From the Inside Flap
BOOK EXCERPT: "What Causes Cancer?"
Excerpted from Chapter 2 - Dr. Gonzalez's Chapter
My approach to cancer; what it is, what causes it, and how to treat it is similar to that of the early 1900s English scientist John Beard, DSc, who developed a ground-breaking theory on cancer over 100 years ago. Conventional medicine believes that cancer develops from mature, healthy cells that go "berserk," mutate, and turn cancerous. Dr. Beard believed that cancer didn't come from mature cells, but from residual trophoblast cells that remain in all of us and which are scattered throughout our tissues and organs. Embryonic trophoblast cells are the earliest precursors to the placenta; the scattered trophoblast cells in the mature organism serve as stem cells, regenerating new tissues as replacements are needed. They sit quietly most of the time, but can, at some point, start growing just like the placenta, as the result of a stimulus, such as an infection or inflammation, but unlike the placenta, they grow in the wrong place and at the wrong time. And just as the placenta grows and invades into the uterus, cancer cells grow fast and invade local tissues and organs.
When Dr. Beard's view that cancer was caused by misplaced trophoblasts (which are the type of cells produced by the placenta) growing in the wrong place at the wrong time was published in a book nearly 100 years ago, in 1911, people thought that he was crazy, even though he was an eminent university professor who was nominated for a Nobel Prize in 1906 for his work in embryology. Indeed, he was a prominent embryologist, but people thought he had gone off the deep end when it came to cancer.
His theory, however, is similar to what molecular biologists are saying today; that cancer cells resemble misplaced trophoblasts (or placental cells) in many ways. They grow fast like placental cells, produce their blood supply in the same manner as placental cells, and are invasive like placental cells. Much of their molecular biology is identical to placental cells, and they use exactly the same invasive techniques in the body that placental cells use when they invade the uterus. Additionally, their transcription and other factors are similar so biologists are now beginning to study Beard's early tumor model. (Transcription factors are molecules that are involved in controlling gene expression). So Beard may not have been that far off in his thinking, but it's sad that 100 years of research have been lost in the meantime. If researchers had listened to Beard back in 1911, knowledge of cancer biology today would be more extensive. At my office, we look at cancer as Beard did.
The second component of Beard's hypothesis was that while the placenta initially grows, develops, proliferates rapidly, invades tissue, and develops a blood supply like a cancer, at some point, it changes completely and stops doing all of these things. The mature placenta is a very benign tissue, and is a necessary link between the embryo and the mother's blood supply in mammals. Cancer is different from placental cells in that it never stops growing and invading--and ultimately kills us, whereas placental cells, at a predetermined point, suddenly change completely and stop behaving like a cancer. Beard spent years trying to figure out what the signal was that caused the placental cells to stop acting like invasive cancer cell tissue, and one day realized that that it was when the embryonic pancreas became active. This led him to formulate his thesis that pancreatic enzymes control trophoblastic destiny, and since trophoblasts are like cancer cells, and enzymes control trophoblast activity, pancreatic enzymes are useful for controlling cancer and can therefore be used in cancer therapy. So these enzymes became the essence of his therapy.
Interestingly, a lot of molecular biologists, such as Max S. Wicha, MD, at the University of Michigan, also now believe that cancer doesn't develop from mature cells gone "berserk" but from stem cells. Stem cells are used to replace cells that are lost through normal turnover, aging, disease and injury, and their role in cancer development is a hot topic in modern research. We think that these cells are what Beard really identified, because he described the misplaced trophoblasts that he found as being microscopic, primitive, undifferentiated cells that are scattered throughout our tissues, which basically also describes stem cells. So we believe that stem cells were discovered by Dr. Beard in 1902, even though they weren't officially recognized as such until 1960. In summary, Dr. Beard's misplaced trophoblasts are what we today call stem cells, and these are the source of cancer.
The incidence of cancer has increased dramatically in recent years. I have been in practice for twenty-three years and I have seen things change a lot. When I was in medical school in the early 1980s, I was taught that cancer was an old person's disease. When I started out in practice, I didn't see twenty year-olds with cancer; now I see them almost routinely. Back then, if I saw young adults with cancer, it was usually because they had twenty years of smoking under their belts. But today, I see young adults with breast, metastatic lung, and other types of cancer and these cancers are far more aggressive than they were ten, twenty, or thirty years ago, and I think the reasons are environmental. Just recently, I consulted on a twenty-four year-old patient with metastatic breast cancer, and a twelve year-old with pancreatic cancer. This is happening because the world is more polluted than it used to be, and each year, it gets worse.
Assuming that Dr. Beard's theory about cancer is correct, why would these toxins affect the development of cancer in a person? He wrote in his book 100 years ago that any type of inflammation, irritation or toxic exposure could cause these immature trophoblast cells to start dividing. So, whether you believe that cancer is caused by mutations of mature cells or by trophoblasts, there is no question that environmental toxins stimulate cancer growth. And it's for this reason that younger people are now getting cancer.
There are all kinds of toxins in the environment, both appreciated and unappreciated. Recently, I read that over 75,000 chemicals have been approved for industrial use in the United States. One of my European doctor friends told me that artillery shells are now coated in inactivated uranium. Uranium is among the heaviest of metals and can penetrate walls, tanks, and artillery. It's also 98% radioactive, so no matter what anyone's politics are, every time the military utilizes one of these artillery shells, in Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever the place may be, they are increasing environmental radiation. Over the past ten years, tens of thousands of artillery shells have been discharged in war, which has added a significant load of unappreciated radiation toxicity into our environment.
So there are a lot of toxins in the environment that weren't even there ten years ago. Many of these toxins are mutagenic and carcinogenic, so whether people believe in Beard's theory or in a more traditional origin of cancer, there's no question that chemical toxins in the environment are stimulating cancer development in humans.
From the Back Cover
BOOK EXCERPT: "Dr. Zieve's Treatment Approach"
Excerpted from Chapter 3 - Dr. Zieve's Chapter
Robert J. Zieve, MD, is one of the most experienced and well-trained physicians in integrative medicine in the United States. He is the director of the Pine Tree Clinic for Comprehensive Medicine in Prescott, AZ and is supervising physician at the EuroMed Foundation integrative cancer clinic in Phoenix, AZ.
Dr. Zieve is trained in many different medical disciplines, including homeopathy, nutrition, herbal, anthroposophical, and European biological medicine, as well as conventional allopathic and energy medicine.
Dr. Zieve's Treatment Appropach: Successful cancer treatment involves addressing five main areas:
- Immune system enhancement
- Detoxification
- Lowering inflammation
- Suppressing angiogenesis, or the capacity of cancer cells to make new blood vessels so that they can spread
- Encouraging apoptosis, or the natural death of cancer cells
My treatment approach has evolved organically through many years of being blessed to study with other experts in the field, both nationally and internationally, as well as from my experience of treating patients. I have evolved in being able to work with patients in a way that is intelligent, and which is backed by good science and common sense. I go beyond just treating people; I encourage them to actively participate in healing their cancers and their lives.
My treatments include botanicals, homeopathy, IV solutions, and nutrient and detoxification therapies to address all of the above components of healing. (Note: while "botanicals" refers to herbs, it also includes plant parts that aren't strictly herbs, such as bark, seeds, roots, and stems.) Because cancer is a systemic disease, and we see many patients with stage three or four cancers, chemotherapy plays an important role in helping them to heal or have a longer and better quality of life. For such situations, I prefer to use low-dose, high-frequency chemotherapy in an Insulin Potentiation Therapy (IPT) format. This is frequently effective even for metastatic cancers, though it isn't recognized as a valid treatment in modern oncology. Sometimes, patients choose not to do IPT. If that's the case, I will work with them and their oncologists to help design an alternate program that will produce a promising outcome. These treatments and specific examples of how I use them are described in greater detail in the following sections.
Where I start people in their treatments depends upon the phase of disease that they are in. For instance, I won't have lengthy initial conversations with patients who are really sick and come into the EuroMed Foundation clinic in a wheelchair. We will instead start them on a nutritional IV right away, to build up their strength, as we initiate low-dose chemotherapy and a program of oral botanical remedies and nutrients. The IVs that we give may consist of Vitamin C (which has been well-researched in the medical literature for its usefulness in cancer care) along with minerals and other vitamins.
Sometimes, people who have come into our clinic in wheelchairs have been able to walk within days after having received a nutritional IV and low-dose chemotherapy treatment, and this gives them hope. They are also usually feeling better, and the color has come back into their faces.
For a woman with an early stage of breast cancer, my treatment approach would be different. We would sit down and dialogue and my goal would be to present her with different treatment options. I would explain to her what cancer is and let her know that we obtain the best results by individualizing our patients' care. This is very important, whether we have patients who aren't in pain and have good vitality, or who come into our clinic in wheelchairs. The key thing people must understand is that one size treatments don't fit all.
Individualizing my patients' care involves focusing on three main areas. First, I determine how I can best strengthen their core energy and vitality. This includes developing a well-thought-out nutritional and botanical protocol for them. Second, I identify the weaknesses in their bodies' terrain. These can be discerned through blood tests. The body's terrain essentially refers to its biochemistry and physiology. I determine factors such as patients' levels of acidity, their inflammation and mineral deficiencies, as well as whether they have heavy metal toxicity, lymphatic blockage, or blood that clots too easily. The objective is to get their bodies and internal terrain to self-regulate better. The third area involves looking at the specifics of their cancers and finding out where they are vulnerable. It may include doing chemo sensitivity testing on biopsy slides at nationally recognized labs. No matter how ill our patients are, we want to identify early on where their cancers are weak and then attack them from that angle, in ways that don't weaken the body.
The more that doctors build their patients up with good botanical, nutrient, and homeopathic programs for a month (if time permits) before those patients start chemotherapy, or concurrently while they are doing chemotherapy, the better their outcomes will be. The core of a good treatment program involves looking at patients' biochemistry, and asking questions like, "Are they diabetic? Do they have high blood pressure? Do they have inflammation? How well do they detoxify? How strong are their immune systems?"
The treatment approach that I just described is called the Eclectic Tri-Phasic Medical System (ETMS), which is taught by Donald Yance, Jr. CN, MH, RH (AHG). He teaches and collaborates with oncologists, integrative medical doctors, naturopaths, acupuncturists, nutritionists, and other health care professionals on how to restore a balanced biochemistry and physiology to the body, how to build up the immune and endocrine systems, and how to do detective work to find out where people's cancers are weak, and where they are strong. Again, the more we individualize our patients' therapy, the better the outcomes we get with them.
It's important to recognize that not all cancers, even those of the same type, are the same. For example, the past few patients that I have worked with who had pancreatic cancer required different treatments, because their cancers evolved in different ways. Gemcitabine is the number one chemotherapeutic agent used for pancreatic cancer in conventional oncology, and it's very toxic. By doing chemo sensitivity testing, and using low dose chemotherapy in an IPT format, we can give several agents to our patients which are better suited to their particular cancers.
Some patients benefit greatly when we do chemo sensitivity testing using either their tumor pathology slides (which we take from their biopsy procedures), or live tumor tissue which we send by overnight mail to nationally reputable labs. These tests can show us where their cancers are weak, and what treatment agents and regimens would be most effective for them. Patients with a stage three or four cancer greatly benefit when low-dose chemotherapy agents (used in an IPT format) are combined with a nutritional protocol to build them up. Even those with early stages of cancer are likely have metastatic cells, and may also benefit from such a protocol.
When we have success in treating people's cancers, it's amazing how their other conditions, such as diabetes and hypertension, improve. This is because the factors which contributed to these conditions in the first place: inflammation, chronic infections, poor detoxification, and/or a weakened immune system, have been addressed. Unfortunately, we have a specialty-based medical system where every specialist is off in their own little corner, learning primarily about only one area of the body, and too often, they get "stuck out on a branch." But it's not the branches that matter--it's the trunk of the tree, and the roots. About the Author
Connie Strasheim is a medical researcher and writer who has experienced the hardships of chronic illness firsthand through her seven-year battle with Lyme disease and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. She is the author of three other books, including:
- The Lyme Disease Survival Guide: Physical, Lifestyle and Emotional Strategies for Healing
- Insights Into Lyme Disease Treatment: Thirteen Lyme-Literate Health Care Practitioners Share Their Healing Strategies
- Healing Chronic Illness: By His Spirit, Through His Resources
Ms. Strasheim's second Lyme disease book, Insights Into Lyme Disease Treatment, has been a bestseller within the Lyme disease community since its release in September, 2009.
In addition to writing books on medicine and spiritual healing, Connie maintains a blog on chronic illness and Lyme disease. She also leads a bi-monthly prayer conference call group for the chronically ill across the United States.
Prior to becoming a medical researcher, she was a medical interpreter for Spanish-speaking patients, as well as Spanish instructor, novelist and flight attendant for United Airlines. Her travels to over fifty countries on six continents have provided her with broad and unique perspectives on healing, and life. 
