Metformin shows promise for the treatment of pancreatic cancer

CS - Saw this article and was wondering what your take on it might be. 2 of the men in my family both died from this disease (my Dad being one of them) and I'm always looking to take any steps I can to ward this off. Since it's a diabetes drug, is this something we're already handling naturally through the regimen? I know the contents of Ortho's Boost have shown promise in warding off this disease.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.




Tuesday, July 3, 2012. At the American Association for Cancer Research's Pancreatic Cancer: Progress and Challenges conference, held June 18-21, 2012 in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, Christopher Heeschen, MD, PhD of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre reported positive results for metformin in experiments involving pancreatic cancer cell cultures and mice implanted with pancreatic cancer tumors. The drug helps eliminate cancer stem cells, a population of cells that are resistant to chemotherapy and which may be responsible for the initiation and recurrence of the disease.

Metformin is currently prescribed to diabetic patients and has shown potential as a cancer preventive and treatment, in addition to other possible uses. In the current research, pretreatment of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma cancer stem cells with metformin resulted in activation of 5' adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK), an enzyme that helps regulate cellular energy. Treatment with a combination of gemcitabine (the standard chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer) and metformin eradicated cancer stem cells as well as other malignant cells. When Dr Heeschen's team implanted immunocompromised mice with pancreatic cancer tumors and treated them with gemcitabine and/or metformin, animals that received both drugs had fewer tumors and a lower incidence of relapse in comparison with those that received either drug alone. "Intriguingly, in all tumors treated with metformin to date, relapse of disease was efficiently prevented and there were no noticeable adverse effects," remarked Dr Heeschen, who is a professor of experimental medicine at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre in Madrid.

"As the cancer stem cells represent the root of pancreatic cancer, their extinction by reprogramming their metabolism with metformin in combination with the stalling of the proliferation of more differentiated cells should result in tumor regression and long-term, progression-free survival," he noted. "Efficiently targeting these cells will be crucial for achieving higher cure rates in patients with pancreatic cancer. Our newly emerging data now indicate that metformin, a widely used and well-tolerated drug for the treatment of diabetes, is capable of efficiently eliminating these cells."

hadrion - The only concern about Metformin is that it can deplete vitamin B12 in some users.

The most effective safe guard for pancreatic cancer is the use of pancreatic enzymes (Pancreatin). A highly
successful protocol has been employed since the 1970's using high-dose Pancreatin for pancreatic cancer.

Regular use of lipoic acid shows strong promise in being anti-pancreatic cancer. If someone develops it, taking a low
dose naltrexone with lipoic acid has shown good results.

Thanks CS. I remember when my Dad was diagnosed they wanted him to take the pancreatic enzymes, but they pumped him full of so much radiation (they did those seed implants) and chemo he eventually deteriorated. They gave him 3 months and he lasted 13 months, but outside of the first 6 months his quality of life from that point was miserable.

Should I take pancreatic enzymes as a safe guard now or is that something more for someone who is diagnosed? You've had me on Alpha Lipoic Acid for 5-6 years now thank goodness so that is part of my eternal regimen.

hadrion wrote:Thanks CS. I remember when my Dad was diagnosed they wanted him to take the pancreatic enzymes, but they pumped him full of so much radiation (they did those seed implants) and chemo he eventually deteriorated. They gave him 3 months and he lasted 13 months, but outside of the first 6 months his quality of life from that point was miserable.

Should I take pancreatic enzymes as a safe guard now or is that something more for someone who is diagnosed? You've had me on Alpha Lipoic Acid for 5-6 years now thank goodness so that is part of my eternal regimen.

It's probably unnecessary, however one indication or hint that they would be useful is at a point when natural stomach acid production begins to drop (usually sometime around age 50 +), enzyme production also drops. Usually increasing stomach acid, will also improve the production of enzymes.

Here is an excerpt you might find interesting, speaks about the history of pancreatic enzymes and pancreatic cancer treatment.

"Here is the truth about cancer and the truth about Dr John Beard of Scotland who discovered the cause of all cancers and published a paper on The Unitarian Trophoblastic Theory of cancer in 1902. Cancer, while having multifactorial stimuli that will cause the process of the initial replication of the undifferentiated cell, has in fact, one root cause - a deficiency of pancreatic enzymes. Everything else associated, "goes along for the ride" so to speak.

John Beard stated, and later proved clinically, that cancer was the result of failure of the Pancreas to produce proper amounts of pancreatic enzymes. He stated that cells left over from embryonic development of the fetus are scattered throughout our bodies and later in life are occasionally stimulated to begin reproducing. (by some local stimulant such as environmental poison, drug, food, injury etc.) It is the job of pancreatic enzymes to digest these cells the moment they begin to multiply.

In the absence or deficiency of pancreatic enzymes, these primitive cells begin to multiply and the result is cancer, the rapid, uncontrolled growth of undifferentiated cells.

As a result of Beard's announcement, which was promptly rejected by his peers, there soon [by 1911] were forty clinics in London, England curing cancer using crude pancreatic enzymes -however Madam Curie came along and convinced people that Xray was the way to go because it was so "safe" and "effective" and the pancreatic cancer cure was quickly forgotten for several decades.

In the absence or deficiency of Pancreatic enzymes, Sympathetic dominant patients will end up with solid tumors in brain, pancreas, stomach, liver etc., Parasympathetic dominants will end up with the "soft" blood related cancers. The Sympathetic dominants need a more vegetarian based diet, the Parasympathetics need a more meat based/animal protein diet.

The trophoblast cells of pregnancy are typical cancer cells that eat into the uterine lining to prepare the nest. These cells are eventually turned off when the fetal pancreas turns on, otherwise the cancer of pregnancy ensues and kills the mother and baby very quickly. This was the key to Beard's discovery of the link between cancer and pancreatic insufficiency - the fact that in every specie he investigated, it was the turn on of the pancreas that coincided with the end of growth of the trophoblast cells of pregnancy.

Trophoblast cells of pregnancy are exactly like cancer cells. Based upon his theory an early cure of a sarcoma was affected by one of his MD friends who injected the pancreatic enzymes - they believed, incorrectly that the enzymes needed to be injected because digestion would inactivate them. This is not true, pancreatic enzymes survive digestion and go on to digest cancer cells in the body.

Another Beard (Howard) came along and devised the HcG "Anthrone test" to measure female
hormone in the urine. The test is based upon the fact that trophoblast cells of pregnancy, like all cancer cells, excrete HcG. Back in the early seventies these tests were performed on males and females. If you showed the hormone in the urine you were considered to be either a pregnant female or a male or female with cancer.

Howard Beard jokingly stated at the Cancer Control Society seminar back in the seventies that he had some tumors in his bowel and when they got too big he would stop eating donuts and go back on his pancreatic enzymes to shrink the tumors back down. Back then Laetrile, vitamin B17, was being directly injected into the veins of cancer patients as part of the cure but the nutritional cure rate was only about one third - due to the mistaken idea that everyone needed a vegetarian diet and needed to avoid animal protein.

William Donald Kelley, a dentist from Grapevine, Texas, cured himself of pancreatic cancer in the sixties and went on to develop the present nutritionally based, do-it-yourself home cure for cancer which is probably over ninety per cent effective in patients who have not been overly destroyed by chemotherapy and orthodox treatments."

Great stuff there CS. Thanks for posting it. I'd hate to put my wife through what my family went through watching my Dad deal with that disease so I'm always looking for info on it. Hopefully, the meat based diet I've adopted and embraced is the right choice for me long term.

I'm already using Betaine (I'm late 30's) and find I like the way I feel using it with meals so hopefully, my stomach acid levels are in a good place.