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Copyright: © Richard Jacobs
"Tumors are kind of like deposits, where the body can store up excess amounts of phosphorus," says Dr. Ronald Brown. In this continuation of the Finding Genius cancer disease series, he discusses his unconventional and exciting theory on what causes tumor cells to proliferate. Listen and learn
Ronald B. Brown's PhD in industrial organizational psychology lends him a unique view of cancer research. In particular, he utilized grounded theory to note the significance of phosphate toxicity and cancer spread, and has continued this work with research partner Mohammed Razzaque. He explains that if we get too much phosphate, our kidneys can't regulate it and it will start accumulating in our body. It's acidic quality means that accumulation can cause what's called phosphate toxicity, which in turn can affect every bodily organ.
He explains how this phosphate excess causes cancer cells by explaining the solid characteristics of tumor cells. He adds that tumors and phosphate form "a reciprocal relationship. The phosphorus stimulates the growth and the growth helps to sequester the phosphorus and keep it out of the circulation." In other words, tumors are our bodies' way of storing too much phosphorus. He ties this to possible cancer prevention and early detection programs that could help patients integrate low phosphorus diets and appropriate lifestyle changes that boost immune cells. Listen in for more about phosphate's effects on organs, calcium, bone density, and cellular overgrowth. Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/30PvU9C
How can early-onset Alzheimer's detection play a part in treatment as the disease progresses. Early detection may hold a key in finding new and more effective treatments for Alzheimer's. Press play to find:
Lucas Driskell, an Assistant Professor at Yale School of Medicine, stops by to share their insight into neurodegenerative diseases and rehabilitation psychology.
By focusing on treatment or therapeutic techniques for early-onset neurodegenerative diseases, the threshold for detection may lower. By detecting the disease early and using medication from the onset, there is a much higher chance of making Alzheimer's a disease that can be lived with.
Many factors can bring on many cognitive difficulties, and there is no "magic bullet" to treat neurodegenerative diseases across the board. However, effective techniques can help stave off onset or help delay the effects of the disease.
For more information, visit https://scn40.org Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/30PvU9C
There are natural alliances, when certain kinds of tumors end up in obvious places," says Steve Gullans, and because cancer cells know how to unlock entry into different types of cells and tissue, they naturally settle where their tools let them. This is how he answers Richard's question about communication and cancer cells. As coauthor of Richard's new cancer book, he shares years of insights and experience with listeners. Listen and learn
Steve Gullans has extensive experience in all aspects of the life sciences, from Chief Executive Officer of Gemphire Therapeutics to the co-founder and managing director of a life sciences venture capital firm. He's an academic scientist, speaker, and author and was been involved in cancer research and therapeutics for decades.
He gives listeners a cogent take on what we know about tumor sequencing. For example, while a few genes show up repeatedly because they are fundamental to the mutation that is part of a tumor, "a single mutation is generally not sufficient" for a tumor to take hold. The immune system is too powerful.
Instead, they have found sub mutations adapting to the environment. Furthermore, it's the cells will to survive, to adapt to efforts like chemotherapy, which become the driver in cancer's progression.
He gets specific about other types of drugs and therapies, addressing attempts to "untangle the web" of drugs being used, but also about the advances in what may be soon on its way. He says that there is a global effort to develop better treatment, and scientists are thinking about "these multiple cocktails of therapeutics and marrying the true diagnostic markers, the diagnostics with different regimens." Listen in for more about this promising research. Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/30PvU9C
Over half of New Orleans is below sea level, and it used to be entirely above it. What is happening, how is it impacting the lives of those in Louisiana, and what can be done about it?
Tune in for the answers, and learn:
Michael Hopkins is Assistant Director of Pontchartrain Conservancy (PC), a nonprofit organization whose aim is promote environmental sustainability and address serious environmental challenges in the Lake Pontchartrain Basin, a 10,000 square mile watershed in Louisiana.
Over the past 100 years, more than 2,000 square miles of coastal Louisiana have disappeared, detrimentally impacting the lives of so many.
Hopkins is a geologist whose focus at PC has been on coastal monitoring and restoration. Much of his work centers around subsidence, which is the gradual sinking of land.
In this region of Louisiana, subsidence contributes significantly to various environmental issues. And while it is a natural process in a delta, the situation is this area is unique because it has been cut off from the Mississippi River, which means there is no source of new sediment to maintain land elevation.
Hopkins explains the details of his work and the restoration strategy at PC, which involves the science of bringing back ridges, marshes, and swamps, as well as a process called sediment diversion to combat land loss.
Press play for the full conversation and learn more at https://scienceforourcoast.org/. Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/30PvU9C
John McDougall Bio:
John McDougall, MD is a board-certified internist, author of 13 national best-selling books, the international on-line "McDougall Newsletter," and co-founder of the 10-day, live-in McDougall Program in Santa Rosa, CA. He is a clinical instructor for 4 schools training young physicians and licensed in 5 states in the US to practice. Other McDougall activities include seminars and health-oriented adventure vacations. Scientific results of the McDougall Program are published in the Nutrition Journal: (http://nutritionj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-2891-13-99) and in MS and Related Disorders: http://www.msard-journal.com/article/S2211-0348(16)30100-6/pdf.
Website: www.drmcdougall.com
E-mail: drmcdougall@drmcdougall.com
Phone: (800) 941-7111
Previous National Best Selling McDougall Books:
How can eating a healthy diet impact your body's ability to fight disease and other ailments? Research shows that eating nutritionally rich food may stave off lasting health implications over time. Listen up to learn:
John McDougall, the founder, and director of the nationally renowned McDougall Program, discusses his mission to help change the way people struggling with health or weight view a healthy diet.
Even though starchy foods have gotten a bad reputation in recent decades, eating a starch-based diet may improve your overall health. Since rich foods have found their way into the popular menu of America, the lack of nutrition and the requirement for additives has become an issue that drives up the average percent of obesity yearly.
Using a combination of proven educational techniques and an introduction to new nutritional options, the success rate for making a lasting change in lifestyle remains incredibly high. Starches may be the dietary answer many people struggling with their health are looking for and establishing a high-starch diet can even affect your chances of contracting various cancers.
For more information, visit drmcdougall.com. Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/30PvU9C
Controlling cancer depends on controlling tissue microenvironments, according to researcher James DeGregori. "There's going to be pressure on cells in the lungs of a smoker to adapt to that new environment," he explains, "and by adapting to it, it can basically favor new phenotypes that could lead to a malignancy that could lead to the initiation of a cancer." He and Richard discuss the initiation of cancer and cancer evolution, opening up an exciting path toward prevention. Listen and learn
James DeGregori is the Courtenay C. and Lucy Patten Davis Endowed Chair in Lung Cancer Research, which is part of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. He explains that genetics, biochemistry, and cell biology work together to prepare the ground for cancer growth. While cancer diagnosis and therapeutics often begin further down the line followed by chemotherapy procedures, researchers like DeGregori are trying to reconfigure the conditions that allow its beginnings. He says it's a matter of cells adapting to fit a changing tissue environment; therefore, staving off that change in environment looks to be essential. That means addressing chronic inflammation, inflammation that might come from smoking and lungs failure and other stressors.
But not all inflammation is created equal, and simply preventing it entirely can lead to the inability to fight off infections, for which inflammation is necessary. He adds that "there's two sides to every process, and while too much inflammation is bad, we do need inflammation to fight off infections, to repair our tissues, and other processes."He and colleagues are working on finding that balance as well as identifying which patients could benefit the most. Listen in for more about how researchers are arresting cancer growth through addressing cell stress, cell aging, and inflammation. Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/30PvU9C
Are you consuming high amounts of deuterium without even knowing it? Could this predispose you to a higher likelihood of developing cancer?
Press play for the answers to these questions, and discover:
László G. Boros is a professor of pediatrics at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and a member of the Clinical and Translational Science Institute at UCLA and The Lundquist Institute for Biomedical Innovation.
He takes a metabolic approach to the problem of cancer, focusing on the metabolic pathways of normal versus tumor cells, and trying to develop therapies that specifically target pathways unique to cancer cells.
Boros discusses a variety of interesting topics, including the role of mitochondrial breakdown in the cause of cancer, the function of ATP synthase nanomotors (and how they break, and what happens when they do), why it's important to avoid high-deuterium foods, deuterium depletion therapies, and much more.
Check out https://www.laszlogboros.com to learn more. Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/30PvU9C
When does cancer in the body reach a threshold at which it becomes an entity, and what causes it? New research shows that cancer may be a latent part of us already and only becomes hazardous after proliferation. Press play to learn:
Adrienne Scheck, an Adjunct Professor at Arizona State University, joins the conversation to share her insight into the field of cancer growth.
Each type of cell that comprises or benefits the growth of a tumor has differing preferences for its ideal microbiome. Whether they be slow or fast-growing, the different types of cells require different therapeutic techniques, even depending upon the area of the body.
The heterogeneity inherent in tumor cells is the culprit for making it so difficult to treat. Due to the fast-growing nature, the level of adaptability and refresh of cells makes an effective treatment hard to pin down.
To learn more, search for Adrienne C. Scheck, Ph.D., online or on pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/30PvU9C
Ninety-eight percent of the human genome is non-coding. The majority of our DNA instructs and regulates the other two percent. Until recently, this ninety-eight percent was considered junk DNA and held a mystery of purpose akin to dark matter. George Calin opens the mystery for listeners and explains how researching non-coding RNAs will lead to better cancer treatments. Listen and learn
George Calin is a principal investigator with the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas. He specializes in how non-coding RNAs impact disease and virus mechanisms, specifically the role of microRNAs in human cancers. He also looks at what they can tell us about how bad and aggressive a particular disease will be for a specific individual. He notes that "a specific type of cancer with a specific localization at a specific stage. . . can behave very differently in another patient" with the same profile. "One is surviving, let's say one month, and other is surviving three years," he adds, and researchers want to know why.
He says that mRNAs may have the answers and could point doctors in the direction of how to help both patients. It could lead to more aggressive measures when the biomarkers point toward that necessity, for example. Because cancer is a genetic disease, understanding the complexities of genes and genomics is vital to its treatment. By studying how and why and when abnormalities are expressed and what these non-coding RNAs are instructing, researchers can open up an entirely new way to treat cancers. He says that some of this biomarker identification is already in use for some bladder cancers. Listen in for more on how advancement in studying the smallest parts of us may make the biggest difference. Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/30PvU9C
"The wider view of nature is the more powerful one," says Andreas Mershin, a researcher who stays out of bounds. "Nature is not divided by a textbook," he continues, and this foundation sets the tone for his work. He's a physicist who's exploring the innovative discovery of diseases at their earliest stages, from a prostate cancer diagnosis to breast cancer, by harnessing the smelling acuity of dogs. Listen and learn
Andreas Mershin is a research scientist at the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms. While that department may not seem congruous with researching the latest treatment for prostate cancer, he explains that the physical world doesn't limit itself to department titles, so why should research? That's why when he stumbled across two seminal papers on dogs' abilities to find out more than one different cancer diagnosis by scent, he knew he had a subject worth investigating.
But it's not as straight forward as just smelling cancer, he explains. Rather, "think of the molecules of sense that are being produced by your metabolic pathways as being the sand, and cancer signatures like footsteps on the sand." Further, the dogs are able to generalize to other types of cancer after learning one type. He says that they are sensing cancer imprints over other molecules almost as emotion moves through various molecules. They're also teaching machines to do this as well, to recognize an "emergent scent character" of different conditions. Because addressing certain cancers early can be a matter of life and death, this research hopes to save lives by identifying someone with, for example, prostate cancer, and initiating prostate cancer treatment in the earliest stages. Listen in for more about this fascinating research. Visit the Links to know more about his Research: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0245530 https://www.wired.com/story/quest-to-make-robot-smell-cancer-dog/ https://news.mit.edu/2021/disease-detection-device-dogs-0217 Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/30PvU9C
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