Keys to Cancer Prevention & Recovery

New evidence suggests that simple dietary modifications could effectively both treat and prevent the majority of these cancers.

Travis Christofferson is the author of a the book called "Tripping Over the Truth: The Return of the Metabolic Theory of Cancer Illuminates a New and Hopeful Path to a Cure." This is a must read book for anyone who has cancer or knows someone who has cancer. Travis has a Pre-Med undergraduate degree and a Master's degree in Materials Engineering and Science.

The Warburg Effect:

Otto Warburg, MD, PhD, won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1931 for his discovery that cancer cells have a fundamentally different energy metabolism as compared to healthy cells. He is considered by many experts to be the greatest biochemist of the 20th century.

Dr. Warburg discovered that in the presence of oxygen, cancer cells overproduce lactic acid. This is known as The Warburg Effect.

A cell can produce energy in two ways:

1. Aerobic, which is with oxygen in the mitochondria. This is very efficient.

2. Anaerobic, which is without oxygen in the cytoplasm, which generates lactic acid, which is a toxic byproduct and is very inefficient.

Dr. Warburg concluded that the cause of cancer was the change of energy generation from aerobic to anaerobic. That, he said, was the prime cause of cancer until his death in 1970. One of his life goals was to discover the cure for cancer.

The Somatic Theory of Cancer:

Yet despite winning a Nobel Prize, Warburg's ideas on cancer didn't gain recognition by conventional medicine.

After the discovery of DNA, it was thought that viruses caused cancer, but nobody knew exactly how. The theory was that cancer created a distorted version of normal cellular division. The evidence clearly showed that something other than mere gene mutation was at play.

There is something else driving cancer that they didn't know about. That something very well may be mitochondrial damage.

The Focus on Cancer Metabolism:

The treatment suggested by the metabolic theory of cancer is a simple one. Travis' book clearly and carefully explains this process. Even James Watson, who won the Nobel Prize in 1954 for discovering the structure of DNA, has turned his focus to the metabolic roots of cancer.

When you look at cancer metabolically, you're trying to restore proper mitochondrial function and increasing the cellular number of mitochondria.

Why Do Cancer Cells Revert to Anaerobic Energy Generation?

So why exactly do cancer cells revert from aerobic energy generation to anaerobic energy generation?

There is a very simple explanation. Pete Pedersen, Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins determined that there's a radically reduced number of mitochondria in cancer cells.

Typically there are several hundred to several thousand mitochondria in each cell. This makes up about one-third to half of the volume of the inside of each cell. The mitochondria generate the energy for your cells in the form of ATP.

If you have a radical reduction of mitochondria and the ones that are left are mostly dysfunctional, then you've got a problem. These cancer cells have no choice but to revert to anaerobic respiration, which is inefficient and a more primitive form of respiration.

But this leads to another question, which is why are the cancer cells doing this?

Cancer cells burn glucose, but can't burn fat. Burning glucose also generates far more free radicals than burning fat. Healthy cells can burn glucose, fat and ketones.

This is the heart of successful cancer treatment and why ketogenic diets appear to be so effective. They essentially starve the cancer, while nourishing healthy cells.

If the nucleus of a cancer cell is placed into a healthy cell, the cell is does not become cancerous. If the nucleus of a healthy cell is placed in a cancer cell, the cell is still cancerous. This evidence does not support the genetic cancer link. This is irrefutable evidence that something in the cytoplasm is not only repressing cancer, but is driving cancer too.

New Treatment Offers Tremendous Hope for Cancer Patients:

Because of their anaerobic metabolism, cancer cells overproduce lactic acid. They have to then produce more pores, to let lactic acid out, or else the cancer cell will die from the inside out. Lactic acid is a very toxic substance.

There is a molecule 3-bromopyruvate (3BP) that has a similar molecular structure as lactic acid. 3BP is very reactive and has the potential to destroy tumors by entering the same pores that the cancer cell uses to eliminate lactic acid. The clinical trials have not been performed yet on 3BP.

There is the potential to reverse just about any cancer by being on a ketogenic diet and adding 3BP.

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