The Courage To Live With Radical Uncertainty

When your future is uncertain, how do you keep moving forward? In this courageous talk, oncologist and cancer survivor Shekinah Elmore shares how she embraced life after a rare genetic diagnosis -- and explains why she believes doctors have a duty to help their patients learn to live with radical uncertainty. This video was produced by TEDMED. TED's editors featured it among our daily selections on the home page. 

About the speaker Shekinah Elmore · Oncologist Shekinah Elmore is dedicated to pursuing equity and empathy in oncology care.

The metabolic approach to cancer treatment

Cancer Treatment

Speedy diagnosis is vital, however, it often takes days to get an appointment!


By Dr. Joseph Mercola

Story at-a-glance

• Dr. Nasha Winters is a naturopathic physician who specializes in supporting patients with cancer. She also trains clinicians and consults with those treating cancer patients
• Winters requires five specific tests before she will conduct an initial consultation with a patient. They’re markers to assess the health of the whole body and whether cancer is progressing, stable or regressing
• The first is a blood chemistry panel, an inexpensive blood test showing complete blood count (CBC). Importantly, it shows your neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), which is prognostic for overall survival. A chem panel (CMP) is also required, which assesses organ function and electrolyte status
• The lactase dehydrogenase (LDH) test is a widely underutilized yet most important test as it is a marker of metabolic function. If LDH is elevated, your mitochondria are functioning poorly
• When high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, LDH and erythrocyte sedimentation rate measurements are within functional ranges, the patient has a good handle on their disease and prognosis is good

Cancer kills an estimated 1,600 Americans each day. In China, 8,100 people a day succumb to the disease. It’s so common, it’s a rare individual who does not know someone who has been diagnosed with cancer — which is why the topic of this interview is so important.
Dr. Nasha Winters is a naturopathic physician who specializes in cancer treatment. While she has treated cancer patients in the past, she’s developed a more efficient model where she now focuses on training clinicians and consulting with those treating patients.
I’ve been very impressed with her work. She has embraced the ketogenic diet and integrates it as a strategic tool in the therapeutic planning. She also uses many other, less well-known strategies. If you’re affected by cancer and believe her skills may be helpful, you can have your clinician consult with her to fine-tune your treatment.
I believe if you catch the cancer early enough, most are likely curable. But you need to catch it early, and you need to have the proper know-how. It’s also important to avoid strategies that are going to set you back.

“My life’s goal is to eventually be able to … make a tiny little dent in that statistic,” Winters says. “Where we can be effective is with the folks who … are in a position where they’re still well enough and motivated enough to explore beyond their standard of care options, because that’s often not enough, frankly, in today’s time.

And then also, I think the biggest impact that we can have … is we can help people look under the hood long before it’s a problem. Because really, the only true cure is prevention. We’ve got sort of layers of this.

We’ve got the folks who don’t yet have cancer or don’t yet know they have it. We have the folks who are already diagnosed or in a relatively good state of health, whether it’s a Stage 1 to a Stage 4. Then we have some of the folks who are really damaged from years of unsuccessful treatments that have left their bodies broken and maybe not as responsive to this approach.”

The facts speak for themselves

Almost without exception, people will say they thought they were healthy up until they received their cancer diagnosis. However, that’s simply impossible. Cancer, like many other diseases, does not manifest until you’re about 80% of the way down the proverbial hole.
The first symptom is not the cancer diagnosis itself. Most cancers take years to progress to the point of being diagnosable. Cancer is a res ipsa loquitur factor, meaning “the facts speak for themselves.” In other words, you, in some way, shape or form, were not leading a healthy lifestyle — or you simply failed to counteract the inevitable toxic exposures we’re all subject to in today’s modern world. As noted by Winter:

“No matter how much you try, we are being exposed to many things that we don’t see, that we are not aware of, that are definitely damaging our container in a way that our cells are having a harder and more difficult time … to respond and repair the way they should.

That’s one of the strategies I’m helping physicians understand. Because our medical system is not geared towards prevention … We’re very much waiting for a house to be engulfed in flames before we decide to spit a little bit of water on it, right? My strategy has always been ‘Test, assess, address and then adjust accordingly and repeat as often as needed.’”

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Test, assess and address — The complete blood count test

Winters recommends, and in fact requires, five specific tests before she will conduct an initial consultation with a patient. They’re markers of how advanced the cancer is and how well you’re doing as you’re progressing through treatment.
The first is a blood chemistry panel. This is a simple and inexpensive blood test showing complete blood count (CBC) with differential. That includes things like your white blood cells, red blood cells, hemoglobin, hematocrit and platelets.
Most importantly, it shows your neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), which is prognostic for overall survival. One of the reasons why immunotherapies are seeing such a low response rate — only about 20%, according to Winters — is because of this neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio.
As explained by Winters, when your neutrophils are too elevated and your lymphocytes too low, you do not have a normally functioning immune system. As a result, treatment with some of these new, innovative immune therapies used in oncology may “tilt the teeter-totter of your immune system into a dangerous place of overreactivity,” she says, adding “For a $12, paid-out-of-your-pocket, walk-in lab test, you get a really good sense of where your immune system lies.”
Overall, you want a 2-to-1 ratio or better of the neutrophil cells to the lymphocytes. If you go much higher than that, that bigger divide between neutrophils and lymphocytes becomes problematic. Conversely, if you have a “switched NLR,” where the lymphocytes are more elevated than the neutrophils, that’s often a symptom of blood dyscrasias and blood cancers “that are not uncommon after standard of care therapy,” Winters says.
Additionally, you want your white blood cell count to be between 5 and 7. Anything lower than that, which is common in conventional therapy, makes the situation more challenging. Platelets elevated above 250 is also prognostic. The sweet spot for platelets is between 175 and 250. Below 175, immune function and blood clotting are compromised; the same is true for levels above 250.
“Oftentimes elevated platelets can be a good example of a cancerous process. In fact, that’s one of the alarms that we’ll see in early-stage cancers,” Winters says. Elevated platelets are also related to viral patterns, and may be indicative of a co-infection causing immune dysregulation.

“The other piece we often forget about is things like the hemoglobin. If the hemoglobin is low and you happen to be someone who’s monitoring your ketones or your blood counts, your hemoglobin A1C, you’re going to get some erroneous numbers because you have to have enough hemoglobin to actually get a true result.

They are simple little tricks that we can use with a basic CBC just to see how somebody’s immune system is during treatment, after treatment and prior to treatment. It’s worth running on your own and paying cash for it just to look under the hood.”

Sadly, most oncologists have never even heard about the NLR ratio or the fact that platelets are a prognostic factor for progression of disease or even early warning signs of cancer, Winters says. In the world of conventional oncology, the CBC is primarily used to make sure the white blood cell count and neutrophils are high enough for you to be able to receive another dose of chemo or targeted therapy.

The comprehensive metabolic panel and lactase dehydrogenase

The second test Winters routinely recommends is a comprehensive metabolic panel (CMP), sometimes known as the chem panel, which is another inexpensive test. This test will provide you with information about your electrolytes, organ functions and cardiovascular function, as well as kidney and liver function.

“This is also a super important clue to see what’s going on,” she says. “For instance, if your creatinine is moving above 1, we know that your kidneys are struggling. They’re not filtering properly. Or if your liver enzymes are starting to move above 20 or 25, we know there are some issues around how your liver is processing things along the way.

If alkaline phosphatase is raising, that can often show us first signs of bone loss or bone metastasis. These are some really powerful ways to assess people’s response to the medications, because those enzymes will often go up when they’re being beaten up by some drugs. But it’s also a really good way to get a sense that there are other organs involved in the overall cancer process.”

In the past, the chem-20 and chem-24 tests included two important tests that must now be ordered separately. One of them is the lactase dehydrogenase (LDH) test, “which is probably the most underutilized and most important test across all chronic illness patterns,” Winters says. It is a marker of metabolic function. If LDH is elevated, your mitochondria are functioning poorly.

“You can even break down that overall LDH into its five constituents of these five isoenzymes and really know precisely where the hiccups are happening in that metabolic process, whether it’s at the level of the bone, the lung, the kidney, the liver, the red blood cell. Pretty fascinating, and again, very inexpensive,” she says.

“This is also the main way to monitor things like lymphoma, most leukemias, multiple myeloma and even melanoma. It is considered sort of the cancer marker for those. Yet it’s a very misused and even misunderstood and forgotten lab test. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked doctors to run an LDH for the patient and I’ll get back a low-density lipoprotein (LDL). It would happen 2 out of 10 times.”

What LDH can tell you about your mitochondrial function

So, what exactly is the connection between LDH and mitochondrial function? Winters explains:

“This is where we’re looking at how we are processing lactase dehydrogenase — the process of how we’re fermenting or processing our energy through our Krebs cycle … to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP). It’s intimately in relationship to the dehydrogenases, whether it’s pyruvate or lactate dehydrogenase.

This starts to give you some clues that all is not well in the mitochondrial building when that level starts to rise. Interestingly enough, one thing I neglected to mention as we started talking about the labs is that labs, of course today, are based on the average of the population in the region in which they’re being run. For instance, if you live in Alabama and you’re running a glucose level, they’re still saying you’re fine in 120 fasting glucose.

If you’re in Colorado, they’re saying that 90 is fine. It even varies from region to region. But overall, you don’t want to be average today with regards to your lab values. When I’m talking about my functional ranges or ideal ranges — for instance, the lactase dehydrogenase through, say, LabCorp — it should be ideally under 175.

I believe the cutoff is around 263. If you run it through Quest, that’s a different metric that they run and should not be under 450. It has a higher cutoff at around 600 or 650. You want to be well under the top end on lactase dehydrogenase for optimal ranges.

When you’re too low, that’s often a major indicator of extreme malnutrition, often muscle breakdown, muscle wasting, sarcopenia, cachexia, which is also a very dangerous place to be in the pendulum of an oncology or chronic illness process.”

The Erythrocyte sedimentation rate test

The second test that used to come standard with the chem panel, but no longer is included, is your sedimentation rates, also known as the erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR). “This is a really powerful simple test that just looks at how fast your cells are falling out of solution, falling out of the plasma,” Winters says.
Ideally, you’ll want an ESR rate below 10. Above 10, it suggests it’s more difficult for your cells to exit the thick, fibrinolytic, sticky webbing or scaffolding associated with chronic inflammation, autoimmunity and increased risk of metastasis.

“You don’t typically die from primary cancers unless they’re strategically placed in some valuable real estate in the body,” she says. “However, we do have a higher incidence of death from metastasis. When I look at that [ESR] number, it tells me how smoothly things are flowing through the system of the body.”

The high-sensitivity C-reactive protein test

The fifth test Winters routinely recommends is the high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) test. While this test is typically used as an indicator of cardiovascular health, it’s also a widely underutilized prognostic factor for cancer. Elevated CRP, no matter what kind of disease or condition you have, suggests a poor prognosis and lower survival rate.
CRP differs from ESR in that it is a general marker of inflammation. It doesn’t show you the location of the inflammation. Ideally, you want a CRP below 1. If the lab uses a cutoff of 0.3, you’ll want a value below 0.1. Be sure to get a quantitative hsCRP — i.e., one that specifies your level and not just tells you whether you’re in, under or above range — as this will allow you to monitor your progress more closely.

Common cancer pattern

“Here’s where the interesting pieces come together,” Winters says. While all of those five tests, individually, have good studies backing their role in monitoring the cancer process and other inflammatory processes, what Winters has learned, through 25 years of looking at them, is that when CRP, LDH and ESR are within functional ranges, she knows the patient has a good handle on their disease. When all three are off, the prognosis weakens. Again, the functional or ideal ranges would be:

• ESR below 10
• CRP below 1 (or 0.1 depending on the measurement used)
• LDH below 175 (or 450 depending on the measurement used)

“No matter what the scan, no matter what the tumor markers tell me, I know that patient’s terrain and mitochondrial metabolic health is still robust enough that no matter what the tumor burden, we can still move this vehicle down the road,” she says.

“If I see for instance a thrown-off ESR [alone], I know they’re likely having some type of autoimmune response. We see this a lot in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), Sjogren’s [and] Hashimoto’s flares …

Or if we have, let’s say, a CRP that’s really out of range but the other two are perfect, that could be that you just had dental work or had a really intense workout or stubbed their toe or stepped on their child’s Lego.

The LDH might be that they had a bender, drinking with their friends for the weekend, or have been taking some steroids and their bones are breaking down very quickly, or just went and did a humongous hike and broke down some muscle very, very quickly.

But collectively? That’s the key. When all three are in the functional range, the body is still in control. When [all three] start to rise, that’s when we know we’re on a slippery slope … That basically means the cancer stem cells are lining up to take action. That’s what we don’t have very good success with in Western medical treatment strategies.”

Biopsies will likely become a thing of the past

Thomas Seyfried, Ph.D., a leading expert on cancer as a metabolic disease, is of the strong opinion that biopsies should be avoided, as they may trigger metastasis, i.e., spread, of the cancer. The reason for this is because it isn’t so much cancer stem cells spreading the disease as it is hybridized, morphed macrophages that fuse with cancer cells.
Because it’s a macrophage, it spreads through your blood and could seed into other tissues. You can learn more about this in my most recent interview with Seyfried. Winters notes that concerns over biopsies spreading cancer have been in circulation for decades.

“We’ve seen many times that depending on the timing, let’s say, of your cycle when you have a mastectomy or the type of anesthesia used at a time of a biopsy, or the state of the overall health, or even the size of the core biopsy chamber, that we definitely have that potential to seed,” she says.

Despite such risks, clinicians still had to do the biopsy, no matter what, to help guide the treatment. That is now changing, she says. Blood biopsies are improving, allowing a diagnosis to be made without puncturing tissue. From the research and work summits she’s attended on circulating tumor cells and circulating stem cells, Winters is convinced it won’t be long before biopsies will no longer be used.

Tools for optimizing surgical success

While radiation and chemotherapy are rarely an ideal option, surgery may be indicated in some cases, and your success rate can be optimized by implementing nutritional ketosis. Fasting for a few days before surgery can help define and demarcate the margins of the tumor. Cancer cells will also be less aggressive as they’ll be relatively debilitated.
An important point to be made here is that undergoing conventional treatment — radiation, chemo and/or surgery — first, before adopting a holistic approach, is going to massively set you back and will more or less eliminate any real chance of success. In other words, you need to be brave enough to address the terrain of your body first, before doing any of these invasive and highly toxic interventions. According to Winters:

“If it’s a particular tumor that came on fast in a part of the body that’s blocking something like a vessel, or obstructing the colon or whatnot — those become medical emergencies [requiring immediate treatment].

However, the vast majority of cancer diagnoses are nonemergencies. The real emergency is the diagnosis itself, and the way you react or respond to that emergency will often dictate your success at overcoming or maintaining this process. I’m really thankful for the opportunity to say this on a much larger platform because it’s very important …

I always encourage people, ‘Take a breath. Dive deep into your terrain. Really understand what’s making it tick right now before you choose any intervention. And then you will likely not have to see me again because you won’t likely be in that 70% recurrence rate … [J]ust take a moment and reframe and get clear on what is specifically right for you …

That being said, if I know someone is getting ready to prepare for a surgery or a biopsy — because I treat them the same, whether it’s just a tiny little punched lesion … to look at if this is a melanoma, or something that’s opening up the body cavity … — we like to spend at least a couple of weeks prepping the body.

We like to start things like modified citrus pectin. We start to get them into a fasted state or a metabolic flexible state for the weeks leading up, and a fasted state going into the surgery itself. If we are lucky enough to have their single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), we can really help them decide on the best strategy for pain management.

We do our best to have them avoid opiates at all cost because it’s really related to slowing down wound healing, increasing cancer cell proliferation and destroying the microbiome, as well as all the issues that it has around addiction and at really not helping the pain in the way it needs to be helped …

We also do post-surgical intervention to help them heal up from that wound as quickly as possible. Maybe a bit more protein is needed at that time, maybe a little bit less sodium …

If they’re a woman who is still menstruating, we will try and schedule their surgery where the estrogen levels in their menstrual cycle are at their lowest. That’s an interesting strategy we’ve used for better outcomes … Testing is a very powerful tool, as are some homeopathic remedies … like phosphorus to help with drug reaction and bleeding issues … ”

High glucose and insulin resistance worsen your prognosis

As noted by Winters, when you look at the statistics across all tumor types, all stages and demographics, chemotherapy has about a 3% success rate across the board. Radiation has about a 12% success rate and surgery, about a 50% success rate, with “success rate” referring to debulking or making the tumor smaller — not eliminating evidence of the disease.
She also points out evidence showing that when your glucose and insulin are elevated, radiation becomes ineffective, as cancer cells are desensitized to radiation when they’re being bathed in sugar.

“I think about all the patients who are metabolically unstable, metabolically inflexible, prediabetic … [Treatment at this time] basically means you just created a lot more damaged environment, a lot more possibility for mutating cells and a lot more possibility for recurrence and progression, simply because someone didn’t take the time to just do a simple finger stick or blood draw just to see what your glucose levels were,” she says.

Another factor that makes radiation ineffective is elevated vasoendothelial growth factor. Again, a simple blood test can help you assess how likely it is that treatment with radiation will be successful. Winters recommends patients undergoing radiation to spend a few weeks or months preparing their body for radiation, focusing on lowering insulin growth factor (IGF), hemoglobin A1C and glucose.
She may also add in certain radio sensitizing agents, such as melatonin or astragalus, to improve therapy response. Radiation combined with hyperthermia done on the same day has also been shown to dramatically improve results. With regard to chemotherapy, Winters is a strong advocate against the conventional maximum tolerated dose approach.

“When you do it at that level, you not only create a cytotoxic direct cell kill, but you actually simultaneously enhance an immune response. The way we do chemo today obliterates the immune system. And the only way you can really overcome cancer and stay in … remission … is with a functioning immune system.”

Instead, she recommends using chemo at metronomic or fractionated levels, giving it at about a tenth of what would normally be given, which can be done with great effect provided the patient is sufficiently prepared through nutritional ketosis and other aids.

“We don’t guess,” Winters says. “We actually put together a very precise, bullseye approach to each and every individual. We continue every three months while they’re in the cancering process.

Until their trifecta is perfect, we continue to assess and we continue to tweak the treatment because those cells, once they’ve been exposed to a new treatment over a short period of time, typically three to six months, they will have morphed and mutated into an entirely new animal. We have to be a few steps ahead of that process each and every time …

We can’t hit every single pathway with chemotherapy, or it will kill the patient outright. But there are things like the ketogenic diet, which impacts all 10 of the hallmarks of cancer simultaneously, thereby enhancing the effect of whatever therapy you overlay on it.

None of these therapies should ever be considered individually, nor is there ever going to be such a thing as a single magic bullet for cancer. That is where we get seduced by the pharmaceutical industry and even the nutraceutical and alternative medical industry, to think there’s one cause and one cure for this process. It is just that. It is a process and it’s just as unique in each of us as our fingerprints.”

Nutritional ketosis in cancer treatment

Like me, Winters views nutritional ketosis (a ketogenic diet) as one of several tools to achieve metabolic flexibility. Others include intermittent fasting, exogenous ketone supplementation, certain pharmaceutical interventions or caloric-restrictive patterns of eating.

“We were all naturally meant to be these hybrid engines,” she says. “When we talk low-carb eating, that was actually normal carb eating until about 1850, when we started to process sugar, flour and salt and started to put it in everything. We were all, in essence, low-carbers. It wasn’t a fad. This was just the way it was …

Ultimately, what happens when we [are] in a metabolically flexible state or have ketones in our system at certain times, especially around our time of chemo, radiation, surgery, targeted therapies and hormone-blocking therapies, we enhance those therapies.

It’s like somehow those ketones are like a Trojan horse that carry that toxic therapy right to its target. It gives some support to the healthier cells around it. I see it as a therapeutic tool. I never see it as a standalone by itself.

That, I think, is an important piece to put out there and to realize there are multiple ways to enhance outcomes. But that’s one of the most significant ways to hit multiple targets at once and really lower a lot of the side effects …”

Addressing cachexia

Now, when a cancer patient experiences cachexia (loss of weight and muscle mass), testing becomes crucial. As noted by Winters, “being skinny will not kill you, but being cachectic can,” and you cannot tell whether someone is cachectic or not simply by looking at them.

“We do that when we start to see the weight come off on a scale and folks go in for their chemotherapy. Doctors freak out. Their team starts to tell them, ‘No matter what, don’t lose more weight. Eat, eat, eat, eat, eat.’ Yet, cachexia is an inflammatory, cytokine-driven process. It’s very much driven by sugar. It’s inflammation and metabolic imbalance.

The worst thing you can ever give a patient with cachexia is Boost, Ensure or total parenteral nutrition (TPN). Actually, on many cancer wards, TPN is basically known as the beginning of the end. When you look at the first ingredients of all of those … it’s highly synthetic, highly toxic, four different types of sugars … gluten and all types of things that kick up that inflammatory process even more.”

To assess whether a patient is in cachexia, Winters uses a metabolic panel that shows protein, creatinine, calcium and albumin. Specifically, if protein is below 7 and albumin below 4, then the patient is slipping into sarcopenia and metabolic wasting, which is part of the process of cachexia.
Importantly, if you are in cachexia, sudden refeeding with sugar after not having eaten anything for some time can literally kill you. This is known as “refeeding syndrome.” It’s a very dangerous medical condition that can rapidly shut down your organs. Cachexia itself is also very concerning, and actually kills about 40% of cancer patients, according to Winters.

“We see this a lot in cancer wings around the world. My patients, interestingly enough, patients who have come out of cachexia the best were those who we were able to safely fast or safely kick into ketosis, whether it was exogenous ketones, or start to slowly increase their fat intake to what was tolerated, because the nature of cachexia is an absolute loss of hunger,” Winters says.

“Thanks to things today, such as medical marijuana, we can often restart their endocannabinoid system and re-up their ability to have hunger and kick in that part of the brain that has been shut down with a state of cachexia and actually stabilize them and then reverse it. This is a condition that is not reversible by Western standards …

I try to keep patients between 0.8 and 1 grams of protein per kilogram in cancer patients normally. But when cachexia hits, we start to go up by a couple of tens of a point every few days. We might go 1.2 grams, 1.5, 1.8 or 2 max. I don’t go above 2 [grams].”

More information

This extensive and detailed interview contains far more information than I can provide here, so if this is a topic of interest to you, I strongly recommend listening to it in its entirety. In closing, Winters says:

“You know, a few years ago, I would not have even had an opportunity to sit down with a general family practitioner and have this conversation. And yet, today, every week I’m speaking with conventional oncologists all over the world that are being, frankly, kind of pushed, coerced or forced by their patients to have a consultation with me on their behalf.

At first, they’re a bit resistant, until they realize that I’m simply trying to enhance their outcomes. That I’m not trying to do an either/or. I’m trying to help them understand that the tools in their toolbox can be used differently and can be used a bit more effectively and even more safely.

It’s taken things like some of these tumor cell assays and blood cell assays, like Biocept, Guardant360 or FoundationOne, to help them start to have a common language to understand that there are more targets to address than simple standard of care chemotherapy radiation or surgery …

[It] has really changed the conversation. We’re all more in-dialogue versus an either/or process … I think that it’s becoming a pretty cool, accessible, appreciated strategy among my colleagues.

It’s a lot of fun to see lightbulbs go off and to see them put together all the pieces of their life and education, coming together at once to realize they actually do know this stuff. They just have never quite forayed it or put it together in this way that can really change how their patients are being managed …

No. 2, the limiting factor. For instance, I have a doctor I speak with a lot from University of California San Francisco [who is] very up in the field of this. The problem is, ironically, if he recommended metronomic, which is the lower fractionated dosing of chemotherapy, to his patients, it would not be covered by insurance.

How insane is that? That is considered off-label drug use … It is not considered standard of care; therefore, it is not covered by insurance.

Unfortunately, where we are in this moment, which I am on a mission to change, is that you will likely have to track down people out of network, out of pocket, to get the proper treatment, to actually test, assess and address your cancer to your biochemically unique self to have a good outcome. That sucks, but that’s just the way it is right now.”

You can learn more about Winters’ approaches in her 2017 book, “The Metabolic Approach to Cancer: Integrating Deep Nutrition, the Ketogenic Diet and Nontoxic Bio-Individualized Therapies,” which outlines her process in some detail.
If you would like to engage her services, or more specifically, have your clinician consult with her, visit website, drnasha.com. At the bottom of the homepage, you’ll find a patient resource section with free tools. Go ahead and download the free guide describing the five steps to take when diagnosed with cancer. It gives a lot of the information shared in this interview.
Your clinician will need to go to the doctor section to sign up for a consultation. “It breaks down exactly what’s required — those five labs we discussed,” she says. “Any other relevant data, testing, imaging, anything, I would get it all.” As the patient, you would also be asked to create a chronology of significant events of your life that led to your diagnosis.
Should your doctor refuse to consider a consultation to learn about some of the options, Winters may be able to help you find a local physician that is receptive to collaboration. Even if you don’t do anything with your consultations, it certainly would not hurt to do that first. It’s relatively inexpensive, and will give you a firm base of understanding of where you are and what’s going on in your body.

Processed Foods Lead to Cancer and Early Death

The Dangers of Processed Food

This makes uncomfortable reading!

Story at-a-glance

• 18.5 percent of American children and nearly 40 percent of adults are now obese, not just overweight. Research has linked growing waistlines to processed foods, sodas and high-carbohydrate diets
• For each 10 percent increase in the amount of ultraprocessed food consumed, your risk of death rises by 14 percent; the primary factors driving the increased death rate are chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer
• While 6 of 12 obesity-related cancers are on the rise, only 2 of 18 cancers unrelated to obesity are increasing, and rates of obesity-related cancers are rising at a far steeper rate among millennials than among baby boomers
• Those who eat more ultraprocessed food have higher rates of obesity, heart problems, diabetes and cancer. Each 10 percent increase in ultraprocessed food raised cancer rates by 12 percent
• Suboptimal intake of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and animal-based omega-3, along with excessive consumption of processed foods and sugar-sweetened beverages account for more than 45 percent of all cardiometabolic deaths

The struggle with weight gain and obesity is a common and costly health issue, leading to an increase in risk for heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and cancer, just to name a few.
According to the latest available data,¹ 18.5 percent of American children and nearly 40 percent of adults are now obese, not just overweight. That's a significant increase over the 1999/2000 rates, when just under 14 percent of children and 30.5 percent of adults were obese.
Research has linked growing waistlines to a number of different sources, including processed foods, sodas and high-carbohydrate diets. Risks associated with belly fat in aging adults includes an elevated risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer.²
Researchers have actually predicted obesity will overtake smoking as a leading cause of cancer deaths,³ and recent statistics suggest we're well on our way to seeing that prediction come true as obesity among our youth is triggering a steep rise in obesity-related cancers at ever-younger ages.

Millennials More Prone to Obesity-Related Cancers Than Their Parents

As obesity rates rise, so do related health problems, including cancer. According to a report⁴ on the global cancer burden, published in 2014, obesity is already responsible for an estimated 500,000 cancer cases worldwide each year, and that number is likely to rise further in coming decades.
As reported in a recent Lancet study⁵ by the American Cancer Society, rates of obesity-related cancers are rising at a far steeper rate among millennials than among baby boomers. According to the authors,⁶ this is the first study to systematically examine obesity-related cancer trends among young Americans.
What's more, while 6 of 12 obesity-related cancers (endometrial, gallbladder, kidney, multiple myeloma and pancreatic cancer) are on the rise, only 2 of 18 cancers unrelated to obesity are increasing. As noted in the press release:⁷

"The obesity epidemic over the past 40 years has led to younger generations experiencing an earlier and longer lasting exposure to excess adiposity over their lifetime than previous generations.

Excess body weight is a known carcinogen, associated with more than a dozen cancers and suspected in several more … Investigators led by Hyuna Sung, Ph.D., analyzed 20 years of incidence data (1995-2014) for 30 cancers … covering 67 percent of the population of the U.S…

Incidence increased for 6 of the 12 obesity-related cancers … in young adults and in successively younger birth cohorts in a stepwise manner. For example, the risk of colorectal, uterine corpus [endometrial], pancreas and gallbladder cancers in millennials is about double the rate baby boomers had at the same age …

'Although the absolute risk of these cancers is small in younger adults, these findings have important public health implications,' said Ahmedin Jemal, D.V.M., Ph.D., scientific vice president of surveillance [and] health services research and senior/corresponding author of the paper.

'Given the large increase in the prevalence of overweight and obesity among young people and increasing risks of obesity-related cancers in contemporary birth cohorts, the future burden of these cancers could worsen as younger cohorts age, potentially halting or reversing the progress achieved in reducing cancer mortality over the past several decades.

Cancer trends in young adults often serve as a sentinel for the future disease burden in older adults, among whom most cancer occurs.'"

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Changes in Diet Drive Obesity Epidemic

Studies^8,9,10 have repeatedly demonstrated that when people switch from a traditional whole food diet to processed foods (which are high in refined flour, processed sugar and harmful vegetable oils), disease inevitably follows.
Below are just a few telling statistics. For more, see nutrition researcher Kris Gunnars', June 8, 2017, article, which lists 11 graphs showing "what's wrong with the modern diet."¹¹

Over the past 200 years, sugar intake has risen from 2 pounds to 152 pounds per year.12 While Americans are advised to get only 10 percent of their calories from sugar,13 equating to about 13 teaspoons a day for a 2,000-calorie diet, the average intake is 42.5 teaspoons per day.14 It's important to realize that a goal of 10 percent is nearly impossible to achieve on a processed food diet. Research15 shows only 7.5 percent of the U.S. population, namely those with the lowest processed food consumption, actually meet the U.S. dietary recommendations of getting a maximum of 10 percent of your daily calories from sugars.

To burn off the calories in a single 12-ounce soda, you'd have to walk briskly for 35 minutes. To burn off a piece of apple pie, you'd be looking at a 75-minute walk.16

Soda and fruit juice consumption is particularly harmful, studies17,18 show, raising a child's risk of obesity by 60 percent per daily serving.19 Research has also shown refined high-carb diets in general are as risky as smoking, increasing your risk for lung cancer by as much as 49 percent.20

Between 1970 and 2009, daily calorie intake rose by an average of 425 calories, a 20 percent increase, according to Stephan Guyenet, Ph.D.,21 who studies the neuroscience of obesity. This rise is largely driven by increased sugar and processed food consumption, and the routine advertising of junk food to children.22 To attract customers and compete with other restaurants, companies often add salt, sugar, fat and flavor chemicals to trigger your appetite. Unfortunately, it turns out additives and chemicals supplemented in processing kill off beneficial gut bacteria, which further exacerbates the problems created by a processed food diet.23 According to epidemiology professor Tim Spector, even eating a relatively small number of highly processed ingredients is toxic to your gut microbiome, which start to die off just days after a eating a fast food heavy diet, suggesting excess calories from fast food may not be the only factor to blame for rising weight.

Processed vegetable oils, which are high in damaged omega-6 fats, are another important factor in chronic ill health. Aside from sugar, vegetable oils are a staple in processed foods, which is yet another reason why processed food diets are associated with higher rates of heart disease and other diseases. Soybean oil, which is the most commonly consumed fat in the U.S.,24 has also been shown to play a significant role in obesity and diabetes, actually upregulating genes involved in obesity. Remarkably, soybean oil was found to be more obesogenic than fructose!

"Ultraprocessed diets cause excess calorie intake and weight gain," recent research25 concludes, showing that when people are allowed to eat as much as they want of either ultraprocessed foods or unprocessed food, their energy intake is far greater when eating processed fare. In just two weeks, participants gained between 0.3 and 0.8 kilos on the ultraprocessed diet, and lost 0.3 to 1.1 kilos when eating unprocessed food.

As Ultraprocessed Food Has Become the Norm, so Has Chronic Illness

Unfortunately, Americans not only eat a preponderance of processed food, but 60 percent of it is ultraprocessed²⁶ — products at the far end of the "significantly altered" spectrum, or what you could typically purchase at a gas station.
The developed world in general eats significant amounts of processed food, and disease statistics reveal the inherent folly of this trend. There's really no doubt that decreasing your sugar consumption is at the top of the list if you're overweight, insulin resistant, or struggle with any chronic disease.
It's been estimated that as much as 40 percent of American health care expenditures are for diseases directly related to the overconsumption of sugar.²⁷ In the U.S., more than $1 trillion is spent on treating sugar and junk food-related diseases each year.²⁸
Any foods that aren't whole foods directly from the vine, ground, bush or tree are considered processed. Depending on the amount of change the food undergoes, processing may be minimal or significant. For instance, frozen fruit is usually minimally processed, while pizza, soda, chips and microwave meals are ultraprocessed foods.
The difference in the amount of sugar between foods that are ultraprocessed and minimally processed is dramatic. Research²⁹ has demonstrated that over 21 percent of calories in ultraprocessed foods comes from sugar, while unprocessed foods contain no refined or added sugar.
In a cross-sectional study³⁰ using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey of over 9,000 participants, researchers concluded that "Decreasing the consumption of ultraprocessed foods could be an effective way of reducing the excessive intake of added sugars in the USA."

Definition of Ultraprocessed Food

As a general rule, ultraprocessed foods can be defined as food products containing one or more of the following:

Ingredients that are not traditionally used in cooking.

Unnaturally high amounts of sugar, salt, processed industrial oils and unhealthy fats.

Artificial flavors, colors, sweeteners and other additives that imitate sensorial qualities of unprocessed or minimally processed foods (examples include additives that create textures and pleasing mouth-feel).

Processing aids such as carbonating, firming, bulking, antibulking, defoaming, anticaking, glazing agents, emulsifiers, sequestrants and humectants.

Preservatives and chemicals that impart an unnaturally long shelf-life.

Genetically engineered ingredients, which in addition to carrying potential health risks also tend to be heavily contaminated with toxic herbicides such as glyphosate, 2,4-D and dicamba.

As described in the NOVA classification of food processing,³¹ "A multitude of sequences of processes is used to combine the usually many ingredients and to create the final product (hence 'ultraprocessed')." Examples include hydrogenation, hydrolysation, extrusion, molding and preprocessing for frying.
Ultraprocessed foods also tend to be far more addictive than other foods, thanks to high amounts of sugar (which has been shown to be more addictive than cocaine³²), salt and fat. The processed food industry has also developed "craveabilty" into an art form. Nothing is left to chance, and by making their foods addictive, manufacturers ensure repeat sales.

Processed Food Diet Linked to Early Death

In related news, recent research³³ involving more than 44,000 people followed for seven years warns that ultraprocessed foods raise your risk of early death. The French team looked at how much of each person's diet was made up of ultraprocessed foods, and found that for each 10 percent increase in the amount of ultraprocessed food consumed, the risk of death rose by 14 percent.
This link remained even after taking confounding factors such as smoking, obesity and low educational background into account. As you'd expect, the primary factors driving the increased death rate was chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer.
Nita Forouhi, a professor at the MRC Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge, who was not part of the study, told The Guardian:³⁴

"The case against highly processed foods is mounting up, with this study adding importantly to a growing body of evidence on the health harms of ultraprocessed foods … [W]e would ignore these findings at public health's peril.

A vital takeaway message is that consumption of highly processed foods reflects social inequalities — they are consumed disproportionately more by individuals with lower incomes or education levels, or those living alone.

Such foods are attractive because they tend to be cheaper, are highly palatable due to high sugar, salt and saturated fat content, are widely available, highly marketed, ready to eat, and their use-by dates are lengthy, so they last longer. More needs to be done to address these inequalities."

Ultraprocessed Foods Linked to Cancer

Another French study^35,36 published last year also found that those who eat more ultraprocessed food have higher rates of obesity, heart problems, diabetes and cancer. Nearly 105,000 study participants, a majority of whom were middle-aged women, were followed for an average of five years.
On average, 18 percent of their diet was ultraprocessed, and the results showed that each 10 percent increase in ultraprocessed food raised the cancer rate by 12 percent, which worked out to nine additional cancer cases per 10,000 people per year.
The risk of breast cancer specifically went up by 11 percent for every 10 percent increase in ultraprocessed food. Sugary drinks, fatty foods and sauces were most strongly associated with cancer in general, while sugary foods had the strongest correlation to breast cancer.
According to the authors, "These results suggest that the rapidly increasing consumption of ultraprocessed foods may drive an increasing burden of cancer in the next decades." Study co-author Mathilde Touvier told CNN:³⁷

"It was quite surprising, the strength of the results. They were really strongly associated, and we did many sensitive analysis and adjusted the findings for many cofactors, and still, the results here were quite concerning."

Diet Is a Key Factor That Determines Your Health and Longevity

Research³⁸ published in 2017 linked poor diet to an increased risk of cardiometabolic mortality (death resulting from Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke).
According to the authors, suboptimal intake of key foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, and animal-based omega-3, along with excessive consumption of processed foods such as meats and sugar-sweetened beverages accounted for more than 45 percent of all cardiometabolic deaths in 2012. In other words, the more processed foods you eat, and the less whole foods you consume, the greater your risk of chronic disease and death.
Other research published that same year found that eating fried potatoes (such as french fries, hash browns and potato chips) two or more times per week may double your risk of death from all causes.³⁹ Eating potatoes that were not fried was not linked to an increase in mortality risk, suggesting frying — and most likely the choice of oil — is the main problem.
In a 2013 presentation⁴⁰ at the European Ministerial Conference on Nutrition and Noncommunicable Diseases by Dr. Carlos Monteiro,⁴¹ professor of nutrition and public health at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, Monteiro stresses the importance of creating "policies aiming the reformulation of processed foods," and limiting children's exposure to junk food marketing, in order to tackle the rise in diet-related noncommunicable diseases.
In my view, eating a diet consisting of 90 percent real food and only 10 percent or less processed foods is an achievable goal for most that could make a significant difference in your weight and overall health. You simply need to make the commitment and place a high priority on it. To get started, consider the following guidelines:

Focus on raw, fresh foods, and avoid as many processed foods as possible (if it comes in a can, bottle or package, and has a list of ingredients, it's processed).

Severely restrict carbohydrates from refined sugars, fructose and processed grains.

Increase healthy fat consumption. (Eating dietary fat isn't what's making you pack on pounds. It's the sugar/fructose and grains that add the padding.)

You may eat an unlimited amount of nonstarchy vegetables. Because they are so low in calories, the majority of the food on your plate should be vegetables.

Limit protein to less than 0.5 gram per pound of lean body weight.

Replace sodas and other sweetened beverages with pure, filtered water.

Shop around the perimeter of the grocery store where most of the whole foods reside, such as meat, fruits, vegetables, eggs and cheese. Not everything around the perimeter is healthy, but you'll avoid many of the ultraprocessed foods this way.

Vary the whole foods you purchase and the way you eat them. For instance, carrots and peppers are tasty dipped in hummus. You get the crunch of the vegetable and smooth texture of the hummus to satisfy your taste, your brain and your physical health.

Stress creates a physical craving for fats and sugar that may drive your addictive, stress-eating behavior. If you can recognize when you're getting stressed and find another means of relieving the emotion, your eating habits will likely improve. The Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) can help reduce your perceived stress, change your eating habits around stress and help you create new, healthier eating habits that support your long-term health. To discover more about EFT, how to do it and how it may help reduce your stress and develop new habits, see my previous article, "EFT Is an Effective Tool for Anxiety"

Turmeric's 'Smart Kill' Properties Put Chemo & Radiation To Shame

Turmeric

Posted on:

Wednesday, January 2nd 2019 at 5:00 am

Written By:

Sayer Ji, Founder

This article is copyrighted by GreenMedInfo LLC, 2019
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The ancient Indian spice turmeric strikes again! Research finds turmeric extract selectively and safely killing cancer stem cells in a way that chemo and radiation can not.
A groundbreaking new study published in the journal Anticancer Research reveals that one of the world's most extensively researched and promising natural compounds for cancer treatment: the primary polyphenol in the ancient spice turmeric known as curcumin, has the ability to selectively target cancer stem cells, which are at the root of cancer malignancy, while having little to no toxicity on normal stem cells, which are essential for tissue regeneration and longevity.
Titled, "Curcumin and Cancer Stem Cells: Curcumin Has Asymmetrical Effects on Cancer and Normal Stem Cells," the study describes the wide range of molecular mechanisms presently identified by which curcumin attacks cancer stem cells (CSCs), which are the minority subpopulation of self-renewing cells within a tumor colony, and which alone are capable of producing all the other cells within a tumor, making them the most lethal, tumoriogenic of all cells within most if not all cancers.  Because CSCs are resistant to chemotherapy, radiation, and may even be provoked towards increased invasiveness through surgical intervention, they are widely believed to be responsible for tumor recurrence and the failure of conventional treatment.

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The study identified the following 8 molecular mechanisms by which curcumin targets and kills cancer stem cells:

• Down-regulation of interleukin-6 (IL-6): IL-6 is classified as a cytokine (a potent biomolecule released by the immune system) and modulates both immunity and inflammation. It's over expression has been linked to the progression from inflammation to cancer. Curcumin inhibits IL-6 release, which in turn prevents CSC stimulation.
• Down-regulation of interleukin-8 (IL-8): IL-8, another cytokine, is released after tumor cell death, subsequently stimulating CSCs to regrow the tumor and resist chemotherapy. Curcumin both inhibits IL-8 production directly and indirectly.
• Down-regulation of interleukin-1 (IL-1): IL-1, a family of cytokines, are involved in response to injury and infection, with IL-1 β playing a key role in cancer cell growth and the stimulation of CSCs. Curcumin inhibits IL-1 both directly and indirectly.  
• Decrease CXCR1 and CXCR2 binding: CXCR1 and CXCR2 are proteins expressed on cells, including CSCs, which respond to the aforementioned cytokines in a deleterious manner. Curcumin has been found to not only block cytokine release, but their binding to these two cellular targets.
• Modulation of the Wnt signaling pathway: The Wnt signaling pathway regulates a wide range of processes during embryonic development, but are also dsyregulated in cancer. Curcumin has been found to have a corrective action on Wnt signaling.
• Modulation of the Notch Pathway: The Notch signaling pathway, also involved in embryogenesis, plays a key role in regulating cell differentiation, proliferation and programmed cell death (apoptosis), as well as the functioning of normal stem cells. Aberrant Notch signaling has been implicated in a wide range of cancers. Curcumin has been found to suppress tumor cells along the Notch pathway.
• Modulation of the Hedgehog Pathways: Another pathway involved in embryogenesis, the Hedgehog pathway also regulates normal stem cell activity. Abnormal functioning of this pathway is implicated in a wide range of cancers and in the stimulation of CSCs and associated increases in tumor recurrence after conventional treatment. Curcumin has been found to inhibit the Hedgehog pathway through a number of different mechanisms.
• Modulation of the FAK/AKT/FOXo3A Pathway: This pathway plays a key role in regulating normal stem cells, with aberrant signaling stimulating CSCs, resulting once again in tumor recurrence and resistance to chemotherapy. Curcumin has been found
• in multiple studies to destroy CSCs through inhibiting this pathway.

As you can see through these eight examples above, curcumin exhibits a rather profound level of complexity, modulating numerous molecular pathways simultaneously. Conventional cytotoxic chemotherapy is incapable of such delicate and "intelligent" behavior, as it preferentially targets fast-replicating cells by damaging their DNA in the vulnerable mitosis stage of cell division, regardless of whether they are benign, healthy or cancerous cells.  Curcumin's selective cytotoxicity, on the other hand, targets the most dangerous cells – the cancer stem cells – which leaving unharmed the normal cells, as we will now learn more about below.

Curcumin and Normal Stem Cells

Normal stem cells (NSCs) are essential for health because they are responsible for differentiating into normal cells that are needed to replace damaged or sick ones. If curcumin were to kill normal cells, like radiation and chemotherapy, it would not provide a compelling alternative to these treatments.  The study addressed this point:

"The safety of curcumin has been long established, as it has been used for centuries as a dietary spice. The question arises as to why curcumin does not seem to have the same deleterious effects on normal stem cells (NSCs) as it does on CSCs. There are several possible reasons that curcumin has toxic effects on CSCs, while sparing NSCs."

The study offered three potential explanations for curcumin's differential or selective cytotoxicity:

• Malignant cells take in much more curcumin than normal cells.
• Curcumin alters the microenvironment of cells in such a way that is adverse to CSCs and beneficial to NSCs.
• Curcumin may not only directly attack CSCs, but may encourage them to differentiate into non-lethal, more benign cells.

Concluding Remarks

This study adds growing support to the idea that safe, time-tested, natural substances are superior to synthetic ones. Given the evidence that a safe and effective alternative may already exist, chemotherapy, radiation and even surgery may no longer be justified as the first-line standard of care for cancer treatment. In fact, a significant body of evidence now implicates these treatments in worsening prognosis, and in some cases driving cancer stem cell enrichment in tumors. Radiotherapy, for instance, has been found to induce cancer stem cell like properties in breast cancer cells, essentially increasing their malignancy and tumoriogenicity by 30 fold.  This is hardly progress when one considers the role that CSCs play, especially in contributing to post-treatment secondary cancers.
Turmeric and its components, of course, are not FDA approved drugs, and by definition the FDA will not allow an unapproved substance, natural or synthetic, to prevent, treat, diagnosis or cure a disease.  This means that you will not be seeing it offered by an oncologist as an alternative to chemotherapy or radiation any time soon.  This does not, however, mean that it does not work. We have gathered over 1500 citations from the National Library of Medicine's bibliographic database MEDLINE, accessible through pubmed.gov, and which can be viewed on our database here: Turmeric Research, showing that curcumin and related turmeric components possess significant anti-cancer activity.  Truth be told, the information is so extensive, revealing over 700 possible health benefits, that I believe this plant embodies a form of intelligence and even compassion. You can learn more about this supposition here: Turmeric's Healing Power: A Physical Manifestation of Compassion?  I also discuss this concept in my lecture, Food As Medicine Rebooted, which you can watch below:

Of course, the point is not to wait until one has such a severe health problem that taking heroic doses of spices or herbs becomes the focus. It is important to remember that ancient cultures used spices like turmeric mainly in culinary doses, as part of their dietary practices. These smaller amounts, delivered mainly as whole food extracts, likely constituted effective preventive strategies – perhaps preventing the need for radical, heroic intervention later in life. If you read our previous article, Turmeric: A Wellness Promoting Tonic at Low Doses, Research Reveals, you'll see this point explored in greater depth in light of a human clinical study.
For more research on turmeric and cancer, you can view our two database sections on these topics below:

• Health Guide: Turmeric
• Health Guide: Cancer Research

To learn more about the profound healing properties of turmeric consider watch the Turmeric presentation put together by K.P. Khalsa and Sayer Ji, and which is free along with a video and e-book library of learning to members, starting with as little as 25 cents a day. Become a member or learn more here.

Learn from two experts in Turmeric in one course!

Article originally published: 2015-03-22
Article updated: 2019-01-02

Sayer Ji is founder of Greenmedinfo.com, a reviewer at the International Journal of Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine, Co-founder and CEO of Systome Biomed, Vice Chairman of the Board of the National Health Federation, Steering Committee Member of the Global Non-GMO Foundation.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of GreenMedInfo or its staff.

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After 60 Years, Scientists Uncover How Thalidomide Produced Birth Defects

After 60 Years, Scientists Uncover How Thalidomide Produced Birth Defects:

 This was the scandal of the time.  This will probably not interest the younger generation much but let's hope that such a tragedy does never repeat itself.  Medicins can cause harm.  We need to be aware of that.  They are all chemical!




Newswise — More than 60 years after the drug thalidomide caused birth defects in thousands of children whose mothers took the drug while pregnant, scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have solved a mystery that has lingered ever since the dangers of the drug first became apparent: how did the drug produce such severe fetal harm?

The answer, published online today by the journal Elife, not only helps resolve an issue that has been the subject of scientific curiosity for two generations, but will be critical as pharmaceutical companies develop a promising new generation of anticancer drugs that share a basic chemical architecture with thalidomide, the study authors say.

Building on years of previous research, the researchers found that thalidomide acts by promoting the degradation of an unexpectedly wide range of transcription factors – cell proteins that help switch genes on or off – including one called SALL4. The result is the complete removal of SALL4 from cells.

The degradation of SALL4 interferes with limb development and other aspects of fetal growth. The result is the spectrum of complications indelibly linked to thalidomide: the deformed limbs and defective organs i

n children whose mothers took thalidomide during pregnancy as a treatment for morning sickness.
Support for these findings came from reports in medical literature. Individuals who carry a mutation in the gene for SALL4 are often born with missing thumbs, underdeveloped limbs, eye and ear defects, and congenital heart disease – problems which mirror those in children exposed to thalidomide in the womb.

"The similarities between the birth defects associated with thalidomide and those in people with a mutated SALL4 gene are striking," says the new study's senior author, Eric Fischer, PhD, of Dana-Farber. "They make the case even more strongly that disruption of SALL4 is at the root of the devastation produced by thalidomide in the 1950s."

The findings are apt to mark an important inflection point in the history of thalidomide, a drug more infamous than famous. Marketed and sold extensively in Europe, Australia, and some South American countries – though never approved in the United States – as a treatment for pregnancy-related morning sickness, it became a source of anguish when it became clear that it was responsible for birth defects in more than 10,000 children and an unknown number of miscarriages. The medical community was slow to discover the danger of thalidomide because the drug gave rise to birth defects only when taken between the fourth and eighth weeks of pregnancy.  It was officially banned in 1961.
In the 1980s, thalidomide gained a second life when it was found to be a powerful anti-angiogenic drug, inhibiting the growth of blood vessels in tumors. As such, it has come into wide use as a cancer drug, primarily in the treatment of multiple myeloma.

Knowing the mechanism by which thalidomide produces birth defects will be critical as drug developers devise and test new drugs that use the same structural "scaffold" as thalidomide, Fischer remarks. "As new derivatives are tested, we'll be able to explore whether they have the same potentially damaging effects as thalidomide. We know that the therapeutic effect of these drugs is based on their ability to degrade specific proteins.  Our findings will help drug developers distinguish between proteins whose degradation is likely to be beneficial and whose may be harmful."
The lead author of the Elife study is Katherine A. Donovan, of Dana-Farber.  Co-authors are Jian An, PhD, Radoslaw P. Nowak, Jingting C. Yuan, of Dana-Farber; and Emma C. Fink, Bethany Berry, Benjamin L. Ebert, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber and Brigham and women's Hospital.
Financial support for the research was provided by the National Institutes of Health (grant NCI R01CA214608), the Novartis/Dana-Farber Drug Discovery Program, the Friends of Dana-Farber, and the Linde Family Foundation.

Genomic Analysis Unravels Complexities of the Most Common Form of Lymphoma and Enables Personalized Treatment

Genomic Analysis Unravels Complexities of the Most Common Form of Lymphoma and Enables Personalized Treatment:

 The majority of patients with diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) can be treated effectively. However, people whose disease recurs face a shortage of good options, especially because the disease is driven by a complicated mix of genetic alterations. Genomic analysis by scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard now offers a better framework for understanding the disease’s many forms, which will help to predict individual patient outcomes and guide personalized treatment.


Analyzing 304 patient samples, the study showed that DLBCL tumors can be divided into five genetic subtypes, says Margaret Shipp, MD, chief of Dana-Farber’s Hematologic Neoplasia division and director of the Lymphoma Program of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center.
These genetic subtypes can help in identifying likely therapeutic targets, some of which can be inhibited by drugs that already are approved for other conditions or in clinical trials, says Shipp, who, along with Broad Institute’s Gad Getz, is co-corresponding author on a Nature Medicine paper presenting the work.

“These genetic signatures also clearly suggest that we want to think about using a combination of targeted agents, because in DLBCL, combinations of genetic alterations occur together in specific subtypes,” she says.

DLBCL is the most common form of lymphoma among adults, with roughly 25,000 people diagnosed with the disease each year in the United States. About 60% of patients can be treated successfully with a combination of four chemotherapies plus a targeted drug that inhibits a B cell surface protein. “But the other very substantial fraction of patients develops recurrent disease, and their treatment options are far less successful,” says Shipp.

Current clinical tests do a relatively good job of predicting which patients with DLBCL can be treated effectively with standard treatments, but the tests do not offer insights into how treatments could be improved for other patients. The Dana-Farber/Broad collaboration is among several research groups bringing genomic tools to this task. An earlier effort led by National Cancer Institute (NCI) scientists established a widely used “cell of origin” classification scheme for DLBCL, which employed RNA profiling to categorize tumor cells by stages of normal B-cell development.
Unlike previous DLBCL research efforts, Shipp says, the Dana-Farber/Broad collaboration sought to integrate data on three types of genetic alterations that can drive tumors–mutations to genes, changes in gene copy numbers and chromosomal rearrangements–and define previously unappreciated disease substructure.

“Specific genes that were perturbed by mutations could also be altered by changes in gene copy numbers or by chromosomal rearrangements, underscoring the importance of evaluating all three types of genetic alterations,” Shipp notes. “Most importantly, we saw that there were five discrete types of DLBCL that were distinguished one from another on the basis of the specific types of genetic alterations that occurred in combination.”

The investigators followed up to examine these tumor subtypes by RNA data associated with cell of origin. They found that each of the two major cell-of-origin subtypes could be split into separate categories with distinct genetic signatures. An additional subtype defined by TP53 gene alterations and associated genomic instability was unrelated to cell of origin. The team then went on to discover clear links between given genetic subtypes and how patients responded to standard treatment.
“We feel this research opens the door to a whole series of additional investigations to understand how the combinations of these genetic alterations work together, and then to use that information to benefit patients with targeted therapies,” says Shipp.

The study underlined the high genetic diversity in DLBCL—for instance, the median number of genetic driver alterations in individual tumors was 17. “That large number of alterations tells us that we need to understand the complexity of the genetic signature, because it's unlikely that simply focusing on one genetic alteration will be enough to target therapeutically,” Shipp points out. “By understanding the genetic basis of that heterogeneity, we will be able to apply more specifically targeted agents that have the highest likelihood of impacting the right pathways in the right patients.”
She and her collaborators are now working on creating a clinical tool to identify these genetic signatures in patients. Studying related biological mechanisms in the lab, the team also is developing clinical trials that will match patients with given genetic signatures to treatment that includes appropriate targeted agents.

Dana-Farber’s Bjoern Chapuy and Broad’s Chip Stewart and Andrew Dunford are co-first authors on the paper, and Broad’s Gad Getz is co-corresponding author. Clinical investigators from the German High-Grade Lymphoma Study Group and the Mayo Clinic also participated. “This was very much a collaborative effort of a multidisciplinary group of investigators who approached the problem with complementary skill sets,” Shipp emphasizes. “This multidisciplinary model, which is increasingly used to investigate cancers, will bring practical benefits for patients.”

Medicinal Plants That Treat Ailments From Cancer To Diabetes

Medicinal Plants That Treat Ailments

This is an amazing study but not at all surprising as I believe that Nature is so regulated that most plants are grown to heal some ailment.  Hildegard von Bingen dealt with the healing powers of plants all those years ago.

Scientists Identify 28,000 Medicinal Plants that Treat Ailments from Cancer to Diabetes

A new study released by the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens in London, England consolidates information from countries all over the world and has revealed some amazing discoveries that may very well blow your mind.

This year’s report states that 28,187 plant species are being used medicinally, mostly in the non-industrialized world. Since the dawn of humankind, plants have been used in this way and it’s only recently that pharmaceuticals have supplanted their use to treat human ailments. It may surprise you to learn that 25% of modern medicines are actually derived from plants or at least copy plant chemistry. (1)

The Healing Platform: Build Your Own Cure

Her Cancer Vanished

Here is a great interview with a Cancer Survivor which gives hope to many.

 A healthy lifestyle is paramount to staying healthy. 

• Addressing your diet is a foundational strategy for anyone concerned about cancer. However, if you already have cancer, dietary intervention may not be enough
• “The Healing Platform: Build Your Own Cure!” supports cancer patients in discovering the root of their disease, assists them in building a platform to address it and offers a wide array of support and valuable resources for alternative treatments
• Helpful strategies include a total lifestyle detox, immune-boosting methods, products helpful against metastatic stem cells and other targeted cancer therapies

As Cells Age, the Fat Content Within Them Shifts

As Cells Age, the Fat Content Within Them Shifts

This is an interesting article about the change that takes place in the cells as they age.

Women: One type of cancer you have the power to prevent

Women: One type of cancer you have the power to prevent:

(BPT) - The type of cancer that used to be the leading cause of cancer death among American women is now virtually 100 percent preventable, thanks to advances in screening techniques. Each year, nearly 12,000 women receive a cervical cancer diagnosis and more than 4,200 will die from cervical cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

New Approach Tests the Strength of Immunity

New Approach Tests the Strength of Immunity

 Great work is being done by Thomas Jefferson University who have developed a new method to test the strength of the immune response to certain antigens!


Newswise — (PHILADELPHIA) -- The immune system orchestrates large and small scale attacks on innumerous targets: viruses, bacteria, cancer, but it also misfires causing allergy or autoimmune reactions. Compounding the problem, not every immune reaction is equal – sometimes a necessary reaction is not strong enough or at times it’s too strong. Now Thomas Jefferson University researchers have developed a new way to determine the strength of an immune response to a particular antigen. The results, published in Nature Communications on October27th, could be used to help doctors personalize immune-modulating therapies – like cancer immunotherapies, or immunosuppressive therapies used in organ transplantation – more effectively. 

Are Cancer Stem Cells the Key to Discovering a Cure?

Are Cancer Stem Cells the Key to Discovering a Cure?

This article makes grim reading and should serve as a warning. Here we are believing that Radiotherapy and Chemotherapy make cancer shrink, yet they seriously undermine the immune system and so can make cancer even more aggressive.


 From the perspective of conventional cancer treatment, a diagnosis of multi-drug resistant cancer is equivalent to a death sentence. By the time such a diagnosis occurs, the patient's body has been irreversibly damaged by chemotherapy and radiation, and an even more aggressive cancer has emerged to take the place of the original one.

Tragically, these treatments do not simply fail but make the cancers more malignant.  This fact is effectively concealed by the name multidrug resistant cancer which makes it seem as if the cancer was so exceptionally resistant and malignant that the normally effective drugs used to treat it just couldn't do the job. 

Cancer Cells Are Sugar Addicts

Cancer Cells Are Sugar Addicts

This post reminded me of being told that my nephew before he was diagnosed with Leukemia, kept eating a lot of sweet stuff.  No one thought anything of it until he kept getting colds and infections and finally his mother insisted on a blood test which revealed the dreaded result.  He is in remission but his immune system will take years to be restored.  It proves what the article below states:


In 1924, Otto Warburg, Ph.D., a Nobel Prize winning biochemist, proposed the hypothesis that cancer is a metabolic disease, that affects the way cells use food to make energy.

Warburg believed that cancer cells exhibit a preference for using sugar to fuel themselves, even when the oxygen needed for normal cellular energy processes is available.^1,2,3,4 He wrote:
“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 body cells by a fermentation of sugar.”¹

Until recently, Warburg’s hypothesis had been marginalized by the persistent belief in the oncology world that cancer is a genetic disease. However, in his new book, Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management, and Prevention of Cancer, Thomas Seyfried, Ph.D., has put Warburg’s work back in the medical limelight.⁵

Excess weight linked to 8 more cancer types

Excess weight linked to 8 more cancer types

 Another reason to keep the weight under control.

Newswise — There’s yet another reason to maintain a healthy weight as we age. An international team of researchers has identified eight additional types of cancer linked to excess weight and obesity: stomach, liver, gall bladder, pancreas, ovary, meningioma (a type of brain tumor), thyroid cancer and the blood cancer multiple myeloma.
Limiting weight gain over the decades could help to reduce the risk of these cancers, the data suggest.
The findings, published Aug. 25 in The New England Journal of Medicine, are based on a review of more than 1,000 studies of excess weight and cancer risk analyzed by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Cancer on Research (IARC), based in France.