Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management, and Prevention of Cancer Author: Thomas Seyfried | Language: English | ISBN:
0470584920 | Format: PDF
Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management, and Prevention of Cancer Description
The book addresses controversies related to the origins of cancer and provides solutions to cancer management and prevention. It expands upon Otto Warburg's well-known theory that all cancer is a disease of energy metabolism. However, Warburg did not link his theory to the "hallmarks of cancer" and thus his theory was discredited. This book aims to provide evidence, through case studies, that cancer is primarily a metabolic disease requring metabolic solutions for its management and prevention. Support for this position is derived from critical assessment of current cancer theories. Brain cancer case studies are presented as a proof of principle for metabolic solutions to disease management, but similarities are drawn to other types of cancer, including breast and colon, due to the same cellular mutations that they demonstrate.
- Hardcover: 438 pages
- Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (June 26, 2012)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0470584920
- ISBN-13: 978-0470584927
- Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Dr. Seyfried provides compelling evidence that cancer is a metabolic disease (NOT a genetic disease), and this has major implications for the treatment and prevention of cancer.
According to Otto Warburg's theory of cancer, mitochondrial dysfunction is the origin of cancer. Dr. Seyfried has amassed extensive evidence to support Warburg's theory and advances the idea that cancer arises from defects in energy metabolism (mitochondrial dysfunction), and that this metabolic dysfunction triggers genomic instability, activates oncogenes and inactivating tumor suppressor genes. The author does an incredible job at convincing the reader that healthy mitochondria are the ultimate tumor suppressor.
It's clear that the strategy to treat cancer as a genetic disease is not working following metastasis of solid primary tumors, but this fuels the pharmaceutical industry. Enormous amounts of money are spent on large cancer genome projects, but this has not advanced our understanding or treatment of cancer as expected. The cancer genome project has actually created more confusion amongst cancer researchers, and this is very clear if one reads the literature. On the other hand, when cancer is viewed as a metabolic disease the strategies to treat and prevent cancer become incredibly simplistic and economical. For example, animals studies, case reports and anecdotal evidence demonstrate that metabolic therapies that lower blood glucose and elevate ketones will quickly reduce tumor growth, extend lifespan and in some cases cause complete remission. This strategy is effective because cancer cells are fueled by glucose and lack the ability to derive energy from ketones due to mitochondrial defects.
It is rare these days to read a new idea within the field of cancer, its causes and its treatment. There is no absence of old ideas, to be sure, but they are remarkably underwhelming in their explanatory power, and even less impressive in their ability to generate new and useful therapies.
Seyfried enters this field not only with some new ideas about causes, but some most excellent new ideas about therapeutics. And most surprising, he does it all in the context of a writing style that is both readable and even enjoyable. His recurring interjections with "Hello! Oncologists, are you listening?" seem, at the same time, out of place in an academic text and a welcome and needed shout at the conventional oncology world that has been oblivious to the evidence Seyfried amasses.
Seyfried's thesis might be summarized as, "It's the mitochondria, Stupid!" While the conventional oncology world has focused on a small percentage of characteristics that are unique to each type of cancer, Seyfried is calling attention to the set of changes that are common to all cancers, regardless of type. And central to those commonalities are specific alterations in mitochondrial function and the metabolic and genetic changes that flow from them.
Most importantly, Seyfried shows the obvious therapeutic interventions that are indicated by his thesis. The unfortunate point is that the therapies he is advocating are not likely to be embraced in the oncology world generally. For example, a very specific calorie-restricted diet for cancer patients is critical, and flies in the face of the common horrendous nutritional advice given to cancer patients, which is to eat lots of calories - in any form - just to maintain weight.
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