“These kinds of results to my mind are as good as it gets,” enthused Professor Evangelos Michelakis, a cancer researcher from the University of Alberta in Canada back in 2007.
He and his team succeeded in shrinking human brain, breast and lung tumors implanted into rodents by 70% in just a few weeks, with no side effects. Their acheivement sparked a huge amount of interest in the cancer community at the time.
Prof. Michelakis was hopeful that human trials would soon follow. But there was a problem. . .
Newsletter #662
Lee Euler, Editor
Lee Euler, Editor
The pharmaceutical drug he used in the research study was long out of patent and extremely cheap. That meant no drug company was interested in pursuing it. He would have to rely on private or government funding. Not much was forthcoming.
Nine years on there has been little in the way of human research, but some pioneering cancer centers are making use of dichloroacetate or DCA, and they are getting some exceptional results.
The salt and vinegar molecule
DCA is a very simple chemical resembling a combination of salt and vinegar with an additional chlorine atom.
It has been used in medicine for decades mainly to treat a rare metabolic disease called congenital lactic acidosis, so a considerable amount of research had already been conducted before the University of Alberta team came along.
The method by which DCA works against cancer harks back to the observation made by Nobel Prize-winning scientist Otto Warburg back in the 1920s, that cancer cells derive their energy in a different way from healthy cells.
Normally cells generate most of their energy by utilizing oxygen in the mitochondria, the power plants of the cell. These structures can also trigger faulty cells to commit suicide, a process called apoptosis.
In cancer, however, the mitochondria generate energy by a fermentation process, mainly without the presence of oxygen. It’s a process that depends on the availability of sugar. Cancer cells are also able to switch off the mitochondria and evade apoptosis.
DCA works by rebooting the mitochondria so the cancer cell recognizes itself as abnormal and self-destructs.
The first human trial, also conducted by the Canadian team, involved 49 patients with advanced glioblastoma — an aggressive form of brain cancer. Adding DCA to tumor samples confirmed that the mitochondria are turned back on.
When the researchers administered DCA to five of the patients for 15 months, they found, after comparing before and after tissue samples, that cancer cell growth was suppressed, more cancer cells were undergoing apoptosis, and the metabolism of stem cells — believed responsible for the recurrence and spread of cancer — was altered. Four of the five patients lived much longer than expected.
The Michelakis studies had a big impact because they challenged the prevailing view that mutated genes cause cancer, not faulty metabolism in the mitochondria – in other words, the metabolic theory that originated with Warburg.
Mainstream researchers assume that a cell’s switch to a different source of energy takes place after it turns into a cancer cell, not that a cell turns cancerous because of a change in the way it generates energy, which is what Warburg believed.
Prof. Michelakis said, “The timing was right because the metabolic theory of cancer was being born [again].”
Other lab research since has shown that DCA:
- builds up in the body over time
- is able to penetrate the brain
- reduces the growth of blood vessels that tumors need to grow
- causes apoptosis in endometrial, epithelial ovarian and malignant brain tumors
- is effective against advanced cervical carcinoma
- has antiproliferative properties and generates apoptosis against breast cancer
- produces cytotoxic effects in prostate cancer cells
- reduces colon tumors by up to 40%
- encourages the death of glioma stem cells
- has positive effects on aggressive neuroblastoma
- enhances the effect of other cancer drugs
DCA case reports
While research into DCA continues, if you or someone you love has cancer you probably want to know if you should seek out this treatment now.
There are no controlled clinical trials. However, a number of case reports have been presented and most have been published in medical journals.
Researchers from the International Strategic Cancer Alliance in Oregon published the case of a man who relapsed after conventional treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Full clinic records, pathology, imaging and lab reports were available to document that after using DCA as the only therapy, he experienced complete remission and remained well four years later.
Dana Flavin from The Foundation for Collaborative Medicine and Research, Greenwich, CT presented the case of a 51-year-old man suffering from medullary thyroid cancer that had spread to the lung.
Conventional therapy brought him partial remission, but he relapsed, and all attempts at recovery failed. He then started on DCA. Six months later, a PET scan showed dramatic reduction of tumors. He remained in remission nearly a year later.
Dr. Walter Lemmo, a naturopathic physician in Vancouver, Canada, presented two adult cases. In the first, a patient with a type of brain tumor called anaplastic oligodendroglioma was given DCA because the patient wanted the tumor eliminated even though her condition was stable.
After several months of DCA treatment “the tumor was either dead or inactive.”
The second patient had lung cancer with brain metastasis. She was not expected to live more than a few months, but following the introduction of DCA she survived another 64 weeks.
Dr. Gurdev Parmar from the Integrated Health Clinic, Fort Langley, Canada, reported the case of a patient with stage 4 colorectal cancer who was no longer receiving chemotherapy because of a lack of benefit. The patient had no evidence of the disease after nearly one year on DCA. Another patient with the same disease, rapidly metastasizing, became stable after receiving DCA and has remained so for two years.
The approach of one pioneering doctor
One doctor with a great deal of experience in using DCA is Akbar Khan, MD, medical director of Medicor Cancer Centres, Toronto, Canada.
Originally a skeptic of unorthodox approaches, he only admitted a naturopath into his private cancer clinic in 2006 to stop patients from self-medicating with vitamins and herbs, etc., and not informing him.
He said he “didn’t expect much in the way of benefit” but it wasn’t long before his opinion took a 180ยบ turn.
“I was amazed by how many problems conventional medicine has no answer for, yet natural medicines provide safe, effective, and inexpensive solutions.”
Dr. Khan’s view is now quite different: “My greatest concern is helping patients. If it works, who cares where it comes from?”
He started to use DCA after seeing the results of the Michelakis studies. He saw good responses in the first 20 patients and has continued using it ever since, in combination with other therapies.
Not everybody responds to DCA, but about six to seven patients out of ten do.
Originally DCA was taken orally, but it’s now used intravenously as well. Taking DCA by mouth usually causes side effects. These can include numbness in the fingers and toes, memory problems, confusion, behavior changes and even hallucinations.
However, by combining DCA with R-alpha lipoic acid, acetyl L-carnitine and benfotiamine (a derivative of vitamin B1) these side effects are minimized, allowing the liberal use of an effective anti-cancer agent that would otherwise have to be used sparingly.
Dr. Khan has also published five case reports. The first of these was in 2012. A 72-year-old woman who suffered from metastatic kidney squamous cell carcinoma was treated with DCA for three months following radiotherapy. Imaging studies showed no sign of metastatic disease. This was still the case four years later. Five years on, the patient remains well and lives a normal, active life.
The last case report was published in the World Journal of Clinical Cases in October 2016. Oral DCA therapy was able to stabilize stage 4 colon cancer in a 47-year-old woman for what is currently almost four years.
In addition to the three clinics mentioned in Canada, DCA therapy is also available from Sunridge Medical Wellness Center in Scottsdale, Arizona.
http://www.cancerdefeated.com/overlooked-drug-beats-cancer-confirmsnutty-theory-of-what-causes-it/3902/
