Biological cancer therapy

The diagnosis “cancer” is a life-changing event for the patient and for his relatives alike. It marks the beginning of a period that usually involves severe emotional and physical strain. It is precisely in this phase of life that the patient needs the greatest possible understanding and care, and he needs background knowledge about the disease and its treatment.

This page explains how we understand cancer, why the mitochondria, the power stations of the cell, are at the centre of our concept, what you can contribute yourself, which pillars biological therapy rests on, which questions you should ask your oncologist, and which assessments and procedures we use.

Cancer affects the whole person

Cancer is not a local event, nor does it appear suddenly and without reason. The tumour is not the cause but the symptom of a disease of the whole person. The treatment concept must therefore also address the whole person.

Conventional tumour therapy has undeniably achieved great successes; it remains the preserve of specialists and hospitals. But if we assume, in line with the views of holistic and regulatory medicine, that the whole person is affected by this disease, a wide range of possibilities for additional therapy opens up. In many cases it can improve general well-being, relieve pain, make chemotherapy and radiotherapy more tolerable, prolong life and noticeably improve its quality.

Cancer as a disease of cell metabolism

For a long time it was taken as settled: cancer is a genetic disease. The idea goes back to the cell researcher Theodor Boveri (1862 to 1915). However, the major projects to decode the cancer genome have confused the picture rather than clarified it: genetic mutations that would be specific to tumours are lacking.

The American biologist Thomas N. Seyfried sets a different view against this: cancer is a metabolic disease. The genes have diverted attention from the real problem, the cell’s energy balance. This view contradicts the prevailing doctrine of oncology. It is the basis of our concept.

The mitochondria

Mitochondria are small organelles in the cell. They are responsible for energy and are involved in many other processes:

• Formation of the energy carrier ATP
• Citric acid cycle
• Fat burning (beta-oxidation) and formation of ketone bodies
• New formation of glucose
• Metabolism of amino acids and urea cycle
• Formation of the blood pigment (haem biosynthesis)
• Formation of the steroid hormones
• Calcium balance of the cell

Fermentation despite oxygen

A cell can obtain its energy in two ways: with oxygen in the mitochondria (oxidative phosphorylation, OxPhos for short) or without oxygen through fermentation, the breakdown of sugar to lactate. The route via oxygen is elaborate but productive; fermentation is simple and fast.

Tumour cells differ from normal cells not in the amount of energy they need but in the source of energy: they obtain their energy through fermentation even though sufficient oxygen is available. Specialists call this aerobic fermentation or aerobic glycolysis; it was described by Warburg. For this the tumour cell takes up much more glucose. The imaging of tumours with labelled glucose in PET is based on this.

What tumours have in common

• Increased aerobic glycolysis is found regardless of the tissue from which the tumour originates.
• Practically all highly malignant tumour cells have fewer mitochondria or mitochondria of disturbed shape. The more abnormal the shape of the mitochondria, the higher the malignancy.
• In tumour cells, around eight times more protons flow back unused through the inner membrane of the mitochondria than in normal cells. The cause is a defect of cardiolipin, a building block that seals this membrane. More reactive oxygen species (ROS) and heat are produced instead of energy.
• Metastasising cells are related to cells of myeloid origin, that is, to immune cells such as macrophages and leukocytes. These are designed to penetrate tissue and to survive in a low-oxygen environment.

Where metastases migrate to

Metastasising cells have the properties of mesenchymal cells. They migrate to sites with high repair and macrophage activity, like the seed that falls on suitable soil (“Seed and Soil”): into the mouth after a tooth extraction, to wound edges, into biopsy channels, into any wound that is currently healing.

From stimulus to tumour cell

Radiation, toxins, viruses and chronic inflammation are non-specific influences. How can they trigger a process as specific as tumour formation? The common link is the damaged respiration of the mitochondria, mitochondrial respiratory insufficiency.

If respiration fails, the mitochondria report this to the cell nucleus. In the short term this is a survival strategy: the cell promotes the enzymes with which it obtains energy without oxygen. In the long term, genes known as oncogenes are read more intensively; they are in fact the genes needed for aerobic fermentation. At the same time the reactive oxygen species increase, repair of the genetic material declines, and the genetic material in the cell nucleus becomes unstable. In this view, the genetic changes are the consequence of the disturbed respiration.

Healthy cells whose respiration fails cannot compensate for the loss through fermentation: they die by programmed cell death (apoptosis) and never become a tumour. Tumour cells live on with fermentation.

Intact respiration also keeps the cell at rest and differentiated, because it activates signals that inhibit cell division. In this sense the mitochondria are the real tumour suppressors.

What tumour cells live on

Healthy cells can utilise fats, carbohydrates and amino acids. Tumour cells depend on glucose and on the amino acid glutamine. In many types of tumour glutamine is the main source of energy, above all in those of the haematopoietic and myeloid cell lines. It is also needed for the formation of the messenger substances involved in wasting (cachexia).

Mitochondrial medicine: what follows from this

If tumours are primarily a metabolic disease, a consistent treatment must start with energy metabolism. This applies to most types of tumour.

An important concept of the Seegarten Klinik is to normalise this biochemical process again: to protect and strengthen the respiration of the mitochondria and to deprive the tumour cells of their sources of energy. Mitochondrial medicine is therefore at the centre; the other pillars of biological therapy are arranged around it.

Nutrition: making energy deliberately scarce

Dietary energy reduction, that is, markedly fewer calories and above all fewer carbohydrates, is a metabolic therapy. In studies it slowed the growth and progression of a wide variety of tumours, for example of the breast, brain, colon, pancreas, lung and prostate. The earlier it begins, the more successful it is.

In healthy cells:

• It improves the respiration of the mitochondria
• It improves the redox status of glutathione
• It reduces the formation of reactive oxygen species
• It protects against tumour formation

In the tumour:

• It inhibits the formation of new vessels and reduces the abnormal vascular architecture
• It promotes the programmed cell death of the tumour cells
• It has an anti-inflammatory effect

Only normal cells with functioning respiration can cope with this diet: they switch to fats and ketone bodies. Tumour cells cannot do this because the enzymes and the respiratory chain of their mitochondria are disturbed. Without glucose and glutamine, ketone bodies are not sufficient to cover their energy requirement. Conversely, glucose accelerated tumour growth in animal experiments, and an excess of calories promotes it.

Such a diet and any fasting belong under medical supervision. Whether and in what form they are an option for you is something we clarify in each individual case.

Oxygen

In an animal model with metastases, the ketogenic diet together with oxygen under increased pressure (hyperbaric oxygen) had a stronger effect than either of the two measures alone.

Prevention

“There are only a few diseases that can be prevented as easily as tumours,” write Seyfried and Shelton. All factors that impair the function of the mitochondria are risks for tumour formation. Prevention therefore means: protecting the mitochondria, supporting their respiration and avoiding the risk factors for chronic inflammation, namely environmental toxins, alcohol, radiation exposure and excess weight. Seyfried puts it this way: “Any food that improves the energy yield of mitochondrial respiration lowers the risk of cancer.” Exercise is also part of this.

The example of mobile phone radiation shows how such an influence can act: it generates heat, the heat activates macrophages, these release inflammatory messenger substances, and chronic inflammation develops. It disturbs the mitochondria and their respiration. This is followed by the feedback to the cell nucleus, aerobic glycolysis, genetic instability and tumour formation.

• Eliminating inflammation and zones: inflammatory messenger substances have been shown to favour cancer and promote tumour growth. Zones of inflammation are frequently found in the mouth and jaw area.
• Analysis of the oxidative and nitrosative stress that can trigger cancer
• Analysis of the microbiome, the flora of microorganisms in the gut
• Sensible and practical dietary guidelines: tumour growth can be promoted or slowed by the intake of certain nutrients.
• Fostering faith and confidence: healing in the original sense

You yourself are your most important therapist

An important part of the treatment is your personal attitude and your willingness to change something in your life. The diagnosis “cancer” is a message in the form of an illness: it is high time to take full responsibility for your own life. Many of those affected have the impression that they know why they have fallen ill in this way. The important conclusion from this: If I have contributed to this illness, perhaps I can also contribute to my health!

You have the choice. It does matter what you eat, what and whom you allow to get close to you, where you live and how you work. Latin distinguishes more precisely than the German word “heilen” (to heal) between curare, the treating of complaints, and sanare, the return to health. Accordingly, a therapy merely treats. The concept of the Seegarten Klinik includes becoming healthy in body and soul.

Standard medicine takes a different view: the diagnosis was simply “bad luck”, and therefore you have no influence; only surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy are effective. But the truth is: your attitude and your behaviour can decide the further course of the disease. The concept of the Seegarten Klinik helps you to become active, to take the helm and, as a supplement to conventional medicine, to share the responsibility for your health. Change for the better what you can. Everything in life has a reason, and in this case the reason is you yourself. The decisions I made in the past influence my health today.

Now is the time for change

“Why me?” After the diagnosis there is usually at first an emptiness, a black hole in the head. A happy future seems unthinkable. The most important task now is to accept the illness and to accept your own condition. Only then can hope, confidence and the belief in healing take effect.

We see ourselves as a pilot guiding you through the many questions you have, so that you know and can use all the possibilities open to you. Our concern is to assess the overall situation with you, to recognise the reasons for the tumour formation, to monitor the course of the disease and, with our biological and functional medicine, to support you in awakening your will to live and your vitality.

Many pillars instead of one

Biological therapy is “multifactorial”: it rests on a wide variety of pillars. There is little point, for example, in carrying out a thymus therapy alone if the gut has an abnormal bacterial colonisation and dental foci are present, if the patient carries on smoking undiminished, drinks alcohol and eats the wrong diet, keeps a depressive attitude to life, is constantly under stress and does no sport. That will not work. A holistic therapy only has a prospect of success if as many points as possible are addressed.

The disturbed inner balance and the weakened defences of tumour patients call for the combined use of remedies and methods that strengthen the defences and influence the whole organism:

• Hormones, antihormones
• Biological response modifiers
• Thymus factors
• Spleen factors
• Interferons, interleukin-2, lymphokine-activated killer cells, and many more
• Hybridised antibodies and antibody conjugates
• Specific cancer cell vaccines
• Paraimmunisations
• Fever therapy
• Enzymes
• Plant lectins
• Activation and balancing of the psyche with a view to harmonising the neuro-endocrino-immunological processes in the organism
• Physiotherapy
• Kneipp treatments
• Activation of leisure time and holidays
• Talking therapy
• Self-help groups
• Family support
• Hyperthermia, whole-body, local or perfusions
• Anticoagulant therapy
• Oxygen therapies to stimulate phagocytosis
• Detoxification attempts (nicotine, alcohol)
• Treatment of zones of inflammation
• Restoration of the gut
• Lactic acid therapy
• Orthomolecular therapy (retinoids, ascorbic acid, tocopherols, magnesium, selenium, germanium)
• Wholefood and fresh-food diet

Procedures we use

• Mitochondrial medicine: tumour cells degenerate from healthy cells that are running out of energy. Small organelles in the cell, the mitochondria, are responsible for energy. Many environmental toxins and radiation exposures attack precisely here and destroy the mitochondria, as a result of which the cell’s energy production switches from “with oxygen” (aerobic) to “without oxygen” (anaerobic). An important concept of the Seegarten Klinik is to normalise this biochemical process again.
• Fever therapy: cancer cells are sensitive to heat. The various forms of systemic heat therapy (whole-body hyperthermia) make use of this.
• Detoxification: cytostatics, the medicines used in chemotherapy, exert their effect in the first 24 to 48 hours. After that the body is left with the toxic waste in the form of heavy metals. A targeted elimination infusion after chemotherapy makes it better tolerated and markedly reduces the side effects.
• Gut care: your gut is an important ally. We support it with colonic irrigation, enemas and the restoration of the microbiome, your natural bacterial flora.
• Building up and maintaining vitality: the vital additional requirement for micronutrients, trace elements and minerals is specifically met with food supplements, medicines and infusions.
• Oncopheresis (blood cleansing): normally our immune system recognises cells that grow uncontrolled and destroys them before they cause harm. Sometimes tumour cells escape this control because they have learned to camouflage themselves. Two proteins, tumour necrosis factor (TNF) and interleukin-2 (IL-2), mark tumour cells so that they are recognised and destroyed. However, receptors that compete with these proteins also form on the surface of tumour cells. These receptors, which are soluble in the blood plasma, are removed by the blood cleansing. In this way the body’s own immune system is once again enabled to attack the tumour.

Tumour markers: overview (in German)

Sources

The sections on cell metabolism are based on the lecture “The energy balance of tumour cells: new therapeutic approaches?” given by Dr. med. John van Limburg Stirum at the 4th Congress for Complementary Cancer Therapy, Munich 2014.

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• Poff A. M. et al.: The ketogenic diet and hyperbaric oxygen therapy prolong survival in mice with systemic metastatic cancer. PLoS ONE, 2013.