These guys are so smart, and their father/son discussions will bring a tear to your eye. Enjoy:
Tag: mitochondrial dysfunction
Budwig
Came across this recipe, which promises cancer-fighting properties. It was developed by Johanna Budwig, a German biochemist and pharmacist who developed a lacto-vegetarian cancer prevention diet in the 1950s.
Not gonna lie, flaxseed oil tastes pretty yucky. It literally tastes like you are eating oil paint. BUT it contains a lot of omega 3 fatty acids, which most of us are not getting enough of.
Mixing with cottage cheese somehow helps aid in the digestion of the flaxseed oil. It has a symbiotic effect.
She passed away in 2003, a few years before the discovery of resolvins and protectins:
Only recently has it been established that inflammation resolution is an active process with a distinct set of chemical mediators. Several clinical and epidemiological studies have identified beneficial effects of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) for a variety of inflammatory diseases, yet without mechanistic explanations for these beneficial effects. Resolvins and protectins are recently identified molecules that are generated from Omega-3 PUFA precursors and can orchestrate the timely resolution of inflammation in model systems.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2785519/
I do see this in relation to the seed oil info I posted earlier today. If modern man is living in an omega 3/ omega 6 imbalance, and we don’t know about it or understand the damage it is doing to us…. well, that’s a bad thing.
It’s interesting that Dr. Budwig’s daily regimen begins with sauerkraut juice… the kombucha of 1800s Germany.
Then she blends together flax seed oil (very high in omega 3s) with a dairy product to help it be absorbed easily.
I think the science will catch up to her and what she was able to do… reportedly nurse cancer patients back to health with nutritional strategies.
The Dangers of Seed Oils
I have wanted to write about this for a while but I’m a bit out of my depth, and so I’ve put it off… but it is critically important and the little that I know has really changed my eating habits.
I recently came across this Instagram post by Dr. Mark Hyman, which sums it up nicely.
Promising Developments
As more and more physicians begin to understand the correlation between mitochondrial dysfunction and diseases such as cancer (and diabetes and dementia, and possibly others), I’m positive that some good things will happen.
One exciting thing is that, with the use of continuous glucose monitors, more and more people are able to see how their food choices impact this process, and then make better food choices.
Another exciting thing is that people are becoming aware of the issue and switching to ketogenic diets, which could reverse diabetes or manage (slow) the progression of cancer.
A new theory of cancer origin was recently introduced. It’s called the mitochondrial-stem cell connection (MSCC) (Martinez, et al., 2024). It builds on two other theories: Dr. Seyfried’s metabolic theory and the cancer stem cell (CSC) theory. I’ll put a link at the bottom if you want to learn more about that. I should mention that Dominic D’Augustino is one of the “et al.”
The exciting thing about this paper recently published on MSCC is that it proposes FIXING the underlying issue rather than focusing on killing cancerous cells.
In the past, most cancer therapies were built on the notion that cancer was genetic… it happened to those who were genetically predisposed to it… and the assumption was that to fight it meant to kill the cells, cut them out, radiate them, etc.
You could say that current cancer treatments are like playing whack-a-mole in an arcade. This new paper suggests we stop wracking the moles and simply unplug the machine from the wall.
Here are some excerpts. I will link the full paper below.
● This connection between CSCs and mitochondria appears to be crucial at all stages of cancer (Martinez, et al., 2024).
● These (standard) therapies do not restore OxPhos and sometimes even alter it (Averbeck & Rodriguez-Lafrasse, 2021; Gorini, et al., 2018). Furthermore, standard therapies only target bulk cells but cannot target cancer stem cells (Lytle, et al., 2018), whereas it is cancer stem cells that have the strongest tumorigenic potential (Adams & Strasser, 2008) and are involved in metastasis.
● Thus, after reviewing the literature on various therapies capable of targeting the MSCC, we selected, based on in vitro and in vivo studies, several orthomolecules, drugs, and additional therapies that have demonstrated an ability to enhance OxPhos, reduce fermentable fuels, and target CSCs and metastasis. Furthermore, when supported by scientific literature, we included case studies of cures using monotherapy in humans. From this combination, we developed a hybrid orthomolecular protocol, which is proposed as a new therapeutic strategy for cancer.
• The degree of malignancy could be directly correlated with significantly lower mitochondria and lower total respiratory capacity in tumor cells (Elliott, et al., 2012; Pedersen, 1978; Seyfried, et al. 2020).
• In order to grow and survive, cancer cells require the primary fuels glucose and glutamine to compensate for OxPhos insufficiency. The respiratory impairment induces overexpression of oncogenes and inactivation of tumor-suppressor genes, which contribute to abnormal energy metabolism in cancer. To date, no evidence has demonstrated the growth of any tumor cells, including CSCs, occurs with the deprivation of fermentable fuels (glucose, pyruvate, or glutamine) (Lee, et al., 2024; Liao, et al., 2017; Holm, et al., 1995; Mathews, et al., 2014; Pastò, et al., 2014).
📖
Read the full paper on MSCC:
Read more about cancer stem cell theory:
What’s So Bad About Sugar, Anyway?
And what does it have to do with cancer, or the risk of cancer?
There have been many theories about how cancer originates in the body.
Dr. Thomas Seyfried of Boston College published the theory that cancer begins with chronic metabolic dysfunction — that is, mitochondria within a cell not being able to create good energy for a prolonged period of time — which causes them to begin creating energy through a fermentation process rather than through oxidative phosphorylation, often called OxPhos (Seyfried & Chinopoulos, 2021).
This is the key difference between healthy cells and cancerous cells: healthy cells use oxygen to create energy, while cancerous cells have reverted to an easier, ancient way to create energy (possibly from before Earth had a proper atmosphere) through fermentation of glucose (sugar) and an amino acid called glutamine.
This difference in mitochondrial function links all cancers together, regardless of which organ it appears within.
We have known this for a while. Did you know that PET scans, widely used to seek out and image cancerous activity in the body, are taken after a person ingests a sugary dye? The sugar (glucose) goes straight to the hungry cancer cells, carrying the dye that is visible to the scanner.
Why does mitochondrial dysfunction happen?
One reason why mitochondrial dysfunction happens is simply the presence of too much sugar and simple carbohydrates in a person’s diet.
These need very little digestive breakdown and go straight to the mitochondria as glucose molecules.
The mitochondria become overwhelmed with the amount of glucose they are being asked to process. They bog down and ask for help from the pancreas and insulin. They push the remaining glucose out into the blood as a sticky residue.
Have you ever felt tired, sluggish, and slow after a big meal or too many carbs? Food coma?? That is an indication that your cells are overwhelmed. You’re in a glucose storm, and your body is suffering.
This leftover glucose in the blood sticks to your hemoglobin, or red blood cells. This is the residue measured by a Hemoglobin A1C test.
The Cancer Canary 