Scientists from the Seattle based Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have stumbled upon a very inconvenient truth.
Chemotherapy is so damaging to the healthy cells surrounding a tumor that it changes their DNA, causing fibroblasts, those cells involved in wound healing and maintaining connective tissue, to produce a molecule called WNT16B that actually encourages prostate tumors to grow and invade neighboring cells.
The researchers also confirmed these findings for breast and ovarian cancer tumors.
The unsettling findings reported by the journal Nature Medicine in August 2012, helps explain why cancer patients sometimes derive little to no benefit from chemo treatments, essentially enduring the worse than death side effects for naught.
Peter Nelson, the study co-author said, “The increase in WNT16B was completely unexpected”.
It also sheds light on why tumors might shrink from an initial round of chemo only to regrow later becoming resistant to further rounds of the devastating treatment. Â Peter Nelson confirms the eventual resistance tumors develop to chemo adding:
“WNT16B, when secreted, would interact with nearby tumour cells and cause them to grow, invade, and importantly, resist subsequent therapy“.
Professor Fran Balkwill, a UK based expert on the tumor microenvironment commented that these findings are in line with other research which has demonstrated that “cancer treatments don’t just affect cancer cells, but can also target cells in and around tumors”.
Researchers seem unfazed by these disquieting results that, though unexpected, did not seem to give them any pause whatsoever in questioning chemo as a valid tumor treatment for the long term.
Instead, they chose to stick their heads further into the sand suggesting that drugs to inhibit the production of WNT16B were in order for “new and improved” chemo treatments.
If one drug doesn’t work, let’s just add another, then another, then another ….
Apparently, “chemo brain” affects cancer researchers too.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Wow
I’d wager that this is just a minor setback for the cancer industry. They will cover their mess as usual.
Yeah, by not telling the news media!
The mainstream news media, I meant to say.
Very interesting read!
My sentiments exactly: ooops!
Angel, do you know what supplements she took?
@ SoCalGT: I’m not Angel but here are some suggestions for foods/supplements which cause apoptosis, if that’s what you were interested in knowing.
Blueberries, blackberries, prunes, purple grapes
Omega 3’s (from fish and chia seeds, etc.)
Carrots
Green Tea
Turmeric
Citrus fruits (particularly oranges)
Basically, antioxidants and polyphenols are what help to cause the apoptosis come into play.
Thank you D!
Edward Howell, MD wrote “Enzyme Nutrition” and made a strong case for the use of food enzymes to heal chronic diseases like cancer. The best source of food enzymes are raw *animal* proteins and fats. (Raw plant foods do contain enzymes but not as rich in quality or quantity as animal foods.). In particular, raw organ meats are especially a rich source of enzymes, especially raw liver and raw pancreas.
“Enzyme Nutrition” is a good adjunct to Weston A. Price’s “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration”. They both use anthropological evidence to support their nutrition claims.
This is just awesome!
Let’s make one thing perfectly clear, conventional (western) medicine does an outstanding job with medical emergencies. When it comes to trauma and (extreme) life-saving intervention techniques or surgical procedures – modern medicine is often times heroic. But, many health experts would agree, when it comes to the treatment of cancer (and other chronic illnesses) conventional medicine has proven to be inadequate. chemotherapy is medical fraud. Rather than boosting the immune
response of patients, it harms the immune system, causing tumors to
grow back.
Ohhhh Dave I like how you put this ! So true!
A friend of mine was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year. She is not yet 30.
She chose to avoid chemo and radiation at all costs. Enough that she chose a double mastectomy to remove ALL possible cancer cells, and then began taking fish oil, flax seed oil, cottage cheese (from the Budwig Diet), low-grain diet, and pretty much every other natural treatment she could find.
She’s recovering well and has less than a 7% chance of recurrence at this time.
There ARE other ways. And frankly if you or a family member have been diagnosed with cancer, you can’t afford NOT to look into every possible treatment avenue. Chemo is “standard” but more and more evidence is coming out that it isn’t often the best option. It kills as many people as it “saves,” if not more; it also causes more cancer down the road, which is resistant to drugs (as noted above). It may seem scary to walk away from conventional treatments but you have to break out of the mindset that doctors know everything and that their way is the best or only way. Simply false.