Cancer: Its Cause and Treatment, Volume 2 (of 2)

by Lucius Duncan Bulkley

In order to understand rightly the rôle which diet may have in the production of cancer I may have to briefly repeat, more or less, some of the matters brought forward in my lectures two years ago, and shall treat of the correction of diet in a later lecture.

We understand, of course, that the body is a vast laboratory, wherein, by exceedingly complicated processes, material from the outside world is appropriated to the needs of the economy, and after its use is cast out in very different and elementary forms. To effect the various changes necessary in this material we have a very considerable number of what are called organs of secretion and excretion, whose functions are combined and correlated in a marvelous manner, which is even yet very imperfectly understood.

The actual biochemical processes by means of which the transformation of external food elements into living tissue and force, physical and mental, takes place are known as: 1. Anabolism, or the process of assimilation of nutritive matter and its conversion into living substance; and 2. Catabolism, or the breaking down of complex bodies of living matter into waste products of simpler chemical composition. These together constitute 3. Metabolism, or the sum of the chemical changes whereby the function of nutrition is effected. The actual procedure by which most of these activities is carried on is one of oxidation, by means of the oxygen supplied largely by the lungs, which constitutes about 65 per cent of the human body.

Now to make up for the daily waste of the other 15 elements, which form 35 per cent of the body tissues, and to support the necessary activities of the system, mental and physical, it is necessary every day to take a more or less even supply of substances, which we call food and drink, which should contain about the proper proportion of the requisite bodily components. Under normal conditions of healthy living the appetite ordinarily serves as a proper guide for health in man and beast, serving to regulate the selection of material to preserve the balance of nutrition. But man especially has temptations to gratify the taste, which is quite a different thing from satisfying the appetite, and all are familiar with the many forms of disaster and disease which arise from gratifying the taste in food and drink; moreover, the temptations to this seem to increase continually with the so-called refinements of civilization.

The actual nutritive elements which are required are relatively few, and fall mainly under three classes: 1, Protein; 2, Carbohydrates; and 3, Fats. Of these the latter two furnish most of the 18 per cent of carbon in the body, and the animal or vegetable protein furnishes the nitrogen, which forms only about 3 per cent of the body tissues: all these substances are, of course, used up constantly in providing heat and energy, physical and mental, day by day, the protein being concerned chiefly in replacing wasted tissue. The combustion of the carbohydrates and fat is relatively simple, and the waste products pass off harmlessly, mainly by the lungs, as carbonic acid and water.

But the course of the protein, or nitrogenous and sulphur and other mineral elements, is quite different. In the anabolism and catabolism of protein there are a vast number of intermediate changes, and various products are elaborated which we know to be of great significance in the system, and which when imperfectly completed are the source of much disorder and disease in the economy. Of this the gouty state is a notable example, with a long list of secondary disorders.

But few realize, however, that cancer is another disease which is quite as striking in its relation to faulty nitrogenous and sulphur metabolism. In my former lectures I developed this subject pretty fully and need not repeat it here, but could adduce more recent proof, did time permit. Suffice to remind you that many independent observers have recorded very important and significant errors in the nitrogen and sulphur partition in cancer, both in its early and late stages, some of which I have verified in hundreds of volumetric urinary analyses. As these errors are made to disappear by proper dietary and medicinal treatment the carcinomatous lesions have steadily improved, and in many cases have disappeared entirely, as I hope to demonstrate in a later lecture.

We must, therefore, accept the fact that cancer has very close relations to the elaboration of protein in the system, and the rational deduction of this is that an overconsumption of nitrogenous food has something, if not everything, to do with the production of cancer. As yet we know little or nothing in regard to actual cancer-genesis; no one has ever demonstrated, and probably no one ever will demonstrate, the absolute beginning of the change in some normal cell or cells, in the breast or elsewhere, which eventuates in their taking on the rampant or malignant feature which we call cancer. But this change does occur, and though the exact alterations in the polarity of the cells and the disturbance of their centrosomes and nuclei, which have been described, may not be perfectly understood, there is some definite cause for their occurrence. Some have suggested the hypothesis that the mononuclear leukocyte, by conjugation with disturbed cells, gives them an abnormal reproductive power by which they eventually develop the tumor and invade other tissues. But back of all this there is still some activating cause, which is found in the fluids which bathe every tissue, namely the blood and lymph, which we shall see later are deranged in cancer.

The fact that with innumerable injuries occurring everywhere and at all times cancer develops from them very rarely, should teach us something. We must conclude, therefore, that there is some constitutional condition, or rather some state of the blood, which nourishes the cells and which favors this continued malignancy—some fuel which feeds the malignant process and at the same time induces a progressive lowered vitality, ending fatally. For we have already seen in these and former lectures that the local lesion which we call cancer is but one manifestation or result of a pernicious anemia, which, if not checked, may end life in a relatively short time.

As cancer is not contagious or infectious, this anemia, with all its concomitants, including the local trouble which we call cancer, must be autotoxic, and evidence is strong that it is of a nitrogenous origin. We look naturally, therefore, to see if there can be found any relationship between an augmented consumption of protein-bearing food and the steady increase in cancer mortality which is reported on every side.