Refined Carbohydrates, Insulin Levels & Cancer

The Insulin Connection

Insulin Potentiation Therapy

There is an unorthodox cancer treatment that over a number of years (almost 70 years, in fact) has demonstrated extraordinary success — within certain, very specific, limitations (which we’ll talk about later). It’s called Insulin Potentiation Therapy. The concept is very simple.

Cancer cells live on sugar (glycogen). They thrive on it. In fact, cancer cells have 10-15 times more insulin receptors than normal cells. The role that insulin plays in the process is that it facilitates the movement of sugar from the blood, onto the receptor sites, and ultimately into the cells themselves. (In diabetes, the body either doesn’t produce enough insulin (or the cells resist it) so that the sugar remains in the blood, builds up to higher and higher levels, and ultimately starts damaging protein based tissue and organs.)

Cancer

In terms of cancer, though, the role insulin plays is that it facilitates the transfer of glycogen from the blood into the cancer cells — thereby feeding those cells and energizing them at a rate up to 15 times more than ordinary cells. This is a major factor in why cancer cells are so much more aggressive than ordinary cells.

Insulin Potentiation Therapy makes use of an interesting side effect in this process. As it turns out, insulin not only accelerates the uptake of sugar by cells, it also accelerates the uptake of other substances — such as chemotherapy drugs. The net result is that when chemotherapy drugs are combined with Insulin Potentiation, the cancer cells are fooled into sucking up the chemotherapy drugs (along with the glycogen) at a greatly accelerated rate. Studies have shown that IPT can make some chemotherapy drugs as much as 10,000 times more effective than the drug is by itself.

The end result is far more effective chemotherapy at far lower doses than would ever have seemed possible before. The track record on IPT is astounding (again within certain limitations). In Stage I and Stage II cancers, close to 80% of the patients on IPT have seen complete and total remission — many tracked for up to 10 years. So what are the limitations I referred to? First, in Stage III and Stage IV cancers, the results are much less effective. And second, although IPT appears to be very effective at eliminating the immediate manifestation of the cancer, it does nothing to eliminate the underlying systemic factors that were involved in the cancer appearing in the first place.

  • For more information on IPT, you can go to www.iptq.com
  • For more information on the fundamental nature of cancer, you can listen to the sound file, The Big Lie.

So what is the tie in that Kristen mentioned in her intro that connects diabetes, cancer, and aging? It’s refined carbohydrates. In Lessons from the Miracle Doctors, I refer to refined carbs as the second biggest dietary problem we face in the industrialized world today. I still think that’s true. I still believe that plastic fats are a bigger problem, but refined carbs are running a very close second. Who knows, by the time I publish the next edition of Miracle Doctors, I may have moved them to the head of the class. Specifically, refined carbs

  • Play a major role in the onset of cancer — as we learned today — by spiking insulin levels in the blood
  • Are directly tied to the diabetes epidemic, again by spiking insulin levels
  • Are responsible for protein glycation, a major factor in tissue aging
  • Jack up triglyceride levels, thereby contributing to heart disease. And are the major factor behind the new drug epidemic that we now face in the United States today, the Ritalin epidemic. American doctors now prescribe 5 times more Ritalin to our children on a daily basis than the rest of the world combined. (As a side note, when injected, cocaine addicts cannot tell the difference between Ritalin and cocaine.

Refined Carbs

The bottom line is that you must cut back on the amount of refined carbs in your diet. Two approaches worth mentioning are:

  • The No-Grain Diet by Dr. Joseph Mercola
  • Eat to Live by Joel Fuhrman, M.D.

Either approach will work, but if pressed to choose, I’m probably more comfortable with the approach outline in Dr. Furhman’s book.

Also, I really recommend that you start incorporating insulin modifiers into your diet. These are fibers such as gymnema sylvestre, nopal, and fenugreek extract, etc. Incidentally, I am currently working on the next generation of the sugar metabolic enhancement formula that I designed last year specifically for modulating the insulin response when high glycemic foods are consumed. You can read about that formula by clicking here, but the new, next generation, formula should be available before the end of the year.