A diagnosis of cancer should not make people feel that they are somehow doomed - it's certainly not my personal experience with patients, nor is it backed by science, even if doctors want to give you a stage and grade and then imply that all they can do is prolong your survival.
Serendipity
I once spoke to a gathering of oncologists using the title of 'Serendipity' (Fortunate discoveries by accident).
A major event in my life was my 21-year old daughter developing a grade 4, GBM brain tumour; and being told she had a maximum of 5 months to live and that the London Hospital had never had anyone live more than 18 months.
I had sold my companies 5 years before and had time on my hands.
I had studied Biochemistry at Oxford University and specialised in cancer.
After two years, Catherine was seemingly cancer-free and several doctors asked that I write down what I had discovered. Never say this to an ex-advertising man. We all have a book in us!
And so I wrote "Everything you need to know to help you beat cancer". It sold out in a weekend, even though you could only buy it direct from the Charity we had set up.
The aim of the Charity was to put put cancer magazines full of information and tips into patient hands in Hospitals across the UK. And what do you do with the articles? Why not build a website?
Then because of all this LBC wanted to interview me; and so I came back to the UK for a weekend.
By pure chance, the afternoon I landed and went to the office, top British sportsman Geoffrey Boycott rang me - he had a tumor on the back of his tongue. One oncologist said they would break his jaw, go in and cut the tumour out, give him chemo and radio, but he'd never talk on TV or radio again. The other oncologist gave him an inexplicable 12 weeks to live.
At the Olympia Health Show the next day, where I was doing the interview, a tearful Galina came up to me. She'd been told to go home and write her will. Barely 40, she had grade 4 stage 4 ovarian. Then on the interview Mrs Omar rang in and she had also been told she was doomed with breast cancer and just three months to live.
What can I say? They are all alive 20 years later.
Doomed? Terminal? Palliative care? Who uses these words?
I also learned some important things very quickly:
People build bodies conducive to cancer over a six to ten year period. Cancer does not happen over night. But importantly, it is never one thing that causes the weak body.
I set out to build these three people 'bodies conducive to health'. I also wondered what had caused the cancer and tried to eradicate that.
Years later, a patient in Marbella, Firouzeh, had a CA125 score of 1500 when she came to me and her oncologist kept telling her that there wasn't much she could do. Seven years later she passed away, but Fred her husband told me that an autopsy showed she did not have a cancer cell in her body.
In one of our chats, Firouzeh told me that she had 'worked me out'. I didn't treat cancer; I treated people.
She was right. As Dr. Henry Friedman a top Oncologist in the USA once said, "it is naive to believe that any one treatment could cure a cancer". I don't use cancer treatments - I build people a programme that rebuilds their health and 'shuts the doors' to cancer. It's not rocket science.
If I use green juices and flaxseed, or Hyperbaric oxygen and vitamin D, it is to make the patient healthy again. So too, if I cut their blood sugar and blood fat, or rebuild their microbiome, or teach them to manage their stress.
I don't have a formula. What I do is personalised to the person in front of me, their age, history, circumstances and their cancer. It staggers me but even Doctors come to see me (8 in one year alone); one even sent his father, who went on to survive another 8 years.
I simply cannot believe that all people with cancer are doomed. My personal experiences tell me this is simply not true.
Fear rules
Unfortunately, almost the whole of the cancer industry is set up to convince you that when you get cancer you are in serious trouble and there is absolutely nothing you can do to help yourself. How many patients have heard phrases such as "If you don't take these drugs, I don't know what else I can do for you". One of my patients was told, "If you don't have these drugs, I wouldn't be able to recommend you for a clinical trial." Or, when you ask about diet and exercise, "There's no research that says this will do anything for you", or on supplements, "Don't you think that if this supplement worked, we'd be using it?" Or, "Taking a probiotic is a waste of money", and "You shouldn't take turmeric; it will interfere with the success of the drugs." (Actually the opposite is true, according to the scientist at makers Pfizer, when my patient checked out Ibrance after being told not to take supplements by both her oncologist AND the hospital pharmacist!)
But really - How does this parade of negativity help the patient?
The Somatic Theory of Cancer
For roughly the past hundred years, the orthodox cancer industry has been adhering to the Somatic Theory of Cancer. I too learned this at Oxford University. The 'theory' says that you have an irreversible mutation in your DNA, and the only way to deal with this is to cut it out or blow it up. Anybody who disagrees is immediately branded a quack; 'an online practitioner of unorthodox medicine' (as one oncologist dubbed me after his patient's tumours had almost all disappeared with none of his treatments used!)
It's rather like Galileo being told by the Catholic Church that the sun span round the earth and if he didn't agree he'd be locked up in his home and even excommunicated. That's what they did to him! 300 years later, the Catholic Church admitted they were wrong.
But this isn't science. Science is debate based on quality information and research.
If you discuss cancer with Oncologists who think outside the box, they would actually all agree that cancer is a loss of a message - it may have gone completely or, more likely, it is still there but imperfect. It could be a message that tells your immune system to recognise a cancer cell, or to make a protein that controls an important health pathway.
You will, none-the-less, often her the word mutation, or see it written in that well-known Medical Journal, the Daily Mail. Oncologists may well tell you that you have a mutation or even several (KRAS, EGFR, BRAF etc). But what is a mutation to an Oxford Biochemist? Just one thing. A sequence change inside the DNA.
But. in order to completely lose a perfect message, according to the Somatic Theory, I would need to have a sequence change in BOTH strands of my DNA - the one I got from Dad, and the one I got from Mum - bang opposite each other. That's not a zillion to one chance, that's nigh on impossible. I even said that at Oxford.
And we now know it's not true. Cancer, and lost messages, are not caused by a sequence change in your DNA.
Last year biologist Christine Mayr working in her own laboratory at Sloan Kettering in the USA, led a team which showed (1) that when you get cancer you have NO NEW MUTATIONS inside your DNA. And before I run foul of Dr Fauci again, let me tell you that Mayr has won the prestigious National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award for her discovery.
She actually went on to say that everybody has been looking in the wrong place for the cellular origin of cancer, and that your perfect DNA is copied into messenger RNA (mRNA), which leaves the nucleus and moves out into the microenvironment of the cell, and this is then copied into proteins, some of which are enzymes.
Mayr's laboratory has shown that the mRNA may not be encoding properly. Put simply, the copies made in the microenvironment of the cell are imperfect.
Yes, cancer = imperfect messages = the copying process going wrong!
This changes everything!
If the origin of cancer were really a mutation in your DNA, which sits in the cell's nucleus (with a little in the mitochondria), all you would have to do is remove the nucleus from aggressive cancer cells and replace the nucleus of a nice pristine frog embryo with an aggressive cancer nucleus. Then you simply sit back and wait for the aggressive cancer to take over the poor embryo.
And what happens? Well, in research in St Jude's Hospital in 2003, absolutely nothing. The microenvironment of the cell controls whether you get cancer or not. The microenvironment is responsible for cancer's origins, not mutations in the DNA in your nucleus.
Let's call it 'Pollution'
So why are the mRNA and perfect proteins not being made in the microenvironment of the cell? Let's not talk about complicated concepts like free-radicals; let's call it 'pollution'. The perfect DNA makes mRNA copies which make proteins and something has gone wrong in the copying process. The cause is pollution in the microenvironment of your cell.
It's not hard to make the microenvironment of your cells toxic. Cancer Research UK have told us repeatedly that 50% of cancer is your own fault - you eat badly, smoke too much, drink too much, don't exercise. Yes, poor diet, smoking, alcohol and lowered oxygen will pollute your microenvironment. But so too will stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, then oestradiol, thyroxine, or environmental toxins, which can be big pollutants. Dare I mention drugs, mercury in vaccines and antibiotics, or even toxins from pathogens in your gut? And what about the mRNA made by parasites or viruses in your body? Do you think these might influence the copying of your own mRNA? Ask Geoffrey Boycott.
The most important point about the changes caused by pollutants in this microenvionment is that they are REVERSIBLE - you can clean up your act; you can change your lifestyle, your thinking, your own toxic cellular microenvironment.
We know this to be true. The American Cancer Society conducted research amongst 3800 stage 3 colorectal cancer patients - all had had chemo, all had had surgery. In the seven year trial, those who stuck most closely to the recommended diet and exercise programme had 31 percent longer survival and 42 percent less death in the seven years.
Reducing Homocysteine
We also know that pollutatants as diverse as poor diet and stress can make homocysteine which builds up and causes more methylation and histones which block the message system. Professor David Smith of Oxford University was part of a worldwide study and showed that having enough long chain omega 3 in your body (from fish oils) and then taking a daily B complex, could reduce homocysteine and with it, the risk of dementia. A BBC documentary looked at using Turmeric every day in cooking and had a Professor measure the decline in Homocysteine levels. Apparently, that Turmeric could do this came as a huge surprise.
So, there you have it. Some foods can REVERSE the build up of a dangerous pollutant in the cellular microenvironment
Send in the 'cleaners'
And then there's another reversak system. Here we are today. Humans in an increasingly polluted world. The great apes appeared 15-20 million years ago, but what became humans maybe 4-7 million years ago. To get this far, don't you think our bodies would have an in-built clean up system for the pollutants in the cellular microenvironment anyway?
Of course they do! Melatonin and Glutathione are the two biggest antioxidants we naturally make in our own bodies. Just provide the raw materials and they will protect us.
Melatonin is made by the pineal gland at night time about 30-45 minutes after we go to sleep. It is the biggest antioxidant we make and it is very, very anti-inflammatory. Add these two together and you will quickly understand that it's not so much the sleeping hormone - it's
the healing hormone. It's why sleep is so healing. It also balances and normalizes other hormone levels, like growth hormone and can turn down the level in aggressive cells. Melatonin has five known actions against cancer cells.
But, Serendipity again - I was fortunate enough to do a speech with Professor Russell Reiter of UCLA, who has done a stack of research on melatonin - it is melatonin's production by day that really makes its benefits clear.
The power stations (mitochondria) in your cells - you can have up to a 1000 in a muscle cell - pour out their 'pollution' when you move around, expend energy and feed by day. They pollute the cell microenvironment. So, of course, the body has its own cell clean up system - the Infra Red end of sunlight passes straight through that big black cloud overhead, straight through the branches and leaves of the tree you are sitting under, through your clothes and into your body. And there it turns on the mitochondria to produce ... melatonin. Yes, really, by day! And it starts to clean up your cells. It's why 'Lockdowns' were so dreadful for our health.
Melatonin can't do it all by itself though; it calls up glutathione to help.
Glutathione is made in our bodies largely from the consumption of greens, onions, garlic and flaxseed. It's the second largest anti-oxidant we make. But we make 10% less when we reach 40 and about 30% less when we reach 60. This is a major clue to its importance - it protects us from aging and illness. (A word of warning -
you must make it, you can't fake it - you can't pop pills or take it IV.)
Of course, you need to have adequate raw materials to make decent levels of the two cleaners. In Europe, where melatonin is restricted because it helps treat cancer, we suggest taking 5 HTP 200 mg with breakfast and also dinner. For glutathione, the simple question is do you eat enough greens?
It's what is going wrong with our Western world. According to research, half of 12-year olds in New Your cannot name broccoli from a picture!
Another big factor is 'do you have the gut bacteria required to make this all for you?'
Gut bacteria help 'detoxify' you
How important is your microbiome and gut bacteria in processing your foods to make the precursors to glutathione and melatonin? Essential.
How important is your microbiome and gut bacteria in cancer reversal? Huge.
The Human Microbiome project concluded "Your microbiome gets ill first, then you get ill. And you cannot get better until your microbiome gets better."
Why do I always build the patient a body conducive to health, starting with a healthy microbiome? A healthy microbiome reduces the pollution in the microenvironment of your cells! It is the key to longer survival.
For example, a healthy microbiome turns tryptophan into serotonin, the precursor of melatonin by day. 90 per cent is made by your gut bacteria (2). And vitamins and glutathione are made from your greens by your gut bacteria. In fact, your gut bacteria have been shown to regulate your glutathione production in your small intestine, colon and liver (3).
Your gut bacteria thus ultimately regulate the health or pollution in your cellular microenvironment.
i. Your friendly microbiome helps you make melatonin and glutathione to clean up your cellular microenvironment
ii. If you detox pollutants from your cells - say, with organic green juices, zeolite and selenium - you may get a healing crisis as the toxins accumulate - only by having a healthy microbiome, can you take toxins out of the body.
This is Nature.
Cancer is fragile
My final observation is that people have been taught to believe that cancer is some out-of-control ogre in your body when actually cancer is quite fragile. You don't have to believe me, go and watch Dr William Li on YouTube. He's helped create eight anticancer drugs. One of my patients suggested I went and watched a Video of his. "What will I learn?" I asked. "Oh no, you won't learn anything - he's you 15 years ago!" she replied.
He too talks about cancer being fragile - for example, it has a poor blood supply; it picks up what it can find in our bodies.
It is our mind that creates the 'great fallacy' that we're doomed. Yes, in part because when you walk through the Hospital entrance this is how all the 'experts' may treat you; but also because we bring a lot of these feelings and emotions with us.
I once wrote that people with cancer are often the nicest people. But they are so busy helping others, they don't look after themselves. They don't make time for themselves. They often work in the wrong jobs, they don't like to complain and so, in part, they live in a physically and mentally toxic environment. They may even feel they deserve cancer. I regularly have to tell patients not to beat themselves up!
I'm probably the prime advocate of the 'Biology of Belief' - Yes, I know it's a book by cellular biologist Bruce Lipton, who told us that the way you think can change the way the electrons spin in your cells. But I believe what you believe, happens.
As Henry Ford once said, "There are those that believe they can, and there are those that believe they can't, and they're both usually right."
Geoff Boycott called me 'The Cancer Guru' on TV - it's not true, as I've repeatedly said. I don't treat cancer, I just want to understand it and why it is IN the person in front of me. I just want to HELP that person by rebuilding them. I'm not in conflict with oncologists, I can do what I do around them, although on many occasions I'm afraid they are actually making the patient's body more ill.
And that's what Firouzeh once said of me. "Well, they are in the Illness business - but, you are in the Wellness business".
If you do develop cancer, just remember - It's wellness that helps people beat cancer, and nature always has a way to make you well.
*****
Reference
1. Christine Mayr - Cancer drivers are not found in the DNA
2. Serotonin in the gut - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29909048/
3. Gut bacteria regulate glutathione in your body - https://chriswoollamshealthwatch.com/your-illness/alzheimers-and-dementia/gut-bacteria-regulate-glutathione-in-the-body/