Chapter Five
CANCER - THE ONRUSH OF LIFE

An explanation of the trophoblast thesis of cancer; a description of a simple urine test for cancer; an appraisal of BCG vaccine as an anti-cancer agent; and a review of the vital role played by the pancreas in the control of cancer.

In 1902, John Beard, a professor of embryology at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, authored a paper published in the British medical journal Lancet in which he stated there were no differences between cancer cells and certain pre-embryonic cells that were normal to the early stages of pregnancy. In technical terms, these normal cells are called trophoblasts. Extensive research had led Professor Beard to the conclusion that cancer and trophoblast are, in fact, one and the same. His theory, therefore, is known as the trophoblast thesis of cancer.(1)

The trophoblast in pregnancy does exhibit all the classical characteristics of cancer. It spreads and multiplies rapidly as it invades into the uterus wall preparing a place where the embryo can attach itself for maternal protection and nourishment.

The trophoblast is formed as a result of a chain reaction starting with another cell identified as the diploid totipotent.(2)

1. Sometimes referred to as the unitarian thesis of cancer on the basis that all cancers are, fundamentally, the same.
2. there is no need to go into all the details surrounding the formation of these cells, for they only tend to burden us with facts that are not essential to an understanding of the basic theory. Anyone interested in this background can readily obtain it at the public library from any standard reference book on embryology. Of particular value are John Beard's The Enzyme Treatment of Cancer and its scientific Basis (London: Chatto & Windus, 1911) and Charles Gurchot's The Biology of Cancer (San Francisco: Friedman, 1948).

For our purposes, let us call this simply the "total-life" cell because it contains within it all the separate characteristics of the complete organism and has the total capacity to evolve into any organ or tissue or, for that matter, into the complete embryo itself.

About eighty percent of these total-life cells are located in the ovaries or testes serving as a genetic reservoir for future offspring. The rest of them are distributed elsewhere in the body for a purpose not yet fully understood but which may involve the regenerative or healing process of damaged or aging tissue.

The hormone estrogen is well known for its ability to effect changes in living tissue. Although it is generally thought of as a female hormone, it is found in both sexes and performs many vital functions. Wherever the body is damaged, either by physical trauma, chemical action, or illness, estrogen and other steroid hormones always appear in great concentration, possibly serving as stimulators or catalysts for cellular growth and body repair.

It is now known that the total-life cell is triggered into producing trophoblast when it comes into contact with these steroid hormones acting as "organizer stimuli." When this happens to those total-life cells that have evolved from the fertilized egg, the result is a placenta and umbilical cord, a means of nourishing the embryo. But when it occurs non-sexually as a part of the general healing process, the result is cancer. To be more accurate, we should say that it is cancer if the healing process is not terminated upon completion of its task.

Hardin B. Jones, Ph.D., in his highly revealing "A Report on Cancer,"(1) touched upon this phenomenon as follows:

A second important consideration about cancer is that all forms of overt cancer are associated with a random chance of survival which does not lessen with the duration of cancer. This strongly implies that there is some natural physiological restraint against progress of the disease and that the cause of the commonly observed rapid development of cancer in the terminal stages is the failure of the natural restraining influence.

1. Paper delivered before the American Cancer Society's Eleventh Annual Science Writer's Conference, New Orleans, March 7,1969.

We shall see shortly why this natural restraining influence on the healing process should fail but, for now, at the risk of greatly over-simplifying the process, we may say that cancer is the result of over-healing. That is why it has been said that smoking, or excessive exposure to the sun, or any number of harmful chemicals seem to cause cancer.

Anything that causes damage to the body can lead to cancer if the body's healing processes are not functioning properly - as we shall see. Dr. Stewart M. Jones of Palo Alto, California, described the process this way: Whenever a trophoblast cell appears in the body outside of pregnancy, the natural forces that control it in a normal pregnancy may be absent and, in this case, it begins uncontrolled proliferation, invasion, extension, and metastasis.

When this happens, it is initiated by an organizer substance, usually estrogen, the presence of which further promotes the trophoblast activity. This is the beginning of cancer.(1)

If it is true that the trophoblast cell is brought into being by a chain reaction which involves estrogen or other steroid hormones, then it would follow logically that an unnaturally high exposure to these substances would be a factor that favored the onset of cancer. And, indeed, this has been proven to be true. The use of diethylstilbestrol as a fattening agent for cattle was halted in 1972 because it was proven that this synthetic estrogen compound, which was present in trace amounts in the beef at our grocery stores, had caused stomach cancer in experimental rats.

It also has been found that women taking contraceptive pills - especially those containing estrogen - not only undergo irreversible breast changes, but become almost three times more cancer-prone than women who do not.

This fact was stressed by Dr. Otto Sartorius, Director of the Cancer Control Clinic at Santa Barbara General Hospital in California, who then added:

"Estrogen is the fodder on which carcinoma [cancer] grows. To produce cancer in lower animals, you first introduce an estrogen base."(2)

1."Nutrition Rudiments in Cancer," by S.M. Jones, M.S., B.A., Ph.D., M.D., (Palo Alto, California., 1972) p. 6.
2. As quoted in "Birth Control Pills Endanger Your Breasts," by Ida Honorof, Prevention, July 1972, p. 89. Also see "Pill Linked to Cancer Risk," L.A. Times, Nov.2l,1972,p.A-21.

There is a confusion factor in all this because, occasionally, some cancers appear to respond to hormone therapy - the administration of estrogen or testosterone.

But the only cases in which this kind of therapy is rewarded with favorable results are those involving cancer of the sexual glands, such as the breasts or Prostate, or those organs that are heavily affected by sexual hormones. Female patients are given male hormones and males are given female hormones. The apparent favorable action is the result of the hormones' attempt to oppose or neuter those glands. If the cancer is retarded, it is because the organ is retarded.

The side-effects of this kind of therapy are the altering of the sexual physiology of the patient.

Also, the beneficial results it produces, if any, are usually described by physicians as palliative, which means that the cancer is not cured, only retarded temporarily. But the worst part is that - especially in the case of men using estrogen - the presence of unnaturally high levels of steroids throughout the system could well be a factor favorable to the production of new cancer tissue other than at the primary site.

When cancer begins to form, the body reacts by attempting to seal it off and surrounding it with cells that are similar to those in the location where it occurs. A bump or lump is the initial result.

Dr. Jones continues:

In order to counteract the estrogenic action on the trophoblast, the body floods the areas of the trophoblast in a sea of beta-glucuronidase (BG) which inactivates all estrogen on contact. At the same time the cells of the tissues being invaded by the trophoblasts defensively multiply in an effort at local containment.

 

Usually the efforts of the body to control the nidus of trophoblast are successful, the trophoblast dies, and a benign polyp or other benign tumor remains as a monument to the victory of the body over cancer.(1)

1. Ibid., p. 7.

Under microscopic examination, many of these tumors are found to resemble a mixture or hybrid of both trophoblast and surrounding cells; a fact which has led some researchers to the premature conclusion that there are many different types of cancer. But the degree to which tumors appear to be different is the same degree to which they are benign; which means that it is the degree to which there are non-cancerous cells within it.

The greater the malignancy, the more these tumors begin to resemble each other, and the more clearly they begin to take on the classic characteristics of pregnancy trophoblast. And the most malignant of all cancers - the chorionepitheliomas - are almost indistinguishable from trophoblast cells. For, as Dr. Beard pointed out almost a century ago, they are one and the same.

An interesting sidelight to these facts is that trophoblast cells produce a distinct hormone that readily can be detected in the urine. This is known as the chorionic gonadotrophic hormone (CGH).(1)

If cancer is trophoblast, then one would expect that cancer cells also would secrete this hormone. And, indeed, they do. It is also true that no other cell is known to produce CGH.(2) This means that, if CGH is detected in the urine, it indicates that there is present either normal pregnancy trophoblast or abnormal malignant cancer. If the patient is a woman, she either is pregnant or has cancer. If he is a man, cancer can be the only cause.

The significance of this fact is far-reaching. A simple urine test similar to the well-known rabbit test for pregnancy can detect the presence of cancer long before it manifests itself as illness or a lump, and it throws serious doubt upon the rationale behind surgical biopsies. Many physicians are convinced that any cutting into a malignant tumor, even for a biopsy, increases the likelihood that the tumor will spread. (More on that in a later chapter.)

In any event, there is questionable need for such procedures in view of the fact that the CGH urine test is available.(3)

1. In Human biology, it is sometimes referred to as the HCG (human chorionic gonadotrophic) hormone.
2. A similar substance is produced in the anterior pituitary gland, but it is not the same
3. this is a modified, more sensitive micro-Aschheim Zondek test and is not to be confused with the Anthrone test which is based upon a similar principle but, due to technical problems connected with the test itself, so far has not been as reliable as the CGH test.

In the 1960s and 70s, Dr. Manuel Navarro, Professor of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Santo Tomas in Manilla, offered this test to American physicians and reported 95% accuracy with both cancer and non-cancer patients.

Almost all of the so-called errors were in showing cancer activity with patients who presumably did not have cancer. But in a large percentage of these, those same patients later developed clinical manifestations of cancer, suggesting that the CGH test was accurate after all. Doctors who have had experience with this test have learned never to assume it is in error when it indicates the presence of trophoblast.

Let us turn now to the question of defense mechanisms. Before we can hope to conquer cancer, first we must understand how nature conquers cancer - how nature protects the body and controls the growth of trophoblast cells. One would suppose that this would be the primary question that determines the direction of cancer research today. Unfortunately, it is not. Most research projects are preoccupied with exotic and toxic drugs or machines

hat deliver death rays to selected parts of the body. There is no counterpart for any of this in nature, and it is small wonder that progress has been disappointing. But, recently, a small group of researchers has begun to look back to nature, and, if they persist in this course, they cannot help but succeed eventually. The most promising of all this work lies in the study of the body's natural mechanism for immunity.

All animals contain billions of white blood cells. There are different types such as lymphocytes, leukocytes, and monocytes, but they all serve the same function which is to attack and destroy anything that is foreign and harmful to our bodies. Persons who develop a low white-cell blood count become susceptible to infections of all kinds and, in fact, if the condition is sufficiently severe, they can die from a simple infected cut or a common cold.

Since the destruction of foreign bodies is the function of the white cells, it would seem logical, therefore, that they would attack cancer cells also. As one medical journal stated the problem:

One crucial property our bodies have is the ability to distinguish between self and non-self. In other words, we can recognize (biologically) foreign material that finds its way into our bodies. This ability enables us to fight infections and to build up resistance to future infection. It also means that organ transplantation is not just a simple matter of intricate surgery. As far as the body's defense systems - the immunological apparatus - are concerned, bacteria, viruses, and transplanted organs are all foreign invaders and have to be repelled.

What has puzzled immunologists for a very long time is that, although cancer cells are undoubtedly foreign, they seem to escape the lethal attentions of immunological systems.

The crucial question is, how?(1)

1. "New Assaults on Cancer," by Roger Lewin, World of Research, Jan. 13,1973, p. 32.

In this otherwise excellent article, we find one of the great false assumptions that plagues almost all orthodox cancer research today: the assumption that cancer cells are foreign to the body. Quite to the contrary, they are a vital part of the life cycle (pregnancy and healing). Consequently, nature has provided them with an effective means of avoiding the white blood cells.

One of the characteristics of the trophoblast is that it is surrounded by a thin protein coating that carries a negative electrostatic charge. In technical terms this is called the pericellular sialomucin coat. The white blood cells also carry a negative charge. And, since like polarities repel each other, the trophoblast is well protected. The blocking factor is nothing more than a cellular electrostatic field.

Commenting on the significance of these facts, Dr. Krebs wrote:

For three-quarters of a century classical immunology has, in effect, been pounding its head against a stone wall in the vain quest for "cancer antigens," the production of cancer antibodies, etc., etc. The cancer or trophoblast cell is non-antigenic because of the pericellular sialomucin coat..(1).

Part of nature's solution to this problem, as pointed out by Professor Beard in 1905, is found in the ten or more pancreatic enzymes, of which trypsin and chymotrypsin are especially important in trophoblast destruction.

These enzymes exist in their inactive form (as zymogens) in the pancreas gland. Only after they reach the small intestine are they converted to their active form. When these are absorbed into the blood stream and reach the trophoblast, they digest the negatively-charged protein coat. The cancer then is exposed to the attack of the white cells and it dies.(2)

In most discussions of this subject, it is assumed that the lymphocytes are the most active counterpart of all the various white blood cells. But opinions on this currently are in a state of flux. In one study, for example, it was reported that the real aggressor was the monocyte. Although monocytes compose only two or three percent of the total, they were found to be far more destructive of cancer tissue than the lymphocytes which were more numerous.

Either way, the end result is the same.(3)

1. Letter from Dr. Krebs to Andrew McNaughton, the McNaughton Foundation, San Francisco, Calif., dated Aug. 2,1971, Griffin, Private Papers, op. tit.
2. The operation of this mechanism is considerably more complex than this simplified description would indicate, and there is much that is not yet fully understood. For instance, investigators have not yet solved the puzzle of how pregnancy trophoblast cells are protected from chymotrypsin during the initial phase of pregnancy. Obviously they have some kind of extra blocking or that non-pregnancy trophoblast cells do not enjoy. It is possible that it is an increased local level of cobalomine that converts the hydro-cyanic acid into thiocyanate (vitamin B12), plus a temporarily high level of rhodanese (protecting enzyme). But this is not at all certain, and it represents an interesting area for future research.
3. See Cancer killing Cells Found to Eat Tumors," by Harry Nelson, Times Medical writer, LA. Times, April 4,1973, p. 32.

Soon after Beard advanced his startling theory, physicians began experimenting with pancreatic enzymes in the treatment of cancer, and favorable reports began to appear in the medical journals of the day.

In 1906, Frederick Wiggins, M.D., described his success in a case of cancer of the tongue and concluded with a hope,

"that further discussion of and clinical experience with Trypsin and Amylopsin within a reasonable time will demonstrate beyond question that we have at our disposal a sure and efficient remedy for the treatment of malignant disease."(1)

1. Wiggin, F.H., "Case of Multiple Fibrosarcoma of the Tongue, with Remarks on the Use of Trypsin and Amylopsin in the Treatment of Malignant Disease," J. Am. Med. Assoc, December 15,1906; 47:2003-8.

Between November, 1906 and January, 1907, the medical journals carried this and three additional reports of cancer successfully treated by pancreatic enzymes.

Starting in 1972, there was a flurry of publicity given to the "promising" experimental work done with BCG (the antituberculosis vaccine known as Bacillus Calmette Guerin). The theory behind it is that BCG - which is a TB virus that has been weakened so as to pose no threat to the patient - stimulates the body's production of white-blood cells as part of its natural defense mechanism. When the vaccine enters the blood stream, the body does not know that the TB virus is weak and it begins to produce white cells to repel the invader.

And they remain as a barrier to any real TB virus that may come along later. These cells not only act as a future barrier against TB but, theoretically at least, they also are presumed to be effective against cancer cells. And there have been cautious reports of some progress in this direction. As we have seen, however, the presence of white cells by themselves is but one part of the solution to the cancer problem. Without consideration of the pancreatic and nutrition factors, real progress along these lines will be highly limited.

Many of the reports of success with BCG may have been due as much to nutritional factors as anything else. One such report described the treatment for cancer administered by Dr. Virginia Livingston. The patient, who was also a physician, had decided from his own experience that, since conventional cancer therapy was so unproductive of results, he would try BCG instead. So he approached Dr. Livingston who, at the time, was one of the few physicians who knew about this approach.

The article then explained the treatment:

Dr. Wheeler [the patient] was injected with BCG and put on a strict low-cholesterol diet and given antibiotics. The diet, he said, banned refined sugar, poultry and eggs, and called for raw vegetables, plenty of fish and multiple vitamin supplements.

Within two months, the swelling was down, Dr. Wheeler said.

Recent laboratory tests showed a remission of cancerous cells - that is, a return to a normal healthy state - and the presence of new, healthy tissue, he said.(1)

Let us analyze. The diet given to Dr. Wheeler consists of foods that do not consume pancreatic enzymes for their digestion. This is similar to the kind of diet prescribed by doctors using vitamin B17 therapy because it releases almost all of the pancreatic enzymes for absorption into the blood stream where they can do their work on the cancer cell. In addition to this, Dr. Wheeler was given "multiple vitamin supplements."

It is quite possible, therefore, that these two factors were just as important, if not more so, than the administration of BCG.

Returning to the subject of pancreatic enzymes, we find that the trophoblast cells in the normal embryo continue to grow and spread right up to the eighth week. Then suddenly, with no apparent reason, they stop growing and are destroyed. Dr. Beard had the general answer to why this happens as long ago as 1905. But recent research has provided the specific explanation. It is in the eighth week that the baby's pancreas begins to function.

It is significant that the small intestine, near the point where the pancreas empties into it, is one of the few places in the human body where cancer is almost never found. The pancreas itself often is involved with primary malignancy, but this is because the all-important enzymes do not become activated until they leave the pancreas and enter the intestines, or the blood stream. Thus, the small intestine is bathed in these substances, whereas the pancreas itself may receive very little. As one clinician has observed:

One of the most striking features about the pathology of malignant disease is the almost complete absence of carcinoma [cancer] in the duodenum [first segment of the small intestine] and its increasing frequency throughout the gastrointestinal tract in direct proportion to the distance from this exempt segment.(2)

2. Vaccine BCG Used With Amazing Success - Brings Complete Reversal of cancer in Patient With Malignant Neck Tumor," National Enquirer, Nov. 26,1972. Raab, W.-.Klin. Wchnschr. 14:1633, quoted in Laetriles/Nitrilosides, op. cit., p. 35.

We note, also, that diabetics - those who suffer from a pancreas malfunction - are three times more likely to contract cancer than non-diabetics.(1)

These facts, which have puzzled medical investigators for years, at last can be explained in light of the trophoblast thesis of cancer. This thesis, as Dr. Krebs has asserted, "is not a dogma inflexibly held by its proponents; it is merely the only explanation that finds total congruence with all established facts on cancer."

To which Dr. Stewart M. Jones adds:

This theory is the oldest, strongest, and most plausible theory of cancer now extant. It has stood the test of seventy years of confrontation with new information about cancer without ever being disproved by any new fact... The voluminous, heterogeneous science of cancer developed since then is coherent only in the light of this theory.(2)

It is the height of restraint to call this a theory. There comes a time when we must admit that truth is truth and that the search is over. That finally happened on October 15, 1995, in the pages of an orthodox medical journal - 93 years after Professor Beard published the theory and 43 years after Dr. Krebs shouted it from the housetops.

It was the report of a study at the Allegheny Medical College in Pittsburgh by Doctors Acevedo, Tong, and Hartsock. The study, involving the genetic characteristics of human chorioic gonadotrophin hormone, confirmed that cancer and trophoblast were the same.

The report concluded:

"After 93 years, Beard has been proven to be conceptually correct."(3)

1. Jones, Nutrition Rudiments in Cancer, op. cit., p. 8.
2. Ibid., pp. 1, 6.
3. "Human Chorionic Gonadotropin-Beta Subunit Gene Expression in Cultured Human Fetal and Cancer Cells of Different Types and Origins," by Herman F. Acevedo, Ph.D., Jennifer Y. Tong, Ph.D., and Robert J. Hartsock, M.D., Cancer, October 15,1995, Volume 76, No. 8, pp. 1467-1473.

The debate, however, will continue. For many, the search is more exciting (and more profitable) than the discovery. So they will continue to clutter their minds and laboratories with dead-end theories and projects for as long as the money holds out.

But the truth is both startling and simple.

While most researchers are operating on the assumption that cancer is foreign to the body and part of a process of death and decay, it is, instead, a vital part of the life cycle and an expression of the onrush of both life and healing.
 

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