The Integrative Cancer Toolbox

by Mary Budinger

Members of the International Organization of Integrative Cancer Physicians (IOICP) often see patients who have either been through the rigors of conventional treatment, or chosen not to go through surgery/chemotherapy/radiation because they have been told that they cannot tolerate it or because they have seen the damage done to others.

Often these patients come with depleted resources – physical, emotional, psychological, and financial. “We need to support these patients and rebuild them for the future while we treat the cancer today,” said Annie Brandt, executive director of Best Answer for Cancer Foundation (IOICP is the physician arm of the foundation). “Each patient is individual, so some things work for one person but not for another. It is a very fine balancing act.”

Integrative oncologists need a comprehensive toolbox to walk that tightrope. Some of those tools were the on display at the Foundation’s 13th annual conference earlier this year in Reno, Nevada:

Systemic Enzymes

Enzymes and digestion go together like a horse and saddle, right? Yet perhaps just 1% of the enzymes in our body are used for digestion. The other 99% are the worker bees that put vitamins and minerals to work to speed up chemical reactions. These are the systemic enzymes; they circulate throughout the body.

“Enzymes are simple, powerful, yet often forgotten,” said Donese Worden, NMD, of Arizona. “Sometimes we are so busy looking at the glitzy new therapies, we overlook the basics and enzymes are very efficient tools for cancer. For starters, using enzymes mean we help the patient to make more energy (ATP) with less effort.”

In cancer, the powerhouse systemic enzymes are proteolytic (protein eating). The body manufactures trypsin and chymotrypsin. Other proteolytic enzymes such as papain, bromelain, serratiopeptidase, and nattokinase come from food or other outside sources. They can be formulated into supplements for healing purposes.

Proteolytic enzymes break down excess fibrin that has been linked to chronic systemic inflammation which feeds chronic diseases, including cancer. Enzymes are measured in units of fibrolytic activity, which means how much fibrin they break down in a set amount of time.

One school of thought has said that supplemental systemic enzymes contain molecules too large to cross the intestinal barrier. Yet studies showed that nattokinase can be measured in the blood after oral ingestion of a single capsule and that most proteolytic enzymes are absorbed.1^,2

Studies have also shown useful modes of action. In colorectal cancer, systemic enzymes were found to prolong survival time and increase quality of life “by reducing both the signs and symptoms of the disease and the adverse reactions associated with adjuvant antineoplastic therapies.”3 In yet another study, the use of systemic enzymes “stimulated the production of tumor necrosis factor-α in human peripheral-blood mononuclear cell cultures in a time-dependent manner.”4

Research is showing that serratiopeptidase, for example, can interfere with adhesion and invasion of eukaryotic cells and biofilm formation in staph bacteria.5

Enzymes also help with a most important issue for cancer patients – quality of life. Clinical studies reported in 2008 demonstrated that “systemic enzyme therapy significantly decreased tumor-induced and therapy-induced side effects and complaints such as nausea, gastrointestinal complaints, fatigue, weight loss, and restlessness and obviously stabilized the quality of life.”6

Cancer creates its own ecological system and biofilms are one of its survival tools. “These biofilms surround tumors like a cloak and can prevent the immune system from recognizing and penetrating them,” Worden said. “When we use proteolytic enzymes to break down the biofilm, many therapies appear to become more effective. Systemic enzymes carry very little risk and are easy for patients to take.” 

Silver

Many people with cancer have coinfections, especially viral and fungal. Silver is a time-honored tool for combating infections. It is a nontoxic, broad-spectrum antimicrobial therapy with no known toxicity and no known mechanism for acquired resistance.

The medicinal uses of silver have been documented since 1000 B.C. More recently, silver is increasingly used as a disinfectant, impregnated into a variety of medical devices to prevent infections and their spread.

The major mechanism by which silver nanoparticles have antimicrobial effects is by interacting with biochemical mechanisms in the bacteria and their cells wall.

A bioactive silver hydrosol can be used orally (under the tongue for 2–3 minutes), intravenously, in a nebulizer, as part of a rectal enema, instilled in the bladder by a Foley catheter, used intravaginally, in the eyes, and topically. Silver which has a positive charge is bound up by negatively charged chloride, and is processed through the liver’s phase II detoxification pathway and excreted in within 24 to 48 hours.

“In solid tumors with an active blood supply, bioactive silver hydrosol can work as an antiangiogenic agent by blocking new blood vessel formation,” said Dr. Sean Devlin of Colorado, medical director of the Best Answer for Cancer Foundation.

But not all silver products are equal. Particle size and particle dispersion are key. Colloidal silvers and mixed salt forms can cause toxicity, including argyria, a benign cosmetic condition characterized by bluish or grayish discoloration of the skin. When silver particles cluster together, the body tries to eliminate them by excreting them through the skin and that leads to cosmetic discoloration. In products contaminated with salts, proteins, stabilizers, and oxidation, the silver particles tend to cluster rather than disperse evenly. These types of silver have little if any therapeutic effect.

“Buyer beware,” cautioned Devlin. “You want a nano- and picoscalar pure silver suspension, meaning the silver is so small it hovers between matter and energy, proven through transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The particles are minute and uniformly dispersed for bioavailability and nontoxicity. In my protocols, I use Argentyn 23 hydrosol silver. It is one of the best antiseptics and has great tissue regenerative properties when used under the direction of a trained clinician. It is a staple in my toolbox.”

(See page XX for Dr. Noonshin Darvish’s article on the use of silver hydrosol in the treatment of Lyme disease.)

PolyMVA

In the 1990s, Dr. Merrill Garnett discovered how to bind alpha-lipoic acid and thiamine (vitamin B1) to the trace mineral palladium by way of an electrical charge. That led to the development of the unique dietary supplement Poly-MVA, which has become a popular cancer tool with IOICP physicians because of its positive effect on mitochondria and proper cell division.

A human being is basically a bag of perhaps 80 trillion cells that make up our organs and tissues. Inside each of those cells are hundreds, even thousands of mitochondria. Think of them as tiny power plants where ultimately food is turned into energy (glucose) for everything that we do – high energy for the body to do the jobs we don’t give a second thought to, such as kidneys filtering the blood, to the more obvious jobs like pressing our foot on the gas pedal or running.

Binding thiamine and alpha lipoic acid together guarantees they will arrive together at the start of the cellular electron transport chain where they are supremely qualified to enhance and protect the process of making energy (ATP) properly in the mitochondria.

“Simply put, when a cell starts to divide, the energy-making process alters and slows down, DNA unwinds, and the cell splits into two,” explained Al Sanchez Jr., president of AMARC Enterprises Inc., which distributes Poly-MVA. “Then the mitochondria of the two new cells need to come back on line, start making energy properly, and get on with their jobs.”

But it doesn’t always work out that way. The body makes millions of “bad copies” or errant cells every day. Normally, cells try to repair themselves by engaging the p53 gene, messenger RNA, and other signaling molecules to trigger a cascade of events that starts the process of apoptosis (cell death), and the immune system is notified to dispose of them.

Cancer cells are abnormal cells that, for some reason, did not turn off or get killed. These cells still look to the body and the immune system like a healthy cell because they carry the same signature as the normal cell from which they were born, or perhaps they have managed to cloak themselves in biofilm. They hide from the immune system.

“Without the proper amount of energy, a cell cannot be repaired or thrive,” Sanchez said. “Sometimes they morph, initiate, and stay stuck a lifestyle that doesn’t require normal cellular energy. It is as if they say, ‘I’m just going to burn some sugar and not worry about producing energy like normal cells do. I don’t need all that energy anyway because I don’t have to do all the jobs that normal cells do. I am just going to stay in this lower energy (hypoxic) state to live and reproduce.” A major difference with cancer cells is that they make and use smaller quantities of energy, with little need of oxygen, and simply keep fermenting sugars and producing lactic acid. They don’t utilize the Krebs cycle to make high-energy ATP. By binding thiamine and alpha lipoic acid together, Poly-MVA is available at the start of the normal energy making process to create an energy/oxygen-rich cellular environment. This creates less opportunity for cell division to go awry, leading in some instances to dysfunctional/cancer cells.”

When cells are energized, mitochondria and DNA are better supported and protected.

Oxygenated Therapies

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and ozone therapies (O3) are an integrative tool which uses the same free radical killing mechanism that the immune system uses to eradicate foreign invaders. Cells make hydrogen peroxide to generate free radicals to kill errant cells, viruses, and bacteria.

“Hydrogen peroxide is cheaper for the patient, easier for the staff, and more user friendly in that a smaller needle can be used,” said James Forsythe, MD, HMD, of Nevada. “I don’t think oral peroxide has any value; it can be delivered intravenously. I am also impressed with some of the results of ozone. It can eliminate acute and chronic infections which often are part of the cancer picture.”

“Oxygen, oxygen, oxygen is the key to healing because injured cells are starved for oxygen,” said Robert Rowen, MD, of California. “Ozone, after it enters the body, breaks down into harmless water (H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2).”

Rowen recently taught medical teams in Sierra Leone, West Africa, how to use ozone therapy to treat people infected with one of the most virulent pathogens, the Ebola virus. “Ozone is one of the best ways to inactivate viruses,” he said. “Viruses have lipids and proteins in their structure that are highly vulnerable to damage by ozone. There is nothing else out there that will kill bacteria and viruses in seconds. It blows a hole in the cell membrane and the cell dies before it can repair itself. I really didn’t expect in two short days that ozone would kill the most lethal virus in the world, but it did. I think hydrogen peroxide would have worked also.”

One downside of IV ozone therapy is that it tends to irritate the lining of blood vessels which is an issue for anyone with vein issues.

Oxidative therapy is an inexpensive tool that offers a broad spectrum approach to a wide variety of chronic infections and cancer, and one that is easily utilized by an integrative physician.

Non-Chemo-Based IPT

Most IOICP physicians use the hormone insulin to lower a patient’s blood sugar prior to administering chemotherapy. As the blood sugar drops, the cancer cells become starved for sugar and open wide all their receptors (doorways to the inside of the cell). When the chemo arrives, followed closely by glucose, the cancer cells are hungry. They drink in the chemo in the effort to get at the accompanying sugar. It’s like a Trojan horse effect. The insulin shuttles the drugs primarily to the cancer cells, largely bypassing healthy cells. That targeting, that use of insulin as a biological response modifier, is called insulin potentiation therapy (IPT). It gets the job done with perhaps one-tenth the dose of chemo used in conventional oncology.

Insulin also can be used as a biological response modifier to target the delivery of natural biological agents. A partial list includes curcumin, artemisinin, silymarin, resveratrol, oxidative therapies, oxaloacetate, methylglyoxal, methylene blue, Poly-MVA, and Argentyn silver. Each has a different mode of action, but they all make life inhospitable to cancer cells.

“No one will ever make the claim that these are as effective as chemo because we don’t use them alone and no has ever studied the synergies,” said Juergen Winkler, MD, of California. “However, we know chemo drugs have resistance problems. Cancer can easily handle one attack – that is why eventually cancer cells become resistant to one drug. But if you approach it as an octopus and attack cancer multiple ways with multiple substances, it is easier to defeat, in my experience. I customize each treatment for the patient based on sensitivity tests from RCGG labs or Voll (electroacupuncture) devices.”

Just as IPT’s use of insulin targets chemotherapy directly to cancer cells, insulin also targets biological agents so they have a better opportunity of actually getting inside the cell to do their job.

“Most people who choose a non-chemo-based course of treatment with use of insulin as a biological response modifier are trying to find a less toxic way of treatment,” Winkler said. “They have seen what chemotherapy’s toxicity has done to family or friends. They don’t get a lot of hope with conventional treatments, especially with advanced diseases. They realize that their quality life is the important thing.”

Hormones

Broda O. Barnes, MD, PhD, one of the world’s foremost authorities on the thyroid gland, famously said, “Health begins and ends with the proper balance of the endocrine system.” Barnes estimated that hypothyroidism affected as many as 40% of Americans in 1976. Since then, a national study showed that iodine levels in Americans have decreased 50% in the last 30 years. The body needs iodine to make thyroid hormones.

A 1977 study of 74 hypothyroid patients strongly suggested that thyroid hormone has a protective role in the prevention of cancer. Half the test subjects were treated with 2 or more grains of natural desiccated thyroid hormone; the other half got less than 1 grain or none at all.7 In the treated group of 31 patients, there was only one case of cancer. In the untreated group of 43 patients, there were 32 cases of cancer.

“Most people with hypothyroidism do not get properly diagnosed because the standard lab test merely measures the amounts of TSH, T3, and T4 circulating in the blood,” said Richard Pooley, MD, of Connecticut. Thyroid hormone exerts its effect inside the cells, not in the bloodstream. The blood levels of these hormones correlate very poorly with the actual thyroid activity in the patient.

“I work with the Broda O. Barnes Foundation where we send 24-hour urine specimens to Belgium to measure the levels of thyroid hormones (T3 and T4) along with cortisol and cortisol metabolites. This is arguably the best way of determining significant thyroid and cortisol deficiency. In the foundation’s experience – which includes thousands of specimens and spans 3 decades – every patient with cancer is both thyroid and cortisol deficient. The foundation has also had several patients with end-stage metastatic cancer who have been cured after supplementing with natural thyroid hormone and physiological doses of hydrocortisone.”

After puberty, people typically experience fluctuations in their hormone levels. By age 35, levels tend to plateau and then decline. This is an invitation to cancer and other chronic health problems. When dealing with cancer, your adrenal glands also get depleted quickly and they don’t have the robustness needed to deal with the illness.

“Hormones are more important than vitamins,” said Pooley. “Although vitamins and other nutrients play an important role in the function of the immune system, balance of the endocrine system is usually the deciding factor influencing immune function. Thyroid hormone, and even cortisol (contrary to conventional wisdom), are the most important hormones for optimizing immune function, and immune function is the key element in the cure of cancer. The immune system, when properly optimized, destroys only the cancer cells without any collateral damage to normal cells.”

Cancer Vaccine

There is much agreement in the medical community that cancer often involves a failure of the immune system to recognize and kill off errant cells. The immune system is our first and best defense against cancer, and many other chronic diseases. Can we unlock the power of the immune system to treat cancer by way of a vaccine made from stemlike cells of the immune system?

William Decker, PhD, Baylor College of Medicine, is on the leading edge of developing such a vaccine. The stemlike cells he works with are called dendritic cells and they are the generals of the immune system. They make all the decisions and send orders down the line. One of the platoons of soldiers down the line are the Th1 cells, part of the acquired immune system that goes after intracellular viral and bacterial infections.

“The Th1 cells are generally not very active in people with cancer and yet Th1 immunity is most important in cancer,” said Decker. “We can help the body prime a more robust Th1 response by helping it recognize patterns important to the functioning of a virus or intracellular bacterium.”

Decades ago, it was noticed that spontaneous tumor regression has followed many different types of infections. It is thought that these infections “wake up” the immune system by sending appropriate signals for a Th1 immune response to kick in. Cancer antigens may come along for the ride during such infections and result in spontaneous remissions.

“One of the proteins in dendritic cells is CTLA-4 (cytotoxic T-lymphocyte associated protein 4), the most famous immune regulatory molecule in the universe,” said Decker. “Only very recently discovered to be expressed by dendritic cells, we now know dendritic cell CTLA-4 controls whether lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell) are turned off or on during the initiation of an immune response. Normally, CTLA-4 signaling regulates the immune system by turning off lymphocytes so you don’t get an inappropriate immune response. With cancer, if you block the activity of CTLA-4, you can turn on important downstream effects in generating CD8 T-cells which can kill cancer cells. CD8 T-cells are more functional when we get CTLA-4 out of the equation.”

Decker and his team at Baylor are in development with a vaccine to downmodulate CTLA-4 expression. “CTLA-4 exists in dendritic cells; it is real, we have documented it. Other vaccines, targeting other modes of action, have possibly not performed well because even though they make an immune response against a specific protein, they don’t address dendritic cell CTLA-4. What we are developing is a way to make the dendritic cells mimic something you typically only get with a real viral infection.”

Con clusion

Thomas P. Hsia, MD, of California, is board certified in gastroenterology. He came to the conference thinking he would attend just the ozone seminar but decided to stay and check out the presentations. He was blown away.

“It opened my eyes to a lot of options out there,” Hsia said. “As a mainstream professional, I was interested to see the validity and justification of my belief system that all disease – be it autoimmune, heart, diabetes, or cancer – is all part of the spectrum of too much toxicity (heavy metals, pesticides, toxic emotions) and too many nutritional deficits. Often in my world, the kind of information presented at this conference is considered interesting but something to ignore because there are so many points of departure from the conventional model in which we are trained. I am fascinated with all this information and the research behind it all.”

Mary Budinger, NTC, is a certified nutritional therapist and an Emmy-award winning journalist. She teaches about nutrition and integrative medicine in Phoenix, Arizona; 602-494-1999.

Notes

1. Ero MP, Ng CM, et al. A pilot study on the serum pharmacokinetics of nattokinase in humans following a single, oral, daily dose. Altern Ther Health Med. 2013 May–Jun;19(3):16–9.

2. Kolac C, Streichhan P, Lehr C-M. Oral bioavailability of proteolytic enzymes. Eur J Pharm Biopharm. 1996;42(4):222–232 (68 ref.)

3. Popiela T, Kulig J, et al. Influence of a complementary treatment with oral enzymes on patients with colorectal cancers – an epidemiological retrolective cohort study. Cancer Chemother Pharmacol. 2001 Jul;47 Suppl:S55–S63.

4. Desser L, Rehberger A, Paukovits W. Proteolytic enzymes and amylase induce cytokine production in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells in vitro. Cancer Biother. 1994 Fall;9(3):253–263.

5. Artini M, Papa R, et al. Comparison of the action of different proteases on virulence properties related to the staphylococcal surface. J Appl Microbiol. 2013 Jan;114(1):266–277

6. Beuth J. Proteolytic enzyme therapy in evidence-based complementary oncology: fact or fiction? Integr Cancer Ther. 2008 Dec;7(4):311–316

7. Schwartz S. The relationship of thyroid deficiency to cancer: a 50-year retrospective study. J Int Acad Prev Med. 1977;6(1):9–21.