Professor Thomas Seyfried – Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: Taking Control - Unstress with Dr Ron Ehrlich


Prof. Thomas Seyfried joins me to discuss cancer as a metabolic disease and shares a surprisingly simple approach to treating it. Previously cancer has been thought of as a genetic condition, but with one in two men and one in three women contracting cancer by the age of 60, there is clearly a big problem going on. Thomas challenges the idea of cancer as a genetic disease through his extensive research and clinical practice. In this episode, he discusses the press pulse treatment, caloric restrictions, fasting, ketogenic diets and hyperbaric therapy. This episode was a game changer for me and I hope you enjoy it too.

Selected Links from the Episode

Unstress episode with Prof. Dominic D'Agostino on keto nutrition
Prof. Thomas Seyfried article Press Pulse therapeutic strategy

Download the PDF transcription
Dr. Ron Ehrlich: Hello and welcome to “Unstress” where we try to get a grip on some of the things that stress us and hopefully what to do about it. I'm Dr. Ron Ehrlich. Cancer. Now one in two men, one in three women, will contract cancer by the age of 60 or maybe 65. Before we put that all down to getting older since 1971 when President Nixon declared a ‘war on cancer’ the incidence has gone up 25 to 30 percent and that is allowing for the aged lifespan increase. Childhood cancers are also on the rise and I doubt if there is a single person listening to this that doesn't know someone within their immediate family or friends or maybe even themselves who haven't had cancer. I'm putting my hand up here and I can certainly name quite a few members of my family and friends.

Now in order to solve a problem, this may sound obvious, but in order to solve a problem, it really helps if you know what causes the problem particularly if you want to target your treatment to that problem. So, what causes cancer? Now everyone will have their own list of triggers; nicotine, environmental, chemicals, and toxins, radiation, infection or a family genetic history. The accepted theory for the last 40 or 50 years at least is that it's a genetic issue with those triggers causing genes to mutate and then go out of control. It's actually referred to as the ‘somatic mutation theory’. Somatic referring to the cells of the body.

The answer to that problem then would be to target the genes of the cancer cells but there are quite a few problems with that approach. One, cancer cells don't have the same genes from one person to another. So, my prostate cancer cell genes will be very different from someone else's cancer prostate cancer genes. So, that's number one.

Number two, even within my own body unlike all normal cells which share the same genetic makeup the cancer cells in one person are all quite different. They are random, and they have chaotic mutations.

Three, in order to target those chaotic random genes in cancer cells you can't really be very targeted. You need to go through in a sort of a hand-grenade or use an automatic machine gun and kill lots of cells and its why chemotherapy has so many terrible side effects because healthy cells are affected as well as cancer cells.

What if there was something else going on? What if there was an important step in between the triggers of nicotine and environmental toxins, stress etc. and the genetic mutation? What if there was a step in between those two? What if we understood that step and targeted that which in turn killed only cancer cells and came with no or minimal side effects? My guest today is Professor Thomas Seyfried. He received his Ph.D. in genetics and biochemistry in 1976. So, he was certainly not shying away from a genetic basis to this and other conditions.

About 18 years ago he became interested in the idea that mechanisms of metabolisms specifically how we get our energy might be significant. That is how normal cells, normal human cells throughout the body get their energy and concluded that this knowledge could be useful in managing many chronic dis...