I’ve been studying nutrition and chronic and metabolic disease for approximately 5 years, after the death of a beloved family member. I had an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and was particularly drawn towards cancer and the correlation to diet after my father went through, and survived, cancer. It goes without saying, that though, knowledge should be spread with caution — it should equally be consumed with that same caution and followed up by self-research and experience.
This Blog Written By : the Vegan Bunny Bridgette Holder
Otto Warburg has been a revolutionary in the understanding of cancer. ₁ He researched the respiratory and metabolic mechanism of both healthy cells and cancer cells; and as a result of this research he discovered lower oxygen levels were characteristic of cancer cells. In lieu of utilizing oxygen, the cancer cells switch to a more primitive form of respiration by fermenting sugars. He described it as follows: “[cancer cells] live in hypoxic, very low oxygen, and acidic conditions and derive energy from sugars by fermenting them the way yeast does.”
₂Through my research, I’ve found this phenomenon can be reiterated if you’ve ever researched or undergone a PET (Positron Emission Tomography) — this scan requires a tracer, typically radioactive glucose, and whichever area of a cancer patient’s body the tracer is drawn towards informs the oncologist where your cancer can be found.
This reinstates Warburg’s theory, as cancer cells have up to 15 x the glucose uptake in comparison to a normal, healthy cells.
Patrick Quillin, PHD, RD, CNS, former director of nutrition for Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Tulsa, OK: “It puzzles me why the simple concept ‘sugar feeds cancer’ can be so dramatically overlooked as part of a comprehensive cancer treatment plan”
Because of this, whenever I am sharing what I’ve learned with others — both cancer patients and healthy people alike — the information I feel most vital to share is to rid sugar from the cancer patient’s diet. It provides the cancer cells with the fuel they need to proliferate, for metastization (or secondary growth and spreading to other areas of the body and organs) to begin; and it ultimately leads to a sluggish immune system as any secondary illnesses like most microbes, most bacterial infections, candida, etc. are fueled in much the same way: sugar.
This is the time you rely on your own immunity and fighter cells more than ever, to hone in to the malignancies in your body, not off to waste energy on secondary infections that also benefit and can weaken/starve by nixing sugar from your diet.
The kind of sugar particularly to blame is the refined sugars, the high fructose corn syrups: that which offers zero nutritional value or fiber to allow slow, gentle digestion. The sugars that cause substantial blood sugar fluctuations. These should be avoided at all cost, if you are suffering from cancer. Starving the cancer cells and weakening them will make your other lines of defense and therapies all the more potent. Fresh and cooked vegetables, complex carbohydrates in exchange of simple carbohydrates, fruits and more will fuel the healthy cells in your body.
Sugar is broken down incredibly fast — during the process of glycogenesis — metabolized by the liver, in both the form of a simple carbohydrate and a fat, then it is subsequently stored as a fat. We know complex carbohydrates breakdown much slower: allowing for “slow-release” energy throughout the day and much more sensible, steady blood sugar levels versus the spikes simple carbohydrates offer.
³”While complex carbohydrates eventually wind up as glucose, the process is a little different. Complex carbohydrates are starches found in whole-grain foods, potatoes, pasta and many other foods. Conversion of starches begins in your mouth.
As you chew, saliva surrounds large-branched starch molecules and breaks them apart. Starches convert into maltose, a type of simple carbohydrate sugar, right in your mouth. Once maltose reaches your small intestine, enzymes convert it to glucose. At this point, glucose goes right into your bloodstream to give energy to cells. Since starch takes longer to metabolize than sugars, it has more of a time-release energy effect. Starches tend to slowly raise blood sugar, offering more sustained energy levels.” (Source: http://healthyeating.
So if you can’t have sugar, you must be wondering where you’d get energy from. The best source of complex carbohydrates are found in legumes, vegetables, rice, and fruit. However, I always try and emphasize to go easy on the fruit, as fructose can be quite high in certain fruits — so ideally, stick to fruit with a lower levels of fructose. These would be your berries, lemons, limes, cantaloupe.
So the idea with cancer is to starve the diseased, malignant cells while providing energy and nutrients to the healthy cells. I remember a man once saying something along the lines of: if you have cancer and eat anything that won’t heal you in some way — that isn’t beneficial in some way and fuels the cancer — each bite is one bite closer to killing you (or further disease growth). And I found that incredibly powerful and inspiring, to aid those with cancer to adhere to the healthiest diet they can even when it seems hard.
And if I could share one paramount nugget of information with those suffering from cancer, newly diagnosed with cancer or loved one’s of a cancer patient: as addicting as sugar is, remove sugars as though your/their well being depends upon it because it does.
Next, I’d like to touch on the respiratory nature of cancer cells.
Back to Warburg, his research also showed us cancer cells do not live in aerobic (or oxygenated) environments. They live in hypoxic, anaerobic enviorments. Coincidentally, acidity is a major contributor to oxygen depletion in the body. The more acidic the body, the more oxygen-deprived the fluid in the body’s tissues is. Vice verse with alkalinity: the higher the alkalinity, the more oxygen-rich the fluid is.
Now, the blood is remarkable at maintaining its pH, or potential hydrogen, as anything below 7.2 is lethally acidic and anything above 7.35 is overly alkaline. It is essentially impossible to alter the blood pH via diet (unless you’re doing something incredibly harmful, such as drinking copious amounts of sodium bicarbonate). So when I speak of alkalinity and acidity, I’m referring to the effects an alkaline diet has on the tissues of the body, the water in the body, etc.
⁴”Pietro Gullino, also at the National Cancer Institute, devised a test which showed that this slow growing cancer always produced fermentation lactic acid. Silvio Fiala, a biochemist from the University of Southern California, also confirmed this slow growing cancer produced lactic acid, and that it’s oxygen respiration was reduced.
Further research into Warburg’s theory showed that when oxygen levels were turned down, cells began to produce energy anaerobically. They ultimately became cancerous when levels went low enough. It took a reduction of 35% in oxygen levels for this to happen.“
And when we look at what foods become acidic, we are brought right back to added sugars, meat is acidic, grains, dairy. These all deplete cellular oxygenation by leaving an acidic ash in their wake, making your body more acidic.
Fruits, vegetables and some nuts and seeds are the most alkaline foods, leaving an alkaline residue behind.
We see cancer success stories, like that of Chris Wark or Rob Mooberry (who was recently in the news with his success story of beating stage 4 cancer back in 2013) where an abundance of juicing and plant-foods were consumed. Not just cooked, but also in their rawest state as that offers more nutrients; it doesn’t alter the pH as cooked foods can sometimes be altered; it also fuels the body with live enzymes for optimal digestion and maximum healing potential.
Ideally, you want to strive for a diet that hits around 80-90% alkaline foods.
Between stripping up the preferred enviorment for cancer cells (acidic, oxygen-deprived); fueling the healthy cells with vegetables and fruits; also starving the cancer from its sugar-fermentation respiratory process, cancer doesn’t have much of a fighting chance alongside other therapies and treatments.
Again, if you have cancer — regardless of whether you pursue allopathic or holistic treatments, or a combination — always, always start your journey by looking at what it is you’re putting on your plate.
