Epigenetics and reversing cancer

The Science of Epigenetics tells us how messages from your personal DNA code become altered or even blocked due to metabolic changes in the microenvironment of your cells; this results in chronic metabolic illnesses from cardiovascular disease to cancer and from diabetes to dementia.

You will hear that the science of Epigenetics is 'controversial' because it flies in the face of the conventional definitions of cancer. As you will see the debate is not dissimilar to Galileo trying to tell the Catholic Church that they were wrong and that the sun did not spin round the earth. He was excommunicated and confined to his house. 300 years later the Catholic Church admitted they were wrong.

Epigenetic changes  (from the Greek epi-, meaning around) do not occur within your DNA but in the copying process (from DNA to mRNA to a protein) and so are neither inheritable nor permanent. Importantly they are reversible (1).  If cancer is caused by changes around the DNA, it is 'epigenetic', it is metabolic, it is reversible, and it is no different in formation to cardiovascular disease, dementia or diabetes. 

Inheritable mutations 

A Mutation is 'A sequence change inside your DNA'. That is the strict definition. As a result any message that emerges from that DNA sequence is gobbledegook. It doesn't work. It does not properly code messenger RNA, and this does not code a correct protein.

Inheritable sequence changes or inheritable mutations inside the DNA include, for example BRCA1, BRCA2, CHEK2 and PALB2. Less than five per cent of humans have an inherited mutation. Such changes are only in one strand of DNA - that from your mother or that from your father. So, you are likely to produce one damaged message, but still able to produce one healthy message which will code healthy mRNA and result in a protein that works.  

It is important to understand that an inherited mutation does increase your risk of cancer, but since you are almost certain to have one perfect DNA sequence in the non-mutated DNA strand, about 30% of people go through their whole life with an inherited mutation, without ever developing cancer (2).

Moreover, according to a UK study involving 127 Hospitals, recorded in the Lancet (3), people with an inherited mutation and cancer have at least the same survival times as people without an inherited gene, and sometimes more. An inherited mutation makes no difference to your potential survival time.

It is also important to note at this point that when you are told you have a BRAF or KRAS mutation, technically you don't. You have animperfect protein, not a sequence change in your DNA.

Cancer and mutation

The Somatic Theory of Cancer is the text book theory of cancer that has prevailed for 80+ years throughout cancer academia and the cancer industry. It holds that cancer is caused by a mutation or multiple mutations within your DNA. These are prompted by mistakes during cell division,or by ionising radiation, free radicals and more (2). These changes cause lost messages. This led your natural Germ cell (the perfect one your were born with) to become a Somatic cell with mutations in it - and mutated Somatic cells lead to cancer in the body.

As if to drum the theory home, there is a disproportionate coverage about inherited genetic mutations like BRCA1 and 2; but, to repeat, only seven per cent (according to CRUK) or 3 per cent (according to MD Anderson) of people have inherited mutations.

Yes, 17 per cent of patients with Ovarian cancer, and between 10 and 17 per cent of breast cancer patients carry an inherited gene according to research from Stanford Medical School (4).

The writing on the wall

Let's go back to 2003/4. After 80 years of the Somatic Theory of cancer, you would think someone, somewhere would have tried to prove it was correct. 

On June 4th 2003, at St Jude's Children's Research Hospital, researchers implanted the nuclei from aggressive cancer cells into healthy frog embryos replacing their nuclei. If the Somatic mutation theory were correct, these healthy frog embryos would all develop aggressive cancer. The researchers waited. But none did. 

This should have told people that the nuclear DNA did not control cancer; the surrounding parts of the cell did. And that a healthy cell can overcome a mutated nucleus. 

Then in the Stanford Medical School research above (4) they looked for what changes occurred in the healthy DNA strand opposite the inherited mutation and found none. Again, their research concluded having a mutation in the DNA  does not lower survival times; In fact the Stamford researchers said that survival was higher! They even concluded that survival time has nothing to do with mutation in your DNA.

So what is going on? According to Dr. Christine Mayr of Sloan Kettering, there are no new mutations in the DNA of a cancer patient! (5).

And her research has won her the prestigious NIH 'Pioneer Award' in 2021. Mayr, from her research, was very clear:

     i) If you sequence the DNA in cancer cells, you do not see any new mutational changes.

     ii) DNA is copied into mRNA, which is copied into protein messages - it is changes during the mRNA copying that occur, and these have the cancer driving effects.

     iii) The reason Doctors don't understand or accept Epigenetics is that they receive all their information from drugs companies and, as Meyr said, all the tests to date, look in the wrong place - inside the DNA, not in the micro-environment of the cell.

     iv) This leads to conventional cancer drugs attempting to treat an non-existent problem!

Yes, Mayr said this!

The inconvenient truth - the control systems of cancer lie principally outside the DNA sequence. Epi (around) genetics (the genome).

If you search Google, you will find almost all the leading articles on Somatic theory in complete disarray - people claiming that only Germ cells have inheritable mutations, and Somatic cells being the first cancer cells with lots of mutations but not inheritable. Yes, people still trying to hang on to the-earth-is-flat, and the-sun-spins-round-the-earth theories.

Cancer is a largely metabolic disease

OK. Let's be clear at this point. We do know that Epstein Barr infection can cause double strand DNA breaks as can radiation.

We also know that there are factors that increase your risk of cancer - Cancer Research say 50 per cent of cancers are caused by poor diet, alcohol, lack of exercise (low oxygen), smoking, infection; they don't talk much about the other 50 per cent (we do at CANCERactive - Environmental toxins, certain drugs, stress, low iodine, poor microbiome etc). 

Here we are talking about the vast majority of traditional cancers and they are NOT caused by an irreversible mutation in your DNA. And so you are NOT doomed. Cancer is caused by metabolic dysfunction and this is reversible. 

Metabolic dysfunction? Cardiovascular disease, dementia, diabetes, Parkinson's Rheumatoid Arthritis etc. are all caused by metabolic dysfunction. Why would cancer be any different? People develop an unhealthy body - Low levels of exercise, poor sleep, high stress hormones, low magnesium, low oxygen, low vitamin D, a poor microbiome, high inflammation etc. etc. 

Some people go the extra step and develop metabolic syndrome, where they have at least three of five illness factors - high blood sugar, low good cholesterol, high blood pressure, overweight or obese, high triglycerides.

All illness is a wake up call. But most people don't wake up. They carry on with the bad habits and take drugs to compensate. And cancer is an accident waiting to happen. It is still metabolic though!

Cancer - why you're not doomed

I wrote a blog about this, but here I will go further.

First, I have told you that you don't have any 'new' mutations in your DNA. It's the copying process that's gone wrong. So your perfect DMA copies into messenger RNA that leave the nucleus and goes into the cell cytoplasm where it copies into protein messages. And these are missing or imperfect.

Secondly, you have up to a thousand mitochondria (power stations) in your cells and like any power station they can cause pollution, especially if you've been giving them poor fuel. Can you get rid of the pollution? Well, we have covered this before. The Infra Red end of sunlight passes through those big black clouds overhead and hits your mitochondria and they make melatonin, your number 1 antioxidant, by day! Melatonin can't do the complete clean up on its own, it orders up some glutathione (greens, onions, garlic, whey protein, flaxseed) and CoQ10 and total vitamin E (Sunflower, pumpkin seeds). Together they clean up the cellular pollution. Exercise and endorphins play a role. And what you are seeing is that your mitochondria influence the cell significantly (they even have DNA and make mRNA themselves)  and your cellular mitochondria (not your nucleus) influences the quality of the messenger RNA produced (7). 

Thirdly, the question oncologists should be asking is what have poor diet, smoking, stress  and alcohol got in common; and HOW could they all lie behind illnesses from cardiovascular disease to cancer and from diabetes to dementia?

Homocysteine and methylation

Your DNA is about 1.8 metres long, but it is rolled up in a ball so small you can’t see it under a normal microscope. The ball is held in place by histones, rather like your body’s structure is held in place by bones. The histones cover very little of the surface because the coding sequences for the messages need to be exposed - little trains jump on at start points, read a message sequence, copy it, and then send it into the microenvironment of the cell as messenger RNA. The histones move, depending upon a number of factors, but allowing different messages to be produced as required. If there is a build up of histones the copying process can get blocked and go wrong.

Homocysteine is a sulfur-containing, non-protein, toxic, amino acid and found in the middle of a pathway for the conversion of two amino acids: methionine and cysteine. If methionine is low, homocysteine builds up. if cellular methionine is high, homocysteine leads to cysteine which is involved in glutathione production. Homocysteine is also a known neuro-toxin. It is not found in our diets but is made inside our bodies. A healthy body has low homocysteine levels - normally 5–15 max micromoles/litre (μmol/L).

You don't want high homocysteine - it causes methylation, which causes more histones to build up blocking the copying process. We also know that methylation and increases in histones are reversible (6).

What builds up homocysteine? Alcohol, smoking, poor diet, stress, lost gut bacteria, drugs such as metformin, being vegan  etc. and you can have a genetic problem - the MTHFR gene.  We know that homocysteine builds up increasing the risk of cancer, cardiovascilar disease, stroke, miscarriage, osteoporosis, MS, epilepsy, dementia, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes and more.

How can you reduce levels of Homocysteine in the body? Vitamins B-6, B-9 (folate), and B-12 especially is you have adequate levels of long chain omega 3 (fish oils); turmeric, and berberine. And, since drugs and antibiotics plus anything known to affect the pH of the gut - such as too much salt, pickles, environmental toxins, smoking or stress - affect the balance of the bacteria in the gut (the microbiome) and this changes the amount of B vitamins made, these will all affect homocysteine levels.

We are not saying this is the only cause of poor messages; but it is a major cause of poor copying. We also know that, for example, kinase enzymes will cause the final protein message to be phosphorylated. There are over 500 such enzymes in the body that can add a phosphate to your message and make it imperfect.

Cancer is very much a metabolic disease.

Your micro-environment creates a body conducive to cancer or conducive to health. You choose!