Current of Injury/Inflammation
By Abraham Safirstein
Cancer cells proliferate through division and the creation of cancer stem cells. Here is the shortened Wikipedia definition of stem cells: “Stem cells are biological cells found in all multicellular organisms that can divide (through mitosis) and differentiate into diverse specialized cell types and can self-renew to produce more stem cells. In adult organisms, stem cells act as a repair system for the body, replenishing tissues… stem cells can replicate indefinitely.” There is no repair without inflammation. Inflammation is the mechanism by which the body is going to know where to send the repair materials and the stem cells, if needed. Let’s say you get a cut on your finger. The first thing that is going to happen is the coagulation of the blood to stop the bleeding. Concurrently with that you are going to have pain, inflammation and heat. Pain lets us know that there is a problem; heat is needed for killing bacteria and viruses that may try to infect the wound; inflammation promotes the dilation of the surrounding capillaries and blood vessels in order to allow for the building materials to be delivered only to that place instead of all over the body. In other words, all the rest of the blood vessels are impermeable and where the inflammation is, is the only permeable place where the repair materials can get through. In this situation the area secretes inflammatory cytokines which control the creation of new blood vessels and expansion of the existing ones by secretion of VEGF (Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor). Cancer cells make use of this mechanism to supply the continually increasing amount of glucose they need in order to sustain their growth.
We have a self-repair mechanism that helps replace injured or dead cells. When there is injury to any tissue, the brain creates a current of injury that sends stem cells to the damaged area. These differentiate into the injured cells until the tissue is repaired.
Radiation and chemotherapy do not distinguish between healthy and cancerous cells; they kill or injure both. When that current of injury is created and stem cells get to work at repairing the damage, those stem cells will differentiate (copy) as cancer cells as well. This makes the cancer essentially immortal, as cancer cells keep replicating and replicating with these new cancer stem cells, while healthy cells stop replicating as soon as the tissue is repaired.
This research came out of Harvard and was titled “Ionizing Radiation Induces Stemness in Cancer Cells” Here is the link:http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0043628
It even made the news: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/09/27/common-cancer-treatments-may-create-dangerous-cancer-stem-cells/.
How come nobody tells us this when they recommend radiation and chemotherapy as prevention?!
