The Metabolic Theory of Cancer

The history of cancer treatments and cancer research in the United States is filled with controversy, inequities, persecution, legal battles, and failure. Since the internet began making information accessible to the public there has been more progress toward real cures of all deadly and chronic diseases than there was for the entire 20th century. Cancer, more than any other human illness, exemplifies the establishment’s reluctance to heal disease. It wasn’t until 1984 that organized medicine, grudgingly, conceded that diet might be a risk factor in the development of cancer. It took 29 more years, until 2013 for the cancer establishment to take the next step. The Mayo Clinic took credit for discovering that a strong immune system was an important part of curing cancer. I was watching the Dr. Oz show when the doctor introduced the Mayo Clinic Director of Cancer Research. Oz asked the man what the most important development in the Mayo Clinic’s cancer research was in 2013. He answered, “We’ve learned how important a strong immune system is.”This was, as far back as the immune system was understood, common knowledge among natural healers in the U.S. Natural health systems such as Chinese Herbal Medicine and India’s Ayurvedic Medicine have stressed building the immune system to fight cancer as far back as there are records.For the 88 years between 1900 and 1988, there was virtually no progress toward saving the lives of U.S. cancer patients. Chemotherapy “saved” about three percent of cancer’s victims. Before chemotherapy, 25% of patients got better by themselves, so chemotherapy actually killed 22 percent of patients that would have recovered naturally. Even today, there has been no significant improvement in the effectiveness of chemotherapy. In fact, the over-all survival rate for patients treated with chemotherapy alone is still only 2.2 percent. While that number is an average that doesn’t differentiate between the hardest to cure cancers, such as brain cancer (less than 1 percent) and the rate for cancers that established medicine has great success with, such as prostate cancer (over 30 percent) it still demonstrates the fact that something is not right about the cancer research effort, in spite of the billions of dollars you and I and millions of others have spent.In the book, Tripping over the Truth, author Travis Christofferson describes how cancer research went down the wrong path, and what has kept it there for one-hundred years. The story starts in 1775, when Percivall Pott, a London surgeon famous for describing how tuberculosis migrates into the spine and destroys limb function identified the first carcinogen. He determined that the oils and soot that covered London chimney sweeps was causing them to develop a rare form of cancer on their scrotums. His discovery led to the identification of other carcinogens, and eventually to the belief that carcinogens were interfering with the inner workings of cells, causing mutations.Of course, at that time there was no way to see what was happening inside a cell. It was left to a German scientist, David Paul von Hansemann in 1890 to provide evidence that cancer cells were different than healthy cells. One of Hansemann’s contemporaries, a researcher in Prague, Walther Fleming, had discovered a blue dye that stained parts of the interior of cells, making it possible to see at least some of the interior components. The component that stood out was a thread-like object that moved to the center of the cell and aligned itself perfectly just before the cell divided. Flemming named the threads chromosomes. Hansemann heard about Flemming’s work and used the dye to compare what happened in normal cells with what happened in cancer cells. Rather than lining up perfectly, the threads in cancer cells were broken and disorderly. Hansemann concluded that normal cells becoming cancer cells was caused by the acquisition of “abnormalities to their hereditary material.”Pott discovered that carcinogens damaged the “hereditary” information inside a cell, and Hansemann showed that indeed, cancer cells had damaged chromosomes. Unfortunately, neither man understood how complex a living cell is, and they didn’t have the tools to follow their discoveries further. However, they cemented for the next one-hundred and thirty years, and still going, the theory that cancer is a genetic mutation.It took a man trained in physics and chemistry to question that theory. A German scientist, Otto Warburg’s initial training in the physical sciences provided him with a new perspective and an understanding of the scientific method that biological scientists didn’t have at the time. His knowledge of physics and chemistry led him to look at the way cells created energy in his search for the cause of cancer. He created new tools, and experiments that were beyond reproach.Warburg knew that for us, or anything else, to make life out of a jar of chemicals our cells must have energy. The complexity in this is how our cells go about creating that energy. The simplicity is that it isn’t much different than a common battery.In our case, the generators that charge the battery are the mitochondria in each of our cells. In fact, mitochondria are often called the powerhouses of the cells. In order to charge our batteries, the mitochondria in our cells use four groups of proteins to extract the electrons from one of three nutrients in the foods we eat.  They can make energy from the electrons in carbohydrates, protein, and fat. By interacting the electrons with protons from hydrogen, the mitochondria produce a charge that is passed on in a chemical called adenosine triphophate (ATP). The only waste product is (supposed to be) water created from oxygen and hydrogen atoms used in the process.It only makes sense that if this process doesn’t work correctly, the result is illness, and even death for the cell. The chemical process is not very complicated. It fully complies with the laws of chemistry and physics, and could be duplicated by today’s engineers. However, the fact that it happens inside the tiny unit called a living cell is miraculous, especially when you understand what mitochondria are.The story describing how our energy metabolic system evolved is both interesting and instructive: About two billion years ago life on Earth was just beginning. The life forms that existed were pretty much single-cell animals that created energy by fermenting the compounds around them, usually compounds from other life forms.But, as time went by another form of life became dominant and started to proliferate at a rapid rate. This form of life used sunlight and carbon dioxide to create energy in much the same way plants today use photosynthesis. The waste product this new life form created was oxygen. The existing life forms that used fermentation to generate energy couldn’t tolerate the rising oxygen levels and began to die off.Then one day one of the larger single-cell life forms engulfed a smaller competitor, but failed to break it down and devour it. The smaller life form was a bacterium from the family α-proteobacteria. There are still family members of α-proteobacteria alive today. They use oxygen to create energy in much the same way we do.As it turned out, the two life forms formed a symbiosis. The larger life form gained a way to survive and even thrive in the new, oxygen rich, atmosphere. The smaller life form gained protection from other predators and a safe environment in which to live.Through the process of evolution, the larger life form with its new ability to live and thrive in the rich oxygen gradually became a part of us, and many other animals on Earth, and the smaller life form gradually gave up parts of its DNA and identity to become the mitochondria in our cells.The process I described above is just a theory, of course. No one was there to watch it happen and take notes. It’s called the endosymbiotic theory, and it is pretty much accepted as fact by most scientists. Who knew? We are the product of a symbiotic relationship. So, this “bacteria” in the center of our cells isn’t quite a complete life form anymore. Many of the proteins it uses and the jobs it does are dependent on the DNA in our chromosomes. However, it does still have DNA of its own. It has kept the DNA it uses to make energy and to divide, and, of importance in the study of cancer, to play a major role in senescence, the process that prompts damaged cells to commit suicide and die (apoptosis).A recent research report by an international group of scientists and published in the EMBO Journal have discovered that the mitochondria is actually required for the senescence process in cells. Senescence means that a cell has aged (or sustained damage) to a point where it can no longer replicate, so it dies. As more and more cells go into senescence, we experience aging and diseases related to aging.The scientists used the process that cells use to discard faulty mitochondria. They super-powered the signal that activates this process and tricked cells into discarding all of their mitochondria.They were quite surprised to find that while the cells shrunk in size as a result of the loss of their mitochondria, they adjusted to the loss by reverting to the ancient fermentation process to create energy.Then, rather than dying, the cells actually came out of senescence and reverted to a younger age. In order to try and determine what exactly happened, the scientists did a series of experiments that ended in discovering that cell aging and senescence depends on the mitochondria and wouldn’t happen without it.This is exactly what Warburg discovered cancer cells do. Cancer cells revert to the fermentation process to create energy, which limits them to creating energy only from carbohydrates. Unlike healthy cells, they can’t use fats and proteins to charge their batteries.Cancer cells are also immortal. They don’t die as a result of the damage they undergo. For the first time the properties that differentiate cancer cells from normal cells could be explained. Damage to the mitochondria resulted in a reversion to fermentation and cell immortality.Unfortunately, the cancer establishment paid little attention to Warburg. Scientists didn’t yet understand that the mitochondria was needed for senesence and apoptosis to take place. The whole energy thing didn’t seem to explain a cancer cell’s immortality and accelerated growth because science didn’t yetunderstand what mitochondria do. Establishment scientists continued to search for a genetic link to cancer. They found only frustration and failure.Mostly because they couldn’t identify what caused cancer, they also continued to search for the “magic bullet” chemotherapy. A drug that would kill all cancers.However, in the 1970’s Peter Pedersen, PhD at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine learned of Warburg’s theory and began to do research to determine if it was true. Throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s he was the only researcher that believed Warburg was right. Then, in 2012, a respected and very smart scientist named Thomas Seyfried, PhD of Boston College published, Cancer as a Metabolic Disease, a book based on Warburg’s and Pedersen’s work.Today, in spite of the medical establishment’s stubborn insistence that cancer is a genetic mutation disease, more and more young scientists are embracing the metabolic theory, and the evidence that supports this theory is reaching mountainous proportions. Even so, they are fighting an uphill battle.Although chemotherapy doesn’t cure cancer, in 1988 the 5-year over-all cancer survival rate began to improve, and it has continued to get better nearly every year. The survival rate today is just over 62 percent. The American Cancer Society clearly states that the improvement is due to a reduction in the number of people who smoke and early detection and treatment.I’m not sure if the American Cancer Society, which represents the medical establishment and has traditionally discouraged natural treatments, is admitting that chemo doesn’t work, or is trying to hide the fact that there is one more reason survival rates are improving; doctors around the world are providing natural treatments, such as diet, herbs, and emotional counseling along with established treatments, and it is making a difference. Many herbs help protect the body against the damaging effects of chemo. Others fight the cancer in spite of chemo, and the importance of diet in the treatment of cancer and other diseases is proving to be the single most powerful tool modern medicine has to work with. I go into this in more detail in my article, FAT, the wonder food.This is an encouraging trend, especially in the U.S., where doctors that use natural treatments are subject to harassment, giant fines, and even prison terms from their peers and the regulatory machine. In the early 1900’s cancer patients were being cured with natural treatments, so the AMA (American Medical Association) and the pharmaceutical companies bribed lawmakers to create a law stating the only legal treatments for cancer are chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation. This law is still in force. Many natural clinics were shut down and their owners sent to jail. Some moved to Mexico and still operate today. Unfortunately, because not all cancers are the same and a lack of research their success is hit or miss, but is still better than chemo.By combining the natural treatments with chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation doctors dodge the bullet. Of coarse, this isn’t the ideal solution. More patients are being saved, but the assumption is that even more could be saved if we weren’t poisoning or radiating them. And, of coarse, the overwhelming cost of establishment treatments still has to be borne by patients and their families.Metabolic therapies, such as a strict form of the ketogenic diet, are being developed and are proving successful!Hopefully, in the not too distant future, an informed population and practitioners grown tired of a system more concerned with profits than cures will force the system to accept the overwhelming evidence that research into the real cause of cancer will produce treatments that work, and the horrible massacre of cancer patients will stop. Our time will be written down in history as one of the darkest for the art of healing.