institute for cancer research

Volume 1	News for Patients, Caregivers and Physicians		Winter, 2000
Washington D.C. Talk
GREENWICH PEOPLE Angelo P. John, founder and director of the A. P. John Institute for Cancer Research in Greenwich, recently attended a meeting in Bethesda, MD., held by the President’s Cancer Advisory Panel for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Institutes of Health. John addressed the Cancer Review Board with a discussion on Controlled Amino Acid Therapy, a dietary and nutritional protocol for treating cancer that was developed by the Greenwich Cancer Research Institute. The Cancer Review Board Panel reviews new protocols for the treatment of cancer and determines if and when clinical trials will take place by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine for the National Cancer Institute. Talk in Washington D.C. Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, My name is Angelo P. John, a concerned citizen and director of the A. P John Institute for Cancer Research, and I have been researching cancer since l950. Specializing in diet and nutrition in the prevention, causation and treatment of cancer. In l955, I wrote a letter to Dr. Endicott, at the time director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), urging the NCI to give serious consideration to undertaking research to investigating the link between diet and cancer. I received from Dr. Endicott, a one sentence letter to the effect that there was no scientific evidence linking diet in any way to cancer. This negative response inspired me to write a book on cancer called, DIAITIS, Anti-Cancer Nutrients in the Prevention and Cure of Cancer, which was published in l960, by Bridgehead Books of New York. I am here today to share strong scientific information and my experience to support a complementary dietary and bio-nutritional protocol called Controlled Amino Acid Therapy(CAAT), which was designed to shut down glycolysis, inhibit angiogenesis and reduce the production of the protein cancer growth factors within the body. CAAT works synergistically with Chemotherapy or alone, it has shown to be both lifesaving and non toxic for the treatment of all cancers even those which are metastatic and inoperable. In February of this year I submitted a ten case best series to Dr. White, Director of Complementary Medicine at NCI. As with my colleague, Dr. Lee, I have not been able to provide the necessary blood slides that Dr. White requires to make a decision involving clinical trials. I believe however that if complementary medicine is to go ahead the protocols that warrant consideration for trials, it must be based on good science. I would like here to briefly describe the science behind CAAT. Back in 1956 Warburg reported in the Journal of Science that cancer cells not only produced inordinate amounts of lactic acid but found that all had defects in their mitochondria. Normal cells derive approximately 75 percent of their total energy needs through the citric acid cycle which is housed in the mitochondria. The other 25 percent is derived through a process called glycolysis. I will explain below the strong implication that the citric acid cycle and glycolysis have in the treatment of cancer. Dr. Warburg proposed that the high lactic acid production was due to a deficiency of oxygen which caused cancer cells to switch from oxidation-phosphorylation to anaerobic metabolism or fermentation for their source of energy. No one, to my knowledge, in the past years, has challenged the time held assumption that cancer cells produce excessive amounts of lactic acid because of hypoxia or a deficiency of oxygen.		Oberley and a number of other researchers have reported that cancer cells contain little or no superoxide dismutase in their mitochondria. Without adequate protection of this enzyme, toxic superoxide can attack and destroy the functions of the Kreb or citric acid cycle which is housed in the mitochondria. This injury to the mitochondria prevents cancer cells from utilizing the citric acid cycle as their main source of energy and causes them to rely instead almost exclusively upon Glycolysis for their daily energy needs. However, I proposed a number of years ago that the high lactic acid production of cancer cells was not caused by a deficiency of oxygen but instead from injury caused to their mitochondria of the cell. This injury could be caused by a deficiency in the mitochondria of an enzyme called superoxide dismutase(SD) which detoxifies the very toxic superoxide radical. In glycolysis in normal cells, glucose is degraded to pyruvic acid which then enters the mitochondria and is totally combusted into energy by the citric acid cycle. Since cancer cells cannot utilize the citric acid cycle they must convert pyruvic acid into lactic acid. And this would explain their high production of this acid. McKenzie, working in AIDS research reported in l996 in the New England Journal of Medicine that drugs used to treat AIDS were causing injury to the mitochondria of the cells which altered the oxidation-reduction status resulting in an excessive production of lactic acid. A number of other researchers have reported the same findings as McKenzie. If cancer cells cannot utilize their citric acid cycle as efficiently as normal cells and must depend almost exclusively upon glycolysis for their energy needs, this would have deep implications for the treatment of cancer. Any agent that could knock out either phosphofructokinase or hexokinase, two enzymes that play pivotal rolls in glycolysis, would literally starve cancer cells to death without having any adverse effects on normal cells because they can still derive most of their daily energy needs from the citric acid cycle. Any text book on biochemistry teaches us that either ketones or citrates can inhibit the activities of phosphofructkinase. CAAT’s low carbohydrate ketogenic diet plus the citrates added to our special amino acid deprivation formula along with the toccotrienols all combine to knock out phosphofructokinase and helps starve cancer cells to death. Also, CAAT’s amino acid deprivation fomula with added sodium benzoate, which the patient takes twice daily in place of the regular protein foods in the diet is designed to reduce the precursor pool of glycine and other amino acids that are essential to the synthesis of a protein called elastin. Without sufficient elastin, cancer cells cannot build new blood vessels.This shuts off angiogenesis. A glycine deficiency complimented with certain nutritional supplements can also impair DNA synthesis and prevent cancer cells from manufacturing the sundry protein growth factors including the growth hormone and the insulin-like growth factor. Taking into consideration CAAT’s novel bio-nutritional approach for treating cancer, which, is based upon strong scientific data and reasoning, combined with excellent results we have been experiencing over the past 5 years in treating cancer patients mostly with inoperable cancers, makes for very serious consideration for the undertaking of clinical trials combining CAAT with the present regimen of chemotherapy drugs or with such less toxic chemotherapy drugs such as Lonidamine (because it can shut down hexokinase, another key enzyme in glycolysis) Linomide (which can prevent angiogenesis) and Octreotide (which shuts down the production of the growth hormone and the insulin-like growth factor, two potent mitogens of almost all cancer cells) on patients with inoperable cancer. Anyone interested in additional information can find brochures on the table in the back, titled; Controlled Amino Acid Therapy, A Novel Dietary and Nutritional Protocol to Complement Chemotherapy in the Treatment of Inoperable Cancers. Thank you for listening.

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