Comments from Dr. Stingl are in italics:

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    Nothing illustrates the disconnect between the “Truth” and the “Business as Usual” characterization of our current health care system as the Warburg Effect.

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    Travis Christofferson's book is required reading.

 

One of the best things about Florida is the Institute for Human & Machine Cognition or ihmc...

Dominic D'Agostino, M.D., who wrote the foreword is an expert in using ketosis to avoid seizures in Navy Seal divers using Oxygen Rebreathing for covert operations (avoiding the bubbles with regular  SCUBA).  That's just the beginning...watch this Youtube video:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gONeCxtyH18 

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Thomas N. Seyfried, PhD is a biology professor at Boston College.  His book, Cancer as a Metabolic Disease is astonishing.  However, his book is expensive and heavy in science, geared toward cancer biologists. This human deserves our gratitude.   Watch this Youtube video:

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEE-oU8_NSU&t=16s 

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The earth is not flat.

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Foreword by Dominic D'Agostino, M.D.

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President Nixon signed the National Cancer Act on December 23, 1971, a $1.6 Billion “War on Cancer”  with Ted Kennedy a staunch advocate.  Aside from a few small areas in cancer, your prognosis today is virtually the same as 1971.  Nobel Laureate Otto Warburg told us “Cancer, above all other diseases, has countless secondary causes.  But, even for cancer, there is only one prime cause.  Summarized in a few words, the prime cause of cancer is the replacement of the respiration of oxygen in normal body cells by a fermentation of sugar.”  Virtually all of “Business as Usual” mainstream healthcare in the United States ignores this fact including the National Cancer Institute (NCI).  In the mid-1980's criticism was mounting that cancer research was “wasteful and ineffective”.  Ted Kennedy died in 2009 from brain cancer, which carried the same grim prognosis as in 1971 with no better treatment options.   Today, despite advancements in treatment for testicular cancer, leukemia, and some forms of lymphoma, cancers linked to obesity and Type 2 diabetes—such as esophageal, rectal, post-menopausal breast, endometrial, thyroid, and gallbladder—appeared to be on the rise.  Death rates for cancer associated with obesity are on the rise including pancreas, kidney, and liver.  On the whole, treatment has remained largely ineffective, especially for advanced metastatic cancer and brain cancer.  Despite spending over $100 Billion in taxpayer money research grants and $100 Billion a year on cancer medications, “breakthroughs” have yielded no substantial change in survival rates and “cures” exist for only a tiny fraction of cancer patients.

 

It's Just Business.  There is a giant industry built on the premise that cancer is a genetic disease. To again quote Upton Sinclair, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

The humans deserving our gratitude: Tom Seyfried, Pete Pedersen, Young Ko, Dominic D'Agostino, Carlos Sonnenschein and Anna Soto

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In the Beginning

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Vaccines and antibiotics vaulted average life expectancy, but the numbers about cancer don't lie.  About 600,000 Americans will die from cancer this year.  One in two men and one in three women will be diagnosed in their lifetimes.  The real death rates from cancer are the same today as they were in the 1950's.
Why?  Travis Christofferson looks for the answer in a place protected by an invisible dome of dogma, large-scale group think, and institutional inertia. Cancer is not a genetic disease after all.  Warburg died in 1970 but Pete Pedersen, PhD of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine kept the Warburg Effect candle lit through the 1970's and 1980's.  The NCI began The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) in 2006.  For the majority who still believed the group-think that cancer is a genetic disease, this made perfect sense: catalog the DNA mutations and we will have a road map to cure cancer.  Instead, it was the final nail in the coffin of the Somatic Mutation Theory (SMT).  The results showed complete randomness.  For any patient, the genetic expression of a cancer tumor was different from cell to cell in the same tumor and the metastases have different genetic expressions.  But let's not let the facts stand in the way of a Multi-$Billion industry: more than 700 drugs have been developed targeting the mutations identified in TCGA, but the success rate has been abysmal.  $100,000 for a course of treatment with no survival benefit?  The FDA has set the bar very low for oncology drugs: requiring only that the drug shrink a tumor without regard to survival rates.  Not surprisingly, one drug that works, imatinib (Gleevec), exerts its efficacy by altering pathways turned on by damaged metabolism.

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How Cancer Became Known as a Genetic Disease

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In 1775, a century before Pasteur identified microorganisms, Percivall Pott, a London surgeon after whom human tuberculosis was named, identified grime and soot as the cause of scrotal cancer in chimney sweeps, drawing a line between carcinogen and cancer.  As Rudolf Virchow's student, David Paul Hansemann used Prague scientist Walther Fleming's dye to stain chromosomes (colored bodies) around 1880 noting that cancer cells had “chaotic chromosomes”, which initiated SMT.  Around 1911, Peyton Rous transplanted pieces of a hen spindle cell sarcoma into other hens producing the same cancer.  He then filtered out the cancer cells from a tumor sample allowing viruses to pass, leaving a liquid which produced a spindle cell sarcoma in another chicken.  This was the first proven viral origin of a solid tumor, a thorn in the side of the SMT.  In 1918, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to Otto Warburg  serving in the front lines of WW1 imploring him to flee the madness and pursue scientific work. (!!!)  Fortunately for humanity, like the appointment that led Einstein to his discoveries, Warburg was given high pay and independence without distractions or responsibilities for teaching or administration.  Warburg harbored the conviction that cancer was an energy problem due to the nonspecific nature of the disease: it had countless causes and could erupt from any tissue.  Elegant experiments showed all cancer cells to use inefficient fermentation of glucose even with oxygen present.  Furthermore, Warburg showed that normal, healthy cells turned cancerous when deprived of oxygen for brief periods (hours).  This caused permanent damage to the cell's ability to respire, even when returned to an oxygen rich environment.  No carcinogen. No virus. No radiation.  Just lack of oxygen.  Warburg would contend until his death that damage to aerobic respiration was the prime cause of cancer.  The main criticism of Warburg's theory was that it did not explain why cancer had uncontrolled growth. In 1953, Watson and Crick beat Linus Pauling in the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA.  It was logical to assume that since cancer cells transmitted information to innumerable daughter cells, it was the genetic apparatus that was at fault.  Logical, but wrong.  Harold Varmus and Michael Bishop used a radiolabeled gene isolated in the transforming ability (1 of 4) of the Rous Sarcoma virus (SRC) to go “fishing” .  To their surprise it was not only in every bird, it was in every species tested.  The viral cancer causing form was subtly different from the normal version. Thus, SMT was cast in iron.

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Chemotherapy and the Gates of Hell

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In WW2, the bombing of 28 Allied ships in the port of Bari, Italy released 120,000 pounds of mustard gas.  Responding to the atrocity, Lieutenant Colonel Stewart Francis Alexander happened to save tissue samples from the victims which showed a striking depletion of white blood cells within the lymph nodes and bone marrow, precisely the target of lymphoma patients. Two Yale pharmacologists, Louis Goodman and Alfred Gilman (older physicians will recognize these authors from their text The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics) found nitrogen mustard effective against lymphoma.  The initial euphoria was premature as after a few weeks the cancer sprang back.  Attacking all dividing cells, the side effects are ghastly. Methotrexate, a folate analog, 6-mercaptopurine (6-MP), vincristine and others followed which were basically indiscriminate poisons. In the early days, treating patients with these drugs was not for the faint of heart with extensive severe side effects including death, leading oncologist Max Wintrobe to comment, “These drugs cause more harm than good because they just prolong the agony.  The patients all die anyway.”  Combinations of chemotherapy, VAMP & MOPP bought time a huge price of suffering.  Pinkel and Devita used a combination of VAMP and radiation for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) for years, calling it Total Therapy curing an estimated 80 percent of the kids affected and 60 percent of Hodgkin's disease.  However, when applied to other cancers, the logic of “push harder” would kill the patient before it killed the cancer.  In 1971, two years after putting a man on the moon and fresh from Total Therapy's success, Nixon declared war on cancer.  Optimism was high that combinations of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy (slash, burn and posion) would cure cancer.  NCI turned into chemotherapy factory with its Developmental Therapeutics Program (DTP) churning through 3 million mice and 40 thousand drugs annually.  The NCI clinics became a trial and error experiment on a massive scale.  James Watson's reward for openly disagreeing with experimentation of the clinic centers was his removal from the board.  Some small areas met with success; Lawrence Einhorn moved the cure rate for testicular cancer from 10% to 85% with bleomycin, vinblastine and cispatin (BVP).  But John Bailer, a NCI statistician, gave us the bad news in 1986.  Aside from childhood leukemia, Hodgkin's disease, testicular cancer, Burkett lymphoma and a few other rare cancers, the results were dismal.  Only 4 percent of those diagnosed with cancer had their lives saved.  Death by cancer had increased by 9 percent since 1950.  As the 1990's began, chemotherapy transitioned to the age of targeted therapy.

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Breakthroughs and Disappointments

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By the 1970's, Pete Pedersen of Johns Hopkins was virtually alone in pursuing the answer to cancer lay in metabolism.  His mentor was biochemist Albert Lehninger, who discovered mitochondria were the site of a cell's energy production.   Nearby, Harold Morris at NCI had developed strains of rats that harbored cancers that grew at different rates.  Using these generously provided rats, Pedersen discovered a powerful correlation: the faster a tumor grew and the more aggressive it was—the lower the overall number of mitochondria (and the more misshaped) and the more it fermented glucose.  Pedersen's lab found in all cancer cells that the normal hexokinase to be replaced with the isoform hexokinase II which had “the gas pedal stuck to the floor” shoving as much glucose as it can into the fermentation pathway.  This explained the primary criticism of Warburg's theory.  In fact, PET scans exploit this fact daily to image cancer using a labeled glucose, fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) by the overaction of hexokinase II.  The first targeted drug, trastuzumab (Herceptin—Genetech) had high hopes that monoclonal antibodies to HER2 cell surface receptor present in about 20% of breast cancers would be the magic bullet.  Genentech's original reluctance to spend the $100 million necessary for drug approval was well founded.  With $13 million raised by private donations from 1989 to 1997 as an incentive, the drug was developed.  However, it provided only marginal benefit, extending the life of 15 to 20 perceent of metastatic breast cancer patients by 4 months.  Despite the slim benefit, it brought $6.7 Billion to Genentech over the next decade. Meanwhile, Pedersen's lab found Hexokinase II, present in virtually all cancer cells bound to VDAC (voltage-dependent anion channel) which blocked cytochrome c which rendered the cancer cell immortal by preventing apotosis, a normal process of cell death in which our bodies constantly remove old cells and replace them with new cells.  Furthermore, Hexokinase II positioned itself perpendicular to ATP synthasome, capturing all of the cellular energy currency, ATP.  Young Hee Ko, PhD, a lively South Korean lady, came to Pedersen's lab. Cancer cells, dependent on the inefficient fermentation of glucose, produce copious amounts of lactic acid, which is toxic in high concentrations.  To get rid of the lactic acid, cancer cells overproduce monocarboxylate transporter which leaves a “open door” in the cell membrane for not only lactic acid, but also pyruvate, which is similar.  Ko had experience with 3-bromopyruvate (3-BP) which is pyruvate with a bromine atom in place of a hydrogen.  Ko found 3-BP to be vastly better at killing cancer cells than all other chemotherapeutic agents in a petri dish; all cancer cells: brain, pancreatic, liver, lung, skin, kidney, ovarian, prostate, and breast.  In rabbits and rats 3-BP cured the animals with modeled liver cancer.  Unfortunately for humanity, Ko became embroiled in a internal political battle at Johns Hopkins refusal for her own lab space and patents rights, culminating in lawsuits, virtually halting Ko's work.  In 2008, Harrie Verhoeven contacted Ko about his 16 year old son, Yvar, who was dying from heptocellular cancer.  They found a physician in Germany willing to try 3-BP in the hepatic artery which feeds the liver.  The treatment eradicated the cancer. Ko gave James Watson data about 3-BP activity against prostate cancer in a petri dish, hoping to get funding from billionaire David Koch.  According to Ko, Watson did not contact Koch, but gave the data to her competitor, Lewis Cantley, who cofounded Agios.   Although contentious, Jean-Francois Geschwind was included on the Johns Hopkins patent for intra-arterial delivery of 3-BP for hepatic cancer and founded PreScience Labs.  Ko founded  KoDiscovery.  The author, Travis Christofferson, asks why there seems to be little interest in what is relatively a trival amount of money to get 3-BP launched.

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Dark Matter

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Euphoria about technology defined the late 1990's; the NASDAQ vaulted 700% from 1995 to 2000 with Alan Greenspan labeling it “irrational exuberance”.  This tech optimism carried over into biotechnology, especially after “Dolly” the sheep was created by Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) where adult DNA is transferred into an egg cell and a genetically identical individual is created.  On June 26, 2000 President Clinton announced the Human Genome Project (HGP) ambitiously sequencing all 3 billion base pairs of the human genome.  It was no surprise that James Watson was appointed head of NIH faction of the HGP, finishing 35 years later what he started by discovering DNA.  However, his desire to see the project remain in the public domain rather than allowing newly sequenced genes to be patented cost him his position.  American taxpayers spent $3Billion for the HGP by 2007.  An effect of the HGP was the astonishing improvement in sequencing which would allow the same work to be done today for $5000 and take two days.  In 2005, NIH launched The Cancer Genome Atlas (the acronym, TCGA, cleverly matches the DNA base pairs).  Bert Vogelstein at Johns Hopkins headed a private lab which would compliment, rather than compete with the international consortium of TCGA.  In 1989, Volgelstein had identified p53 mutations, present in 50% of all cancers; it was the poster child of oncogenes.  The observation that cancer cells didn't just appear, but went through a step by step trek through premalignant cells, led research to look for a tidy sequence of mutations.  But no new oncogenes were found.  The step by step series of mutations simply wasn't there.  Even in the same tumor the cells had different mutations which shocked everyone.  There was a frightening degree of randomness.  They looked at colon, breast and pancreatic cancer, all with the same conclusion: the mutations were random.  Vogelstein knew the Somatic Mutation Theory (SMT) was in trouble, for if it was correct, mutational patterns that explained the origin of a given type of cancer had to be found.  They did not exist.  In 2010, Larry Loeb of the University of Washington noted “the surprise has been the unexpectedly large number and diversity of mutations present in human tumors.”   Each person's tumor was almost as unique as a fingerprint, as a snowflake.  But Loeb noticed a stumbling block at the starting gate for the SMT.  The rate of spontaneous mutations known to strike human DNA didn't correlate with the known rate of cancer.  In fact, the cell has elabborate and exquisitely robust mechanisms to prevent and repair mutaions.  Because the SMT was going down in flames, Vogelstein postulated the existence of  “dark matter” to explain the randomness of genetic mutations in cancer.  The therapeutic consequences were profound, since there is complete randomness in the genetic muations in cancer, developing a targeted genetic therapy is next to impossible.  Dr. Charles Swanson's London based group attempted to follow mutations back to the origin of the tumor and found “bewildering data” and even found a single driver as the “founding” or “trunk” mutation, which is what one would expect if the origin was metabolic and not genetic. Vogelstein discovered an oncogene isocitrate dehydrogenase mutation in 12% of glioblastoma cases; an enzyme which is a crucial component of oxidative energy production. Researchers around the world were shocked in 2006 when a retrospective study found type 2 diabetics taking metformin to lower blood sugar had substantially reduced rates of cancer.  In addition, aside from not smoking and avoiding carcinogens, the only established way to reduce overall cancer rates was through caloric restriction or periodic fasting, a practice known to restore mitochondria. In 2000, Robert Weinberg published in the journal Cell the six hallmarks of cancer cells: (1) stimulate their own growth, (2) evade growth-suppressing signals, (3) resist cell death (apoptosis), (4) enable replicative immortality, (5) induce the ability to grow new blood vessels enabling tumor growth (angiogenesis), and (6) spread to distant sites (metastasis).  This article has been the most cited article ever published by the journal and Weinberg's six hallmarks are the backbone of every textbook written on the subject.  But in 2009, our hero, Pete Pedersen, in front of a microphone at an internationally broadcast conference, called out Weinstein: “many of us are aware of the list, but the one he omitted from the list is the Warburg effect.  It is the oldest known property of cancer, and it is a characteristic of every cancer.”

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Watson Reconsiders

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In August 2009 James Watson wrote an opinion in the New York Times: “To Fight Cancer, Know the Enemy”.  Http://www.newyorktimes.com/2009/08/06/opinon/06watson.html    He declared “beating cancer now is a realistic ambition” and expected “lifelong cures within a decade”.  The 'father of DNA' suggested we turn our research away from genetics to metabolism.  The author points out that Watson's timing coincided with his receiving Ko's data on 3BP.  However, Watson's epiphany was not well received.  In 2013, Watson wrote in “Open Biology” that the national War Against Cancer started by Nixon in 1971 was a dismal failure.  The death rate from cancer was the same as it was in 1950.  The TCGA failed to produce targeted drugs that worked.  The FDA allowed scores of ineffectual drugs to be approved by setting the bar very low for an 'active' drug: all it had to do was shrink the tumor by 50% in 28 days.  Science writer Ralph Moss called it the GREAT LIE about chemotherapy; in the vast majority of cases there is no correlation between shrinking the tumor and extending the life of the patient.  Avastin (bevacizumab) was approved for colon and breast cancer with an annual cost of nearly $100,000.  However, breast cancer patients who are also being treated with paclitaxel experience two and a half times the toxicity with no extension of life.  (Dr Stingl would like to note that Avastin which is a Anti-Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor was discovered by ophthalmologists to be a miracle drug in the treatment of the wet form of macular degeneration by injecting tiny doses in the eye.)   The majority of chemotherapies have a dismal cost-benefit ratio being marginal at best and non-existent at worst.  By 2012 the average new chemotherapeutic was priced at $100,000.  Watson joined Vogelstein in realizing that cancer was not a genetic disease.

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Mitochondria: An Old Theory is New Again

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Symbiosis is integral to life.  We carry 10 times as many bacteria in our gut which are essential for our health as we have cells in our body.  (See Steven Gundry's “The Plant Paradox” and “The Longevity Paradox” as to how our 'gut buddies' are symbiotic with their ancient relatives- our mitochondria.)  Over the course of millennia, bacterium evolved to become intracellular essentials, by specializing in the production of energy.  They retained only 24 genes in a circular 'bacterial' DNA (all of which come from your mother since the sperm has no mitochondria) relinquishing nearly 3000 genes to the nuclear DNA.  Mitochondria are remarkable efficient at the turnover of ATP, our body's energy currency.  Although our body contain only about 9 ounces of ATP, the mitochondria turn over a body's weight of ATP daily.  Pedersen established that cancer cells had damaged and fewer mitochondria. Pott's discovery of a carcinogen in 1777 and Hansemann's 1890s observation of irregular chromosomes in cancer led to the SMT (Somatic Mutation Theory, genetic or genetic cause of cancer).  In 1948 the Englishman Cyril Darlington made the observation that carcinogens that were most adroit at damaging nuclear DNA were not the best at causing cancer.  For example, he noticed low doses of X-Rays damaged nuclear DNA, but cancer only developed when the X-Ray dose damaged the cytoplasm (mitochondria).  He found that a wide swath of carcinogens damaged the mitochondria.  
Dr. Thomas Seyfried was interested in gangliosides doing a postdoc at Yale in 2000 when he made a curious observation.  He and his students were tinkering with a drug that blocked the production of certain gangliosides which they gave to mice with tumors out of playful curiosity.  To their surprise, it slowed tumor growth.  They noticed that the mice were losing weight, as well.  So when they adjusted the diet of the control mice they found tumor growth slowed also.  Seyfried found Imclone's cetuximab (erbitux) and other current cancer drugs exhibited their anti-tumor effect solely by loss of appetite.  Why would calorie restriction slow tumor growth?  Up to this point, Seyfreid had never heard of Otto Warburg.  He immersed himself in a fascinating detective story from Warburg, Pedersen's enormous work (“a masterpiece”), Dous, Darlington, and Carlos Sonnenschein & Ana Soto at Tufts (“a blistering attack on the gene theory of cancer”) adding his own work on the damaged lipids of cancer mitochondria.  In 2012 Seyfried published “Cancer as a Metabolic Disease” linking Warburg's and Pedersen's work with the missing link: the damaged mitochondria retrograde response to the nucleus affecting gene expression (epigenetics).  The genes affected; MYC,TOR, RAS, NFKB, AND CHOP  shut down all of the protection of DNA explaining the intratumor heterogeniety.  Pedersen had shown that the transformation of hexokinase to hexokinase II turned the cells into immortal crazed fermenters.  Darlington noted in 1948 that the nucleus itself was not responsible for malignant transformation.  Two groups (Vermont and Texas) independently performed nucleus transfer experiments in which a cancer nucleus transferred to a normal cytoplasm resulted in a normal cell and a normal nucleus transferred into a cancer cytoplasm resulted in a cancer.  Despite this unambiguous evidence that the origin of carcinogenesis resides in the mitochondria in the cytoplasm, not in the genome in the nucleus, the results were ignored.

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Things May Not Be as They Seem

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In 2003, a targeted drug, imatinib (Gleevec) was initially hailed as a confirmation of the SMT (Somatic Mutation Theory) for treatment of a rare leukemia subset, chronic myeloid leukemia (CML).  The genetic defect produced BCR-ABL, an overactive tyrosine kinase (like SRC) which permanently switches on the PI3K/AKT pathway resulting in a dramatic increase of glucose uptake and use (the Warburg effect).  This pathway can also be switched on by the retrograde response of damaged mitochondria.  Imatinib works by reversing the Warburg effect, depleting ATP which is consistent with Seyfreid's metabolic theory.  Advanced cases of CML do not respond, evidence that BCR-ABL may simply be a serendipitous switch, rather than the cause of CML.  Many other inherited genes which predispose humans to cancer also diminish mitochondrial function; p53, BRCA1 and retinoblastoma, xeroderma pigmentosa, paraganglioma and some renal cell cancers.

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Superfuel

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Every normal cell in the human body can use ketones for fuel oxidatively.  A Restricted Ketogenic Diet with one gram of protein per kilogram of body weight, almost no carbohydrates and rest of the calories from fat.  The ancient Greeks knew the therapeutic value of fasting on epilepsy.  Hollywood movie director Jim Abrams produced a movie “First Do No Harm” and started the Charlie Foundation after his son was free from recalcitrant childhood epilepsy with a ketogenic diet after five neurologists had no answers. The problem Abrams encountered in his 'best intentions' effort to train hospital dietitians to teach a ketogenic diet is our “Business as Usual” healthcare system; there is no way to pay dietitians to cure patients with a ketogenic diet.  Richard Veech at NIH was intrigued with a 1940s report that ketone bodies increased the motility of sperm while decreasing the oxygen consumption.  He dubbed ketone bodies “superfuel” after the addition to a glucose solution resulted in rat heart muscle increasing the work performed while decreasing the oxygen consumption. Veech noted the ability for our large brains to use ketones was a critical factor in our evolution, turning the liability of a large energy consuming organ into an advantage in starvation.  Aside from the weight loss benefits of the Adkins diet in the 1970s, the ketosis improved wildly different brain maladies of Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, ALS, and brain trauma. Veech commented ketosis is a normal physiological state of man; it is not 'normal' to have a McDonald's on every corner.  Ketosis preserves and even restores mitochondria.  Rous noted in 1914 that restricted food intake starved tumors. Warburg noted the “prevention of cancer requires no government help and not much money”.  Nutritionalist Linda Nebeling, PhD was the first to document cancer treatment with a ketogenic diet; two girls, a 2 yo with stage IV anaplastic astrocytoma and a 8 ½ yo with grade III cerebellar astrocytoma.  Radiation and chemotherapy (burn and poison) had been stopped in both due to tumor progression.  Ketosis shrunk the cancers.

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Nemesis

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Seyfreid found the Restriced Ketogenic Diet to be antiangiogenic (decreased tumor blood supply) and proapoptotic (promoted orderly cell death).  Dr. Giulio Zuccoli's mother, Marianne was diagnosed with glioblastoma around Christmas 2008.  In addition to poor prognosis of the standard care debulking surgery, radiation and chemotherapy (slash, burn and poison) Marianne was place on a Restriced Ketogenic Diet.  PET scans in April and July 2009 showed no evidence of cancer for 7 months.  After the second PET scan on July 22, 2009 she returned to a regular diet; by October 2009 the cancer had returned.  Not wanting to be a continued burden to her family, she did not restart the R-KD and died three months later. Avastin causes glioblastoma to become more invasive.  Ketosis also dramatically increases the antioxidant ability of normal cells, ramping up armed glutathione.  The R-KD is the nemesis of cancer, especially in combination with other treaments.

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The Most Important Game in Town

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R-KD depletes glutathione in cancer cells, inducing apoptotsis and protects normal cells from radiation and chemotherapy.  Valter Longo of USC encouraged fasting before and after both with great results.  Seyfreid showed synergy with R-KD and 2-deoxyglucose, which blocks fermentation.

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Gorgeous in Concept (More of the Same)

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The FDA approved ipilimumab in 2011 for late stage melanoma.  It unleases killer T cells, which attacks the cancer and normal cells.  A trial of 540 patients cured 3, killed 14 and cost $120,000 for 4 infusions over 3 months.

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Press-Pulse

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Dominic D'Agostino, working on oxygen toxicity in SEAL divers, placed an atomic force microscope in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.  He saw glioblastoma cells bubble up and explode from increased Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS).  Working with Seyfreid, they found R-KD and hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) worked better than either alone on a highly metastatic mouse brain cancer.  The Restricted-Ketogenic Diet 'presses' on the cancer and the Metabolic 'pulse' pushes cancer cells over the edge.  This cheap, nontoxic, effective cancer treatment means “pink slips” for the most lucrative branch of medicine, radiation oncology, so expect resistance.  In addition, inexpensive 3BP should be effective in 95% of cancers (PET positive).  The biggest problem is the giant cancer treatment industry is itself a cancer, not wanting to die.

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Where Do We Go From Here?

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The World Health Organization (WHO) predicted a tidal wave of cancer in 2014:
New cases per year:
2017          14 million
2025          19 million
2030          22 million
2035          24 million

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The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) failed miserably because cancer is a mitochondrial disease,  Rous never believed the SMT; Varmus and Bishop made him appear the fool, but RSV named after him concentrates its pathology in the mitochondria.  The author notes the trivial amount of money necessary to popularize 3BP and R-KD & HBOT (press-pulse).  Seyfreid expects future cancer treatment to improve quality of life rather than diminish it.

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Afterword

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A year after this book was published in 2014, the author's mother was diagnosed with endometrial cancer.  She opted for conventional surgery and localized radiation bu then followed with a ketogenic diet and hyperbaric oxygen chamber treatments.  Every six month check up has found her to be cancer free.  In August 2016, cancer researcher Parag Mallick noted the carcinogens cigarette smoke and asbestos do not cause cancer by mutating a cell's DNA, but rather by epigenetics, the alteration of swtiching on and off genes.  NCI hired cosmotologist Paul Davies to break the stalemate in the understanding and treatment of cancer.  This physicist steeped in probabilities continues to be a vocal critic of the SMT, noting “Never has science offered a clearer example of preoccupation with trees at the expense of the forest.”  Davies notes the epigenetic reawakening of embryonic genes (highly glycolytic, invasive, undifferentiated and immortal) is information 'screaming at us'.  The methylation of DNA is an important epigenetic modifier, increasing with age.  Aging can be measured by the number of times a cell divides.  Maybe that's why intellectuals live longer than athletes.  The drugs azacitidine (Vidaza), decitabine (Dacogen), vorinostat (Zolinza), and romidepsin (Istodax) indiscriminately block the methylation of DNA and inhibit histone deacetylase (which affects epigenetics).  Clinical trials are showing promising results with low doses and few side effects.  Beta-hydroxybutyrate, a ketone body produced by the ketogenic diet, also inhibits histone deacetylase, which extends the lifespan of roundworms by 20%.    D'Agostino and Seyfried continue to advocate “press-pulse”; pressing with a ketogenic diet and pulsing with metabolic therapies.  Vincent DeVita's 2015 book “The Death of Cancer” notes combination therapies hold extraodinary promise, but the FDA requires testing single agents.  The Care Oncology Clinic in London repurposes approved drugs for other purposes to complement and enhance the standard of care; using a cocktail of a statin, metformin, the antibiotic doxycycline and the anti-fungal mebendazole.  James Watson takes metformin for cancer prevention.  Notable Labs selects from a list of 100 approved drugs with anticancer activity tailoring to the individual tumor cells with machines and software.  3BP needs to enter clinical trials. Chloroquine increases survival in brain cancer patients.  The current lifesaving cocktail for AIDS, developed by bold doctors and desperate patients, has never gone through an FDA phase 3 trial.  Chemo-Thermia Oncology Center in Istanbul has the regulatory latitude to offer Metabolically Supported Chemotherapy using ketogenic diet, fasting, insulin, 2DG, DCA, HBOT and hyperthermia.  They have achieved some eyepopping results; curing some and increasing lifespan by 400% in others compared to standard care.

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Putting Metabolic Therapies to Work

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Excellent practical primer on successful ketosis.

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Since the book is Required Reading, please acquire a copy. (The Practitioners List and References are useful.)