How Tumor Cells Work Overtime to Restore Vascular Health
Young or old, every person with a troubling health condition who has turned to the conventional medical system for answers, braces himself for the moment when the diagnosis might come back with the dreaded “C” word. And we have all been conditioned to believe that, following such a dire diagnosis, not a moment is to be wasted: immediate action is needed to surgically remove the tumor.
Of course the prevailing view says that the operation should be followed with radiation therapy and chemotherapy to assure that every last tumor cell has been destroyed. Then we must patiently wait out the five-year “proving” interval in hopes that the cancer doesn’t return, or, worse, metastasize to some other tissue such as the brain or the bone marrow. Following cancer treatment, one is forevermore a “cancer survivor.” One is never cured.
If you peruse the research literature on cancer, you will find that investigators are frustrated and puzzled by much of what they find. Well-motivated logic and reason typically lead to the development of a new drug that seems like a dynamite idea for disrupting the tumor in some critical way, such as suppressing its blood supply or depriving it of an essential molecule for growth. Yet again and again the clinical trials turn up unexpected dangerous side effects that prevent the drug from going to market. A virulent tumor seems like a cat with nine lives or a phoenix ever arising—it always finds a way to come back to life in a much more deadly form than what it was before it was tampered with.
Cancer is usually portrayed as a disease that befalls us due to “bad luck” or perhaps “susceptible genes.” We are not led to believe that lifestyle choices might protect us from cancer. In fact, however, 90 to 95 percent of cancer cases have their roots in environmental and lifestyle factors.2 We are exposed in our daily lives to a host of chemical carcinogens, only some of which are formally acknowledged. These include toxic fumes from automobile exhaust, toxic pesticides applied to our foods, toxic agents in the vaccines our children are subjected to, various pharmaceutical drugs with carcinogenic potential, and a variety of chemicals like benzene, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and formaldehyde, to name a few.
Ironically, sunlight is one of the best protective agents against cancer. Although we are encouraged to stay out of the sun or to lather on the sunscreen for fear of getting skin cancer should we venture outside on a sunny day, the truth is that incidence rates of skin cancer have been rising steadily by 2 percent per year for the last thirty years, while sunscreen usage has increased thirty-fold.34 Sunscreens interfere with vitamin D3 synthesis in the skin24 and this effect may more than negatively compensate for any protection they afford from UV exposure.
Furthermore, places nearer the equator and places with less annual rainfall have lower rates of a multitude of different cancers, including esophageal, gastric, colon, pancreatic, breast, ovarian, rectal, prostate, renal, bladder, cervical, gallbladder, laryngeal, oral and Hodgkins lymphoma.14 A cancer diagnosed in the summer has a better prognosis than one diagnosed in the winter.30 And sunlight is also excellent treatment therapy following a cancer diagnosis.29
Breast cancer is the number one cancer for women, and one in eight women born today in America is expected to have to confront the disease at some time in life. We are just now questioning an era of active campaigns to insure that every woman get a mammogram every year for “early detection,” with the hope that this would surely save lives. Those hopes have now been dashed. A study conducted in Norway showed that aggressive use of mammograms resulted in a substantial rise in the rate of breast cancer, followed by no improvement whatsoever in the death rate from breast cancer.44 The conclusion was that either the radiation exposure from the mammogram increased risk, or tiny tumors that would usually be missed without mammograms were resolving on their own without treatment. Both of these hypotheses are remarkable for their role in changing the mindset towards this disease. Now those in the know are starting to recommend a “watchful waiting” policy towards both breast cancer and prostate cancer, something that most people find very hard to accept after all the years of brainwashing towards the concepts of early detection and immediate aggressive surgery.
These two types of cancer—breast cancer and prostate cancer—are interesting for several reasons, not the least of which is that they are respectively the most common cancers for women and men in the U.S. Breast cancer in particular can be viewed as affecting a “vestigial organ” if it occurs in a postmenopausal woman. A diagnosis of breast cancer is so much better than a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer or brain cancer or liver cancer, because the cancer is not disrupting the normal function of a critical organ.
HOW DOES A TUMOR KILL YOU?
At this point it is appropriate to ask the rather naive question: what is it exactly that a tumor does that causes harm? A woman often first notices she may have breast cancer by discovering a lump in her breast. She does not actually feel ill in any way. On the other hand, a person with cancer being treated with radiation therapy and chemotherapy suffers from a large number of symptoms that are due to the treatment rather than the cancer itself. Chemotherapy to treat breast cancer leads to cognitive impairment in a dose-response relationship.43 Cognitive decline appears to be even more strongly related to antihormone therapy (such as Tamoxifen) than to chemotherapy.31,27 One in four cancer survivors is left suffering from long-term debilitating health conditions, and 20 percent of those diagnosed with breast, colorectal or prostate cancer experience pain up to five years following diagnosis.10 Women with breast cancer are almost twice as likely to succumb to heart failure, and men with prostate cancer have double the risk of osteoporosis. Prostate cancer is also associated with a high risk of incontinence and impotence. Radiation therapy to treat early stage breast cancer on the left side has been shown to increase the patient’s risk to heart disease, presumably due to radiation damage to the heart itself.8 Even surgical removal of the tumor is dangerous. For example, deep vein thrombosis (which can cause a fatal pulmonary embolism) is far more common following cancer surgery than following other surgeries.12 Why is this?
SULFUR DEFICIENCY IN BLOOD VESSELS
A problem that frequently shows up in terminal cancer is something called “cancer cachexia.” This is a muscle wasting disease where the person has little or no appetite and the muscles are broken down to provide fuel to maintain basic minimal function of the vital organs.20
Why is there no appetite? How can a lump in a breast cause such a profound effect? While the argument is that the cancer is releasing signals called cytokines that induce a loss of appetite or an inability for the cells to utilize food as an energy source, one has to ponder why it is that these cytokines are released. Is there a reason why the sheer act of eating itself might be dangerous to the cancer patient?
I believe that the inability to metabolize food is due to the sorry state of the vasculature, which, in turn, is due to global, systemic deficiency in sulfate supplies to the vascular walls, to the cells and particles coursing through the blood, and in the tissues. The blood, particularly the hepatic portal vein which delivers digested food from the gut to the liver, is in such a fragile state that it can no longer support nutrient transport. In a 2012 article,36 my colleagues and I argue that the ability of the heart and skeletal muscles to metabolize glucose depends critically on the bioavailability of cholesterol sulfate, which is supplied through sunlight exposure to the skin. When sulfate supplies are depleted, sugar piles up in the blood, and this can be very destructive to the blood proteins. The result of an overload of nutrients to a fragile vasculature is the formation of blood clots, for example, thrombosis, a life-threatening condition.
THE STRANGE METABOLISM OF A TUMOR CELL
A normal cell (left) uses its mitochondria to break down glucose (Glc) to carbon dioxide and water, producing ATP, the cell’s energy currency. A tumor cell usually has functional mitochondria but chooses not to use them. Instead, it converts glucose to lactate (Lac) which it releases into the medium, and it produces only a tiny amount of energy from each glucose molecule. It therefore requires 18 times as much glucose for the cell to obtain an equivalent amount of ATP, which it produces in the cytoplasm rather than in the mitochondria. It can use this ATP to energize sulfate so that it can be conjugated to a sterol such as estrone (breast cancer) or cholesterol (prostate cancer).
The answer I propose, therefore, is simple, but it’s extremely provocative. The tumor is not the problem! Furthermore, the tumor represents a valiant attempt to solve the real problem, and destroying the tumor’s ability to do its job is going to lead to a deterioration in overall health. Indeed, treated cancer patients are placing a huge burden on healthcare systems due to the many health problems that they acquire following cancer treatment, such as chronic pain, mental confusion, deep vein thrombosis and increased heart disease risk, as I discussed above.
Cancer cells have a very unusual metabolic policy which has been called the “Warburg effect,” named after the researcher who first characterized this feature in the 1920s.21 Ordinarily, when a cell is, for whatever reason, deprived of oxygen, it is capable of reverting to glycolysis as a way of extracting a small amount of energy from glucose by converting it to lactate, and this process does not depend on oxygen. It gets only one-eighteenth as much energy as you would derive if you broke glucose down all the way to carbon dioxide and water using oxidative phosphorylation in the mitochondria. Cancer cells are extraordinary, however, because, even in the presence of abundant oxygen, they refuse to use their mitochondria to produce energy. Instead, they are a powerhouse for taking in glucose—eighteen times as much as a normal cell to obtain equivalent energy—and shipping out lactate. This is the Warburg effect.
Why would cancer cells do this? I have a very simple explanation: the tumor is clearing the excess glucose from the blood and replacing it with an abundance of lactate to provide usable fuel for the critical organs like the heart and the brain. This is one reason why the tumor is part of the solution instead of part of the problem. The service it performs is essential to allow the heart and the brain, in their compromised state of severe cholesterol and sulfate deficiency, to continue to function by utilizing lactate as a source of fuel instead of glucose. But the tumor suffers from glycation damage and acidification as a consequence, so it struggles to survive under such harsh conditions.
The tumor has another more practical reason not to run its mitochondrial engines. Because it is severely deficient in sulfate, it needs to somehow produce sulfate from an available substrate. A promising candidate is homocysteine thiolactone. But, unfortunately, superoxide is required as a source of reactive oxygen to oxidize the sulfur atom in the homocysteine thiolactone. Furthermore, nitrate is needed to offset the kosmotropic effects of sulfate (otherwise, the blood will become too viscous). But the precursor to nitrate, nitric oxide, reacts with the precursor to sulfate, superoxide, to produce a nasty, highly reactive oxidizing agent called peroxynitrite,26 which will destroy the iron-sulfur containing proteins such as aconitase in the mitochondria.5 It’s really hard to avoid peroxynitrite exposure if a cell is producing both nitric oxide and superoxide. However, it has to produce both of these in order to be able to synthesize sulfate and not gel the blood in the process. A tumor cell is a very good candidate for the job, precisely because it’s not performing other essential duties, so it can “take the heat.”
This is probably the right place to bring up the critical issue about sulfate—it is vitally important as a component of the complex sugar molecules called glycosaminoglycans (GAGs), which decorate the exterior of just about all the cells in the body.9 However, it is both difficult to synthesize and difficult to transport. It plays a powerful role in forming an “exclusion zone” around every cell, to keep out unwanted molecules and protect the cell from ion leaks. It does this by inducing the surrounding water to form a crystalline structure that can almost be described as “liquid ice,28” something that is very similar to the gelled water in gelatin desserts. This special water-structuring effect of sulfate, while affording protection for the cell when a sulfate anion is attached to its matrix, presents a problem when the sulfate anion is in solution in the blood, because the free-flowing blood cannot afford to be gelled. This is why any free sulfate above about 0.3 mM concentration is immediately excreted through the kidneys. And it also explains why the body can be severely depleted in sulfate even while it is excreting sulfate in the urine. I believe the observation that sulfate is routinely excreted in the urine has misled both researchers and medical practitioners into thinking that sulfate can’t possibly be deficient.
Mitochondria are especially susceptible to damage by peroxynitrite, so a cell trying to synthesize sulfate is much better off if it suppresses mitochondrial activities. This means getting by on oxidative glycolysis to supply its ATP energy needs. Plus, ATP needs to be in the cytoplasm, not in the mitochondria, in order to produce PAPS, an activated, energized form of sulfate that can now be attached to complex sugar molecules being constructed in the cytoplasm in order to refurbish the barren extracellular matrix with heparan sulfate proteoglycans and restore the tumor cell to a healthy state.
HEPARIN SULFATE FROM TUMOR CELLS
Heparan sulfate is a remarkable molecule which is present in abundance just outside most of the cells of the body, attached to membranebound proteins called syndecans. It plays an extremely important role in regulating nutrient uptake, signal transduction and ion exchange across the membrane.4 Sulfate depletion in heparan sulfate is associated with a large number of disease states, including diabetes,36,38 autism,37 hypertension,15 digestive disorders25 and kidney disease.40 My colleagues and I have argued that sulfate deficiency, rather than excess cholesterol, is the major factor in heart disease, and that the cardiovascular plaque can be viewed as a factory where cholesterol sulfate is synthesized from precursors derived from LDL and homocysteine.36
Breast cancer cells will respond to exposure to estrogen by multiplying, which is why estrogen receptor antagonists such as Tamoxifen have been used as a hormone therapy option to impede their growth.1,13 Cancer cells use estrogen to produce estrone sulfate, which they release into the surrounding medium (thereby distributing sulfate to other cells). They also produce lots and lots of heparan sulfate, and, since they produce a sulfatase that detaches sulfate from estrone sulfate,22 I suspect that estrone sulfate becomes a source of sulfate for the synthesis of heparan sulfate.
Prostate cancer has a story similar to breast cancer with regard to sterol sulfate synthesis, except that the tumor makes cholesterol sulfate instead of estrone sulfate.11 Both estrone and cholesterol are sterols (estrone, testosterone, and vitamin D3 are all synthesized from cholesterol). Cholesterol sulfate is the same molecule that is synthesized in the skin upon sunlight exposure. Thus, a plausible way in which sunlight exposure might protect from cancer is by leading to the production of a molecule—cholesterol sulfate— that is sorely needed to maintain the stability of the blood and the general health of the body.
While the tumor cell produces excessive amounts of heparan sulfate, it also produces excessive amounts of heparanase, an enzyme that breaks down heparan sulfate! Tumors that are more aggressive and more likely to metastasize (spread to other tissues) produce more heparanase than more benign tumors.18,3 Tumors, in fact, produce a continual stream of small vesicles called exosomes, which are pinched off from their plasma membrane and distributed via the vasculature.41 These contain syndecans bound to heparan sulfate in their membranes, so the tumor cell is delivering heparan sulfate to other cells on the backs of these exosomes! It appears that the tumor is involved in a program of obsessively making and shipping out heparan sulfate chains.
Why would it do this? As astonishing as this may sound, one is tempted to conclude that a tumor cell is altruistic—it is providing a continual stream of fragments of heparan sulfate to the vasculature with the explicit goal of fixing a severe pathology that would otherwise lead to the death of the organism. Or maybe this is not altruism but rather self-preservation. After all, if the blood supply to the tumor fails, the tumor itself will die.
It was at least thirty years ago when researchers first became aware that tumor tissues have a propensity to break down their extracellular matrix.33 This is not just due to the fact that the cancer cells release heparan-sulfate-containing exosomes as well as enzymes that degrade their surrounding matrix. They are also attacked by enzymes released by the healthy infiltrating stromal cells and by the invasive immune cells. Fragments of the heparan sulfate proteoglycans are broken off, or the protein, syndecan, that the sugar complex is attached to is attacked, or individual sulfate anions are snipped off of the sugar complex.33 All of these different methods of attack take place. The tumor is basically under siege, and it devotes considerable effort to replenishing the matrix that is constantly being degraded by enzymatic attack.
Careful examination of the evidence leads to the inevitable conclusion that the tumor is not the problem. In fact, it is the solution! Sugar is piling up in the blood because the cells are unable to utilize it as fuel. This is a direct consequence of insufficient sulfate in the pancreas, leading to an inability to manufacture insulin,39 and insufficient sulfate in the extracellular matrix of all the cells, leading to insulin resistance.36 The tumor cell can perform a wonderful service by sucking all that sugar out of the blood and replacing it with lactate. Lactate is a beautiful fuel—its negative charge helps to alleviate blood acidification, and it does not glycate blood proteins, such as hemoglobin and ApoB in LDL, a huge problem with glucose and other blood sugars. And the tumor is producing estrone sulfate and heparan sulfate and releasing them into the blood, supplying the essential nutrients that can restore the blood’s stability to prevent blood clots and hemorrhages.
TREATMENT STRATEGIES TARGETING THE CONNECTIVE TISSUES
Researchers argue that the tumor’s ability to break down the surrounding connective tissue that holds the cells in place, a process referred to as “matrix remodeling,” is a key factor in allowing a tumor cell to “break free,” and therefore migrate to some other place in the body. This often has catastrophic consequences, as metastasizing cells can then colonize other organs, and when this occurs the prognosis of death as an outcome is much higher.
Cancers metastasize when the primary tumor sheds cells into the blood, and one way to monitor this is to detect these wandering tumor cells in blood samples.19 Metastasis is the cause of 90 percent of cancer deaths, and about 25 percent of women diagnosed with breast cancer will go on to develop metastasized cancer. In studies in Europe, some cancer patients have been found to already have disseminated primary tumor cells in their bone marrow even before metastasis has occurred.19 These cells clearly break away from the main tumor (became dislodged from the matrix of supporting tissues), and their presence in the bone marrow indicates a poorer prognosis.
The breakdown of the matrix metalloproteins is carried out by specific enzymes called “metalloproteinases” (MMPs). There was initially considerable excitement about the possibility of developing drugs to inhibit these MMPs, called MPIs (metalloprotein inhibitors).6 In fact, new drugs were rushed to phase II trials without adequate prior study. However, the results were so disappointing that the pharmaceutical industry has now more or less given up on this line of attack.
What went wrong? The main problem was an unexpected side effect of severe muscle pain and weakness. This is remarkably similar to the most common side effect of statin drugs. I have previously described how statin drugs force the skeletal muscle cells to take up excessive amounts of fructose that can no longer be metabolized by the liver due to its inability to produce sufficient cholesterol in the presence of statin drugs.35 The muscle cells also use glycolysis to convert fructose and other sugars into lactate, just like the tumor cells. To the extent that the MPIs interfere with the tumor’s function, the muscle cells have to pick up the slack. Only, unlike a tumor, they have another very important role to play, which is to provide mobility. Their intense exposure to glycating agents like fructose causes damage to their proteins, particularly myoglobin, which, like hemoglobin in RBCs, is highly susceptible to glycation damage. This is what leads to muscle pain and weakness, and it can lead to even more dangerous outcomes like rhabdomyolysis—kidney failure due to the exposure of the kidney glomeruli to toxic debris in the form of damaged myoglobin released by dead and dying muscle cells.16 Indeed, patients with cancer often experience aching muscles and flu-like symptoms in response to cancer treatment programs, and they are at high risk of kidney failure.17
Curiously, a novel treatment for cancer has recently been proposed where the “drug” is a sulfated polysaccharide mimetic: essentially imitating the sulfated fragments that are released from tumor tissues through the activity of heparanase and syndecan shedding.23 The authors conclude with the idea that additional sulfation of this synthetic sugar might further improve its observed effects in reducing angiogenesis (blood vessel growth) and reducing mechanisms that are essential for metastasis.
A huge question that was left unanswered in the paper is whether these synthetic forms are actually accessible to the endothelial cells lining the vasculature such that they can repair the problem of severe sulfate deficiency that likely necessitated the development of a tumor. If not, then patients treated with these new drugs can expect to suffer from the same side effect profile as that experienced following MPI treatment: severe muscle pain and weakness.
HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM CANCER
What I conclude from my studies of cancer and its connection to sulfate deficiency is that “watchful waiting” is an excellent policy for breast cancer management, that mammograms are never a good idea, and that the best way to protect yourself from cancer is to optimize for the supply of sulfate to the blood and to the tissues. This means, first and foremost, getting as much sun exposure to the skin as you can manage. In today’s lifestyle, it’s difficult to allocate enough time to be outside in the sun, and I think a simple conscientious effort to spend more time outdoors would yield high payoff in terms of protection not only from cancer but also from many other modern diseases.
The second cancer-preventative strategy is to choose a diet that will support both sulfate synthesis and sulfate transport. The first part of this is to eat foods that are rich in sulfur. This includes meat, seafood, eggs, milk and milk products, as well as garlic, onions, and cruciferous vegetables.
A second step is to eat foods that contain “sulfate transporters.” These include polyphenols and flavonoids, as well as vitamin C and cholesterol. All of these molecules have in common a six-carbon ring and at least one hydroxyl group that can get swapped for a sulfate anion. The carbon ring disperses the negative charge on the sulfate anion and makes it safer for transport without risk of gelling the blood. I believe that the health benefits of buckwheat, ginger, virgin coconut oil, brightly colored fruits and vegetables, resveratrol (in wine) and curcumin (such as turmeric in curry powder) have more to do with the fact that they transport sulfate than the fact that they have antioxidant properties.
Another component of healthy eating is to choose only organic foods to the extent that this is practical. I recently published a paper together with Anthony Samsel which explains how glyphosate, the active ingredient in the most common weedkiller, Roundup, likely disrupts both sulfate transport and sulfate synthesis.32 I also published an article about glyphosate in connection with autism in the Fall 2013 issue of this journal. Glyphosate has been shown in in vitro experiments to induce proliferation of human cancer cells even when it is present in a concentration of mere parts per trillion.42
Obviously, it is imperative to minimize exposure to toxic chemicals. The aluminum in many sunscreens and antiperspirants is a good example. Women who use antiperspirants on a regular basis are at increased risk of breast cancer.7 Conscious restriction in the use of cosmetics, hair dyes, and pharmaceutical drugs will probably reduce risk to cancer. And it’s worth avoiding spending time in places where the air is highly polluted with automobile exhaust, while at the same time optimizing time spent on the seashore, where the air is fresh and sulfur-rich.
Another strategy that would likely be helpful is to soak periodically in Epsom salts baths. Epsom salts are magnesium sulfate crystals, and most people believe that their value lies mainly in their supply of magnesium. But I suspect it’s the sulfate that is providing most of the benefit from these baths. If you have access to a natural sulfur hot springs so much the better!
SIDEBAR
STRATEGIES FOR CANCER PROTECTION
Avoid mammograms and follow a strategy of “watchful waiting” if cancer is suspected.
Spend as much time outdoors and in the sun as possible, especially on the seashore; avoid air that is polluted with automobile exhaust.
Eat sulfur-rich foods including meat, seafood, eggs, milk and milk products, as well as garlic, onions, and cruciferous vegetables.
Eat foods that contain “sulfate transporters.” These include polyphenols and flavonoids, as well as vitamin C and cholesterol.
Buckwheat, ginger, wine, and turmeric contain compounds that transport sulfate.
Choose organic foods as much as possible, especially taking care to avoid foods exposed to the herbicide RoundUp. That means avoiding all genetically modified foods.
Eat fermented foods to provide lactate to the bloodstream.
Minimize exposure to toxic chemicals including those in sunscreens and antiperspirants, cosmetics, hair dyes, and pharmaceutical drugs.
Soak periodically in Epsom salts baths, which are a good source of sulfate.
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This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Winter 2013.
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Thank you for you article. Would you recommend this diet also to shrink an already present tumor.
I am going back and forth trying to decide between a vegan diet or incorporating grassfed organic
raw when available fats and milk, and eggs for the sulfur ect.
There is so much controversy it’s overwhelming.
I am trying to avoid chemo and radiation as I’ve had both 10 and 12 years ago.
Still I am considering surgery.
Thanks
I think vegan is about the worst thing you can do for cancer. You need high quality meats, eggs and seafood – of course these are not easily obtained, and they’re pricey. But “never-caged” eggs are a real bargain, and they’re loaded with both sulfur and important micronutrients. You can also detox by soaking in Epsom salt baths and, possibly through calcium bentonite clay baths and certainly infrared sauna. Also eat lots of colorful fruits and vegetables for the polyphenols. Also grounding by walking IN THE WATER along the ocean shore – that’s one of the most therapeutic things you can do for cancer, in my opinion. I’m not going to advise AGAINST the Western approach to cancer therapy – slash and burn — but if I had cancer I wouldn’t do it.
Thanks, Ms. Seneff for a fabulous article! I really appreciate your work, and will post some specifics about that below. Meanwhile, I want to offer my opinion about the diet question raised here.
I have a little different take on the diet question. I agree that the blanket advice that is so common for people dealing to go vegan if they are battling caner at the very best an over generalization. And I agree with Ms. Seneff that a great many people, if not most, who are dealing with cancer need nutrients that are almost impossible to get via a vegan diet.
The distinction I want to make from her advice is that there is a lot of variation among human beings. And I think that since the stakes are very high when trying to overcome cancer, it is best to find someone who is expert and experienced in crafting optimal nutrition plans for those dealing with cancer, and who embraces as a core principle the need for fitting the nutrition plan to the individual. In my work, I have seen the recovery and survival rates go up dramatically when we do that.
I also am not a fan of Epsom salts. Although they are cheap, unless you have an extraordinary source for them, they are not very pure. The typical 1/2 gallon size “milk carton” that you get at the super market or drug store in which Epson slats are frequently sold is not very pure at all. And I think it is really important to be as free of toxins as possible when dealing with cancer. Furthermore, it has been shown that boosting magnesium levels is a good measure to help prevent and overcome cancer. And Epsom salts are a form of magnesium, (magnesium sulfate), but it is appears that this form of magnesium is not particularly bioavailable. A much better form, particularly when dealing with cancer, seems to be magnesium in the form of magnesium chloride. Again, my observations of actual results support this. And there is really good research by Marcus Freudenmann and others that supports this. And then to get the sulfur, I recommend adding a substantial amount of pure, organic sulfur in the form of MSM (MethylSolfonylMethane), to the diet. But this needs to be really pure, (no additives, whatsoever), and distilled a minimum amount so that it is still in small crystal form, from 100% pure, organic plant lignum. If it is in capsules, it will not work. It needs to be loose. And this is hard to find, but worth it.
I feel there is a core framework in what Stephanie shares and yes, we can use it, explore it and see how it works – along with what we are already finding to be worthy.
The nature and proportion of risks and benefits in any of this for each of us – at different times of our life – is beyond any set of rules to define.
Life – is for the Living. Thankyou for your comment.
Melissa, it was in Sept. 2020 that my doctor told me to get my things in order because my breast MRI showed that I had diagnosed stage IV breast cancer, metasticized to lungs and bones. I knew at least a year before then that there was a problem. Since then I’ve been through many types of cancer treatments, mostly alternative. Many of the alternative doctors tout the vegan diet which did not make sense to me either. I remember a video of a woman who went to this clinic and ate a vegan diet and though she was not completely cancer free, she was alive but looked like a World War II victim, mostly skin and bones. I’m thinking, how healthy can she be? I believe their philosophy is to not feed the cancer with anything except vegetables This never made sense to me and I continued to drink raw milk and eat like my great-great grandmother in spite of their “good advice”.
Since my cancer is estrogen positive I did tamoxifen for 6 months and hated it. My oncologist put me on a worse AI drug and said it was stronger. I lasted 3 weeks on that one and recently decided my quality of life is important and decided to skip the drugs altogether and stay with my natural mostly organic foods diet, high dose vitamin C, and various other supplements. When I skipped tamoxifen, I decided to incorporate more anti-estrogen foods in my diet such as fermented soy and flaxseed. Dr. Kristi Funk has a very informative video titled “Top 18 Anti-Estrogen Foods that Fight Breast Cancer.”
I recently discovered a plant that John Hopkins tried to patent. It has the highest sulphur content of any vegetable on the planet and it’s very easy to grow in a jar, ready to harvest in only 4-5 days. It’s called sulforaphane. If interested Youtube has a lot of info on it. It even crosses the blood brain barrier and has been proved to improve autism symptoms.
I wish you well. You can only dictate the journey you take and you alone. Go with your gut and do what’s best for you whatever that may be.
Melissa check out http://www.protons.com
I am currently studying medicine and at my stage of education, this article corroborates everything I have learned both in class and extracurricularly. I am very interested in this theory of cancer and will pay very close attention to how what I observe and read fits with the information presented here.
I am curious though – for very fair skinned people who can only tolerate minimal direct sunlight, would it be advisable to supplement my sulfate exposure via the ocean and epsom salt baths in addition to a good diet?
Can anything be done to compensate for very limited sun exposure?
Maybe the Vitamin D UVB lamps is an alternative for fair skin?
A few years back, I listened to a podcast interview with a seaweed harvester. He said that Americans are notoriously deficient in iodine and that the prostrate and area around the nipples were repositories of it in the body. He speculated that the lack of iodine was the principal cause of the problem. He may be right or wrong, but it got me eating more wild caught fish and seaweed gets added to most of my broths, occasionally to salads.
This article recommends “milk and milk products.” It probably should have been specified that raw milk is what is being referred to… right?
Right!
I love this article. I have been both a researcher and practitioner, helping people to overcome cancer, for more than 3 decades. I first became interested in cancer in 1963, shortly after my Grandfather, whom I loved and who otherwise seemed quite healthy, died from cancer rather quickly. Around the same time, a book “fell” into my hands that was about an origin of cancer, from trophoblast cells. The book went on to explain why these cells were essential to reproduction for all mammals, including human beings. so I was astonished but also intrigued by the idea that this same class of cells that had just taken my Grandfather out of my life was also essential to life, and performed a clearly beneficial function.
In the back of my mind, at the time, I thought that since cancer cells appeared to persist throughout the lifespan of most, if not all mammals, although at a relatively low level of population, they must perform other, important if not essential biological functions. I have been wondering about this ever since. This article brilliantly clarifies this. Thank you, Ms. Seneff!
This also explains another “cancer mystery”: People who undergo the more powerful chemotherapy regimens, and are deemed to be in remission, seem to then die from heart disease, at higher rates than the rest of the population for their age groups. Some of this can be attributed to the actual cardiac damage that chemotherapy often causes. But it seems that this only accounts for some of this. So I wonder if the more extreme chemotherapy regimens are actually driving the population of cancer cells below the levels where they are able to keep arteries clear, which as this article points out is one of their functions. I do not have statistics to back this up, and more research is needed, but the idea seems intriguing.
Again, thanks so much for doing the research and writing this article. It is a terrific resource, and so are you.
Dr.Seneff- Thank you for this article, I learned a lot from it, but don’t agree with your view at the end that we can get all the sulfur we need from food alone. We need to supplement with sulfur directly.
We don’t live in the same world that existed when Weston Price was still alive. If Weston Price were still alive today, I don’t think even HE would agree with the notion that its possible to get all the sulfur we need from food alone due to the massive biological assault we have come under from geoengineering.
We are being bombarded with BILLIONS OF TONS of toxic heavy metals including aerosolized aluminum oxide, barium, strontium, cobalt, and arsenic from geoengineering/ Solar Radiation Management, aka “chemtrails” and we are also being sprayed with ethylene dibromide, molds, viruses, mycoplasma and weaponized parasites via geoengineering. The aluminum oxide is causing a massive rise in early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Currently in the US there are more than 200,000 people in their 40s and 50s with this disease, and people of all ages are suffering impaired cognition to to all the aluminum being sprayed on us.
All these heavy metals are also causing a huge rise in cancer, and ethylene dibromide is also a carcinogen- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9672661 It is a component in jet fuel http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/basicinformation/ethylene-dibromide.cfm Stanford University holds US Patent # 6245531 B1 “Polynucleotide Encoding Insect Ecdysone Receptor” which was called to my attention by this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASmhRL0QpD4 which was called to my attention by a sufferer of Morgellons disease. Weaponized parasites are being sprayed on us via geoengineering.
If you are not familiar with Geoengineering/Solar Radiation Management- watch these documentary films:
1. What in the World Are They Spraying? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf0khstYDLA
2. Why in the World Are They Spraying? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEfJO0-cTis
3. Trailer for “An UNconventional Shade of Grey”http://www.unconventionalgrey.com/
4. “Chemtrails- The Secret War” http://www.reactorbreach.com/showthread.php?tid=2937
We are up against a massive transhumanist/genocide campaign- a deliberate effort to cull the human herd- see “Future Stratetic Issues, Future Warfare 2025” By Dennis M. Bushnell,Senior Scientist, NASA Langley Research Center http://www.stopthecrime.net/docs/nasa-thefutureof-war.pdf Pay close attention to p.43, what it says about “Micro Dust Weaponry”
I am ingesting the amount of sulfur I’d normally recommend for someone with an autoimmune disease to chelate the toxic heavy metals being sprayed on us and to detoxify all the other toxins being sprayed because I don’t want to get Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, Morgellon’s disease or any other illness being caused by this massive biological assault. I am ingesting 3 tablespoons of MSM in water daily, and thats in addition to eating a Weston Price diet. I am a Weston Price Chapter leader and routinely eat my own free range eggs, and organic cruciferous veges, but I have no illusions- we are simply not living in the same world that existed when Weston Price was alive!
Last summer I systematically detoxed all my organs of elimination by utilizing herbalist Richard Schulze’s specific formulas for detoxing the bowel, liver/gallbladder, kidneys, and blood (by doing a second colon cleanse.) Every quarter I do 1/4th of this regimin over again to really STAY cleaned out, and I do this in ADDITION to ingesting sulfur.
When I did this cleanse, I jettisoned many pounds of impacted feces that not even colonics would remove. This waste was lodged in my colon for decades and I had no idea it was there putrifying, acidifying my blood, making me toxic, holding within it residue from pharmaceutical prescription and OTC drugs that I haven’t had in decades. My energy level shot up by 70% upon doing this cleanse, and I went from needing 8-10 hours of sleep per night to only needing 4-5.
With the level of biological assault that we’ve come under from geoengineering, it is PRUDENT to make this level of effort to detoxify our bodies, even if we are eating the cleanest diet possible, even if we eat no processed foods, and only grass fed beef, free range eggs, and organic veges.
You can’t get NEARLY ENOUGH milligrams of sulfur from food alone to detoxify the shear quantity of toxins being sprayed on us via geoengineering, please watch the documentary films I’ve provided above, and please help warn people about this!
Any advice on getting 3 tbsp MSM down?
John, Whilst I have little doubt that geoengineering is happening, it does seem very odd that the Powers That Be who are behind it are doing something that they – and their children etc – are also being exposed to. Do you have any thoughts on this. And thanks for the detox info, I will definitely check it all out. And do you – or anyone else – have any thoughts re fasting.
Allan – the human ‘powers that be’ are often a completely mistaken hubris operating in a correspondingly proportionate ignorance – so much so that the idea of evil or – demonic intent – comes into play because in what we take to be our right minds – we have no other explanation for such destructive inhumanity. But our true sanity is not right against a sense of wrong so much as rightly relating within a wholeness of being.
There may be various negative synergies operating – but I have a pet (imaginative) theory – and that is the belief that the Sun is changing – maybe as a result of the Earth’s shielding – or because of the intensification of charge as a result of the galactic sector we (Solar System) are now traversing. It’s a significant threshold – and the resistance (non-recognition, oppositional definition and adverse outcomes resulting on rigid lack of adaptation) is a locus of old paradigmatic consciousness that seeks to hang on to ‘control’ when ‘control’ no longer even seems to work.
And so ‘sun-screen’ for the Planet – may be a well intentioned protective – where the risk is of a nature that cannot be felt safe to communicate.
There are deep conditionings in the human psyche that we cannot tolerate or abide and so we deny, hide, avoid and escape such exposure. The magnification of Light draws out what was hidden. Not to damn or condemn – but to release.
The conviction in evil is the insistence in seeing it as the power that kills life. However, Stephanie is a witness to an implicit intuition of Life and her account here offers a resolution of a faulty perception.
I’m only an expert in being Me – so I cant advise anyone else except to invite an inner listening honesty of desire and curiosity with regard for what you attract and are attracted to. All the ‘right things’ will only help to the degree that you are willing to accept or receive it. I notice that if the Life, Light and Way of Being is more that can be accepted then conditions will be asserted that effect a ‘screen’.
So that indicates a balanced integrated willingness to be the step you are with now – rather than letting some parts charge ahead while others are ignored. Though that too can be instructive!
When a ‘screen’ no longer serves any purpose or meaning, it falls away. I feel there are ‘levels’ of healing that are what we often call spontaneous remission or indeed of a core recognition of healing – from which synchronicities extend as the witnessing to the embodiment of freedom from whatever baggage THAT was.
Like Stephanie and the biology – I see nothing in consciousness but serves purpose in some manner or degree. I may not at first want to know – I may feel safer in blame or self-limitation – but the more one truly loves, the more a love of truth wont tolerate a denial once brought to light – and so curiosity gets the better of me.
Allan, this is my husband’s question. Personally, I think TPTB live in places where there is no geoengineering. Or they don’t know all the details. The way to keep a conspiracy just a theory is to tell participants the only things they need to know and stick to the story. Then, when they find out, kill them or threaten to harm their kids. Yes, I’m waaaaay out there to some people 🙂
My husband just read Douglass’ book on JFK (http://amzn.to/29R2GKO). Very well researched and written. There can be little doubt that there are forces of evil working in our own government. And we allowed it to happen.
For decades I was treated for “pre-cancerous” skin lesions with freezing and other procedures that created masses of scar tissue on my head and arms. By chance I read about research in England on topically applied garlic as a way to reduce skin cancer risk by improving the communication of the skin with other immune centers. The article had no instructions on how to do this so I made up a procedure for mixing crushed garlic with aloe vera, then putting it on areas previously attacked by dermatologists. Gradually the lesions went away, along with the scar tissue, and I haven’t seen a skin doctor for at least a decade!
Now I prepare the garlic/aloe mix in a blender, adding spring water. I sit naked in the sun (feet in the grass) and spread this soothing mix over large areas. 20 minutes is about enough. Can such a procedure improve sulfate generation in the skin?
Hi Stephanie!
As a “follower” of your work which helps shape mine I want to say “Thank you”….I just came across this piece and want you to give you an additional “Thank you” …I am not the ONLY nut job out there to say this….you are one with a PhD!….I have been saying for years after reading similar or same material that many forms of cancers are simply the body’s last ditch/ “poison pill” / nuclear option for a body so flooded with glucose it has run out of other more benign metabolic options like glycation, glycogen storage, de-novo lipogenesis, glucose metabolism etc. over time….now I am grossly oversimplifying because to get to this point all other variables like lack or nutrient dense foods, sunlight, chronic stress, emf , lack of physical activity etc. all play into the metabolism going awry to get to the point of cancer cell generation overwhelming cancer cell apoptosis….keep up the great work! – Peter Defty
Thank you.
Fascinating
Wonderful information.
Could you simplify it ? In my case of ovarian cancer, second time is back, I remove the tumor 2 months ago, this time was just 2 cm big tumor.
As always the suggestion treatment is Chiometherapy. I did 3 years ago, this time I will not but I need information to better care of myself at this point.
I’m always following nutrition based on Cris books and information.
I appreciate it
Alessandra
Many thanks to Dr Seneff and Chris Wark for this incredible information. I consider Chris’ book, Chris Beat Cancer, among the top five MUST READS for anyone with cancer.
Having said this, Dr Seneff stated in a post below her article that the vegetarian diet is among the worst diets for anyone with cancer — advocating a diet rich meats, dairy and eggs due to their abundance of much needed sulfates. (Perhaps sulforaphanes in cruciferous vegetables, onions and garlic could be enough — just thinking).
However, people should also be aware of the seminal work done by Dr Dean Ornish, MD, whose 2008 study of 98 men with prostate cancer, in which he was able to reverse this dreaded disease IN ALL CASES — with a whole foods, plant based diet. In addition, the sublime Dr. Michael Gregor, MD (NutritionFacts.org) has shown in repeated studies (always with reputable research to back up his declarations) that cancer after cancer is defeated with a whole foods plant based diet.
Moreover, I think it was Dr T Colin Campbell, PhD Cornell University (if not him, perhaps Dr Russel Blaylock, Natural Strategies for Cancer patients) who said that in his research, casein from milk was the single biggest exciter and aggravating agent for cancer — above anything else.
Also in one of the studies reviewed by Dr. Gregor, MD, they found a 95% association between prostate cancer and eggs — one of the chemical components of eggs, choline, increases inflammation and may be one of the causes for this uncanny association. Perhaps this was the reason, but whatever it was, the association was there.
Back to the meats, one of the reasons for the association between cancer and meats may be the IGF-1 produced by meats in the gut promotes cancer — and this is not found in plant products. This may not be the entire reason, but the relation between higher incidents of cancer and meat consumption is proven repeatedly by Dr Gregor (he shows other studies, not his own).
I am approaching this with an open mind, so I am open to Dr Seneff’s amazing work, but for the time being, my take-away will be to get my sulfates from the plants she mentions (onions, garlic, Cruciferous vegetables), get sunshine and magnesium. Thanks for this great work of science, and perhaps my positions are wrong — but these points should not be ignored either.
Mike
Re the different comments for and against diets. The vegan diet won’t work for certain blood types any more than the high protein diet will work for the blood group A It’s important to establish which one you are and eat accordingly. If understood and followed much of the digestive burdens and symptoms of multiple diseases will be eased. Clearly why one diet does not work for all. The Blood group system is NOT a diet. It is an intelligent awareness of what enhances and what posions individual blood groups Essential to long term health
As to sulfur/sulfates: The Budwig diet, by the German Dr. Budwig, was developed after studying the research of a Dr. Warburg in the 1930s. A lack of sulfate does not allow normal, healthy cellular functioning of cancer cells which are anaerobic. She devised a quark, a German type of soft cheese (or you can use low fat cottage cheese, and flaxseed oil preparation. The omega 3s in the flaxseed oil are important but the quark/cottage cheese carries the sulfate portion. Blend the two together and it is supposed to oxygenate the cancer cells killing them. Other than the cheese, she recommended no other dairy and a whole foods plant based diet. Following her diet supposedly has cured many cancer patients. (https://budwigcenter.com/). Or you can buy the book, “Cancer Free: Your Guide to Gentle, Non-toxic Healing,” by Bill Henderson, which explains the Budwig Diet among other non-conventional cancer treatments.
I am presently in the process of juicing 5 pounds of carrots a day. Ann Cameron cured her cancer by juicing 5 pounds of carrots a day and nothing else. She wrote a book about it, “Curing Cancer with Carrots.