Article: An Old Idea, Revived: Starve Cancer to Death

It's fundamentally wrong at a biological level, because of this:

"tells cells to take up glucose".

Insulin does not regulate glucose uptake in most cells of the body. Insulin only increases glucose uptake in two specific types of cells: fat cells (to drive fat storage) and muscle cells (to drive glycogen storage). The rest of your body takes up glucose in a non-insulin-dependent way. Rather than use the insulin-sensitive glucose transporter GLUT4, they take up glucose from the bloodstream via the non-insulin-sensitive glucose transporters GLUT1 (most of your body), GLUT2 (your liver), or GLUT3 (your brain). Only fat cells use GLUT4 exclusively - muscle cells use a mix of GLUT1 and GLUT4.

AlabasterVerve wrote: »

There's an article in the NY Times today by Sam Apple about the Warburg effect and the insulin hypothesis of cancer. This isn't anything new but it's the first time in a long time I've seen it in a mainstream publication and not a low carb blog.

An Old Idea, Revived: Starve Cancer to Death

Here's an excerpt:

"The Warburg revival has allowed researchers to develop a hypothesis for how the diets that are linked to our obesity and diabetes epidemics — specifically, sugar-heavy diets that can result in permanently elevated levels of the hormone insulin — may also be driving cells to the Warburg effect and cancer.

The insulin hypothesis can be traced to the research of Lewis Cantley, the director of the Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medical College. In the 1980s, Cantley discovered how insulin, which is released by the pancreas and tells cells to take up glucose, influences what happens inside a cell. Cantley now refers to insulin and a closely related hormone, IGF-1 (insulinlike growth factor 1), as “the champion” activators of metabolic proteins linked to cancer. He’s beginning to see evidence, he says, that in some cases, “it really is insulin itself that’s getting the tumor started.” One way to think about the Warburg effect, says Cantley, is as the insulin, or IGF-1, signaling pathway “gone awry — it’s cells behaving as though insulin were telling it to take up glucose all the time and to grow.” Cantley, who avoids eating sugar as much as he can, is currently studying the effects of diet on mice that have the mutations that are commonly found in colorectal and other cancers. He says that the effects of a sugary diet on colorectal, breast and other cancer models “looks very impressive” and “rather scary.”

Elevated insulin is also strongly associated with obesity, which is expected soon to overtake smoking as the leading cause of preventable cancer. Cancers linked to obesity and diabetes have more receptors for insulin and IGF-1, and people with defective IGF-1 receptors appear to be nearly immune to cancer. Retrospective studies, which look back at patient histories, suggest that many people who develop colorectal, pancreatic or breast cancer have elevated insulin levels before diagnosis. It’s perhaps not entirely surprising, then, that when researchers want to grow breast-cancer cells in the lab, they add insulin to the tissue culture. When they remove the insulin, the cancer cells die.

“I think there’s no doubt that insulin is pro-cancer,” Watson says, with respect to the link between obesity, diabetes and cancer. “It’s as good a hypothesis as we have now.” Watson takes metformin for cancer prevention; among its many effects, metformin works to lower insulin levels. Not every cancer researcher, however, is convinced of the role of insulin and IGF-1 in cancer. Robert Weinberg, a researcher at M.I.T.’s Whitehead Institute who pioneered the discovery of cancer-causing genes in the ’80s, has remained somewhat cool to certain aspects of the cancer-metabolism revival. Weinberg says that there isn’t yet enough evidence to know whether the levels of insulin and IGF-1 present in obese people are sufficient to trigger the Warburg effect. “It’s a hypothesis,” Weinberg says. “I don’t know if it’s right or wrong.”

@AlabasterVerve here is some more recent research to proves the Warburg Effect theory from 1924 is valid and and a few animal studies have proven how it can cure cancel in the lab. It does not involve Insulin levels or low carb but they do shut down glycolysis with 3-bromopyruvate.

videocast.nih.gov/launch.asp?14962

Below is more research mentioning the Warburg Effect being useful to stop tumor growth but not research project like the one above that should be in trials in a few years.
hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2015/354143/

Natural Compounds Regulate Glycolysis in Hypoxic Tumor Microenvironment is the name of the research paper.

Below is a 20 minute video by Thomas Seyfried PhD who has been a modern day promoter of the Warburg Effect. I have recently read his book that came out in 2012. I think Seyfried and Watson in your post do not have the full picture perhaps but are on the right track. We know today Metformin is being taken by MD's for cancer prevention and it is true diabetes have 2x the cancer rates of non diabetes. I think if Seyfried would look at the articles just above and add something to shut down glycolysis along with strong ketosis might work. The first video I think shows the most promise to finally to treat cancer with no side effects and no return of the same cancer.

https://youtu.be/sBjnWfT8HbQ?list=PL7YKya_R1ROsVwgUXAPbTwhvdrhGg9NCd

Thank you for your link. I like the patterns I see forming in cancer research.

AlabasterVerve wrote: »

@GaleHawkins I appreciate you wanting to share - and I know you mean well - but I find that cancer cure website repugnant and as far removed from science as you can get.

Legitimate sources do not need disclaimers stating it's not an infomercial and claims they're not selling "the cure" so they can be trusted all while selling their books. This is not science. It's a scam designed to take advantage of desperate people.

Sorry about that @AlabasterVerve . Here is the correct one and I edited the other post.

videocast.nih.gov/launch.asp?14962