Cancer Uses Established Metabolic Mechanisms

Though there are thousands of studies to verify the Walburg Effect, oncologists routinely ignore this most important research. For example, despite decades of research showing how oxygen can be used to defeat cancer, you will never hear your oncologist recommend it. And you will never hear a doctor tell a patient that one of the best ways to control and increase oxygen is by using carbon dioxide as the more than excellent medicine it is.

Cell survival, interestingly enough, is not dependent so much on oxygen as everyone believes. All cells have a survival protocol when oxygen is not available. Healthy cells use it all the time when under a heavy exercise load. Instead of suffocating, they turn to burn glucose directly via fermentation, but like in cancer cells, they start churning out more lactic acid, and thus, our muscles get tired and ache.

The problem with cancer cells is that they do not return to oxygen metabolism but keep themselves alive with fermentation, the hallmark of all cancer cells. It makes them very similar to fungus cells that share this type of energy production. When you sprint at full speed, your cells will only have enough ATP stored in them to last a few seconds. Once the stored ATP is used, your muscles will start producing ATP through fermentation. Fermentation makes it possible for cells to continue generating ATP through glycolysis.

If you deprive a group of cells of vital oxygen for long enough, some will die, but others will manage to alter their genetic software program. They will regress as a method of survival into the types of cells common millions of years ago when oxygen was at much lower concentrations. Deep in the Mediterranean, scientists have discovered complex animals known to live without oxygen. It was previously thought that only viruses and single-celled microbes could survive without oxygen long-term.

Cancer can be seen as an evolutionary throw-back, drawing from a genetic ‘tool-kit’ a billion years old, which still lies buried deep within the genome of our cells. Dr. Paul Davies calls this subterranean genetic layer Metazoa 1.0, and it contains pathways and genetic programs that were once indispensable for our ancient cellular predecessors who grew up in a radically different environment. One billion years ago, atmospheric oxygen was exceptionally low since photosynthesis had not yet evolved to produce an abundant supply.

At the beginning of life on earth, cells had no choice but to thrive in a low or no-oxygen environment, which cancer cells do and continue to do even when oxygen is present. But bombard them with intense oxygen levels, and cancer cells start to have problems.

Dr. Robert Rowan says, “Dr. Otto Warburg emphasized that you can’t make a cell ferment unless a LACK OF OXYGEN is involved. In 1955, two American scientists, R.A. Malmgren, and C.C. Flanigan, confirmed Warburg’s findings. They found that oxygen deficiency is ALWAYS present when cancer develops.”

Cancer cells and yeasts use a process of fermentation/anaerobic respiration for energy. Anaerobic means “without oxygen”. Warburg found that you can reverse fermentation simply by adding oxygen – but only if you do it early enough to cancer cells. Low oxygenation does accelerate malignant progression and metastasis, thereby creating a poorer prognosis irrespective of which cancer treatment is used.

Most bodies face occasional hypoxic (low oxygen) conditions. Thus, under anaerobic conditions, fermentation is the only metabolic option. Even when oxygen is available, the oxygen uptake rate can limit ATP production by oxidative phosphorylation. Cancer cells rewire a higher metabolism to promote growth, survival, proliferation, and long-term maintenance. The common feature of this altered metabolism is increased glucose uptake and fermentation of glucose to lactate.

The presence of areas with low O₂ tension is associated with
increased metastasis and poor patient survival, giving rise
to the notion that hypoxia is a hallmark of malignant cancer.[i]

The physiological microenvironment of solid tumors is typically characterized by poor perfusion and high metabolic rates. Consequently, many regions within tumors are transiently or chronically hypoxic and acidic. Acidity is likely related to glucose consumption rates. Yet many say the inside of the cancer cell is alkaline. It certainly can be more alkaline than the lactic-laden micro-environmental.

It has long been recognized that solid tumors contain poorly vascularized regions characterized by severe hypoxia (oxygen deprivation), acidosis, and nutrient starvation. Over the past decade, work from many laboratories has indicated that hypoxic microenvironments contribute to cancer progression by activating adaptive transcriptional programs that promote cell survival, motility, and tumor angiogenesis.

Cancer Cells are Easier to Kill
when Oxygen Levels are Increased.

Oxygen pulls the rug out from under cancer cells and tumors by removing the fundamental condition that makes them virulent. Bicarbonates do the same thing, so using oxygen and bicarbonate together is lethal to cancer cells. It just so happens that low oxygen conditions cause infections (which can cause cancer) and that the key cause of cancer is oxygen deficiency that forces, for survival’s sake, cells to turn cancerous.

Any element that threatens the oxygen-carrying capacity
of the human body will promote cancer growth.

The Wonderful World of Modern Oncology

The biggest weakness of current cancer treatments is that they only treat the cancer and not the actual patient. The “alkalization therapy” that many advocates does not compete with any of the current standard treatments but improves the effectiveness of standard treatments reduces side effects and lowers medical costs. That is the politeness of it, for standard oncology is a show of horrors.

Oncologists’ knowledge of cancer is dangerously superficial. They leave one with the feeling that they do not want you to know anything except for mainstream recommendations like surgery, chemo, and radiation therapy. And, of course, they want you to employ all their dangerous diagnostic tests that only provoke cancer and increase your chances of dying. They don’t listen to medical science and certainly will not listen to you if you are interested in any of the many alternatives.

Everyone who visits an oncologist is subjected to a tremendous amount of stress. Do they know or care that women with advanced breast cancer who have abnormal daytime levels of cortisol, a hormone released in response to stress, are significantly more likely to die sooner than patients with normal hormone levels, Stanford University researchers reported back in 2000.

The researchers also found that women with abnormal cortisol levels had fewer immune system cells, known as natural killer cells, and this reduced immunity was associated with higher mortality. Dr. David Spiegel, MD, Stanford professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, said, “We found that patients who had abnormal cortisol patterns died significantly sooner.”

The kidneys are integral for the constant excretion of excess acid. This increases ammonia production and excretion and requires glutamate for energy. These processes need glucocorticoids, such as cortisol, often above the amount necessary for normal protein metabolism. High cortisol levels impact the body in many ways, promoting a loss of minerals from the body and further increasing the acid load. The body can only assimilate minerals and nutrients properly when the acid/alkaline levels (pH) are balanced. Under acidic conditions, enzymatic processes may be hindered, and waste products and toxins can become trapped in the extracellular matrix, leading to cell dysfunction, cancer, and inflammation.

[i] Hockel S, Schlenger K, Vaupel P, Hockel M. 2001. Association between host tissue vascularity and the prognostically relevant tumor vascularity in human cervical cancer. Int. J. Oncol. 19, 827–832. [PubMed] [Google Scholar] [Ref list]