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Bladder Cancer - What caused it? Why me? Why now?

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Bladder cancer is the fourth most common cause of cancer in men. There are well established guidelines for its treatment.[1] Nevertheless, the 5-year relative survival statistics are not good, once the cancer has spread beyond the superficial layers of the bladder.[2]

The American Cancer Society has an excellent web article about bladder cancer, describing the conventional medical understanding of its treatment.[3]

Causes of bladder cancer are multiple. As with any cancer, there is a predisposition for problems in that organ system (kidney/bladder). The kidneys are a major organ of excretion of many chemicals which are stored in the bladder while waiting to be expelled from the body through urination.

On top of the predisposition, there is an inciting factor (or several) which may include chronic infections, arsenic in drinking water, prior chemotherapy or radiation therapy, birth defects, deficiencies of detoxification enzymes (GST - glutathione-S-transferase - or NAT - n-acetyl transferase).

The industries carrying highest risks include the makers of rubber, leather, textiles, and paint products as well as printing companies. Other workers with an increased risk of developing bladder cancer include painters, machinists, printers, hairdressers (likely because of heavy exposure to hair dyes), and truck drivers (likely because of exposure to diesel fumes). Cigarette smoking and workplace exposures may act together to cause bladder cancer. Smokers who work with the cancer-causing chemicals noted above have an especially high risk of developing bladder cancer.[4]

Smokers are twice as likely to develop bladder cancer as non-smokers.

What we fail to recognize, in our allopathic Western medicine, is that cancer is the body's ultimate cry for help in a situation of unresolved conflict.[5] The conflict may be purely physical - i.e. exposure to toxic chemicals. More often the physical is superimposed upon a psychological conflict - some kind of emotional shock and conflict - which generally occurs one to two years before the tumor manifests. This is not to say that the emotional shock is the cause of the tumor, but rather that the shock opens the door so that the tumor can progress.

At the Arizona Center for Advanced Medicine we use multiple modalities in the treatment of cancer.

When surgery and/or radiation therapy are indicated, we recommend it, and help our patients find the appropriate surgeon and/or radiation oncologist to perform the procedure.

We treat the cancer using Insulin Potentiation Therapy (IPT) - which allows us to use standard chemotherapeutic drugs at a MUCH lower dose than standard chemotherapy - so that we get the benefits of chemotherapy without most of the side effects.

We test the chemotherapeutic agents to see which ones have the greatest kill rate for the individual patient's circulating tumor cells (and original tumor cells, if a fresh specimen is available). Thus, we can use chemotherapy which actually works on the individual tumor, rather than chemo that has been tested in hundreds of patients and works on 30 or 50 or 75 percent of their tumors. We use combinations of drugs based on testing, whether they are standard combinations or not.

We re-test periodically, to make sure that we are still administering the appropriate agents, because cancer cells are infamous for mutating, changing their characteristics from generation to generation as the cells rapidly divide. Their DNA is notoriously not stable, so daughter cells may have very different characteristics from the parent cancer cell - which is already very different from the normal cells.

We also treat with supplements and botanicals which are known to have an effect on cancer cells and on the immune system. Medicines like artemisinin, mistletoe, genistein, naltrexone (in very low dose), modified citrus pectin and many others are known to stimulate cancer cell apoptosis (cellular suicide), decrease the formation of new blood vessels, stimulate our own natural killer cells, and decrease the likelihood of cancer cells metastasizing and setting up shop for new tumor formation.

We help our patients investigate the potential emotional shocks which may have been the trigger for the development of the cancer which brought them to us. We do not force the issue, but we do hold the light on the path.

And our success rate is measured in quality of life and resolution of conflict. The sooner we are able to treat, the better. Some have no recurrence of cancer. Others experience arrest of tumor growth. And some experience progression of the tumor. There are no guarantees of healing - any more than there are in conventional oncology. The only guarantee is that the treatment is much more gentle, does not often cause major side effects, and is administered in an atmosphere of caring - both from the staff at the Center and from the other patients.

Conventional oncology is beginning to realize that there is a connection between cancer treatment and the state of metabolism. A few researchers are looking in to the relationship between glucose uptake and cancer cell growth and chemotherapy treatment.[6,7,8] And the drug companies are starting to take an interest in the concept.[9]

Physiologically, all cancers are caused by an alteration in the metabolism of the cells which turn cancerous. Otto Warburg was awarded the Nobel Prize for this discovery. The big question is: what causes the cells to so drastically change their metabolism? Is it environmental pollution? Is it infection by viruses, bacteria or fungi? Is it terrible eating habits? Is it emotional distress? Is it traumatic experiences?

In the end, all cancers are caused by interaction between the internal and the external environment - our genetic predispositions, our life history, and the external factors to which we are exposed. All these factors must be addressed and resolved, for true healing to occur.

We at the Arizona Center for Advanced Medicine are honored to share in the journey of our patients, and are always searching out new and innovative therapies, keeping our patients' best interests at heart.


[1] http://www.nccn.org/professionals/physician_gls/pdf/bladder.pdf [2] http://www.cancer.org/cancer/bladdercancer/detailedguide/bladder-cancer-survival-rates [3] http://www.cancer.org/cancer/bladdercancer/detailedguide/bladder-cancer-what-is-cancer [4] http://www.cancer.org/cancer/bladdercancer/detailedguide/bladder-cancer-risk-factors [5] http://www.health-science-spirit.com/hamer.html [6] Jiao SC, Huang J, Sun Y, Lu SX. The effect of insulin on chemotherapeutic drug sensitivity in human esophageal and lung cancer cells. Zhonghua Yi Xue Za Zhi. 2003 Feb 10;83(3):195-7. [7] Porter HA, Carey GB, Keegan AD. Insulin receptor substrate 1 expression enhances the sensitivity of 32D cells to chemotherapy-induced cell death. Exp Cell Res. 2012 Aug 15;318(14):1745-58. Epub 2012 May 28. [8] Graham NA, Tahmasian M et al. Glucose deprivation activates a metabolic and signaling amplification loop leading to cell death. Mol Syst Biol. 2012 Jun 26;8:589. doi: 10.1038/msb.2012.20. [9] http://www.cornerstonepharma.com/cancer-metabolism/overview
Bladder Cancer - What caused it? Why me? Why now?