I have been a cancer survivor for 20 years. 20 years ago, I had a lymphoma in my chest that took me several years to eradicate. I had many hours of radiation using fluoroscopy doing Cardiologic procedures in the hospital. I also had infected teeth that were draining in my lymph nodes. In addition to this I had a typical American Hospital diet that was not very healthy.

One of the secrets to my success has been using REPURPOSED CANCER drugs that have now been shown to help with cancer. Cancer stem cells are the major cause of tumor recurrence after completing chemotherapy. The cancer stem cell is resistant to chemotherapy, dormant, and hiding in the recesses of your body waiting for a future opportunity to repopulate. You can help eradicate these with re purposed cancer drugs.

Due to new technological advances redefining which drugs kill cancer is one of the keys to your success. With the invention of the positron emission tomography (PET scanner) we can now start a cocktail and in 3 months later actually see if it works. We can do serial cancer markers to see which of the drugs are effective.

Through drug screening, we can now look at pathways that can be targeted by re-purposed cancer drugs and botanicals. This is advanced automatic drug screening. With a large drug library of thousands of drugs, they can be screened for the most effective cancer killing drug. For example, if basic laboratory studies identify a metabolic pathway, then the cancer cells that can be selectively targeted thru high throughput screening. We can evaluate which works the best on your cancer.

Except for testicular cancer and some lymphoma cell types, chemotherapy remains a disappointment. Granted, chemotherapy can temporally decreased tumor size and induce a temporary remission. However, there is a high price to pay. Cumulative toxicity to normal tissue such as bone marrow, brain, and heart and adverse effects of nausea, vomiting, anorexia, weight loss, hair loss, bone marrow toxicity, neurotoxicity, and cardiac toxicity can occur.

Invariably the cancers return months to years after completing chemotherapy, when a more aggressive chemotherapy treatment may be needed.

The problem is circulating cancer stem cells are ignored by traditional oncologist. I am now able to test which natural substances are useful against circulating cancer stem cells and use a separate group of modalities to kill them. Re-purposed drugs can help against circulating cancer stem cells when chemotherapy cannot.

Do re-purpose drugs work?

The answer is in emphatic yes. I have been in practice for 45 years as a cardiologist and have treated thousands of cancer patients over the last 25 years with integrative oncology. I have been taking re-purposed cancer drugs for 20 years. They work through synergistic different mechanisms to help address your cancer. I never rely on just one modality.

Unfortunately, according to Peter Weiss in the British Medical Journal, 2016, the newer drugs are no better than chemotherapy. He states:” Despite considerable investment and innovation, chemotherapy drugs have had little effect on survival in adults with metastatic cancer…. Newer drugs did no better than 48 approved drugs by the US Food and Drug Administration between 2002 and 2014 conferred a median 2.1-month overall survival benefit.”

In 2013, Dr. Claire Pecqueur et al. discussed the need for cancer treatment targeting both the tumor bulk and circulating stem cells. They said “the successful elimination of a cancer requires an anticancer therapy that will affect both differentiated cancer cells and circulating cancer stem cells. At present, conventional therapy that includes radiation, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy kills rapidly proliferating and differentiated cells. These treatments may cause the tumor to shrink but will not prevent tumor recurrence. Thus, a combination of treatments targeting both rapidly proliferating cancer cells and quiescent or slow proliferating cancer stem cells would be ideal.”

Chemotherapy is disappointing because of cancer relapse after completing treatment. The cancer is not totally eradicated and comes back. Relapse is caused by the cancer stem cells, which are quiescent, not actively replicating, and resistant to chemotherapy drugs. After completing a course of chemotherapy, the tumor bulk may be eradicated, with a negative PET scan. However, hidden from view are the residual microscopic circulating cancer stem cells hiding in your body. These can be activated at a later point in time causing regrowth and relapse. The problem with chemotherapy is that these do not kill the circulating cancer stem cells. The reason being that the cells are slow growing.

Chemotherapy activates cancer aggressivity. The problem is chemotherapy is highly inflammatory and causes cancer to spread. Chemotherapy activates the inflammatory master controller called nuclear factor kappa B, which produces the inflammatory cytokine IL-6. Measure serum IL-6 after a course of chemotherapy and he will find its levels are massively elevated.

This massive re-increased inflammation produced by chemotherapy is responsible for transforming the cancer cell type into a more aggressive form.

Inflammation induced by chemotherapy stimulates more rapid cancer growth, more resistance to program cell death, more invasive and metastatic behavior, stimulates new blood vessel formation and creates chemo resistant cancer cell types.

In Nature 2019, Dr. Ioanna Keklikoglou et al. study breast cancer xenograft in mice, they showed that chemotherapy has a pro-metastatic effect.

The benefit of re-purposed drugs is that they are anti-inflammatory and can be used synergistically with lower dose chemotherapy. Immunotherapy, vaccines, and natural substances. In addition to this they may act through several different oncogenic pathways driving the cancer.

Findings a selective cancer treatment and leaving normal cells unharmed

The optimal cancer treatment is selective in that it will kill the cancer while leaving the rest of the patient unharmed. Can we find such a selective cancer treatment? What if we could identify subtle differences in the metabolism of cancer cells that will allow us to target them in a more selective way, thus sparing normal cells?

An analogy can be found in antibiotics, which kill invading bacteria without harming the body, or in anti-parasitic drugs, which kill the parasites without harming us. Are there such a selective anticancer treatments? The answer is yes: Re-purposed cancer drugs can be used to selectively targeted metabolic pathways in cancer cells.

Cancer as a metabolic disease

One difference between metabolism in cancer cells and normal cells, the Warburg effect, describes how a metabolic switch called aerobic glycolysis is turned on in the cancer cell. In 2014, Dr. Thomas Seyfried in Carcinogenesis writes: “Emerging evidence indicates that cancer is primarily a metabolic disease involving disturbances of energy production through respiration and fermentation. The genomic instability observed in tumor cells and all other recognize hallmarks of cancer are considered downstream epiphenomena of the initial disturbance of cellular energy metabolism. The disturbances in tumor cell energy metabolism can be linked to abnormalities in the structure and function of the mitochondria.”

I was fortunate to lecture with Dr. Siegfried at the “conquering cancer conference” in Orlando Florida in September 2016. He was quite informative.

Metabolic repeat programming of the cancer cell

Human cells have two main metabolic pathways. The first is called oxidative phosphorylation, which is aerobic and takes place in the mitochondria. Aerobic means its works with oxygen. The second process is glycolysis, also called anaerobic which takes place in the cytoplasm of the cell without oxygen. Since the mitochondrial oxidative pathway is the more efficient one, under normal circumstances with abundant oxygen, this pathway is preferred. Under conditions of low oxygen however, normal cells will use the anaerobic pathways to produce lactic acid as a byproduct.

Unlike normal cells, cancer cells have preferentially switch their metabolism from oxidative to non-oxidative or glycolytic. They are consuming vast amounts of glucose and producing lactic acid. As described above there are many different pathways in the cell.

The mitochondria of cancer cells have been reprogrammed to serve as “biosynthetic organelles” whose main job is to grow the tumor or bile mass involved in consuming massive amounts of glucose and other nutrients to sustain rapid growth and proliferation of the cancer.

Targeting multiple metabolic pathways with re-purposed drugs

Targeting a single metabolic pathway is usually ineffective as an anticancer strategy because cancer compensates by switching to an alternative metabolic pathway. They switch back and forth. For that reason, all the pathways need to be inhibited. This ability to switch among different metabolic pathways is called metabolic plasticity. Using one re-purposed drug will not work. I am very knowledgeable in these pathways and block all of them at the same time. This also includes addressing inflammation, autophagy, cell replication, and immune restoration, and repair of the tumor microenvironment.

The Re purposed cancer drug revolution

Re-purposed drugs are drugs that the FDA originally approved for a specific purpose, now used “off label” for something else.

Drugs repurposed for use against cancer include antifungals, anti-parasite drugs, antibacterial drugs, platelet inhibitors, COX-2 inhibitors, antihistamines, cardiac drugs, and antidiabetic drugs. These are on the shelves of your local pharmacy ready to dispense.

We have now identified 268 such drugs as anticancer drugs.

Some of these drugs include, azithromycin, aspirin, ivermectin, dichloroacetate, Poly MVA, resveratrol, green tea, 3 bromopyruvate, 2 deoxy glucose, resveratrol omega 3, Boswellia, melatonin, alpha lipoic acid, curcumin, quercetin, low-dose naltrexone, vitamin D, artemisinin, Beta 1,3 D Glucan ivermectin, mebendazole, cimetidine, Claritin, propranolol, Cialis, vitamin E and C and many others.

Changes are coming with the new paradigm shift.

The wheels of progress and medicine turns slowly. However, despite heavy resistance by mainstream oncology, the paradigm is shifting toward integrative oncology.

Regarding the use of re-purposed drugs and supplements, I recommend that the patient seek the care of a knowledgeable physician using these drugs. It is of utmost importance to monitor your blood test such as liver function tests, blood counts, cancer markers, scans and other parameters. Obviously, toxicity and drug- drug interaction and drug- vitamin interaction is exceedingly important to monitor. Please remember there is no standard dose to use and I personalize an individualized each patient

The Internet acts as the catalyst, providing a platform for people to share stories and advice, this is an historic revolution.

If you would like more information on re-purposed cancer drugs, we can help you. We use a combination of low dose targeted genomic chemotherapy, natural substances, re-purposed cancer drugs, and cancer vaccines.

Call us at 727-330-3844 for more information.