlying cause is an infection that goes undiagnosed and untreated,” he noted.
In terms of preventing cancer, heart disease and diabetes, Prato said that infectious diseases is a “very huge” risk factor that is often overlooked. (iStock)
In these cases, the patients may be prescribed expensive autoimmune disease drugs that just manage the symptoms but don’t actually treat the cause, according to the doctor.
Some viruses can actually trigger autoimmune diseases, Prato cautoned, and many cancers are caused by infections.
“The answer to that is building good immunity in the body and having good response so that our bodies can fight these subacute infections,” he said.
Toxins and chemicals
The third major health hazard, according to Prato, are the chemical toxins and heavy metals that are found in the food and water Americans consume, as well as the air they breathe.
“We keep adding pills, but we’re not getting to the core of what’s causing the disease.”
“Our bodies are just not designed to detoxify or eliminate these problems,” he said. “We also know that chemical toxins are carcinogenic.”
Americans’ food supply is a “very important part” of eliminating toxicity, Prato added. “A lot of these foods we eat are laced with carcinogens.”
Barriers to good health
The biggest obstacle that is keeping Americans from living healthier lives, Prato said, is lack of motivation to make changes.
In many cases, he said, patients think they’re healthy but just don’t have the right information.
Eliminating processed foods is “critical” to ending the obesity epidemic, according to Prato. (iStock)
“If we do deeper dives and we run deeper data, all of a sudden the patients are motivated,” the doctor noted.
“We need to have better data analytics for our patients, which already exists, and when doctors act as coaches to the patient, the motivation changes.”
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR HEALTH NEWSLETTER
Americans as a whole are also overly reliant on expensive medications as a way to manage chronic illnesses, according to Prato.
“We put people on long-term management and we keep adding pills, but we’re not getting to the core of what’s causing the disease,” he said.
“We put people on long-term management and we keep adding pills, but we’re not getting to the core of what’s causing the disease,” the doctor said. (iStock)
Ultimately, Prato said, no pharmaceutical drug is going to solve the chronic disease epidemic.
Instead, the key to breaking the cycle is educating patients, identifying their needs and then “working as hard as you can to radically improve outcomes.”
For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health
“I think that’s why this MAHA movement is such a big deal and there’s so much excitement behind it for moms and families, because people see that what’s what’s going on right now isn’t working.”
Use left and right arrow keys to navigate between menu items.
Use escape to exit the menu.
Sign Up
Create a free account to access exclusive content, play games, solve puzzles, test your pop-culture knowledge and receive special offers.
Already have an account? Login
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Eating too much salt has long been linked to high blood pressure, but new research suggests it could trick the immune system into prematurely aging the blood vessels.
A preclinical study recently published in the Journal of the American Heart Association has identified a biological chain reaction that links a salty diet to cardiovascular decay.
Scientists at the University of South Alabama observed that mice on a high-salt diet experienced rapid deterioration in their blood vessel function.
HIGH SALT INTAKE LINKED TO FASTER MEMORY DECLINE IN ONE GROUP, STUDY FINDS
After just four weeks of high sodium intake, the small arteries responsible for regulating blood flow lost their ability to relax, according to a press release.
The team found that the cells lining these vessels had entered a state of cellular senescence, a form of premature cellular aging in which cells stop dividing and release a mix of inflammatory signals that can damage surrounding tissue.
Excess salt has long been linked to high blood pressure, but a new study goes deeper into its effects on the cardiovascular system. (iStock)
The researchers tried to replicate this damage by exposing blood vessel cells directly to salt in a laboratory dish, but the cells showed no harmful effects.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE HEALTH STORIES
This suggests that salt isn’t directly causing damage to the vascular lining but that the real culprit may be the body’s own defense mechanism, the researchers noted.
Excess salt may trigger the immune system to release a molecule called interleukin-16 (IL-16), which acts as a messenger that instructs blood vessel cells to grow old before their time, according to the study.
Excess salt may trigger the immune system to release a molecule called interleukin-16, which acts as a messenger that instructs blood vessel cells to grow old before their time, according to the study. (iStock)
Once these cells age, they fail to produce nitric oxide, the essential gas that tells arteries to dilate and stay flexible.
To test whether this process could be reversed, the team turned to a class of experimental drugs known as senolytics.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Using a cancer medication called navitoclax, which selectively clears out aged and dysfunctional cells, the researchers were able to restore nearly normal blood vessel function in the salt-fed mice, the release stated.
TEST YOURSELF WITH OUR LATEST LIFESTYLE QUIZ.
By removing the decaying cells created by the high-salt diet, the drug allowed the remaining healthy tissue to maintain its elasticity and respond correctly to blood flow demands.
Excess salt may trigger the immune system into stopping the cells from dividing, the study suggests. (iStock)
The study did have some limitations. The transition from mouse models to human treatment remains a significant hurdle, the team cautioned.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR HEALTH NEWSLETTER
Senolytic drugs like navitoclax are still being studied for safety, and the team emphasized that previous trials have shown mixed results regarding their impact on artery plaque.
Additionally, the researchers have not yet confirmed whether the same IL-16 pathway is the primary driver of vascular aging in humans.
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables was found to have a surprising link to lung cancer among younger non-smokers, early research suggests.
The observational study, led by Jorge Nieva, M.D., of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center at Keck Medicine, was presented this month at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting in San Diego. It has not yet been peer-reviewed.
Researchers looked at dietary, smoking and demographic data for 187 patients who were diagnosed with lung cancer at age 50 or younger.
PANCREATIC CANCER PATIENT SURVIVAL DOUBLED WITH HIGH DOSE OF COMMON VITAMIN, STUDY FINDS
They found that among non-smokers, there was a link between healthier-than-average diets – rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains – and the chance of lung cancer development.
Young lung cancer patients ate more servings of dark green vegetables, legumes and whole grains compared to the average U.S. adult, the researchers found.
Eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables was found to have a surprising link to lung cancer among younger non-smokers, early research suggests. (iStock)
The researchers hypothesized that pesticides applied to conventionally grown produce could be a possible factor in the disease association.
“Commercially produced (non-organic) fruits, vegetables and whole grains are more likely to be associated with a higher residue of pesticides than dairy, meat and many processed foods,” according to Nieva. He also noted that agricultural workers exposed to pesticides tend to have higher rates of lung cancer.
HIDDEN VIRUS INSIDE GUT BACTERIA LINKED TO DOUBLED COLORECTAL CANCER RISK, STUDY FINDS
“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking,” Nieva told Fox News Digital.
The disease is becoming more common in non-smokers 50 and younger, especially women – despite the fact that smoking rates have been falling for decades, the researcher noted.
The researchers hypothesized that pesticides applied to conventionally grown produce could be a possible factor in the disease association. (iStock)
“These patients tend to have eaten much healthier diets before their diagnosis than the average American,” he went on. “We need to support research into understanding why Americans – and women in particular – who no longer smoke very much are still having lung cancer,” he said.
DEATHS FROM ONE TYPE OF CANCER ARE SURGING AMONG YOUNGER ADULTS WITHOUT COLLEGE DEGREES
The study did have some limitations, Nieva acknowledged, primarily that it relied on survey data and was limited by the participants’ memories of their food intake.
“Also, the survey participants were self-selected, and this could have biased the findings,” he told Fox News Digital.
“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking.”
The researchers did not test specific foods for pesticides, relying instead on average pesticide levels for certain types of food. Looking ahead, they plan to test patients’ blood and urine samples to directly measure pesticide levels, Nieva said.
Although the study shows only an association and does not prove that pesticides caused lung cancer, Nieva recommends that people wash their produce before eating and choose organic foods whenever possible.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE HEALTH STORIES
“This work represents a critical step toward identifying modifiable environmental factors that may contribute to lung cancer in young adults,” said Nieva. “Our hope is that these insights can guide both public health recommendations and future investigation into lung cancer prevention.”
“It is possible that the increased lung cancer risk could be due to pesticide exposure in whole farmed foods, but is by no means certain,” a doctor said. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News senior medical analyst, said the study is “interesting,” but that it “raises far more questions than it answers.”
“It is a small study (around 150) and observational, so no proof,” the doctor, who was not involved in the research, told Fox News Digital.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR HEALTH NEWSLETTER
“It is possible that the increased lung cancer risk could be due to pesticide exposure in whole farmed foods, but it is by no means certain,” Siegel went on. “How much exposure is needed? How much of it gets into food and in which areas? This requires much further study.”
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Kayla Nichols, communications director for Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network, a distributed global network, said the organization agrees with the study’s conclusion that more research should be done on the rise in lung cancer, particularly in individuals eating diets higher in produce and fiber.
“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking,” the researcher told Fox News Digital. (iStock)
“There is a bounty of existing research that already links pesticide exposure to increased risk of multiple types of cancers,” Nichols, who was also not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital. She called for more research on chronic, low-level exposures to pesticides, as well as more effective policies to protect the public from pesticide residues on food.
TEST YOURSELF WITH OUR LATEST LIFESTYLE QUIZ
The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute, as well as industry partners including AstraZeneca and Genentech, among others.
Fox News Digital reached out to several pesticide companies and trade groups for comment.
-
Tennessee23 seconds agoTennessee Senate passes bill that would reshape large power boards
-
Texas6 minutes agoTexas can require public schools to display Ten Commandments in classrooms, court rules
-
Utah12 minutes agoCalifornia man in Utah for National Guard duties accused of soliciting ‘teen girl’
-
Vermont18 minutes ago
VT Lottery Mega Millions, Gimme 5 results for April 21, 2026
-
Virginia24 minutes agoVirginia voters just handed Democrats another win in the Great Redistricting Wars
-
Washington30 minutes ago‘Not just workers’: Calls for safer roads during National Work Zone Awareness Week
-
Wisconsin36 minutes agoWisconsin loses millions in marijuana tax revenue to border states
-
West Virginia42 minutes agoPSC hears public comments on possible WV American Water takeover of Lincoln PSD