Dr. Natasha McBride says, it has a lot to do with the state of the patient’s epithelial surface of the digestive system.
Approximately 88 percent of our body’s immunity is found in the lining of our gastrointestinal (GI) system.
The immune system is there is to stop invaders from moving out of the digestive tract into the body. Over time, without the beneficial bacteria and proper balance in the gut, toxins, opportunistic bacteria, and parasites chisel away at the physical barrier wall and can create “leaky gut”. Once there is an opening in the wall lining, pathogens escape from the GI, travel through the bloodstream, penetrate the blood–brain barrier, and wreak havoc on the specific functions of our cells, causing diseases.
Pathogens are shown as grey dots in the image below.
Essential or beneficial bacteria in our digestive system engage a very important member of the immune system – the lymphoid tissue of the gut wall. As a result, a healthy gut wall is literally infiltrated with lymphocytes, ready to protect the body from any invader. Scientific research shows that in people with damaged gut flora there are far fewer lymphocytes in the gut wall, which leaves a poorly protected.
The most important immunoglobulin in the gut is produced by lymphocytes in all mucous membranes in the body and secreted in body fluids. It is found in breathing passages, nose, throat, bladder, your urethra, vagina, saliva, tears, sweat, colostrum, breast milk and of course the mucous membranes of the digestive system and it’s secretions. Its job is to protect mucous membranes by destroying and in activating invading bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites.
People with abnormal gut flora can’t destroy viruses, bacteria and other invaders.
Millions of children and adults around the world are exposed to viruses if these people have well functioning gut flora then these viruses do them no harm.
When the gut the flora is damaged the whole immune system in the body gets out of balance. This process makes the person immune-compromised.
What causes a healthy gut to become imbalanced?
Poor diet, antibiotic use, low digestive enzymes, alkalinity, acidity, chemical toxins, environmental toxins, radiation, blood sugar irregularity, stress, and pregnancy- and birth-inherited gut imbalances.
A healthy gut has an approximate ratio of 8:2 of beneficial bacteria to opportunistic bacteria. The beneficial bacteria feed on certain types of opportunistic fungi (candida and the like), create an internal wall of defence against pathogens escaping the intestine, and help digest foods to be transformed into energy.
When the proper ratio is out of balance, the beneficial bacteria can no longer protect the walls of the gut. Pathogens, including opportunistic bacteria, wear down the enterocytes and break through the intestinal lining. Having escaped the gastrointestinal system, the pathogens now enter the bloodstream as antigens. There they create an autoimmune response, attack cells, break through the blood–brain barrier, and create an environment conducive to disease.
What can damage our gut flora?
These are the foods we avoid, because the human digestive system has not been designed to digest them well, and we get virtually no useful nutrition from them. Please see the list of Foods to avoid below.
Please see the list of Recommended foods below.
Please see the list of Natural fats below.
Learn more about Healing your gut with the GAPS diet.
Disclaimer: The content of this email or Post is not intended for the treatment or prevention of disease, nor as a substitute for medical treatment, nor as an alternative to medical advice. Use of recommendations is at the choice and risk of the reader.
I invite you to Follow my Blog, Facebook or be added to my email distribution list. My focus is to maximize my physical performance and mental clarity, body composition, and most importantly overall health with a wholesome diet and exercise.
I will bring you compelling articles on Ketogenic and GAPS diets, the Super Slow High-Intensity Exercise Program and supplements.
To follow my Blog, please click the Follow button to receive an email when the next posting is available. Hint: You may have to click the Accept and Close button before follow is available.
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Last week, in Managing Cancer as a Metabolic Disease Part One, we learned that,
“genetic mutations are not the primary cause of cancer but are, rather, a downstream effect of the defective energy metabolism. As long as your mitochondria remain healthy and functional, your chances of developing cancer are slim!”
This week we will continue with more success stories.
Mayo Clinic Asks Long-Term Physician Cancer Survivor: ‘Just What Are You Doing?’
Dr. Bomar Herrin, 58, worked out regularly. During a workout he felt a snap near his right shoulder.
A biopsy revealed it was caused by a plasmacytoma, or a cluster of cancerous plasma cells. Plasma cells are a type of white blood cell, and when they become abnormal they are called myeloma. Myeloma cells in several parts of the body are called multiple myeloma. While Herrin had radiation to treat the plasmacytoma in his arm, a PET scan revealed lesions on his spine, sacrum and ribs, which indicated that his cancer might have spread.
Strongly motivated to find a way to halt the progression of his disease, he embarked on a different path: metabolic therapy. That was eight years ago. For eight years, Herrin has been following a ketogenic diet and fasting regularly. He recently reported to Seyfried that his cancer load and inflammation markers are down.
In March 2017, his kappa/lambda ratio was normal for the first time – a measure of multiple myeloma activity. And he reports: “At the Mayo Clinic, I am now being asked to describe just what I am doing!”
Colon Cancer Patient Says ‘No’ to Standard Care and ‘Yes’ to the Ketogenic Diet — Four Years Later She Remains Cancer-Free
A gentleman who learned about Seyfried and metabolic therapy from an interview just four days after his wife had surgery for colon cancer. A 3-centimeter malignant section of her colon was removed, as well as 12 adjacent lymph nodes. Eight of them were cancerous.
Both this gentleman and his wife, Barb, had listened intently to his interview. That turned out to be a pivotal event in his wife’s health journey. Shortly after her surgery, his wife was advised to commence the standard chemo regimen. Instead, she decided to start the ketogenic diet. Four years later, she continues to follow her ketogenic diet. During the last four years, her six-month tests have all been cancer-free!
Dr. Thomas Seyfried
5 Powerful Steps to Minimize Your Cancer Risk
Switch over to a cyclical ketogenic diet and then intermittent feasting and fasting (You’ll find the exact steps in Mercola’s book “Fat for Fuel”)
Move more and exercise regularly (simply sitting less can make a profound difference in your health)
Get regular sun exposure and maintain healthy vitamin D serum levels (>60 ng/ml)
Detox your body with regular full spectrum infrared sauna sessions
Success Stories Pour In – What Metabolic Therapy Can Potentially Do for End-Stage Cancer Patients
Dr. Abdul Slocum, a physician from Turkey, sees many end-stage cancer patients in his clinic, ChemoThermia Oncology Center. A significant number of his patients have pancreatic cancer.
Pancreatic cancer has one of the worst prognoses of any cancer with over 90 percent of its victims dead within five years.
Most patients are diagnosed with the disease in its advanced stages. When a patient discovers he has stage 4 pancreatic adenocarcinoma, his life expectancy is about six months. If liver metastasis has occurred, he may live for only weeks.
Many of Slocum’s patients have failed traditional therapies and some have even been sent home to die. When they enter his clinic, patients are immediately placed on a ketogenic diet and remain on it throughout their treatment. Here’s what’s most noteworthy about Slocum’s approach:
Treatment protocols are non-toxic and utilize practices based on metabolic therapy
Any chemotherapy agents used are applied in the lowest possible dose to minimize harm to the body (and keep it an “approved” treatment)
Patients experience a high quality of life during treatment, unlike the discomfort and toxic side effects that typically accompany conventional treatments
Slocum and his team are seeing remarkable success with metabolic therapy in a broad range of advanced stage cancers including those involving the pancreas, lung, breasts, ovaries and stomach.
Could Metabolic Therapy Be Your Very Best Chance of Recovery If You Were Diagnosed With Cancer?
Slocum isn’t the only cancer specialist seeing positive results. Dr. Jean-Pierre Spinosa is also reporting exciting results with metabolic therapy with patients in his practice in Switzerland:
Two patients with metastatic breast cancer are still completely free of cancer
A patient with metastatic prostate cancer is stable with PSA remaining at 7
A patient with leiomyosarcoma (an aggressive type of soft tissue sarcoma) is stable
A patient with inoperable grade 4 glioblastoma is stabilized on metabolic therapy
Of course, he and his patients are very encouraged by these results. However, metabolic therapy isn’t a magic wand. It won’t – and doesn’t – save everyone’s life. Typically, a majority of the clinics following this alternative protocol see patients at the end of their journey, typically when traditional treatments have failed. Unfortunately, a certain percentage of patients aren’t going to survive, no matter what.
But if patients can get through this metabolic protocol, the median survival can increase 400 percent and their quality of life can be drastically improved.That’s incredible!And imagine the potential outcome if clinics like these could treat more patients who are newly diagnosed and haven’t yet been exposed to toxic and health-harming treatments? I believe that metabolic therapy creates for you, your family or loved ones, the very best chance for recovery from this devastating disease.
If You’re Supporting Traditional Cancer Causes, Do You Know Where Your Money Goes?
Did you know that Breast Cancer Awareness Month was launched by Astra Zeneca, a pharmaceutical company that sells both cancer treatments AND toxic, carcinogenic pesticides? Astra Zeneca potentially profits from both.
If you support activities that include “racing for the cure,” your money goes to Komen. In 2016, Komen had an annual revenue of over $200 million, they awarded 103 grants totalling $33 million – about 16.5 percent. Only 4 percent of grant money was dedicated to prevention!
In 2017 the Tampa Bay Times and The Center for Investigative Reporting compiled this exhaustive list based on federal tax filings for the past 10 years. They solicited donations in excess of $1.35 billion (for the entire list of 50 charities). At least twelve cancer foundations.Here is the link https://smartasset.com/mortgage/the-50-worst-charities-in-america-how-to-keep-from-being-scammed
Less than 10 percent actually went to help individuals in need or for research. Your donation supports research and therapies that reinforce the failures of chemotherapy, radiation and surgery.
Important Cutting Edge Metabolic Therapies That Address the True Cause of Cancer: Defective Mitochondria
Emerging evidence shows that cancer is primarily a metabolic disease involving disturbances in energy production through respiration and fermentation in the cells. Research shows that cancer is suppressed when the nucleus from a tumor cell is transferred to cytoplasm of normal cells with normal mitochondria.
Defective (empty GBM) mitochondria within the cell can’t produce energy normally
It is the normal mitochondria that suppress cancer growth.This finding alone is enough to cast serious doubt on the genetic theory of cancer. The disturbances in tumor cell energy metabolism can be linked to abnormalities in the structure and function of the mitochondria.
Seyfried’s research has shown that cancer growth and progression can be managed following a whole-body transition from fermentable metabolites, such as glucose and glutamine, to respiratory metabolites, primarily ketone bodies that are formed when you follow a ketogenic diet.This transition reduces tumor vascularity and inflammation while enhancing tumor cell death.
A novel “press-pulse” therapeutic strategy is in development for the non-toxic metabolic management of cancer. The conclusions:Optimization of dosing, timing, and scheduling of the press-pulse therapeutic strategy will facilitate the eradication of tumor cells with minimal patient toxicity. This therapeutic strategy can be used as a framework for the design of clinical trials for the non-toxic management of mostcancers.To read the study please copy and past this link into your address bar https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28250801
Seyfried’s lab is currently exploring a number of metabolic therapies in a metastatic mouse model, including the combination of the following:
Ketogenic diet *
Glycolytic inhibitors
Oxygen therapy
Glutamine inhibitors
Exogenous ketones
Other metabolic targeting therapies
The goal of this advanced research is to develop a non-toxic diet/drug therapeutic treatment that can resolve both primary tumor growth AND secondary tumor metastatic lesions in a range of preclinical models of cancer.
I invite you to Follow my Blog, Facebook or be added to my email distribution list. My focus is to maximize my physical performance and mental clarity, body composition, and most importantly overall health with a wholesome diet and exercise.
I will bring you compelling articles on Ketogenic and GAPS diets, the Super Slow High-Intensity Exercise Program and supplements.
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Disclaimer: The content of this email or Post is not intended for the treatment or prevention of disease, nor as a substitute for medical treatment, nor as an alternative to medical advice. Use of recommendations is at the choice and risk of the reader.
Groundbreaking research reveals cancer is primarily a metabolic disease that need not be a death sentence.
Metabolic therapy, which includes a ketogenic diet, has been shown to prevent and treat many cancers, including “incurable” late-stage cancers.
With this powerful nutritional strategy, the unnecessary deaths from cancer could be radically reduced.
But first, let’s take a look at what’s standing in the way.
The conventional medical community is so attached to the flawed genetic theory of cancer that they fail to use new science exposing the mitochondria dysfunction that is evident in almost all cancers.
If you are diagnosed today with cancer, you basically receive the same dated ineffective strategy that has failed for over 50 years! Conventional oncologists still rely on the “slash, burn and poison” protocol: surgery, radiation and toxic chemotherapy.
Chemotherapy was developed after World War II from a derivative of mustard gas. Mustard gas and other chemotherapies are powerful carcinogens. These conventional treatments simply aren’t working.
Even the newer era of “targeted immunotherapies” have been a dismal failure. Indeed, the probability of dying from these therapies is greater than the probability of living slightly longer. Yet we are spending billions on new and increasingly more expensive cancer drugs that have marginal efficacy at best.
Established oncology clings to the failed system based on the gene theory and tries to generate hope for new cancer drugs that continue to fail us. A vast pharmaceutical system supports the current cancer ideology. When you’re treated for cancer in the U.S. and many other developed nations, these established therapies are your ONLY options. Your oncologist must treat you within the standard protocol of slash, burn and poison!
Effective non-toxic treatments are available. Non-patentable therapies can’t get the billion-dollar backing to fund the type of studies that would win approval from the oncology community.
What if you could feel empowered to prevent and treat cancer — without toxic, health-damaging treatments?
The National Cancer Institute and the academic and pharmaceutical cancer industries are locked into an old school of thought: Cancer is a genetic disease. Because they’re not willing to look at alternative causes for cancer (there’s no shortage of scientific evidence to prove cancer isn’t a genetic disease) it’s nearly impossible to advance innovative therapies for cancer management and prevention.
The good news is, there are pioneers out there who are working tirelessly to develop treatment protocols that can radically address, prevent and treat most cases of cancer.
Meet THE Game Changer in the World of Cancer: Thomas Seyfried
Thomas Seyfried is a professor, researcher and author at Boston College. In 2012 Seyfried wrote the book on how cancer needs to be treated in principle, “Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management and Treatment of Cancer.” This is the gold standard medical textbook for alternative oncologists and a savvy public. It is available on Amazon https://www.amazon.ca/Cancer-Metabolic-Disease-Management-Prevention/dp/0470584920
But unless you have training in biochemistry, you may want to start with Travis Christofferson’s best-selling book, “Tripping over the Truth: How the Metabolic Theory of Cancer Is Overturning One of Medicine’s Most Entrenched Paradigms.” Christofferson’s book is a needed step to understanding the details of Seyfried’s pioneering work. It is available on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Tripping-over-Truth-Overturning-Entrenched/dp/1603587292
Seyfried has a distinguished background. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the department of neurology at the Yale University School of Medicine and then served on the faculty as an assistant professor in neurology. Throughout his long career, he’s received many awards and honors from organizations such as the National Institutes of Health, the American Society for Neurochemistry and the Ketogenic Diet Special Interest Group of the American Epilepsy Society.
He recently received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of New England, and a lifetime achievement award from the Academy of Comprehensive Integrative Medicine.
He presently serves on several editorial boards, including those for Nutrition and Metabolism, Neurochemical Research, the Journal of Lipid Research and ASN Neuro, where he is a senior editor. In total, Seyfried also has over 170 peer-reviewed publications in the scientific literature.
How Seyfried’s Metabolic Theory of Cancer Differs From the Genetic Model of Cancer
Keep in mind, the established dogma that cancer is a genetic disease rules everything — from the research that receives funding to how an oncologist treats you in the U.S. and other developed nations. This dogma is what fuels the entire cancer industry. However, Seyfried disagrees. He and others have been able to advance the theory that cancer is primarily the result of defective energy metabolism in, and damage to, the cells’ mitochondria.
Simply put, genetic mutations are not the primary cause of cancer but are, rather, a downstream effect of the defective energy metabolism. As long as your mitochondria remain healthy and functional, your chances of developing cancer are slim!
Seyfried is one of the pioneers in the application of nutritional ketosis for cancer, a therapy that stems from the work of Dr. Otto Warburg, one of the most brilliant biochemists of the 20th century. Warburg, a personal friend of Albert Einstein, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1931 for how cells obtain energy from respiration. He was even nominated for two additional Nobel’s.
His life’s mission was to find a cure for cancer. However, the findings from his work on cancer’s cause and cellular processes were largely ignored and ridiculed by the oncology research community because they were considered too simple and didn’t fit the genetic model.
Seyfried has followed in Warburg’s scientific footsteps. He conducts important research at Boston College to advance the metabolic theory of cancer and the crucial role nutritional ketosis plays in both prevention and treatment. Let’s learn more about how Seyfried’s important work is saving cancer patients’ lives — and what that might mean for you, too, if you develop cancer.
Meet Travis Christofferson
He is the author of one of the most profound books ever written about cancer: “Tripping Over the Truth.” In his book, Christofferson demonstrates in no uncertain terms why the conventional approach to cancer treatment is fatally flawed.
Describing the journey from discovery to today’s applications in very readable terms, he traces the development of metabolic therapy from Dr. Otto Warburg’s early work to Thomas Seyfried’s groundbreaking advancements. In 2013, Christofferson set up the nonprofit Single Cause Single Cure Foundation to support the research and clinical application of metabolic therapies for cancer patients. To learn more please copy and past this link into your address bar https://careoncology.com/
When this Blogger contacted Christofferson he told me about the COC Protocol which was developed to have wide-ranging anticancer activity with the potential to benefit patients with cancer of any stage, or type. Abundant existing data supports the individual use of each of the COC protocol medications in cancers of all types (including solid tumours and blood cancers).
Cancer Victim With Inoperable Brain Tumor and Just Months to Live Embraces the Ketogenic Diet
When Pablo Kelly, aged 25, started having migraines in 2013. Soon after nearly collapsing at work and experiencing a drooping of one side of his mouth, and then seizures, he feared something serious was happening to him. Pablo learned he had inoperable stage 4 glioblastoma multiforme, a deadly form of brain cancer. And he was told he had just months to live.
When doctors offered him radiation treatments and chemotherapy, he did the math and realized the survival statistics for his age were about 3 percent, and that was with up to 15 months of chemotherapy.
Without chemotherapy, he was told he had six to nine months. Pablo made a bold decision that went against his doctors’ beliefs and advice. He decided to decline all treatments and, instead, follow a ketogenic diet. His new eating plan excluded processed foods, refined sugars, starches, breads, grains and even root vegetables. Pablo felt he had nothing to lose by making a drastic change in his eating habits. Two years later, CT scans show no growth of his tumor.
He attributes his unusual success to his special diet, supplements and natural anti-inflammatories. Regularly, he fasts and restricts his calories. Pablo is convinced that the ketones his body produces during ketosis supply fuel to his healthy cells, and the lack of glucose helps starve and stabilize his tumor.
And here’s an exciting last minute update to his story: Pablo just wrote to Seyfried to tell him that, while his brain tumor was originally considered inoperable, it became operable after two years on ketogenic metabolic therapy. He recently had brain surgery and is currently doing very well!
This is Post is Managing Cancer as a Metabolic Disease Part One
Part Two with more success stories will follow next week.
I invite you to Follow my Blog, Facebook or be added to my email distribution list. My focus is to maximize my physical performance and mental clarity, body composition, and most importantly overall health with a wholesome diet and exercise.
I will bring you compelling articles on Ketogenic and GAPS diets, the Super Slow High-Intensity Exercise Program and supplements.
To follow my Blog, please click the Follow button to receive an email when the next posting is available. Hint: You may have to click the Accept and Close button before follow is available.
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Disclaimer: The content of this email or Post is not intended for the treatment or prevention of disease, nor as a substitute for medical treatment, nor as an alternative to medical advice. Use of recommendations is at the choice and risk of the reader.
This is the second of two Posts. In the first Post Thomas N. Seyfried Ph.D., in his down-to-earth no nonsense style,discusses his latest cancer research. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APwnkpD_BfI
For those who are suffering with or know someone who is suffering with cancer, my hope is that you watch the video and then present the video and the paper to your doctor.
Your knowledge may convince the doctor consider this approach that uses food and no radiation or chemotherapy.
NIH Paper: Nuclear Transfer Experiments disproved the gene theory of cancer, Dr. Seyfried’s scientific paper with the 243 supporting studies.
This Post highlights some of the important points of Dr. Seyfried’s research paper.
Emerging evidence indicates that cancer is primarily a metabolic disease involving disturbances in energy production through respiration and fermentation. The genomic instability observed in tumor cells and all other recognized hallmarks of cancer are considered downstream epiphenomena of the initial disturbance of cellular energy metabolism.
Cancer growth and progression can be managed following a whole body transition from fermentable metabolites, primarily glucose and glutamine, to respiratory metabolites, primarily ketone bodies.
Introduction: A major impediment in the effort to control cancer has been due in large part to the confusion surrounding the origin of the disease.
Provocative question: does cancer arise from somatic mutations? Most of those who conduct academic research on cancer would consider it a type of somatic genetic disease where damage to a cell’s nuclear DNA underlies the transformation of a normal cell into a potentially lethal cancer cell.
Inconsistencies with a nuclear gene origin of cancer. Inconsistencies regarding the somatic nuclear gene theory of cancer come from nuclear/cytoplasmic transfer experiments between tumorigenic and non-tumorigenic cells. Several investigators showed that tumorigenicity is suppressed when cytoplasm from non-tumorigenic cells, containing normal mitochondria, is combined with nuclei from tumor cells. Moreover, the in vivo tumorigenicity of multiple human and animal tumor types is suppressed when the nucleus from the tumor cell is introduced into the cytoplasm of a nontumorigenic cell. Tumors generally did not form despite the continued presence of the tumor-associated mutations.
The conclusion that cancer can be best defined as a type of mitochondrial disease. The nuclear transfer studies are summarized in Figure 1, highlighting the role of the mitochondria in suppressing tumorigenesis.
Fig. 1. Role of the nucleus and mitochondria in the origin of tumors.This image summarizes the experimental evidence supporting a dominant role of the mitochondria in the origin of tumorigenesis as described previously. Normal cells are depicted in green with mitochondrial and nuclear morphology indicative of normal respiration and nuclear gene expression, respectively. Tumor cells are depicted in red with abnormal mitochondrial and nuclear morphology indicative of abnormal respiration and genomic instability. (1) Normal cells beget normal cells. (2) Tumor cells beget tumor cells. (3) Delivery of a tumor cell nucleus into a normal cell cytoplasm begets normal cells despite the persistence of tumor-associated genomic abnormalities. (4) Delivery of a normal cell nucleus into a tumor cell cytoplasm begets tumor cells or dead cells but not normal cells. The results suggest that tumors do not arise from nuclear genomic defects alone and that normal mitochondria can suppress tumorigenesis.
Respiratory insufficiency as the origin of cancer and the ‘Warburg effect’… there is only one common cause into which all other causes of cancer merge, the irreversible injuring of respiration.
The key points of Warburg’s theory are:
(i) insufficient respiration initiates tumorigenesis and ultimately cancer,
(ii) energy through glycolysis gradually compensates for insufficient energy through respiration,
(iii) cancer cells continue to ferment lactate in the presence of oxygen and
(iv) respiratory insufficiency eventually becomes irreversible (54–58).
Mitochondrial structure is intimately connected to mitochondrial function. …
Fig. 2. Typical ultrastructure of a normal mitochondrion and a mitochondrion from a human glioblastoma. Normal mitochondria contain elaborate cristae, which are extensions of the inner membrane and contain the protein complexes of the electron transport chain necessary for producing ATP through OxPhos. The mitochondrion from the glioblastoma (m) is enlarged and shows a near total breakdown of cristae (cristolysis) and an electronlucent matrix. The absence of cristae in glioblastoma mitochondria indicates that OxPhos would be deficient. The arrow indicates an inner membrane fold.
Cristae contain the proteins of the respiratory complexes and play an essential structural role in facilitating energy production through OxPhos.
It is obvious that mitochondrial function or OxPhos sufficiency cannot be normal in tumor cells that contain few if any mitochondria. Glycolysis and lactate fermentation would need to be upregulated in these tumor cells in order to compensate for the absence of OxPhos.
Connecting the links from respiratory insufficiency to cancer origin. The path from normal cell physiology to malignant behavior, where all major cancer hallmarks are expressed, is depicted in Figure 3.Any unspecific condition that damages a cell’s respiratory capacity but is not severe enough to kill the cell can potentially initiate thepath to a malignant cancer. Reduced respiratory capacity could arisefrom damage to any mitochondrial protein, lipid or mtDNA. Someof the many unspecific conditions that can diminish a cell’s respiratorycapacity thus initiating carcinogenesis include inflammation,carcinogens, radiation (ionizing or ultraviolet), intermittent hypoxia,rare germline mutations, viral infections and age.
Fig. 3. Mitochondrial respiratory dysfunction as the origin of cancer. Cancer can arise from any number of non-specific events that damage the respiratory capacity of cells over time. The path to carcinogenesis will occur only in those cells capable of enhancing energy production through fermentation (substrate level phosphorylation, SLP). Despite the shift from respiration to SLP the ΔG′ of ATP hydrolysis remains fairly constant at approximately −56 kJ indicating that the energy from SLP compensates for the reduced energy from OxPhos. The mitochondrial stress response or retrograde signaling will initiate oncogene upregulation and tumor suppressor gene inactivation that are necessary to maintain viability of incipient cancer cells when respiration becomes unable to maintain energy homeostasis. Genomic instability will arise as a secondary consequence of protracted mitochondrial stress from disturbances in the intracellular and extracellular microenvironment. Metastasis arises from respiratory damage in cells of myeloid/macrophage origin. The degree of malignancy is linked directly to the energy transition from OxPhos to SLP. This scenario links all major cancer hallmarks to an extrachromosomal respiratory dysfunction. The T signifies an arbitrary threshold when the shift from OxPhos to SLP might become irreversible.
Can tumor somatic mutations arise as a downstream epiphenomenon of abnormal energy metabolism? Evidence indicates that a persistent retrograde response or mitochondrial stress response leads to abnormalities in DNA repair mechanisms and to the upregulation of fermentation pathways. Oncogene upregulation becomes essential for increased glucose and glutamine metabolism following respiratory impairment.
The metabolic waste products of fermentation can destabilize the morphogenetic field of the tumor microenvironment thus contributing to inflammation, angiogenesis and progression. Normal mitochondrial function is necessary for maintaining intracellular calcium homeostasis, which is required for chromosomal integrity and the fidelity of cell division. Aneuploidy can arise during cell division from abnormalities in calcium homeostasis. In this general picture, the abnormal genomic landscape seen in tumor cells is considered a downstream epiphenomenon of dysfunctional respiration and protracted oncogene-driven fermentation. In other words, the somatic mutations arise as effects rather than as causes of tumorigenesis. The nuclear transfer experiments support this view (Figure 1).
Exploiting mitochondrial dysfunction for the metabolic management of cancer.If cancer is primarily a disease of energy metabolism, then rationalstrategies for cancer management should be found in those therapiesthat specifically target tumor cell energy metabolism. These therapeuticstrategies should be applicable to the majority of cancers regardlessof tissue origin, as nearly all cancers suffer from a commonmalady, i.e. insufficient respiration with compensatory fermentation.
As glucose is the major fuel for tumor energy metabolism through lactate fermentation, the restriction of glucose becomes a prime target for management. It is well known that ketones can replace glucose as an energy metabolite and can protect the brain from severe hypoglycaemia. Hence, the shift in energy metabolism associated with a low carbohydrate, high-fat Ketogenic diet administered in restricted amounts (KD-R) can protect normal cells from glycolytic inhibition and the brain from hypoglycemia.
The metabolic shift from glucose metabolism to ketone body metabolism creates an anti-angiogenic, anti-inflammatory and proapoptotic environment within the tumor mass. The general concept of a survival advantage of tumor cells over normal cells occurs when fermentable fuels are abundant, but not when they are limited. Figure 5 illustrates the changes in whole body levels of blood glucose and ketone bodies (β-hydroxybutyrate) that will metabolically stress tumor cells while enhancing the metabolic efficiency of normal cells.
Implications for novel therapeutics. Once the whole body enters the metabolic zone described in Figure 5,relatively low doses of a variety of drugs can be used to further targetenergy metabolism in any surviving tumor cells. It is interestingthat the therapeutic success of imatinib (Gleevec) and trastuzumab(Herceptin) in managing BCR-ABL leukemia cells and ErbB2-positive breast cancers, respectively, is dependent on their ability to target signalling pathways linked to glucose metabolism.
Fig. 5. Relationship of circulating levels of glucose and ketones (β-hydroxybutyrate) to tumor management. The glucose and ketone values are within normal physiological ranges under fasting conditions in humans and will produce anti-angiogenic, anti-inflammatory and pro-apoptotic effects. We refer to this state as the zone of metabolic management. Metabolic stress will be greater in tumor cells than in normal cells when the whole body enters the metabolic zone. The values for blood glucose in mg/dl can be estimated by multiplying the mM values by 18. The glucose and ketone levels predicted for tumor management in human cancer patients are 3.1–3.8 mM (55–65 mg/dl) and 2.5–7.0 mM, respectively. These ketone levels are well below the levels associated with ketoacidosis (blood ketone values greater than 15 mmol). Elevated ketones will protect the brain from hypoglycemia.
Poff et al. also recently showed a synergistic interaction between the KD and hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBO2T) (Figure 6). A dependency on glucose and an inability to use ketones for energy makes tumor cells selectively vulnerable to this therapy.
Besides drugs that target glucose, drugs that target glutamine can also be effective in killing systemic metastatic cancer cells.
The novelty of the metabolic approach to cancer managementinvolves the implementation of a synergistic combination of nutritionalketosis, cancer metabolic drugs and HBO2T. … This therapeutic strategy produces a shift in metabolic physiology that will not only kill tumor cells but also enhance the general health and metabolic efficiency of normal cells, and consequently the whole body. We view this therapeutic approach as a type of ‘mitochondrial enhancement therapy’.
Fig. 6. The KD and HBO2T (hyperbaric oxygen therapy) are synergistic in reducing systemic metastatic cancer in the syngeneic VM mouse model.
Advanced metastatic cancers can become manageable when their access to fermentable fuels becomes restricted. The metabolic shift associated with the KD-R involves ‘keto-adaptation’. However, the adaptation to this new metabolic state can be challenging for some people. The administration of ketone esters could conceivably enable patients to circumvent the dietary restriction generally required for sustained nutritional ketosis.
Definitions:
Angiogenic, formation of new blood vessels;
Apoptotic, programmed cell death;
Carcinogenesis, origin of cancer;
Cytoplasm, the material of a cell exclusive of that of the nucleus;
Epiphenomena, symptoms;
Extrachromosomal, outside the chromosome;
Fermentation, production of energy from a fuel;
Genome, hereditary factors;
Glioblastoma, A malignant tumor usually occurring in the cerebrum of adults;
Glycolysis, conversion of glucose resulting in energy;
Hypoglycaemia, Abnormally low levels of sugar (glucose) in the blood.
Respiration, the oxidative process occurring within living cells by which the chemical energy of organic molecules is converted into energy involving the consumption of oxygen and the production of carbon dioxide and water as byproducts;
Tumorigenic, cause tumours relating to the development of tumours;
I hope that these two Posts help you along the way to conquering cancer.
I invite you to Follow my Blog, Facebook or be added to my email distribution list. My focus is to maximize my physical performance and mental clarity, body composition, and most importantly overall health with a wholesome diet and exercise.
I will bring you compelling articles on Ketogenic and GAPS diets, the Super Slow High-Intensity Exercise Program and supplements.
To follow my Blog, please click the Follow button to receive an email when the next posting is available. Hint: You may have to click the Accept and Close button before follow is available.
I thrive on feedback. Please let me know you are interested in the content by clicking Like, Commenting or sending me a message or email about the Post.
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I would like to dedicate this Post to friends who lost their battle with cancer. This is for you Anne and Holly.
In this first PostThomas N. Seyfried Ph.D., in his down-to-earth no nonsense style,discusses his latest cancer research. Learn more about Dr. Seyfried in his Blog https://tomseyfried.com/blog/
Source: A Novel Therapeutic Strategy For Metabolic Management of Cancer
Thomas N. Seyfried received his Ph.D. in Genetics and Biochemistry from the University of Illinois, Urbana, in 1976. He did his undergraduate work at the University of New England, where he recently received the distinguished Alumni Achievement Award. He also holds a Master’s degree in Genetics from Illinois State University. Thomas Seyfried served with distinction in the United States Army’s First Cavalry Division during the Vietnam War and received numerous medals and commendations. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Neurology at the Yale University School of Medicine and then served on the faculty as an Assistant Professor in Neurology.
In his presentation, “A Novel Therapeutic Strategy For The Metabolic Management Of Cancer”, he discusses his latest research in treating and preventing cancer. In addition to his research on the ketogenic diet, he adds a new component, which adds drugs and procedures that create both chronic and intermittent acute stress on tumor cell energy metabolism, while protecting and enhancing the energy metabolism of normal cells. He calls this the “press- pulse” therapeutic strategy for cancer management is an approach, which includes the calorie restricted ketogenic diets used together with drugs and procedures.
A shift from respiration to fermentation is a common metabolic hallmark of cancer cells. As a result, glucose and glutamine become the prime fuels for driving the dysregulated growth of tumors. Press disturbances produce chronic stress, while pulse disturbances produce acute stress on populations. It was only when both disturbances coincide that population reduction occurred.
This general concept can be applied to the management of cancer by creating chronic metabolic stresses on tumor cell energy metabolism (press disturbance) that are coupled to a series of acute metabolic stressors that restrict glucose and glutamine availability while also stimulating cancer-specific oxidative stress (pulse disturbances), elevation of non- fermentable ketone bodies protect normal cells from energy stress while further enhancing energy stress in tumor cells that lack the metabolic exibility to use ketones as an efficient energy source.
Mitochondrial abnormalities and genetic mutations make tumor cells vulnerable metabolic stress. Optimization of dosing, timing, and scheduling of the press-pulse therapeutic strategy will facilitate the eradication of tumor cells with minimal patient toxicity. This therapeutic strategy can be used as a framework for the design of clinical trials for the non-toxic management of most cancers.
This video Post is the first of 2 parts. The second is Dr. Seyfried’s scientific paper with the 243 supporting studies.
For those who are suffering with or know someone who is suffering with cancer, my hope is that you watch the video and then present the video and the paper to the attending doctor.
Your knowledge may help the doctor consider this approach that uses food and no radiation or chemotherapy. To help you there are Definitions and Abbreviationsat the end of this post.
Part Two is in the next Post: Nuclear Transfer Experiments disproved the gene theory of cancer
I invite you to Follow my Blog, Facebook or be added to my email distribution list. My focus is to maximize my physical performance and mental clarity, body composition, and most importantly overall health with a wholesome diet and exercise.
I will bring you compelling articles on Ketogenic and GAPS diets, the Super Slow High-Intensity Exercise Program and supplements.
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Dr. Raymond Francis says, there is an enormous amount of misunderstanding about genes. Our physicians blame everything on age. Wrong! By themselves, genes do not determine our sickness or health. It’s the instructions the genes receive that are responsible for our health and performance.
I believe the best way to predict my future is to create it. I believe your health is not determined by your genetics. To do that, I make it a daily habit to find ways to keep healthy.
From Dr. Natasha McBride: Do you recommend genetic testing?
Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride holds a degree in Medicine and Postgraduate degrees in both Neurology and Human Nutrition. In her clinic in Cambridge she specializes in nutrition for children and adults with behavioral and learning disabilities, and adults with digestive and immune system disorders.
ANSWER: I would recommend that you look into the new science of epigenetics. The upshot of it is that our genetics DO NOT determine our destiny! We are all equipped with a huge choice of genes to use. Who chooses which genes to use on a daily basis? The environment, of which your diet is one of the most important factors. Depending on what you eat on a daily basis, what chemicals you are exposed to and other environmental factors, YOU CHOOSE which genes in your body you are going to express and which genes are going to stay dormant. So, whatever genetics you were born with are not important; it is the environmental factors that you choose for yourself that predetermine your health. The only exception to this rule is a small group of genetic diseases, such as Down’s syndrome.
What follows is a summary of one of chapters of Dr. Raymond Francis’s book, The Great American Health Hoax.
When it comes to disease, we control our genes: our genes do not control us. Most genes are DNA codes. They respond to instructions we give them. We instruct our genes through the cellular environments we create with our lifestyle choices.
All of us have genetic predisposition to certain ailments, but that doesn’t mean we will develop problems. In order to get the ailment, specific genes have to be activated and express in a certain way. So don’t activate them!
A good diet, exercise, meditation, sunlight, fresh air, adequate sleep, systemic alkalinity, a normal sodium/potassium balance, limiting toxic exposures, detoxification, hormonal balance and a positive attitude create an optimal cellular environment for genetic expression. When you do this right, you will maintain normal chemistry in your cells. Normal chemistry gives genes healthy instructions, keeping disease turned off.
Genes get damaged and repaired all the time. Ideally, repair keeps pace with damage. When it does not, mutations occur. Mutations introduce chaos into biological systems, leading to cancer and other types of disease. Another kind of damage, epigenetic change, alters gene function without altering the DNA code. These come from environmental chemicals and poor nutrition interacting with genes and interfering with their normal expression. Mutated genes and epigenetic changes can both be passed down through generations.
Life in the twenty-first century is damaging our genes and creating mutations in unprecedented ways and at an alarming rate. You can stop much of this damage by avoiding toxins, as well as ionizing and nonionizing radiation wherever possible.
Support DNA repair by optimizing your nutrient intake, especially vitamins B3, B6, and B12; folate; zinc; and L-carnrtine. Most Americans are deficient in one or more of these nutrients.Unless you supply the nutrients the body needs to make DNA repairs, the job will go undone and genetic mutations will result.
Raymond Francis, D.Sc., M.Sc., RNC hasbeen called a “brilliant advanced thinker” and has been cited as “one of the few scientists who has achieved a breakthrough understanding of health and disease.”
Raymond is an internationally recognized leader in the field of optimal-health maintenance and a pioneer in transforming our failed disease-care system to a true health-care system.
He is a chemist by training, a graduate of M.I.T., a bestselling author, and a world-class speaker.
He has written five breakthrough books, the international bestseller Never Be Sick Again, Never Be Fat Again, Never Fear Cancer Again, Never Feel Old Again, and The Great American Health Hoax. Here is the link to The Great American Health Hoax, you can read part of the book on line https://www.amazon.ca/Great-American-Health-Hoax-Disease-Free/dp/0757318495
I invite you to Follow my Blog, Facebook or be added to my email distribution list. My focus is to maximize my physical performance and mental clarity, body composition, and most importantly overall health with a wholesome diet and exercise.
I will bring you compelling articles on Ketogenic and GAPS diets, the Super Slow High-Intensity Exercise Program and supplements.
To follow my Blog, please click the Follow button to receive an email when the next posting is available. Hint: You may have to click the Accept and Close button before follow is available.
I thrive on feedback. Please let me know you are interested in the content by clicking Like, Commenting or sending me a message or email about the Post.
If you wish to contact me by Email, please email lpolstra@bell.net using this form.
Disclaimer: The content of this email or Post is not intended for the treatment or prevention of disease, nor as a substitute for medical treatment, nor as an alternative to medical advice. Use of recommendations is at the choice and risk of the reader.
In this video Dr. Natasha explains when you should see a mainstream doctor and how the body can kick-start its own healing process for many degenerative diseases – even when things seem hopeless. (This video is Part 2 of 3 videos.)
Here is the link:
GAPS Pt. 2: Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride
INTERVIEWER: I don’t think I’ve ever heard so many medical issues explained so clearly and a connection made so clearly as I did yesterday in your session. Why don’t we hear more?
Please see last week’s 2healthyhabits post for Part 1:
DR. NATASHA MCBRIDE: Well mainstream medicine has its own priorities in its own aims, which can be very different from what the individual might want.
Mainstream medicine has its place in healing. There are all sorts of forms of healing. Mainstream medicine has its place. If you got run over by a car for example, you don’t want to be taken to a homeopath or to nutritionists. You need mainstream medicine and fast.
So mainstream medicine is very good for dealing with extreme and emergency situations. They can repair you quite quickly.
But when it comes to chronic degenerative conditions, mainstream medicine doesn’t have much to offer to the patient’s, because the way it’s designed, the way it’s structured and the way it’s run, it is not interested anymore in finding out what actually causes the disorder.
And secondly, because they don’t know what causes most of these conditions. How do you treat it?
They only can deal with the symptoms, the details of the problem. To try to remove that symptom, remove this symptom.
But symptoms have a purpose.How else is your body going to tell you that there is a problem inside? It’s going tell you through symptoms, through pain, through inflammation, through some other symptoms, through swelling in that place and limitation of the movement in that place.
So when you get symptoms it’s your own body calling for help to you.
But what our mainstream medicine is designed to do is to deal with the symptoms to remove the symptoms. So they’re basically telling the body be quiet. Stop calling for help and suffer in silence. When that happens long enough, because the problem hasn’t been dealt with inside the body, it causes much more damage than they would’ve done if it was dealt with earlier and the person comes up with a much more severe condition later on when the symptomatic measures don’t work anymore.
So at the end of the day a human body is a marvellous, marvellous machine. It has been designed by nature in a perfect way. It can heal itself, it knows what it’s doing. It is restructuring itself all the time and it’s self-regenerating all the time. Old cells get shed off all the time and replaced by newly born cells.
So all the body really needs is good food and removing the damaging substances.
It is within your body, the power to heal is within your body.
That’s what I teach people to do take the power back to yourself. Heal yourself with your own body and your own means natural means and heal your children and heal your family the same way. That works.
INTERVIEWER: That is one thing that really stood out for me yesterday was, so many people have started to think of their body as you know broken deficient or the children’s body that way and your message is really one of empowerment.
DR. NATASHA MCBRIDE:Absolutely.
Take the power back to you. So don’t give it away to anyone. No matter how well position that person might be, no matter how much an expert or something rather they position themselves to be. Your own body is infinitely clever.
Next week I will post Part 3: Dr. Natasha talks about the healing wisdom of our bodies.
It is my desire to follow the GAPS diet for nutritional healing of the gut and therefore the brain and the rest of the body. I will also use the macros of the Ketogenic diet to control body fat. Thank you for reading my Posts. It will be an interesting journey.
Disclaimer: The content of this email is not intended for the treatment or prevention of disease, nor as a substitute for medical treatment, nor as an alternative to medical advice. Use of recommendations is at the choice and risk of the reader.
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As always, I am interested in your thoughts on these topics. Is there any topic that I can research for you? Please let me know. Thank you.
2HealthyHabits 