Death by Fungi
In Nature
this month there is an essay about natural catastrophes that might
overtake us. One of these focuses on the threat posed by local fungus
populations:
Although viruses and bacteria
grab more attention, fungi are the planet’s biggest killers. Of all the
pathogens being tracked, fungi have caused more than 70% of the
recorded global and regional extinctions, and now threaten amphibians,
bats and bees. The Irish potato famine in the 1840s showed just how
devastating such pathogens can be. Phytophthora infestans (an organism
similar to and often grouped with fungi) wiped out as much as
three-quarters of the potato crop in Ireland and led to the death of
one million people.
Researchers estimate that there
are 1.5-5 million species of fungi in the world, but only 100,000 have
been identified. Reports of new types of fungal infection in plants
and animals have risen nearly tenfold since 1995.
Fungi are dreadful enemies. During their life cycle fungi
depend on other living beings, which must be exploited to different
degrees for their feeding. Fungi can develop from the hyphae, the more
or less beak-shaped specialized structures that allow the penetration
of the host. The shape of a fungus is never defined; it is imposed by
the environment in which the fungus develops. Fungi are capable of
implementing an infinite number of modifications to their own
metabolism in order to overcome the defense mechanism of the host.
These modifications are implemented through plasmatic and biochemical
actions as well as by a volumetric increase (hypertrophy) and numerical
hyperplasia[1] of the cells that have been attacked.
In
1999, Meinolf Karthaus, MD watched three different children with
leukemia suddenly go into remission upon receiving a triple antifungal
drug cocktail for their “secondary” fungal infections. [2]
“Fungal infections can not only be extremely contagious, but they also go hand in hand with leukemia[3]—every
oncologist knows this. And these infections are devastating: once a
child who has become a bone marrow transplant recipient gets a
“secondary” fungal infection, his chances of living, despite all the
antifungals in the world, are only 20%, at best,” writes Dr. David
Holland.
Doug A. Kaufman wrote:
The day I wrote this, a young
lady phoned into my syndicated radio talk show. Her three-year-old
daughter was diagnosed last year with leukemia. She believes antifungal
drugs and natural immune system therapy has been responsible for
saving her daughter’s life. She is now telling others with cancer about
her daughter’s case. After hearing her story, a friend of hers with
bone cancer asked her doctor for a prescriptive antifungal drug. To her
delight, this medication, meant to eradicate fungus, was also
eradicating her cancer. She dared not share this with her physician,
telling him only that the antifungal medication was for a “yeast”
infection. When she could no longer get the antifungal medication, the cancer immediately grew back.
Her physician contended that a few antifungal pills surely should have
cured her yeast infection. It is my contention, however, that the
reason this medication worked was because she did have a yeast
infection not a vaginal infection for which this medication was
prescribed; a fungal infection of the bone that may have been mimicking
bone cancer.
Many cancer patients find the
true fungal link to their cancer only to succumb to heart disease or
immune deficiency caused by traditional cancer treatment. If this case
were an isolated event, it might be referred to as “coincidental.” I
have been able to plead with doctors of advanced cancer patients to at
least try antifungal drugs for their patients. Afterwards, simply
amazing reports have come forth. Several of these have been published
in The Germ That Causes Cancer.
A
medical textbook used to educate Johns Hopkins medical students in
1957, Clinical and Immunologic Aspects of Fungous Diseases, declared
that many fungal conditions look exactly like cancer! - Doug A. Kaufmann The Germ That Causes Cancer
Cancer is a biologically-induced spore (fungus) transformation disease. - Dr. Milton W. White
The University of Michigan Cancer Center has proclaimed
that current chemotherapy targets the “wrong” cells. The Ann Arbor
researchers discovered that not all cells in a tumor are equally
malignant. Only a tiny minority of tumor cells are actually capable of
inducing new cancers; the rest are relatively harmless. “These
tumor-inducing cells have many of the properties of stem cells,” said
Michael F. Clarke, MD, a professor of internal medicine who directed
the study. “They make copies of themselves—a process called
self-renewal—and produce all the other kinds of cells in the original
tumor.”[4]
According to the Mayo Clinic, cancer refers to any one of a large number of diseases characterized by the development of abnormal cells that divide uncontrollably and have the ability to infiltrate and destroy normal body tissue.
This is a fact that does not depend on the various theories. The
theorizing begins when we run down the usual path thinking that cancer
begins with damage (mutations) in our DNA. Our DNA is like a set of
instructions for our cells, telling them how to grow and divide. Normal
cells often develop mutations in their DNA, but they have the ability
to repair most of these mutations. Or, if they can’t make the repairs,
the cells frequently die. However, certain mutations aren’t repaired,
causing the cells to grow and become cancerous… or so the story goes.
Looking at the above definition we would be perfectly correct to say
that yeasts and fungi are, in human terms, abnormal
cells that divide uncontrollably and have the ability to infiltrate and
destroy normal body tissue.
A new study, published in December 2012 in Science,
could explain why almost none of the new generation of “personalized”
cancer drugs is a true cure, and suggests that drugs based on genetics
alone will never achieve that holy grail. Scientists found that despite
having identical genetic mutations, colorectal cancer cells behaved
as differently as if they were genetic strangers. The findings
challenge the prevailing view that genes determine how individual cells
in a solid tumor behave, including how they respond to chemotherapy
and how actively they propagate. The study suggests DNA is not the sole driver of tumors’ behavior.
“What our data are saying is, there are other biological
properties that matter. Gene sequencing of tumors is definitely not the
whole story when it comes to identifying which therapies will work.
Our findings raise questions about the resources put into sequence,
sequence, sequence,” said John Dick, molecular geneticist of the
Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, who led the study. “That
has led to one kind of therapeutic—molecularly-targeted drugs—but not
the cures the public is being promised.”
This information takes the search for the true causes of
cancer down a totally different path than it has been on. It opens the
doors for looking at a fungal cause of cancer and perhaps will re-focus
our cancer researchers on something other than DNA “chatter” (as Dr.
Tullio Simoncini termed it) and toward a real cause that can be
targeted with simpler remedies like the anti-fungal sodium bicarbonate
and iodine.
Anyone who denies the link between cancer and fungi are
fooling themselves. Oncologists are well aware of the late-stage
infections that routinely accompany advanced cancers. Oncologists are
also aware that infections are the cause of a good percentage of
cancers[5],[6] ranging somewhere between 20 and 40 percent.
The
idea that a proposed cancer germ could have more than one form is a
threat to doctors and some microbiologists. Indeed the cancer germ has
been described as having a virus-like and fungus-like as well as a
mycoplasma-like phase. - Dr. Alan Cantwell The Cancer Microbe
The shape of the fungus is never defined; it is imposed by the environment in which the fungus develops.
“In some cases, the aggressive power of fungi is
so great as to allow it, with only a cellular ring made up of three
units, to tighten in its grip, capture and kill its prey in a short time
notwithstanding the prey’s desperate struggling. Fungus,
which is the most powerful and the most organized micro-organism known,
seems to be an extremely logical candidate as a cause of neoplastic
proliferation,” Dr. Simoncini says, “Candida albicans clearly emerges
as the sole candidate for tumoral proliferation.”
Fungi
are heterotrophs, meaning that they secrete digestive enzymes and
absorb the resulting soluble nutrients from whatever they are growing
on.
A new area of research being driven by Dundee University
in Scotland is revealing remarkable abilities of fungi to interact with
minerals and metals. Led by Professor Geoffrey Gadd
in the College of Life Sciences, the research explores the unique
taste that fungi seems to have for rock and heavy metal. Yeasts, moulds
and mushrooms are all fungi and there are an estimated 1.5 million
different species in the biosphere. By breaking down dead organic
material, they continue the cycle of nutrients through ecosystems, and
most plants could not grow without the symbiotic fungi that inhabit
their roots and supply essential nutrients.
Fungi will also live almost anywhere. They have been
found growing in the harshest of environments, in the desert and in
polar regions, in the sea and on rocks. “The fact that fungi interact
with heavy metals has potentially important consequences for human
activity. Fungi also play a significant, if often overlooked, role in
the degradation of rocks and stone—including building materials,”
Professor Gadd said. “Despite this, their role as agents of
environmental change has not been fully appreciated.”
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