“Chronic inflammation” is a new catch phrase for the explanation of all chronic degenerative diseases from asthma, arthritis, heart diseases, and irritable bowel disease to cancers. Unrecognized low grade infection is one of the main culprits causing chronic inflammation. The link between infection and cancer has been recognized for many years and reported by many older medical practitioners. However, it has never been widely accepted by medical authorities due to a lack of reliable, reproducible data to support this observation – until now.
Hulda Clark, Ph.D., N.D., the author of “Cure for All Cancers” and “Prevention of All Cancers” has been challenging the mainstream scientific and medical establishment for many years with her theory on parasites and the development of cancer. In addition, Dr. Virginia Livingston-Wheeler and Raymond Royal Rife have been advocating infectious microbes as culprits for the cause of cancer. They developed a treatment plan to eradicate infection as a first line of treatment. The 2005 Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to Drs. Barry Marshall and Robin Warren for their 1982 discovery of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori and its role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease.
A missing link in the relationship between infection, inflammation, and cancer was finally provided by the brilliant, ground breaking research on stem cells done by Jean Marie Houghton, MD, Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Her work, specifically related to the formation of stomach cancer and, published in 2004, showed the cause and effect relationship between bacterial infection and cancer. In addition, she showed that this relationship is hidden under the disguise of chronic inflammation. Her work led to an understanding that all forms of infectious microbes, including viruses, bacteria, and parasites, can create an inflammatory immune response which, under toxic environmental conditions, can cause cancer cells to grow.
Specifically, she showed that stomach cancer originates from bone marrow-derived cells and not from stomach lining cells as expected. Bone marrow derived stem cells have “cancer-like properties.” These properties include the capacity for unlimited growth, the ability to avoid programmed cell death signals, and the capacity to develop into many tissue types.
A process must occur in order for the bone marrow derived stem cells to transform into cancer. First, chronic inflammation created by a pre-existing bacterial infection, such as Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), create a need for the influx of bone marrow derived stem cells to migrate to the stomach. The stem cells migrate to the stomach specifically for the repair of the stomach lining cells by actually transforming themselves into stomach cells.
Next, once the stem cells are in the stomach, they are under the undesirable influences from the inflammation itself as well as synthetic hormones, viruses, some bacteria, parasites, and environmental toxins, such as heavy metals and chemicals. These influences can cause the stem cells to transform into cancer cells rather than repairing the stomach cells. Reread these last three paragraphs. They are extremely crucial in your understanding of this process of cancer cell creation.
Some other major sources of chronic inflammation to consider include: hidden dental infections, old trauma, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, chronic allergies, over training in athletes, electromagnetic stimulation, and unresolved emotional trauma. These multiple sources of inflammation create a “ring of fire” in our body. This “ring of fire” causes our immune system to lose control which then allows cancer cells to evade our immune surveillance and proliferate.
Therefore, due to the complexity of the behavior and biology of cancer cells, rather than micromanage the biochemistry of the cancer cells as in conventional treatments, our primary focus should be on detecting and eliminating the sources of inflammation. In particular, eradicating hidden infections should be one of the highest priorities for all cancer patients. Infections may come from viruses, parasites, and root canal dental infections. They can also be hidden in many different parts of organs and different layers of tissues.
Eradicating infections and inflammation should be combined with cleansing and detoxification of internal toxins and providing the nutritional support for our body to heal. Detoxification and nutritional support are the best preventive actions to reducing the cancer risk factors mentioned above. Some well known nutritional support includes: curcumin, mushroom extracts, lactoferrin, beta-glucan, vitamin C, vitamin D, bioflavonoids, green tea extracts, and Essiac tea. Most of these nutrients can reduce inflammation, slow angiogenesis and metastasis, and boost immune functions. (For more details, see the article on my web site titled “Nutritional Therapies for Cancer.”)
Current statistics claim that one out of two men and one out of three women develop cancer during their life time. For quite some time, cancer has been the second leading cause of death in the United States after heart attack and cardiovascular related disease. Cancer will become the leading cause of death soon unless we make a dramatic change in our understanding and treatment of the causes and effects of chronic inflammation.
Medical science has been focusing on molecular biology. It’s been targeting cancer cells with a “magic bullet” drug delivery system. In an ideal world, new understanding of the cause of inflammation and the “ring of fire” should shift the paradigm of medical science to a new way of diagnosing and treating infectious microbes. However, we don’t live in an ideal world and this may not be likely to occur. I am very grateful for the work of pioneers such as Drs. Virginia Livingstone-Wheeler, Jean Marie Houghton and Hulda Clark on chronic inflammation, infections, and cancer.