CANCER AND OXYGEN

Cancer cells are anaerobic.

Cancer, above all other disease, has countless secondary causes. There is only one primary cause: the replacement of normal oxygen respiration of our bodies cells by an anaerobic cell respiration. Dr. Warburg also said when cells cannot feed off oxygen they feed off themselves by fermenting their own sugars in a process that gets out of hand and continues under its own inertia, called cancer. Dr. Otto Warburg Two-time Nobel Laureate Winner of the Nobel Prize For Cancer Research.

Growth of cancer cells is initiated by a relative lack of oxygen known as cellular hypoxia. This process cannot begin or continue in an oxygen rich environment.

In the February, l956, issue of Science, pp. 309-3l4, Dr. Otto Warburg, reported that all cancer cells produce excessive or inordinate amounts of lactic acid and all have impaired mitochondria. These are compartments in all cells that house the Krebs cycle. Approximately 70 percent of the total energy needs of the body are derived from the Krebs cycle. Beyond this cycle a process called glycolysis contributes approximately 20 percent of the body’s total energy needs and the mono-phosphate shunt approximately l0 percent (taken from textbook Practical Physiological Chemistry). Living cells cannot grow, reproduce, or survive without sufficient amounts of energy to carry out their multitude of metabolic functions.

It may be of interest to note here that the Krebs cycle can extract energy from carbohydrates, fats, or amino acids. Glycolysis and the mono-phosphate shunt, however, extract energy only from glucose or carbohydrates. It is also important that the Krebs cycle and the mono-phosphate shunt require oxygen for their metabolic functions whereas glycolysis, whether in normal or cancerous cells, functions without oxygen or anaerobically.

When Dr. Warburg made his discoveries concerning the excessive production of lactic acid by cancer cells, little was known then about the thirteen enzymes that function in the Krebs cycle and the 11 enzymes that function in glycolysis. This is why neither he nor the cancer community at that time realized the potential therapeutic significance of his lactic acid, mitochondria discoveries, and the crucial role they could play in the treatment of all cancers.

Dr. Warburg found that normal cells derive most of their energy from respiration (aerobically or with the use of oxygen), whereas cancer cells derive most of their energy anaerobically or from fermentation (without the need of oxygen). This implies that normal cells derive most of their energy though the Krebs cycle (aerobically), whereas cancer cells derive most of their energy from glycolysis (anaerobically).

At the time, Dr. Warburg, as well as the cancer community, all believed that cancer cells produce large amounts of lactic acid only because they are deprived of sufficient oxygen to carry out their metabolic functions. The lack of knowledge then concerning the functions of the Krebs cycle and glycolysis, thus prevented medical science from understanding that cancer cells production of excessive lactic acid signifies that they rely almost exclusively upon carbohydrates or glucose for their major energy and that proper dietary modification, such as a diet low in carbohydrates, can prove a viable adjunct to conventional medicine in the treatment of all cancers.

Studies recently reported by scientist’s working in both cancer and AIDS research now explain how cancer cells can produce inordinate amounts of lactic acid because of injury to their mitochondria, even in the presence of oxygen.

It has become known, for example, that the activities of the mono-phosphate shunt are increased more than ten-fold in cancer cells (Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Dec. 6, 2000, p. 1926), compared to normal cells. As mentioned above, the mono-phosphate shunt functions aerobically or with oxygen. This implies that if cancer cells were being deprived of oxygen, we would not find an increase in the activities of the mono-phosphate shunt but a reduction in activities instead.

At the time, Dr. Warburg could not see the immediate therapeutic potential of his discoveries. But the technology he developed allowed him to measure the amounts of oxygen cancer cells consumed and the amounts of lactic acid they produced. When he found that cancer cells were producing such large amounts of lactic acid and that their oxygen consumption was greatly reduced, he assumed this was all caused by an insufficient supply of oxygen. He did not know at the time that if the mitochondria were defective within cells, they could not use their Krebs cycle and that this would cause them to produce excess lactic acid even though the cells were not deficient in oxygen.

In the December 3, l997, issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, p l764, appears the following, “Most solid tumors rely almost exclusively on the anaerobic metabolism of glucose as their main energy source, with most being converted to lactate. Glucose uptake and lactate release by human colon carcinomas have been found to exceed the peripheral tissue exchange by 30-fold and 43-fold, respectively.” This implies that colon cancer cells burn 30 to 40 times more glucose for energy than normal cells.

Dr. Warburg reported in his l956 article that normal liver cells burn more than l00 times more oxygen than cancer cells. This implies that the normal cells derive most of their energy from the Krebs cycle and not from glycolysis, as is the case with cancer cells.

A PET scan detects cancer cells, it identifies them by the amounts of glucose they consume. This is further evidence of the ravenous appetite cancer cells have for glucose.

Knowing that cancer cells require such large amounts of glucose to grow, reproduce, and even to survive, placing cancer patients on a low carbohydrate diet not only makes good sense but also good medicine.

Source: http://www.cancergnosis.com/Cancer%20and%20Oxygen/index.htm

Create Better Realities

I’ve seen my share of natural disasters. I was in a major earthquake in Los Angeles in 1987, a huge hurricane in Florida in 2004 and now, last week, I was an evacuee from what became the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history.

As I write this, well over a thousand firefighters are working on the remaining hot spots in this 10-square mile forest fire that torched 170 mountain homes. Now that the intense firefighting activity is dying down along with the flames, it has given me pause to reflect.

I used to say that the best way to protect yourself from the risks of life is to practice regular meditation so that your intuition is ready, clear and reliable when you most need answers. I still say that, because it keeps you out of danger even when danger comes to visit your part of the world. However, there is something even more important that I would like to add.

None of my physical belongings were lost in the fire, but there were people who had to run outside with nothing more than the clothes on their backs and drive through wind-driven flames to escape with their lives. Those people lost their homes and virtually all of their physical possessions. Situations like this really highlight just how fast tragedy can strike.

Relief, on the other hand, often seems to take way longer than it could. Relief efforts need to gain momentum in order to be effective and there always seem to be roadblocks in the way of building the needed momentum. It is here that you can help make a great difference in how smoothly such relief efforts roll out, even when you are thousands of miles away from the disaster zone.

No matter where in the world catastrophe strikes, you can send positive energy to change the energy of the situation so that relief can happen more smoothly and happen sooner. If you are a spiritual healer, you already know this. If you are a person who prays for others, you already know this. If you are a person who creates better realities through the power of visualization, you already know this. Sending healing energy to a world in crisis is something that every spiritual person can do.

You can make a difference. You can alleviate suffering. To do so is entirely in keeping with the style of the New Reality. Service to others is the key to success in these days and service of a spiritual nature is the key to rapid and balanced spiritual growth.

Mandatory Evacuation: by Owen Waters

Stay tuned for next week’s article on how you can heal the world, make it a better place, and, at the same time, make rapid advances in your own spiritual growth.

*If you enjoyed today's article, forward it to a friend! They will appreciate your thoughtfulness.

Owen Waters is the author of Love, Light Laughter: The New Spirituality, which is available both as a paperback and a downloadable e-book, at:

http://www.infinitebeing.com/ebooks/love.htm