Day 13: The Ketogenic Diet and Cancer

The Ketogenic Diet and Cancer

These are the notes from last night’s video in the 28 Day Challenge.  You can join us in the 28 Day Challenge FaceBook Group here, get our FREE 28 Day Ketogenic Meal Plan here, and pick up our recipe and instructional books here.

Otto Warburg was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1931 for his work how a cancer cell metabolizes the energy it needs to reproduce. His work outlined the oxygen transferring enzyme of cell respiration.  Here is a quote from a lecture he delivered in 1961 explaining the primary cause of cancer.

“Cancer, above all other diseases, has countless secondary causes. But, even for cancer, there is only one prime cause. Summarized in a few words, the prime cause of cancer is the replacement of the respiration of oxygen in normal body cells by a fermentation of sugar. All normal body cells meet their energy needs by respiration of oxygen, whereas cancer cells meet their energy needs in great part by fermentation. All normal body cells are thus obligate aerobes, whereas all cancer cells are partial anaerobes. From the standpoint of the physics and chemistry of life this difference between normal and cancer cells is so great that one can scarcely picture a greater difference. Oxygen gas, the donor of energy in plants and animals is dethroned in the cancer cells and replaced by an energy yielding reaction of the lowest living forms, namely, a fermentation of glucose.”

So cancer depends on blood glucose to grow and thrive.  In fact cancer cells have up to 10 times the number of insulin receptors than a normal cell making it particularly adept at pulling sugar out of the bloodstream to power its own metabolic processes.

Cancer cells appear spontaneously in our bodies all the time but generally our own immune system is strong enough to kill them off before they become a problem.  We can measure the strength of an immune system by measuring the number of neutrophils which are a key component in white blood cells.  In a 1993 study by Dr Sanchez printed in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, he found that he could lower the amount of neutrophils in otherwise healthy subjects by feeding them 100 grams of carbohydrates from sugar, honey, and orange juice.  Not only were the total number lowered but their ability to do their job was decreased as well.  Whether that was by the sugar making the neutrophils weaker or the disease agents stronger, we aren’t sure.

There was a study in Korea that tracked 1.3 million men and women over 10 years.  In that time there were 75,000 deaths with 26,000 of those being caused by cancer.  When the rates of death and death by cancer were graphed against blood glucose levels, scientists found a direct linear correlation between increasing levels of blood glucose, increasing rates of death by cancer and increasing rates of death by all causes.  In short, a major factor in human longevity appears to be the amount of blood glucose metabolized in one’s lifetime.

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