Back in 1931, Dr. Otto Warburg won the Nobel Prize Physiology or Medicine for his amazing discovery that cancer cells` metabolism differs from the energy metabolism of healthy cells.
Cells produce energy in two different ways: aerobically, in the mitochondria, or anaerobically, in the cytoplasm, which produces a toxic byproduct called lactic acid. Warburg found that cancer cells overproduce lactic acid in the presence of oxygen.
Mitochondrial energy production is more effective, able to produce up to 18 times more energy in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) than anaerobic energy generation.
According to Warburg, the reversion of energy production from aerobic energy generation to anaerobic fermentation is the major cause of cancer.
Even though he never managed to prove it, he did maintain this belief until his death in 1970. Finding the cure for cancer was one of his major goals, but his theories were never accepted, until now.
Sugar Feeds Cancer
Another way of explaining this discovery is that cancer cells fuel by burning sugar anaerobially. Without it, cancer cells have metabolic inflexibility to survive. According to New York Times (NYT) featured article:
“[T]he Warburg effect is estimated to occur in up to 80 percent of cancers. [A] positron emission tomography (PET) scan, which has emerged as an important tool in the staging and diagnosis of cancer works simply by revealing the places in the body where cells are consuming extra glucose.
In many cases, the more glucose a tumor consumes, the worse a patient’s prognosis.”
The Warburg Revival
It took about three decades for the next major revision to this cancer hypothesis. In 2006, the Cancer Genome Atlas project concluded that genetic mutations are more random than it was previously suspected.
As a matter of fact, they are so common that it is impossible to pin down the genetic origin of cancer. Some cancer tumors have no mutation at all. Over time, people have started wondering whether cancer development might be linked to Warburg’s theory on energy metabolism. Over the past few years, experts have realized that cancer isn’t caused by genetic defects, but mitochondrial damage that triggers nuclear genetic mutations. According to The New York Times:
“There are typically many mutations in a single cancer. But there are a limited number of ways that the body can produce energy and support rapid growth. Cancer cells rely on these fuels in a way that healthy cells don’t.
The hope of scientists at the forefront of the Warburg revival is that they will be able to slow — or even stop — tumors by disrupting one or more of the many chemical reactions a cell uses to proliferate, and, in the process, starve cancer cells of the nutrients they desperately need to grow.
Even James Watson, Ph.D. one of the fathers of molecular biology, is convinced that targeting metabolism is a more promising avenue in current cancer research than gene-centered approaches …
‘I never thought … I’d ever have to learn the Krebs cycle,’ he said, referring to the reactions … by which a cell powers itself. ‘Now I realize I have to.’”
Cancer-Causing Genes Regulate Cells’ Nutrient Consumption
Scientists have found that various genes that are known to trigger cancer development by affecting cell division, including a gene called AKT. So, some genes appear to play an important role in the cancer cells` overconsumption of sugar.
“Dr. Craig Thompson, the president and chief executive of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, has been among the most outspoken proponents of this renewed focus on metabolism …
His research showed that cells need to receive instructions from other cells to eat, just as they require instructions from other cells to divide.
Thompson hypothesized that if he could identify the mutations that lead a cell to eat more glucose than it should, it would go a long way toward explaining how the Warburg effect and cancer begin,” The New York Times writes.
“The protein created by AKT is part of a chain of signaling proteins that is mutated in up to 80 percent of all cancers. Thompson says that once these proteins go into overdrive, a cell no longer worries about signals from other cells to eat; it instead stuffs itself with glucose.
Thompson discovered he could induce the ‘full Warburg effect’ simply by placing an activated AKT protein into a normal cell. When that happens, Thompson says, the cells begin to do what every single-celled organism will do in the presence of food: eat as much as it can and make as many copies of itself as possible.”
Novel Treatment Offers Hope for Cancer Patients
Young Hee Ko, Ph.D., is a Korean biochemist who was working with a professor of biological chemistry and oncology at Johns Hopkins and made a revolutionary discovery that offers hope for cancer patients.
They found that when cancer cells overproduce lactic acid, they have to produce more monocarboxylic acid transfer phosphates in order to let lactic acid out. Otherwise, the cancer cells will die from the inside out.
They remembered a compound called 3-bromopyruvate (3BP), which resembles lactic acid, but it is highly reactive. In various lab tests, 3BP blew away all of the chemotherapy drugs used for comparison. To sum up, 3BP kills off tumors by preventing lactic acid from leaking out of the cancer cells.