Cancer cells and normal cells are known to respond differently to nutrients and drugs that affect glutathione status.

Numerous studies have shown that tumor cells have elevated levels of glutathione levels, which confers resistance to chemotherapy drugs.

One of the challenges of cancer therapy is how to deplete tumor cells of glutathione, so as to make them more vulnerable to the effects of chemotherapy drugs, while at the same time allowing normal cells to remain relatively unaffected by chemotherapeutic drugs.

A number of new findings have emerged that take into consideration the role of glutathione in pathways that promote programmed cell death (apoptosis) in cancer cells.

A German study has reported that glutathione (GSH) plays a critical role in cellular mechanisms that result in cell death. The study found that cancer cells resistant to apoptosis had higher intracellular GSH levels.

Depletion of glutathione in these tumor cells made them more vulnerable to the effects of anticancer drugs or the gene that promotes apoptosis (CD95 or APO-1/Fas). The researchers concluded that apoptosis resistance in tumor cells depends, at least in part, on intracellular GSH levels. (1)

In another study conducted in Spain, researchers found that lowering GSH concentration may be convenient not only for the efficiency of chemotherapy, but also to induce a rather fast and direct apoptosis mechanism in tumor cells. (2)

Based on that premise that the glutathione-S-transferase enzyme is expressed at high levels in many tumors, researchers at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Pennsylvania, went on to design a novel prodrug (PABA/NO).

The glutathione-s-transferase in tumor cells converts PABA/NO to lethal nitric oxide, resulting in death of the tumor cell. The prodrug was shown to have antitumor effects in an animal model for human ovarian cancer. (3)

In the fourth study, Polish researchers found that ingesting a selenium supplement is beneficial, as a supportive element in chemotherapy. (4)

Selenium is a co-factor of the enzyme glutathione peroxidase [GSH-P(x)] and was found to significantly increase the activity of GSH-P(x) in patients reciving the supplement.

A previous clinical study by the same researchers recommended the administration of selenium in patients with ovarian cancer undergoing multi-drug chemotherapy. (5)

Another interesting study by researchers in Texas showed that your chances of surviving a type of brain cancer, called primary malignant glioma, could depend on the type of glutathione-s-transferase (GST) gene you were born with.

Having a combination of a two specific variants of GST (germ-line GSTP1*A/*A and GSTM1 null genotype) confers a survival advantage in some types of brain cancers, but also comes with an increased risk of adverse events related to chemotherapy. (6)

There is compelling evidence to suggest a crucial role for glutathione and substances that target glutathione metabolism in the prevention and treatment of cancer.

Undenatured whey protein is one of the natural foods known to selectively deplete cancer cells of their glutathione, thus making them more susceptible to such cancer treatments as radiation and chemotherapy.

1. Make sure you have a pure source of foodstuffs. Obtain fresh, organic produce regularly by joining a vegetable box scheme

2. Eliminate plastic storage containers from your kitchen and do not buy or store food in plastic or clingfilm

3. Try not to cook the life out of food. Steam vegetables such as brocolli or cauliflower to maintain their integrity and nutritional value

4. Eat wide from many sources for a balanced diet. Include nuts, herbs, lentils and fresh, organic, locally grown produce

5. Find different ways to give yourself a regular, yearly detox

6. Think about and act on your health in a preventative way. Try out some alternative therapies to help you switch on a health sense

7. Test your bodies PH rating. Cancer loves sugar and readily available proteins in an acid environment. Quit taking sugar as much as you can and eat foods that balance your PH

8. Throw your microwave away. Recent tests show 97% of flavonoids lost in brocolli by microwaving

9. Do a toxin stocktake on your household products and food sources. Throw away any harmful chemicals you are persuaded to put into your environment or yourself by advertisers

10. Make sure that your air and water supplies are as pure as possible. Exercise in a healthy, non-toxic environment

11. Find out more about your immune system and how to support it in thought, word and deed

12. Avoid known stressors such as alcohol, tobacco, coffee, extreme conditions and so on, as much as possible

13. Check your home and work for sources of harmful radiation

14. Avoid using deodorants and sun screens containing parabens

15. Avoid factory farmed products such as milk, eggs, fish or cheese. Animals are often fed large amounts of antibiotics as a precaution and live in very stressful conditions

16. Avoid genetically modified food (GMO)

17. Eat slowly and chew food properly. Enjoy eating as a special moment when you ingest new energy for your being

18. Avoid vexatious media intrusions. Just because they thrive on a diet of drama, conflict and spectacle, it doesn't mean you have to

19. Adapt a lifestyle that is in tune with what is around you. Find time to enjoy life and do things that you love

20. Get out into the countryside regularly

21. Carry out your own 'genetic counselling'. Write down the ailments suffered by your ancestors and look for genetic weaknesses in your physiology. Act to compensate for perceived weaknesses

22. Think about your health at physical, intellectual, emotional and energetic levels

23. Look out for ways to experience 'healing moments' in your everyday existance

24. Inform yourself about your medical condition and explore alternatives if you are prescribed medical drugs. All medical drugs have side effects

25. Practice creative visualisation and other methods of positive thinking

26. Find constructive outlets for negative energy

27. Do things that give your life personal meaning for you

28. Get a hair analysis done to see if you are missing any minerals in your diet. The human body needs: 90 nutrients, 60 minerals, 16 vitamins, 12 essential amino acids, 3 essential fatty acids - check them out !

29. Read the labels on food. Avoid trans fats (Hydrogenated Vegetable oils) in biscuits and cakes. Make your own - its fun !

30. Do things that make you laugh

A recent study suggested that eating tomatoes and broccoli together can enhance the anti-cancer potentency possessed by tomatoes and broccoli.

In the study, rats were injected with human prostate tumors. And they were fed powdered tomato and dried broccoli. Used also in the study was finasteride, a drug that shows to slow the benign growth of the prostate.

The study found that the rats use diets with tomatoes and or broccoli get the smaller tumors. The diet with both tomatoes and broccoli is most effective and finasteride is least effective in slowing the tumor growth.

Tomatoes are known for its anti-cancer properties. Lycopene is believed to be the major active component in tomatoes that is responsible for the anti-cancer activity.

Anti-cancer bioactivity has been reported in broccoli. It's believed that glucosinolates may be responsible.

You may have recently read that due to advances in the treatment of heart disease, cancer has become the number one killer in North America. This is interesting news.

You might want to know how you can possibly prevent and fight cancer, but if you do have or even think you have cancer or any other health condition, be sure to consult your primary care physician for proper diagnoses and treatment. This article is for information purposes only.

Some steps that may help you to fight or prevent cancer.

1.Juicing is a powerful way to find health, partly because fresh juice has powerful antioxidants but also because juices contain loads of phytochemicals.

All of the plant chemicals have NOT been isolated but just remember that most of todays drugs are synthetic imitations of naturally occurring plant chemicals. There is speculation that these phytochemicals work better in the combinations that nature has produced them in.

Fresh fruit juice provides those phytochemicals to the body. In order to make fresh juice, consider getting a juicer or a A Vitamix blender.

It is a lot easier to get the health benefits of drinking a pound of carrots rather than trying to eat a pound. A pound of carrots basically makes less than a full cup of juice.

Just think about how many powerful phytochemicals you can get into your body this way.

And cabbage juice has been rumoured to lower the risk of cancer. It doesn't taste great, but so what? This may be due to a chemical that rapidly disappears after the cabbage becomes juice, so you must drink it quickly.

Vitamin U which comes from cabbage juice has been very useful to people with ulcers.

2. Antioxidants can reduce the amount of free radicals in the body. Many scientists consider that the actions of free radicals in your body may lead to cancer. Some excellent antioxidants include vitamins A,C and E, Alpha Lipoic Acid and Coenzyme Q-10 (available at health food stores or online)

3. Your mental state is important, grab a copy of Bernie Siegel's book, 'Love, Medicine and Miracles'. This book talks about patients who went into remission. Bernie believes their remissions were due to changes in their mental states. basically, by becoming more loving towards others they may have affected a change in their bodies.

4. Use Essiac Tea - which is a special blend of herbs that was used by Indians in Canada. A Canadian nurse used it to treat many cancer patients. This combination of herbs includes Turkish Rhubarb, Sheep Sorrel, Burdock Root and Slippery Elm Bark.

5. Read the book 'How to Fight Cancer and Win'. This book remains popular despite the fact that it was written over a decade ago. The author used to work for a pharmaceutical company in Germany. He travelled far to find the information he shares in this book.

6. Get the right kind of exercise. The Falun Dafa exercises are perfect for frail, physically unfit people as well as those who are in great shape. Ask your doctor before changing your level of physical activity.

Cancer is a process that has always effected animals, it is just as common in domestic and farm animals, birds and fishes as it is in humans. Western scientific medicine has been effective in minimising infectious diseases. Many of us are living longer and cancer has almost been accepted as a normal feature of the ageing process. But statistics do not bear this out. The incidence of cancer is increasing in all age groups.

Because cancer cells take some time to grow to a stage where they are a large enough mass to be identifiable, it might be 18 months to 3 years, even 30 years before the disease is diagnosed by a doctor. By then we can be more than half-way down the path to a terminal illness. Due to our psychological make-up we are often immobilised by the news.

We tend to minimise it or deny that it has happened to us. We get depressed. ‘Why me?’ A cycle of immobilisation - minimisation - depression often occurs. Those who do break out of it and manage to accept the reality start testing for options, often ‘against the clock’ find out that cancer is an awesome and complex subject providing a great example of opening a ‘whole can of worms’. Information overload, specialist language, ignorance of alternatives, vested interest, lack of co-operation, paradigm gaps, lack of access to specific information or treatment and a host of barriers such as language translation exist that prevent understanding the problem let alone the latest research.

Since an allopathic doctor (Western surgical doctor) is generally the first point of contact for this dis-ease, cancer is mostly treated only with chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery and more recent biological breakthroughs in hormone treatment. Despite billions spent on research these are basically the same options we had fifty years ago. Essentially the basic treatment of cancer has not changed for many years.

Orthodox treatments for cancer can be brutal and expensive but in the face of scientific medical evidence are the best we have. Solid information on alternatives is confusing, contradictory, unproved and unsupported by current medical models. Many medical doctors view alternatives or complementary approaches with doubt. Those that do endorse them do so mainly because they might enhance the patients quality of life or contribute to palliative care (palliative: ‘relieving pain or alleviating a problem without dealing with the cause’).

Many complementary and alternative practitioners point out that allopathic cancer treatments are only palliative because they treat effects without looking at causes. An example is using pain killers to take away a headache. Although it is highly useful and very convenient it is no guarantee that the headache won’t re-occur. Similarly the orthodox treatment of cancer is more concerned with treating the dis-ease than the patient.

How does it start?

In cancer, a cell, or group of cells, loses touch with where it is in the scheme of things, its ‘synergy’, and starts replicating for itself. The word synergy comes from the Greek ‘sunergos’, meaning ‘working together’. Synergy is the interaction of two or more agents, that produces an combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects, in this case - us. All the cells in a healthy body work together to give us life. They exist as unique individual cells in their own right but also have a higher function, contributing to the life-form of which they are part. Every one of the two thousand billion cells in our bodies has as many working parts as a passenger airliner so it is quite usual for some of these cells to suffer damage.

We all have the potential for cancer. Even a healthy body carries about 10,000 malignant cells and a fully functioning immune system will remove them. But what do cells ‘get’ that change them, click them out of the whole system of our body to become selfish and self-replicating?

Some doctors refer to this simply as ‘insult’. What happens when you insult a cell so often it gets upset? Just like you or I might do - it gives up on the host and sets out for itself. Our consumer culture is presently rich in ways for us to insult our cells and stress them without us even realising.

The growth begins when oncogenes (controlling cell growth and multiplication) in a cell or group of cells are ‘transformed’ by carcinogens. Cell insult often starts with ‘free radicals’, which are unstable atoms or molecules produced by the body as part of its natural defence against disease. Sometimes the body over-reacts in its production of these and produces more than it needs. Recognised stressors that can spark overproduction include cigarette smoke, smog or pollution, too much ultraviolet light, illness or even too much exercise!

Free radicals contain a negative charge that makes them highly reactive. As soon as they are produced they start looking for other molecules with positively charged particles. The reaction they have on meeting is called oxidisation, and this reaction can have a harmful effect, damaging the D.N.A. inside cells or cell membranes and opening the door for cancer.

When a cell is changed into a tumour-forming type, the change in its oncogenes is passed onto all offspring cells. Hence a small group can become established and then start dividing rapidly. Usually these cells ‘give up’ on their normal specialised task in the body and escape from normal controls such as bodily hormones and nerves.

Cancer has no regard for the condition of its host only the success of its own growth, it is ‘anti-synergistic’ and a parasite to the body, consuming nutrients and contributing nothing. It converts the energies around it to its own use and blocks any attacks by suppressing the body’s own immunity. This immunity self-attack is an emerging pattern in modern diseases.

Cancer cells interact with each other and cells around them. They affect the growth of cells nearby and elsewhere in the body, they change the immune system to benefit themselves, they can avoid or destroy normal body defences such as lymphocytes. They can even persuade the body to grow new blood vessels to feed a tumour.

Cancer cells move seemingly ‘at will’ around the body, dissolving the glue of healthy cell walls to pass through and set-up camp elsewhere, creating metastases (secondary growths) seemingly anywhere. It is a highly complex disease with over a hundred definable types and many variables within each.

Cancer is a form of chaos that grows inside us. It is no wonder this most frightening and mysterious of diseases is immortalised in the ‘dreaming mechanisms’ of our media. Movies such as the Alien series capitalise on our fears of something unknown and unwanted growing inside us.

Cell insult happens in a number of ways and if the right conditions for cancer exist it will start to grow through cell multiplication. Once the cancer growth gets going, and the conditions that engendered it are still present, the growth continues at various rates, depending on the host and what they provide. Cancer grows best in an P.H. acid body with lots of glucose, oxygen and easily accessible nutrients.

Even with immortal cell replication it can take many years before a cancer becomes noticeable. A million cells together create only a small growth. Diagnosis is still difficult at this stage as there may not be any visible evidence of cancer.

1. Diagnosis

Diagnosis is a strength of Western scientific medicine because of its dependence on analytical procedures and processes of elimination. Modern technology has given us many ways to see into the body for effective diagnosis of dis-ease. Nowhere is scientific Western medicine so advanced than in the fields of diagnosis. Although the philosophy of Western medicine often comes in for criticism, modern science has produced many ways in which we can examine and image organisms internally and take samples of tissue in hard to reach places.

A qualified doctor should always be the first point of contact for serious disease as they have a good chance of getting you a correct diagnosis. Self-diagnosis is not a good idea except for very minor ailments. If you can, always get a second opinion on any diagnosis. In the UK you are urged to start orthodox cancer treatments within a month of diagnosis.

Diagnosis for cancer uses careful clinical assessment and advanced investigative techniques such as:

endoscopy: an endoscope is a tube-like viewing instrument with lenses and lights or video cameras that is inserted into a body orifice for investigating and treating disorders. If gives doctors the ability to see inside the body and even remove small pieces of tissue for examination (biopsy).

imaging: This process allows doctors to produce images of structures within the body that are otherwise difficult to see. For example short-wave, electromagnetic waves such as X-rays are passed through the body. Some are absorbed and others pass through the tissues to produce a shadow image that is projected onto a film or screen. In x-ray images the bones show up clearly, making it an excellent tool for seeing problems associated with bones or hard objects within the body.

In the 1920’s radiologists discovered that certain substances are opaque to radiation and they began to use them as ‘contrast media’. When these media are introduced into the body they create an outline shape of the cavities they fill, which helps to identify problem areas.

Ultrasound scanning projects high-frequency sound waves through the body, using a transducer against the skin. The waves are reflected back and the pattern of echoes produces an image. Computers are used to create better images. C.T. scanning (Computed Tomography) takes x-rays from different angles and uses the computer to create cross sections or three-dimensional images.

M.R.I. (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) places the patient in a strong magnetic field that passes waves through the body. The computer creates an image by analysing changes in the magnetic alignment of the hydrogen protons in our cells. P.E.T. scanning (Positron Emission Tomography) introduces short-lived radio isotopes into body tissues that are then flooded with gamma rays, recorded and then analysed by computer to produce images.

cytology and histology: Cytology is concerned with the examination of individual cells. The main application in cancer is in the detection of abnormal cells. Histology or hystopathology looks at groups of cells.

laboratory studies: Scientific methodology gives us many ways to analyse and examine bodily extracts.

2. Prognosis

What follows initial diagnosis means identifying appropriate treatments, forecasting the probable course and outcome of the disease (prognostication) and standardising the design of research and treatment protocols. You may be given the option to take part in a clinical study to help assess the effectiveness of a new treatment. Some health centres and surgeries are offered payoffs for enrolling patients in clinical trials which are often ongoing ‘action research’.

3. Treatment

There are four main types of treatment in conventional cancer treatment:
surgery:
this offers the best chance when the cancer is contained to a single area and has a low tendency to spread

radiotherapy:
invented over 100 years ago, this treatment bombards specific areas of the body with gamma rays.

chemotherapy:
uses chemical cocktails that suppress the growth cycles of all cells in the body.

biological therapy:
This treatment uses B.R.M.’s (Biological Response Modifiers) such as Interferon or Interleukin-2 to modify biological systems.

Taking these treatments is no guarantee that the cancer will not return. They do not involve looking for or eliminating any causes. To this extent orthodox Western medical approaches to cancer are only palliative.

1000 years ago in Europe pre-Christian tribes originally had a Goddess culture - a matriarchy where the earth and nature and their cycles and secrets were revered. In pre-industrial societies illness was not seen as a 'random assault from outside' but as a deeply significant life event integral to the sufferer's whole being - spiritual, moral, physical and life course - past, present and future. Dis-ease was interpreted as packed with moral, spiritual and religious messages as one of the many ways through which 'God revealed his will to mankind'. Other philosophies of medicine such as Ayurvedic or Tibetan think similarly, in these, dis-ease has a karmic aspect.

Around the tenth century in Europe - after the so called 'Dark Ages' - women, the original stewards of the land (men did ‘animal husbandry’), were dispossessed of it by the new patriarchies of the Church and State. This male hierarchy hid the things they were most afraid of, namely the fact that it is women who hold the key to the processes and powers of life. They took them as their own, decreeing laws about how we should behave to impose control and inventing 'original sin'. Allied to this there came a prolonged persecution of women, especially any of those involved in healing. Some sources estimate about 5 - 9 million women were destroyed across Europe during this persecution. Essentially the role of women as healers and midwives was discouraged and ‘home-making’ and its many associated skills is still regarded as a ‘worthless’ career according to our primarily fiscal values based on GDP.

When a patriarchy takes over a matriarchy as a fundamental paradigm shift, one of the main things that happens is that 'healing' and 'spirituality' are separated out as an instrument of control. The world of spirit and physic were separated and became even more so during the great male 'Age of Reason' that began with Descartes and continued with Newton, the tail-end of which many are presently clinging to in desperation and a degree of applied self-interest.

Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650) was a central influence on the 17th century revolution that began modern science and philosophy. His ‘Method of Doubt’ was published in 1637:

"I resolved to reject as false everything in which I could imagine the least doubt, in order to see if there afterwards remained anything that was entirely indubitable".

The philosophy of ‘Cartesian dualism’ became part of our science, where the mind and the body are seen as essentially separate. The ‘self’, the conscious being that is ‘me’ was seen as essentially non-physical. Misguidedly (it was not Descartes intention) this philosophy contributed to the mechanistic and rational philosophy of the universe adopted by our culture. Descartes was one of the first people to suggest that phenomena could be understood by breaking them down into constituent parts and examining each minutely. His view of the human body as a machine functioning within a mechanistic universe took prevalence within the ‘Age of Reason’.

"Consider the human body as a machine. My thought compares a sick man and an ill-made clock with my idea of a healthy man and a well made clock".

This attention to analytical detail is still at the heart of our scientific research methodologies. As a result Western medicine has produced ‘World saving’ vaccines and antibiotics. It has created drugs and surgical techniques that do utterly amazing things. It has virtually eliminated all the serious communicable diseases (in the First World) such as leprosy, plague, tuberculosis, tetanus, syphilis, rheumatic fever, pneumonia, meningitis, polio, septicaemia. There are very few women dying in childbirth compared to the past. Western medicine has been, and is, a triumph in the face of these problems which worried us back then the way cancer and heart disease worry us today. Even the big medical problems of the of 1930’s and 40’s have literally vanished.

The age of infectious disease has given way to the age of chronic disorders. The major killers today are heart and vascular disease, chronic degenerative diseases and cancer, largely incurable and increasing in incidence. The strategies that worked so well for all but eliminating acute infectious diseases just don’t seem to work for chronic and degenerative conditions.

"The prevalence of asthma, multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue, immune deficiency syndrome, HIV and a host of other debilitating conditions is increasing. Conventional biomedicine - so strikingly successful in the treatment of overwhelming infections, surgical and medical emergencies and congenital defects, has been unable to stem the tide of these conditions".
James Gordon M.D., Washington, D.C.

Even during the time of Sir Isaac Newton the human body was viewed as an intricate biological machine. The Universe was an orderly, predictable but divine mechanism, a ‘grand clockwork’. Although hundreds of years have passed, Western scientific medicine still holds the same basic philosophy, but are more sophisticated in studying biological mechanisms at a molecular level.

The first Newtonian approaches were essentially surgical. The body was seen as if it were a complex plumbing system. If it went wrong the offending piece was removed or bypassed. These days instead of using knives, drugs are often used to do more or less the same things.

Humans though are far more than walking sacks of chemicals. The animating life-force central to other medical systems is an energy that is not addressed by modern scientific methodology and there are no Western medical models that explain what it is and what it does. It is misguided by the concept that all illnesses are cured by physically repairing or eliminating abnormal cells. This is partly due to a conflict between ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ philosophies and has its roots in the division of science and religion along with the destruction of folk medicine in both U.S. and Europe.

Cancer cannot be treated effectively under a philosophy of reductionism. Scientific cancer research has failed to find a cure because it is looking in the wrong places with the wrong tools. Cancer needs to be understood as a ‘whole’ disease in relation to each individual’s experience and the culture of which they are part. It has multiple causes that vary with each patient. The strategies that worked so well for tackling acute infectious diseases are inappropriate for dealing with chronic and degenerative conditions. Cancer patients can be at best increasingly ‘patched up’ by orthodox treatments but at spiralling health care costs.