The answer is 'yes', according to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The reason is 'external control' - factors outside the nuclear DNA have a controlling effect over the development of cancer. It's called epigenetics.
In 2004, a research team led by Whitehead Institute member Rudolf Jaenisch, alongside Lynda Chin from Dana Farber Cancer Institute demonstrated that healthy mice could be successfully cloned from an advanced melanoma cell in a mouse (1). That melanoma cell did not copy into another melanoma cell. First, they removed the nucleus from an aggressive melanoma cell and then injected it into a de-nucleated egg cell (a process known as nuclear transfer). They sat back to watch the egg develop into a mouse with highly aggressive melanoma. Instead, they produced only healthy mice.
Imagine that for yourself. Imagine the potential. All your cancer cells have the ability to be nullified; there is no reason why you cannot turn yourself back into the best version of yourself.
The researchers concluded that the “epigenetic” benefits of the cell outside of the DNA can affect, and even silence, any new cancer-causing genetic mutation inside the DNA, if indeed there was one in the first place. As you will see later, there may well not have been. It's just another example of the Metabolic Theory of cancer - rather like the 12 benefits of exercise, we recently covered in our review, 'Exercise increases cancer survival'. The Metabolic Theory of cancer holds that cancer is no different to cardiovascular disease, diabetes and dementia. They are all caused by a poor metabolism, and can be reversed by a new Lifestyle and a healthy metabolism.
Many of these external epigenetic components, such as homocysteine-derived methylation, can determine if a gene is silent or active. If there is DNA damage, the surround effects in the cellular microenvironment might not be able to re-alter the damaged DNA, but they certainly could turn off the effects. Thus malignancy and metastasis were not the inevitable effect of a cancer cell.
A 2010 review (2) showed that all recognised epigenetic markers (for example, DNA methylation, histone modification, and microRNA expression) are influenced by environmental exposures, including diet, tobacco, alcohol, physical activity, stress, environmental carcinogens, genetic factors, and infectious agents which may play a causal, regulatory or even a silencing role on gene expression. Yet again, this means that external factors could cause a cancer, but equally changes in these external 'Lifestyle' factors could reverse a cancer.
In 2015, Chris Woollams an Oxford University Biochemist and founder of CANCERactive first wrote a, frequently updated, review on 'Epigenetics and reversing cancer'. We have also told readers about 25 epigenetic compounds to correct cancer. All were straight out of research.
The issue is huge, and a big reason why your hospital cancer staff are completely wrong when they tell you that there is no point in changing your diet to try to beat cancer.
Research from Stanford Medical School exploring inherited genetic mutations showed that there were no new mutations in the healthy DNA strand, and that survival times were not determined at all by the inherited genetic mutation! Even an inherited mutation inside your DNA does NOT affect survival times!
Christine Meyr of Sloan Kettering then showed that there were in fact No New Mutations in your DNA when you developed cancer. Cancer was totally the product of epigenetic factors and a faulty copying process resulting in altered messages - and of course this could be reversed. We have prepared a review on this research.
This research conclusion is huge and Meyr won the Prestigious NIH award of the year.
However, many old school participants in the Cancer Industry still cling to the view that you have caused your cancer by damaging your DNA - the core genetic code. And cancer has little or nothing to do with 'Metabolism', unlike type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease dementia and every other disease. And this of course means that without their help, their drugs and their radiotherapy and their surgery you have no chance of beating a cancer. Indeed several conferences on epigenetics have concluded that epigenetics played a complicated role, was still not fully understood, and epigenetics might be acceptable if it could somehow cause a change inside your genetic DNA.
A 2024 review (3) even states that, "Cancer is a disease characterized by constant evolution, spanning from its initial premalignant stages to the advanced invasive and disseminated stages. It is a pathology that is able to adapt and survive amidst hostile cellular microenvironments and diverse treatments implemented by medical professionals". So, it's core is fixed and the cancer is thereafter adaptable. But maybe the hostile treatments are attacking something that is just not the determinant of cancer. After all, the treatment of cancer primarily uses drugs. And what is big Pharma currently doing - oh yes, trying to create more drugs. What was it Einstein said about insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?
You may feel the review is almost condescending when it states, "However, epigenetics, much like genetics, is a broad scientific area that deserves further attention due to its multiple roles in cancer initiation, progression, and adaptive nature". In this review .."we present a detailed examination of the epigenetic hallmarks affected in human cancer, elucidating the pathways and genes involved, and dissecting the disrupted landscapes for DNA methylation, histone modifications, and chromatin architecture that define the disease".
All this 20 years after a melanoma cell cloned a healthy mouse!
Go to: Cancer - why you're not doomed.
Chris Woollams has also prepared a review on Homocysteine and illness - from cancer to cardiovascular disease and dementia to osteoporosis. High homocysteine levels cause inflammation, methylation and block your copying process with histones. The good news is that high levels are proven to be reversible. Homocysteine is a big Metabolic factor in almost all chronic illnesses including cancer. Another reason to change your diet, and eat more oily fish from the sea and consume foods like green leafy vegetables and whole grains to increase your B-6, folate and B-12 levels. Turmeric and Berberine also turn down homocysteine levels.
This will lower an important epigenetic cancer-driver.
You may even have noticed it has disappeared from your standard hospital blood test! we wonder why?
Go to: Homocysteine and chronic illness
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References
1. Hochedlinger, K., Blelloch, R., Brennan, C., Yamada, Y., Kim, M., Chin, L., & Jaenisch, R. (2004). Reprogramming of a melanoma genome by nuclear transplantation. Genes & Development, 18(15), 1875-1885.
2. Mathers JC, Strathdee G, Relton CL. Induction of epigenetic alterations by dietary and other environmental factors. Adv Genet. 2010;71:3-39. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-380864-6.00001-8. PMID: 20933124.
3. Esteller M, Dawson MA, Kadoch C, Rassool FV, Jones PA, Baylin SB. The Epigenetic Hallmarks of Cancer. Cancer Discov. 2024 Oct 4;14(10):1783-1809. doi: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-24-0296. PMID: 39363741.