NSCLC patients stop panicking!
Hi Crew!
A post in my Facebook group has got many NSCLC patients in a tizz. It showed adding metformin to locally advanced unresected LUNG CANCER HAD WORSE OUTCOMES.
This left many of you confused and questioning whether you should take it at all. Please be rest assured that research shows a bigger cocktail consisting of metformin, statins and aspirin has beneficial effects on both prevention and mortality (Korean study here). The poster of the article correctly identified key pathways that metformin blocks (e.g. mTOR, OXPHOS), but no one identified the pathways that are upregulated by this diabetic drug. And this does not just apply to just metformin. EVERY drug or supplement will leave pathways unblocked that cancer can learn to use instead, and these can potentially be more aggressive.
This is the whole premise of my Metro Map – to show you the key pathways that you need to know and how the metabolism reroutes! Block one pathway and cancer uses another. Cancer is not a random disorganised mess, it has patterns of behaviour that are PREDICTABLE AND TREATABLE! And my Metro Map provides the key to unlocking much of this conundrum. Taking mebendazole upregulates autophagy – metformin does the same! Autophagy in healthy people is hugely beneficial for the immune system, regenerating stem cells but in cancer it often results in an aggressive feeding pathway. Beware!
Merely adding intermittent fasting to the above NSCLC study might have dramatically changed the results. Why? Intermittent fasting reduces glycolysis, the cancer’s abnormal metabolic need for glucose whereas metformin reduces the OXPHOS pathway (aka the Kreb’s cycle). When you block one of these pathways, the other becomes more active – so you should always look to block both OXPHOS and GLYCOLYSIS concomitantly. Metformin on its own has little effect on a tumour.
In one study on mice, they were fasted for 24 hours, alternating with days when they then ate ‘at-will’. (N.B this is in mice, humans need a little more restraint I feel!) On the fasting days this led to hypoglycaemia (lower blood sugar) and when metformin was given in the middle of this period it completely stopped the cancer cell metabolism, halting the growth of the tumours in mice with colorectal cancer and melanoma. It would be fascinating to see the results if they ran the same metformin/chemotherapy trial on NSCLC above and added this lifestyle adjustment as well.
Some of you may be thinking, ‘Aha! I will use berberine instead.’ Here is an article on that:
Unsurprisingly, given that metformin and berberine work by blocking almost identical pathways (i.e. mTOR, OXPHOS, GSK), the chemotherapy and berberine combination shows a similar effect. The ‘side population’ of cancer cells increases – these are the dangerous stem cells, fuelling themselves on GLYCOLYSIS. The study notes berberine is more effective in breast cancer (MCF7 cells) without citing the reason why – quite possibly because I know this cancer is fuelled more by OXPHOS than by glycolysis.
NSCLC patients should not give up metformin or berberine in my opinion. Combinations are the key and adding some of the methods I describe in my book/course to stop both glycolysis and autophagy should feature in your protocol.
This demonstrates why individualising your Metro Map is so important because different cancers will use the same metabolic pathways but with a different emphasis, and why I am designing an App to help you.
Another key feature of my Starve Cancer App will be data collection so we can work out exactly which combinations work best in patients. This is work in progress but if you wish to help me get this out faster I would welcome your support through the following link that I recently created:
JaneMcLelland is Creating an App to assist cancer patients (buymeacoffee.com)
I need to raise £75k! So any assistance would be warmly welcomed.
Thank you to those who have purchased the second edition – available already through my UK site (Central Books), it has been shipped all over the world.
‘I am in Canada and we received your book last week. My husband is already on chapter 3 and it contains so much more than the first edition! Thank you Jane!’ MB, Canada
Another 84 pages to be precise, including an index. A glossary I have put up on my website to save the book becoming too hefty and raising costs further – you will find it under the book tab on my Home page www.howtostarvecancer.com alongside links for purchasing the new second edition.
Here to support you all as best I can!
*LEARN* LIVE AND LOVE,
Jane xx
#H2SC #womanonamission
P.P.S. Please do follow me on Facebook Twitter and Instagram; And please retweet, like and share posts whenever you can as FB rarely lets me promote either my book or my online course. Changing the current woeful standard of care requires a Herculean effort, but together I believe we can do it! Thank you!
