In today’s hectic world, we may long for a simpler life. With the accelerating advance of technology, we may find life overwhelming and just too complicated. Henry David Thoreau’s famous quote, now nearly a couple of centuries old, of “simplify, simplify” still expresses our desire to uncomplicate life. Surely the rapid increase in complexity is contributing to our hurried, stress-filled life, right?
Complexity gets a bad rap these days. There is great value in complexity. Technology has drastically raised our standard of living, and while it may entice us to become fast food eating couch potatoes, it is the layers upon layers of technology advancement that has given us a lifestyle unimaginable to past generations. In many ways the entire world is at our fingertips, and the compilation of the world’s knowledge is available via Web searches. Complexity has its advantages; namely, it gives us almost unlimited potential, and gives many luxuries, but falls apart in the face of war, natural disaster, or other pressures that require all energy be put into basic survival. Complexity is delicate, like fine art work that requires the controlled environment of a studio but cannot be left out in the rain. If left to nature, the second law of thermodynamics kicks in, so that complex structure is broken down into simpler elements.
Simple things can be good, but they are limited. The real value comes with complexity. Simple music is sweet, but after a few plays becomes boring, while complex harmonies or orchestrations are worth hearing many times over and still hold our interest. Worthwhile complexity is built upon structure and organization which can lay the foundation for additional layers.
Life itself is very complex — so complex that we still cannot create it in a laboratory. We can manipulate the piece-parts of life, but we cannot build even a single cell from raw materials. Cells work together to form simple organisms and then more complex organisms, with humans being the pinnacle of complexity. As the most complex creature in this world, we have dominion over all the others. We are the top of the food chain and of any other hierarchy.
When life steps back from complexity, it usually means a reversion to a more primitive form of life. The clearest example of this is cancer, which reverts from the well-functioning complex body structure to a short-sighted selfish primal structure. This reversion comes under environmental pressure when, from the cell’s point of view, the complex structure is not working well. Sustained stress pushes the cell to “simplify, simplify.” The simple version of the cell is better suited to handle harsh environmental pressures.
Cancer comes from your cells abandoning their complex life and becoming more primitive. This happens in small steps rather than one sudden leap from healthy to cancerous. A sustained stress-driven, inflammatory or toxic environment keeps the pressure up on cells to make these steps. These steps are due to a number of genetic expressions that must work in concert to create actual cancer. Progressive generations of cells “de-differentiate”, or simplify, acting more like stem cells that are very general in their function.
Burn hot — burn out
Life has a cycle which we attempt to override at our own peril. In the early mature years, we are running a high metabolism and have energy to burn. Sexuality is at a peak. In today’s society, we expect to maintain aspects of our youth in our later years. But the later years are not the same as the early years, and attempting to hold on to everything we once had is unrealistic. The drive to increase male testosterone is one example: men are bombarded with commercials to increase their testosterone, which is a male sex hormone known as an androgen. Hormones cause environmental pressure on cells to do something, and androgens promote the buildup of male sexual characteristics.
Environmental pressure is also an invitation to cancer. Inflammation, toxicity, and stress are all contributors to the type of environment that favors cancer. It is pressure at the cell level to abandon complexity and become more primitive, more primal. In doing so, the cell can withstand the rigors of that environment.
In the case of prostate cancer, the androgen hormones can add further environmental pressure. You would expect that this can be tested, and it has been. In research conducted by the National Cancer Research Institute, researchers at the Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, UK cited a study of over 200,000 men, all of whom were free of (detectable) cancer when joining the study and were not taking any hormone therapy. They were followed for 6 to 7 years, taking regular readings of their blood levels of ‘free’ testosterone. For every increase of 50 pico moles of ‘free’ testosterone per liter of blood, there was a 10% increase risk in their developing prostate cancer. Men with the highest levels faced an average 18% greater risk.
It should be no surprise, therefore, that standard prostate cancer therapy is to block androgen receptors — by doing so, the therapy attempts to cut the signal to drive sexuality further and harder. It attempts to compensate for the hormonal stress that is trying to keep sexuality burning hot, beyond its time. Androgens are somewhat like growth hormones which stimulate certain types of growth. This can drive cancer development as well, as cancer is defined by rapid growth. We don’t need “growth” pressure in later years; we need stability and maintenance.
Treating prostate cancer with androgen receptor blockers is an interesting trade: it is trading the hormonal pressure that spurs cancer for a higher toxicity which cancer is built to handle. Cancer is in a state of stress response, where it is rapidly searching for a better code in its genetic library to handle the current harsh environment. So when an artificial pathway block is applied, the cancer searches for ways to get around the block — this is where it becomes resistant to the drug. So the drug has some impact until the cancer finds the code it needs, and then the therapy stops working. Meanwhile the drugs have increased body toxicity, driving cancer all the harder.
Dedifferentiation — an immature thing to do
Sometimes under pressure we may act in an immature fashion. This certainly seems to be true of cancer cells. The environmental pressure pushes normal cells to channel their primitive side, so to speak. There are many primal aspects to cancer cell behavior, and normal cells under pressure will take on an aspect at a time, drawing on various codes in their genetic library, and at some point they have crossed the line to being actual cancer cells. As the cells become more primal, more immature in their actions, they are regressing into stem cell state, eventually becoming cancer stem cells. Once in that state, they can metastasize, because the cancer stem cells, being dedifferentiated, can produce differentiated cells to grow more cancer. Under toxic assault or when vital pathways are blocked, they can hunker down and wait for the storm to pass, then flare up into new tumors.
A review article published in Essays in Biochemistry explains the process: “Cancer progression is characterized and driven by gradual loss of a differentiated phenotype and gain of stem cell-like features.” Although the article focuses on prostate cancer, this statement applies to all cancers. The researchers observe more “stem-like” cell behavior, or cell phenotype, which is how the evidence of the epigenetic cell changes are manifest. The more “stemness” of the cancer cells, the more malignant the cancer. As they explain about prostate cancer, this cancer exhibits a high level of androgen receptor (AR) signaling, and in advanced cases, AR blocking drugs are used. But they observe that most tumors become resistant to these drugs within 14 to 30 months.
Before cancer develops, the stage is being set. Prostate cancer develops over time, as does any cancer. Published in Molecular Cancer, researchers at the Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia, Norwich, Norfolk, UK took 121 tissue samples from 37 men with and without prostate cancer, and ran DNA details through a massive computer data mapping to determine DNA variations in all the samples. For those with prostate cancer, they observed DNA variances across the entire prostate, not just in cancerous regions, that were abnormal compared with the non-cancer participants. They were seeing that all the cells of the prostate were moving towards cancer, even though some were not yet cancerous. Something, obviously a common environment, was pressuring all the cells to change their phenotype.
Cancer develops over time, and in certain high stress environments very rapidly. Cells degenerate and dedifferentiate, going to a more primal state. That state is more “selfish”, with simpler goals of pure survival, rather than contributing to the health of a complex individual.
Be complicated
When we age, the last thing we want to do is degenerate or develop disease. Degeneration is changing from the complex to the simple, from organized structure to weakened chaos according to the second law of thermodynamics. Our job is to stay complex for a nice long lifetime. To stay complex, we battle the tear-down forces all the time — forces that come through the internal environment in our bodies, the environment that our cells face. The last thing that we want to do as we age is simplify. Cancer does that, as do degenerative diseases.
So our job as we age is to maintain what we’ve got, with all the complicated structure intact. That means we aren’t going to be driving at the same metabolism, with the same raging levels of hormones that were present in our youth. Those growth factors pushed us into maturity, but are designed to lessen in post-maturity. Keeping our internal environment clean and anti-inflammatory — low toxicity, high nutrient, high oxygen, low stress — it also involves our hormones. Following the natural progression of those hormone levels, letting our bodies do what they are designed to do when we produce in them a truly great environment is the best we can do. Anything else disrupts our balance, and that can only produce degeneration and disease!
Dr. Nemec’s Review
Cancer stem cells are the primary cause of all cancer. Cancer stem cells are base cells that have either come from normal stem cells that have been exposed to inflammation stress and toxicity or they come from normal cells trying to adapt to an inflammatory, stressful, and toxic environment — which causes them to dedifferentiate, and become simpler, so that they can become hardier and more adaptable to the environment.
Cancer stem cells are the CEO of the cancer colony or tumor. Even disorganization has a leader and that leader is the cancer stem cell, which has only one goal: to make cells to survive and grow in any environment no matter how stressful, how inflammatory, or how toxic. But unfortunately, the only cells that will live in these environments are cells that have lost the complexity of being part of a whole, the complex organism of your body. Instead, these cells have chosen to separate from the unity of the whole to become selfish and self-centered in order to survive.
So in very plain terms, cancer stem cells are normal cells that had to make a decision. The decision was either die as part of a whole or separate, live, and eventually take over as the new whole. But unfortunately, they are not complex enough to sustain the whole organism.
So what this research is saying are the following:
- Stressful, inflammatory and toxic environments cause normal healthy cells to simplify, or dedifferentiate into selfish, self-centered cancer stem cells.
- These environments eventually will cause all cells to become cancer stem cells, as was shown in the study that stated all the genetic blueprints of even the non-cancer cells were taking on a genetic pattern of cancer, even though they hadn’t turned malignant yet. So much for just cutting out a tumor and some lymph nodes, adding some chemo and radiation and going on our merry way. If you don’t change the cause, you don’t change the outcome. Just addressing the outcome without the finding the cause is very temporary improvement at best.
- Do not try to be 20 when you are 50 and beyond. If you take hormones, if you stimulate hormones that are only in higher amounts at an earlier part of your life, you have to remember these hormones all stimulate growth and reproduction, and past the age of 35 you do not want to stimulate growth and reproduction, but maintenance and repair. If you do turn on growth and reproduction, you most likely will stimulate the fastest growing and reproducing cell in the body which is a cancer cell. Your body has an innate wisdom to lower your hormonal levels as you age — this is so that you do not produce cancer and so you shift from growth and reproduction into maintenance and repair. To look and feel like you’re 30 when you’re 60 is unnatural, but unfortunately we have the technology to do this with hormonal therapy. It’s always a short term gain and a long-term loss. We have had many patients on our Revolution New Medicine Protocol® that have been in their 50s and 60s and just by being on the program with no hormones added, no medications added — just getting rid of the stress programs, the sources of inflammation and toxicity, they dropped 20+ years of age, because age is just an amount of inflammation building up in the body. One of our patients who was 60 years old that came in with diagnosed cancer said that he had never felt this good in his life — maybe he did when he was in high school but he didn’t remember. This is the natural way, this is the way that makes every cell in your body healthy, not just one area. This is the best anti-aging protocol there is because it benefits every single cell in the body for the present and for the future — no drug, no hormone, no medication can do this or will ever be able to do this.
- All medical treatments that are treating the effect instead of the cause and will just stimulate the cancer cells to go through their genetic library to find the right codes to adapt to whatever chemical or drug that has been placed in its environment. This is why so many medical treatments start off well, but do not end well because the body adapts. Cancer stem cells know how to do one thing very well: they know how to adapt and survive in the worst environments, which include environments that have added chemicals / drugs to try to stop their growth, their survival.
So what’s the answer?
Treat the environment, not the disease!
If you change the stressors, the inflamers, and the toxifying agents, the body will heal itself naturally, because all cells genetically adapt to the environment with their epigenetic forces placed upon it. But if you ignore the environment, and only treat the disease — and by doing so you make that environment worse than it was, which created the disease — how could you ever expect to heal the disease? If you treat the disease but make the environment worse than it was, which created the disease, this makes no sense.
How can you expect to heal when you’re making an environment that’s worse than the environment that formed the disease? Common logic understands this.
Now when is this useful? Only under emergency situations and very short term, so if you have a traumatic accident and you’re rushed to the emergency room, they will use strong medications that can be very harmful long-term; but in that moment, they will save your life — but you do not want to be on these medications much longer than a few weeks. Otherwise they will have the reverse effect. They will actually make a worse environment that will open you up to more disease. So medicine is extremely beneficial in the short term / acute emergency, and potentially very harmful with long term chronic usage.
The only simple things you want to focus on in life are seven simple steps to keep you making an environment that produces health and longevity. We called them the Seven Basic Steps to Total Health: oxygenation, hydration, essential nutrients, rest, exercise, letting go of harmful substances, thoughts and emotions — and living a life of listening to Truth instead of changeable facts and misperceived 5 senses.
Here are the ways we can help you in your health journey:
- Outpatient Comprehensive Teaching and Treatment Program-has the most benefit of teaching, treatment, live classes and personalized coaching. This program has the most contact with Dr. Nemec with 3- 6 month programs that can be turned into a regular checking and support program for life. This is our core program that has helped so many restore their health and maintain that restoration for years.
- Inpatient Comprehensive Teaching and Treatment Program-is our four-week intensive inpatient program for those that are not in driving distance, usually over 4 hour drive. This is the program that is an intensive jumpstart with treatment, teaching, live classes and coaching designed for all our international patients along with those in the US that do not live in Illinois. This program is very effective especially when combined with our new membership program support.
- Stay at Home Program-is offered to continental US patients who cannot come to Total Health Institute but still want a more personal, customized plan to restore their health. This program also includes our Learn Membership Program.
- Membership Program is our newest program offered for those that want to work on their health at a high level and want access to the teaching at Total Health Institute along with the Forums: both Dr. Nemec’s posts and other members posting. And also, to have the chance to get personalized questions answered on the conference calls which are all archived in case you miss the call. The Membership Program has 3 levels to choose from: Learn, Overcome and Master. The difference is at the Overcome and Master levels you received one on one calls with Dr. Nemec personalizing your program for your areas of focus.
