Reversing Cancer: The Chemistry of Reproduction

By: Patrick OBrien

It was Charles Darwin who noted that animals reproduce at a rate corresponding to the decimation of their young: More threats, more young. In other words, stress stimulates the reproductive process. It seems simple enough, and it is. What makes it even simpler is there is a chemical in every organism that initiates this reaction. It is called cortisol. It is also called a stress hormone; it is the stress hormone.

What Darwin noticed in animals is easily applicable to the cells that form animals, and form cancers. If Darwin’s observation was correct, then primary reproductive cells subjected to sufficient levels of cortisol, will be stimulated into reproducing at a faster rate to guarantee survival. Every animal has such cells in every tissue of the body. They are called stem cells, and they are the mothers to every other cell in the body.

Cortisol, stress hormone, passes directly through the cellular membrane, right through the nuclear membrane and causes an immediate reversal of cellular metabolism. The cell begins to manufacture sugar, even if it has an ample supply of it on hand. That sugar is quickly transformed into glycogen, broken down into lactic acid, and or channeled into purine production. (Purines are simply a type of nucleic acid, or DNA). Their production represents a start to the reproductive cycle. Not coincidentally, the enzymes that regulate this metabolic process are the targets of a large number of so-called chemotherapeutic drugs.

It is also interesting to note that this reverse cycle, gluconeogenesis, forms the framework for this particular metabolic process, and is the primary metabolic cycle of all malignant cancer cells.

This particular process is not of itself unhealthy, necessarily. If Darwin’s observation was correct, it is the necessary element in animal survival. Under conditions of unrelieved stress, defined as chronic exposure to high levels of cortisol, it would be sufficient stimulus to cause reproduction at a very high rate, a rate so rapid as to make maturation and development impossible prior to the conclusion of the reproductive cycle.

Such cells would have high demands, as this metabolic process, called the pentose-phosphate pathway, demands an enormous quantity of energy, while generating nearly none. The only sources for this energy, if the cell is going to survive, is the common pool of resources found in the circulatory system, or other nearby cells. Even distant cells could find their resources drained by the constant depletion of common body fluids that are constantly being circulated at a rapid rate. The presence of stress hormone guarantees a rapid relative metabolic rate in the heart, which of course beats faster under stress and thus fuels the process.

As the tumor grows, all the tissue around it, and eventually, every system in the body, would be depleted, and over time, begin to waste. Since many of these cells would be underdeveloped, many would also be incapable of performing the most routine of functions, such as processing waste, which would then simply be dumped into the local space, putting another burden on mature cells that already are being stripped of their resources. This would be sufficient to produce cachexia, a fancy name for wasting, which is a universal symptom in patients with malignant cancers.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that reversing such excessive and life-threatening reproduction, should be as simple as reducing the level of stress hormone in the body. Taking drugs which block the production of cortisol, would certainly work in the short-term, but are doomed to fail in the long-term as cells adapt to the drugs, meaning learn how to effectively get rid of them. Much of this work, ironically, would be done by healthy cells, which are thus given a third job while trying to handle the first two. In addition, given the universal capacity of rapidly reproducing cells to adapt to anything, this is a certain reason for rejecting such approaches in all but the most desperate cases, and perhaps even then.

The solution is a program of systematically reducing stress hormone levels throughout the organism, by identifying all sources of stress, in particular, on the most profoundly affected, and or vulnerable systems. These may include diet, lifestyle change, any of a constellation of individual approaches that recognize that one man’s stress is another’s bliss. For example: While some people are stressed by their work environment, others are stressed by not working.

A personal interview, by the subject himself when possible, that involves an honest detailing of all primary and secondary sources of stress, a subjective and therefore individualized listing, is an essential first step in this process. This is recommended to avoid allowing the concerns of others close to the patient from influencing the accurate reflections of the affected party. Once the list is vetted, again, by the patient when possible, the next step is to form a plan of action for removing all sources of stress from the proximity of the affected in the least stressful way.

It is at this point the patient will need to call on all their positive sources of personal support, to help them enact the plan as quickly as possible. Nutritionists can be recruited to their aid as well, with the understanding being the diet has two purposes. Restoration of the primary metabolic cycles, called the glycolytic and citric acid cycle, respectively, and reduction and elimination of cortisol from the body, including eliminating food high in such chemicals.

Through the systematic reduction of stress and stress hormone from affected tissues and organisms, the normal cycles of development and maturity should begin anew, reproduction should drop to normal levels, and the mortal crises should alleviate. Darwin’s trigger, may be the only shot that can be unfired.

Copyright 2007 by Patrick J. O’Brien