CAM cancer therapies are based on scientific principles.

There are many misconceptions today about just what constitutes "alternative/complementary/integrative" medicine. Even many (uninformed) doctors think that this field includes only chanting, meditation, incense, and massage. We have been called "quacks" many times by physicians who don't have a clue about what we actually do or that we are fully licensed physicians. I am even on the staff at the local medical center. The following treatment modalities are examples of three fairly intensive therapeutic interventions to treat cancer that are based on conventional medical research that is over 70 years old. They have been fairly universally ignored. See what you think:

In 1931 Otto Warberg MD, PhD, received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discovery of the fact that cancer cells, of all types, use anaerobic metabolism (glycolysis) to burn sugar without using oxygen as their main source of energy. The problem (for the cancer cell) that this presents is that it is 18/1 times less efficient at burning the sugar. That means they need 18 times more sugar to get the same amount of energy as normal cells, to grow and prosper. This presents a number of therapeutic and diagnostic opportunities to exploit for its discovery and destruction. The therapeutic possibilities have been ignored for over 75 years but not the diagnostic ones.

Every day in oncology centers across the country, these principles are applied in performing PET scans. Sugar molecules are radioactively "tagged" and injected intravenously into a person. After a wait of 1 to 1 1/2 hours, the person is placed under a nuclear scanner to see where the sugar concentrates, because it always goes to and concentrates in cells that have abnormally high metabolism (i.e., cancer cells). For some reason, conventional oncologists remain blind to the potential therapeutic application of this principle. They even keep bowls of candy in their waiting rooms and staunchly maintain that "diet has nothing to do with tumor growth."

Oxidative therapies offer a group of agents that can provide a therapeutic intervention that proves very toxic to cancer cells but is not harmful to normal cells. Oxygen in various forms can be given intravenously to impose an oxidative environment on the cancer cells that they do not have a mechanism to reverse. Normal cells have antioxidant metabolic pathways to help them avoid the damage from the oxidation. Dioxychlor is another agent that can be administered orally to create an oxidative environment in the body.

Another avenue that can be utilized to create a more hostile environment for cancer cells is pH modulation, or alkalization therapy. The cancer cells create their favored acidic environment by their two main waste products, lactic acid and carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide in a liquid medium makes carbonic acid. This is the same carbon dioxide that we constantly exhale, but it is created in much higher amounts by the glycolysis in the tumor cells. By using both oral and intravenous cesium and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), an increasingly alkaline environment is created in the body. Cesium is a mineral that is mined out of the earth and, because of its molecular weight, it has a hard time crossing the membrane of normal cells. Cancer cells, however, have abnormal cell membranes and they readily allow cesium to cross into the intracellular fluid. When it does, it begins to alkalize the environment inside the cells. It is known that at an intracellular pH of 8.0, the cancer cells can no longer reproduce, and at 8.5 they begin to die.

A third therapeutic intervention that can take advantage of the weakness of the principles of glycolysis is Insulin Potentiation Therapy (IPT). This therapy is taught by Donato Perez Garcia, MD, and was discovered in Mexico by his grandfather, who was also a physician, in the 1920s.

IPT utilizes the known fact that cancer cells have between six and ten times the number of insulin receptors on their cell membranes that normal cells do. Insulin, of course, is the hormone that controls the absorption of sugar across the cell membrane from the blood into the cells of the body. This makes total sense when you understand glycolysis and its increased need for sugar.

Now if you Google "IPT" or "Insulin Potentiation Therapy," you will find a number of websites that warn how "it is very dangerous to lower the blood sugar." To this, we say: dangerous compared to what--chemotherapy? We also say: it is dangerous to cross the street if you don't know what you are doing! If you are trained in the details, know what to watch for, and know how to react to what is happening, then it is a very safe therapy ... except for to the cancer cells! In the past four years, we have performed at least 5000 IPT treatments in our clinic, and we have not lost one patient to the therapy. I don't think there is a chemo treatment program in the country that can make that claim!

First, a calculated dose of insulin is administered intravenously and the sugar is monitored closely. When the blood sugar level approaches roughly the mid-30s, the cancer cells start literally starving for sugar and they open their cell membranes in an attempt to get more. At this point, intravenous sugar is administered, but it is mixed with a combination of cesium, homeopathic mistletoe, and other ingredients. Then oral Gatorade is given and the blood sugar is monitored until it is back within normal range. This targets the cancer cells like a laser guided bomb.

There are about 300 physicians in the world performing IPT today. Out of the total, 299 of them do this treatment by mixing one-tenth of the standard chemo drugs mixed with the sugar instead of the above-noted mixture. This is an improvement over standard therapy because it is at least as effective with one-tenth the side effects. However, we believe that "you cannot poison your way back to health"!

These three approaches are combined with immune-boosting, using different combinations of homeopathics, herbs, vitamins, and minerals, both IV and orally, to provide a unique way to eliminate the diseased cells without harming the normal ones. All of these treatment options fall into the category of "alternative/complementary/integrative" medicine.

Robert Eslinger, DO, HMD 

Dr. Eslinger is certified in family practice and osteopathic manipulation. He has been practicing for over 30 years and recently received an appointment by the governor to the Board of Homeopathic Medicine for the State of Nevada. He is currently the owner and medical director of Reno Integrative Medical Center in Reno, Nevada (renointegrative.com).