Your B's and Q's

Otto Warburg. How many of you know who he is? He was a Nobel Prize winner back in the 1920's who insisted that cancer was caused by the lack of aerobic cellular respiration. In his later years, Warburg came to be a bit of an eccentric in that he was convinced that illness resulted from pollution; this caused him to become a bit of a health nut. He was said to bring his own tea bags for tea when he was out and about. I think he was a genius and a man before his time.

So this is what he said. Cancer cells generally use glycolysis rather than respiration or oxidative phosphorylation for energy. This is an anaerobic, without oxygen, process. This is a result of the shortage of oxygen or hypoxia that exists in tumors and damaged mitochondria. Usually dangerously damaged cells kill themselves via apoptosis, a mechanism of self-destruction that involves mitochondria, but this mechanism fails in cancer cells. According to the Warburg hypothesis of cancer growth, though cancer is caused by mutations in the genome of the cells, it is allowed to progress because of the metabolic changes in mitochondria without which the cell would apoptose or self destruct. Hence and according to Warburg, cancer should be interpreted as a mitochondrial dysfunction. This is called the Warburg Effect. Now my question is how many doctors remember this as part of their basic biology studies?

In 1961, scientists saw that people with cancer had little CoQ10 in their blood. They found low CoQ10 blood levels in people with myeloma, lymphoma and cancers of the breast, lung, prostate, pancreas, colon, kidney, and head and neck. Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) is a natural energy producing nutrient involved in a wide range of body systems. CoQ10 is located in the mitochondria, tiny power plants found in every cell in the body, and effectively supports their energy producing pathways to help fuel the body's daily activity. A potent antioxidant, CoQ10 also defends cells against harmful free radicals. Thus CoQ10 plays an important role in generating cellular energy and works inside a cell's mitochondria to provide the supplies necessary for energy production. CoQ10 is an electron/proton carrier that helps the mitochondria to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the body's energy source. This is vitally important because mitochondria must continually generate ATP to support every cell in the body. CoQ10 somehow helps this process by enabling the mitochondria to use oxygen and thus aerobic cellular respiration.

Our bodies can manufacture CoQ10 but we make less of this as we age. Secondly, the B vitamins, niacin (B3), folic acid, and pyridoxine (B6) are required for the body to manufacture this nutrient, and most people don't get enough of these B vitamins or they are depleted through prescription drug use, stress, alcohol, coffee etc... Allow me to add now how statin drugs, which every older person is now on, depletes B’s and thus CoQ10. But also contraceptives, anti-inflammatories and the list goes on and on. And the body needs some fat to help this work, and you guessed it….omega 3’s are the fats to do so.

Coenzyme Q was first discovered by Professor Fred L. Crane and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Enzyme Institute in 1957. In 1958, chemical structure was reported by Professor Karl Folkers and coworkers at Merck, the pharmaceutical company. Can you say follow the money trail? Fast forward to the University of Alberta’s DCA study showing that the mitochondria in cancer cells have just been turned off and can be restarted with the use of something called DCA. And once the mitochondria are back in action, they seem to be able to kill the cancer cells. There is a small clinical trial of DCA going on through the University of Alberta in Canada right now. Go to their website for more information at http://www.depmed.ualberta.ca/dca/

So here’s what I think. We are in a pathetic nutritional state, controlled by the corporate machine or the medical institutions that claim to be there for us, the patient or the consumer. We eat processed food high in Omega 6’s and nothing really green except for that piece of iceburg lettuce on your McBurger. We have reduced the B vitamins in our bodies via stress and then reduce it further by what we do for stress, like not sleep well or enough, drink one too many Starbucks, have one too many Margaritavilles. Then we take meds that our doctors prescribe to us, thinking they are helping us but in fact are depleting our stores of what we barely take in of B vitamins. Statin drugs or high cholesterol drugs are all the rage like a new fashion trend. These deplete our B’s and our CoQ10’s. We don’t exercise daily to rev up our respiration. Lack of B’s equals lack of our bodies producing CoQ10. And lack CoQ10 equals the mitochondria not getting the oxygen they need to do their job.
I find it interesting to note that cancer is historically linked to smoking and smoking depletes oxygen to the cells and as well as yet again depletes B’s. Another note to add. Many people I have spoken to who have had cancer say they were stressed in some way before cancer and remember how stress or what we do for stress depletes the old B’s. Here’s one, being tired is a symptom of cancer and in fact the only symptom my grandmother had when diagnosed with advanced cancer at 91. Those little mitochondria are not working right for energy. Another one for you. Studies have shown that people who are prayerful and meditative either recover better from cancer or don’t get it because…lack of stress.

So let’s say, there is some genetic change in the cell from an outside environmental source or toxin. In my case, that would be too much estrogen I consumed from all the animal products I ate. I used to eat a lot of non organic red meat and dairy. For a while, my mitochondria are doing their job. They are killing off these bad cells. Barely keeping up. But then I got very stressed and I didn’t sleep well and I drank too much wine and then consumed coffee in the morning because I was tired. I am short on my B’s. Can’t produce the CoQ10. I stopped taking even the multi and forget ever adding more B’s or something called CoQ10. Did you miss that memo too? I didn’t exercise. So my mitochondria turned off because of this lack of CoQ10 and the subsequent oxygen it was looking for. The bad cell is not destroyed. The cell wants to live and can now do that without sentry CoQ10 in charge and finds a way to grow without the oxygen that the healthy cell uses. So people who already have cancer probably further deplete the B’s and CoQ10 with all the drugs they take for chemo. I’d like to mention that nutrition was barely mentioned in my cancer journey last year. I guess it was something I could have explored then if I had the sense to ask someone. The only nutritional thing mentioned was increase your protein with radiation. But no why. So I did and I also increased my zinc with a tablet for the short term as longer term will raise your cholesterol. Protein equals meat and meat equals zinc and zinc equals your tissues regenerating. No one told me that. Oh maybe it was in that large packet each cancer patient is supposed to read while navigating the insurance nightmare we all face. Trying to meet with doctors and make decisions. Try to maintain your sanity all the while trying to maintain your home or your job. Oh yeah, I had time to read that 300 page packet of info. Mostly it was chemical related and not nutrition.

What does all this mean in the daily grind of what to do? Review the Stinkin’ Armpit entry and first of all get rid of toxins in you and around you. Remember the world around you is a corporate machine and no one is going to help you except you in regards to this. They want you to buy and don’t care about your health. And remember the government is not really looking out for your best interest. We hope your doctors will but none of them seem to know anything about nutrition and seem to be on an auto pilot cruise control with a chemical agenda. Sweat! And now I’m thinking maybe hot flashes are a great way to get rid of toxins. So ladies, when you’re feeling like an atomic bomb just went off and you are soaked, think I am ridding my body of toxins. Yeah!

Second reduce your stress and take supplements and try to eat right. For some reason this makes more sense to me when now I know how this works at a cellular level versus the doc telling me again and again, to exercise and eat right. Take a B complex in addition to your multi. Take CoQ10 in addition to your B. You could make sure you eat sardines and kale everyday but somehow I doubt that you will change your diet that drastically but consider it. I have to add here that I read an article that asked a bunch of doctors what did they do to stay healthy. The commonality was they all took an extra B. Has your doc ever told you to do that? Rev up the heart once a day even if you just run up and down the stairs. I do not know if once you have cancer if this will turn those mitochondria back on. But I am thinking if there is a wayward cell roaming around my body, I’m sending out the guard with refreshed mitochondria filled with oxygen and CoQ10. I am thinking of a couple people right now whom beat cancer but then it came back. One woman I am thinking of is now going through an ugly divorce. Stress. I am thinking of Lance Armstrong who certainly took in lots of oxygen but per his book didn’t lead a healthy and stress less lifestyle before cancer. And now here is something to contemplate.

There is now talk of how high blood glucose levels -- even before they reach the level needed for a diagnosis of diabetes -- may signal an increased risk for cancer, according to a new study being published in the March issue of Diabetes Care. Again it is related to how our cells metabolize energy. I saw a commercial the other day about a new diabetes drug and all I could think of was how fat the people were in the commercial. Lose weight because will the drug like most drugs have side effects? Will the drug deplete necessary nutrients that you actually need to stay healthy?

The cure is in the prevention and don’t get to the point of cancer. Review what you are doing wrong and make it right. And if your mitochondria are still knocking out bad cells, great but feed your mitochondria with all they need to keep you healthy.