So, I am not talking about a virus but another scourge that is not to be named fully except in accredited medical journals.
This illness is rarely cured, often deadly, and little progress has been made in death rates in metastatic disease.
The current ongoing research is primarily genetic, looking for oncogenes which often are actually normal and merely amplified genes, or cause suppression of other genes.
Rarely is metabolism implicated although the first steps to creating that environment have been shown to be metabolic. It must be far too simple and stoopid for me to think one should look at that information since it predates the mutation of genes into oncogenes and predates the amplification of the same genes.
One of the ongoing and probably never-ending myths that will continue even in the face of data otherwise is that “telomeres cause cancer!” or for the more sophisticated “telomerase causes cancer!”
Over and over lay people and scientists alike have endlessly barraged people like me with emotionally charged “questions” that are really emotionally charged statements of my quackery for making a telomerase activator and a telomere support agent.
Here are the facts:
- Telomeres and telomerase do not cause cancer. Cancer has as a first step a metabolic shift away from fat burning for energy production to sugar burning (a more primitive but equally effective way of generating energy gradients) for pre-cancer cells.
- Telomerase is suppressed in most cells and must be amplified either genetically or through some type of pharmacologic modification to increase health and life span of sick and dying cells.
- Very short telomeres often lead to cancer if they bypass the cell death mechanisms (apoptosis)
- Short telomeres can also lead to a global increase in inflammation in the body through what is known as the “senescent activated phenotype” which accelerates aging. A while back I sent you a link to a peer-reviewed paper I co-authored in the role of inflammation in aging.
- Some cancers like melanoma are associated with longer telomeres. Notice the word association. Many people mistake association for causation, even smart people and smart scientists. Often lay press articles forget this and word things completely wrong. “Long telomeres cause cancer!”
In a recent study about melanoma, it was shown that a completely different area of mutation causes a co-carcinogen effect with amplified telomerase to cause lengthening of telomeres and immortality in melanoma cells. Without it, there is no cancer. In other words, telomerase amplification is not to blame for cancer
- Often massive telomerase amplification is required to immortalize cancer cells- far more than has been achieved by genetic manipulations and supplements. This is often the LAST step in the cancer process not the first. Inhibition of telomerase in cancers will most likely buy some time but unleash something worse, a resistant cancer with ALT telomere lengthening that is not responsive much!
- You need to turn on telomerase to extend the life span of healthy cells and most probably to reduce age-related inflammation in the body.
- Aging and Cancer are very different. While we truly do not know what causes either, if you are barking up the wrong tree you will never find an answer. As a physician, I can tell you most of the drugs I ever prescribed did not cure anything…. Ever. They merely tied the patient to the costs and side effects of the drug for the rest of their life in exchange for possibly a few more years of hopefully healthy life. If you had something that someone needed to take for the rest of their life it would be the ultimate “continuity program”!
Any intervention into disease and aging requires a supportive lifestyle including nutrition and in my opinion, supplementation to make up for what is often missing.
Telomeres do not “cause cancer”. Telomerase activation does not cause cancer.
No one really knows what “causes cancer” but we do know what happens early in the game. A metabolic shift that remains unaddressed by the billions of dollars in research grants that continue to look for oncogenes, etc. Buying a few months of sickness and pain is not barking up the right tree.
These are my personal opinions and hypothesis. In 2012 a researcher named T, Braskey published a study in which he suggested fish oil causes cancer. I had been on it regularly for 12 years and since for another 10. I do not have cancer.
I have been taking telomerase activators regularly since 2009 and created my own in 2016, I do not have cancer.
More than that along with all of the lifestyle things I do I remain far more capable and healthy than most people even 20 years younger.
None of what I have said is approved believed or entertained by any accredited medical authority and never will be. I will let you decide why. I make no medical claims for any of what I make or take or suggest. Always consult your own personal physician on everything related to your health.
They know best as has been shown time and time again.
To Your Best Health and Healthy Aging….
Dr Dave