Understanding Cancer Energetics: Researchers Solve Mystery of Warburg Effect

It's long been known that cancer cells eat a lot of sugar to stay alive. In fact, where normal, noncancerous cells generate energy from using some sugar and a lot of oxygen, cancerous cells use virtually no oxygen and a lot of sugar. Many genes have been implicated in this process, and now, reporting in the May 27 issue of Cell, researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have discovered that this so-called Warburg effect is controlled.

Doctor Gregg Semenza, M.D., Ph.D. says of the process, "A turns on B, which in turn goes back and helps A do more"... which to me sounds more like a pick-up scene at closing time, but these people really know their stuff!

This whole article is highly scientific and beyond my ability to adequately summarize, so here's one more quote, if you find it interesting please check out the article in full,

The team then asked if HIF-1 and PKM2 physically interact with each other by isolating one of the two proteins from cells; they found that pulling one out also resulted in the other coming along for the ride, showing that the two proteins do in fact bind to each other.

Science Daily: Understanding Cancer Energetics

reply to post by Thermo Klein


I'm no scientist but, could we relate oxygen % in air and sugar in diet to the amount of cancers people have?
I know we have less oxygen now then before and we do eat a lot more processed sugars.

reply to post by Thermo Klein


All the article is really saying is that scientists have identified the proteins that interact with the cancer cell that helps the cancer cells to continue to thrive when the oxygen levels decrease, by using glycolysis to help the cancer cell survive. It's unfortunatate, but it's our bodies way of trying to protect us by helping a cell (even a cancer cell) to overcome it's environment, similar to when the body gets a fever in order to kill off a foreign invader whether its bacteria, viral or something else, that fever can keep going up until it kills us.

Here is a further explanation of cancer and glycolysis, which was listed on Science Daily next to the article you posted:
www.sciencedaily.com...

reply to post by Thermo Klein


Very interesting thread! S & Flag for you.
You also put it in a way that is easy to understand.
Have friends that swear their cure was found in macro-biotics which may have only been effective due to the complete lack of any artificial sugar components and even low on vegetables known to have the most starch like effects.

Theory is all illness is imbalance, period.

All food is more yin or more yang - adding to the imbalance.

Unless you instinctively know (which you do but you shut the ability off) what your body needs to reach optimum health you will become more unhealthy and an already unhealthy state will worsen.

Yet you are a living organism and possess a self correcting program.


There is one food that is a perfect balance of yin and yang - brown rice.

(in fact this inspires me to look up the history of the brown rice, since it is so significantly the staple of the planet and is to the stomach what oxygen is to the lungs)

Macrobiotics seems to fill the organism (you) with nothing but brown rice and a few other things allowed like tea - that until BALANCE is effectively restored.

Once restored it takes quite some time of repeated abuse to throw it out of balance again and that is how we get away with it. Perhaps this alone- is why we do not live until our mid hundreds as is thought we might.


I can see if science and the food industry and nobody else can see
a correlation between the widespread use of sugar and cancer.

Combine the sugar with the myriad of artificial and synthetic ingredients also used and it is a double whammy.
It's a wonder we are not all dead already.

The Warburg effect is the precise mechanism through which tumors in the brain have been completely eliminated.

The typical cancer cell derives its energy through sugar (glucose or glycogen). It does so through a process called anaerobic glycolysis, cell respiration through the breakdown of carbohydrate in the absence of oxygen. It's quick energy, which is needed by cancer cells due to their fast metabolic rate. Either increasing oxygen supply to the tumorous area or decreasing the amount of available fuel, glucose, cancer cells will die.

Ketogenic diets are often used for the treatment of Epilepsy; however, they are extremely effective in reducing tumor size in lab rats and in many case studies...

The calorically restricted ketogenic diet, an effective alternative
therapy for malignant brain cancer

Conclusion: The results indicate that KetoCal® has anti-tumor and anti-angiogenic effects in experimental ouse andhuman brain tumors when administered in restricted amounts. The therapeutic effect of KetoCal®
for brain cancermanagement was due largely to the reduction of total caloric content, which reduces circulating glucose required forrapid tumor growth. A dependency on glucose for energy together with defects in ketone body metabolism largely account for why the brain tumors grow minimally on either a ketogenic-restricted diet or on a standard-restricted diet. Genes for ketone body metabolism should be useful for screening brain tumors that could be targeted with calorically restricted high fat/low carbohydrate ketogenic diets. This preclinical study indicates that restricted KetoCal® is a safe and effective diet therapy and should be considered as an alternative therapeutic option for malignant brain cancer.