I Survived Cancer, And So Can You

This is a an excerpt from my book, Fuck Portion Control, which contains references to other chapters. This article was originally written several years ago but has been updated from the recent version in my book and differs significantly from the original article.

–––––––––––Chapter 17: The Cure for Cancer

My thirties were going to be full of adult realizations and reaching my human potential, finally getting out of life what I expected (most approaching the end of their third decade stupidly think this). I kicked off my thirties with a huge, superhero-glam theme party and invited everyone I knew and loved. So many people came the club asked me to make it a regular night (I did not). I soon discovered, however, that my life was heading in a different direction. For the first three years of my thirties my health and energy slowly and steadily declined. I had been a competitive athlete full of energy and physical ability who was suddenly unable to even get off the couch. I fell away from socializing, hiding my declining appearance and vitality away from the harsh eyes of the world. Eventually I gave up strenuous activity altogether, but even walking my dogs around the block left me breathless and achy and caused my extremities to swell. I developed an infuriating, chronic sensation of which the word itch is an insufficient description, which would find its way to my spine whenever I laid down to sleep which whenever I attempted also resulted in a coughing fit that would last for hours and keep me from sleeping all night long. My body ached incessantly, and no matter how much I tried warming my freezing body with baths, blankets, or sitting in the one-hundred-ten-degree Palm Springs sun proved futile, my body breaking out into sweat even when I shivered in the cold of winter and shivering even when sweating from the heat of a desert summer. A lesion on my tongue had appeared a few years earlier too, which I would later find out is called leukoplakia. It seemed an ill omen, a reminder every time I brushed my teeth that something was very wrong with my health. At first I thought I just had a drinking problem, and tried to abstain, with little success. I also suspected a thyroid illness. During this time I visited three different doctors who all said my tests came back "in range", which turns out to be code for I cheated my way through medical school and don't know shit about being a doctor. Let me tell you, if I was a doctor and a thirty-two-year-old came into my office looking the way I did, with the symptoms I had, I would consider myself a poor doctor indeed if I ran standard tests and was content with the results, which for the last four years always included the phrase ‘You have an elevated white blood cell count, but no infection,’ which it turns out is an obvious sign of cancer.

I finally got to a doctor with enough competence to suggest imaging my thyroid. It was enlarged with five nodes, including a large one in the isthmus. I was actually elated because for the first time because after several years of fighting I finally knew my adversary (and my unsupportive fiancé could no longer say I just wasn’t trying hard enough). The doctor said it could probably be cancerous, but there was nothing to worry about and that I should make an appointment with an endocrinologist right away to have them biopsied. The only endocrinologist I could get with my health insurance didn’t have an opening for three months. Hope faded rapidly. How fast did tumors grow? Did I have three months to wait just for a biopsy? Thankfully, I had already started to learn the things which would lead me back to health, and began implementing them into my life. Finally the day came for my next appointment but after getting into the exam room the doctor said it was too late in the day to do a biopsy, that his colleague had gone home, and that I had to reschedule for another appointment in the future. In another three months.

The hoops and hurdles of dealing with indifferent, inept, and condescending medical institutions had now stretched out to years. I was going to die, not from cancer since thyroid cancer is one of the easiest to treat, but because I could get no help to cure it. Making things worse, my terrible relationship finally imploded and my fiancé left for good. I lost my health insurance and found myself utterly without any social or institutional support, having to start my life over in the midst of a devastating health crisis, sleeping on couches and walking to public transit, so tired I could not walk up the one-block hill to an apartment where I was staying without stopping three or four times to regain my strength. But there was a silver lining—the information I had discovered was already seeming to bear fruit. The changes in diet and the various strategies I was using to address my health problems were restoring my sleep, my energy, and lifting my spirits. Eventually my health became more robust and normal than it was even in my twenties. Best of all, because of my lack of access to medical care I inadvertently got to keep my thyroid.

The fundamental flaw of cancer treatment dates back even to early Greek and Roman times. Cancer was rare, but when it did present itself the approach was to cut or cauterize it. This can sometimes be helpful. Often it is not. While cancer today is alarmingly common the view of cancer is still the same—it is considered an alien body, something to be killed and destroyed. This pervasive viewpoint is precisely the reason so many people die from treatment, and why a cure does not exist, and also why cancers return since the underlying causes are not healed in the first place. Doctors are also quite slow to keep up with scientific standards, as an article written by David Epstein in ProPublica points out, the medical profession is loathe to admit to nor implement course corrections when new science becomes available, and often cause death and disease due to ignorance, and even culpability.

Although some cancers can be started by a virus or bacteria, cancer is not an invading pathogen. Cancer is made of our own cells, from our own DNA, and as such is not some exotic or foreign adversary, but simply a part of ourselves which is sorely misunderstood. Strangely, it has not yet struck oncologists that all cancer cells “mutate” in exactly the same way, no matter what type of cancer it is, which is either uncanny or simply reflective of the fact that cancer cells are not caused by mutation but by their own inherent cellular programming. Cancer cells are simply cells which are sick and trying to heal, but the processes of self-healing employed by normal cells has become stuck in the “on” position due to the immediate environment of those cells which can no longer support normal cellular function. Cancer does not want to eat you alive. It is the body trying to repair itself but unable to do so. This fundamental misunderstanding is why we pump people full of toxic chemicals, zap them with ungodly radiation, or cut off important body parts and discard them in the trash instead of employing healthy, therapeutic means of resolution and prevention. A friend of mine had to take thyroid medication all his life, because his thyroid was removed as treatment for thyroid cancer when he was only a child, and he later died of liver cancer during conventional treatment at the tragic age of thirty-seven. Millions of men with prostate cancer find an end to their sex-life when the prostate is removed. Women all over the world must give up their breasts in order to survive breast cancer. None of this is necessary, and it is far past time for more restorative approaches to come to prominence. If an alternative approach of healing cancer is taken, instead of destroying it, suddenly cancer recovery is less painful, easier, and actually successful. Since cancer is already trying to heal itself, assisting the effort is more effective than trying to search and destroy every diseased cell, as is obvious by the rates of recurrence in cancer treatment. For instance, one person with whom I worked still had cancer in her bones after chemotherapy. She was despondent and frightened and very sick, but months after following my example as laid out in this book she received a surprise “no evidence of disease,” during a later follow-up, and was officially in remission.

While my descent into ill-health was terrible, and something I do wish to have never endured, my body became a walking laboratory. On the precipice between health and death, even little changes became more obvious than they would in a completely healthy person. Small improvements in body temperature or energy from certain foods or substances wrought obvious causations and correlations, allowing me to experiment, reason, and evolve the various interworking of the human body, aided by scientific research interpreted through correct physiological context and helping me deduce the path back to health without the help of contemporary medicine, which at best would have left me without a thyroid and thus dependent on thyroid medication for the rest of my life (which by the way does not successfully replicate thyroid function and will lead to yet more debilitating health issues down the road).

The specific juncture where cancer fails to heal itself is in inflammation. When cells die in their natural course of living they fall apart and leave behind chemicals signals which stimulate new cell growth. This new growth is in turn accomplished by swelling. Just like an embryo growing in a womb, new cells swell large so they can split into new cells, and the process repeats until all the new cells have matured, and once finished growing the mature cells put out new signals which tell the surrounding tissue that healing is complete, or rather the signals which stimulated the healing response are no longer expressed, and so no more new growth is necessary. Cancer cells swell and divide but aren't able to stop beyond that point. They continue to grow and divide because the chemical signals which stimulate the healing response continue to persist and never turn off. This is generally caused by a lack of energy in that area of the body, and basically the cells are suffocating as they grow, unable to oxidize sugar in a normal manner because the hormones which stimulate growth also inhibit normal oxidative metabolism in order to facilitate growth. So the growth stimulus continues unchecked, stimulating more and more cells until a tumor mass forms. And though the tumor is the focus of the cancer treatment it is not the thing which actually kills us. There are countless cases of humans living for many, many years with tumors. In fact, all people over the age of 50 usually have tumors in many places in their bodies. Tumors are a natural part of aging. The part about cancer which kills a person are the hormones which the tumor and the cancerous area of the body continue to express. They are stress hormones meant to briefly facilitate growth and healing but a constant stream of them from a cancerous area eventually overwhelms entire systems, and as the tumor grows it produces more and more of these hormones which interfere with other body systems and eventually results in the death of vital organs and thus the body.

There are quite a few biologists like Otto Warburg who have understood the basic nature of cancer for a very long time, and some medical professionals like Dr. Stephen Paget who first proposed the “seed and soil” characterization of cancer all the way back in the year 1889, stating that for cancer to grow the environment of the tissues must be right to accept it. Their careers have been spent studying cancers, hormones, and degenerative illnesses in clinical environments. But because they are not part of medical boards or institutions their ideas aren't spread throughout the medical community, even though Mr. Warburg is so important in biology that he has a Nobel prize and a chemical process named after him. The approach I took to healing my own cancer symptoms I learned from reading their work and applying the science to my own situation. It was one in which I got to heal rapidly and successfully, without great expense nor having to suffer horrible, radical treatments. Sometimes it might be necessary to remove a tumor if it has increased in appreciable size, but radiation and chemotherapy, which damage and destroy other cells and promote destruction of the body are unnecessary and can be replaced with healthier, more effective strategies.

There is a delusion I suffered most of my life, indeed it is one which most of humanity suffers also, one that causes more pain, heartache, and broken bonds than that of any other to which we are susceptible. That delusion is the erroneous expectation that result is entwined with action. Unreasonable expectations is the phrase often used to describe the failure of outcomes to match what we expected, but it is more than that—whatever we undertake in life, whether making friends, taking tests, applying for jobs, entering into relationships and marriage, raising children, and even fighting cancer, it is never our job nor is it within our capacity to determine the outcome. That is far beyond our ability, and expecting ourselves to bend the course of life to what we think it should or what others may want leads not only to bitter disappointment and an ineffectual approach to life but to a misguided idea that outcomes make our experience. It is not our job to make people love us, to make children turn out, to get an employer to hire us. It’s not even our job to not get cancer. Our only requirement is to show up for life and opportunity and to do our best. Beyond that it is entirely up to life, and fate, or whatever it is which determines if we live or die. Here we only can strive, but knowing that our responsibility stops before the outcome not only helps relieve us of unreasonable pressures, it also helps to improve the likely outcome because once we turn those things over to the forces which actually make them it frees us to be better at showing up, to covering our actual responsibilities, the ones which we actually can effect. In dealing with cancer especially we are required to come to terms with what it means to have no control over life, what it means to suffer, to live, and to love.

The further I get from my cancer the more convinced I am of the value of such difficulties. My life is endlessly more rich and satisfying because of these struggles which I would never otherwise have experienced. My view of life is both satisfied and deep. Fear of death is just a fear of dying with yet unamended wrongs, and being up against such realities changed me in ways I would never have otherwise. If we have cancer we can trust that we are intended to learn something very deep and meaningful about life that not everyone gets to learn. It's hard, of course, and sometimes sad, but to us is given the chance to peer beyond the shallow surface of normal life.

The foods and behaviors recommended in this chapter and book absolutely MUST continue for years after recovery from cancer or it will recur. This whole book is essentially the cure for cancer, where this chapter only focuses on the specific factors of cancer, and this chapter will do nothing to help recovery from cancer if the diet and behaviors are not changed as discussed elsewhere to adhere to principles of cellular respiration, human diet, and metabolic health. The effect of these approaches can and should be felt rapidly. One person with whom I worked had stage four lymphoma and could barely swallow food due to the large tumors in their neck lymph nodes and the swelling they caused, and was able to eat again after just two weeks using these strategies (tumors do not shrink rapidly, though, and if very large should be surgically removed).

The famous scientist, Otto Warburg, was an oncologist in the mid 1900s who famously discovered one of the primary metabolic dysfunctions behind cancer termed the Warburg Effect, where cancer cells are shown to lack oxidative respiration even when there is sufficient oxygen available (oxidative respiration is the oxidation of carbohydrate to produce the energy molecule adenosine triphosphate). Instead, cancer cells use backup pathways of energy production such as glycolysis or the oxidation of fats (which also involves converting sugars into fats first rather than oxidizing them). This shift in metabolism by cancer cells is often used by ignorant nutritionists and medical professionals to recommend a low sugar or low carbohydrate diet for those who have cancer, but because the problem in cancer is failure for cells to respirate properly and not a problem with sugar this never succeeds in treating or preventing cancer. In many cases this can actually contribute to cancer due to the chronic stress of low carbohydrate diets which chronically elevates hormones of stress and torpor which slow the metabolic rate.

Cellular respiration occurs in the mitochondria organelles of a cell which contains the electron transport chain in which electrons taken from substrate like carbohydrate (which is first converted into pyruvate through the citric acid cycle) are passed through a series of proteins which produce ATP before oxygen accepts those electrons at the terminal end of the transport chain which then forms CO2. Since cellular respiration is the major energy production route for human physiology cancer cells are seen consuming a great deal of fuel but outputting very little ATP, so cells do not have sufficient energy to heal themselves or the tissue to which they belong and cancer cells become stuck in this state of excess consumption and deficient production.

Fuel sources also include the amino acid glutamine which, like carbohydrate, is metabolized through the citric acid cycle and can be converted into pyruvate for oxidation and run the electron transport chain. This deficit in energy production is even more problematic for cancer because failure to produce energy leads to even more fuel consumption as cells attempt to restore energy deficits which then creates a growing negative feedback loop that more rapidly consumes fuel beyond that which the body or diet are able to provide, eventually also catabolizing tissues into useable sugar and amino acids which then causes wasting (cachexia) and eventually death. Although cancer cells present with significant mitochondrial dysfunction it is hardly the only disease to do so, which is why many other illnesses have increased risks of developing cancer because environmental and nutritional stresses which damage mitochondria can and do also eventually lead to cancer.

In the course of this work I have solved the Warburg Effect of mitochondrial dysfunction characteristic of cancer as described by Otto Warburg. It is not well known that mitochondria concentrate the element silicon, and although silicon does not receive much attention at all in medicine, biology, or even nutrition silicon is in nearly every food we consume and is proven by a few studies to be necessary for some aspects of human health like bone and cartilage formation. It is no coincidence that cartilage and silicon utensils have similar physical properties because silicon possesses useful polymerization characteristics that make it useful in biology as well as industry. While silicon’s importance in plant physiology has also long been established it has not, in terms of human health, been considered that silicon is a semiconductor (an element that directs elections in one direction only) and, for the very same reason silicon is used in the manufacture of computer chips, silicon also functions in mitochondria to help direct electron flow and insulate the electron transport chain from leaking electrons from the mitochondria to the surrounding environment. The Warburg Effect then thus caused by mitochondrial silicon deficiency  which then causes electron loss from the electron transport chain, and electrons leak from the mitochondria, not only slowing the production of ATP but also causing uncontrollable electron reduction of other cellular structures and tissue including premature reduction of oxygen intended as the terminal receptor for the respiratory chain.

Silicon dioxide is one of the hardest minerals in nature but silicon’s incorporation into plants and our own tissues is actually from silicic acid, not silica or silicon dioxide such as what are frequently added to supplements as excipients. Silicic acid is the addition of hydrogen atoms to silicon molecules (acids are basically a function of hydrogen), so excess ammonia in a gut colonized by ammonia producing microbes neutralizes silicic acid into insoluble silicon species. Even poor diets can be high in silicon, so it is taken for granted that this nutrient should be at the root cause of cancer. But silicon spontaneously forms polymers and requires adequate stomach acid to disassemble silicon nutrients and prevent spontaneous polymer formation during digestion, as silicon polymers cannot be absorbed into the body and must be acidified. Even a diet high in silicon or use of a silicon supplement will not reverse this deficiency nor treat cancer because the problem is absorption, which is mediated by stomach acid, and because chloride and potassium are the primary factors which mediate stomach acid production the root of silicon deficiency is the same factors discussed in the chapters on gut health and diabetes which disturb homeostasis of chloride, sodium, and potassium.

Silicon also has an apparent relationship with water, which may be a primary reason for its incorporation into cells (and why silicon is used as moisture packets in product packaging), and studies show that aquaporin channels in cells which move water into and out of cells also transport silicon and function better when cells are replete with silicon, probably because this directly increases production of ATP from incorporation into mitochondria as ATP is required for many cellular functions. Because ammonia is structurally identical to water, aquaporin channels also convey ammonia for metabolic processing and excess ammonia causes aquaporin dysfunction by competing with water, and silicon reacts strongly with ammonia to form nitrogen silicon products which likely impair its uptake to mitochondria. But because ammonia also neutralizes stomach acid and sugar deficiency prevents adequate stomach acid production the gastrointestinal synthesis of ammonia by opportunistic microbes and dieting behaviors which cause fructose deficiency such as low carb dieting, avoiding sugar, fructose malabsorption, and low fruit diets are the primary causes of the mitochondrial dysfunction which causes cancer. As would then be expected, metabolic diseases such as cancer and diabetes are characterized by reduced ability to manage water and can even result in uncomfortable and even disfiguring conditions of edema (severe fluid retention) where water pools uncontrollably in body parts and eventually harms the internal organs. The resultant deficiency in production of energy caused by this mitochondria dysfunction then leads cancer cells to express higher and higher quantities of stress hormones in its attempts to restart energy production and regenerate tissue, to mobilize glutamine, sugar, and sulfurous amino acids from other tissues in the body but since this dysfunction is never reversed it continues unchecked which causes wasting, even higher expression of stress hormones, and eventual depletion of glutamine, methionine, and cystine which then leads to death as the body is entirely depleted of energy.

Silicon deficiency might not be the cause of all cancer, for instance cancer caused by radiation exposure results from chronic oxidative stress which cells are unable to resolve, although this could possibly cause the same kind of mitochondrial dysfunction and silicon loss for which silicic acid might be useful therapeutically even if it does not help cure it. This role of silicon in the function of mitochondria is also the mediator of migraine and headaches because ammonia chelates silicon from mitochondria which, in the brain, causes massive electron leakage, oxidative damage, and mitochondrial swelling. Specifically, migraine and headaches are caused by parasites able to colonize the brain which locally produce ammonia to block the immune system, feed on nutrients intended for our own tissues, and persist in tissues they have colonized. While full blown migraines were not a common symptom through most of my experience with metabolic illness, headaches were a frequent occurrence and then progressed to full blown migraines after several years of experimenting with pathogenic infection. After learning that tannin inhibits the primary enzymes used to produce ammonia and thereby discovering that tannin helps control most pathogenic colonization of the body and problems with microbial ammonia excess I was one day able to see the correlation of migraine with consumption of watery beverages or foods not protected by tannin. This specifically occurs when some dietary factor enables the production of ammonia which then strips mitochondria of its silicon and then food consumed afterward which promotes mitochondrial respiration results in uncontrolled electron leakage to which the resulting inflammation and oxidative damage both downregulates mitochondrial activity and requires recovery. To confirm this discovery I was able to rapidly resolve an extremely severe, nauseating migraine attack within less than forty-five minutes using a dose of silicic acid (about 500 mg of bamboo silicon) in water boiled for preparation of strong tea (boiling will add more hydrogen atoms to the silicic acid thus minimizing polymerization) immediately followed by a nutritious meal. The resolution was startlingly rapid and effective, changing from needing to keep my head still as much as possible, eyes closed, and like the slightest movement or loud noise could make me vomit to up and watching TV and writing this entry in this book no more than an hour later.

Specifically, feeling a headache or beginnings of a migraine should be immediately treated with a dose of silicic acid in tannin rich medium such as tea, where the silicic acid can be added to the preparation water before boiling in order to even better solubilize the silicon, or simply added to an acid rich beverage like lemon juice which is then added to tea, and should be taken before eating any more food since introducing carbohydrate or other fuel to mitochondria which have lost their silicon is what will result in the severe discomfort of a migraine as that mitochondria leak electrons during robust metabolic respiration, further damaging the cells and mitochondria. Introducing silicon through the use of supplemental silicic acid will help to restore mitochondrial insulation and then the subsequent administration of calories will help mitochondria produce energy without leaking electrons to even more effectively restore damaged tissue and resolve headache and prevent migraine. Strictly avoiding liquids that do not contain tannin if headache and migraine are a problem (beverages as well as water foods like soup) will prevent their occurrence, but this can sometimes be tricky as even certain sauces that are thickened with roux or starch may not appear watery but contain an abundance of water which will, along with their protein content, result in ammonia production so if symptoms of headache or migraine accompany any food it is an indication of a need for tannin to prevent the production of ammonia.

Interestingly, there are many studies which have explored the relationship of migraine with cancer and there has been an established association of cancers of the head and neck with migraine, and of childhood cancer with migraine, but an inverse association of breast cancer with migraine. The connection with childhood cancer and migraine is especially interesting because pathogenic colonization as the primary explanation for most cancer, including childhood cancer, demonstrates how childhood cancer can be prevented by a diet high in fruit because of its tannin, sugar, and silicon, which children should be having anyway, which protects them more effectively from pathogenic colonization since child physiology is designed specifically to be more resistant to pathogens. One of my nephews developed a brain tumor before he was three years old, and while his parents fed him a supposedly healthy diet free of refined and processed foods high in plants and vegetables it was also low in sugary fruits as his mother had the typical, harmful, misguided attitude that sugar is bad which she took so far as to also chose to feed him foods like avocado in preference of grapes, apples, and oranges (and avocado is very high in polyunsaturated fats which, for young children, is not at all healthy). As a toddler he began presenting with frequent headaches, and that is not normal in children and can indicate those kinds of problems. Fruit is high in silicon and since silicon uptake is dependent on stomach acid to keep silicon from polymerizing and sugar promotes bile acid a child’s digestive system is able to assimilate and benefit from fruit where adults with compromised digestion are not as fortunate, and luckily my nephew’s tumor, although the size of a small apple, was not cancerous and the surgery to remove it and his subsequent recovery was entirely successful, and I was eventually able to convince my sister that fruit is not only safe for children but required for their health and development.

But silicon dioxide such as what accompanies many nutritional supplements as an excipient is not metabolically compatible with the body, and can actually cause metabolic stress and oxidative damage. Early on in my recovery when I began using supplements those which contained silica or silicon dioxide caused eczema. Silica and silicone are not interchangeable terms for the element silicon—they are different terms for different silicon chemical products and will have the opposite effect of silicic acid to promote oxidative stress and cancer, but interestingly and in support of this discovery there are surprising studies which show no association between cancer and breast implants even though breast implants do cause other life threatening complications since silicone leakage from breast implants would actually provide some silicon that could be converted to silicic acid and used in mitochondria even if that leakage causes other serious health problems. There are also other toxic forms of chemical silicon used in industry and manufacturing that does cause cancer because of the other elements and chemical structure of those silicon molecules, so all silicon is NOT universally protective or safe (such as silicone lubricant used for sex). The only nutritionally available source of silicon comes from plants, as silicic acid, or a supplement of silicic acid produced from plants like bamboo or horsetail (although horsetail also contains thiaminase which can cause thiamine deficiency and a supplement of thiamine should be used alongside any horsetail), and even then will still form insoluble silicon polymers in the gut and not get absorbed if there is not sufficient acid present to maintain silicic acid. That’s the key point to this information is that while a supplement of silicic acid can help treat cancer and other mitochondrial dysfunction it will not reverse the problem permanently until digestive dysfunction is also resolved, since the entire problem is rooted poor stomach acid production. After resolution of ammonia, silicic acid taken from a supplement in acid medium like lemon juice, citric acid in water or tea, cream of tartar, or vinegar can be effective, though, in promoting absorption of silicic acid for mitochondria silicon, but do not just take a capsule of silicic acid and chase it with some lemon juice—it must be added to the acidic solution and allowed to hydrate, distribute, and react with acid to prevent malabsorption.

No more than about 200-400 mg dose of silicic acid is required daily, and silicic acid functions rapidly to stabilize mitochondria and the production of energy so increased feelings of relaxation and energy production should occur about an hour after a dose, while continued daily use will compliment all the other therapies in this book to resolve metabolic disease and cure or prevent cancer. Many plants are very high in silicon, especially those which are naturally tough such as whole grains (especially oats), leafy greens, or bamboo shoots, but even soft fruits like dates, raisins, prunes, mango, and berries contain silicon which is sufficient for health if stomach acid and digestion are working properly. But plant foods are difficult (impossible, really) for the body to break down because we do not natively possess the enzyme cellulase for digesting cellulose, which is instead the job of our microbiome which they in turn cannot do without the presence of cobalamin (vitamin B12) as discussed in the chapter on gut health. When there is B12, however, our microbes not only thoroughly digest plant foods to liberate nutrients like silicic acid but also produce short chain fatty acids which help to acidify silicic acid to promote its absorption. In addition to having thyroid cancer and leukemia, for more than a decade I also had a large skin lesion from a place on my back that got sunburned repeatedly when my father forced me to work all day in the sun even while already having a first degree sunburn. The lesion never healed even after I was able to resolve the leukoplakia and other symptoms of the other cancers, because skin metabolism is so independent from the rest of the body. But it finally closed around the time I discovered how to support the immune system as discussed in that chapter, although there remained a small mass beneath the skin which then did not resolve until I began using a B12 supplement crushed into salad dressing to have with leafy greens. Because other nutrients in plants like vitamin K directly support the microbiome and cellular respiration I initially thought the benefit was from vitamin K, which can and does also support cancer recovery by restoring proper metabolism of calcium and preventing calcification of soft tissue, but it wasn’t until I discovered the semiconducting function of silicon in mitochondria and utilized supplemental and dietary silicic acid by protecting it from neutralization by ammonia and use of B12 in plant foods to promote its more efficient breakdown and liberation of nutrients like silicon that I was able to purposefully reproduce all the positive effects I had experienced during my long recovery (for anyone who might think that B12 was the benefic of this therapy I had been supplementing B12 for the entirety of my recovery while the lesion was present). Early in this process the daily consumption of fruit smoothies in acidic medium like orange juice promoted the pathways of sugar digestion as described in the chapter on diabetes which in turn liberated and promoted the absorption of silicic acid to promote mitochondrial respiration from carbohydrate supported by the many nutrients in such nutritive food. But later when I infected myself with oral pathogens to better study them the renewed production of toxic microbial ammonia and inhibition of digestion and mitochondria made it impossible to benefit passively from even a healthy diet. Now knowing how these pathways work and function synergistically to promote health and wellness it is a far easier matter to resolve cancer through the resolution of ammonia excess, restoration of sugar metabolism, and repletion with silicon through the consumption and protection of silicic acid. Knowing how B12 promotes microbial breakdown of food to aid digestion and absorption of nutrients like silicic acid and the short chain fatty acids which support energy production it could be said the loss of Thaumarchaeota populations is a primary driver of cancer, so symptoms such as excessive gas and flatulence are far advanced warning signs of later cancer and should be addressed as such. If for some reason a person with cancer cannot access B12 and can’t get their Thaumarchaeota working, fermenting food sources of silicon like vegetables or whole grains with B12 producing microbes like Swiss cheese probiotics (Propionibacterium) would provide this same function if gastrointestinal ammonia is also suppressed and sugar metabolism restored.

The next thing anyone with cancer should do is begin taking aspirin. It is the most effective, easily accessible medicinal therapy for cancer, and studies have confirmed that aspirin used with traditional cancer treatment improved the survival and remission rates by an astounding margin. Of course the study authors concluded that chemo or radiation was the primary treatment, and aspirin supporting, instead of the reverse even though patients without aspirin did do fare well at all and have dramatically increased rates of mortality. Generally a dose of one or two aspirin once or twice a day should be sufficient (325 mg each), where the lowest effective dose is best since aspirin does have side effects, but it can be used in higher doses if cancer is very severe if care is also taken to prevent its potential side effects discussed below. Once symptoms start to improve lower the dose if it is high so that excess is not a problem.

One reason aspirin works to treat cancer is because it easily promotes and raises the depressed energy of cancer cells by promoting cellular respiration, which is the pathways by which cells oxidize carbohydrate to produce energy which thus increases their energy output. Essentially all cancer cells are fatigued due to insufficient production of energy caused by mitochondrial dysfunction and loss of silicon and thusly forced to produce energy through backup pathways which are less efficient at producing energy which also result in the production of more stress hormones which further imperil fatigued and cancerous tissues. Aspirin also works whether or not we get mainstream cancer treatment. It is important to use a brand without toxic coatings, ingredients, or titanium (read labels!). Plain, normal aspirin is important, as the other substances added to inferior brands can contribute to metabolic issues and worsen cancer, although the use of aspirin is more important if finding better products is not possible. It has lately proved more difficult to find good aspirin products since companies try to dress up aspirin with coatings and ingredients so they can justify higher prices for something which should be cheap and widely available. One brand unfortunately called GeriCare comes as aspirin should be priced, 1000 tablets for $10. Aspirin is not expensive, and store brands with coatings and other crap are designed to make it look expensive rather than having any improved benefit.

But the primary reason aspirin works to treat cancer (and migraines) is because it acidifies mitochondria and thus silicon, preventing silicon loss by exposure to ammonia, so restoration of digestion and therapy with silicon (silicic acid) will synergize with aspirin to further hasten recovery. One aspirin is almost as powerful as four so it's not entirely necessary to take large amounts, which can have unpleasant side effects. The dose can be gauged by starting off with a low dose and slowly increasing until an increase in pulse and body temperature is discovered, and the dose which causes this would be the one to stay at, supported by food, only using as much as is required to achieve an increase in respiration which is revealed by an increase in pulse and temperature and improvement in breathing and tension. Consistency is most important. The best relief I got from aspirin was from the feeling of suffocation which enveloped my whole body, as aspirin helps oxygenate and invigorate cells and relieve some discomfort as it does have some analgesic properties. It is important to remember that Ibuprofen and Acetaminophen are not aspirin. Aspirin is aspirin, and other NSAIDs do not, at all, have the same benefit to physiology to be helpful for cancer. In fact, since other NSAIDs are toxic to the liver and depress metabolic function they can actually contribute to cancer growth, rather than help, and the use of all other such medications should cease entirely, even if you are in some discomfort, because they inhibit respiration and healthy forms of inflammation which are needed to recover from cancer.

Aspirin side effects include stomach irritation which occurs because aspirin stimulates the increased use of the amino acid glycine in metabolic pathways. This irritation is easily remedied or prevented by supplementing glycine (be sure to avoid brands which contain toxic and allergenic additives like gums, soy, and silica) or eating foods high in glycine such as gelatin (which can be incorporated into cooking, or by making your own homemade stock from animal bones, skin, and cartilage, or supplemented into beverages or smoothies). It is wise to proactively include gelatin or a small dose of glycine supplement along with aspirin use in the first place, not only to avoid irritation but to better allow aspirin to have its therapeutic effects.

Aspirin also depletes vitamin K more rapidly than would occur normally, so it is important both to regularly consume foods high in vitamin K and to use a supplement of vitamin K and K2. A supplement only will not be enough, so do not rely on supplements, since vitamin K is also extremely important for our gut microbiome which is most likely deranged during states of cancer. Without either of these safeguards aspirin can cause gastrointestinal bleeding, the risk of which is increased in people with severely compromised health or advanced aging. This is another reason why it’s a good idea to start with lower but consistent doses and work up slowly as needed, and only use as much as is required to address pain, discomfort, and raise the pulse and temperature and no more. Children should never be given high doses of aspirin, but the daily use of one baby aspirin could probably benefit childhood cancer, where the other nutritional and environmental approaches will be more beneficial. Very young children (neonates) do not have well developed carbohydrate oxidation pathways and their cells mostly run on glycolysis, which is inhibited by aspirin, so it can actually be dangerous for the very young. There is also some evidence that high doses of aspirin could interfere with white blood cell count in those with very advanced leukemia or lymphoma, so while aspirin will still be beneficial in those cancers careful monitoring of white blood cell count will important to prevent immune emergencies. Any significant fever during cancer likely indicates poor immune function and should be treated at an emergency room. This effect of aspirin on inhibiting the immune system in immune related cancers will diminish as therapy progresses.

Iodine deficiency as discussed in the chapter on viruses and immunity is specifically shown by studies to promote cancer of glandular organs like the breast and prostate because the peroxidase system uses halides like iodine to protect tissues from infection by pathogens which cause problems like excessive ammonia. It is important to get sufficient (but not excess) iodine and other halides like chloride and dietary cyanide to treat or prevent cancers, especially those of the glandular organs, and especially for children with cancer (i.e. almonds, leafy greens, meals high in carotene to promote normal salt absorption). Organs like the prostate, cervix, and lungs are also sites of parasitic Trichomonas infection, and it has been shown in studies that Trichomonas, which is the most common non-viral sexually transmitted disease, can and does cause prostate cancer, and since iodine is the most versatile immune nutrient its distribution by thyroid hormone and role in immunity is likely how it participates in cancer prevention. Thyroid hormone, which is dependent on iodine and actually a method for distributing iodine throughout the body, is also the primary regulator of cellular respiration, and supporting thyroid function as discussed in the chapter on thyroid disease is also helpful. If dietary sources of iodine are difficult to find a supplement can be added to foods or a single drop of Lugol’s once or twice a week.

Progesterone directly competes with some of the more cancer promoting hormones like estrogen (a hormone of growth), cortisol (catabolizes lean tissue), or serotonin (slows the metabolic rate), which result from ineffective healing pathways triggered by the cancer state, and can rather quickly raise the body temperature by promoting thyroid function which is usually quite depressed in those with cancer. I used progesterone intermittently throughout my cancer treatment and found it to be equal or better than thyroid medication for improving thyroid function and relief from cancer symptoms. Progesterone is more of a female hormone, but all humans normally have it in abundance and it has the effect of invigorating tissues just like thyroid and aspirin. Using enough progesterone will help raise the body temperature and metabolic rate significantly through increased thyroid activity. Sometimes it can even produce fever-level temperatures of 100 F (37.7 C) or more, and this is a good sign if suffering from cancer as it would indicate the immune and thyroid system coming back online (if it exceeds 102 though you probably have a true fever and should seek medical care). Women, especially those suffering breast cancer will benefit amazingly from progesterone use, and progesterone is being used in study after study to support cancer treatment, and in fact progesterone is the best thing for women to take to support breast health—some women complain that it makes their breasts too large (in those who are already well endowed) as progesterone can stimulate breast enlargement, in which case the use of pregnenolone may be an acceptable alternative. In men progesterone will lower testosterone while taking it, which has some significant effects but nothing long term or harmful. Progesterone does help maintain muscle mass, however, so what losses in libido occur during use can be offset by increases in youthfulness, energy, and strength. Especially if facing death, in my opinion, I chose rather to have the benefit of progesterone and put my libido on a temporary pause (finding that the libido reduction was not too severe anyway, and it returns within days of stopping progesterone). I would describe progesterone as an essential, emergency, life-saving therapy for cancer treatment, and anyone with severe cases should seriously consider taking progesterone. Synthetic or soy-derived products can be harmful, however, and should be avoided. If the product does not state the source of origin, it likely contains soy derivatives and another source should be investigated. Prescription progesterone is usually synthetic, and most studies which show negative effects of progesterone were in fact done with synthetic forms like progestin, where studies showing a positive effect were done with natural progesterone. Natural is less expensive anyway. Progesterone is also non-toxic, so overdosing is not a worry (overdosing produces symptoms of sleepiness and relaxation and sometimes nausea because it softens internal organs such as during pregnancy and morning sickness). Since like aspirin progesterone increases the metabolic rate, it is important though to be well-fed when using it, especially with carbohydrate, and can help stimulate and support the citric acid cycle and energy production along with generous dietary malate. Progesterone can also promote improvements in sleep, which will be comforting since most cancer patients also suffer insomnia, although this is also dependent on sufficient malate and potassium, and progesterone is also the hormone of empathy, so be prepared for a flood of emotions and take proper care of your emotional wellbeing and have compassion for your feelings and experiences which result.

Progesterone helps to treat cancer because tissues of a low metabolic state in which cancer develops are highly hypoxic, and cancer cells develop out of a need for cells to respirate but which cannot, which in turn promotes an increase in aromatization of androgens into estrogens because estrogens are hormones of growth and thus tissue regeneration (which is why they are involved in growth processes such as pregnancy). But because cancerous tissues are never able to restore their ability to respirate (which is restored by reversing ammonia excess and silicon deficiency) they continue producing excess estrogen and thus promote tumor growth since estrogen is a hormone of growth that normally facilitates tissue repair. Progesterone protects tissues against the estrogen-stimulated growth processes and thus help block cancer progression, but it also promotes thyroid activity and cellular respiration and thus can help neutralize cancer. My body temperatures and pulse rose within days of beginning progesterone, which relieved me of the stiffness, lethargy, and histamine induced irritation from low metabolic rate and cancer almost immediately, and this was even before I discovered the role of silicon in the Warburg effect and didn’t have the benefit of using silicic acid. Because progesterone is generally safe it can also be used in the treatment of childhood cancer, especially to counteract the effects of soy exposure (which is a potent phytoestrogen). If progesterone is unavailable or you don’t desire to use it, pregnenolone is an almost equally acceptable substitute, and at least a small additional dose of pregnenolone can also help in cancer therapy because pregnenolone is the master hormone of the body, so the body can use it however it needs whereas progesterone has more specific effects. Sometimes in someone with advanced illness pregnenolone will convert into cortisol, and this usually presents as excessive leanness. Insufficient steroids are a bigger problem than excess since they rescue metabolic deficits, but this can and should be prevented by consuming generous amounts of protein and carbohydrates, which should be occurring anyway. Coconut oil also strongly converts to pregnenolone in the body and can be used to manually generate large amounts of it, although this process uses up large amounts of vitamin A so consistent intake of natural dietary carotenes is necessary to avoid vitamin A deficiency when using coconut oil, and more information on both progesterone and pregnenolone are discussed in the upcoming chapter on progesterone.

Natural vitamin E is another powerful tool to resolve cancer and other metabolic illnesses because vitamin E is a powerful antioxidant that synergizes with progesterone, vitamin C, and carotene to inhibit aromatization and lipid peroxidation. In fact, many natural progesterone products are formulated with vitamin E. Remember that estrogen promotes excess iron uptake for growth pathways, and iron is highly elevated in cancerous tissue which reacts with hydrogen peroxide created by the immune system to form the hydroxyl radical which is highly damaging to mitochondria and likely causes loss of mitochondrial silicon. Vitamin E is a chain-breaking antioxidant which means it stops the domino-effect of reactive oxygen species which can oxidize tissues even with small quantities of oxidants and thus the damage to tissue which would otherwise promote estrogen synthesis and trigger growth pathways. Oxidative stress is a hallmark of cancer, and needn’t even be very intense, just widespread, which keeps tissues in a constant state of stress, hypoxia, and excessive aromatization. Vitamin E stops this chain reaction and returns cells to their normal state, and also protects and regenerates carotenes from becoming oxidizers themselves. Because cancer cells produce large amounts of lipid-associated reactive oxygen species due to impairment of carbohydrate metabolism vitamin E deficiency can be one of the most significant but also elusive causative factors in the etiology of general metabolic disease and thus the pathogenesis of cancer. There is a ridiculous term used in oncology—castration resistant prostate cancer—and yes that is exactly what it sounds like, the removal of testicles for the treatment of prostate cancer, because testicles can become the highest site of androgen aromatization into estrogen and the aged prostate can become cancerous if metabolic health is sufficiently deteriorated because testicles continue to produce testosterone even if there is a high rate of aromatization. But researchers and doctors think that androgens promote prostate cancer simply because they know men have high androgens rather than its aromatization into estrogen in poorly respirating and vitamin E deficient tissue, or colonization by Trichomonas vaginalis which lives in the prostate and urethra and survives by suppressing the immune system and producing ammonia which inhibits respiration. It it were true that androgens caused prostate cancer every man in the world would have prostate cancer, even as teenagers. But they don’t, because it is the aromatization of androgens and pathogenic infection which causes prostate cancer in a metabolically fatigued prostate.

While the addition of electrons is technically a reduction reaction, electron leakage from mitochondria ends up causing massive oxidative damage by both preventing antioxidants from functioning and cells from making enough energy to maintain normal cellular function, repair, and regeneration. Dietary vitamin E is more useful than supplemental vitamin E so long as digestion is working because digestive pathways more effectively distribute vitamin E through the function of fatty-nutrient distribution like cholesterol, chylomicrons, albumin, etc. Before the advent of agriculture our supply of dietary vitamin E came largely from foods like nuts, seeds, wild grains, leafy greens, and fruit (and the occasional animal liver which I don’t recommend eating because of its very, very high iron content which is why it tastes so gross). As grains like wheat, barley, or spelt were cultivated these began to replace nuts and seeds since they were more convenient and available, but now that nuts tend to be very expensive our dietary traditions have in many cases shifted entirely away from nuts and seeds and many people get the far majority of their vitamin E only from refined grains, so the amount of vitamin E in the diet is exceptionally low which then contributes to high rates of metabolic disease, oxidative stress, allergies, and cancer. Soaking or sprouting nuts, whole grains, and seeds also increases their vitamin E content, which is already considerably high, by as much as 600%, turning these foods into vitamin E supplements (but don’t discard the soaking water, which will be high in tannin, and incorporate it into foods or take with food to avoid wasting it). Almonds and other prunus fruit kernels being one of our original evolutionary foods are very high in vitamin E but soaking or roasting may destroy their cyanide content and can simply be enjoyed raw to obtain far more vitamin E in the diet than is typical. Making bread from safe, sprouted grains as discussed in the upcoming chapter on bread can also be a delicious and satisfying solution to vitamin E deficiency while also providing general calories and satiation and other nutrients (because of their high phytate content, whole grain products should always be soaked, sprouted, or fermented, so products like whole grain pasta should be avoided). Hazelnuts, macadamias, and tiger nuts also contain vitamin E and are high healthy fats like palmitic, stearic, and oleic acids.

A supplement of natural vitamin E can and should also be used to support cancer recovery, and can even be applied directly to the testicles (mixed in a little olive oil or coconut oil) to inhibit aromatization in conditions like prostate or testicular cancer. The only way to tell if a vitamin E supplement is natural is on the ingredient label and whether it identifies d-tocopherol or dl-tocopherol (or the alpha, gamma forms). The inclusion of the singular l in that attribution is the indicator of a synthetic product, though most natural forms will also indicate where it came from, such as sunflower. Also, there is something wrong with soy derived vitamin E. I have no idea what it is, but it does not act the same as sources derived from sunflower seeds, wheat, and other sources, so avoid soy products altogether.

It is described generally that cancer cells spread like a seed in the wind, coming loose and traveling to other parts of the body only to infect new areas of the body. This is incorrect. The hormones produced by the environment of a body with cancer are what stimulate and promote its development in other organs by suppressing the metabolism of all tissues. Stem cells which migrate are transformed into cancer cells by their environment, not by mutations, and the influence of pathogens on endocrine function, tissue regeneration, and toxic byproducts from conditions like gut dysbiosis.

In a previous version of this book before I solved the Warburg Effect, I recommended the use of supplemental lysine, glycine, and taurine to help further suppress the stress hormones and conditions which both result from and cause cancer, as these amino acids have potent regulatory effects in suppressing excessive nitric oxide stress, restoring cellular respiration, and protecting against excessive cellular excitation, respectively. If cancer is very severe the daily supplementation of some lysine, glycine, and taurine could be helpful but cinnamic acids from fruit or cinnamon is a stronger inhibitor of mitochondrial nitric oxide exposure, and all three amino acids can be increased by protecting dietary protein with the ubiquitous use of tannin and carotene in meals and snacks as dietary protein is the primary source for all three of these amino acids. For this reason I used casein protein to great effect in the treatment of my cancer after learning of casein’s superior protein quality. I ordered some to assist in meeting protein requirements but also noticed that it also helped prevent nightly muscle catabolism by supplying a continuous stream of amino acids, since casein is slow digesting and cachexia (wasting) is a common symptom of cancer due to protein wasting caused by the presence of proteolytic pathogens. I began taking it several months after my tumors were discovered and within three days of taking it the places on my body which had been in constant, excruciating pain for the last year of my life suddenly vanished (my left ribcage, groin, and left tibia). It wasn't even intermittent relief, but complete abatement. These places had been in constant, agonizing pain for more than a year but were suddenly totally gone in just a few days. I didn't plan right and ran out of that first bucket of casein before its replacement arrived, and three days after not having casein the pain came back to those areas just as hard and bad as it had ever been. I was so relieved to get my new bucket of it, and in another three or four days the pain went away again completely. It's now been years since that day, and now that I am healthy I never really use casein anymore and there has been no return of pain to those areas.

Casein is high in the branched chain amino acids required for the synthesis of glutamine for sequestration of ammonia (our body requires biotin to break down the branched chain amino acids, which is how Streptomyces can contribute to cancer, by blocking biotin) as well as methionine required for synthesis of sulfur dependent proteins like taurine as well as our primary antioxidant, glutathione, which protects cells from excessive excitation, oxidation, and calcification. But sulfation derived from dietary sulfur, especially the sulfuric amino acids, is also required for detoxification of hormones, polyunsaturated fats, and xenobiotics from the body through the liver and kidneys, and a deficiency of sulfur causes toxic hormones, PUFA, and xenobiotics to be continuously recirculated into the body to continually contribute to hormone imbalance and toxic levels of harmful molecules. The problem is that methionine is also the target for hydrogen sulfide producing microbes, so long term colonization by hydrogen sulfide producers due to diets low in tannin and carotene also prevents the normal incorporation of sulfurous amino acids and stress of hydrogen sulfide which also chelates nutrients like sulfur, copper, and molybdenum from the body. Because oncologists consider cancer an invasive disease and are prejudiced toward the destruction of cancer cells they consider high quantities of methionine and glutathione in tumors to be part of its pathology, especially since glutathione can protect cancer cells from the toxic effect of chemotherapy drugs, because they are poisons, rather than this being evidence of cancer cells attempting to heal. When patients die during chemotherapy treatment they die because the body becomes entirely exhausted of its sulfate (methionine and cysteine) because it is used also to detoxify chemotherapy drugs from the body which then recirculate endlessly back into the body until it is poisoned to death (and runs out of sulfate to run biological processes). While tumors may present with high methionine and glutathione it is being taken from surrounding tissues which become deficient, and the resulting hypoxia (from low metabolic respiration) and oxidative damage in those tissues further drivers cancerous growth in tissues not yet metastasized, so supplying more dietary protein such as from casein (any protein can be used but casein is slow digesting) and protecting it with tannin such as from tea and carotene such as from carrots or prunus fruit will greatly promote repletion with these requisite amino acids to provide rapid relief in conjunction with restoration of mitochondrial silicon. The body can't use a large amount of protein at one time anyway so no more than 20 grams of protein supplement per dose is enough to dose before bed (10 grams for children), and it can also be consumed at other times of day to help provide protein but other dietary protein sources like nuts, grains, cheese, milk, and meat should also occur daily.

One of the worst symptoms which anyone with cancer will be familiar was an insane, body-wide irritation which seemed to be located under the skin, deep within my nerves as if they were dissolving in acid. It worsened at night, when the sensation seemed to concentrate along my spine and was the primary driver of my debilitating insomnia. Even if you have cancer but don't have this symptom you perhaps have some kind of general feeling of restlessness and agitation. This is caused by an overproduction of histamine in the gut by toxic microbial amine producers. This occurs because the parasympathetic nervous system is overstimulated by the excess histamine, and because histamine is highly activating it is in fact thought to be a primary driver of cancer. But other toxic amines like tyramine and phenylethylamine also produce symptoms of high adrenaline as discussed in the chapters on depression and diabetes and these amine producers strongly drive cancer by significantly disturbing the pathways which involve normal production of these amines. This problem is strongly reversed by also always consuming dietary sources of vitamin K with any dietary protein since these amines are produced from amino acids like histidine, tyrosine, and phenylalanine where vitamin K advantages our own commensal microbes over those of putrefaction, and ingestion of vitamin K with large doses of protein should be absolutely consistent until a full recovery is made. During recovery most of my casein was taken in the form of fruit smoothies and since fruit contains vitamin K and other nutrients like boron which promote our commensal microbes, as well as tannin and carotene, casein was most effective in recovery where simply taking a dose of casein in something like plain water would instead promote cancer causing microbes due to unfettered access to protein (which they do from our own tissues as well since we are made of protein). Until the problem of high histamine is reversed a low-dose, nightly antihistamine can and should be used to inhibit the stressful effects of this excessive parasympathetic activation. Antihistamines block many of the destructive effects of excess acetylcholine, which is discussed more in the chapter on alcoholism and addiction, which in turn stops or slows many of the stress responses which drive the state of cancer. Taking the right antihistamine is important, however, as some medications which pose as antihistamines are actually steroids or other non-antihistamine product with antihistamine-like actions, but are not true antihistamines. The ones which are are safe and most effective for cancer treatment are referred to as first-generation antihistamines. Some are available as prescriptions, but many are also available over-the-counter (which I prefer anyway). Diphenhydramine and doxylamine succinate are two such forms available from many brands. These antihistamines also function as sleep aids (and are sold as such) and can also help cancer sufferers sleep. I haven't, however, been able to find any products that don’t contain at least some toxic additives, though some of the generic brands are safer with less ingredients and dyes. I would avoid types which have titanium, dyes, and other metals if possible but if you have these symptoms taking it for a short period of time to address them will be fine.

While the lesion on my skin and thyroid tumors were my only confirmed oncological growths because of limited access to medical care, I suspect leukemia to have been the primary cancer which caused the majority of my symptoms. An obvious sign of leukemia is a markedly high white blood cell level and symptoms like the leukoplakia on my tongue and chronic gum disease, accompanied by easy and profound bruising because of the disruption to blood cell functions (I once bumped into a doorknob which left an enormous and strangely dark and patterned bruise on my thigh for weeks), and is often accompanied by significant gum disease. In the period immediately before my use of progesterone I also briefly presented with petechiae, which is an odd rash of small, round spots from subsurface bleeding and is a common symptom of cancers like leukemia, and progesterone and other strategies in this chapter should be used immediately if presenting with such symptoms. Later in my research I learned that those with cystic fibrosis are at high risk for developing both diabetes and leukemia or lymphoma, which makes a great deal of sense in retrospect considering all my health struggles. Leukemia is specifically a disorder of blood cell synthesis and function, probably due to biotin deficiency, itself in turn caused by the presence of Streptomyces in the gut and a result of vitamin D deficiency and immune dysfunction, since immune cells originate from bone marrow. Leukemia can also be caused by retroviruses like the Friend virus or human T-lympotrophic virus and cause cancer by replacing our DNA in the cells they infect with their RNA which changes the function of those cells, but I suspect these virus are secondary to problems such as parasitic and bacterial infection and take advantage of existing immune and nutritional deficiency, as retroviruses are not especially virulent.

Niacinamide (vitamin B3) is also a useful tool with which to fight cancer because the cancer state in those who are no longer very young the metabolism is compromised such that the body can no longer produce adequate amounts of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) as discussed in the chapter on niacin therapy. This deficit of NAD not only lowers energy use but also raises torporific hormones underlying cancer since dietary tryptophan instead gets converted to serotonin and melatonin and prevents the normal metabolic functioning which would enable cancerous cells and tissue to heal and to lower the production of stress hormones. Aspirin, thyroid, progesterone, sugar, vitamin C, sunlight, silicic acid, and pregnenolone work in part by facilitating an increase in the production of NAD rather than serotonin, but directly supplying some niacinamide twice a day will manually up-regulate the formation of this vital metabolic intermediary to help raise body temperature which facilitates faster metabolic rate which also helps depress histamine release to improve comfort and energy levels. Often it can also promote sleep. Some brands of niacinamide aren’t very good, so if taking it does not consistently result in an increase in redness of the fingertips (and even the tongue) through increased circulation, try another. Taking excess without food will result in headaches, so make sure to eat. High doses can also produce a headache, so do not exceed 500 mg per dose (250 mg is typically sufficient too). This can also be safe for children if used in much lower doses like 50 mg. Niacin can be used instead but higher doses can be dangerous and result in extreme discomfort and should not be used in doses greater than 50 mg for adults and probably no more than 5-10 mg for children, where niacin can otherwise be gotten from the diet and made endogenously from dietary protein (tryptophan) if the metabolic rate is raised and protein protected from pathogenic interception by tannin and carotene.

Lastly, vitamin C is a non-optional treatment to cancer recovery. Vitamin C is intimately involved in many metabolic processes which promote normal steroidogenesis, cholesterol formation, bile excretion, antioxidant activity, protein and tissue synthesis, and the very respiration pathways which inhibit cancer. It also chelates iron and regenerates vitamin E and glutathione, the major endogenous antioxidant of the body. By facilitating an increase in oxidative metabolism by protecting against reactive oxygen species, vitamin C allows the metabolic rate to rise to the levels which help heal cancer. Natural sources of vitamin C are crucial, and the bulk of it should be obtained through the increase consumption of high-vitamin C foods. After that, supplemental vitamin C can be helpful or even necessary, and I have found it best to use those which are 100% naturally sourced, but synthetics can be fine, especially if you use buffered forms like sodium ascorbate. Supplemental vitamin C is absolutely not a replacement for natural sources. Vitamin C is also destroyed by the state of hyperphosphatemia which results in citric acid deficiency as discussed in the chapter on libido. In fact, the excessive calcification of soft tissues by disruption of this pathway is one of the major etiological origins of breast, ovarian, prostate, and testicular cancer and addressing this deficiency can strongly promote normal mitochondrial respiration and regeneration of cancerous tissue.

Removing or destroying organs like the thyroid as a means to treat cancer is extremely misguided, and is most definitely a case of the cure being worse than the treatment, especially since the thyroid and parathyroid together help to manage calcium homeostasis which is so crucial to so many metabolic pathways in the body. My friend who died of liver cancer after having this thyroid removed likely died in part because of this problem. Additionally, most people who die from cancer treatment die when treatment keeps going and going, as doctors who treat cancer often treat the patient’s body as if it can resist such insane abuse. One young man I tried to help who had an extreme and aggressive form of acute leukemia died of liver failure from the insane amount and potency of the chemotherapy drugs his oncologists gave him, and the several people I know who died from cancer (all during conventional treatment) shared similar stories of using more and more chemo or radiation when their cancer was unresponsive. A little bit of chemo treatment can be useful in advanced cases, to destroy tumors and disinfect the body of carcinogenic pathogens, but there are better ways to do this (such as what is described in this book) and the body cannot handle significant chemotherapy stress and will eventually die from excessive treatment.

While people do die from cancer directly, whenever people die from cancer treatment it is also deceptively classified as a death from cancer, rather than the toxic chemotherapy drugs used to “treat” the patient, making absolutely no distinction between the two, and most people such as that young man with advanced leukemia die from sulfate and glutamine depletion as chemotherapy drugs require the liver to exhaust so much of its sulfate and glutamine stores that it inevitably fails. Chemotherapy accelerates the wasting seen in cancer because chemotherapy accelerates the consumption of glutamine and sulfate both by cancer cells and the liver, because toxic chemotherapy chemicals prevent normal cellular respiration, and sulfate stores are required to sulfate the chemotherapy drugs to get them out of the body. As most of the body’s sulfur is also stored in muscle as cystine, methionine, taurine, and sulfate, this means the only significant source of sulfate to effectively detoxify the drugs is the body itself. Hair has a high concentration of sulfate, and is a direct casualty of chemotherapy because of the massive sulfate consumption. Strategies in this book should be the primary treatment, even in advanced cases of cancer. The young man I tried to help could not even swallow food his cancer was so advanced when he came to me, and within about two weeks he had regained the ability to swallow and was progressing very well until his family pressured him to get traditional treatment and give up every single other strategy he was using from this book, and he died from liver failure about a month after his first chemotherapy course because his oncologists also game him higher doses of chemotherapy than was typical “because he was doing so well,” as they put it. Even people with very advanced cancers find near immediate improvement through these strategies because the body is designed to promote cellular respiration, and they should be the primary approach with other strategies as supplemental therapy, not the other way around. If given the right tools and spared inhibitory and destructive dietary behaviors (including drinking alcohol and using drugs during cancer—not even marijuana or nicotine) the body will work with these efforts better than conventional treatment.

When suffering cancer diet is paramount to survival, and eating common wheat or lots of meat is like pouring gasoline on a fire and will only cause more cancer and reduced chance of survival. Cancer sufferers must stop eating common wheat forever and ever, not only for its gluten but also the fortification by harmful additives like iron and nitrates, and maintain a diet high in fruits and vegetables for the protective effects of phytonutrients like tannin, carotene, anthocyanins, etc. Legumes also can strongly promote nitric oxide inhibition of mitochondria due to their high phytoestrogen content and are best avoided for the rest of the lives of anyone with cancer, although one recovered the occasional bean burrito or lentil dish is fine but should not occur regularly.

Lactic acid such as occurs in yogurt and fermented foods strongly promotes cancer growth by directly lowering the metabolic rate and body temperature. Fish oil, seed oils, corn oil, and canola oils all exacerbate cancer because these fats are unstable in the high heat, high oxygen environment of the human body and produce metabolic byproducts such as abundant lipid peroxides, malondialdehyde, oxylipins, eicosanoids, etc., which interrupt the high-respiratory pathways that promote healing (such as a functioning kynurenine pathway). Sadly, most restaurants use these inferior oils to cook their chips, omelettes, and French fries and if you have cancer your only choices are to entirely avoid all sources of these oils or stick to home cooking to make your own version of these foods without those oils (store-bought salad dressings, mayonnaise, and other fat and oil based products are major offenders too, so always read food labels). 

The effect of foods and therapy on the metabolism of anyone with cancer must be directly measured through the pulse and temperature diagnostic as discussed in the chapter on self therapy, and this diagnostic is a valuable tool in monitoring progress as an increase in metabolic rate as measured through pulse and temperature will stop cancer growth, while declinations in these numbers, indicating reduced metabolic rate, promotes cancer growth.

Keeping blood sugar elevated at all times is also important for suppressing the stress hormones that drive cancer. Eat regularly—no less than every two or three hours. Some theories on sugar’s connection to cancer claim that cancer runs on sugar. This is technically correct but is actually also an observational error as cancer cells first convert that sugar to fat and then metabolize that fat for energy since their mitochondria are incapable of oxidizing carbohydrate due to the Warburg effect caused by loss of mitochondrial silicon. It does no good to remove sugars and carbohydrates when healing cancer because the other body systems which are needed to heal and prevent the cancer from worsening need carbohydrates and sugar to function properly, to fuel normal cellular respiration which heals cancer, where its normal metabolism can be restored by restoration of silicon and mitochondrial respiration.

When suffering from cancer it is silly to expect healing while drowning tissues in alcohol, whose nature it is to dissolve and destroy, but alcohol also suppresses many opportunistic microbes which cause us disease and can treat the condition which underlies alcoholism, and if you have cancer and continue to drink, well, you’d be exactly like me. The chapter on curing alcoholism provides information about what causes alcoholism and addiction and how to heal those underlying conditions and thus relieve ourselves of the burden of substance abuse and makes abstinence from alcohol for recovery from conditions like cancer a more simple matter.

It is also important for anyone with cancer to avoid estrogen products like birth control, estrogen prescriptions, and most herbs (as plants are often high in phytoestrogens) as estrogen stimulates growth and helps to worsen the expansion and migration of tumors since estrogens are hormones of growth. As discussed in the chapter on progesterone, it is the primary hormone of femaleness, not estrogen, so those who are on hormone replacement therapy or transgender and using hormones can still maintain their desired gender attributes through the use of progesterone which also helps to treat cancer, and once a full recovery is made lower doses of estrogen can be resumed if required.

A person using these therapies should notice at least small positive improvements within days, especially reflected in the measurement of pulse and temperature, and without using this metabolic diagnostic tool as discussed in the chapter on self therapy you will be guessing your progress which will leave you uncertain, uniformed, and guessing. Measuring the temperature and pulse constantly as described in that chapter can empower you to visualize and directly measure your progress (or lack thereof), which can help you make adjustments or lean on especially useful strategies more strategically. Positive changes such as increases in body temperature, feeling more relaxed, lessened pain, aggravation, improved energy, etc., are signs that healing has begun, and prognosis thereafter is linked with alleviation of symptoms. This is not something that we wait for months to see, wondering if you're doing it right. It should begin happening right away and continue to improve linearly, continuously and consistently. If you don't see positive changes you are probably not adhering to one or more of the concepts, such as wheat or bad fats abstinence or properly mitigating nitric oxide, and need to evaluate diet and behavior or reconsider supplement strategy.

The great temptation from this therapy is to begin taking health for granted once it starts to return, and to resume old habits and be less regimented in treatment. This is a mistake because symptoms will disappear even while the potential for recurrence is still high, as tumors may in fact never actually heal (it is not the tumors which kill but the hormones they secrete), and treatment should continue for several years after symptoms abate. Daily peak temperature and pulse should eventually reach 99˚ F and 85 bpm. While getting close to those numbers is great, if they are not reaching those or exceeding them more work is required. Most people with cancer also present with gum disease because those pathogens so readily access the bloodstream and thus very strongly contribute to cancer, so gum disease should be immediately treated as discussed in that chapter, with a shot of ceftriaxone if it can be acquired to wipe out gingival pathogens as quickly as possible, and avoid reinfection and treat intimate partners for long term recovery.

Cancer does not need to be the frightening development it is usually considered. While cancer is often catalyzed by pathogens it is also just the body trying to get well, so you can help it along with a little care and planning and it is easier to heal from cancer than other diseases like diabetes or cystic fibrosis since cancer only occurs from the most fundamental failures of human biology which are very easy to reverse since the body itself is inclined already to do so.