Dr. Michael Gerber, M.D. reviews a lecture I gave at the Nevada Medical Society in 2011. His article, reprinted below, appeared in Townsend Newsletter for Doctors http://www.townsendletter.com/FebMarch2012/monthmiracles0212.html
REVIEW of LECTURE by Bradford S. Weeks, MD entitled:
CCC (Corrective Cancer Care), IPT (Insulin Potentiated Therapy)
, CSC (Cancer Stem Cells), QOL (Quality of Life) and the Cordelia Effect in the Treatment of People with Cancer
I thought Dr. Weeks’s lecture was truly revolutionary (www.weeksmd.com). A great student of medicine and literature, he is a fine wordsmith and communicator. In Shakespeare’s King Lear, Lear’s third daughter, Cordelia, proved to be the most beloved and loyal. Using this analogy to cancer therapy, Weeks unwinds the kinder, gentler, and more comprehensive approach to cancer care. He is an orthomolecular psychiatrist, rigorous researcher, humanitarian, musician, and apitherapist from Washington State, with extensive writing and international lecturing experience.
Cancer, he notes, is not the problem; cancer is an adaptive response to the problem. Toxic blood and tissue (the mesenchyme) is the problem.
Insulin Potentiated Therapy
The first IPT was used in 1946 by Donato Perez Garcia Sr., MD, to successfully treat breast cancer. Cancer cells have extensive insulin and IGF-1 receptors and have from 6 to 17 times more insulin receptors per cell than noncancer cells. Insulin targets cancer cells and enhances anticancer drug effects, which can be effective in much smaller doses than usual chemotherapy treatment. Only 2% of all cancers respond to traditional chemotherapy at the five-year survival level.9 Insulin enhanced the cytotoxic effect of methotrexate in MCF-7 human breast cancer cells in vitro by a factor of up to 10,000-fold.10
Glucose is the only fuel that cancer cells can use. Cancer cells have 10 times the IGF -1 receptors as regular cells.11 Insulin increases delta 9-desaturase, which makes cancer cells become permeable. IGF-1 doubles the number of cancer cells in S-phase: increasing vulnerability to chemotherapy drugs. Cancer cells are selectively targeted so that lower doses of chemotherapy can be used, which are very effective and preserve immune function. It also increases appetite, weight and, euphoria.
Nutrients
Lifestyle, exercise, quality thoughts, and supplements are all part of Weeks’s program for corrective cancer care. He notes that caffeine forces apoptosis, along with curcumin and turmeric. Theanine increases gamma interferon, arginine increases natural killer cells and T-cell function. American ginseng increases T-cell function, melatonin increases IL-2 and epidermal growth factor. Vitamins A, C, and D are also important along with aromatase inhibitors, BioDim, and Myomin. To prevent metastases, Weeks recommends modified citrus pectic, heparin, and thalidomide. Fermented soy in Haelan 951 contains isoflavones, protease inhibitors, saponins, phytosterols, and phytic acid compounds. Proteolytic enzymes taken away from food selectively attack and kill cancer cells, clean up debris, unmask cancer cells (membrane effect), prevent metatstatic disease, and offer systemic immune enhancement with a compelling scientific, clinical record.
Vitamin D3 has 63 recent studies that have shown that the incidence of colon, breast, and ovarian cancer can be dramatically reduced by increasing the public’s intake of vitamin D.12 Vitamin K3 especially in combination with vitamin C showed synergistic effects. High-dose IV vitamin C infusions have been shown to have cytotoxic effects in most cancer cell lines in vitro. The mechanism appears to be intracellular accumulation of H2O2 with low catalase enzyme activity native to cancer cells. Vitamin C has also been found to potentiate the effects of chemotherapy drugs.13
Cancer Stem Cells
Max Wicha, MD, distinguished professor of oncology and director of the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, has delivered a startling revelation that standard cancer treatments not only often fail to eradicate cancer, but can make it worse. The reason that breast cancer and other malignancies often return aggressively after treatment is that when tumor cells die under assault from chemotherapy and radiation, they give off substances that can reactivate a special set of master cells known as cancer stem cells. Dr. Wicha’s lab has found that inflammatory molecules secreted by dying tumor cells (IL-8) can hook up with the stem cells and cause them in effect to come out of hibernation. Cancer stem cells are relatively resistant to cytotoxic chemotherapeutics and radiation. “Chemotherapy and radiation makes cancer worse.”14,15
Dr. Weeks offers many treatments to help suppress cancer stem cells. Please get his entire lecture from NHIMA; and he had a lecture scheduled at the Orthomolecular Health Medicine conference February 24, 2012, in San Francisco. He thinks that it is necessary to reeducate confused cancer stem cells by changing the body’s environment with anti-inflammatory agents to disrupt the IL-8 cytokine “SOS” and allow differentiation of cancer stem cells. Such agents include Reprotaxin, a cancer cell receptor 1 blocker (per Dr. Wicha), soy, above nutrients, and enzymes, as well as iodine (iodolactones), which increased apoptosis in 80% of breast cancer cell lines.
High on Fermented Soy
Haelan 951 is a potent treatment for cancer that decreases pro-inflammatory cytokines including IL8 and promotes cell differentiation in five cancer cell lines in vitro, as shown in studies dating from 1990.16 This fermented soy product also promotes antiangiogenesis and stem cell metastasis by its anti-inflammatory mechanism. It improves apoptosis of cancer cells, and DNA repair, reactivates P-53 tumor suppressor gene, and increases P21 activity. It also reduces estrogen levels, increases estrogen receptor-beta receptors (ER-b), decreases estrogen receptor-alpha (ER-a), and decreases matrix metalloproteinase enzymes, which erode collagen containment of tumor cells and allow cancer stem cells to spread throughout the body, creating metastases. This product also helps prevent protein calories malnutrition (cachexia or starvation), which kills 80% of cancer patients. It shuts down that NF-kB mutation pathway, which is used by cancer cells to escape death, and enhances tumor necrosis factor (TNF), a pillar of our immune system required to fight cancer. Fermented soy overcomes depression with improved quality of life and increases nonspecific immune stimulation by 400%, with macrophage levels improving 3-fold, and doubles the number of active macrophages. Other positive characteristics include reduction of exosomes, which are particles that inhibit both NK cells and gamma interferon, and increasing BAX gene 500% that kills cancer cells via allowing apoptosis and decreasing BCL2 gene by 200%, which allows cancer cells to thrive by evading apoptosis.
Taking Haelan fermented soy 4 oz twice per day may be challenging in regard to taste; it is very bitter. Weeks recommends taking it with stevia/xylitol and Ola Loa Orange drink, one packet in cold water. It may also be taken via retention enema.
Metformin for CSC
New data from Cancer Research Journal 2011 in May demonstrate that metformin selectively kills chemotherapy-resistant cancer stem cells in breast cancer cell lines, and studies in Medical Oncology February 2011 suggest several mechanisms for its ability to suppress cancer growth in vitro and vivo.17,18 It activates LKB1/AMPK pathway, induction of cell cycle arrest and/or apoptosis, inhibits protein synthesis, reduces insulin levels, inhibits the unfolded protein response, activates the immune system, and eradicates cancer stem cells.
Summary: Stem Cells and Cancer
“Cancer mortality is directly related to cancer stem cell activity (metastatic and proliferative processes). Chemotherapy and radiation do not kill cancer stem cells. Chemotherapy and radiation make cancers grow faster and more virulently. Treatment of cancer patients requires adjunctive care. Treatment which fails to address the toxicity of cancer stem cells is futile and irresponsible”. Please go online to Dr. Weeks’s websites to get all of the citations for further reading on stem cell treatments and leading researchers in the field, including Walter Wainright (Haelan Research Foundation); Max Wicha, MD; Michael Clark, MD, director, Stanford Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine; Max Diehn, MD, oncology radiologist, Stanford University; and Ursula Jacob, MD.
Clinical Case Studies
Dr. Weeks presents five clinical case studies with phenomenal outcomes. Stage 4 cancers with a death sentence responded to his therapies with great success. Please read his full reports from his lecture on NHIMA DVDs or from his website. In addition to the above treatments, he uses LDN 4.5 mg, low-dose naltrexone touted to stop tumor growth. Cimetidine is also added for its antitumor effect. He uses chemosensitivity testing via Biofocus in Germany, which grows cancer cells in culture and determines which chemotherapy and nutrient therapies induce apoptosis and focus on which chemotherapeutic agents are most effective in IPT. In addition, he uses IV vitamin C 50 to 75 g backed by alpha-lipoic acid 600 mg by IV push 3 hours later to improve the oxidative stress on cancer cells by vitamin C. (Thanks to Bert Berkson, MD, who has championed alpha-lipoic acid for many decades.) Weeks also uses homeopathic and anthroposophical remedies such as aurum stibium, Hyoscyamus, hepar stannum, Lien cichorium, lymphocytes 8, thrombocytes 6, and erythrocytes 6. In addition to Haelan 951, Ioderal, multivitamin and mineral supplements, niacin, selenium, CoQ10, vitamin D3, LDN 4.5 mg, and metformin 500 mg b.i.d.
Quotations from King Lear
Cordelia: Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides.
Who covers faults, at last shame them derides. …
…
We are not the first
Who with best meaning incurr’d the worst.
Tune in for our next installment of the Brain Trust next month.
Michael Gerber, MD, HMD
contact@gerbermedical.com
Notes
1. Morgentaler A et al. Testosterone therapy in men with untreated prostate cancer.J Urol. 2011 Apr;185(4):1256-1261.
2. Guerini V, Sau D, et al. Cancer Res. 2005;65:5445-5453.
3. Wilt TJ, et al. Five-alpha-reductase Inhibitors for prostate cancer prevention.Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2008 Apr 16;(2):CD007091.
4. Stanislavov R, Nikolova V. Treatment of erectile dysfunction with pycnogenol and L-arginine. J Sex Marital Ther. 2003 May-June;29(3):207-213
5. Bray GW. The hypochlorhydria of asthma in childhood. Q J Med. January 1931;24:181-197.
6. Josephson E. Glaucoma and Its Medical Treatment with Cortin. New York: Chedney Press; 1937.
7. Trune DR, Kempton JB, Gross ND. Mineralaocorticoid receptor mediates glucocorticoid treatment effects in the autoimmune mouse ear. Hear Res. 2006 Feb;212(1-2):22-32.
8. Lazarou J et al. Incidence of adverse drug reactions in hospitalized patients:a meta-analysis of prospective studies. JAMA. Apr 15, 1998;279(15):1200-1205.
9. Morgan G, Ward R, Barton M. The contribution of cytotoxic chemotherapy to 5-year survival in adult malignancies. Clin Oncol (R Coll Radiol). 2004 Dec;16(8):549-560.
10. Alabaster O, Vonderhaar BK, Shafie SM. Metabolic modification by insulin enhances methotrexate cytotoxicity in MCF-7 human breast cancer cells. Eur J Cancer Clin Oncol. 1981;17:1097-1103.
11. Cullen JK et al. IGF-1 receptor expression and function in HBCC. Cancer Res. 1990;50:48-53.
12. Professor Cedric Garland the University of San Diego, California, after reviewing 63 recent studies on Vitamin D and cancer.
13. Zaizen et al. J Cancer Res Lin Oncol. 1986; Prasad et al. Pol J Pharmacol Pharm. 1992; Koch, Biaglow. J Cell Physiol. 1978; Hanck AB. Vitamin C and cancer. Prog Clin Biol Res. 1988;259:307-320.
14. Weeks B. Corrective Cancer care – inhibiting the lethal cancer stem cells [blog post]. WeeksMD. https://weeksmd.com/?p=5014; Wicha M. Breast cancer stem cell regulation [online video].http://wn.com/professor_max_wicha__breast_cancer_stem_cell_regulation.
15. Baker, M Stemcells: Fast and furious. Nature. 2009 Apr 23;458(7241):962-965.
16. Handayani R. Soy isoflavones alter expression of genes associated with cancer progression, including interleukin-8, in androgen-independent PC-3 human prostate cancer cells. J Nutr. January 2006;136:75-82.
17. Iliopoulos D, Hirsch HA, Struhl K. Cancer Res. 2011 May 1;71(9):3196-3201.
18. Kourelis TV, Siegel R. Metformin and cancer; new applications for an old drug.Med Oncol. 2011 Feb 8.
19. Kokkonen J, Simila S, Herva R. Impaired gastric function in children with cow’s milk intolerance. Eur J Pediatr. 1979 Sep;132(1):1-6.
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