All over the world carcinosis is on the ever-increasing rise. The UN predicts that tumour-related diseases will double until the year 2030 on a global scale. 21.4 million new incidences and 13.2 million cases of death are then expected annually. There are altogether more new incidences and deaths in industrialised countries than in developing countries1. Due to their questionable efficacy and heavy side effects, the approaches of conventional medicine in cancer treatment like operations, chemotherapy, hormone therapy or radiotherapy remain highly controversial. However, there is increasing interest of patients, scientists and doctors in a radical change of course in the observation and treatment of cancers. New research shows that cancer does not depend on genetics, but results from damage to the mitochondria, the cell’s power houses. The genetic changes observed with cancer diseases develop as a consequence. Findings that have been known for decades show that this condition can be reversed by applying, with discipline, a low-carbohydrate diet with a high fat content.
In science there is an increased awareness that at the base of almost all diseases and especially cancer lies in a reduced mitochondrial function. This was already known to Dr Otto Warburg who in 1931 received the Nobel Prize for discovering that the energy metabolism of cancer cells differs fundamentally from the catabolism of healthy cells. Based on his long lasting research of the cell metabolism Dr Warburg declared at the time that cancer cells, other than healthy cells, can gain their energy exclusively through the decomposition of glucose (sugar) without any need for oxygen and without the aid of the mitochondria. In this perspective lack of oxygen is no problem for cancer cells but a downright ideal environment for their unhindered growth. But healthy cells can only live in an oxygen-rich environment with fully functional mitochondria.
Dr Thomas Seyfried from Yale University, specialist in the ketogenic diet, today even goes a step further by saying that the dispersal of cancer cells can be stopped by depriving them of the blood glucose as their production of energy mainly depends on burning glucose. According to him, this can mostly happen through a so-called ketogenic diet (low in carbohydrates, but high in fats and proteins), as the cells then change their energy mechanism from a glucose-based process to a process powered by fatty acids and ketones (energy molecules which form with a low-carbohydrate diet).
The term “ketose” describes a condition, when due to a lack of glucose the liver produces keton which in this form can be used as a source of energy by almost all body cells. If there are ketones, healthy cells no longer need glucose. They then only use ketones as fuel.
Cancer cells, however, have no use for ketones. If there are only ketones left in the blood circuit, the cancer cells starve.
The nutrition specialist Patricia Daly (who treated her own cancer disease with ketogenic diet) in a lecture which she held in Limerick, Ireland, in February 2016 at the “Wise Traditions Conference” of the Weston A. Price Foundation, once more pointed out the, by now extensive, data on the research of the ketogenic diet and its effect on cancer patients.
Daly says: “Some oncologists have heard about the ketogenic diet, some are even very supportive of it because the science behind the diet is very compelling, but many of them still don’t know enough to be able to help you with implementation of the diet or support you.”
The knowledge about the advantages of a diet high in fats is not new at all. As early as the 1920s, Dr Weston A. Price and Dr Blake Donaldson proved the merits of a ketogenic diet in separate studies. More recently, the famous New York nutritionist Dr Robert Atkins has made the ketogenic diet popular.
Moreover, Dr Thomas Seyfried determined in laboratory tests that a ketogenic diet also made disappear existing brain tumours in epileptic laboratory mice2.
Worldwide studies showed good results when applying a ketogenic diet for diseases like epilepsy with children. There are also some studies that prove a positive effect for patients with Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease.
Sources:
(1) https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-euv/frontdoor/index/index/docId/70
