Cancer Is A Metabolic Disease

noqcks

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Joined
Feb 8, 2020
Messages
108
I've started a new blog at mitohealth.ca trying distill the things I'm learning from Peat and others.

This is a blog post of the things I learned from the book Cancer as a Metabolic Disease

Link: Cancer is a metabolic disease

Text below.

---

The overall death rate for cancer, adjusted for age, has only dropped 5% since 1950. That's pretty abysmal considering that the National Institute of Health (NIH) alone has spent $105 billion on research since Nixon declared the war on cancer in 1971. Private institutions have spent billions more. During this same time period, the death rate for flu and pneumonia dropped 58% and the death rate for heart disease dropped 64%.

Why has there been such little progress on cancer? Are cancer researchers all dumb? I don't think so.

I'd like to posit that some base assumptions about cancer are wrong that make the research fruitless.

Competing Cancer Theories

There are currently two primary theories on the etiology of cancer.

The first is caused by certain genetic changes to genes that control the way cells grow and divide. These genetic changes can be from hereditary genetic syndromes that you inherit from your parents, or could be from any number of environmental toxins like x-rays, UV light, DDT, or tobacco smoke. This is what's known as the Somatic Mutation Theory. This view is held by the NIH and most other institutional bodies and medical schools and wasn't common until the 1970s and the discovery of oncogenes (genes that can transform a cell into a tumor cell) tumor suppressor genes.

The second view of cancer is that it's a disease of mitochondrial origin. This view was popularized by Otto Warburg and was common before the 1970s. This is called the Metabolic Theory. The idea is that due to environmental toxins, the respiration of the mitochondria is impaired. This mitochondrial impairment is the main cause of cancer; genetic changes and oncogenes are downstream effects of energy change.

Cell Metabolism

The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. The cell is the fundamental building block of the human organism. The mitochondria is the powerhouse of you.

In a normal cell, ~89% of the energy (ATP) produced is through Oxidative Phosphorylation via the Electron Transport Chain. This process produces about about 32 ATP per one molecule of glucose. This process occurs in the mitochondria. Remember that.

image.png


In a cancerous cells, energy production switches from Oxidative Phosphorylation to Substrate-Level phosphorylation to produce ATP, which consists of Glycolysis and the Krebs Cycle. This process produces only around 3-5 ATp per glucose molecule. Glycolysis occurs in the cytosol. Remember that.

image_69.png


This was the main insight of Otto Warburg. He noticed that cancer cells' energy metabolism favors substrate-level phosphorylation (SLP) over Oxidative Phosphorylation (OxPhos). Since the cell needs to maintain energy homeostasis, SLP is used to compensate for insufficient respiration in the absence of OxPhos. This causes the cell to consume vast amounts of glucose and glutamine, and produces a lot of lactate.

This is why PET scans with radioactive glucose are used to locate cancer in the body. The radioactive glucose is used quickly by the glucose hungry cancer cells and will show up readily on the PET scan.

This shift in energy metabolism is nothing new. When cells are starved of oxygen, which is required for OxPhos, energy metabolism shifts towards SLP and lactate is produced, such as during exercise. This lactate is what causes your "pump" in the gym. The problem is a chronic favouring of SLP, even in the presence of oxygen.

Warburg was puzzled by the shift in OxPhos to SLP. He assumed that this must be caused by a lack of oxygen in the cells. He experimented by placing cells in the presence of pure oxygen, but they continued to favor SLP. He theorized this must be due to an irreparable damage to the mitochondria that prevents the cell from using OxPhos even in the presence of Oxygen. This paradox is known as the Warburg Effect.

The Warburg Effect, using glucose or glutamate as a fuel source, occurs in 100% of cancer cells.

Nuclear-Cytoplasm Experiments

The most damning single piece of evidence against the Somatic Mutation Theory are Nuclear-Cytoplasm transfer experiments. In these experiments, nuclei from cancer cells are transplanted into the cytosol of healthy cells. The healthy cytosol will contain healthy mitochondria.

The cells with the transplanted cancer nuclei no longer expresses cancer phenotypes². They no longer divide rapidly. The cell does not switch from OxPhos to SLP. Mouse embryos have even been derived with success from these previously cancerous nuclei.

The diagram below shows combinations of cancerous nuclei and cytoplasm and the products created by the nuclear-cytoplasm experiments.

image_34345345.png


Oncogene Paradox

The Metabolic Theory has still not answered how and why oncogenes are upregulated and tumor suppressor genes downregulated in cancers, but this can be explained easily by the Retrograde Response.

The Retrograde Response is a signaling pathway from the mitochondria to the nucleus that results in nuclear gene changes in response to changes in mitochondrial respiration. It is only activated when there is a change in cellular respiration. In response to a change in energy homeostasis from the mitochondria, nuclear gene changes, like changes in different oncogenes will be made. This signalling pathway is "OFF" in healthy cells with sufficient respiratory energy production.

From this we can understand a method by which gene changes are caused by insufficient energy metabolism, rather than the other way around.

Conclusion

The idea that cancer is a metabolic disease opens up new non-toxic treatment options for cancer patients and lifestyle changes for non-cancer patients.

If you believe that cancer is a metabolic disease, as I do, you would be apt to eat for mitochondrial health and avoid any substances that reduce OxPhos.

Read. Research. Eat.

Thanks for reading.


---
Citations

1- Sorry, But So Far War on Cancer Has Been a Bust

² - Transplantation of Pluripotential Nuclei From Triploid Frog Tumors - PubMed
 

Lollipop2

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Joined
Nov 18, 2019
Messages
5,267
So true. Haidut has posted a lot of research backing this up. You can search his posts.
 

LLight

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Joined
May 30, 2018
Messages
1,411
The dysfunction of metabolic controlling of cell hydration precedes Warburg phenomenon in carcinogenesis

"At present, cancer is one of the major causes of death worldwide. However, the detailed mechanism of carcinogenesis is not clear yet.

More than 80 years ago Nobel Prize laureate Warburg pointed out that in cancerous cell the loss of oxidative capacity of mitochondria and the glycolytic metabolism shift relative to oxidative phosphorylation as O2 could not reach to mitochondria [1]. However, the nature of the
primary mechanism leading to generation of Warburg phenomenon has not been elucidated yet.

In 1971 the second revolutionary discovery was made in cancer research by Raymond Damadian, who elucidated that cancerous cell is markedly overhydrated and can be much as 90% water while in norm it can be 70-73%. “Magnetic Resonance” method [2] of detection of cell over hydration suggested by him which serves as an early tumor detection diagnostic method at present has a worldwide clinical usage.
It is established that cell swelling triggers its proliferation, while cell shrinkage promotes its apoptosis [3-6]. Cell hydration causes not only the promotion of cell division and oncogene expression but also inactivates genes inducing cell apoptosis [7]. On the basis of these data cell over hydration was suggested as a primary messenger in carcinogenesis [3,7]. However, the nature of metabolic mechanism the dysfunction of which causes over hydration in cancer cells as well as the link between cell over hydration and Warburg phenomenon are also not elucidated yet. Therefore, it is suggested that the discovery of intracellular signaling pathway through which the correlation between cell hydration and mitochondrial function is realized could be one of the key problems of modern cancer research."

Hello,

Please find below the summary of a theory about cancer which I find quite interesting :blush:

Unmasking the secrets of cancer: water type A non-structured promotes carcinogenesis and water type B structured restores the physiology and cellular bioenergetics transforming cancerous cells into normal cells. Hypothesis of carcinogenesis (http://www.medicinacomplementar.com.br/biblioteca/pdfs/Cancer/ca-0417.pdf)

"It is important to note that clusters of water are created by the interaction of tiny quantities of organic or inorganic substances with water, the osmolytes (Lo-2000, Wiggins-1971-2001, Chaplin MF-1999) and being classic in literature the existence of osmolytes that build (kaotropos) and osmolytes that destroy (caotropos) the hydrogen bonds of intracellular water. The first ones increases amount of type B water in intracellular and the latter increases type water A."

"Water A: high density, osmotically active and fluid to have weak hydrogen bonds. It is a water without structure (non-structured), with small clusters; in other words, with the "n" in (H2O)n too low. Density: 1.18 g / ml

Water B: low density, osmotically inactive and viscous to have strong hydrogen bonds. It is a structured water, with larger clusters; that is, with the "n" in (H2O)n high and of great duration. Density: 0.91 g / ml"

"In the evolution of the human species, during the transition of the primitive organisms of the aqueous way for the terrestrial the genes suffered mutations and parallelly they provoked the necessary decrease of the cellular proliferation with increase of the differentiation and still provided protection against drying cell, without which the organisms would not survive in no-aqueous atmosphere. The protection against desiccation was provided by the accumulation of organic and inorganic cytoplasmatic osmolytes (Ferraris1999-2001, Dmitrieva-2006). In carcinogenesis occurs the opposite of what happened in evolution, that is, we observed increase in cell proliferation with decrease of the differentiation and following this reasoning we can infer that the mechanism against cell desiccation also been reversed, therefore we hope to find in the cancerous cells a decrease of the organic and inorganic osmolytes. In fact, in the medical literature of good level, we found several scientific works that show that tissue cancer has drastic decrease of osmolytes in relation to the corresponding normal tissue.

Interstitial hypertonicity actives transcription factors (TonEBP / OREBP - "tonicity-responsive enhancer / osmotic response element binding protein) that results in increase of the genes expression involved in the accumulation of osmoprotectors organic osmolytes (Burg-1995-2007, Zhou-2006). Interstitial hyperosmolality causes an increase in cytoplasmic osmolytes as a mechanism of defense to avoid drying / dehydration of the cell. This is one of the oldest mechanisms that allowed the passage of life from water to land. The primitive organisms that managed to avoid desiccation were those who managed to live outside the water. From the opposite side, we believe that the interstitial hypotonicity promoted by persistent chronic inflammation edema, inhibits the transcription factors TonEBP / OREBP which causes a decrease of cytoplasmatics osmolytes."

"Many evidences indicate the prevalence of high density and osmotically active non-structured water type A in proliferating cells."

"One of the characteristics of cancer cells is their water content similar to embryonic tissue of the same origin that is high. In fact, the cancer cells have consistently water content higher than the normal cells of the same origin (Winzler-1959)."

"The strategy of reducing the amount of type A water and increase type B water of malignant cells interfering in osmolytes reaches the target, reaches the fundamental and initial point of carcinogenic process and inhibit cell proliferation, promotes apoptosis, decreases the formation of new vessels and increases the cellular differentiation."

"PEG increases the osmotic pressure in a dose-dependent manner and removes water from the intracellular. The removed water is the type A water, which is osmotically active and thus in the cell increases the relative concentration of type B water, standard of the bioenergetic function. [...] In fact the withdrawal of non-structured type A water from cytoplasm allows that the cell acquires its normal initial characteristics which restores the negative entropy, increases the degree of order, the metabolism becomes oxidative phosphorylation and cell proliferation no more is required."

"The researcher Waheed Roomi and his staff at the Division of Cancer Institute Matthias Rath of California, through 13 works very ingenious brilliantly showed that the employment of a mixture of nutritional substances that structures intracellular water has anti tumor effect in several types of cancer both in vitro and in-vivo: lung, prostate, breast, pancreas, urinary bladder, glioma, testicles, melanoma and fibrosarcoma"​

TL;DR: loss of osmolytes in a cell (due to stress/inflammation) decreases the structure of its intracellular water which disturbs its metabolism. In reaction, the cell adopts a cancerous metabolism. Flushing unstructured water from the cell and providing it with osmolyte could restore the proper metabolism.

I just found a paper that seems to state a similar hypothesis: Cell hydration as the primary factor in carcinogenesis: A unifying concept. - PubMed - NCBI
 
Last edited:

Rick K

Member
Joined
Feb 18, 2019
Messages
1,338
I've started a new blog at mitohealth.ca trying distill the things I'm learning from Peat and others.

This is a blog post of the things I learned from the book Cancer as a Metabolic Disease

Link: Cancer is a metabolic disease

Text below.

---

The overall death rate for cancer, adjusted for age, has only dropped 5% since 1950. That's pretty abysmal considering that the National Institute of Health (NIH) alone has spent $105 billion on research since Nixon declared the war on cancer in 1971. Private institutions have spent billions more. During this same time period, the death rate for flu and pneumonia dropped 58% and the death rate for heart disease dropped 64%.

Why has there been such little progress on cancer? Are cancer researchers all dumb? I don't think so.

I'd like to posit that some base assumptions about cancer are wrong that make the research fruitless.

Competing Cancer Theories

There are currently two primary theories on the etiology of cancer.

The first is caused by certain genetic changes to genes that control the way cells grow and divide. These genetic changes can be from hereditary genetic syndromes that you inherit from your parents, or could be from any number of environmental toxins like x-rays, UV light, DDT, or tobacco smoke. This is what's known as the Somatic Mutation Theory. This view is held by the NIH and most other institutional bodies and medical schools and wasn't common until the 1970s and the discovery of oncogenes (genes that can transform a cell into a tumor cell) tumor suppressor genes.

The second view of cancer is that it's a disease of mitochondrial origin. This view was popularized by Otto Warburg and was common before the 1970s. This is called the Metabolic Theory. The idea is that due to environmental toxins, the respiration of the mitochondria is impaired. This mitochondrial impairment is the main cause of cancer; genetic changes and oncogenes are downstream effects of energy change.

Cell Metabolism

The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. The cell is the fundamental building block of the human organism. The mitochondria is the powerhouse of you.

In a normal cell, ~89% of the energy (ATP) produced is through Oxidative Phosphorylation via the Electron Transport Chain. This process produces about about 32 ATP per one molecule of glucose. This process occurs in the mitochondria. Remember that.

image.png


In a cancerous cells, energy production switches from Oxidative Phosphorylation to Substrate-Level phosphorylation to produce ATP, which consists of Glycolysis and the Krebs Cycle. This process produces only around 3-5 ATp per glucose molecule. Glycolysis occurs in the cytosol. Remember that.

image_69.png


This was the main insight of Otto Warburg. He noticed that cancer cells' energy metabolism favors substrate-level phosphorylation (SLP) over Oxidative Phosphorylation (OxPhos). Since the cell needs to maintain energy homeostasis, SLP is used to compensate for insufficient respiration in the absence of OxPhos. This causes the cell to consume vast amounts of glucose and glutamine, and produces a lot of lactate.

This is why PET scans with radioactive glucose are used to locate cancer in the body. The radioactive glucose is used quickly by the glucose hungry cancer cells and will show up readily on the PET scan.

This shift in energy metabolism is nothing new. When cells are starved of oxygen, which is required for OxPhos, energy metabolism shifts towards SLP and lactate is produced, such as during exercise. This lactate is what causes your "pump" in the gym. The problem is a chronic favouring of SLP, even in the presence of oxygen.

Warburg was puzzled by the shift in OxPhos to SLP. He assumed that this must be caused by a lack of oxygen in the cells. He experimented by placing cells in the presence of pure oxygen, but they continued to favor SLP. He theorized this must be due to an irreparable damage to the mitochondria that prevents the cell from using OxPhos even in the presence of Oxygen. This paradox is known as the Warburg Effect.

The Warburg Effect, using glucose or glutamate as a fuel source, occurs in 100% of cancer cells.

Nuclear-Cytoplasm Experiments

The most damning single piece of evidence against the Somatic Mutation Theory are Nuclear-Cytoplasm transfer experiments. In these experiments, nuclei from cancer cells are transplanted into the cytosol of healthy cells. The healthy cytosol will contain healthy mitochondria.

The cells with the transplanted cancer nuclei no longer expresses cancer phenotypes². They no longer divide rapidly. The cell does not switch from OxPhos to SLP. Mouse embryos have even been derived with success from these previously cancerous nuclei.

The diagram below shows combinations of cancerous nuclei and cytoplasm and the products created by the nuclear-cytoplasm experiments.

image_34345345.png


Oncogene Paradox

The Metabolic Theory has still not answered how and why oncogenes are upregulated and tumor suppressor genes downregulated in cancers, but this can be explained easily by the Retrograde Response.

The Retrograde Response is a signaling pathway from the mitochondria to the nucleus that results in nuclear gene changes in response to changes in mitochondrial respiration. It is only activated when there is a change in cellular respiration. In response to a change in energy homeostasis from the mitochondria, nuclear gene changes, like changes in different oncogenes will be made. This signalling pathway is "OFF" in healthy cells with sufficient respiratory energy production.

From this we can understand a method by which gene changes are caused by insufficient energy metabolism, rather than the other way around.

Conclusion

The idea that cancer is a metabolic disease opens up new non-toxic treatment options for cancer patients and lifestyle changes for non-cancer patients.

If you believe that cancer is a metabolic disease, as I do, you would be apt to eat for mitochondrial health and avoid any substances that reduce OxPhos.

Read. Research. Eat.

Thanks for reading.


---
Citations

1- Sorry, But So Far War on Cancer Has Been a Bust

² - Transplantation of Pluripotential Nuclei From Triploid Frog Tumors - PubMed
All of the metabolic theory was also proven by Dr. Koch in the twenties and thirties who successfully treated patients in late stage four cancers. Look into how he was rewarded for his discoveries.
 
OP
noqcks

noqcks

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Joined
Feb 8, 2020
Messages
108
All of the metabolic theory was also proven by Dr. Koch in the twenties and thirties who successfully treated patients in late stage four cancers. Look into how he was rewarded for his discoveries.

Good point.

Haidut already posted an article about successful synthesis of the quinone in Koch's cancer therapy drug Glyoxylide

Willam Koch Vindicated - Ethylenedione Exists!

And a quote from Ray

Ray Peat said:
While Warburg was investigating the roles of glycolysis and respiration in cancer, a physician with a background in chemistry, W.F. Koch, in Detroit, was showing that the ability to use oxygen made the difference between health and sickness, and that the cancer metabolism could be corrected by restoring the efficient use of oxygen. He argued that a respiratory defect was responsible for immunodeficiency, allergy, and defective function of muscles, nerves, and secretory cells, as well as cancer. Koch's idea of cancer's metabolic cause and its curability directly challenged the doctrine of the genetic irreversibility of cancer that was central to governmental and commercial medical commitments.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi respected Koch's work, and spent years investigating the involvement of the lactate metabolites, methylgyoxal and glyoxal, in cell physiology, but since the government's campaign against Koch was still active when Szent-Gyorgyi came to the U.S., he worked out many of the implications of Koch's work relating to cellular oxidation without mentioning his name.
 

JacquelineNZ

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Joined
Sep 23, 2020
Messages
59
Im new here and finding my way around. I think Im dealing with colon cancer but have had blood tests done and each time they seem to much up giving me full results, so dont know for sure but am dealing with extreme inflammation in colon at times after 8mnths carnivore last year and adrenals crashed, thyroid went out and I got very weak and insomnia was meaning I was awake all night every second night. I had alot of weight loss which I cant regain, did vegetarian, did juicing, did keto etc and cant get well - found Ray Peat info and have done regime including some MB but am getting headaches and my colour part of eyes looks toxic and I feel really odd, insomnia isnt so bad on Ray Oeat eating regime, so not sure if Im detoxing or if I possibly have cancer and the sugars from fruit and carbs are feeding it? Can anyone guide me to specific info on if I do have cancer then is this going to make it better or worse? So much contradictory info on the internet.
 

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