You have cancer, and there’s lots you can do

Posted on November 20, 2016 by G. Belanger

Everybody knows that cancer rates are rising everywhere and every year. Everybody also knows that the words, “You have cancer. I am sorry.”, fall upon us like a death sentence. Everybody knows this, because we see it all around us, everywhere we look, and we hear about it every day, everywhere we turn.

If a doctor has, indeed, said these words to us, then we are probably scared, probably very scared. We know that basically everyone we have ever heard of who were diagnosed with cancer, died. Sometimes they died really quickly, like, within a few weeks. Sometimes they died within a few months. Sometimes it wasn’t so quick. Maybe it took a year of two, or three, or even five. They went through rounds of chemo. They were on sick leave at home for months on end. They sometimes appeared to recover at some point, maybe a bit, for a little while, but in the end, they died. And they died of cancer.

We also know that not even the most famous and richest people, like Steve Jobs, for example, can escape this kiss of death that the diagnosis of cancer delivers. Wealth and power are irrelevant when it comes to our prognosis as cancer patients: it is always bad. Of course, how bad it is depends on the kind of cancer, but why is it that so many different people, in so many different places, die of cancer every day?

I won’t venture into formulating an answer to this question, and I won’t dwell on cancer survival statistics. I don’t think it’s useful for us right now. I want to hurry and move to the good news. And the good news is that there many things you can do to help your body rid itself of cancer, which is usually the result of a long-standing disease process that has evolved over a lifetime, and has finally manifested itself in this way. This presentation of the question at hand is definitely not exhaustive, nor attempting to be. But this is what I consider to be some of the essential elements.

White blood cells (shown in blue) attacking cancer cells (shown in red).

Understanding cancer

To understand cancer, we have to understand the origin of cancer cells. Cells become cancerous due to a defect in energy production, a mitochondrial dysfunction, an inability to manufacture enough ATP (adenosine triphosphate) through oxidation of glucose or fatty acids to sustain the cell’s functions. This forces the cell to fall back on anaerobic (without oxygen) fermentation of glucose to supplement the deficient energy production from the dysfunctional or reduced number of mitochondria. Fermentation produces an increase in lactic acid in and around the cell. This decreases the availability of oxygen to the mitochondria, which further impedes their ability to produce ATP through oxidation of nutrients, and creates a negative feedback loop that pushes towards further mitochondrial stress and dysfunction, less oxidation, more fermentation, more acid, and less available oxygen.

Because energy production through fermentation is so very inefficient, the cell needs far more glucose, and naturally develops more insulin receptors in order to be ever more sensitive to, and able to capture circulating glucose more effectively. Cancer cells often have 10 times more insulin receptors than healthy cells. What should be clear is that it doesn’t matter where the cancer is, and it doesn’t matter how it evolved, whether it was due to a gradual evolution from an environment too high in glucose, lacking in oxygen, and saturated with acid, or whether it was due to exposure to a toxin or mitochondrial poison, of which there are many and increasingly more in our environment. In the final analysis, this is how cancer cells become how they are, and this is how they survive.

As to their multiplication and proliferation from a single or small group of microscopic cells to large macroscopic tumours in one spot or all over the place, this can be understood by considering that the cell that is devolving from its normal function to that of cell whose only function is to ferment glucose at the fastest possible rate, loses, little by little, the ability to do whatever it was doing before, by losing the ability to produce ATP that can be used by its different specialised parts and constituents to perform their specialised functions, the cell becomes less and less specialised, less and less differentiated and therefore more and more general and more and more primitive, to the point where the essential ability of the cell to destroy itself, when something in its workings has gone wrong, is lost. Having lost this safeguard, the primitive, the undifferentiated, but also necessarily abnormal and weakened cell, just ferments and multiplies, limited only by its ability to fuel itself and sustain this most basic activity of survival without other purpose but this survival in and of itself.

Removing cancer

Having recognised and understood this, the strategy by which we can help the body rid itself of the cancer cells, and regain its healthy physiological functions becomes clear. We have to 1) do all we can to cut off the source of fuel to the cancer cells, 2) clear out the accumulated acids and transform the acidic environment into one that is alkaline and oxygen-rich, 3) help restore the cells’ mechanism of apoptosis—their ability to self-destruct, and 4) do everything else we can to further weaken and destroy cancer cells by means that simultaneously strengthen healthy cells. It’s a simple strategy that is also simple to put into practice, as we will see in a moment.

1) Starve the cancer cells

The first point is to cut off the fuel to the cancer cells. The source of fuel is glucose, because cancer cells can only ferment and cannot oxidise, and the way the glucose is supplied to the cell is by the action of insulin that moves it across the cell membrane. Therefore, what has to be done to is minimise the availability of glucose, and, more important still, minimise the availability of insulin to shuttle the glucose into the cells. The lower the glucose, the less potential fuel there will be. The lower the insulin, the less glucose will actually be able to enter cells. There is no real lower limit. Without ingesting any carbohydrates, the body maintains and regulates blood sugar according to the stress levels and kinds of activities we engage in, independently of how low insulin levels are. And so, the focus should be to have the lowest possible insulin levels naturally.

The fastest way to lower blood sugar, but especially insulin, is to fast, to stop eating altogether, and just drink water and herbal tea, remembering to eat enough salt to match the water intake. The second best way of doing this is in form very similar, but turns out to be much easier to do, is also a kind of water fasting, but with the addition of fat from coconut oil and butter, melted in the herbal teas. Both of these forms of fasting will most effectively deprive the body of anything that can easily be made into glucose, and of anything that will stimulate the secretion of insulin, thereby will allow glucose to drop as low as possible, but more importantly, insulin to drop and stay at an absolute minimum, and therefore most effectively starving cancer cells, no matter where they are in the body and bodily fluids, in the tissues and organs. The first form of the classic water fast is harder, but many people do it without hesitation nor difficulty. The second form is much easier, and may even be more effective in inducing a deep state of ketosis given the additional intake of medium chain fatty acids.

We can easily imagine doing such a fat “fast” for days, or even weeks, depending on the severity of the situation, our resolve to suffocate and starve the cancer cells as quickly as possible, and, of course, the state and circumstances in which we find ourselves. In addition, we can do this as much as possible on any given day, independently of what else we eat. The more fat and the less carbohydrate we ingest, the lower the insulin and the more effective the anti-cancer healing protocol will be.

The third option is to eat and drink to keep insulin levels as low as possible. Here again, because fat is the macronutrient that stimulates the least secretion of insulin, truly minimal, it should be the main source of calories. Simple carbohydrates and starches are most insulinogenic, and protein is about half as insulinogenic as are carbs. Indigestible fibre does not stimulate insulin. Therefore, in the extreme, we would eat only fat, pure fat. The best ones being the most natural and least processed, most saturated and least unsaturated: coconut fat, butter, animal fat and, the best of the vegetable oils, cold pressed olive oil.

It’s important to understand the difference between having low blood sugar, and having low insulin levels. The first is like the amount of food in the kitchens of the restaurant, the second is like the waiter bringing it to the table. It is far, far more important in our efforts to stop the supply to cancer cells that we keep insulin levels as low as possible, than it is to try to keep glucose levels low. And to push the point further, it doesn’t really matter what the amount of glucose actually is, because as long as insulin is low, it will not be brought into the cell, into the cancer cells. The reason I emphasise this is because lack of sleep, emotional or psychological stress, intense physical exercise will all raise blood sugar levels temporarily, in some instances, to high levels. But as long as insulin is as low as it can be, the sugar will not be readily transported into the cells.

Naturally, we cannot have zero insulin, because we would die: our cells would literally starve to death, no matter how much we ate. Babies with a genetic defect that makes their pancreas not able to produce insulin always died of emancipation before the discovery and subsequent commercialisation of insulin as medicine. Similarly, if at any point in a child’s or adult person’s life, insulin stops being produced, incredible weakness and emancipation will follow, before it is tested and identified as the cause of their problem, hopefully in time before permanent damage ensues. Therefore, there is always some insulin in circulation, and therefore, sugar will eventually make its way into at least some cancer cells. This is why it is important to keep it as low as we possibly can naturally, and this is how we can appreciate the essential difference between the effects of high glucose and high insulin.

In a less extreme form than the fat-fast, we maintain low sugar and low insulin by getting and deriving most of our energy from fat. Eating cucumber or celery with almond butter or tahini, for example, or a green leafy salad with lots of olive oil, walnuts, and avocado, provides basically all calories from the fat, given that cucumber, celery and lettuce greens, are basically just water and indigestible fibre, while almond butter and tahini are 80\% fat by calories, and walnuts are 84\%. So is coconut milk, for example, at nearly 90\%, and dark 85\% chocolate, at 84\% fat based on calories. Focusing on feeding the body with these kinds of healthful, high-fat foods, will nourish, stimulate healing, and keep insulin and glucose levels as low as we can without either water fasting, or consuming only fat.

2) Alkalise to remove and excrete accumulated acids

The second point is just as important as the first, because it is the environment in which the cells live that actually has the most direct effect on their function. We have looked at the importance of achieving and maintaining an alkaline environment in the body in several other places. The essence is excellent hydration with alkaline water (pH>8) combined with the intake of proportional amounts of unrefined salt to promote the release of acids from the tissues, and its excretion through the urine by the kidneys. Without proper hydration, the cells will retain the acid with the little water they have to hold on to. Without proper amounts of salt, the kidneys will also retain the acid in order to maintain the concentration gradient that allows the nephron to function when it re-absorbs water.

Naturally, alkaline water will work infinitely more effectively. But the most important detail is the controlled balance between water and salt intake, and what we want is a lot of water and a lot of salt. We cannot take in large amounts of salt water without getting loose stools. So, it has to be smoothly distributed throughout the day, except in the morning, when we get up, because we are dehydrated, and need to drink about 1 litre of water over the course of one to two hours, before we start taking salt.

If you buy mineral or spring water, find the one that has the highest pH value. It should be greater than at least 8. If you have a water filter at home, then add alkalising drops to it before drinking it. I use Dr. Young’s PuripHy drops.

As acidity decreases, and the environment becomes more alkaline, oxygen will flow more freely, and become more available to mitochondria for oxidising fatty acids in producing energy. Remember that cancer cells do not use oxygen, and cannot use fatty acids to fuel themselves, whereas normal, healthy cells, not only can, but function much more efficiently on fat rather than glucose as their primary fuel. Adding chlorophyll and fresh juice of green vegetables to the alkaline water is an excellent way to further boost alkalisation, neutralisation, and elimination of accumulated metabolic acids. Unlike the first step, which is to lower insulin and glucose levels, and that can be done, to a great extent, literally overnight under fasting conditions, alkalising to eliminate accumulated acids is something that takes time. But in both cases, what matters most is consistency. Hour by hour, and day after day, the body will do what it needs to do as best is can, and improve in these functions with time.

Beyond this fundamental necessity to hydrate with alkaline water throughout the day, and day after day, the most therapeutic way to alkalise the tissues, and detoxify the body, is by taking medicinal baths in which we add two cups of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), and two cups of magnesium chloride (nigari), or magnesium sulphate (epsom salts), if nigari is not available. This is easy, relaxing, extremely medicinal, and very effective in neutralising and eliminating acids and toxins from the body. In fighting cancer, you should be soaking in this kind of hot bath for 45-60 minutes three times per week. The benefits of this ultra simple trans-dermal therapy with sodium bicarbonate and magnesium are incredible. You can read a lot more about this from the baking soda, magnesium and iodine doctor, Dr Sircus.

3) Restore cellular self-destruct function

The third line of action is also essential, and it only requires you to take a few key supplements. The most important of these in the fight agains cancer is iodine, because of its fundamental role both in the structure and architecture of cells, but also in the regulation of apoptosis, the process by which a damaged cell will self-destruct when things have gone wrong somewhere. The importance of iodine cannot be overemphasised. And in healing cancer, or any serious disease condition, we will want to take high doses daily. Doses of at least 50 mg, but preferably 100 mg.

However, because of its very strong detoxification effects, as it pushes out all accumulated toxic halogens out of the cells to replace these by iodine in its proper place, we must work up to these high doses gradually, starting with 12.5 mg, and increasing the dosage as quickly as possible given the body’s response to it. Some people , maybe most, will experience headaches and possible nausea when starting on iodine. This is perfectly normal. The stronger the reaction, the more indicative of the body’s level of toxicity. Therefore, you should always view this as something good, in that toxins are being excreted out of your cells. It is important to support the detoxification process by taking chlorella and spirulina, probiotics and psyllium husks every day as well, while always drinking a lot of alkaline water with added chlorophyll for extra cleansing, if possible.

What I take and consider to be the best supplement is Iodoral by Optimox. Optimox recommends taking the iodine on an empty stomach for faster absorption, but it can also be taken with food for slower and possibly better assimilation. In addition, although iodine can easily be taken on an empty stomach, the co-factors, which include B vitamins, are much better taken with food to avoid potential nausea or queasiness. Moreover, taking it with food will slow down the absorption, and thereby decrease the negative sensations from the detoxification effects. The only thing is that iodine, given its stimulation of thyroid function, will energise the body. Therefore, it should be taken before midday. I take it either first thing in the morning or at lunch (or both).

You can read about the importance and functions of iodine in the following three books: Iodine, Why You Need It, Why You Can’t Live Without It by Dr. Brownstein; What Doctors Fail to Tell You About Iodine and Your Thyroid by Dr. Thompson; and The iodine crisis: what you don’t know about iodine can wreck your life by L. Farrow. There are also many web resources and highly informative forums about iodine and cancer. You can search for the words iodine and cancer to see for yourself.

Other fundamentally important micronutrients are vitamins B12 and D, both of which are needed for proper cellular function, and DNA transcription and replication, because of their roles in the nucleus of cells, activating and de-activating, switching on and off genes, to ensure everything in the cell works as it should. For best and fastest results—and that’s definitely what we need in our fighting cancer—B12 should be injected weekly in the amount of 1 mg, and in the form of methylcobalamin. (For optimal health in normal circumstances, it can be injected once a month in the amount of 5 mg.) Vitamin D should be taken with its sister vitamins, A and K2, for synergistic effects and biochemical balance in their functions. Each of these have complimentary roles, and should generally be taken together, unless there is a reason not to. You can read these two articles published by Chris Masterjohn from the Weston A. Price Foundation to learn why and how: On the trail of the elusive X-factor: a sixty two year old mystery finally solved, and Update on vitamins A and D.

It is by supporting proper cellular function, especially in the nucleus, with iodine, B12 and D, that cells will regain, little by little, the ability to recognise that they are damaged and need to self-destruct. There will always be millions or even billions of cells involved in the disease process we call cancer, but they will be distributed along a wide spectrum of dysfunction, from having very mildly impaired mitochondrial function from a light oxygen deficit cause by a little too much acid in the environment surrounding the cell, to full cancer cells that derive 100% of their energy needs from anaerobic fermentation without using any oxygen at all, and thriving in extremely acidic conditions.

Hence, many cells will die from being starved of glucose, because that’s the only fuel they can use; many cells will recover enough of their normal regulatory mechanisms to know its time to self-destruct; and many cells will actually regain their healthy function, repair their damaged parts, and replace their dysfunctional mitochondria with new ones. Nothing is ever black and white when it comes to cells and cellular function. Instead, everything is grey. But it is a million different shades of grey.

4) Do everything else that can help

The fact is that there are many, many more things you can do. Many therapies, many treatments, many supplements and herbal formulas, that have all proved highly effective against cancer. There are so many that many books have been written about them: About Raymond Rife, you can read The Cancer Cure That Worked by Barry Lynes; about Gaston Naessens, you can read The Persecution and Trial of Gaston Naessens: The True Story of the Efforts to Suppress an Alternative Treatment for Cancer, AIDS, and Other Immunologically Based Diseases by Christopher Bird; about Rene Caisse and the Essiac tonic, you can read Essiac: The Secrets of Rene Caisse’s Herbal Pharmacy; about Johanna Budwig, you can read Cancer – The Problem and the Solution; and the list goes on. There are websites devoted to these people and their approach to cancer, and this is just a few of them that I know about. One book that compiles a lot, maybe most, of the information on non-toxic treatments for cancer, is Ty Bollinger’s Cancer: Step Outside the Box.

Maybe you find it hard to believe that our governmental and medical authorities would have gone—and continue to this day—to go through such extreme measures in order to suppress treatments that work so effectively to help and heal people of their illnesses and of cancer, without negative side effects, and at very low costs. But this is a simple fact. And it is quite easy to understand if we consider that anyone, or any institution, that has commercial investments and interests in a particular endeavour, will go to great lengths to maintain and strengthen, as much as they can and for as long as they can, the conditions that make them successful. There’s nothing more to it than that. Let’s look at a few of those therapies and supplements which are easy to implement, and highly effective against cancer: hyperthermia, flax seed oil, enzymes, and turmeric.

Hyperthermia, or heat therapy, is a very well studied and effective therapy against cancer, both preventatively and curatively. The idea or principle is very simple: healthy cells can withstand high temperatures without damage. The reason why this is so, and why we know it for sure, is that the body produces fevers as a defence mechanism to destroy invading viruses and bacteria that, unlike our own cells, cannot withstand the heat. Similarly, cancer, and other compromised and damaged cells, are unable to cope with high heat. Hence, it was hypothesised, tested, verified and demonstrated that hyperthermia is really very effective at destroying cancer, while simultaneously cleansing and strengthening healthy cells and tissues. Infrared saunas are ideal in heating the tissues more deeply, but any sauna, steam room, or even bath that induces hyperthermia by raising the temperature in the body, will help kill cancer cells, cleanse, and restore health.

Enzyme therapy has also been used for many decades in the treatment of cancer patients extremely successfully. The late Nicolas Gonzalez who passed away last year, was its most recent champion, following in the footsteps of his mentor, Dr William Kelley. The treatment protocols are more complicated, and are always highly individualised, but the main element is the supplementation with large doses of enzymes, combined with the colon cleansing to eliminate the dead tumour tissues from the body. Large quantities of fresh vegetable juice are also often included in his recommendations. You can read about it here: http://www.dr-gonzalez.com/index.htm, but whether you decide to throw yourself completely into it or not, I strongly recommend taking proteolytic enzymes three times per day, always on an empty stomach at least 30 minutes before eating, and support cleansing by taking a colon cleanser before going to bed. This site, http://www.losethebackpain.com, has good quality enzymes and cleansing supplements that we’ve used, but you can also do your own research.

Flax seed oil, organic and cold pressed, combined with fresh organic quark or cottage cheese is, based on Johanna Budwig’s extensive, lifelong research, as well as practical clinical experience with patients, is another one of the most effective and simple cancer treatments. And although the biochemistry of it, and biochemical pathways through which the cancer is weakened and destroyed may be complicated, the implementation is very easy and simple, costs very little, and cannot in any way bring about harm, unless one is severely allergic to milk proteins (in which case the dairy can be replaced with another source of protein that will work as the carrier). Here is a good article that has links to other excellent articles about this: https://www.cancertutor.com/make_budwig/

Turmeric, an ancient, bright yellow, Indian spice, which is a powder made from drying the ginger-like root that is turmeric, is one of the most researched natural substances in modern times, and is surely one of the most powerful natural anti-cancer supplements. Since it has tons of wide-ranging health benefits, and carries no risks at all, it’s clear that everyone can benefit from it. You can read about it from Mercola here. You should take it three times per day, but with your meals, because the more fat there is in the gut, the better the absorption will be, as is true for most antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals.

I feel it is important to emphasise the point just made about the risk-free nature of supplementing with turmeric, because it is a crucial point that applies to everything we have discussed here, and everything we have discussed in all the natural healing protocols and nutritional approaches we have presented in the past. Food-based nutritional healing is, in general, risk-free, because it doesn’t involve ingestion of or exposure to toxic substances, and instead involves correcting deficiencies, boosting nutritional status, and optimising the biochemical and hormonal environment of the body in order to promote healing.

Of course, we can object by referring to examples of people dying from drinking too much water too quickly. But we are not talking about such extremes. Nonetheless, we could, for example, eat coconut oil or butter all day, and other than the possible nausea from taking in so much fat, you wouldn’t get anything more than loose stools. Moreover, the body’s own hormonal responses would naturally prevent overconsumption through a feeling of extreme satiety that would basically make it impossible to willingly eat more.

Another example is that of using baking soda or iodine. So simple, and yet so powerful, they stand as the perfect examples of the benign nature but extreme effectiveness of natural healing. We find written in the most recent edition of the Manual for the Medical Management of Radiological Casualties of the US Military Medical Operations, Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, that sodium bicarbonate will “prevent deposition of uranium carbonate complexes in the renal tubules”, and that we should, “within 4 hours of exposure, administer potassium iodide (KI) to block uptake of radioactive iodine by the thyroid”, because they are the best known ways to protect the kidneys and thyroid from being destroyed by the radioactive elements that would—without the use of sodium bicarbonate and potassium iodide—migrate to these organs and destroy them.

But why wait for a chemical spill or a nuclear power station meltdown in order to rid the body of accumulated chemicals and toxins, and to replenish every cell with a plentiful supply of iodine to ensure that all cells and all glands function at their best, now and every day? We don’t have to wait. The same goes for turmeric, for enzymes, for B12, for A-D-K2, for hydration, for alkalisation, for minimal glucose and minimal insulin loads, for maximum nutrition and maximum health. Why don’t we start doing this preventatively right now?

Summary and Wrap up

Maybe you know all of this stuff already, or maybe you don’t and you are blown away and overwhelmed by the amount of information and range of topics we have covered. Maybe you are reading this because you are interested and curious to learn and be as well-informed as you can about health topics, or maybe you are desperately looking for relevant information that can help you or a loved one. No matter in which camp you find yourself, here is the summary and wrap up I can offer to bring all of what we have discussed down to a simple set of recommendations that anyone faced with a diagnosis of cancer, and fearful of, or skeptical about, or doubtful that the current standard of care in the cancer industry will help them, can understand and follow, knowing that none of these food choices, supplements, and therapies will bring them harm in any way, and that all will only do good, regardless how dire or hopeless their situation may appear to be.

Keep low insulin levels, as low as possible, by not having insulin-stimulating carbohydrates, and by keeping protein intake reasonably low. Focus on consuming natural, unprocessed fats as much as possible to supply the largest proportion of your daily calories. Consider a water or a tea-with-fat fast for a few days when it is suitable, or even as an intermittent fasting strategy on a daily basis. Consider also doing a green juice “fast” (only green vegetables) with added fat from blending in melted coconut oil or milk.
Drink alkaline water, always on an empty stomach, considering the day as divided between hydration periods, and feeding and digestion periods. The first hydration period is from the time you get up until you have your first meal. It is good to extend that period if you can to allow plenty of time for proper hydration after a long night of dehydration, with at least 1 to 1.5 litres over a period of at least 2 hours. Drink slowly to improve absorption and not pee everything out. Always allow 30 minutes without drinking before meals, and 2-3 hours after meals, depending on their size. The cycles of hydration and feeding during the day (for 3 meals) should be as follows: drink, wait, eat, wait, drink, wait, eat, wait, drink, wait, eat. For only two meals, which I recommend, then periods of drinking are extended and allow for even better hydration, cleaning of the blood, and better digestion.
Take iodine supplements with the co-factors and with food to maximise absorption and effectiveness. Start with 12.5 mg per day, and work your way up to 100 mg. Do this as quickly as your body allows you to. Take the iodine every weekday, and stop on weekends; five days on, two days off. (My wife and I take 50 mg per day.)
Take hot baths with sodium bicarbonate and magnesium chloride (or sulphate; 2 cups of each). Soak for 40 to 60 minutes. Do this three times per week. Always take your baths on an empty stomach, and drink at least one litre of alkaline water during the length of the bath. (Once per week is what I aim for as preventative medicine.)
Get B12 injections of methylcobalamin, 1 mg on a weekly basis. (My wife and I get a 5 mg injection once per month.)
Take proteolytic enzymes and Essiac tonic three times per day, always on an empty stomach, always at least 30 minutes before meals. (We take it once, first thing in the morning.)
Take turmeric and turmeric extract, as well as A-D-K2 with every meal or fatty snack, three times per day during recovery. (Once daily in normal circumstances.)
Take infrared or regular saunas, every day if possible, or even in the morning and at night if you have or decide to buy your own little sauna. I would definitely do this given how effective hyperthermia is at destroying cancer cells.
Eat Budwig cream.
Eat and drink greens.
Spend time outdoors, as much time as you can, moving, breathing fresh air, exposing your skin to the sunlight.
Keep low stress levels, as low as possible. Take tulsi, ashwagandha, and HTP-5 to keep stress hormone levels low, and mood high.
Take probiotics, chlorella and spirulina in the morning, and a colon cleansing supplement before bed.
Sleep well, long restful nights. Melatonin is very useful for this, and has many additional health benefits.

Cancer is very easy to prevent, but somewhat harder to dislodge once it has taken hold somewhere within the body. But no matter what type of cancer, how localised or generalised it is, or at what stage it finds itself, there is always hope. Hope of getting better and more comfortable, and hope for a complete recovery.

We have to remember that cancer cells are degenerate and weak. By making the environment as health-promoting to normally functioning cells, and simultaneously as hostile as possible to cancer cells, they will perish and be cleared out from the body as the waste that they are. The body heals itself, often miraculously quickly, when impediments are removed, and the elements needed for healing are provided. With all my heart, I hope this can help you and your loved ones.

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On the origin of cancer cells – part 2

Posted on December 9, 2014 by G. Belanger

Fifty years of intense research had passed from the year he received his doctorate in chemistry in 1906 to the year when On the Origin of Cancer Cells was published in 1956. The uniquely exceptional scientist that was Professor Otto Warburg was nominated for the Nobel Prize by his scientific peers a total of 46 times between 1923 and 1931, with 13 of these nominations in that last year. And in 1931, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his seminal work on the essential role of iron in the biochemistry of cellular respiration published in 1928, and more generally for his work on the aerobic and anaerobic metabolic processes in cells. He was also, in that year, made director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Cell Physiology in Berlin (renamed Max Planck Society in 1948), and he maintained not only his post but also his scientific activity until his death in 1970 at the age of 86.

otto-warburg-old-highresfaceshot

In fact, in 1969, just months before his passing, he published with one of his long-standing collaborators Dean Burk who translated the text (as he did for the 1956 paper), a revised and additionally prefaced version of the lecture he gave at the meeting of Novel Laureates at Lake Constance, Germany, in 1966 entitled The Prime Cause and Prevention of Cancer. The tone of this lecture, both for the first part of 1966 and the second of 1969, transpires frustration and even anger at the general lack of notice and acceptance of the crucial elements of the physiology of cancer cells that he had studied, understood, elucidated and clearly described in his publications over the course of more than 60 years of research.

Attempting to formulate a well-rounded and balanced explanation would require a lot of time and effort, not to mention a lot more words. But it is evident that then as now, financial interests have generally always been among the strongest driving forces both in research and in developing applications based on the understanding derived from this research. Hence, it is more than clear that eliminating the use of chemicals in all agricultural and industrial processes, stopping the consumption of simple and starchy carbohydrates and refined foods, and supplementing with iron, niacinamide and enzymes in general like Warburg recommended and did as a means to prevent and treat cancer is not only not at all lucrative, but it is highly financially detrimental to all chemical-based agricultural and industrial activities. I believe this is a most important part of the explanation, as it is for so many things.

What Warburg understood

Warburg had slowly, carefully, cautiously, diligently, painstakingly carried out experiment after experiment, trial after trial, studying every last detail of every aspect of the experimental process. He explained the cell’s most vital function, that of respiration, using oxygen to burn glucose or fats and produce energy, with a particular focus on the critical role of iron as a ‘respiratory enzyme’ carrying the oxygen molecule. He explained that the glucose molecule was ‘fermented’ (that it underwent glycolysis) in the cytosol of the cell, split into pyruvate molecules and fermented to lactic acid, and that this produced a small amount of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) without the need or use of oxygen. This process is termed anaerobic fermentation.

He explained that this process could either stop there, or be extended further by the pyruvate being taken up into mitochondria of the cell, and with the use of much oxygen, almost magically produce a lot more ATP without needing any additional glucose, but going through a series of steps and transformations relying primarily on clever recycling and reusing mechanisms of the niacin (B3) based molecule NAD (which stands for Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide) within the mitochondria.

The ATP-generating process taking place inside the mitochondria was eventually described in detail by one of Warburg’s students, Krebs, who was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1953, and to which his name was given as the Krebs cycle also known as the citric acid cycle, as everyone who has studied some biology has heard (even if you never quite understood was this stuff was all about). Note that the Krebs cycle produces only 2 molecules of ATP, just as glycolysis does, and that it is what is called the electron transport chain, also taking place inside the mitochondria and using plenty of oxygen, that produces the bulk of the ATP with a potential of an additional 34 molecules, using products of the Krebs cycle, and in particular the 10 molecules of NADH.

Warburg was motivated to understand at the most fundamental level what was the difference between healthy cells and cancer cells. Naturally, as cancer was already a devastating disease in the 1930’s, he wasn’t the only scientist working and leading researchers in the study of the mysteries of cancer. He was, however, one of the most talented, dedicated and productive, together with the group of scientists he led at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and those with whom he collaborated.

The first major step was made in showing that tumours fermented glucose much more intensely than healthy tissues that normally hardly do so at all. This fact—that tumours ferment a lot more glucose than healthy mature tissues even in the presence of oxygen—is known as the Warburg Effect and is universally studied in physiology, medicine and oncology (cancer-ology). This fact is so fundamental to cancer metabolism as well as cancer research that it is the basis of the PET scan imaging technique in which radioactively labelled glucose is used to make detailed images of active tumours and their tendrils in our tissues. The reason why it works is that cancer cells take up glucose from the bloodstream far more efficiently than normal cells.

What is unfortunate but not surprising given how myopic scientists and we all in general tend to be, is that this has been consistently overlooked as being a critical aspect of the genesis of cancer, as Warburg’s research implied, and instead has been interpreted as a consequence of the dysfunctional cellular metabolism of these mutated cells that is unrelated to the actual development of the cancer.

This is pretty absurd. After all, if cancer cells derive a substantial fraction of their energy from fermenting sugar, wouldn’t the absence of sufficient glucose naturally halt the growth and proliferation, and thus the development of tumours? And even more fundamentally, because glucose can only be transported inside the cell by the action of insulin, and it is, in fact, to insulin—not glucose per se—that cancer cells are incredibly more sensitive than healthy cells, wouldn’t an important drop in circulating insulin levels be detrimental or even lethal to cancer cells? Of course it would! They would be starved of the only fuel they can use, and as a consequence, eventually become incapable of sustaining their activity.

How was this measured?

The way it was done was to measure oxygen consumption and lactic acid production either with plenty of oxygen or without any, for tumours and different tissues under physiological conditions of pH and temperature. This is the perfect trick because fermentation outside the mitochondria does not require any oxygen, whereas energy production by glucose oxidation inside the mitochondria depends entirely on the presence of ample amounts of oxygen, In fact, even a minute drop in oxygen concentration will negatively affect mitochondrial ATP production. Cancer cells don’t care much if there is oxygen or not: they don’t use much and therefore don’t depend on it. They ferment glucose anaerobically no matter what because this is the only way they can generate enough energy to survive.

It was understood a number of years later that tumours are rather heterogenous both in terms of the types of cells and tissues they are derived from, and in the concentration of cancer cells: tumours can grow extremely fast or extremely slowly; they can have a large proportion of cancer cells in relation to normal cells or a small one; and since different specialised tissues require different conditions and function differently, it is an obvious consequence that tumours developing in different tissues will have different characteristics.

Hence, the next step necessitated the isolation of cancer cells in order to avoid the problem of dealing with heterogeneous mixtures of cancer and healthy cells cohabiting in a solid tumour. It was this that Warburg presented in the 1956 paper, and what a difference this would make! These are his opening paragraphs:

Our principal experimental object for the measurement of the metabolism of cancer cells is today no longer the tumour but the ascites cancer cells living free in the abdominal cavity, which are almost pure cultures of cancer cells with which one can work quantitatively as in chemical analysis. Formerly, it could be said of tumours, with their varying cancer cell content, that they ferret more strongly the more cancer cells they contain, but today we can determine the absolute fermentation values of the cancer cells and find such high values that we come very close to the fermentation values of wildly proliferating Torula yeasts.

What was formerly only qualitative has now become quantitative. What was formerly only probable has now become certain. The ear in which the fermentation of cancer cells or its importance could be disputed is over, and no one today can doubt that we understand the origin of cancer cells if we know how their large fermentation originates, or, to express it more fully, if we know how the damaged respiration and the excessive fermentation of the cancer cells originate.

This was the programme that in the end led to the discovery that cancer cells produced 2-3 times (that’s 200-300%) more lactic acid than the most solid tumours. This meant that even those most solid tumours must have been composed of only about 1/3 active cancer cells, and thus 2/3 normal and inactive cancer cells.

This is necessary because cancer cells cannot do the things needed for the tumour to survive and grow, like making new blood vessels for example; only healthy cells can carry out such specialised activities. The wildly fermenting and proliferating cancer cells are dependent on healthy cells in the tissue where they are growing in order to survive. This makes good sense given that cancer cells gradually devolve, generation after generation, losing their function, their specialisation and their differentiated nature, and eventually cannot do much of anything but ferment glucose and replicate. For this reason, they rely on the healthy cells to maintain a viable environment for them.

Oxygen is crucial

Recall a key observation that was made in comparing the metabolic activity of cancer cells to normal cells: as the cell transitions from functioning normally and deriving virtually 100% of its energy needs by burning glucose (or fat) with oxygen inside the mitochondria, towards the defective cancerous cellular metabolism characterised by fermenting glucose without oxygen outside the mitochondria, they derive progressively more energy from fermentation and less from oxidation, independently of the amount of oxygen available.

You see, if oxygen in the cell drops, then ATP concentration drops because the mitochondria need the oxygen to make ATP. Immediately, fermentation outside the mitochondria will begin or increase in order to make up the energy deficit. This is normal and happens in all healthy cells whenever this situation occurs. However, the drop in available oxygen will also trigger heart rate and breathing to increase in order to make more available. This will very quickly correct the problem, allowing the cell to stop fermenting and return to the much preferred condition of generating ATP though oxidation in the little power plants that are the mitochondria. Once again, this is perfectly normal and happens in healthy, well-functioning cells every time we exercise.

Those cultured cells with which they were working did not have the support of the entire organism that we have, exquisitely fine tuned and orchestrated by countless specialised hormones, sensor cells, worker enzymes, etc., to react instantly to any kind of chance of condition. As oxygen concentration dropped, fermentation increased. But if oxygen levels weren’t replenished quickly enough, the damage to cellular respiration was found to be irreversible. Now, fermentation continued no matter if oxygen levels were raised to saturation following the period of hypoxia.

Not only did fermentation continue under oxygen saturation, but it increased over time. This is what was meant by irreversible in terms of the damage to respiration sustained by the period of deficient oxygen levels, and this is what showed very clearly how a cell can transition and devolve from normal and healthy to cancerous. The same observations were made irrespective of the means that were used to damage respiration: arsenic, urethane, hydrogen sulphide and its derivatives, hydrocyanic acid, methylcholanthrene and whatever else, whether oxygen was deficient or prevented from reaching the cell by a respiratory poison, the result was irreversible damage that always eventually resulted in cancer cells if the damage wasn’t too severe, because otherwise the cell would not survive at all.

The unavoidable consequence of this was immediately understood: it is the cumulative effect of chronic exposure to small amounts of carcinogenic respiratory poisons or low-oxygen that causes and leads to cancer within our tissues. Very unfortunately for us, the number, spread and quantity of such carcinogens grows with each passing day. Is it any wonder then, that cancer rates are soaring? That it is a modern plague in our highly industrialised, pesti-cised, herbi-cised, fungus-ised and globally chemi-cised countries?

Measuring cancer cell metabolism

Quantitative measures of cellular activity and metabolism of ascites cancer cells were done keeping the cells in their natural medium, ascites serum, that was ‘adjusted’ physiologically once they were removed from the abdominal cavity. Adjusted how? By adding glucose to feed them, but also bicarbonate to neutralise the lactic acid, because the fermentation rate was so strong that without the bicarbonate the pH would drop too quickly and too drastically, causing fermentation to be brought to a standstill and soon after the cells to die.

Under physiological conditions of pH and temperature, in units of cubic mm for 1 mg of tissue (dry weight) per hour at 38 C, they found the following:

Oxygen consumption: 5 to 10,
Lactic acid production with oxygen saturation: 25 to 35, and
Lactic acid production without oxygen: 50 to 70.

Warburg and colleagues estimated that in anaerobic glucose fermentation, one mole of ATP was produced for every one mole of lactic acid. In contrast, even though the exact details were not yet known, measurements indicated that in cellular respiration, 7 moles of ATP could be produced for every mole of oxygen that was consumed. Based on these estimates, they compared ATP production form fermentation and oxidation in different types of cells.

Healthy liver and kidney cells showed identical metabolic values, consuming 15 cubic mm of oxygen per mg per hour, and in the absence of it, producing only 1 cubic mm of lactic acid. This means these cells were very poor at fermenting glucose; they could basically only derive energy from oxidation within the mitochondria. And this was made even more apparent by comparing, as they did, the amount of ATP that can be derived from fermentation or from oxidation. Using the 1:1 ratio of lactic acid to ATP under fermentation, and the 1:7 ratio of oxygen to ATP under oxidation, they found that these healthy liver and kidney cells could derive 105 (that’s 15 x 7) moles of ATP from oxidation versus only 1 from fermentation. As a fraction of the total, this is 105/106 or 99.1% from the normal mechanism reliant on the Krebs cycle and electron transport chain inside the mitochondria.

Next they looked at very young embryonic cells and found equal oxygen consumption of 15 cubic mm, but with a significantly greater—25 times greater—production of lactic acid when oxygen supply was cut. What this means is that these embryonic cells were much better adapted to surviving in anaerobic conditions without oxygen. This is quite natural given that the less evolved the cell, the more primitive and less specialised or differentiated, and therefore the closer to simpler cellular forms like yeasts. Doing the same as above in translating this metabolic function to compare the amount of ATP derived from either anaerobic or aerobic usage of glucose, we find that the same amount of 105 cubic mm of ATP from respiration, but in this case 25 moles of ATP from fermentation. And so, in this case the fraction is 105/130 or 80.8%, compared to the above 99.1% in normal liver and kidney cells.

The difference between these numbers and those calculated for the ascites cancer cells was large: they consumed less than half the oxygen, 7 cubic mm, but produced a whopping 60 cubic mm of lactic acid. That was 60 times more than the healthy mature liver/kidney cells! Here, ATP derived from respiration was therefore 49 (7 x 7) compared to 60 from fermentation. Hence, the fraction of the total that could be derived from oxidation was a mere 49/109 or 45%, implying that more than half the energy requirements could be derived from fermentation. This is how these quantitative measurements on the metabolism of healthy and cancer cells were done, and the result was indeed a remarkable finding.

What these results explained

So many things were understood or clarified through his efforts across these five long decades of intense research, and now with these latest results we understood different cell types have different propensity to become cancerous based solely on the cell’s inherent propensity towards fermentation: the higher the amount of ATP that could be derived from anaerobic fermentation, the easier it would be for the cell to become cancerous, and also the faster the tumour would grow.

The unfortunate but unavoidable implication is that embryos whose cells are all immature and therefore more primitive and naturally prone to greater fermentation, are the most susceptible to sustain damage to respiration whether from periods of low oxygen (think asthmatic mothers) or from exposure to respiratory poisons (think anything from pesticides, herbicides, food preservatives, to just supermarket household ‘cleaning’ and skin ‘care’ products, synthetic perfumes or substances they contain, and on and on…). Here again we can ask: is it any wonder that infantile cancer rates are also on a sharp rise?

We understand, for exactly the same reasoning, why cancer tumours in different tissues grow at different rates under the same physiological conditions, and easily explain why the increase in fermentation is gradual, requiring many cell divisions after the initial injury. As we know very well, it typically takes decades for adults to develop large cancer tumours that cause enough of an effect to get us to the hospital before it is diagnosed as such. Also, we know that tumours in or near the brain can develop and grow very quickly—within a year or two—whereas for the prostate they typically take an entire lifetime, sometimes completely unbeknownst to the host whose quality of life is not affected noticeably.

It was also understood why radiation therapy was generally effective at reducing the size of solid tumours by killing those already weakened and energy deficient cancer cells through a final blow to their injured and struggling mitochondria. By the same token, however, radiation will also always damage mitochondria of healthy cells, and thus set them on their way towards the process of devolution into dysfunctional fermenting cancer cells that the injury to respiration brings about.

And imagine this: 52 years following the publication of this landmark paper and a whole three quarters of a century after Warburg’s discovery of the fermentation of tumour cells even in the presence of oxygen, was published in the journal Nature a paper entitled The M2 splice isoform of pyruvate kinase is important for cancer metabolism and tumour growth. In this paper the authors describe how they were able to manipulate the expression of this enzyme in cancer cells, and doing so, decrease fermentation while increasing oxidation of glucose.

This enzyme, pyruvate kinase, is expressed in mammals in four different flavours (isoforms): L is expressed in liver cells, R in red blood cells, M1 is by far the most dominant and is expressed in most adult tissues, and M2, a variant of M1, is expressed during embryonic development. As it turns out, and as reported by two other groups of researchers in 2005 (refs 2 and 7 in the 2008 Nature paper), tumour tissues exclusively express the embryonic M2 form of pyruvate kinase.

Expressing these results as simply as we can, the situation appears to be as follows: once a glucose molecule enters the cell through one of the insulin-mediated entry ports, it is in the cytosol. There, through a series of 10 enzyme-mediated steps, it is split in two molecules of pyruvate. This requires 2 ATP but produces 4 ATP molecules; hence there is a net production of 2 ATP. At this stage pyruvate can either be converted to lactate which then turns to lactic acid, or to acetyl-CoA which is then transported to the mitochondria to enter the Krebs cycle and the electron transport chain. This transformation of pyruvate is performed by the enzyme that is the subject of these scientists’ investigation, pyruvate kinase. It would seem that the M1 form, the one that is active in healthy cells, takes pyruvate into acetyl-CoA and into the mitochondria, whereas the M2 form, the one that is expressed in embryos and cancer cells, takes it into lactic acid.

By some clever genetic manipulation, working with tumours in rats, they were able to switch off M2 expression and switch on M1 expression in cancer cells, and measured a decrease in lactic acid production and an increase in oxygen consumption that was associated with ATP production in the mitochondria through oxidative phosphorylation. This is the remarkable result that made the paper worthy of a publication in Nature magazine. And it is indeed amazing! This is why they write in the first paragraph that based on their research, the defect is not with the mitochondria as Warburg thought, but rather it is with the expression of the enzyme pyruvate kinase that goes from the healthy M1 to the embryonic M2 form. Why or how this happens is unknown.

This is indeed very encouraging! Just the idea of being able to force the expression of the healthy M1 and suppress the cancerous M2 form of pyruvate kinase is really amazing and has very important potential implications for cancer prevention and treatment. And this even if we don’t really yet know why or how it happens. But tell me, have you ever heard of this more than critically important result in cancer research on the news? Do you think your doctor has? Or his oncologist colleagues that cut, poison and burn cancer patients day in and day out?

Our basic cancer-fighting strategy?

What can we gather from this work that can help us not just understand Warburg’s research and his remarkable contribution to humanity though it, but also avoid cancer in this world where more than 1/3 of people currently succumb to it and where cancer rates keep rising every year?

Naturally, we want to minimise as much as possible our exposure to all manufactured chemicals, especially those confirmed as carcinogenic. We are all exposed to a greater or lesser extent through our being immersed in the environment in which we live, but we can go a long way by eating the cleanest, most natural and unprocessed food possible, drinking the cleanest water possible, using only natural cleaning and skin care products, and using regular or daily detoxification strategies such as taking sodium bicarbonate and magnesium chloride baths one to three times a week, drinking psyllium husks in water to cleanse the colon, and supplementing with iodine, chlorella and spirulina daily to flush out chlorine, fluorine, bromine and heavy metals like lead, mercury and arsenic on a continuous basis. These are, in a way, the simplest and easiest preventative measures we can take to reduce as much as we can our exposure to external sources of potentially carcinogenic and otherwise dangerous substances, as well as do what we can to flush them out to prevent accumulation in our tissues.

In consideration of the two fundamental characteristics of cancer cells—that they rely on glucose fermentation, and that they live and thrive in a milieu that his highly acidic and deprived of oxygen—it is just common sense to conclude that doing the opposite of what they need and prefer would be a good strategy. Doing the opposite means minimising glucose availability and especially insulin that is ultimately the agent responsible for transporting the glucose into the cell; remember that this is why cancer cells typically have 10 times the number of insulin receptors on their surface than normal cells. Doing the opposite also means preventing the accumulation of metabolic acids in their subsequent storage in tissues, preventing latent tissue acidosis, and ensuring a plentiful oxygen supply from a highly alkalising drinks, foods and lifestyle.

The first can be achieved by eliminating all simple and starchy carbohydrates, refined or not. Blood glucose levels will drop, and insulin levels will follow suit. This will shift the metabolism towards relying on fat as the primary source of cellular fuel throughout the day and night, day after day. The cool thing is that healthy cells function much more efficiently by burning fatty acids in the sense that they derive a lot more energy than they can do from burning glucose, even if the later is easier and enzymatically simpler: it is, after all, common to all living organisms, including the most primitive. The important difference is that all evolved and highly specialised animal cells can use fat, whereas primitive or devolved cancer cells simply cannot.

The second can be achieved by keeping the body hydrated and alkaline by drinking and eating to promote the alkalisation of the digestive tract, the blood, the other fluids of the body, and thus the tissues throughout: alkaline water and pressed lemon water, highly alkaline and alkalising freshly cold pressed green vegetables both juiced and whole, and magnesium chloride and sodium bicarbonate baths. Eating plenty of unrefined sea salt is also of the utmost importance in this. These are among the most important and effective means to first pull out and eliminate stored acids from the tissues and body, and then maintain alkalinity.

The only caveat is that digestion of concentrated protein in animal food, for example, require an acidic stomach for complete breakdown and digestion. Therefore,we should not combine alkalising water, lemon water or green juice when eating protein because this will cause poor digestion and absorption. Also, because protein is very important but also highly acid-forming, it is essential to not have excessive amounts, especially in a single serving, because this will cause excessive acidification and toxicity. Restrict your servings of animal protein to about 30-50 grams per serving, and try to restrict that to one main meal in the latter part of the day (afternoon or evening).

Pretty simple, aren’t they, these two strategies that we can draw from what we have learnt about cancer up to now. We will further explore cancer metabolism, prevention and treatment in the future, looking at methods that have been and continue to be successfully used to treat cancer patients and bring them back to health, as well as important nutrients and supplements with powerful cancer-fighting and health-promoting properties. But the fact is that these two basic points that address the most fundamental characteristics of cancer cells to ensure, on the one hand, that those that do emerge one way or another cannot sustain themselves or grow due to the lack of enough glucose and insulin for their needs, and on the other, cannot readily develop from being pushed towards fermentation because the environment of the body is everywhere alkaline and oxygen rich, are probably the most effective and important measures to grasp and apply in order to remain optimally healthy and cancer-free for as long as we are alive.

In closing

Before closing I want to briefly highlight that the vast majority of effective natural cancer healing treatments are based to a greater or lesser extent on the understanding of cancer as I have presented it in this and the previous article on the subject. However, there is a truly wide range of successful treatments that are used out there in various specialised cancer treatment centres. One important point to make in regards to the consumption of simple sugars from sweet root vegetables such as carrots and beets or fruit is that several treatment protocols include these and in sometimes large quantities still with great success in overcoming cancers of various kinds. This shows us that there is definitely more to preventing and treating cancer than just eliminating simple sugars.

There is lot of tremendously interesting material to explore about cancer, a disease that has been an important cause of suffering for at least a century. A lot of this exploration will be of historical research, experiments and discoveries that either have escaped the attention of the masses and medical establishment, or been actively suppressed by various agencies and individuals intent on nurturing as substantial population of ailing people for the purpose of profiting from the treatments they would require.

As awful as this may seem, it is unfortunately the sad truth. And even more unfortunately, this is not only historical as in the case of this well documented 1921 action plan by the US government, FDA and AMA for an influenza vaccination campaign to quickly and effectively spread disease across the country and greatly stimulate the need for medical attention and case as a means to generate profits from the associated expenses, but this continues to this day. The essential conclusion to draw from this is that it is we who must care for ourselves, our children, our family members, and our friends. And to do this, it is again we who must first learn and then teach our children and each other how to best do it. This is what I strive to do and what I strive to share with you.

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On the origin of cancer cells – part 1

Posted on March 24, 2014 by G. Belanger

On February 24 1956 was published in the journal Science a remarkable and exceptional paper by an equally remarkable and exceptional scientist. The paper was entitled On the Origin of Cancer Cells, and the author was the winner of the 1931 Nobel prize for Physiology or Medicine, Professor Otto Warburg.

Professor Otto Heinrich Warburg (1883-1970)

After more than 50 years of research on cellular respiration, metabolism and physiology, Warburg had identified, understood, demonstrated and now explained the mechanisms by which cancer cells develop, survive, spread and proliferate, and what, at the most fundamental level, distinguishes them from normal cells.

It is my intention to relate the essence of these results, together with the necessary background, as clearly as it is possible for me to do with the hope that you will remember it well. This is without any doubt one of the most important and far-reaching results of medical science in its entirety. Such is the importance of this work, that it may well be the most important bit of medical science I will ever write about and that you will ever read about. But although this is so, it can be stated in a single sentence.

The truth about the origin of cancer is that despite the numerous carcinogenic agents, those identified as such and those still unknown, and despite the numberless forms and tissues in which cancer can manifest itself, there is only one fundamental cause of cancer at the cellular level: injury to respiration by damage to mitochondria.

Biological energy

The mitochondria, independent micro-organisms with their own metabolic and reproductive systems living symbiotically with the other organelles inside the cell, could be considered as the most important of the organelles because it is the mitochondria that normally produce the energy (in the form of adenosine triphosphate or ATP) on which each cell, and therefore also the entire organism, rely for function and survival.

Each cell must produce the energy it needs to sustain its activity and maintain its structure, and each cell cares only about itself: it knows only what it must do and what it needs in order to keep itself alive in the best possible condition and health that it can manage through continual adaptation. The way it knows anything else outside of itself is by sensing its environment, its immediate surroundings, through the various sensors (biochemical receptors) and doorways (ionic channels) in its walls (the cell’s outer double-layered membrane).

Cells can produce energy using glucose (from carbohydrates), amino acids (from protein) or fatty acids (from fat). By far the most effective way to do it is through burning fatty acids. This produces the most energy and no acidic byproducts. This is therefore a normal cell’s preferred fuel.

There are two intervening factors, however, that make it rather rare for humans to function primarily on energy derived from fat. And although this is true today, it wasn’t for the bulk of our evolutionary history during which all species of homo must have derived most, and probably often even all, of their energy from fat. The first and most important of these factors is that today, we tend to get most of our calories from carbohydrates.

Because it is easier for cells to breakdown and use the much smaller and simpler glucose molecules than it is to use the longer and more complex fatty acids, while there is enough glucose in the bloodstream, it will always be used preferentially, and eventually almost exclusively, as the cells grow insulin-resistant and become unable to use fatty acids almost completely. In such a metabolic state, because protein can relatively easily be converted into glucose, this is what the body does when it runs out of glucose, because, from the lack of practice, it cannot access the fat stores. Therefore, due to insulin resistance, fat just keeps accumulating, stock piled in ever larger and distended fat cells throughout the body, and never used to make energy for the now struggling, energy-starved cells.

The second factor is strictly physiological, and relates to the fact that it takes longer to oxidise fat than to oxidise glucose, and even for glucose, it takes about 100 times longer to oxidise inside the mitochondria than it does to process it anaerobically (without oxygen) in the protoplasm, the general space within the cell, outside the mitochondria. For this reason, in circumstances where the cell needs ATP quickly (in lifting weights or sprinting, for example), it will need to use this super fast energy production mechanism in addition to the slower oxidation in the mitochondria, with proportions that depends on the energy demand.

All ATP production using glucose begins with its breakdown into something called pyruvate. This is called glycolysis (or substrate level phosphorylation). It takes place whether there is oxygen available or not, and does not involve the mitochondria because it takes place in the protoplasm. Glycolysis involves 10 steps each of which requires the action of specialised worker proteins (respiratory enzymes). From this process the cell derives two molecules of ATP. Pyruvate is the main product, but the process also leads to the production of lactic acid and hydrogen ions.

At this point, the pyruvate can be carried to the mitochondria where through a much lengthier and vastly different process (oxidative phosphorylation), which in this case relies on an ample supply of oxygen, the mitochondria can produce up to an additional 34 ATP molecules (this is the case in aerobic yeasts), for a total of 36 counting the first two from glycolysis.

In practice, factoring in some metabolic inefficiencies in the process, the result is probably somewhere around 28-30 molecules of ATP for our cells. This is nonetheless a lot of energy—15 times more than from glycolysis alone—that can be derived from a single molecule of glucose. Bear in mind, however, that gram for gram, fat can produce six times more energy than glucose, raising the total to around 200 molecules of ATP, and this without producing acidic byproducts.

Aside on the use of words and names as symbols

Before going any further, I want to bring your attention to something important, generally unrecognised, but essential to our understanding and perception of the world and everything we come into contact with. It is language, complex language, symbolic language, that allowed a small subgroup of Homo Sapiens to first distinguish themselves from all other animals and also from all other species of Homo, and then spread across the continents and come to dominate almost every ecosystem on the planet.

The more language is refined and the more thorough is its mastery, the more complex cognitive processes become and the more subtleties of understanding can be both expressed and discerned. There is a major problem, however, that comes about in every language-using person, and this is that the symbol used to refer to something, the word, is unconsciously taken to be the same as the object to which it refers. Furthermore, not only is the object treated as an entity on its own, a thing that does not depend on anything else to be what it is (which, of course, it does), but the word also becomes a thing unrelated to other words that are different in appearance and sound.

This is a serious problem for understanding complex processes. And it is particularly relevant in this discussion here. We must remember that even if we are talking about all sorts of different things like glucose, amino acids, fats, pyruvate, enzymes, mitochondria, organelles, and on and on, that these are all words, symbols that we use to identify molecules and little beings like mitochondria that do not possess language, and further, that do not care at all what we call them.

It is best to view this whole business of processes at the cellular level as a ceaseless dance where atoms mostly of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen with a few others here and there, combine into molecules that are manipulated by proteins into other molecules, sometimes simpler and sometimes more complex, the change sometimes being unidirectional and sometimes a reversible state change going back and forth, everything depending everywhere on the characteristics of the environment, the stage, in which this dance is taking place. And that all of this takes place totally unaffected and independently from any of the names we have for any of its characters and dancers.

So don’t be fooled by the words and names in thinking that because the names are so different they are referring to inherently different things. This is not so. Words and names are just words and names. We use them to express ourselves, but must not be moved to believe that they are referring to entities having a life of their own, interacting in a world of things where every thing bounces against every other thing. This is just wrong, and it is highly misleading: clearly misleading in the realm of cellular biology, which is our immediate concern in this article, but also misleading in our everyday, which should definitely be of concern.

Back to cellular respiration

Cellular respiration (oxidation in the mitochondria) requires oxygen. If for any reason there is not enough, the cell uses a backup method to sustain its energy needs. This happens when the energy demand is so great that the cell cannot wait for the mitochondria to produce the additional ATP (as mentioned above under extreme exertion), but also if there is simply a lack of oxygen for any other reason, whether it is acute, like from exposure to a large enough amount of a respiratory (mitochondrial) poison or during an asthma attack, or chronic, like when we spend our days in an office building with recycled air where levels of oxygen are lower and carbon dioxide higher than they should ideally be, but not quite enough to become a problem noticeable by a critical number of people. In such cases, instead of being brought to the mitochondria, the pyruvate can be used as the oxidative agent by the respiratory enzymes to ferment the lactic acid, and recondition the NAD so that it can engage again in the breakdown of another molecule of glucose into pyruvate. (We’ll come back to the details of this another time.)

Essential to remember is that for a normal cell this is the solution of last resort when there is not enough oxygen, and that animal tissues suffer serious damage when deprived of oxygen for an extended time, where ‘extended’ here is on the timescale of cellular processes, which for us is very short—on the order of minutes.

Anyone who has done all out sprints with high resistance on a bike, or bench pressed a heavy weight to muscular failure, knows the feeling associated with the muscles being unable to respond to the load. This is because the cells are starved of oxygen and overloaded with acid. Under extreme exertion, lactic acid fermentation for ATP production dominates from about 10 to 30 seconds, and muscular failure follows within 30 to 60 seconds.

Struggling to survive

As we’ve seen, there are two major differences between these processes of using glucose for energy production. The first is that for one molecule of glucose, complete oxidation produces around thirty molecules of ATP, whereas glycolysis or fermentation produces only two. The second is that oxidation occurs inside the mitochondria, whereas fermentation, sustained by respiration enzymes, takes place outside the mitochondria. Therefore, it is both the quantity and quality of the energy that is degraded.

Also as we’ve seen, a normal cell under normal circumstances sustains itself—both in function and structure—by relying on the energy produced by the mitochondria, whether by oxidation of glucose (pyruvate) or fatty acids, and only ever use fermentation for energy balance adjustments in exceptional circumstances. If, however, for any reason at all, even a small number of the mitochondria in the cell get damaged, a serious problem arises because the injury makes the cell incapable of producing the energy it needs for proper function, maintenance and repair.

If the damage is severe, the cell will die, and will, if things are running relatively smoothly, be broken down, cleaned up, excreted and replaced by a new one that will take its place. If the damage to the mitochondria is not so severe, the cell will not die, but will be crippled in its energy-producing capacity, the mitochondria will not be able to produce all of the ATP the cell needs, and this will force it to use fermentation to top up its energy requirements.

Unfortunately, the injury to the mitochondria’s genetic code will not only be passed down from the damaged parent to the next generation, but will lead to an irreversible degradation of mitochondrial function with each transcription and reproduction into each successive generation of these vital organelles. With each generation, the mitochondrial function is degraded further and the energy deficit grows.

As a consequence, the growing energy deficit is compensated by increasing ATP production from fermentation. But the energy from fermentation is not just less plentiful, it is also of a much lesser quality compared to that resulting from proper aerobic respiration involving the mitochondria, and it simply cannot maintain the structure and function of the cell. Thus, the cell degrades. Everything about the cell degrades as it struggles for survival.

The evolution in the ratio of energy produced by respiration to that produced by fermentation, initiated by the damage to the mitochondria and driven by the cell’s striving to maintain energy balance, is in fact a devolution from a finely tuned energy production system of a highly refined and specialised cellular structure and function, to a primitive energy producing mechanism and a coarse and severely degraded cellular structure and function akin to what we see in yeasts and fungi.

The birth of a cancer cell

Degradation and devolution continue until fermentation energy is enough to fully compensate the loss of respiration. It is at this point that we witness the emergence of a cancer cell. And it is now a perfectly functional and healthy cancer cell that has lost enough of its original characteristics, both structural and functional, to begin a programme of its own, intended to increase as much as possible survival probability in its new and partially self-generated environment that should ideally be high in glucose—as high as possible, low in oxygen—this is preferred but not critical, and highly acidic—cellular pH as low as 6 or even less and extracellular pH potentially significantly lower.

Although these terms, birth and emergence, are powerful and very useful in conveying a vivid imagery of a developing process that eventually reaches and overcomes a critical threshold as it is the case here, it is not really a birth or an emergence as much as it is a metamorphosis, gradual and typically very slow, taking place over decades if not over most of a person’s lifetime, with a continual and intimate dependence on the biochemical makeup of the environment surrounding the cell, and surrounding each and every cell throughout the body, from hair, scalp and skin, to fingers, fingernails, toes and toenails, from mouth to colon, from brain to liver, from breast to uterus, from throat to prostate, and from and to everything else that constitutes the entire human organism inside and out.

Over this long struggle for survival, because this is truly what it is, the cell is at first forced to generate supplemental energy from fermentation to make up the small difference that the slightly damaged mitochondria cannot. This increases the level of acid inside the cell. Because every enzyme-mediated biochemical process that takes place—and that indeed has to take place—is sensitively pH-dependent, all are instantaneously affected negatively by this acidification and drop in pH.

Moreover, increased acid translates directly into lack of oxygen, which further stresses the mitochondria, making their oxidation of glucose and fatty acids more difficult and less efficient. This in turn leads to a further degradation of the mitochondria, cell structure and function, an increased reliance on fermentation energy, a rise in acid levels, and a drop in oxygen availability: clearly a vicious cycle—a very vicious cycle.

Because ATP production is so much less efficient through fermentation than through respiration, the cell needs much greater amounts of glucose. This forces it to develop a greater sensitivity to it, which forces the formation of more insulin receptors because it is insulin that carries the glucose through the cell wall. And it is, in fact, the case that cancer cells typically have about ten time more insulin receptors than normal cells, and that this makes them ten times more capable of grabbing hold of circulating glucose to sustain themselves. But again, remember that this is yet another adaptation in a struggle for survival without which the cell would die.

Questions, questions and more questions

There is quite a lot more that needs to be addressed and explained. General questions like: How did Warburg figure all this stuff out? And what else did he discover? Specific questions like: Are cancer cells weaker or stronger, more fragile or more resilient? What is it that fundamentally distinguishes them from normal cells? And why does it sometimes take an entire lifetime but at other times just a few years to grow a cancerous tumour? Epidemiological questions like: Why is cancer spreading? Why does it appear more and more in young people? And why does it tend to not only develop but intensify with each generation along family lines? Finally, from all of this detailed information and knowledge, wouldn’t we like to know if there is something to do to prevent or cure cancer? Wouldn’t we like to know what that is: what we can do to prevent and cure it? Of course! That’s our main goal, isn’t it?

We will look at all of these issues and more together, but now I can’t help wonder if the following question, this multi-billion dollar question, might have popped up in your mind while you were reading, as it did for me when I read Warburg’s paper: If he, and by extension, we, as the community of thinking human beings, had understood, explained and demonstrated how cancer arises and then develops in 1956 already, why is it that today, almost 60 years later, cancer rates continue to rise every year, cancer cases appear in people at an increasingly younger age every year, and cancer claims the lives of more people every year than it has ever done? How can this be, and why is it so? Hasn’t anybody else looked at his research and reproduced the results? Haven’t we got today much better instruments and technical means of verifying everything he presented throughout his long career? Don’t worry. We’ll definitely look at that too.

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Cure diabetes in a matter of weeks

Posted on November 14, 2013 by G. Belanger

Both the incidence and growth rate of insulin-resistant diabetes have reached epidemic proportions in many countries. It is most remarkable in the US with probably close to 30 million by now, and thus about 10% of the population (1, 2). Globally, the numbers are even more impressive: 370 million with diabetes predicted to grow to 550 by 2030 (3). This entails that as a disease, type-II diabetes (90% of diabetics) is one of the fastest growing causes of death, now in close competition with the well-established leaders, cardio-vascular disease and cancer, that each account for 25% of deaths in more or less all industrialised countries.

Insulin-resistant diabetes is very similar to both vascular disease (cardio and cerebro) and cancer, as well as intestinal, kidney, pancreatic and liver disease, arthritis, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, in the sense that it is also a degenerative disease that develops over a lifetime, or at least over several decades. It is, however, quite different from all other chronic degenerative diseases because it is, in a way, the ultimate degenerative disease, in which the occurrence of all others increases markedly, and in some cases two to four times (4). That’s not 10 or 15%, this is 200 to 400% more!

For this reason alone, it seems clear that all these degenerative conditions are intimitely related, and that furthermore, understanding insulin-resistant diabetes will most definitely give us keen insights into the genesis of degenerative diseases in general.

What boggles the mind is that, in a very real sense, we understand precisely and in exquisite detail how and why insulin-resitant diabetes develops, how and why it is related to all other degenerative diseases, and consequently, both how to prevent diabetes and all disease conditions for which it is a proxy, and why what is needed to achieve this actually works (5, 6).

In fact, type-II diabetes can be cured; not just controlled or managed, but cured; not just partially or temporarily, but completely and permanently. And this, in a matter of weeks.

This may seem simply impossible to the millions of suffering diabetics that live with their disease for years and more often decades, but it is the plain and simple truth, which has been demonstrated by more than one, but unfortunately rather few exceptional health care practitioners, already several decades ago by Robert Atkins (7), and more recently by Ron Rosedale and Joseph Mercola, for example (8, 9), in a remarkably repeatable, predictable and immensely successful manner on most probably tens of thousands of people by now.

About insulin and glucose (or should it be glucose and insulin)

Insulin is a master hormone one of whose important roles is to regulate uptake of macronutrients (carbs, proteins and fats) by facilitating their crossing the cellular membrane through channels guarded by insulin receptors, from the bloodstream into the cell, either for usage or storage. It is for this role that insulin is mostly known.

However, arguably insulin’s most important and critical role is the regulation of cellular reproduction and lifespan, a role which is, as amazing as it may seem, common to all animals that have been studied from this perspective, from microscopic worms to the largest animals.

As such, insulin is a master and commander for regulating reproduction and growth in immature and therefore growing individuals, and regulating lifespan and ageing in mature and therefore full-grown adults (10).

Insulin is absolutely essential to life because in its absence cells can neither use glucose—a most basic cellular fuel, nor reproduce correctly—making growth impossible. It is, however, needed in only very small amounts. Why? Because insulin is very damaging to tissues and especially blood vessels, something that has been well known for a long time (look at this short review on the role of insulin in atherosclerosis from Nov 1981—that’s 32 years ago!, and you’ll see what I mean.)

Insulin is secreted by the beta cells of the pancreas in response to glucose concentration inside of these. As blood passes through the pancreas, these special cells that produce and store insulin, sense how much glucose there is by taking it in, and release insulin into circulation proportionally. This release is pulsed (while eating, for example) with a period of between 5 and 10 minutes, but only in response to blood sugar concentration, meaning that insulin is released only if blood sugar rises above the individual’s threshold, which depends on the metabolic and hormonal state of that individual.

However, it is important to note that pretty much no matter what the metabolic or hormonal states may be, eating fat and having fatty acids circulating in the bloodstream does not stimulate the release of insulin, while eating protein, in particular the animo acids arginine and leucine, does, albeit a lot less than glucose. This is because insulin is generally needed for cells to take in and use amino acids.

An insulin molecule that has delivered a nutrient to a cell can be degraded by the cell, or it can be released back into the bloodstream. A circulating insulin molecule will be cleared by either the liver or the kidneys within about one hour from the time of release by the pancreas.

Exposure to most substances, including lethal poisons such as arsenic and cyanide, naturally and systematically decreases sensitivity, or from the reverse perspective, increases resistance to it (as demonstrated by generations of Roman emperors and their relatives). This applies to cells, tissues and organs, and happens in the same way for biochemical molecule like messenger hormones, for the one that concerns us here, insulin. Thus, as cells are more frequently and repeatedly exposed to insulin, they lose sensitivity and grow resistant to it.

Insulin primarily acts on muscle and liver cells where glucose is stored as glycogen, and on fat cells where both glucose and fats are stored as … fat, of course. Muscle cells grow resistant first, then liver cells and in the end, fat cells. Fortunately or unfortunately, endothelial cells (those that line the blood vessels), do not become resistant to insulin, and this is why they continue to store glucose as fat, suffer severely from glycation, and proliferate until the arteries are completely occluded and blocked by atherosclerotic plaques.

What happens when a large portion of the muscle and liver cells, and enough of the fat cells have become insulin-resistant? Glucose cannot be cleared from the bloodstream: it thus grows in concentration which then stays dangerously high. This is type-II, adult onset, or most appropriately called, insulin-resistant diabetes.

Unnaturally high glucose concentrations lead to, among other things, increased blood pressure, extremely high rates of glycation (typically permanent and fatal damage) of protein and fat molecules on cells throughout the body, heightened stimulation of hundreds of inflammatory pathways, and strongly exaggerated formation of highly damaging free radicals, which, all in all, is not so good. This is why insulin is secreted from the pancreas so quickly when glucose is high in the first place: to avoid all this damage and furiously accelerated ageing of all tissues throughout the body.

The five points to remember

Insulin is a master hormone that regulates nutrient storage, as well as cellular reproduction, ageing and therefore lifespan.
Insulin is vital to life, but in excess concentrations it is highly damaging to all tissues, especially blood vessels.
If blood sugar is high, insulin is secreted to facilitate the uptake of the glucose into cells, but at the same time, because it is present, also promotes the storage of amino and fatty acids (protein and fat); if blood sugar is low, insulin is not secreted.
Chronically high blood glucose is remarkably damaging to the organism through several mechanisms that are all strongly associated with degenerative disease conditions in general.
Chronically high blood glucose concentration leads to chronically high insulin concentration; chronic exposure to insulin leads to desensitisation of muscle, liver and fat cells, and, in the end, to type-II or insulin-resistant diabetes.

And in this succinct summary, in these five points to remember, we have the keys to understanding not only how diabetes develops and manifests, to understand not only the relationship between diabetes and other degenerative diseases, but also to understand how to prevent and cure diabetes as well as degenerative conditions in general.

And I’m suppose to say …

But you already know what I’m going to say:

Because the basic, the underlying, the fundamental cause of insulin-resistant diabetes is chronic over-exposure to insulin, it means that to prevent—but also reverse and cure it—what we need is to not have chronic over-exposure to insulin. And this means to have the very least, the minimal exposure to insulin, at all times, day after day.

The good news, which is indeed very good news, is, on the one hand, that it is utterly simple to do and accomplish, and on the other, that almost independently of how prone we are to insulin resistance (genetically and/or hormonally) or how insulin-resistant we actually are right now, insulin sensitivity can be recovered quite quickly. And here, “quite quickly” means in a matter of days, which is truly remarkable in light of the fact that our state of insulin resistance grows over decades, day after day, and year after year. It is rather amazing, miraculous even, that the body can respond in this way so incredibly quickly.

Now, type-II diabetes is nothing other than extreme insulin-resistance. Naturally, the longer we are diabetic, the more insulin-resistant we become. But unbeknownst to most (almost all MDs the world over included), if your fasting blood glucose is higher than 75-80 mg/dl or your insulin higher than 5 (mU/L or microU/ml), then the muscle and liver cells are insulin resistant. And the higher the insulin, the more resistant they are. In fact, if you have any amount of excess body fat, your cells are insulin resistant. And the more body fat, especially abdominal but also everywhere else, the more insulin resistant they are.

Because insulin sensitivity is lost gradually over our lifetime through daily exposure, some consider that everyone is becoming diabetic more or less quickly, and that eventually, if we live long enough, we all become diabetic. But this is only true in a world where virtually everyone suffers from chronic over-exposure to glucose and insulin. It is not true in a world in which we eat and drink to promote optimal health.

In practice, because basically everyone is more or less (but more than less) insulin-resistant, concentrations around 10 mU/L are considered normal. But when I wrote earlier that insulin is vital but needed in very small amounts, I really meant very small amounts: like optimally between 1 and 3, and definitely less than 5 mU/L (or microU/mL; and the conversion from traditional to SI units is 1 mU/L = 7 pmol/L).

So how do we do it?

You already know what I’m going to say:

Because insulin is secreted in response and in proportion to glucose concentration, when it is low, insulin is not secreted. Therefore, insulin sensitivity is regained by completely eliminating insulin-stimulating carbohydrates. This means zero simple sugars without distinction between white sugar, honey or fruit; zero starchy carbs without distinction between refined or whole grains, wheat or rice, bread or pasta, potatoes or sweet potatoes; and zero dairy, which triggers insulin secretion even when sugar content is low. It also means minimal protein, just enough to cover the basic metabolic needs (0.5-0.75 g/kg of lean mass per day). Consequently, it means that almost all calories come from fat—coconut oil, coconut cream, animal fats from organic fish and meats, olive oil and avocados, as well as nuts and seeds—and that the bulk of what we eat in volume comes from fibrous and leafy vegetables.

And what happens? In 24 hours, blood glucose and insulin have dropped significantly, and the metabolism begins to shift from sugar-burning to fat-burning. In 48 hours, the shift has taken place, and the body begins to burn off body fat stores, while it starts the journey towards regaining insulin sensitivity. In a matter of days during the first couple of weeks, the body has released a couple to a few kilos of water and has burnt a couple to a few kilos of fat. We feel much lighter, much thinner, much more flexible and agile, and naturally, much better. In four weeks, blood sugar and insulin levels are now stable in the lower normal range. All of the consequences and side effects brought on by the condition of insulin-resisitant diabetes decrease in severity and amplitude with each passing day, and eventually disappear completely. In eight weeks, the metabolism has fully adapted to fat-burning as the primary source of energy, and we feel great. (See 11 for more technical details.)

The result is that within a matter of weeks, we are diabetic no longer: we have regained insulin sensitivity, and have thus cured our insulin-resistant diabetes. Over time, a few months or maybe a few years, feeling better with each passing day, there remain very few if any traces of our diabetes, and we live as if we never were diabetic. Amazing, isn’t it? So simple. So easy. So straight-forward. And yet, still so rare.

And what about the relationship between diabetes and heart disease, diabetes and stroke, diabetes and cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s? Why do diabetics suffer the various health problems that they do, like high blood pressure, water retention, blindness, kidney disease, and how do those come about? What of the lifespan-regulating functions of insulin, how does that work? All these interesting and important questions and issues will have to wait for another day. This article is already long enough.

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But what about cholesterol?

Posted on December 6, 2011 by G. Belanger

Cholesterol is nothing less than vital for life. It is vital for development. It is vital for growth. It is vital for reproduction. It is ultimately vital for both life to emerge, and for life to sustain itself. This is not a personal opinion—it’s a fact.

Why? Because every membrane of every single cell in your body relies on cholesterol to give it structural integrity. Because every single nerve cell in your brain and every synapse through which nerve impulses are transmitted are mostly made of cholesterol. Because every sex hormone of every woman, man and child is constructed from cholesterol. Simply put, without cholesterol, animal life is impossible. There is not a single person in the world that can dispute this—it is simply so.

Does it even make sense to say that cholesterol is important for health, when our very existence and that of every animal life form depend on it? And how in the world can anyone even formulate the notion that cholesterol can be bad in any way, let alone the cause of a disease, and go as far as suggesting that we should avoid it and try to minimise or even suppress the body’s production of it as if it were some kind of poisonous substance whose purpose is to harm us? This is nothing less then absurd—totally and completely absurd.

I wish it were enough to say just these things to dispel all false, but firmly held beliefs we hold “on the dangers that cholesterol poses to our health” that have been repeated to us over the years, and that are now ingrained in our mind. Unfortunately, although those few fundamental points about cholesterol made above are more than enough to convince me that the entire anti-cholesterol campaign is at best a huge misunderstand, and at worse one of the biggest and most lucrative scams in human history, I fear that for most of us who have been thoroughly brainwashed by decades of misinformation, it will not suffice. So let’s look at this a little more closely, such that once you have finished reading this article, you will be a lot better informed than you were, and in fact, almost surely better informed than your family physician.

No such thing as “good” or “bad” cholesterol

Firstly, cholesterol comes in only one form: there is no such thing as good and bad cholesterol. Whether it is the cholesterol contained in the dark orange yolk of a fresh, free range, organic egg, whether it is the cholesterol synthesised by your liver through a complicated chain of steps that we still do not understand completely, or whether it is the cholesterol produced by the individual cells like the glial cells in the brain, or in any other tissue or organ other than the liver. And yes, this is yet something else that should make us clue in to the fact that cholesterol is vital for survival: unlike almost any other molecule, cholesterol is maybe the only one that probably every cell in every tissue can produce. Amazing, isn’t it? Why would most if not all cells be endowed with this ability, if cholesterol was not of vital importance to their survival as a living entity? Anyway, there is only one form of cholesterol, and although I am repeating myself, it is very important to make the point as clear as possible: cholesterol is beyond good or bad—it is simply vital.

What are LDL and HDL?

Secondly, what is usually referred to as “good” or “bad” cholesterol (the result of a marketing scheme by the pharmaceutical industry), are actually complex molecules called lipoproteins. They are proteins that transport lipids in the bloodstream (hence lipo-protein), and in particular cholesterol, to and from tissues in different parts of the body. Cholesterol is a waxy, fatty substance that is not soluble in water and therefore cannot flow in the bloodstream which is mostly water. For this reason it needs to be transported where it is needed by some other molecules: the lipoproteins. It is indeed most unfortunate that we hear about LDL as the ‘bad’, and HDL as the ‘good’ cholesterol. This is not only false, but completely absurd.

LDL stands for Low Density Lipoprotein, and HDL stands for High Density Lipoprotein. The reason why this erroneous association and misguided use of these terms came about—beyond the scheme to make us believe that there is a bad agent in our blood that we need to get rid of by taking drugs—is based on the fact that one of the functions of LDL is to transport cholesterol from the liver, where most of it is manufactured, to cells and tissues, where need it for repair and regeneration. Since LDL helps to carry cholesterol out from the liver and into the bloodstream to tissues, in imagining that cholesterol in the blood should be minimised, this is clearly a terrible thing. Hence LDL was dubbed the “bad” cholesterol. Does this makes any sense? Not the slightest.

Why does the liver produce this complex cholesterol molecule, and why is there LDL to carry it from the liver to the organs and tissues of our body? Because cholesterol is necessary for the manufacture, maintenance, and repair of the membrane of every single one of the 50 trillion cells in the body.

Naturally, for a molecule as important, as complex to synthesise, and therefore as precious as cholesterol, the organism has evolved a way to collect and reuse it: the three R’s of Reduce (the need for synthesis), Reuse, and Recycle (everything you can). One of the roles of the HDL carrier molecules is to collect unneeded or surplus cholesterol and bring it back to the liver. Once more, in imagining that cholesterol in the blood should be minimised—beyond the clever trick to introduce the essential protagonist to counter the imagined antagonist, for if there is a bad guy there naturally must be a good guy—because HDL helps to carry cholesterol from the bloodstream back to liver, it was dubbed the “good” cholesterol. Does this makes any sense? Not the slightest.

So we know that one of the the roles of LDL and HDL molecules—certainly the most obvious one—is to transport cholesterol from the liver to cells and tissues, and back to it for reuse and recycling or breakdown into other molecules. LDL and HDL work together as partners in the cholesterol transport system. But do these lipoproteins have other roles in the complex biochemistry of the human body? Indeed they do.

HDL and LDL: beyond cholesterol transport

As incredible as this may possibly sound to you if you are still brain-washed by the anti-cholesterol campaigns intended to convince you to eat more highly processed, tasteless, odourless, chemically altered and typically rancid vegetable oils, as well as to start taking “life-saving” statin drugs, compiling all the data we have from studies that measured lipoprotein levels in the blood and death rates, we find that the lowest mortality from all diseases occurs in people with total lipoprotein levels between 200 and 240, centred on 220 mg/dl. These are age-corrected data, so as we age levels should gradually rise. But that’s not the only thing we find from looking at this graph of compiled data: there is an inverse relationship between lipoprotein levels and mortality such that the lower the lipoprotein levels are, the higher the death rate! and this for all diseases—infectious, parasitic and cardiovascular. To those who know what HDL and LDL molecules do, this is not surprising at all. It is, in fact, perfectly sensible.

As much as some may believe that the main role of LDL and HDL molecules is to carry cholesterol to and from tissues for cellular maintenance and repair, some would argue that their main role is not simple transport of cholesterol, but in fact, it is to protect the organism from bacterial and viral pathogens. It is firmly established that lipoproteins bind to endotoxins to inactivate them and protect against their toxic effects that include arterial wall inflammation. Endotoxins are part of the outer membrane of the cell wall of Gram-negative bacteria such as Escherichia coli, Salmonella, Shigella, Pseudomonas, Neisseria, Haemophilus influenzae, Bordetella pertussis and Vibrio cholerae, all of which can cause severe, well known diseases. In addition, lipoproteins also protect against viruses like hepatitis B, and consequently in this case, against cancer and other diseases of the liver as reported here. There are many scientific publications on this and related topics, but most are quite complicated. (If you are interested in this kind of thing, you can look at this article, and browse through the long list of references. For those interested in bacteriology, I found a great free online textbook by Kenneth Todar of the University of Wisconsin.)

The essential point to remember, however, is that the lipoproteins LDL and HDL play a very important role in our immune system by neutralising harmful toxins released from the activity of pathogenic bacteria and viruses, thus protecting us from infectious diseases and the related chronic inflammation. This is why people with higher levels of lipoproteins LDL and HDL live longer and healthier lives.

Cholesterol and the brain

Although all cell membranes rely on cholesterol for structural integrity, neurons or brain cells are highly enriched in cholesterol that makes up more than 20% of their dry weight. The importance of this enrichment can be appreciated when we consider that our brain accounts for 2% of our body weight, but it contains 25% of the cholesterol in the body. This means that the amount of cholesterol in the brain is 12.5 times higher than the average. Isn’t this enough to convince you of the extreme importance of cholesterol for proper brain functions?

As elsewhere in the body, cholesterol is found in the cell membrane. For brain cells this is the myelin sheaths that insulate them. But in addition, and maybe more importantly, cholesterol is the main constituent of the synapses through which nerve impulses are transmitted from one neurons to another. And contrary to common wisdom that lipoproteins cannot cross the blood-brain barrier, and therefore brain cholesterol must be synthesised in the brain, it has been shown that if something prevents brain cells from synthesising the precious cholesterol, then they use whatever they can get from the lipoproteins circulating in the blood.

With these facts in mind, is it surprising that when cholesterol synthesis is suppressed by taking statin drugs, some of the most common symptoms are memory loss, dizziness, mental fog, slowing reflexes, all of which are directly related to brain function? Is it surprising that Alzheimer’s patients tend to have lower cholesterol levels both in the blood and in the brain? Well no, it’s not.

Do we need to go further? Don’t we all want to have a brain that is provided with all the fat and cholesterol is needs to function optimally for as long as we are alive? I think so. But if you want to learn more about the detrimental effects of cholesterol-reducing drugs, you can read any or all of Dr Duane Graveline‘s books: Lipitor: Thief of Memory; Statin Drugs Side Effect and the Misguided War on Cholesterol; and Statin Damage Crisis. I also stumbled upon this article in the Wall Street Journal (out of all places!), that describes how important cholesterol is for the brain, and hence, how damaging cholesterol-lowering drugs can be.

Cholesterol and hormones

What more needs to be said to emphasise its importance for healthy hormonal function than that all steroid hormones are made from cholesterol. Steroid hormones, as the names suggests, are steroids that act as hormones. Hormones are messenger molecules that tell cells what to do and when to do it. To carry out their function, (pass on their message), they must reach the nucleus of the cell. But to reach the well protected nucleus and bind to specific receptors in it, hormones must pass through the fatty cellular membrane. For this reason, hormones are made of fat: they are lipids. Since lipids are not water soluble, as is the case of cholesterol, hormones rely on specialised proteins to transport them in the bloodstream throughout the body.

There are 5 groups of steroid hormones: glucocorticoids, mineralocorticoids, androgens, oestrogens and progestogens, as well the closely related hormones that we refer to as Vitamin D. Each one of these is a family of hormones responsible for regulating the metabolism related to a specific group of substances.

Glucocorticoids are steroids produced in the adrenal gland, and responsible for glucose metabolism. Cortisol is maybe the most important of glucocorticoids as it is absolutely essential for life, regulating or supporting a variety of important cardiovascular, metabolic, immunologic, and homeostatic functions.

Mineralocorticoids are responsible for the regulation of minerals, the most important of which are sodium and potassium. The main mineralocorticoids is aldosterone that acts on the kidneys to regulate reabsorption of sodium and water from the bloodstream, but also the secretion of potassium. These two minerals are required in the well known sodium-potassium pump that continuously—for every single cell—work to ensure that the concentration of sodium stays higher outside the cell, while the concentration of potassium stays higher inside the cell. It is also through the sodium-potassium pump that glucose is transported from the bloodstream into the cell.

Androgens, oestrogens and progestogens are sex hormones. They must all be in good balance for proper development and physiological function, as well as psychological health in both males and females. It is important to emphasise that although we typically associate the main androgen, testosterone, with men, this hormone plays a very important role in muscle development and inhibition of fat deposition, both of which are equally essential in men and women. There are also several psychological factors regulated by the concentration and relative balance of male and female sex hormones such as assertiveness, motivation, self-confidence, on the one hand, and calm, caring and compassion, on the other.

Interestingly, the most important oestrogens are derived from androgens through the action of enzymes. Therefore a deficiency in androgens will naturally lead to a corresponding deficiency in oestrogenic hormones. Oestrogens regulate all aspects of the reproductive system in women. Phychologically, low oestrogen levels are associated with depression and hyper-sensitivity in females, and insecurity and obsessive compulsive behaviours in males. Progestogens are most important in their role in maintaining pregnancy (pro-gestation) and are therefore most important for women. They are, however, special hormones because progestogens are precursors to all other steroids. All steroid producing tissues such as the adrenals, ovaries and testes, must therefore be able to produce progestogens. To learn more about hormones, their importance, their effects and how to bring them into balance through diet, I recommend the Hormone Solution or Le regime hormone (in french) by Thierry Hertoghe, MD.

Too much cholesterol?

There is no such thing as too much cholesterol. The body produces exactly what it needs depending on the conditions, and as such, the amount in circulation is a consequence of other factors. Lipoprotein levels, reflecting the amount of cholesterol in circulation, are a function of genetics and of the state of the body. Genetic tendencies are what they are. The state of the body, as far as cholesterol is concerned, means primarily the condition of the tissues. And the condition of the tissues reflects the amount of damage they sustain in relation to the amount of repair that takes place, or in other words, the rate of ageing.

Since cholesterol gives cell membranes strength and integrity, it is needed to repair and rebuild cells. Therefore, the more cellular reproduction, as in growing children for example, the greater the need. But equally, the more cellular damage, the greater the need for cholesterol to repair the injured tissues. The damage sustained by tissues is primarily from glycation, free-radicals, and chronic inflammation, all of which are intimately related because blood sugar triggers both free-radical production and inflammatory processes, but inflammation also arises from the action of toxins and infectious agents like viruses and bacteria.

Refined and starchy carbohydrates and chemically unstable polyunsaturated vegetable oils both directly cause glycation, free-radical damage, and chronic inflammation. They should be eliminated from the diet to minimise tissue damage and ageing, maximise repairing and rebuilding, and as a consequence, minimise risks of degenerative diseases. It will also normalise cholesterol synthesis and usage, and bring lipoprotein levels into their optimal range, completely naturally because, (once more), the body’s cholesterol requirements and thus lipoprotein concentrations are a consequence of other factors. They should not be tampered with and artificially manipulated, because interventions of this kind can only and will inevitably lead to problems.

Why Oh Why?

Why is it then, that most of us believe cholesterol is bad? Why do most of us believe we should, not sometimes, but always avoid foods that contain cholesterol or saturated fats that seem to help the body manufacture cholesterol? Because we have been told that it is. Nothing more complicated than that. We have been told this absurd, unfounded and clearly dangerous story, which is in fact a lie, but we believe it. Why have we been made to believe this? The answer is two-fold: on the one hand, bad science, bad scientists and egos, and on the other, money—lots and lots of money. In fact, more than 29 000 000 000 dollars worth of money.

For the “bad science” part I will only say this: It is true that the accumulation of plaque can lead to heart disease. It is also true that plaque is very cholesterol-rich. However, the reason why plaque is formed is because the arterial tissue is damaged and needs to be repaired. The cholesterol-rich plaque is like a scab whose role is to allow the damaged tissue to heal. And just as a scab, once the tissue is healed, it “falls off” and is brought back to the liver for recycling. The cholesterol is part of the healing agent: the cure, so to speak. The damage to the tissue comes from other things, wether it is inflammatory endotoxins released from pathogenic bacteria, cigarette smoking-related chemicals, or maybe most importantly glucose sticking haphazardly to proteins, damaging the arterial walls and forming advanced glycation end-products or AGEs for short, cholesterol is the bandage meant to help the tissue heal—not the cause of the problem.

For the “money” part, I will have to write a few more paragraphs. In the 1950s the vegetable oil industry found a way to hydrogenate inexpensive liquid vegetable oil made from soy and corn into firm shortening. This gave them the perfect means to compete for, and indeed takeover a large share of the market that had traditionally been held by the dairy (butter), meat (lard) or coconut and palm oil producers to which they did not have a way to tap into. With hydrogenation, they were able to produce butter substitutes (margarines), as well as lard and tropical oil substitutes (shortenings), and offer them at a mere fraction of the price of the original products with the potential of making enormous profits with their sale on a national and in some cases international scales. Therefore, unfortunately, but not so surprisingly, many of the large scale trials in the field of dietary science carried out in the 60s, 70s and 80s were funded by the vegetable oil industry.

The money that the vegetable oil industry must have made and still makes the world over, however, is probably nothing in comparison to the billions raked in every year by a handful of pharmaceutical manufacturers that produce and sell the cholesterol-lowering statins. In 2003, the best selling prescription drug in the world was Pfizer’s Lipitor with sales of 9.2 billion dollars (that’s more than 25 million per day). And in 2009 statin sales generated a staggering 25 billion dollars in revenues, and this figure has been rising since the very beginning of statin sales in the 1990s.

But doctors don’t have anything to gain from this, do they? Well, no, not really. But for one thing, doctors are usually not research scientist, and thus they are generally not only very poorly informed about health-related matters, but also unable or simply uninterested in reading books written by specialists on various health topics, let alone in reading the often technical and complicated scientific literature.

To make matters worse, 75% of clinical trials are funded by pharmaceutical companies, and therefore about 75% of all published medical papers also derive from pharmaceutical funding. Finally, the vast majority of conferences and workshops that doctors are invited to attend, all expenses paid of course, to keep them informed of the latest and greatest developments in medical science are also usually fully funded by the pharmaceutical. It goes without saying that what is presented at these conferences naturally serves their interests that are obviously purely financial.

I think you get the picture, but if you want to read more about this, all of the independent researchers and authors mentioned above: Malcolm Kendrick (The Great Cholesterol Con) and Uffe Ravnskov (Cholesterol and Fat are Good for You) who both practice medicine and have thus experienced this first hand, as well as Gary Taubes (Good Calories, Bad Calories) and Anthony Colpo (a different The Great Cholesterol Con) have some things to say about corporate involvement in clinical trials. Obviously, you can also search the internet to your heart’s content.

Final words

I hope I have succeeded in convincing you that cholesterol is not in the least harmful, and that it is, in fact, absolutely vital to your health: vital for your hormonal system, vital for your immune system, vital for your brain, and vital for every cell in your body.

I also hope I have convinced you that it is not only the case that everything you have been told that incriminates either cholesterol or LDL as causing heart disease or any other ailment is dead wrong, but that you should actually do whatever you can to maintain optimal lipoprotein levels around 220 mg/dl, and supply your body with ample amounts of unaltered health-promoting fats, as well as fat-soluble vitamins and cholesterol from organic eggs from free range, grass-and-insect eating hens, butter and fatty cheeses (preferably from unpasteurized milk to improve digestibility), and grass-fed meats. But here, and as I always emphasise, the most fundamental health-promoting thing to do is to eliminate insulin-stimulating and inflammation-causing carbohydrates.

healthfully

inspiration for better health and wellbeing

Tag Archives: Cancer

You have cancer, and there’s lots you can do

Understanding cancer

Removing cancer

1) Starve the cancer cells

2) Alkalise to remove and excrete accumulated acids

3) Restore cellular self-destruct function

4) Do everything else that can help

Summary and Wrap up

On the origin of cancer cells – part 2

What Warburg understood

How was this measured?

Oxygen is crucial

Measuring cancer cell metabolism

What these results explained

Our basic cancer-fighting strategy?

In closing

On the origin of cancer cells – part 1

Cure diabetes in a matter of weeks

But what about cholesterol?

No such thing as “good” or “bad” cholesterol

What are LDL and HDL?

HDL and LDL: beyond cholesterol transport

Cholesterol and the brain

Cholesterol and hormones

Too much cholesterol?

Further readings on cholesterol

Why Oh Why?

Final words

Understanding cancer

Removing cancer

1) Starve the cancer cells

2) Alkalise to remove and excrete accumulated acids

3) Restore cellular self-destruct function

4) Do everything else that can help

Summary and Wrap up

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What Warburg understood

How was this measured?

Oxygen is crucial

Measuring cancer cell metabolism

What these results explained

Our basic cancer-fighting strategy?

In closing

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Like this:

No such thing as “good” or “bad” cholesterol

What are LDL and HDL?

HDL and LDL: beyond cholesterol transport

Cholesterol and the brain

Cholesterol and hormones

Too much cholesterol?

Further readings on cholesterol

Why Oh Why?

Final words

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