Cancer: Don’t Feed the Mother of all Diseases!

So I stumbled upon this recent post on Mother Nature Network on the use of a paleo diet for cancer. Confused by the death of a healthy eating friend, she questions whether her paleo diet is really helping her stay healthy and cancer free. To pour gasoline on the fire, there’s even evidence of a neanderthal skeleton with a tumor. What are we to do?

While I don’t think the existence of a non-human skeleton with cancer debunks the paleo diet (although any death before the modern period is apparently proof against it), it bears going into why and how a paleo diet could possibly stop the mother of all diseases.

The Warburg Effect

According to research conducted at UCLA by Dr. Thomas Graeber, cancer cells undergo a profound shift in the way they get their nutrients. It is based on an observation by Nobel Laureate Otto Warburg, who noticed that cancer cells went through the process of glycolysis up to 200 times faster than healthy cells.

How is it possible for them to do this? By ingesting glucose of course. The mitochondria of cancer cells are fundamentally unequipped to dealing with ketones and other metabolites of fat consumption, but can stay happy when there is glucose in the bloodstream. As a matter of fact, some estimate that cancer cells have as many as 18 times the amount of insulin receptors than normal cells.

Maybe the author’s ‘health freak’ friend was eating a vegetarian diet high in grains, was eating starches to support extended cardio training, or something similar. There could be more to this after all.

Prevention and starvation

So if we’re in a situation where there are 16 times the insulin receptors on a cancer cell, we are effectively in a situation where cancer cells will grow 16 times faster, gram for gram, with any insulin spiking carbohydrate you consume. Have you passed the rolls yet?

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Author’s Bio: JP Martin started Bug Out Nutrition in an attempt to apply the science of nutrition to survivor scenarios. Her aim is to help you be better prepared physically, mentally and maybe even spiritually by superior nutrition today and when the SHTF. Whether you’re young, old, male, female, black, white or purple, superior nutrition will give you what it takes to maximize your efficiency for better survival (and heck, better living until that day comes). You can connect with JP on Twitter @BugOutNutrition and like her on Facebook.