The cancer paradigm is shifting and your oncologist may not even be aware yet. We know now that cancer is a metabolic disease. That is, cancer is caused by diseased mitochondria, the cellular organelles responsible for creating energy. Healthy mitochondria are able to create energy from a variety of sugar or fat fuels, using oxygen or not – but preferring oxygen. This adaptability is called metabolic flexibility. Cancerous cells, on the other hand, are only able to create energy using one method that uses sugar but no oxygen. This method is very inefficient and requires lots and lots of sugar. This fact, known as the Warburg Effect. This isn’t new knowledge – Otto Warburg won a Nobel Prize for the discovery in the 1931 and it’s the reason why PET scans work– it’s just something that cancer researchers stopped focusing on when DNA was discovered. Read more details on the science here.
After sequencing the genome of over 10,000 tumors and failing to find a meaningful pattern that could lead to a true cure for cancer, some doctors and researchers remembered Warburg’s discoveries and focused on treatments targeting cancer’s unique metabolism. And they are working!
So far, most of these treatments either can’t be patented or are too inexpensive for pharmaceutical companies to market them. In fact, the funding for studies proving effectiveness of these treatments comes primarily from non-profit foundations, cancer patients themselves, or a few public institutions who aren’t completely dependent on corporate benefactor and lobbyist dollars. But fortunately, the studies are being done.
In addition to reading the research being published, I’ve been privileged to attend conferences and liaise with the heads of in-progress studies. I’m confident that this new treatment paradigm will become standard in the next decade.
But most can’t afford to wait a decade.
What are Metabolic Therapies
Metabolic therapies treat the cause of cancer: the diseased mitochondria and the environmental factors that cause them to become diseased. Since the metabolic paradigm starting coming back into prominence around 2012 with Seyfried’s Cancer as a Metabolic Disease, research has been piling up supporting these treatments.
Even so, it will be some time before they’re part of the standard of care for cancer — or even part of medical education for oncologists. It’s therefore up to the patient to find a metabolically informed medical team or educate the doctors themselves.
Evidence-based metabolic therapies for cancer include:
- Fasting and calorie restriction
- Ketogenic diet
- Functional foods
- Reduction of overall cellular toxic load
- Stress reduction
- Off label drugs
- Supplements
- Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT)
This blog seeks to provide an overview of these therapies and the research behind them.
- Fasting and calorie restriction
- Ketogenic diet
- Functional foods
- Toxic load reduction
- Mindfulness-based stress reduction
- Breathwork
- Off label drugs
- Supplements
- Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT)
