CANCER--A DISEASE OF CIVILIZATION

"The major cancers of our time are diet-caused, mainly by fat and cholesterol."
Dr Ernst Wynder, American Health Foundation, addressing the US Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs

   Cancer is a state of cellular growth which occurs when some normal cells of a plant or an animal become abnormal and continue to grow abnormally. It is characterized by the ability of the abnormal cells to subdivide and grow outside of the constraints which automatically limit the subdivision and growth of normal cells. It is uncommon in nature. It does not occur in properly nourished and vigorously healthy humans.

   Cancer, in the many forms we know it, is a disease of civilization, and is practically unknown among primitive people properly nourished on a simple natural diet. Whether such people live in the Arctic or in Africa, and whether they eat fish and whale meat, or mashed corn and bananas, cancer as it afflicts our society, is unknown. The book Cancer--a Disease of Civilization by Vilhjalmur Stephansson, describes studies of Eskimos* in the late 1800s and early 1900's specifically looking for cancer among them, and how not one case could be found. The only Eskimos to ever develop cancer were those who came to live in white man's settlements and who adopted white man's dietary and other living habits. Similar observations have been made by doctors in other primitive natural areas of the world.

*The name Eskimo is derived from a Cree Indian expression meaning "he eats meat raw". Although the primitive Eskimo diet comprised mainly animal protein and fat, most of it was consumed raw, thus providing enzymes favorable for the more efficient metabolism of these substances, as previously described, The Eskimo had no refined foods at all, and did not use salt. In addition, the large amounts of ecosapentaenoic acid (EPA) contained in the diet ensured a non-sticky, free-flowing bloodstream. At the same time, the Eskimos' life was simple and stress-free and they got plenty of outdoor exercise.

   In his book The Cradle of the World and Cancer--A Disease of Civilization (1927), Dr E.H. Tipper said: "Cancer has been suspected of being a disease of civilization. judging from my experience in general practice in London, twenty years in West Africa, and again in rural England, I am convinced that this is true. It is due to the conventionalism and bad feeding of civilization, and is an exact index of the degree to which the alimentary tract has deviated from its natural and normal state of health". And referring to the practice of natives eating only natural foods he said: "There is no such thing as constipation--there is no cancer. At the first dawn of civilization amongst them this disease makes its appearance; where civilization is advanced it is rife".

   Dr Roger Williams in 1898, writing in Lancet, blamed environmental factors of the alarming increase in cancer during the preceding 50 years, and noted the death rate in England had increased from 17 per 10,000 per year to 88. Dr Williams attributed the increase to the fact that meat consumption had doubled, and he advocated eating more vegetables and getting more fresh air and exercise. However, since then the very opposite to Dr Williams' advice has been adopted, and accordingly, cancer as a cause of death is now second only to cardiovascular disease, and continues to increase.

   The most common form of cancer in affluent Western countries is cancer of the bowel which includes cancer of the colon and rectum. The third National Cancer Survey by the US National Cancer Institute showed that this form of cancer now causes more deaths than any other. Previously, breast cancer caused more deaths among women, and lung cancer among men. The incidence of cancer is much lower among vegetarians, particularly those who consume no dairy products.

   Cancer growths are called tumors or neoplasms and may occur in many different forms and in different parts of the body. Arising from cells in originally normal tissue, the initial growth is called a primary tumor. Primary tumors usually occur in tissues which in their day-to-day function have a constant wearing out and renewal of cells--tissues such as the skin and the lining of the digestive tract, the respiratory tract and the female genital canal. Primary tumors also occur at locations in which there is cell renewal due to irritation or injury. Primary cancer rarely occurs in muscle or nerve tissue in which tissue the cells do not normally subdivide and renew, but these tissues are capable of supporting the growth of secondary tumors originating from stray cancer cells from a primary cancer elsewhere.

   Although they vary greatly in appearance and function, all cells of the body are basically the same, having developed from the same primitive cells of the early developing fetus after conception. Having developed into different specialized cells of the various body tissues, they are said to be differentiated. To become cancer cells, normal cells change in degrees to a primitive form capable of the unrestrained reproduction characteristic of primitive undifferentiated cells. The degree to which cells become de-differentiated determines the degree of malignancy of the cancer. If a tumor is composed of cells which are only slightly abnormal and grow slowly with near-normal cell division without spreading, it is considered benign, presenting no immediate threat to life.

   Tumors consist both of cancer cells and cells which are apparently normal, the latter sometimes making up 90% of the total, as if the body was attempting to contain the cancer cells by surrounding them with normal cells. Malignant cells frequently detach from the primary tumor and circulate in the lymph and bloodstream. Usually they are apprehended in the lymph nodes adjacent to the primary tumor and destroyed by the white cells. However, in cancer patients the immune system is defective in varying degrees, and the migrating cancer cells may not only survive in the lymph nodes, but proceed further to colonize elsewhere in the body as a secondary tumor. This process is called metastasis.

   Few people die from the primary tumor, but once the cancer has metastasized the condition is usually regarded in orthodox circles as "terminal".

   When cancer grows or metastasizes, it does not "infect" adjacent cells but grows as an entity, still reproducing abnormal cells the same as itself. For instance, if breast cancer metastasizes to the lung, the secondary tumor in the lung will be composed of cancerous breast cells.

   Whereas in the past, malignancy has been considered as a virtual death sentence, this is no longer the case. Many people have recovered naturally from "terminal" cancer and there now is sufficient knowledge of cancer to help others do the same. (See Spontaneous Remission of Cancer.) With this knowledge the complete avoidance of cancer is simple and easy.

   Some body organs such as the liver and the adrenal gland, having been substantially damaged, can regenerate to almost full capacity. Nerve cells and muscle cells, when destroyed, do not regenerate, but nor do they commonly become cancerous.

   A medical definition of cancer which may assist the reader's understanding and acceptance of the detailed explanation which then follows is given by Professor Otto Neunhoeffer of Hamburg, Germany:

   "The malignant disease is a syndrome characterizing results arising from abnormal biochemical reactions, which if not interrupted or reversed, result in a tumor, which then in itself becomes a very active source for abnormal primary reactions, thus accelerating the entire process.

   "It is an accepted fact that a malignant tumor develops only after an average eight-year period of pre-cancer. To understand this preliminary period when the condition actually existed, even though undetected, it is necessary to distinguish between biochemically malignant disease, and a malignant tumor."

   Whereas cancer patients usually die of cachexia, which is the wasting away of the body as its vital processes progressively fail, and whereas it is clear that the growth of diseased cells is only part of this degenerative process, it is obvious that the prevention and reversal of the disease depend not upon destruction of cancer cells with vicious medical procedures, but in correcting the underlying defects in body chemistry which initiated the whole process in the first place.

How cancer starts

  The general medical viewpoint of cancer being a cellular upset initiated by some quirk of nature, and localized somewhere within an otherwise healthy body, is absolutely untenable to anyone possessing an enquiring mind and reasonable power of observation. Based solely on the existence of the localized symptom (ie. the cancer growth) and completely inconsistent with most of the known facts, this viewpoint, as a basis for cancer treatment and research, has prevented and continues to prevent any chance of solution to the cancer problem.

   Although the "novel" concept of cancer being a constitutional disease primarily of dietary origin has been in existence at least since 1809 when Dr Richard Lambe of London wrote a treatise on the cure of cancer using a diet of raw fruit and vegetables, only recently has the cancer "establishment" started to seriously investigate this possibility, having in the past ruthlessly suppressed such notions and all those who held them.

   Among the many independent physicians who over the years have used dietary methods in researching and treating cancer, are four of the 20th Century's greatest men of medicine, selected here because their descriptions of the cancer process most adequately explain the subject.

1. Dr Otto Warburg, double Nobel Prize winner and Director of the Max Planck Institute of Cell Physiology, Germany. The holder of many international honors, Dr Warburg was considered by Dr Dean Burk, head of the National Cancer Institute at the time, to be the world's greatest bio-chemist.
2. Dr Max Gerson, of Germany, friend and confidant of Dr Albert Schweitzer, who described Gerson as a medical genius.
3. Dr William F. Koch of USA, BA, MA, PhD, MD, described by Dr Willard Dow, founder of the Dow Chemical Company, to be the greatest bio-chemist of his time and so far ahead of his contemporaries they could not understand him.:

   Compassionate men and competent authors, typically "ahead of their time", these doctors between them had over 200 years experience in researching and successfully treating cancer in all its stages.

   Because the opinions of these great doctors on the causes of cancer essentially agree, and because their achieved successes prove their common theory in the absence of any other tenable hypothesis, the explanation which follows is a composite of their theories and observations.

The cancer milieu

   Although individually only a tiny component of the body, every single cell is a living organism in its own right, and needs to be constantly supplied with nutrients, fuel and oxygen, at the same time needing to be cleansed and its waste products to be removed. Responsible for this care is the extracellular fluid (lymph) surrounding the cell which derives from the bloodstream and is continually changing. The quality of this fluid is, of course, dependent on the quality of the blood which is in turn dependent on the quality of the diet and the efficiency of the liver. Not only must the liver supply the bloodstream with the proper nutrients, it must at the same time keep it as free as possible from toxins.

   The Western diet and other civilized indiscretions result in a toxic, fat-clogged bloodstream and eventual liver impairment, responsible for the deterioration of the cellular environment to that known as the "cancer milieu".

Oxygen

   In 1947 Dr F. Windesch of Germany demonstrated that by intermittent withholding of oxygen, normal body cells could be changed into cancer cells. This discovery was confirmed in 1953 by Drs Goldblatt and Cameron (Experimental Medicine, 97, 525, 1953).

   Dr Otto Warburg, the Director of the Max Planck Institute of Cell Physiology, in Germany, stated in 1955 that a lifetime of research had convinced him that cancer was caused by oxygen deprivation to the cells.

   Dr H.A. Schweigart, another German, found that cancerous tissue always is depleted in oxygen.

   Dr W. Spencer Way of Florida, writing on the importance of oxygen (Journal of the American Association of Physicians, December, 1951) said: "This confirms the finding of Fischer who kept cancerous mice under a pressure of two atmospheres for 14 hours and cured their cancer. If agents acting as catalyzers were used, the results were even better".

The role of blood viscosity and circulation

   As described in Chapter 11, the degree of viscosity of the bloodstream is a key factor in all disease, more so than ever with cancer. Apart from anything else, the freedom of the blood to flow is a crucial factor alone. As we have seen, the degree of freedom to flow is determined mainly by the viscosity of the blood.

   The connection between high blood viscosity and poor oxygen supply with cancer is clear. Referring again to Dr Dintenfas' paper on blood viscosity:

   "Wardle in 1967 suggested that it is the increased blood viscosity in the small digital arteries which is responsible for the common symptom of malignancy. Red cell aggregation, platelet aggregation and hypercoagulability can contribute to this syndrome. Crenated red cells, raised fibrinogen, increased platelet stickiness are all common features of malignancy."

   It is commonly known that the ESR (red cell sedimentation rate, see Chapter 10) of cancer patients is always high. Dr Melvin Knisely stated in 1947:

   "Thus far, completely unagglutinated blood has been found only in strictly healthy animals and men. No severely ill person has yet been seen who did not have intravascular agglutination of the blood and visibly pathologic vessel walls." (From the paper, "Sludged Blood," by Melvin H. Knisely, Edward H. Bloch, Theodore S. Eliot and Louise Warner, Hall Laboratory of Anatomy, University of Chicago, Department of Zoophysiology, University of Copenhagen, and Departments of Anatomy and Preventive Medicine, University of Tennessee, Science, Nov 7, 1947.)

   It appears that in tissues provided with reasonable circulation, primary cancer does not readily occur, and furthermore, should it have already started, there will be no metastasis in tissues where free circulation is maintained. The following extracts from Dr Leopold Dintenfas' book, Rheology of Blood in Diagnostic and Preventive Medicine (1976) explain why:

   "Olwyn (1971) in his editorial, reviewed the effect of anticoagulants on tumor metastasis and noted that a number of investigators found a significant protection from metastasis by the application of heparin, plasmin, warfarin or decoumarol. In an informal survey of 200 patients with a history of myocardial infarction or cerebral arterial insufficiency, receiving heparin daily or every second day for periods of two to 22 years, Griffith (1971) found no instance of malignant tumor. Michaels (1971), who reviewed 540 patients on oral anticoagulant therapy for thromboembolic disorders) found presence of metastasis reduced eightfold against statistical expectation."

   A similar study by Dr Bjorn Stinkvist, University Hospital, Upsala, Sweden, on women maintained on digitalis for cardiac problems, showed that spreading breast cancer was only one-tenth of the rate experienced by women not on digitalis, and even when it occurred the cancer was less aggressive.

   Impairment of free circulation can also be caused mechanically by tight clothing or plain inactivity. In a number of cases tight-fitting brassieres have been suspected as a factor in breast cancer, particularly in overweight women.