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Can You Starve Cancer? The Warburg Theory And What You Should Know About Extreme Diets · Intellectual Medicine

• 0:00
  If you want to kill cancer, you got to think like cancer.
• 0:03
  What drives it? We're all subject to cancer,
• 0:06
  folks. We are fighting it every day.
• 0:08
  You cannot starve cancer. It runs on the same stuff our
• 0:12
  cells run on. Cancer in.
• 0:14
  Your cells live side by side. Now you can tilt the field
• 0:17
  against it. You can make it less pleasant of
• 0:20
  an environment. What we want out of cancer is to
• 0:23
  not die from it. If you want to kill cancer, you
• 0:32
  got to think like cancer. You got to know what it what
• 0:36
  drives it. Is this a genetic phenomenon or
• 0:41
  metabolic? Can it be starved?
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  Well, we're going to explore that.
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  I'm going to share with my thoughts on these topics in the
• 0:48
  next few minutes. And these are related to
• 0:51
  prostate cancer and to other malignancies.
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  And as we reflect upon this, we need to contemplate what
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  prevents cancer and what intervenes with it when it has
• 1:01
  become established. So let's look back.
• 1:05
  The theory that cancer is metabolic emanates from this
• 1:09
  knowledge that cancer cells alter the metabolic process of
• 1:15
  acquiring energy. Mostly, we get our cellular
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  energy from a process called oxidative phosphorylation.
• 1:23
  That means we're using oxygen to make energy.
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  Very good, lots of energy. Now, if you ever have run really
• 1:30
  hard and felt that lactic acid burn, that's what happens when
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  there's not much oxygen around and the body switches energy
• 1:41
  production to glycolysis so it can still make energy with
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  suboptimal oxygen. OK, that's normal cell
• 1:48
  Physiology. What cancer cells do they they
• 1:52
  play a trick on the mitochondria.
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  It's called aerobic glycolysis. In the abundant environment of
• 1:59
  plenty of oxygen, cancer cells choose to use the glycolytic
• 2:05
  pathway in order to generate their energy, producing lactic
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  acid as a byproduct. This is unique on to cancer
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  cells and it's been felt that it's that shift that starts the
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  process of cancer cell production.
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  If we could then address mitochondrial health, perhaps we
• 2:27
  can interfere with cancer progression.
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  Or if we are proactive maintaining healthy
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  mitochondria, perhaps it'll make us more resilient.
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  This was Doctor Warburg's theories promulgated in the
• 2:39
  1920s. A prominent research scientist,
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  he never treated patients for cancer.
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  So you need to bear that in mind.
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  It's a theoretical realm. And then scosh what really
• 2:50
  happens when we treat people. His theories never got much
• 2:54
  play. Why?
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  Because the momentum was to the gene.
• 3:01
  And that's when Watson and Cricket discovered the double S
• 3:03
  braided Helix. And now we have the genome
• 3:06
  project and there was great enthusiasm that we're going to
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  be able to break down genes, find the genes that cause
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  cancer, concoct a treatment for them and wipe it out.
• 3:20
  That's been a colossal disappointment.
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  So we've identified some genes, yes.
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  And it gets more and more muddled as time goes by.
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  And unfortunately, we've not found the therapeutic link that
• 3:33
  has been the turning point. So what's happening in the world
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  of research that I've grown witness to is a cooling of
• 3:42
  enthusiasm for the genetic theory.
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  Yeah, there's genetic predispositions, but you find
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  very few direct links from a gene to a cancer.
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  It becomes hard to discern, right?
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  Because although there are family histories, certain
• 3:58
  cancers run in families, prostate cancer being one of
• 4:01
  them. Yet we're born in the same
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  household by and large, breathe the same air, eat the same food,
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  have similar body types. It is quite possible that what
• 4:12
  we think is a genetic link is simply a consistent
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  environmental exposure. I like to put my focus on things
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  I can do something about South today.
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  Digging into your genetic pedigree has limited merit if
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  you actually have cancer or you're seeking to prevent it.
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  Hell, we're all subject to cancer, folks.
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  We are fighting it every day. So whether or not you have a
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  genetic predisposition, it makes sense to live a lifestyle that
• 4:46
  makes cancer hard to be to be initiated.
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  So back to the mitochondria. So they're the home of energy.
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  They are felt to be the centers where this carcinogenic
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  transformation takes place. As the mitochondria start to
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  become dysfunctional, these are the little organelles inside
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  your cell that make energy. They have kind of an independent
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  life cycle. And as they start to fade away,
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  there's something called mitophagy.
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  That simply means the body gets rid of crappy mitochondria, and
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  by so doing, the cell stays healthier.
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  There's a problem though. As we get older and as we go
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  through stressors, there tends to be a a sluggish process of
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  killing off bad mitochondria. So now I have these unhealthy
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  mitochondria that are sort of clustering and gathering in your
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  cell. They're subject to carcinogenic
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  transformation. They are subject to spontaneous
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  DNA mutation, not the kind you inherit, but the kind that can
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  happen in this unhealthy Stew of bad mitochondria.
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  So we know some of the things that can affect mitochondrial
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  health, and we can apply that to our preventative and sometimes
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  our therapeutic strategy. Now the Warburg theory has been
• 6:13
  picked up by, among others, Thomas Seyfried.
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  He's a PhD researcher out of Boston College.
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  I admire his work. He wrote a book on the
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  mitochondrial origins of cancer. It's worth taking note of.
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  But he's never treated anybody for cancer.
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  The theories are just that. They're not real life
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  applications. You cannot, folks.
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  You cannot starve cancer. It runs on the same stuff our
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  cells run on. Now you can tilt the field
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  against it. You can make it less pleasant of
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  an environment, but don't think that you can apply this
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  metabolic theory. And I've seen people try it.
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  I'm going to not eat sugar, doc. I'm going to go pure carnivore.
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  You can do that if you like, if you enjoy it.
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  It is kind of awful. Life without any carb is a
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  little dismal. And you know your ketogenic when
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  when you smell bad, you go into ketosis, people will not want to
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  be in the room with you. I had one patient was big in a
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  in a ketogenic, doesn't need any sugar and pure carnivore.
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  We had to take note when he had an appointment so we could clear
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  the space out and we could open the windows.
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  He didn't notice it. You know, it's like working in
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  the fish factory type of thing. So look, if you want to do that,
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  it's your prerogative, but don't be dissuaded into thinking
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  you're going to crush cancer just with that alone.
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  So the mitochondrial theory has merit.
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  Starving cancer does not. Well, what about the metabolic
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  origins? What can be done this
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  mitochondria dysfunction? What can affect it?
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  Now, you may have heard or read that glutamine is the enemy,
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  that glutamine amplifies cancer propagation.
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  That is a simplistic extrapolation of cellular theory
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  into the body Organism at large. You cannot live without
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  glutamine people it represents. It is in fact the most abundant
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  amino acid in the body. 20% of the amino acids are represented
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  by glutamine, 40% in your muscle.
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  It is a critical amino acid for maintaining health and integrity
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  of the lighting of your intestine.
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  So should you not eat meat because meat is a source of
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  amino acid and glutamine? Should you not take a glutamine
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  supplement or those are two separate things?
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  I don't advocate avoidance of meat, right.
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  I advocate modification of volume.
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  I don't advocate use of glutamine as a routine
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  supplement. It needs to be thoughtfully
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  applied. So we have the theory.
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  We have our PhD friends promoting the theory.
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  APHD has never borne witness to the effect of their theory on
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  actual human beings fighting cancer.
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  I like that they're out there doing their PhD stuff.
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  We learn from it and then we try to apply it to actually help
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  patients. We have to do that in real time.
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  We can't wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait for the
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  study to be done. Anything that is nutritional,
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  anything that is generic will never have funding for a study.
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  So the mere fact that there's not double-blind
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  placebo-controlled studies on much of what I discuss does not
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  eliminate its possible merit. It's up to us to make these
• 9:48
  decisions courageously, thoughtfully.
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  But what about glutamine? Actually is a study published
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  recently last five or ten years, The question was if we give
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  glutamine as a supplement to patients battling in this case I
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  believe it was was lung cancer patients battling lung cancer.
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  What the oncologists know is that glutamine can actually help
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  prevent some of the side effects of chemotherapy.
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  A lot of the gastric side effects, a lot of fatigue side
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  effects. So they had two groups, one
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  group got glutamine, the other group did not.
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  The conclusion the folks who took glutamine as a supplement
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  while being treated for lung cancer did better, fewer side
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  effects, slight tendency toward increase longevity, although it
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  wasn't statistically significant.
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  So this is the departure. You have real world experience
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  and you have theory and the glutamine theory is not holding
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  up in studies thus far. So it doesn't mean that you
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  should carp long take glutamine, but it does point toward
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  eliminating it in your diet. Unlikely to have value, possible
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  adverse effect. One of the things that cancer
• 11:02
  and its treatment can do to people is give them a leaky gut
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  syndrome. The lining of the gut suffers.
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  You know, the cells that rapidly turn over, like skin, like hair,
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  like the gut. They're the ones that are most
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  prominently damaged by much of conventional chemotherapeutic
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  treatments. Well, if your gut's damaged, you
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  have trouble absorbing micronutrients.
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  And if you have trouble absorbing micronutrients, you
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  have difficulty maintaining vitality, immune function,
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  cellular function. Therefore, in my practice, we
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  often would give glutamine for a leaky gut.
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  In the face of cancer. You got to have integrity of a
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  micronutrient environment. You don't.
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  In the space of eliminating glutamine attacking cancer, you
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  don't burn the village to save the town.
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  Remember, cancer in your cells live side by side.
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  So we must maintain your vitality at every step.
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  Potentially glutamine can do that.
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  So the take home point is you can't starve away cancer.
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  The metabolic theory I think is apropos and can be applied
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  thoughtfully. How do we apply it?
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  Well it turns out that one of the things that can drive this
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  mitochondrial senescence and interfere with destroying
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  unhealthy mitochondria is an abundant amount of mtor in your
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  system. Mtor is mechanistic target of
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  rapamycin. If we have a lot of it, it can
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  prevent destruction of bad mitochondria and you got to have
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  some. You can't be absolute in this
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  endeavor, but this is one of the reasons why large meals are bad
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  for people fighting cancer. Why a large meal generates a lot
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  of M Tor. It turns out you need it to
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  digest your food. So whatever you eat, if you eat
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  too much of it, it's going to be a harm.
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  And this is where a lot of confabulation on diet and its
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  effect on cancer happens. I believe it's less about the
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  specific macro nutrients you consume and more about the
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  volume. So small volume meals suppress
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  surges of mtor, gives your body a chance to kill bad
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  mitochondria. Now what has been shown to be
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  very helpful is addressing the metabolic syndrome, insulin
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  resistance. Insulin resistance is when the
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  cells don't react to sugar as well as they normally should,
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  and instead of allowing sugar to transfer into them easily, you
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  need more and more insulin to maintain a stable blood sugar.
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  Your body will sacrifice that is will instigate high insulin
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  levels to enable proper feeding of cells.
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  So the blood sugar can stay the same, but the insulin level is
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  sky rocketing. That's not good, but it's hard
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  to measure. Insulin is a moving target.
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  Yes you can do a fasting insulin, but that's one spot on
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  a curve. You can do a hemoglobin A1 CI
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  recommend it. That is a three month average of
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  blood sugar. However, the blood sugar can be
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  normal while insulin is burning high.
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  The analogy. Imagine you see two cars go by.
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  They're both doing 80 miles an hour.
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  One of them is a 12 cylinder engine, the other one has a 4
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  cylinder engine. To your eye, they're both doing
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  80 miles an hour under the hood. That 4 cylinder engine is
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  banging away like crazy. It's going to break down.
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  That's insulin vis a vis sugar. Hope that analogy helps.
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  So what to do? How do you know if you're
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  insulin resistant? One of the simplest, easily
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  reproducible, and a measurement that you could do something
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  about is abdominal circumference.
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  The bigger the circumference, the more likely you are to be
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  harboring insulin resistance. For men it's 40 inch
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  circumference or greater, for women 35 inches or greater.
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  There's also a waist to height ratio.
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  This is even more predictive, A waist to height ratio greater
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  than 0.5. So you take your waist in
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  inches. Say you got a 40 inch waist and
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  you divide it by your height. Say you're 5 foot 10, it's 7
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  inches of height. You come out with a number.
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  If it's above 0.5, likely there's some insulin resistance
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  present. Your point of action now is to
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  reduce the circumference. So you can do that or the height
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  to weight ratio. You do it two ways.
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  You can grow a few inches, I wish, or or you could shrink the
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  abdominal circumference. Hard to do Look in my book how
• 15:56
  to fight cancel like a man. I don't care where you are in
• 15:59
  your life Arc. There is an appendix in there
• 16:02
  incredibly valuable to this topic.
• 16:05
  It has to do with weight reduction, nutritional
• 16:07
  modification, what works, what doesn't.
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  I've been treating patients for 30 years successfully helping
• 16:14
  them with weight reduction. You must people, you must have
• 16:17
  nutritional modification. All this drug therapy is
• 16:22
  fantastic when coupled with nutritional modification.
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  You don't modify nutrition, you're not going to get fat
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  loss, you'll get weight loss, you'll shrink muscle.
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  Not good. So can you starve cancer?
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  No, you really can't. Should you fast in order to
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  treat cancer? I don't believe so.
• 16:46
  I could be wrong about that, but thus far I've not seen it in
• 16:50
  research nor in my observation with patients.
• 16:53
  But I don't object to people who fast because they like to.
• 16:57
  I've talked to some of those folks and gives them clarity,
• 17:00
  gives them energy. I tried it once, I made it to
• 17:03
  about 12 hours and my knees buckled.
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  But if you like it, I I don't object.
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  What I object is to utilizing that as a grinding pathway
• 17:14
  toward fighting cancer when it's more likely to weaken your body,
• 17:18
  weaken your immune system, and cause muscle atrophy.
• 17:21
  So be cautious. How about the metabolic approach
• 17:26
  to fighting cancer? The common denominator is
• 17:31
  insulin resistance. The most important thing you can
• 17:34
  do metabolically is control percent body fat.
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  If you have a body analyzer, my advocacy is for women to be 30%
• 17:44
  or less, men to be 20% or less in order to mitigate the excess
• 17:49
  risk from the metabolic stimulation, insulin resistance.
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  If you don't have a body analyzer, do get a tape measure
• 17:56
  to a waist circumference. Look, when it comes to cancer,
• 18:00
  it's requires A multifaceted approach.
• 18:04
  Cancer cells have different phenotypes.
• 18:06
  They don't all behave the same. That's why we attack it on
• 18:10
  multiple fronts. It just makes sense when my
• 18:14
  oncological colleagues tell patients, oh eat whatever you
• 18:16
  want, it doesn't matter. They're overlooking a critical
• 18:20
  part of the equation. Physical activity, exercise,
• 18:24
  muscle development, they all matter.
• 18:27
  The problem is no matter what people do, some of us are
• 18:31
  destined to die from cancer. If you're doing conventional
• 18:35
  oncology and you die from cancer, that's considered an
• 18:37
  acceptable outcome. If on the other hand, you do
• 18:40
  functional non FDA approved therapies and you die from
• 18:44
  cancer, that's considered horrible.
• 18:47
  I argue that both are not good. What we want out of cancer is to
• 18:52
  not die from it. And I think as if not more
• 18:55
  important, we don't want to sacrifice vitality in the
• 18:59
  pursuit of longevity. Too often our cancer patients
• 19:04
  are left on the side of the road, withered and beat up.
• 19:07
  All right, so metabolic focus makes sense.
• 19:12
  Relying upon it exclusively to cure a cancer that's in play is
• 19:16
  a bit limited. The use of supplements has to be
• 19:19
  thoughtfully applied and individualized and abdominal
• 19:23
  circumference 100% of the time. Well folks, thanks for taking
• 19:27
  time with me. This is the podcast.
• 19:30
  You can support our efforts by joining the Doctor Pederuti
• 19:34
  Vitality Men's Group. This group enables you to gain
• 19:37
  access to information recipes. It is focused on men battling
• 19:42
  with prostate and prostate cancer issues.
• 19:45
  So it is a closed group for men at this point.
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  other endeavors. We take no sponsors.
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  We like to have an independent voice.
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  So you folks, you can become part of the point of change.
• 20:00
  We're seeking nothing less than a paradigm shift and prostate
• 20:03
  cancer treatment. No more castration, no more
• 20:07
  withering. Fight cancer like a man.
• 20:10
  And these principles apply universally.
• 20:13
  All right, team, thanks for the time.
• 20:15
  We'll see you next time. Bye.