A Review of Thomas Seyfried's Cancer As a Metabolic Disease

[charlie]

Hat tip Joe over at RP fans:

A Review of Thomas Seyfried's Cancer As a Metabolic Disease
http://www.townsendletter.com/Dec2012/w ... r1212.html

 

[charlie]

Re: A Review of Thomas Seyfried's Cancer As a Metabolic Dise

Hat tip FPS for pulling these quotes from article:

"Only Seyfried, Pedersen, and a few others have taken a truly Warburgian approach, unequivocally stating that cancer is a disease of injured mitochondria and its resulting compensatory fermentation and that this causes the genome to degrade in unpredictable ways."

"In their famous "Hallmarks of Cancer" articles (2000 and 2011), Weinberg and Hanahan claim that genome instability is the essential "enabling characteristic" of all cancers, including metastases. But Seyfried proposes an alternative view; that is, that the key lethal flaw in cancer does not originate in the nucleus at all but in the mitochondria. Mitochondria are the power plants of the cell, where a person's energy is created.

Through the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, mitochondria can turn one glucose molecule into ~30 packets of energy (i.e., adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. The theoretical yield in a normal cell is 38 ATP molecules from each oxidized glucose molecule. In practice the yield is usually between 29 and 30.) This process is called oxidative phosphorylation – or OxPhos, for short (Rich 2003).

Seyfried affirms the commonly held view that cancer originates in the impact of carcinogens (radiation, tobacco smoke, asbestos, etc.) but that this damage crucially affects the mitochondria, not only the nucleus. This damage causes chronic inflammation and respiratory insufficiency."

"In its basic outlines, this theory of cancer is hardly new. In fact, it was propounded by Otto H. Warburg, MD, PhD, from 1923 until his death in 1970. Warburg won the Nobel Prize for this work in 1931. Warburg was indisputably one of the greatest scientists of biochemistry's golden age. Then came World War II, with all its tragic consequences. After the war, Warburg's claims that cancer ferments instead of engaging in healthy OxPhos came under withering attack from critics, primarily Prof. Sidney Weinhouse of Philadelphia (1909–2001), editor of Advances in Cancer Research."

"Due to the work of Prof. Peter Pedersen of Johns Hopkins University, Seyfried, and others, Warburg's theory is now experiencing an unexpected revival. In 2011, Weinberg and Hanahan revised their 2000 Cell paper, to include "reprogramming of energy metabolism" as another (seemingly forgotten) hallmark of cancer (Pedersen 2007; Hanahan 2011)."

"Only Seyfried, Pedersen, and a few others have taken a truly Warburgian approach, unequivocally stating that cancer is a disease of injured mitochondria and its resulting compensatory fermentation and that this causes the genome to degrade in unpredictable ways.

In this comprehensive book, Seyfried shows that oxidative insufficiency and its resulting compensatory fermentation cause genome instability. "All hallmarks of cancer including the Warburg effect can be linked to impaired respiration and energy metabolism," he writes (p. 26). These are "downstream effects of damaged mitochondrial function."

He cites research showing that if you transplant a nucleus containing mutations from a cancer cell into a normal cell (from which the nucleus has been removed), this does not produce cancer cells (McKinnell 1969; Mintz 1975; Howell 1978; Harris 1988; Shay 1988; Li 2003; Hochedlinger 2004). But if you transplant a normal nucleus into a cancerous cell, the cell can now form tumors – again, presuming that the original nuclear material has been removed (Israel 1987; Israel 1988). These results show that nuclear gene mutations alone cannot produce tumors and that normal mitochondria can suppress tumor formation."

"Seyfried's book opens the door to a discussion of cancer as a metabolic disease. We now need a wide-ranging discussion of the fundamental nature of cancer. Is it genetically driven, as most believe, or in fact does mitochondrial insufficiency, followed by compensatory fermentation, drive genome instability? Seyfried makes a powerful case that, in effect, "Warburg rules," and that control of cancer will come about by controlling fermentation."

 

[Rachel]

Re: A Review of Thomas Seyfried's Cancer As a Metabolic Dise

Excelente, Charlie!
I'd love to read that book; it's only $129.51.

 

[charlie]

Re: A Review of Thomas Seyfried's Cancer As a Metabolic Dise

$129.51. Jeepers!

Hat tip smiley added to smilies list. Thank you, Rachel.

 

[BingDing]

Re: A Review of Thomas Seyfried's Cancer As a Metabolic Dise

Rachel scored a new smilie I gotta try it out LOL

Pretty intriguing material, Charlie, thx.

 

[kiran]

Re: A Review of Thomas Seyfried's Cancer As a Metabolic Dise

That's what libraries and inter-library loans are for.

 

[Rachel]

Re: A Review of Thomas Seyfried's Cancer As a Metabolic Dise

@Charlie You're welcome, Charlie! He's a cute little smiley, ain't he?

@BingDing

@kiran Doncha mean lie-berry? My Mom's a lie-berrian and she just loooooves it when someone says "lie=berry".
Seriously, though, that is worth a shot. Or one could always scoop up the kindle version for some sweet, sweet savings.
It's only $74.25

 

[Ray-Z]

Re: A Review of Thomas Seyfried's Cancer As a Metabolic Dise

@Charlie You're welcome, Charlie! He's a cute little smiley, ain't he?

@BingDing

@kiran Doncha mean lie-berry? My Mom's a lie-berrian and she just loooooves it when someone says "lie=berry".
Seriously, though, that is worth a shot. Or one could always scoop up the kindle version for some sweet, sweet savings.
It's only $74.25

Rachel: I can't tell whether those two smileys are beating each other with pillows or fuzzy sheep.