Stop the 7 Drivers of Cancer
There is no single cause of cancer so there is no single cure for cancer.
Cancer can be nearly impossible to cure but it can be slowed down to the point that living with cancer for decades may be the best optimum solution. Cancer, just like all chronic diseases becomes something that must be managed over time.
Even if you have been cleared of cancer it may just mean that the testing is not sensitive enough to find it, or if it has been eradicated by conventional treatments, they don’t stop it coming back.
The mechanisms in your body that failed to deal with it in the first place are still there.
These mechanisms are the drivers of cancer. Understanding and then reducing these drivers is a good strategy to control the behaviour of cancer cells in your body.
Conventional treatments, chemotherapy and radiation, can increase many of these drivers so doing nothing after those treatments may also drive the development of other cancers such as leukaemia.
The cells inside tumours are not all the same. Changing the way cells survive by stopping the drivers of cancer and forcing their use of efficient mitochondrial energy can suppress cancer growth, reduce pain and improve quality and length of life.
But what is cancer?
A cancer is a malignant tumour made from rogue cells. Malignant means ‘born to be bad’. The phases of cancer are:
- Transformation of the initiating cell;
- Progression = proliferation of the transformed cell and invasion or local spread; and then
- Distant metastasis – spreading to other areas.
So why do these cells become rogues?
Your entire body (organism) is a community of approximately 50 trillion single cells. Each of those single cells is controlled by their awareness of the environment they live in – inside your body. The science of signal transduction focuses upon biochemical pathways by which cells respond to environmental cues such as infection, toxins, heat, cold, stress, free radicals, injury, etc. These cues produce signals to engage in cellular processes that can alter gene expression and thereby control cell fate, movement and survival. This recognises that the behaviour of a cell is directly linked to its perception of the environment so the character of our life is based upon how we and our cells perceive it.
Major environmental toxins that instigate and drive cancer are heavy metals – Cadmium, Nickel, Arsenic, Cobalt, Mercury and Lead. I test for these and remove them from your body.
Epigenetics is the science of how environmental signals select, modify and regulate gene activity. They do not change the gene or the DNA, just how it is expressed. Our genetic signals are constantly being modified in response to our life experiences and exposures.
These environmentally triggered signals result in communication between cells. The role of each cell is also like a community. Liver cells perform functions that are different from nerve cells which are different than muscle or bone cells. Correct cellular communication results in cells working together to sustain life.
When cells become rogue they stop doing what they are supposed to do. They develop:
- Loss of differentiation – they forget what role they are supposed to perform.
- Self-sufficiency in growth signals – they grow without being told to.
- Insensitivity to anti-growth inhibition signals – they ignore the signals of other cells.
- Tissue destruction for invasion – they make room to move.
- Lack of adhesion to their site resulting in metastasis – they detach themselves.
- Limitless potential for replication – they make more rogue cells.
- Sustained angiogenesis – they attract blood vessels to feed the tumour mass.
- Evading apoptosis (normal programmed cell death) – they do not die off when they should.
When cells do not behave properly they change and it is this change that the cells of the immune system are supposed to identify. Cancer is the result of a failure of the immune system to kill off problem cells. In saying that cancer cells develop ways to hide.
Cancer cells do not just occur. They are made. There are triggers that make them. These are carcinogens. Then once made they strive to survive by using drivers within the body to develop the 8 characteristics above.
The 7 Drivers of Cancer Initiation and Growth are:
- Inflammation.
- DNA and gene instability due to environmental epigenetic influences.
- Immune suppression, overload or dysfunction.
- Problems with cell signalling, especially with hormonal imbalance.
- Angiogenesis.
- pH problems in the body from excess lactic acid, hydrogen peroxide and low tissue oxygen.
- Energy dysfunction within cells driving survival factors that inhibit apoptosis.
These factors are all targets of nutritional and herbal therapy to slow down cancer growth and improve health. The type of cancer and its drivers and the stage at which your cancer is at, will affect the effectiveness of this form of therapy. The goal is to change the environment (your body) that these rogue cells are living in so they find it harder to survive.
My ‘Rescue Program’ aims to reduce your internal environmental drivers. This is not a direct cure for cancer. As with all chronic disease, management throughout life is about achieving and maintaining optimal health well into old age.
Emotionally you will probably feel as though you are walking a tight-rope. Research of Long Term Survival for cancer patients inevitably centers on Mind-Body Medicine. The way you mentally engage with your disease state will help with pain management, improve your stress levels, reduce your inflammation levels, assist with your resolve to resist it, help you to feel more in control of the process and assist you with coming to terms with your mortality.
My rescue programs offer a chance for you to engage with your cancer and face it head on. Your survival depends on you resisting it strongly. Without change to the way you live and without change to your body, there will be no change to the outcome.
My rescue programs are for all cancers as I tailor specific support for you depending on the type of cancer you have, your current health status, your toxic metal exposure and the different issues and other exposures that are specific to you.
Once the drivers of your particular cancer are reduced then moving onto a ‘Recovery Program’ to target your other chronic diseases will help to reduce the risk of recurrence and give you quality of life so you can live well.