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BLOOD CLUMPING: When red blood cells clump, they cannot easily go through capillaries and cause tissues to become oxygen-deprived. (Photos.com)
"From the standpoint of the physics and chemistry of life the difference between normal and cancer cells is so great that we can scarcely picture a greater difference,” said Dr. Otto Warburg, the German biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in 1931 for medicine and physiology.
“Oxygen gas, the donor of energy in plants and animals is replaced in cancer cells by an energy-yielding reaction of the lowest living forms, namely a fermentation of glucose,” Warburg said.
If it is true that the replacement of oxygen respiration by fermentation is the primary cause of cancer, then all cancer cells without exception must ferment, and no normal- growing cell ought to exist that ferments in the body.
“Many experts agree that one could prevent about 80 percent of all cancers in man if all contact with known exogenous carcinogens could be avoided. But how can the remaining 20 percent, the so-called spontaneous cancers, be prevented?” Warburg asks.
No cancer cell exists where the respiration is intact. Cancer could be prevented if the respiration of the body cells could be kept intact.
Today we know two methods by which we can influence cell respiration. The first method of influencing cell respiration in vivo is to add the active groups of the respiratory enzymes to food. Lack of these groups impairs respiration—a statement proven by the fact that these groups provide necessary vitamins.
The second is to decrease the oxygen pressure in growing cells. If it is decreased to a level where the oxygen-transferring enzymes are no longer saturated with oxygen, respiration can decrease irreversibly and normal cells can be transformed into facultative anaerobes [makes energy with or without oxygen].
“To prevent cancer, it is therefore proposed first to keep the speed of the bloodstream so high that the venous blood still contains sufficient oxygen. Second, to keep the high concentration of hemoglobin in the blood.
“Third, to add always to the food of even healthy people the active groups of the respiratory enzymes and to increase the doses of these groups if a precancerous state has already developed. If at the same time exogenous carcinogens are excluded rigorously, then much of the endogenous cancer might be prevented today.
“These proposals are in no way utopian. On the contrary, they may be realized by everybody, everywhere, at any hour. Unlike the prevention of many other diseases, prevention of cancer requires no government help and not much money,” Warburg said.
Warburg wrote “The Prime Cause and Prevention of Cancer” in 1967. He was 83 years old and was still clear, logical, and forceful.
However, in the view of most experts, he was mistaken. They claim that his sweeping generalizations spring from gross simplification. His student Hans Krebs, also a Nobel laureate, believes that Warburg neglected the fundamental biochemical aspects of the cancer problem. According to Krebs, the primary cause of cancer is at the level of the control of gene expression.
Warburg’s cancer studies led him to fear that exposure to food additives increases one’s chances of contracting the disease. He therefore baked his own bread, grew his own vegetables and fruits, and raised chickens, ducks, and geese at his home. He avoided insecticides, preservatives, and food additives until his death in 1970 at the age of 87.
The reader should consult a physician for all medical advice.
Sheldon Zerden is an award-winning author. Questions and comments can be sent to Axnoon@yahoo.com
