I am very grateful to Jorge for the information that I have used to prepare this blog. He is another individual who has had to discover this insight from his own efforts, which have only been possible because of the access to a wide range of resources available on the internet. It is a sad commentary on the mainstream professionals that so many are unaware of this knowledge or even worse actually dismiss it.
Mother develops cancer
Jorge is a specialist in dental prosthetics originally from Venezuela who moved to Florida in 2007. However in 2011 he returned home to look after his mother who was seriously and unable to cope on her own. She had suffered from hypertension for many years but her blood sugar was high and Jorge was convinced she was insulin resistant. She was on a long list of different medications, including statins. In July-August 2012, she noticed that the tonsil on her right side was swollen. Shortly after this she started coughing continually. As Jorge says:
“Everytime that I listen to her coughing I felt like somebody was punching me in the stomach.”
Then in November of that year a biopsy showed that it was Stage III Cancer. The tumour grew very rapidly and his mother was eating almost nothing because it was so difficult to swallow. Jorge would prepare soups using a blender based on green vegetables and meats such as chicken or salmon. Surgery was not suggested by any of her medical advisers and so in January 2013, chemotherapy was initiated.
Doing the research
However just before the chemo started, Jorge started to do research to discover if there was any alternative way of treating the cancer. Using the internet opened up a whole new world for him. He came across articles, books and podcasts, which explained and advocated the benefits of diets low in carbohydrates and high in healthy fats (LCHF). He watched television programmes such as
“The men that made us fat”
by the BBC and
“The heart of the matter, Dietary villains”
made by Maryanne Demasi for ABC TV in Australia.
The cancer is cured
All of this convinced him that the rationale used to justify the LCHF approach was perfectly sound. It just so happened that the food Jorge was preparing complied with these principles. Although his mother was losing weight and becoming quite thin, the nasty coughing stopped shortly after the chemo commenced. Then she noticed that it became easier for her to swallow. When she went for her third chemo session, the doctor could not find any lesion and the tonsil was no longer swollen: in fact it appeared to be normal. It was not possible to obtain a sample to do a biopsy. A PET/CT scan could not find any cancerous cells. There was no doubt she was cured. Not only that, her blood pressure and blood sugar were both normal. Her body weight had dropped from 75 to 52 kg. Her triglycerides were also satisfactory so the advice to go on statins was rejected.
Here is how Jorge describes and explains what had happened:
“She was radiant, she no longer had back pain even though she has a severe scoliosis, she was using pants she didn’t use for a very long time, she was active again, she started to call her students (she is a painter and she teaches painting) and started giving classes again; I was very happy for her, and I told her my theory about how she was cured, because she went on a VLCHF or KETO, not on purpose but because she could eat almost nothing, she started a “forced fasting” and was feeding herself with her own fat; by not eating carbs, her cancerous cells starve and when the chemo came in, those glucose hungry cells took it and finish themselves quickly and the healthy cells feeding on fat, had a stronger membrane and that helped them to resist the strong chemo effect; that was my theory of what happened.”
LCHF works for Jorge himself and for his son
But this is not the end of the story. Jorge himself also tried the LCHF approach. He is 56 years old and weighed 104 kg before he started but he lost 35 kg and his waist has reduced from 91 to 76 cm.
His 18-year old son also had severe health problems. For most of his life he has had allergies, which cause constant sneezing and so he was prescribed antihistamines. In his case they decided to try gluten-free as well as LCHF. This was based on the book “Wheat Belly” by Dr. William Davis as well as interviews with Dr. Tom O’Bryan and Dr. Alessio Fasano. Within 2 weeks, his sneezing and watery eyes has stopped and he no longer needs antihistamines.
Conclusion
Regular readers of this blog will not be in the least surprised by this story. Nevertheless it is another piece of evidence that supports the case for a diet based on LCHF principles. Many conventional scientists dismiss these stories on the grounds that they are “anecdotal”. There are no proper controls and so we cannot rely on the information. While that might be reasonable if this was an isolated example, it certainly does not apply when there are thousands of stories like this. In any case, there is a growing body of sound research that implicates a diet that is high in carbohydrates as a cause of cancer. The ground-breaking research of Otto Warburg, which showed that cancer cells can only survive on glucose all fits together neatly with the rationale that justifies the use of LCHF.
However the real scandal is that this knowledge and information is not being used to any extent by the mainstream medical profession. It still being left to individuals to do their own investigations in order to discover how best to cope with any kind of cancer.
The reality is that there is a huge cancer industry, which is heavily dependent on the concept that it is possible to find a magic cure that will work for each different cancer. This suits the pharmaceutical companies and the research community very nicely. It is conveniently ignored that this is not working and that, despite all the hype, the success with cancer is almost non-existent. In fact the incidence continues to increase.
Genuine progress will only be made once there is recognition that it is essential to understand the causes and take steps to eliminate them. There are three main treatments for cancer, namely surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. All of these focus on removing tumours, which are of course symptoms. So even if the treatment is apparently successful in the short term, the likelihood is that another one will develop if the cause is not identified and addressed.
Diet, exposure to toxins and stress may all be causes. In this case it is evident that diet was the cause. Hence altering the diet has proved to be effective. It is also worth mentioning that one of the few cancers where there has been success is lung cancer with tobacco smoking identified as one of the primary causes. It has clearly been demonstrated that stopping smoking is the most effective means of reducing the risks.
It is hoped that people will take inspiration from the experience of Jorge and have the confidence to do their own research and if necessary challenge the views of orthodox medicine.