Tripping Over The Truth: The Metabolic Theory of Cancer
The statistics are scary. Cancer kills 600,000 Americans annually. One in two men, and one in three women will be diagnosed with some form in cancer in their lifetime. In this fascinating book, Travis Christofferson, puts forward a revolutionary idea; that the paradigm we have based our ideas about and treatment of cancer are incorrect. There is a new paradigm about cancer which has been extensively researched by scientists like Thomas Seyfreid, Dominic D’Agostino, and others which has been termed the Metabolic Theory of Cancer. The current theory of cancer is that it is a genetic disease, which concludes that we are fated to develop cancer due to our genetics. The development of cancer treatments are based on the idea that the way to defeat cancer is by killing cancer cells with extremely toxic substances.
The Metabolic Theory of Cancer offers the alternative view that cancer develops due to metabolic rather than genetic dysfunction. Researchers like Seyfreid were led to study this idea from reading the research of a remarkable German scientist, Otto Warburg, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1931. Warburg observed that all cancer cells have a perverted method of generating energy, relying on an ancient and highly inefficient pathway known as fermentation. This means that cancer cells depend on glucose (sugar) as their primary source of energy. In Warburg’s words: “ Cancer, above all other diseases, has countless secondary causes. But even for cancer, there is only one prime cause. Summarized in a few words, the prime cause of cancer is the replacement of the respiration of oxygen in normal cells by a fermentation of sugar.”
Thomas Seyfreid, author of the book “Cancer as a Metabolic Disease”, found in his research that all cancer cells showed damage to the mitochondria, the cellular organelles which generate our energy through a process known as oxidative respiration. For more information on mitochondria see my blog “The Hidden Secret to Health, Wellness, and Aging”. Seyfried’s research has shown that the genetic changes observed in cancer cells are actually the cell’s response to damaged mitochondria, and their loss of ability to properly use oxygen to generate energy. This has significant implications for cancer research, prevention and treatment. Early clinical trial using strategies such as fasting and ketosis, which significantly reduce the glucose which cancer cells depend on for energy, are showing promise as a cancer therapy.
I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in having a better understanding of cancer; how to prevent it, and the options for treatment this new paradigm offers.
