Another Look at Cancer
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
From The Outside In
(A speculative essay on cancer)
By
Francis William Bessler
Laramie, Wyoming
June 4th, 2013
In an earlier blog, I wrote an essay I called WHAT IS CANCER? This is an attempt to follow up on that. This time, however, I intend to try and deal with a cancer center here in Laramie - the Meredith & Jeannie Ray Cancer Center of Laramie, Wyoming. I will drop this letter - or essay - off to them - as well as include it as a blog. Who knows? Maybe one of these darts I throw out will eventually hit someone and make them think that maybe - just maybe - we have had a lot of things in this life wrong - including our love affair with cancer.
Most, I think, have no idea about the issue of cancer - and that includes almost all the researchers about it. The reason I claim that is because I think cancer research has almost unanimously signed on to the idea that cancer is "an erratic multiplication of normal body cells due to a defect of the regulatory mechanism of the cells themselves." I believe that is an almost given conclusion by almost all of cancer research. Everyone in cancer research seems to have signed on to that explanation of cancer - that it is essentially due to a defect within a normal body cell.
What do I claim it is - or might be? I tend to believe that the cells themselves are not responsible for their "multiplying erratically." I believe there is another reason that normal body cells multiply erratically - and that reason is that they simply have too much food. I strongly challenge the idea that cells divide due to any "regulatory mechanism" in a cell itself. I think cells divide simply because they reach a point when having grown to a division point, they split. That is all there is to it. But it is "growth" - not some regulatory mechanism - that causes that split.
In other words, I challenge the whole idea that cancer is from the inside out. That is, from the inside of a cell outward as if a cell itself determines if it will grow and if it will divide. I think most cancer research assumes that cells divide by virtue of the regulatory mechanism of the cells themselves, but I believe that is probably not true. I believe that cells divide by virtue of their food supply - not by virtue of what a cell decides all by its lonely little self.
Imagining myself as a normal body cell, I wonder about my circumstance. There I am in a body and I tell myself that I sure would like to grow. It's just normal for anything to want to grow - and as a cell, I see myself in such a light. Looking about me, I see fluid and in that fluid, I see various nutrients. As a particular hungry cell, I wish that some of those nutrients would flow my way; and as I think, it happens. As a healthy cell, I eat all I can until I grow stronger and healthier - and then there comes a point when little ole me explodes, in a way. I have become so fat that I am no longer satisfactory unto myself. I have become so fat that I divide; but the reason I have become fat is not because I have decided to grow all by myself. On the contrary, I could not have grown unless there were nutrients from outside myself to allow me to eat and grow.
Traditional cancer research would have me believe, however, that the nutrients about me as a cell is not the basic reason I grow - and divide. Cancer expertise would have me believe that my "regulatory mechanism" is responsible for my growing and dividing; and thus, if as a cell I decide on my own to grow and divide, then if I grow when I should not, then it is a defect in my regulatory mechanism that causes me to act so erratically.
Sorry! That makes no sense to me. It seems to me that I can do nothing as a cell all by myself. It seems to me that the basic purpose of a cell is to eat what is available to it - but my eating as a cell depends entirely upon my food supply; and it is in investigating my "food supply" that I am likely to find the reason for my "multiplying erratically" - not looking inside of me for the answer.
FROM THE OUTSIDE IN. That would be my approach to researching cancer - not from the inside out - or outward. Why have we not found the answer for the "cause of cancer"? I think it is because we have been looking in the wrong area for causes. I am not sure why cancer research in general has signed on to trying to find causes in cells themselves, but I think that is the basic method of cancer research; but in looking at the wrong area for a cause, it is no wonder that a true cause has not been found.
A few years ago, a scientific minded friend, Clyde Edmiston, showed me two pictures - one of a normal cluster of cells - and another of an abnormal cancerous cluster of cells. The normal cluster of cells involved cells seeming to swim about in a sea of nutrients. The abnormal cluster of cells involved cells seeming to lack a sea of nutrients - as if the abnormal cells exist in a vacuum - with no surrounding fluid or nutrients about them. But I wonder about that. Maybe the reason that the abnormal cells seem to be living in a vacuum is because they have already eaten pre-existing fluid and nutrients.
In other words, it could be assumed that in the abnormal situation, the cells had already eaten the sea of nutrients in which they were previously embedded. That is why in the abnormal situation, there seemed to lack a sea of nutrients. There were no more nutrients to eat; and that is probably why the abnormal cluster seemed to have more cells too.
Could this be an "explanation of cancer"? Could it be that cancer cells are only normal cells who eat too much, thus causing cancer cells to divide more rapidly than normal body cells? Now, what could cause a normal body cell to have to deal with an "oversupply" of nutrients? Perhaps that is where we should research cancer - not in the cells themselves.
Realizing there could be multiple causes for an oversupply of nutrients - or cellular food, be it good or bad - I think we should be looking in that direction for both causes of cancer as well as prevention of cancer. In insisting that cells themselves contain the answer, I think we have done what people often do - we have simply overlooked the obvious.
The little I know - or think I know - about the human body is that there is a lymphatic system throughout the body whose main purpose is to provide for cellular waste to be evacuated from a system. Normally, cells not only eat what is available to them to eat, but they also "emit" wastes - like a body does in general. Now, what would happen to a "normal lymphatic system" if the vessels by which it evacuates its waste fluids become blocked? I think it is likely that cells would have to eat their own wastes. That could provide a very serious toxic situation - in addition to normal body cells having to eat more than normal as well.
But again, we should not be looking at cells themselves for why they act as they do. We should be looking at the external causes. Why do lymphatic systems become blocked? That should be our question - assuming that, in fact, lymphatic systems do become blocked. Answer that and you may find the main causes of cancers themselves. Not only might we find the real causes of cancer if we look toward the food supply of cells, but we might be able to deal much better with the prevention of cancer in the first place.
If I am correct that cancer may not be the result of cells gone bad by themselves, but gone bad because of external stimuli, then we can start to prevent cancer simply by knowing the causes and avoiding the causes; but if we insist on keeping on the road we have been on and insist that cells themselves provide the answers, then we probably will never find any answers. How can we find answers to the cause of cancers if we fail to acknowledge that the cause is far more external than internal?
I have to admit that I do not know why a lymphatic system might become blocked, if, in fact, it does, but I will also admit that I have considered the possibilities. I think it is possible that one of the reasons for lymphatic systems becoming blocked is "overheating the body." The reason for this is that overheating the body may cause inflammation of body tissue; and inflammation of body tissue might in its swelling cause a closure of a lymphatic system - thus setting up an area of the body where normal body cells have too much to eat - - consisting of both good nutrients and bad cellular waste.
Accordingly, one treatment of cancer could be making sure a cancerous body is not subjected to too much heat. Instead of insisting on a nice hot bath because it seems so comforting, it might be better to take cool baths until a body has recovered from its overheated status. I am conjecturing, however. That is all this is.
Instead of chemotherapy, then, maybe cancer centers could invest in cool swimming pools - and invite cancer patients to take long cool swims - or at least long, luke warm swims. I mean, if I am correct that one of the causes of the closure of a lymphatic system could be overheating the body, then it stands to reason that treatment of that lymphatic system would be "cooling it down"; and ideally, a body pursuing its ultimate healthy composure should not be encumbered by clothes either.
One of the reasons why a lymphatic system could become blocked is because of too much constriction on the body - namely, by clothes themselves. Thus, to achieve the greatest health, the body should be as free as possible. Well, it makes sense to me - though I must admit that I am a naturalist speaking about such an issue. Many who are clothes bound may not find my argument so appealing, but others of us who are not clothes bound may find my argument more than appealing. Perhaps, it is to each, his or her own.
Another of the reasons, however, that a lymphatic system could become blocked is due to various viruses - and maybe germs. It would be good to keep in mind that there can be many reasons why a lymphatic system could be blocked, but regardless of reason, regarding the cells themselves, the cause would be external - not internal. At least, that is the speculation of this essay; and the way to deal with "externally caused" cancers is to determine the reason for the external cause - and deal with it - not act like there are "cancer cells" just waiting to be activated as if there would be no cancer if the external cause did not happen.
Of course, if I am correct that cancer is due far more to external causes rather than to internal misbehaving, then the sooner we could catch a cancer patient, the better our treatment of that cancer patient would be - barring chemotherapy entirely. It makes very little sense to me to bombard an entire system with chemo injections or pills or treatments in order to get a cluster of cells gone bad. Sadly, chemotherapy could be worse than the cancer itself because killing normal body cells in the process of killing clustered cells might be worse than allowing for a tumor in the first place.
Still, I admit I have no real answers. I only have suspicions about the alleged answers we have been given. I did write a paper on cancer in 1982 or so that I have come to call THE CLOSED TUNNEL THEORY OF CANCER. Initially, I did not give my theory a name, but since rewriting it a few times, I have attached a name to it. Feel welcome to check it out in Volume 1 of my regular OUT IN THE OPEN series of writings found in this website - as well as my earlier blog I call WHAT IS CANCER?
I have no real answers. That's true; but it is also true that like all others, I am equipped with a "general perception" of things. I do not believe good cells can go bad on their own - like I do not believe that good people can go bad on their own. There are always external causes that make something good go bad. I do not believe in the general human perception that there are "good" and "evil" souls. I think there is no such thing as an "evil person" - except that a good person reacts to a bad situation and therefore becomes bad in the process.
Applying that general perception of things to the body, there is no such thing as an "evil cell" - except that it becomes evil when reacting to abnormal situations. The key, then, to resolving the "evil situation" is to first resolve the conditions that caused it. No one thing can cause its own evil, so to speak. So we should not be looking at a cell by itself to determine why it might go wrong. We should be looking at the circumstances surrounding a cell that allegedly make it go wrong.
Maybe I am wrong in focusing on the lymphatic system as an explanation as to why a good cell would act abnormally, but then maybe I am right too. Is there a connection between a "bad cell" and a "bad lymphatic system"? I don't know, but I am willing to ask the question. If there is, then it seems we could be well served in cancer prevention and cancer therapy to know there is. Let us be willing to investigate the matter.
And while we are investigating if there is a connection between a bad cell and a bad - or closed - lymphatic system, let us investigate the matter of cancer mestastizing - or spreading - too. I know it is assumed that a cancer in one area can "travel" to another area. That might be true, but it might also be true that cancers don't travel. They simply might occur in multiple areas because the conditions of the multiple areas are the same. Personally, I suspect that is the case - that multiple cancers arise and become defined in time, but not because one cancer causes another cancer, but because the conditions that caused the first cancer also cause the second - and third - and forth - cancers. Maybe!
Enough! Maybe I have offered something to think about - and maybe not; but I do appreciate the opportunity to speak my mind at all. In the end, that in itself is quite a privilege. Isn't it?
Until next time, Adieu!
Your Bella Vita host,
Will Bessler
(Francis William Bessler)