We have two take homes from this new thinking about cancer.
The first is that cancer is a primitive response to environmental
deterioration within the body. That
definition is general enough to cover all the bases. The correct response is to move heaven and
earth to restore that environment to allow the body to set things right as much
as possible. Making it worse is clearly
counter indicated.
The second is that the present protocol using chemo is clearly
counterproductive and at best delays a far worse attack. The real death rate has likely not been
clearly improved except by way of data manipulation to take advantage of the
pause produced.
We had come to much the same conclusion from the data itself and this
clearly spells it out. Cancer victims
need to radically overturn their dietary regimen and shift to vegan ideally at
least and also ensure their blood becomes alkaline as quickly as possible. Then
think about what else may help without reducing the immune system.
Has Cancer Been Completely Misunderstood?
February 12, 2014
Sayer Ji,
A Failed War On Cancer
Ever since Richard Nixon officially declared a
war on cancer in 1971 through the signing of the National Cancer Act,[i] over a
hundred billion dollars of taxpayer money has been spent on research and drug
development in an attempt to eradicate the disease, with trillions more spent
by the cancer patients themselves, but with disappointing results.
Even after four decades of waging full-scale “conventional” (surgery
and chemo) and “nuclear” (radiotherapy) war against cancer,
one in every four Americans will be diagnosed with the disease within their
lifetimes – and this number is projected to grow – unabated — not unlike the
process of cancer itself.
Could this colossal failure reflect how
profoundly misunderstood the condition is, and misguided are our attempts to
prevent and treat it?
The Question That Must
Be Answered Anew: What Is Cancer?
Perhaps we need to return back to the
fundamental question of ‘What Is Cancer’? After all, until we find
an accurate answer to
this question, all attempts to ‘prevent’ and ‘treat’ a disease we do not
understand are doomed to fail.
For the past half century, the “Mutational
Theory” has provided the prevailing explanation for the cause of cancer, where,
as the story goes, accumulated mutations within our cells lead a few
susceptible ones to “go berserk,” their “insane” and “violent” behavior a
result of multiple destructive events to the intelligent code within the cell
(DNA) that normally keep them acting in a ‘civilized’ manner relative to the
larger multicellular community as a whole (i.e. the body). In this view, these
rogue cells replicate incessantly and form a tumor which spreads outward in a cancerous
manner (cancer = Greek for “crab”), in many ways simulating the characteristics
of an infectious process within the host, until the growths obstruct vital processes,
resulting in morbidity and death.
According to this theory, which was heavily
influenced by the Darwinian theory of evolution and is sometimes called
“Internal Darwinism,” what drives the evolution of the healthy cells into
cancerous ones is a process very similar to natural selection, i.e. random
mutations beneficial to the survival and reproduction of cancerous cells in a
tumor are naturally selected for and conserved, driving them towards
malignancy. Damage to the DNA can occur either through inheriting defective DNA
sequences (“bad genes” in the family) or exposures to DNA-damaging chemicals (e.g. tobacco)
or radiation.
While
this view has some explanative value, it can also be quite misleading.
For instance, a fundamental tenet of evolution is that random mutations are
almost always harmful, resulting in immediate cell death. Cancer cells,
however, seem to get quite ‘lucky’ because they appear to thrive on them.
Rather than dying like normal cells when faced with random mutations,
they exhibit the exact opposite response: they become immortalized, incapable
of undergoing the programmed cell death required of healthy cells.
Is randomness and chaos, then, really at the
root of the transformation of healthy cells into cancer?
Tumors, after all, express highly organized
behaviors, seemingly impossible to induce through strictly random forces such
as mutation…
A collection of cancer cells (tumors), for
instance, are capable of building their own blood supply (angiogenesis), are
able to defend themselves by silencing cancer-suppression genes and activating
tumor-promoter genes, secreting corrosive enzymes to move freely throughout the
body, alter their metabolism to live in low oxygen, high sugar and acidic
environments, and know how to remove their own surface-receptor proteins to
escape detection by white blood cells. Could these complex behaviors
really be a result of random mutations? And is it possible that random
mutations could result in the formation of the same “lucky” set of genetic
properties, each and every time a new cancer forms in a human?
Random mutations, no doubt, play a major role
in the initiation and promotion of cancer, but are not alone sufficient for a
complete explanation. One group of
scientists, in fact, have offered a much more compelling explanation. They
view multiple mutations causing an unmasking of an ancient survival program within the cell….
Cancer as An Ancient
Survival Program Unmasked
A brilliant new theory, introduced by Arizona
State University scientist, Paul Davies, and Australian National University
scientist, Charles Lineweaver, sheds much needed light on the true nature of
cancer. According to Davies:
“Cancer is not a random bunch of selfish rogue cells behaving
badly, but a highly-efficient pre-programmed response to stress, honed
by a long period of evolution.”
In their seminal paper, titled “Cancer
tumors as Metazoa 1.0: tapping genes of ancient ancestors,”
Davies and Lineweaver propose that cancer is an evolutionary throw-back,
drawing from a genetic ‘tool-kit’ at least a billion years old, and which still
lies buried – normally dormant – deep within the genome of our cells.
Davies calls this subterranean genetic layer Metazoa 1.0, and it contains
pathways and programs that were once indispensable for our ancient cellular
predecessors and their early proto-communities to survive in a radically
different environment.
Without the highly differentiated cells and
specialized organs of higher multicellular/animal life (Metazoa 2.0), cells
with the genetics of Metazoa 1.0 would have favored traits that enabled them to
survive direct contact with what was a much different and harsher (to us)
environment.
For example, 1 billion years ago atmospheric
oxygen was exceptionally low, since photosynthesis has not yet evolved to produce
an abundant supply. This means that cellular life at that time would have
had to learn to thrive in a low or no oxygen environment, which is exactly what
cancer cells do, using aerobic glycolysis for energy instead of oxidative
phosphorylation.
Davies and Lineweaver
summarize their view as follows
“The genes of cellular cooperation that evolved with
multicellularity [animal life] about a billion years ago are the same genes
that malfunction to cause cancer. We hypothesize that cancer is an atavistic
condition that occurs when genetic or epigenetic malfunction unlocks an ancient
‘toolkit’ of pre-existing adaptations, re-establishing the dominance of an
earlier layer of genes that controlled loose-knit colonies of only partially
differentiated cells, similar to tumors. The existence of such a toolkit
implies that the progress of the neoplasm [cancer] in the host organism differs
distinctively from normal Darwinian evolution.”
Instead of viewing the hallmark trait of
cancer, namely, incessant proliferation, as a newly evolved trait spurned by
random mutations, it would be considered the default state of the cell,
having been developed a billion years ago when ‘not dying’ would be the first
priority. Remember, this ancestral assemblage of cells would not have had
the differentiation of cell type and specialization of tissue associated with
higher animals, i.e. skin, hair, claws, etc., with which to protect themselves
against the environment.
Damage to the skin in animals, for instance,
results in the rapid death and sloughing off these ‘extra’ cells, to be
replaced by new healthy ones. A still barely multicellular entity would
not have this luxury, and would entrench itself within genetic traits
associated with resilience, the ability to resist all manner of environmental
assault, and would express a highly ‘selfish’ form of behavior we now consider
a fundamental property of cancer.
If cancer is an ancient survival program
unmasked, this does not mean that the “Mutation Theory” does not still hold
some truth. Genetic damage and mutations do in fact contribute to cancer, but
rather than view them as ‘causing’ the complex set of behaviors associated with
cancer, they unmask an already existent set of genetic programs [atavism].* For
instance, there are over 100 oncogenes known to exist within our DNA and are
shared by a vast array of different species including the fruit fly, indicating
how ancient (at least 600 million years old) and universal they are (found in
most multicellular organisms).
Numerous studies confirm that dinosaurs had
tumors. These cancer-promoting genes are normally suppressed by more recently
evolved genes (Metazoa 2.0), such as tumor-suppressor genes, but when enough
damage to the more recently evolved genetic overlay occurs, the system goes
into “Safe Mode” and the older genetic pathways (Metazoa 1.0) are activated
once more.
Within the horizon of this new way of
thinking, cancer can no longer be viewed as some predestined gene-time bomb
setting itself off within us, nor simply a byproduct of cumulative exposures to
genotoxic substances, alone. Rather, cancer
is an ancient survival response to an increasingly toxic environment, and an increasingly
unnatural diet and compromised immune function. These cells have learned
to survive the constant abuse, and have flipped into survival mode, which is
self-centered, hyper-proliferative (constant self-repair/replication) and
aggressive (metastatic), i.e. what does not kill you makes you stronger
Cancer As Something
Our Body Does To Survive
Cancer can no longer be viewed as something
bad that happens to an
intrinsically healthy body. Rather, cancer is something the body actively does in response to an
intrinsically unhealthy cellular, bodily and planetary environment.
Instead of an expression of bodily deviance, it may be expressive of bodily
intelligence, and the capability of our cells to survive in conditions that
threaten to destroy cells beyond the critical threshold beyond which survival
is impossible.
This perspective also sheds much needed light
on the devastating nature of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Tumors contain a
broad range of cells, many of which are intrinsically benign (will never become
malignant or cause damage to the organism) and some of which keep more
malignant populations in check.
The invasive cells are more primordial in
their genetic configuration (Metazoa 1.0) due to just how much
shock/damage/poisoning they have been made to endure during their life cycles.
It is exactly these cells, therefore, that are MOST resistant to the chemo, and
less likely to die when exposed to it. The chemotherapy and radiation,
therefore, actually kill the very cells that do not represent a threat, and
select for more invasive ones.
This explains why at first the introduction of
chemotherapy/radiation may cause tumor regression, but the small population
that survives (including cancer stem cells) technically comes back even
stronger thereafter. In the same way that antibiotics like methicillin spawned
the monster that is methicillin-resistant Staphyloccocus aeureus, which creates
a population of bacteria with highly up-regulated multidrug resistance proteins
and genes, chemotherapy and radiation CREATE a genetically more resistant
population of super-cancers, and often is the reason why the patient dies. Sadly,
in these cases the death is blamed on the “chemoresistant” and “radioresistant”
cancer and the victim is blamed, if you will, for being killed by the very
treatment they were being told they would die much sooner without.
Cancer
Is “A Symptom” And Not A “Disease.”
So, instead of a monolithic “disease,” it
makes more sense to view cancer as a symptom of cellular and environmental conditions gone awry;
in other words, the environment of the cell has become inhospitable to normal
cell function, and in order to
survive, the cell undergoes profound genetic
changes, drawing ancient genetic pathways which we
associate with the cancerous personality ( phenotype). This “ecological” view
puts the center of focus back on the preventable and treatable causes of the
“disease,” rather on some vague and out-dated concept of “defective genes”
beyond our ability influence directly.
It also explains how the “disease” process may
conceal an inherent logic, if not also healing impulse, insofar as it is an
attempt of the body to find balance and survive in inherently unbalanced and
dangerous conditions. Fundamentally, we need to shift our thinking away
from the view that cancer is something unnatural that happens to us, to one where we see that cancer is
something natural our body does to
survive unnatural conditions. Change and improve those conditions, and
you do more to change cancer than attacking it as if you were fighting a war
against an enemy.
*Additional
explanation of the cancer-atavism theory
*The concept of cancer-as-atavism can be
explained this way: An atavism is an older genetic trait that is no longer
used, and therefore suppressed by newly evolved genes. An example is webbed
feet. Everyone in the womb has them, but as embryogenesis proceeds genetic
sequences kick in that cause them to disappear. This is done through a
process of ‘programmed cell death,’ also known as apoptosis. The body simply
turns on the apoptosis genes in the tissue associated with webbing between the
toes, and those cells peacefully disassemble themselves, resulting in normal
web-free hands and feet. Now the interesting thing is that cancer cells
ARE cancerous because they DO NOT DIE.
They have either forgotten how to undergo
programmed cell death (apoptosis), or, have been forced through injury (genetic
damage) or environmental pressures (epigenetic changes) to suppress the genes
that enable them to die. The cancer cells, in effect, draw from an
ancient genetic tool kit which its predecessors over a billion years ago used
to survive what was at the time a very harsh environment, and where replicating
was a much more preferred trait than dying, and where cells had yet formed
highly evolved multicellular communities found within animals.
About the Author
Sayer Ji is the founder and chair of
GreenMedInfo.com. His writings have been published in the Wellbeing Journal,
the Journal of Gluten Sensitivity, and have been featured on numerous websites,
including Mercola.com, NaturalNews.com, Infowars.com, Care2.com. His critically
acclaimed essay series The Dark Side of Wheat opens up a new perspective on the
universal, human-species specific toxicity of wheat, and is now available
for PDF download.
1 comment:
Fascinating blog, been monitoring afar for a few months and reading your backlog. Felt compelled to comment on this article so as to make certain you are aware of Dr. Arthur Devany's work on evolutionary fitness http://www.artdevanyonline.com/media.htm
Diet and activity protocols to coax proper genetic expression seem much more promising to preventing and curing cancer. My hunch is that in particular we must shift away from corn based agriculture as this promotes acidity in both corn based meat and corn based food products.
On the metalevel this adds support to the need to transform agriculture towards ecosystem management as opposed to monoculture grain production.
Thanks for the very thought provoking blog.
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