|
|
|
|
|
|
by mromanuk
591 days ago
|
|
|
According to Thomas Seyfried, cancer is indeed one disease, fundamentally a metabolic disease [0]. Seyfried's theory suggests that cancer stems from mitochondrial dysfunction, which disrupts cellular metabolism and leads to abnormal cell growth. He argues that the root cause of cancer is not genetic mutations, as commonly believed, but rather metabolic disturbances that alter how cells process energy. Basically returning the damaged cells to "old pathways" of energy generation, without oxygen: fermentation.
This process, known as the Warburg Effect (named after Otto Warburg who first described it in the 1920s), shows that cancer cells primarily rely on fermentation for energy production even in the presence of oxygen - a phenomenon called "aerobic glycolysis." However, glucose fermentation is only part of the story. Cancer cells also heavily depend on glutamine, an amino acid that serves as another crucial fuel source. Through a process called glutaminolysis, cancer cells convert glutamine into both energy and building blocks for rapid cell division. This dual dependency on glucose and glutamine makes cancer cells metabolically distinct from normal cells. This metabolic theory challenges the traditional somatic mutation theory, which views cancer as a result of DNA mutations accumulating in cells. Seyfried proposes that targeting the metabolism of cancer cells—primarily through dietary interventions like ketogenic diets or therapies that restrict glucose—could effectively "starve" cancer cells while leaving healthy cells less affected. His approach implies that a general strategy for treating cancer could involve targeting this metabolic vulnerability shared across many cancer types.
Furthermore, this theory suggests that combination approaches targeting both glucose and glutamine metabolism might be particularly effective, as they would address both major fuel sources that cancer cells rely on. This could include strategies such as ketogenic diets (to restrict glucose), glutamine inhibitors, and other metabolic therapies that work together to compromise cancer cell energy production while preserving normal cell function. 0: https://nutritionandmetabolism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10... |
|
|
For example, maybe cancer does have a single unifying cause that can be fixed very easily. But the millions of hours put into studying it suggests otherwise.
This seems to be generally true about most things. Only very rarely do we get something super simple like goiter being caused by the lack of iodine, or stomach ulcers being caused by H. pylori.