Drinking baking soda does not cure cancer

On the internet there are claims that researchers at University of Arizona are planning clinical trials on the use of baking soda as treatment of cancer.

Here is the article that allegedly document this claim.  But the article does no such thing. The article reports fundings to biomedical engineers who are working on a method to measure pH inside cancers.

Cancers are often more acidic than the rest of the body. How this comes about is described in this post. This may influence the efficacy of some types of chemotherapy. And it may also influence the cancers ability to spread.

There are two paragraphs in the article, that may appear to support what the baking soda supporters claim. We will start taking a look at this one:

Drinking baking soda has been proven to reduce or eliminate the spread of breast cancer to the lungs, brain and bone, but too much baking soda can also damage normal organs.

These are the words of the journalist. Not necessarily the words of the scientists involved. It may be rooted in the research done by one of the collaborators. The article mentions Ian Robey, assistant professor of research at The University of Arizona Cancer Center. His groups research has previously been misrepresented by followers of Tullio Simoncini.

But let us check a out for  ourselves if it has been proven that drinking baking soda reduces or eliminates the spread of breast cancer to the lungs, brain and bone.

Robey and his group has looked into what happens when experimental mice implanted with a cancer cell line are fed with sodium bicarbonate. One should always be cautious about concluding directly from such experiments to effects in humans. Without experiments in humans it has not been proven to work in humans. But the results of such experiments are still informative.

Here is one research paper by Robey’s group, that we will take a look at. The main results were:

1) pH was raised in the tumour stroma, but not inside the tumour cells.
2) pH was unchanged  in normal tissue  (ie. the rest of the body).
3) There was a reduction in number and size of metastases.
4) Nothing happened to the cancer itself.

So this study does not prove that spread is eliminated by drinking baking soda.

Here is another interesting paper by Robey’s group. In this study they looked into DCA and sodium bicarbonate (Separately and combined). DCA didn’t have any effect, but we won’t go into further details of that aspect of the paper here. Concerning sodium bicarbonate, the main results were:

1) Nothing happened to the cancer itself
2) The amount of metastasis were lower in mice treated with sodium bicarbonate. But the difference was to small to rule out, that this observation was a play of chance (ie. not statistically significant).

So this study does not prove that spread is eliminated by drinking baking soda. It doesn’t event prove that metastases are reduced.

Here is another paragraph in the article:

……Jennifer Barton, professor and head of UA biomedical engineering. “Patients can actually change their body’s pH to make their cancer drugs more effective — it can be as simple as drinking baking soda — but this process has to be carefully monitored.”

The critical word in that paragraph is “body”. In various fora where the article is presented as endorsement of Simoncini’s idea, we are told that a professor says it is easy to increase body pH simply by drinking baking soda.

The results of the mice experiments mentioned above show something completely different. There was an increase in tumour pH, but not of body pH. Our guess is, that this is a misquote that wasn’t caught at proof reading. Not only is it inconsistent with Robey’s results. It is also inconsistent with what we know about the normal systems that keep body pH within a very narrow range.

So to summarise:

1) The article is not about clinical trials on sodium bicarbonate as cancer treatment.
2) An increase in tumour pH does not destroy cancer, but it may enhance effects of chemotherapy.
3) The best explanation of the statement that drinking baking soda can increase pH of the body is, that it is a typo.
4) Reduction of amount of new metastasis by drinking baking soda is a possibility, but hasn’t been unequivocally proved to happen.

Sugar depleted diet is not a cure for cancer

One of the ideas that circulate among proponents of alternative therapy for cancer is, that cancer thrives on sugar, and because of this, cancer can be starved to death by avoiding to eat sugar.

It is claimed that the idea is backed up by hard core science – The Warburg effect landed the discoverer the Nobel Prize.

Today we know and understand, that things are more complicated than that.

In this post we will attempt to simplify the biochemistry/physiology involved, and explain why the idea of a sugar depleted diet as cancer treatment doesn’t work in the real world.

What is sugar?

When we think about sugar, most of us think about the white powdery substance that is used to add a sweet taste to various foods. But it is a bit more complicated than that. The white powder is a compound called sucrose, which is chemically bonded glucose and fructose.

We also ingest sugar in other forms. Lactose for example is present in milk, and is chemically bonded glucose and galactose. Starch found in vegetables and seeds are large molecules made of chemically bonded glucose.

Details of sugar chemistry and manufaction is outside the scope of this post, but here is a good site if you are interested.

What do cells meet when they meet ingested sugar?

The sugar we eat (or drink) is not absorbed by the body just like that. It has to be broken down  to its building blocks first. So for sucrose to be absorbed it has to be split into glucose and fructose, which are then absorbed into the body.  Lactose is split into glucose and galactose etc.

So the the cells are exposed to these small building blocks  - or monosaccharides if you will  (glucose, fructose etc.) – regardless of the food source.

For the remainder of this post we will focus on glucose, because glucose metabolism is what the myth that cancer feeds on sugar is about. But it should be clear by now, that cells do not distinguish between glucose from refined white sugar or glucose from other food sources.

What does a cell do with glucose?

Glucose is a major source of energy in the cells. This happens through a series of chemical reactions, where the energy in sugar is transformed into a compound that the cells can use.

This compound is called ATP. It’s a fancy word, but just think of it as the currency of energy. The more ATP, the more energy.

Glucose is also a major source of building blocks used in synthesis (construction) of other molecules that the cells need.

Inside the cells, there are three consecutive separate systems, which gradually break down the glucose molecules, thus harvesting the energy contained as well as building blocks for other molecules. These three processes are called glycolysis, citric acid cycle and oxidative phosphorylation.

It is beyond the scope of this post to go into details about these processes, but if you are interested, you only need to follow the links. We will just list a few important points.

• Glycolysis happens in all cells.
• Citric acid cycle and oxidative phosphorylation only happen when oxygen is available.
• Glycolysis generate 2 ATP molecules per glucose molecule.
• Citric acid cycle + Oxidative phosporylation - 28 to 30 ATP molecules per glucose molecule.

So the energy that can be retrieved from a glucose molecule is far greater when oxygen is available compared to lack of oxygen.

When oxygen supply is insufficient, the end product of glycolysis (pyruvic acid) is transformed into lactic acid, which accumulate in the tissue. You may have experienced this yourself during exercise. The muscle ache that develops is a result of this.

Where does all this talk about the Warburg effect fit in?

Otto Warburg looked into glucose metabolism in cancers, and he observed correctly that cancers produce energy predominantly by glycolysis (with accompanying production of lactic acid) – even when oxygen is available. Far from all the energy that could be harvested from glucose is harvested. As a result, the amount of glucose used by cancer is very high (up to 200 times normal). This is called the Warburg effect.

So the production of building blocks happens at the expense of a less efficient energy production.

This phenomenon has practical use today. In a PET-scan, areas of glucose uptake is visualised. And because of the Warburg effect, cancers are (often) seen as areas of high level of glucose uptake.

The Warburg affect is not a reason to accept  that a sugar depleted diet is a cure of all cancers.

The simplicity of the concept makes it easy to understand why people find it plausible that a sugar depleted diet kills cancer cells.

But since Warburg made his discovery, at lot more about cancer biology  as well as normal biology is understood. Let’s outline a few main points, and then decide if the theory is as plausible as it sounds.

1) Cancer is not a ball of cells that are identical in every aspect.

Not only is there large variation between cancer cells. They also interact in very complex ways with the normal cells that also are components of the tumour. The complexity of this interaction is illustrated below. It is a figure in  in this (very technical) article.

None of this was known to Warburg, and none of this is addressed by people who advocate alternative treatment of cancer.

It has been established that:

• Not all cancer cells within the same tumour exhit the Warburg effect.
• Sometimes it is the normal cells within a cancer that exhibit the Warburg effect.

2) Warburg effect can also be observed in normal cells outside the setting of cancer.

Cells of the immune system and stem cells also exhibit the Warburg effect. So shutting down cells access to sugar is certainly not going to strengthen the immune system. And it will not help the body when it needs to use stem cells to replace old worn out cells.

Inflammation (with the accumulation of cells of the immune system) is a well known source of false positive PET scans.

3) Some types of cancer do not show up on a PET-scan.

This suggests, that some cancers do not exhibit the Warburg effect.

4) Glucose degradation is not the only kind of metabolism that takes place inside a cancer cell.

It has been established, that fatty acid metabolism and breakdown of Glutamin are very important in cancer cells.

5) Glucose is stored as glycogen within the body

When more glucose than the body needs is ingested, glucose is stored as glycogen. Glycogen production happens more or less in most cell types, but the muscles and liver are the major sites of glycogen stores. When needed, the glycogen is transformed into glucose again.

The stores in the muscles are used by the muscles, while the stores in the liver is used to maintain a stable level of glucose in the blood (which is where the cancer as well as the rest of the body gets its glucose from).

6) Glucose can be made from scratch from other other molecules.

Quite a number of molecules can be used to produce glucose. The most important are lactate, glycerol and alanin (An amino acid = a building block of protein).

Most other amino acids and some types of fatty acids can also be used

Have scientists at least explored the possibility of attacking the Warburg effect?

The answer is yes. With a high rate of glucose consumption by many cancers, it is not difficult to understand why researchers want to know if this is a mechanism that could be attacked, and perhaps improve cancer treatment further.

In principle there are two useful ways that this mechanism could be attacked:

1) Reduce/eliminate intake of glucose intake through diet.

This is an idea that has been researched and is being exploited in some types of alternative cancer therapies. The principle is, that a low supply of dietary glucose eventually leads to a degradation of fat into fatty acids and ketone bodies acid instead of glucose degradation. This type of diet is called a ketogenic diet.

Most of what we know about the effect on cancer comes  from animal experiments, but there is some evidence from experiments on human cancer patients too:

In one study, the researchers compared the effect of a ketogenic diet and a glucosed based diet respectively in 27 patients who had cancers of the digestive tract. They measured the proportions of cancer cells that were dividing in each group. If a ketogenic diet was effective, you would expect a lower proportion of dividing cancer cells in samples from this group. They couldn’t detect any statistically significant differences.

In another study, the researchers were interested in the quality of life of 16 patients with advanced metastatic tumors and no conventional therapeutic options. They patients were placed on a ketogenic diet which was intended to last for three months. They found:

• 1 Didn’t tolerate the diet and dropped out within 3 days
• 2 Died after 2 and 5 weeks respectively
• 1 Stopped after 2 weeks due to personal reasons
• 1 felt unable to continue the diet after 4 weeks
• 5 Stopped after 6,7 and 8 weeks respectively because of cancer progression
• 1 Had to discontinue after 6 weeks to resume chemotherapy
• 5 completed the 3 month ketogenic diet period

The latter 6 reported an improved emotional functioning and less insomnia, while several other parameters of quality of life remained stable or worsened.

A case report on 2 patients with a type of brain cancer called astocytoma was encouraging. One of the patients did improve, and the cancer didn’t progress for 12 months.

Clinicaltrails.gov lists several trials looking into this.

So a ketogenic diet may be beneficial to some patients, but it is not a cure of cancer.

2) Medication that interfere with the Warburg effect.

Discovery of new aspects of cancer biology opens up for new possibilities for development of cancer destroying drugs. The Warburg effect is certainly an interesting possibility. One such drug under investigation is called Dichloroacetic acid commonly abbreviated as DCA. The mechanism is, that shifting from aerobe glycolysis (ie. the Warburg effect) to citric acid cycle + oxidative phosphorylation promotesd self destruction of cancer cells through apoptosis.

There are claims put forward by proponents of alternative cancer therapies, that this is an effective treatment of all cancers, and that it is backed up by research done in Canada.

There have been promising results in cell cultures and rodents. But not in all cancers. In one study researchers found that DCA decreased rather than increased apoptosis under hypoxic conditions. This translates into that DCA protected these cancer cells instead of destroying them.

But still the findings in cell cultures and rodents have been sufficiently promising to proceed to testing in humans.

A study including five patients with glioblastoma multiforme (a type of brain cancer) was published in 2010. These these patients also had various other types of treatments, so the study doesn’t really say anything about the efficacy of DCA.
 

Other misunderstandings in alternative cancer therapy related to the Warburg effect.

As explained above, the Warburg effect is about degradation of glucose resulting in production of lactic acid in the presence of oxygen.

A) Lactic acid

The production of lactic acid leads to a low pH (acidic environment) in the vicinity of the cancer cells. This phenomenon has lead to the reasoning behind some alternative ideas, that cancer can’t thrive in an alkaline environment.

The production of lactic acid inside the cancer cells will decrease pH inside , if the excess acid (hydrogen ions) . Cells (cancer cell as well as normal cells) can’t live with a low pH inside. For cancer cells to be able to maintain their lives, they have to get rid of these excess hydrogen ions. There are numerous transport mechanisms, that help cancer cells do just that. The extrusion of hydrogen ions leads to a lower pH in the vicinity of the cancer, but this is a result of what goes on inside cancer cells. Not a condition for cancer cells to survive.

B) Oxygen

The phenomenon that glucose is degraded through glycolysis without proceeding through citric acid cycle and oxidative phosphorylation even when oxygen is available has inspired the idea that oxygen is toxic to cancer cells. Some quacks advocate use of hyperbaric oxygen chambers for prevention/treatment of cancer. Some even claim that Otto Warburg was awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of this, and this proves them right. We have already explained what it was Warburg discovered – No need to repeat.

It is correct that too much oxygen is toxic to cancer cells. But too much oxygen is equally toxic to normal cells. If you are interested in further details about the damage too much oxygen can do to the body, you may find this wikipedia entry informative.

What are the main conclusions?

• Cells don’t distinguish between glucose (a sugar) from different sources
• Large amounts of glucose are often – but not always – used by cancer cells
• Large amounts of glucose are sometimes used by normal cells
• Sugar depleted diet is not a cure for cancer

Homeopathy For Cancer, Endorsed by ASCO?? Not Really

When searching for a non-toxic cancer treatment without any side effects, for many people homeopathy seems an attractive option. And sure enough, there are people out there who try to convince cancer patients that homeopathy is a real option. A strong sales argument would be that conventional science proves it to be effective – and precisely this claim has been made for a homeopathic remedy called Psorinum.

There is no time to wait for alternative cancer therapy to work err… fail

The reason that this blog came to be is the existence of cancer quackery, sometimes called alternative cancer treatments.

Many websites including this blog explain what is wrong with alternative cancer treatments and why they are dangerous and there are horrible examples of what happens to patients who chose to forgo conventional treatment and opt for some kind of alternative treatment instead. But the internet is littered with testimonials touting the successes of miraculous alternative cancer cures that are often claimed to be suppressed. Such testimonials can be very persuasive, especially if the reader/video viewer is afraid and not aware of what to look for, so it is no wonder that people get confused.

If a cancer treatment works in a mouse it works in a human right?? — Well, not necessarily

Researchers are constantly on lookout for new substances that are more effective and safer as cancer treatments than what is already available. In an ideal world it would be possible to know which substances would have effect on cancers and at the same time be safe. But the world isn’t perfect. So the researchers have to use some kind of experimental model to select substances that might be useful to patients. And they publish the results of these experiments.

The Burzynski Proponents Are Still Actively Silencing Critics

In a previous post we revealed how the head of the Burzynski patient group’s PR-department (Marc Stephens also known as MAS) tried to bully lo_mcg into retracting her answer to this question:

Is Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski legitimate?

This is what lo_mcg answered:

Happy New Year!

Is Marc Stephens Really A Representative Of Burzynski?

A few days ago jli blogged about a movie that claims to prove the efficacy of Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski’s “antineoplastons” as a cancer cure.

After writing a post on Dr Stanislaw Burzynski, Andy Lewis of the Quackometer received legal threats from someone by the name of Marc Stephens, who claims to represent Burzynski.

This is not the first time this person threatens bloggers in this way. Peter Bowditch of Ratbags.com is another recent example.

The style of his emails does sound a bit lawyerish, but then again – not really.

Burzynski The Movie: Does It Prove The Efficacy of Antineoplastons Against Cancer?

Stanislaw Burzynski treats cancer patients at a private clinic using what he terms “antineoplastons”: mixtures of peptides, amino acids, and other simple organic substances that are said to promote the body’s natural defenses against cancer. He has published his own studies, but nobody has been able to reproduce the clinical results he claims to have achieved. Recently a movie was released that allegedly shows irrefutable proof that his therapy works as a cure for cancer and that the rest of the medical establishment is conspiring against him.

In this post we will not concern ourselves with conspiracy talk: all we are interested in is to review the evidence presented in the movie (click here).

Health Ranger Mike Adams And The Death of Steve Jobs

As was to be expected, it didn’t take Mike Adams long to inform the world of the cause of Steve Job’s death. It was of course, as it always is, conventional cancer treatments – chemotherapy and radiation in particular – and not cancer, for in Mike Adams’s world-of-miracles-that-never-happen, there is no such thing as dying from cancer.