Cancer research has been stuck in a dead end for many decades. The main reason for this is that medicine is not able to recognize that cancer, like any other disease of civilization originates from the western lifestyle, and is therefore not a genetic disorder (Rappaport, 2016).
If cancer was truly a genetic disorder, as oncology states, then it would always have been as common as it is nowadays. The usual response to this is that we live longer now and cancer is an age-related disease (Mukherjee, 2013). For example a substantial portion of native people live to 70-75 years (Gurven and Kaplan, 2007), and yet cancer is extremely rare among them (Lindeberg, 2010). Cancer was a rare disease even at the end of the 19th century (Osler and McCrae, 1900), and it was rarer in ancient times (David and Zimmerman, 2010). Cancer became more and more frequent during the 20th century (Hallberg and Johansson, 2002).
Without a doubt, carcinogenic substances pose a serious risk in developing cancer, and during the 20th century the number of cancerous diseases grew as the population became fatter. Now for the largest portion of cancer types the biggest risk factors are metabolic disorders that are related to diet (obesity, high blood sugar, insulin and inflammation levels) and the lack of vitamin D (Szendi, 2011). As early as the 1920s, Otto Warburg stated that all cancers, caused either by viruses, carcinogens, radiation or spontaneous mutation, have one thing in common: cancer cells are metabolically impaired. In healthy cells the mitochondria produce the energy from the consumed food using oxygen. In contrast, the mitochondria in cancer cells are damaged, so the cancer cell can mostly produce energy through oxygen-free fermentation - but only from sugar - while healthy cells can gain energy even from fat with the help of their mitochondria. This is the reason why cancer cells are called sugar-dependent (Christofferson, 2017). According to the metabolic theory of cancer, the root of the problem can be understood, and eliminated, from the point of view of a metabolic disorder. Cancer research initially focused on preventing cancer cells from dividing. Chemotherapy procedures have now admittedly failed, because they damage every cell division, thus they damage healthy cells in the body in such quantities, that the patient will die before all the cancer cells are killed (Christofferson, 2017). Using this method will mean that the cancer will eventually reoccur in many people. This is especially so because the patient continues with the same diet that made them sick in the first place. After all - as oncology claims - cancer is not a metabolic, but a genetic disease. Cancer research has been driven by the discovery of oncogenes in the direction of the genetic perception.
Proto-oncogenes produce proteins that control cell division or programmed cell death, and if they are damaged for some reason - this is when they are called oncogenes - they cause the cell to divide continuously, or prevent programmed cell death, meaning that the cell becomes immortal. Today's current targeted tumor therapy attempts to deactivate such oncogenes. This trend is now devalued, because the tumors do not consist of the same type of tumor cells, rather they contain 10-100 types of oncogenes, and it is impossible to develop a substance that is adequate for each and every one. When one is blocked another five appear (Christofferson, 2017). However these unsuccessful methods are still used, because there is no better approach.
While the main direction of cancer research has wasted billions of dollars over 50 years, some researchers have studied more deeply into how to undermine the metabolic basis of cancer. Some of the results of these studies are particularly important because they can be used by anyone to complement medical treatments.
The atomic level regulation of cell division
Albert Szent-Györgyi stated in the 1970s that the true cause of cancer develops at the atomic level of cell metabolism (Boros et al., 2016). These assumptions that were surprising at the time are now backed by therapeutically applicable evidence. The ratio of deuterium/H2O in cells plays a decisive role in the speed of cell division. In naturally-occurring water there are 155 molecules of deuterium, that is, heavy water (see box), for one million molecules of H2O. Living organisms have been adapting to this for hundreds of millions of years, moreover deuterium plays an important role in cellular procedures. When researchers placed various cell cultures in deuterium-depleted water, their growth stopped, and then resumed after some time. It has been found that steadily decreasing deuterium levels slow down or stop the growth of cancer cells, and moreover cancer cells are much more sensitive to deuterium deficiency. However, as researchers started to increase the deuterium content of the water, the proliferation of cancer cells accelerated. Cancer is therefore highly deuterium dependent. To verify these observations, mice were implanted with human breast cancer cells and were put into two groups. One group was given deuterium-depleted water, while the other was given regular water. By day 80, all untreated mice had died, and 70% of the treated mice were still alive, moreover in 59% of them the cancer had completely disappeared (Somlyai et al., 1993). The researchers concluded from this that every cell can only divide if a certain amount of deuterium/H2O ratio is formed within it. This is actively created by the cell, and this ratio is attained more quickly if it is surrounded by high deuterium water, and more slowly if by low deuterium water. As cancer cells divide very quickly, they need a lot of deuterium, and if there is no supply, the cancer growth stops. Cancer patients have lower levels of deuterium due to the high uptake of cancer cells for their rapid proliferation (Berdea et al., 2001).
Deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen: while hydrogen contains one proton and one electron, the nucleus of deuterium contains a neutron as well. As a result, it forms heavier water with oxygen, and this is called 'heavy water.' It occurs in nature in the form of D2O and HDO. Heavy water differs from water in its properties: it freezes at 4 Celsius degrees and boils at 101.5, and it is thicker and has 25% greater viscosity. Deuterium creates a stronger chemical bond than hydrogen. The two strands of the DNA helix are linked together by hydrogen atoms, and when it is replaced with deuterium, it is more difficult to separate the two strands when DNA is read, so that reading errors, that is gene mutations, happen. This is how the oncogenes responsible for cancer are created. This produces defective proteins and these proteins regulate cell division. Deuterium circulates in the blood in an amount of 12-14 mmol/l, which is very high compared to - for example - calcium, which is present in 2 mmol/l, and magnesium in 1 mmol/l (Somlyai et al., 2010).
Modern nutrition - lots of deuterium
How does so much deuterium get into the body? The question should be approached from the deuterium content of human food (Boros and Somlyai, 2015).
Nutrient |
Deuterium content (number of deuterium/one million hydrogen) |
Deuterium content compared to drinking water (in %) |
Deviation from drinking water |
drinking water |
155.8 |
|
|
white flour |
150 |
96.3 |
3.7 |
sugar |
146 |
93.7 |
6.3 |
cottage cheese |
136 |
87.3 |
12.7 |
sunflower oil |
130 |
83.4 |
16.6 |
butter |
124 |
79.6 |
20.4 |
lard |
118 |
75.7 |
24.3 |
As I quoted from Warburg's research, healthy cells produce energy in the mitochondria while cancer cells use mostly fermentation in the cellular fluid. Both processes require water, but the mitochondria produce their own water requirement to a greater or lesser extent, and this is known as metabolic water. Cancer cells on the other hand use the water that can be found inside the cells, which originates from drinking water. That is, the cancer cells use deuterium-rich water and deuterium-rich sugar to gain energy. Sugar is formed from refined carbohydrates (flour, potato, rice, sugar, etc.). What is necessary for the growth of cancer cells? High levels of deuterium for rapid division, and a lot of sugar for energy production
Water is produced in the mitochondria: 50 grams from 100 grams of carbohydrate (glucose), 110 grams from fats (Boros et al., 2017). If the mitochondria use sugar to produce energy, it will produce half as much water, so a lot of drinking water is needed as well. Both sugar and drinking water contain a lot of deuterium, so a lot of deuterium is incorporated into the proteins and DNA molecules that are being built. Many decades of western type nutrition, that is carbohydrate-based nutrition, offers the potential for more genetic mutations to be created in the body - and cancer is developed.
What happens if someone is eating a lot of fat because they are on a ketogenic, paleo or other lowcarb (low in carbohydrates) diet? The mitochondria produce more than twice as much deuterium-depleted water (since fat contains 20-25% less deuterium) and this is used in the main. In addition, we need to drink less water with high deuterium content, since twice as much water is produced from fats. As a result, much less deuterium is incorporated into the body's cells and DNA, and fewer mutations occur.
This explains why cancer is so rare among Natural people who do not consume refined carbohydrates at all (Lindeberg, 2010). Canadian Eskimos who formerly consumed a lot of fat and protein have been overtaking western statistics in previously very rare cancer rates of many types, since they partially converted to a western diet (Lanier et al., 2006).
When cancer has already developed
It follows logically that the sooner you start using deuterium-reduced water in addition to the standard treatments for cancer, the better the expected results are. Since 60% of the body is water, the continuous consumption of deuterium-depleted water will continually reduce the amount of deuterium in the body's water supply, and this slows down or stops the spread of cancer. Patients with breast cancer who started treatment with deuterium-depleted water within one year of diagnosis had a dose-dependent prolongation of their lives. Those that were treated for 1 to 3 months, lived for an average of 9 years, and those who were treated twice with an interruption of a few months, lived for an average of 24.4 years. Even at advanced stages, of distant metastatic breast cancer, a mean survival rate of 51 months could be achieved, compared to the otherwise typical 12-31 months (Krempels et al., 2013). Four patients treated with deuterium-reduced water for cerebral metastases of lung cancer achieved multiple survival times of 4-6 months. One patient was predicted to survive for only 3 months but died 11 years later (Krempels et al., 2008). In prostate cancer patients treated with deuterium-depleted water for 4 months, 9% of the treated group and 41% of the placebo group died during the three-year follow-up. Prostate size was reduced by in total by 160 cm3 in the treated group and 54 cm3 in total in the placebo group (Kovács et al., 2011). Patients with lung cancer achieved a 2-4-fold survival time compared to patients receiving standard treatment (Gyöngyi et al., 2012).
Ketogenic diet and deuterium depletion
Research on the use of the ketogenic diet in cancer patients has been shown to slow down the growth of cancer (Seyfried, 2012). The primary reason for this is that the ketogenic diet produces ketosis, which means that the body receives energy from ketone bodies instead of sugar, while the cancer cells are left without fuel because they cannot utilize the ketone bodies. It is important to keep the protein intake low in cancer (kilograms of body weight/0.7-1 grams/day) as cancer cells also consume high levels of amino acids to build up their cells. The other secret to the effect of the ketogenic diet is clearly in deuterium reduction: as we have seen, mitochondria produce low deuterium water from fats, and this makes the DNA and the proteins more stable, and slows down proliferation.
Deuterium-depleted water has not been registered for the treatment of human cancer and this has many disadvantages. Its anti-cancer effect is not advertised, and it is ignored by official oncology. The situation is even more strange, because it is already registered in veterinary medicine. The explanation for this situation can only be guessed at: many say the oncological drug manufacturing industry's lobbying activity is behind it.
The classic ketogenic diet is designed to treat epilepsy and has an 80% fat and 20% protein content. The lighter version also allows the consumption of green leafy vegetables. With minimal carbohydrate intake the liver starts to produce so-called ketone bodies from the fat, that can be utilized by the mitochondria of healthy cells, but the cancer cells "starve" because they can only draw energy from sugar. The liver produces enough sugar to maintain a healthy blood sugar level.
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