Conclusion
Chemotherapy can boost cancer growth, study finds
A related news story, again, highlights the need to revise how we treat cancer and how we view cancer prevention. Chemotherapy is a staple of the cut, poison, burn paradigm that is conventional cancer treatment, despite the evidence against it. According to research published in the journal Nature Medicine Vol. 5 chemotherapy can damage healthy cells in such a way that they begin secreting a protein (WNT16B) that not only protects cancer cells and promotes their survival, but can also cause the tumors to be resistant to further chemotherapy treatment.
In a nutshell, what we’re talking about is chemotherapy-resistant cancer…caused by the initial treatment. It’s difficult to think of a worse scenario than this. The finding was reportedly “completely unexpected,” and was only discovered because they were trying to determine why cancer cells can be easily killed in a lab setting, yet remain so resilient inside your body. The results were confirmed on breast and ovarian cancer tumors. Coauthor Peter Nelson of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle told the AFP.
“The increase in WNT16B was completely unexpected….WNT16B, when secreted, would interact with nearby tumor cells and cause them to grow, invade and importantly, resist subsequent therapy…”
The researchers speculate that adding an antibody to WNT16B to the chemotherapy might improve the response rate and kill off more cancer cells. Another alternative might be to use smaller, less toxic doses of chemotherapy to reduce the damage to healthy cells.
Getting to the root of the problem
I strongly believe the cancer rates are escalating because they are in no way shape or form addressing the underlying cause of most cancers. Instead, most of the research is directed toward expensive drugs that target late stages of the disease and greatly enrich the drug companies, but simply do not prevent cancer. If ever there was an area in which an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, it is cancer. I strongly believe that if you are able to work your way up to the advanced level of my health plan, that you will virtually eliminate your risk of most cancers.
Environmental and lifestyle factors are increasingly being pinpointed as the primary culprits fueling our cancer epidemic. This includes:
- Pesticide and other chemical exposures
- Processed and artificial foods (plus the chemicals in the packaging)
- Wireless technologies, dirty electricity and medical diagnostic radiation exposure
- Pharmaceutical drugs
- Obesity, stress and poor sleeping habits
- Lack of sunshine exposure and use of sunscreens
This is clearly not an exhaustive list as such a list would be exceedingly long. For more specifics on consumer products implicated as contributors to cancer, please review the Cancer Prevention Coalition’s “Dirty Dozen” list.
Medical researchers would like you to believe they’re doing everything they can to come up with a solution. Yet, all we see is research into newer drug therapies. Clearly, they’re not digging close enough to the root of the problem, because if they did, they’d touch on some of these lifestyle issues just mentioned. From my perspective, you ignore lifestyle factors at your own peril when it comes to cancer…because clearly, drug-based “advances” are not making a dent in this progressively prevalent disease.
Real cancer advancements that need to become mainstream knowledge
In the last 30 years, the global cancer burden has doubled, and it will likely double again between 2000 and 2020, and nearly triple by 2030—unless people begin to take cancer prevention seriously. We can turn this trend around but, to do so, the medical community must stop overlooking the methods that can actually have a significant impact.
Three cancer advancements in particular merit special mention. These advancements have not yet been accepted by conventional medicine, and they must be.
No. 1: Vitamin D—There’s overwhelming evidence pointing to the fact that vitamin D deficiency plays a crucial role in cancer development. Researchers within this field have estimated that about 30 percent of cancer deaths could be prevented each year simply by optimizing the vitamin D levels in the general population. And if you are being treated for cancer, it is likely that higher blood levels—probably around 80 to 90 ng/ml—would be a beneficial adjunct to your treatment plan. To learn the details on how to use vitamin D therapeutically, please review my previous article, “Test Values and Treatment for vitamin D Deficiency.”
The health benefits of optimizing your levels, either by safe sun exposure (ideally), a safe tanning bed or oral supplementation as a last resort, simply cannot be overstated. In terms of protecting against cancer, vitamin D has been found to offer protection in a number of ways, including:
- Regulating genetic expression
- Increasing the self-destruction of mutated cells (which, if allowed to replicate, could lead to cancer)
- Reducing the spread and reproduction of cancer cells
- Causing cells to become differentiated (cancer cells often lack differentiation)
- Reducing the growth of new blood vessels from preexisting ones, which is a step in the transition of dormant tumors turning cancerous
No. 2: Optimizing your insulin levels—Normalizing your insulin levels is one of the most powerful physical actions you can take to lower your risk of cancer. Otto Warburg actually received a Nobel Prize for his research on cancer cell physiology in 1934, which clearly demonstrated cancer cells require more sugar to thrive.
Unfortunately, very few oncologists appreciate or apply this knowledge today.
High levels of insulin can cause major damage to your body. The most recognized of these is diabetes, but that is far from the only one. As Ron Rosedale, MD, said in one of my most popular articles, “Insulin and Its Metabolic Effects:”
“It doesn’t matter what disease you are talking about, whether you are talking about a common cold or cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis or cancer, the root is always going to be at the molecular and cellular level, and I will tell you that insulin is going to have its hand in it, if not totally control it.”
The good news is that controlling your insulin levels is relatively straightforward. First, limit your intake of processed foods, grains and sugars/fructose as much as possible to prevent your insulin levels from becoming elevated in the first place. Replace them with healthy fats such as butter, animal fat, coconut oil, avocados, seeds and nuts.
I recently completed 10 hours of interviews with Rosedale, in which he goes far deeper into his philosophy and recommendations. I was floored at what I learned and he has, once again, changed my position on many important nutritional issues. One of the key new insights is that you need to limit your protein to no more than your basic requirements, which is about one gram per kilogram of lean body mass, which is typically less than 70 grams for most people. If you go over this you will upregulate the mTOR pathways, which has been strongly associated with increasing your risk for cancer.
I am very excited to share this information with you once we review it as it is possible that this can help the treatment of most cancers. And it is all done with dietary regulation. Supplements can be used, but they are optional and only make the transition to fat burning metabolism easier.
No. 3: Exercise—If you are like most people, when you think of reducing your risk of cancer, exercise doesn’t immediately come to mind. However, there is some fairly compelling evidence that exercise can slash your risk of cancer.
One of the primary ways exercise lowers your risk for cancer is by reducing elevated insulin levels, which creates a low sugar environment that discourages the growth and spread of cancer cells. Additionally, exercise improves the circulation of immune cells in your blood. Your immune system is your first line of defense against everything from minor illnesses like a cold right up to devastating, life-threatening diseases like cancer.
The trick about exercise, though, is understanding how to use it as a precise tool. This ensures you are getting enough to achieve the benefit, not too much to cause injury, and the right variety to balance your entire physical structure and maintain strength and flexibility, and aerobic and anaerobic fitness levels. This is why it is helpful to view exercise like a drug that needs to be carefully prescribed to achieve its maximum benefit.
It’s important to include a large variety of techniques in your exercise routine, such as strength training, aerobics, core-building activities and stretching. Most important of all, however, is to make sure you include high-intensity, burst-type exercise, once or twice a week, in which you raise your heart rate up to your anaerobic threshold for 20 to 30 seconds, and then you recover for 90 seconds. These exercises activate your super-fast twitch muscle fibers, which can increase your body’s natural production of human growth hormone.
Winning the war against cancer begins with your personal choices
You can do a lot, right now, to significantly decrease your cancer risk. Even the conservative American Cancer Society states that one-third of cancer deaths are linked to poor diet, physical inactivity and carrying excess weight. So, in addition to the main three suggestions listed above, making the following healthy lifestyle changes can go a very long way toward avoiding all forms of cancer:
- Eat a healthy diet of whole organic foods, and pay careful attention to keeping your insulin levels down by avoiding sugar/fructose and grains. I make this easy with my recently updated and free Nutrition Plan. The key here is to radically reduce your sugar and non-fiber carbs to an absolute minimum, and limit your protein to 1 gram per 1 kilogram of lean body mass.
- Only 25 percent of people eat enough vegetables so, by all means, eat as many vegetables as you are comfortable with. Ideally, they should be fresh and organic. Cruciferous vegetables, in particular, have been identified as having potent anticancer properties. Remember that carb nutritional types may need up to 300 percent more vegetables than protein nutritional types.
- Get appropriate amounts of high-quality animal-based omega-3 fats.
- Have a tool to permanently erase the neurological short-circuiting that can activate cancer genes. Even the CDC states that 85 percent of disease is caused by emotions. It is likely that this factor may be more important than all the other physical ones listed here, so make sure this is addressed. My particular favorite tool for this purpose, as you may know, is the Emotional Freedom Technique.
- Maintain an ideal body fat percentage.
- Get enough high-quality sleep.
- Reduce your exposure to environmental toxins, like pesticides, household chemical cleaners, synthetic air fresheners and air pollution.
- Reduce your use of cell phones and other wireless technologies, and implement as many safety strategies as possible if/when you cannot avoid their use.
- Boil, poach or steam your foods, rather than frying or charbroiling them.
Source: www.bewellbuzz.com
Image credits: Niloo138 | Dreamstime.com, Dreamstime.com