Discussion
This review has considered several critical nutrient deficiencies that may contribute to the manifestation of a number of cancers, as well as nutrients that have been found deficient in cancer cells. It is also observed that traditional nutritional and medicinal agents used in the past provided a rich supply of these critical nutrients and assisted in the restoration of digestive and excretory functions. Again, blackstrap molasses is a source of plant phenolic compounds, the majority of the vitamin B complex, critical minerals such as iron, zinc, selenium, magnesium and potassium, as well as essential unsaturated lipids.
Rose oil is another historically proven source of essential lipids. Our current understanding on the vital role of folate and vitamin B12 in maintaining DNA integrity and function should prompt us to reevaluate dietary requirements for these essential vitamins. Iodine deficiency, which has been demonstrated in cancer, was also shown to impair the immune system and increase the incidence of several cancers. The disinfecting effects of oral sulfur and apple cider vinegar in the gut and the urinary system help restore digestive and excretory functions, a cornerstone of early medical practice.
A large number of studies demonstrate the inadequacy of Western dietary habits for supplying adequate amounts of critical nutrients and also demonstrate the fundamental role of nutrition in disease prevention and control. Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine stated, "Your food shall be your medicine and your medicine shall be your food." Currently, both in the public and the scientific community are lacking in their attention to the effects of multiple nutritional deficiencies on the human organism.
It seems reasonable to conclude that a number of coincidental critical nutritional deficiencies can lead to and co-exist in the state of cancer. Disregulation of numerous regulatory and metabolic pathways may occur at multiple levels, eventually leading to the disintegration of metabolic and regulatory networks in terminal cancer. This suggests that cancer is a systemic disease, and that a tumor is likely a late-stage effect rather than the cause of the disease itself. It also explains why cancer typically recurs after the eradication of individual tumors. Therefore, focusing on the cancer cell cannot lead us to understanding the fundamentals of the disease. Here, the results speak for themselves.
It appears unrealistic that we can successfully intervene into this vast out-of-balance network of physiological processes with single active agent therapies and restore balance and health. The time has arrived to abandon one-dimensional thinking and consider the human organism more like a matrix or interconnected system, instead. The large body of available data on metabolic and regulatory processes coupled with methods of information technology should allow us to establish correlations between apparently distant molecular, cellular and physiological events. This would bring a true paradigm shift in our approach to understanding and treating diseases.
The old-time medicinal use of blackstrap molasses, apple cider vinegar, oral sulfur and molecular iodine, rose oil and quinine testifies to a remarkable understanding of human physiology by our ancestors. Such nutritional approach allows a unifying perception of cancer that could recast it as a single disease. This would also suggest that all cancers may arise out of a common cellular/physiological event and, in fact, new evidence points into this direction.
Cancer stem cells for leukemias [151], brain cancer [152] and breast cancer [153] have been described lending support to the 40 years old idea that all cancers may originate from a common progenitor. Thus, evidence is accumulating in support of the view that cancer may actually be a single disease and, as such could be treated by a single therapy.
Our working hypothesis was that by re-supplying critical nutrients to cancer patients in an oral nutritional supplement cocktail and simultaneously cleansing the digestive and excretory systems by using the described methods of past centuries of medicine, we might cure a wide range of or perhaps all types cancers. Essential ingredients of the supplement include blackstrap molasses, apple cider vinegar, sulfur, quinine, rose oil, folic acid, vitamin B12 and molecular iodine [patent pending]. This supplement is currently being tested in a variety of stage III-IV cancer patients refractory to current therapies.
In conclusion, this paper presents the case that multiple, concurrent nutritional deficiencies may play a fundamental role in tumorigenesis and suggests that the disease process could be reversed by re-supplying the required nutrients in adequate amounts. In addition, a new approach to cancer is advocated that would unify our traditional mechanistic, physico-chemical methodologies with subtle energy-based concepts, under the umbrella of contemporary rigorous scientific testing methods.