Despite astonishing advances in science and technology over the last several decades, cancer remains one of the leading causes of death worldwide, with an estimated 9.96 million people dying from cancer in 2020. Dr Thomas Seyfried, a professor at Boston College and a prominent researcher and professor in the field of cancer biology and metabolic therapy, believes this is a result of a misunderstanding as to what cancer is. Over a decade ago, Seyfried, a trailblazer in the arena of conquering cancer, published his groundbreaking book Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management, and Prevention of Cancer, which provided extensive information showing that cancer can be best defined as a mitochondrial metabolic disease rather than as a genetic disease. This theory has incredible implications for the development of new non-toxic cancer therapies. In an interview with Dr Seyfried, he explained the virtues of this concept, the dogmatic ideology that is suppressing its development in mainstream medicine, and how the current cancer treatment is killing patients. A stunning interview with thought-provoking revelations. – Nadya Swart
See timestamped topics below:
- 00:00 Dr Thomas Seyfried on the report released on 25 May of a study by a team of international researchers, of which he was a co-author, which found a non-toxic combination that destroys the two major cells in glioblastoma
- 09:01 On the metabolic therapies that are able to treat cancer
- 11:50 On the prevailing genetic theory of cancer as a disease and the contrasting mitochondrial metabolic definition of cancer
- 14:19 On mitochondria
- 18:11 On the misconception that every cancer is different and the prevalence of several modern illnesses being regarded as metabolic diseases
- 22:42 On the systemic problem of doctors not being allowed to recommend alternative treatments for cancer
- 24:43 On Otto Warburg’s theory on the origin of cancer
- 26:28 On ideological dogma in the medical profession
- 29:58 On the challenges facing the metabolic therapy cancer treatment trials going ahead
- 33:36 On the funding of these trials
- 36:14 On his recommended preventative measures in respect of developing cancer
- 38:28 On whether there are any factors, apart from carcinogens and inflammation, etc., that can induce cancer
- 44:47 On the metabolic therapy cancer treatment trial
- 47:06 On whether metabolic therapies should be used alongside chemotherapy
Excerpts from the interview with Dr Thomas Seyfried
Dr Thomas Seyfried on the metabolic therapies that can treat cancer
The ketogenic diet, calorie restriction, or water-only fasting – any of these procedures lower the blood sugar needed to drive the tumour. They’re also powerfully anti-inflammatory. So many of these cancers are loaded with tremendous amounts of inflammation. The microenvironment is inflamed. All of that stuff can be significantly reduced. People say, well, water only fasting, who can do that? Well, you have a choice. You can either do that, or you can die from the tumour. I mean, you don’t have many options.
Read more: Small study reveals breakthrough potential for pancreatic cancer vaccine.
On the other hand, a calorie-restricted ketogenic diet or any diet that lowers blood sugar and elevates ketones, which we have shown – we’ve actually developed the glucose ketone index monitor to allow cancer patients (not only glioblastoma, almost all cancers are very similar, they’re all fermenters, they all need glucose and glutamine), you have a meter that can be used, the ketone mojo meter, to tell patients how low their blood sugar is and how high their ketones are. And when they get into a particular zone, you’re going to be killing tumour cells. Once you get into that zone, then we use glutamine-targeting drugs.
One of the big challenges in managing brain cancers is delivering drugs through what we call the blood-brain barrier. When you put a patient into therapeutic nutritional ketosis, you can easily deliver small molecules to the tumour. We published papers showing this. You don’t need some fancy chemical. You just have to put the patient into therapeutic ketosis and then deliver small quantities of glutamine-targeting drugs. You don’t even need a lot. Very small amounts of these drugs will be massively effective when used with ketogenic metabolic therapy.
So it’s a diet drug synergy to manage these cancers without causing toxicity. It’s a nice thing, too. You don’t have to have your hair fall out, have all these horrible nausea and vomiting and all this kind of crazy stuff. I mean, yes, you’ll feel hungry on occasion, but your body gets justice. It adapts to this, and the tumour cells get hammered and start shrivelling up and dying. And the patients live a lot longer with a much higher quality of life. And this will be the future. It just takes time for people to understand what I’m saying.
On the prevailing genetic theory of cancer as a disease
Right now, if you go to the National Cancer Institute in the United States, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, it says right on their website cancer is a genetic disease caused by mutations. I mean, nothing could be further from the truth. It’s a dogmatic ideology. You know, it’s a silent assumption that has been driven into the brains not only from the NCI but also throughout the world. You go to England and Germany; they all think it is a genetic disease.
I mean, we have clearly shown this through nuclear transfer experiments. I summarised dozens and dozens of experiments showing that the mutations in the nucleus cannot be the drivers of dysregulated cell growth, which is cancer. Then they said, well, these driver mutations are the ones that are responsible for this. They even termed this. Not all the mutations are bad, only the drivers. Well, now we’re realising we all have large numbers of driver mutations in cells that never become cancer.
And also, cancer is more of a modern problem than it was in the past. It was very rare to find in any of our humans that followed traditional ways of life. Our closest relative, the chimpanzee, never documented a case of breast cancer in a female chimpanzee. Yet, in the United States, it has now replaced heart disease as the number one killer of women. The genetics of the chimp and [our genetics] are almost the same. Our Aboriginal ancestors are the same as us, and cancer is extremely rare. So it’s an environmental problem.
