Decoding Disease Through Analogy

Of all the doctors I follow on social media, Dr. William Li is my favorite. He’s spent his career researching dozens of diseases and has concluded that food is medicine. As he puts it, “enjoying nutritious food is one of the simplest ways to improve your health.” What keeps me coming back to his podcasts are his analogies. They make it easy to understand what’s happening inside your body. Here are some of my favorites:

·      Inflammation – Good inflammation is like a campfire: contained and useful. When you’re injured or fighting off a virus, inflammation is your body’s healing response doing its job. Disease risk comes from chronic, low-grade inflammation that never switches off. Dr. Li compares it to leaving a campfire burning overnight instead of putting it out. What should have been contained spreads into a wildfire.

·      Cancer – Dr. Li has several analogies for what happens in our bodies to cause cancer. Our bodies contain about 40 trillion cells, constantly making new copies of themselves. Replicating that many means mistakes happen. About 10,000 DNA copying errors occur every day, each creating a microscopic cancer cell. Normally that’s not a problem, because our immune cells recognize and eliminate them. It’s like a police cruiser patrolling a quiet neighborhood, spotting a bad actor, and taking them away.

He also compares a cell mutating into cancer to a well-behaved college student gone wild on spring break. One or two rowdy students can be managed, but it becomes a problem when a larger group starts causing trouble.

Cancer cells are also like seeds in soil. What’s happening around them determines whether they grow. Chronic inflammation acts like water and fertilizer, helping those seeds sprout into a tumor. In Eat to Beat Disease, Dr. Li explains how foods like soy, tomatoes, apples, berries, and tea can support your immune system in clearing those cells before they take hold.

·      Cholesterol – Dr. Li compares LDL, the “bad” cholesterol, to delivery trucks on a highway. Too many of them cause a traffic jam, and the excess cholesterol they’re carrying builds up in artery walls until it causes a blockage. HDL, the “good” cholesterol, acts like a maintenance crew, sweeping up that excess and hauling it back to the liver to be broken down.

·      Insulin resistance – Insulin resistance happens when your cells stop responding normally to insulin. Your pancreas senses blood sugar isn’t coming down and assumes the fix is more insulin. But the real problem isn’t supply, it’s that your cells have stopped listening. Dr. Li compares it to a broken brake pedal. You step on it to slow down, and when nothing happens, you press harder and harder. No matter how hard you push, the brakes just aren’t responding.

What I love about these analogies is that they don't just make science understandable, they make it stick. When I reach for berries instead of cookies, I'm thinking about campfires, traffic jams, and a neighborhood police cruiser doing its job.