Oxygen, Sodium, and Cancer

The pronouncements of Nobel laureates are sometimes completely misunderstood. In 1931the German physiologist Otto Heinrich Warburg was awarded the Nobel Prize for his explanation of how normal cells become cancerous cells. His famous Warburg hypothesis stated that cancer has many secondary causes, but its primary cause is the replacement of the respiration of oxygen in normal body cells by a fermentation of sugar.

When most of us think of the fermentation of sugar, we envision of bowl of sugar and water mixed with yeast, bubbling and growing, causing bread to wine or changing fruit or grain into alcohol. The esteemed Dr. Warburg, however, was referring to something quite different. The "fermentation" of which he spoke was the process now more commonly termed anaerobic respiration, a natural adaptation of healthy cells and cancerous cells alike when they are under stress.

Dr. Warburg's "fermentation" is the same thing as the "burn" you feel when you exercise with great intensity. The ability to "ferment" glucose is a mark of physical fitness. So what did Dr. Warburg mean when he said that cancer is caused by a fermentation of sugar?

Both healthy cells and cancerous cells use sugar. A healthy cell at rest uses glucose and oxygen to store energy in the form of adenosine triphosphate. This is the energy storage molecule better known as ATP. Glucose and oxygen are in effect the "slow food" of a healthy cell.

When a healthy cell needs to make a lot of energy fast, it does so without oxygen, by "fermenting" glucose. Sugar without oxygen is the "fast" food of a healthy food. Provided there is enough glucose in the bloodstream and also enough insulin, the cell can make the energy it needs in a crisis through a process that does not require oxygen.

This "fast food" for a healthy cell, however, comes at a huge metabolic cost. Anaerobic or, as Warburg termed it, fermentative respiration requires 19 times as much glucose to make the same amount of energy as the cell can make when it uses oxygen. And it is not just the enormous consumption of sugar that becomes a problem for a healthy cell under stress.

Consuming "fast food" changes the electrolyte balance of the cell. Every time the cell takes in a single molecule of glucose from the bloodstream, it expels two positively charged potassium ions. At the same time, it absorbs three positively charged sodium ions. The membrane lining the cell normally has a slightly negative charge so that it can attract positively charged amino acids and hormones.

When the cell makes energy through the relatively slow process requiring sugar and oxygen, it has time to get rid of the excess sodium, pump potassium back into the cell, and keep its membrane negatively charged. With oxygen-free energy production, however, the cell cannot keep up with sodium. The negative charge natural to the cell membrane is offset by the positive charge of the rapidly accumulating sodium.

Sodium does not build up so much that the cell membrane takes on a positive charge that it repels nutrients, but there is enough positively charged sodium inside the cell that it cannot take up essential nutrients as easily. The cell has to create new transporter molecules that are uniquely associated with cancer cells. It has to burn more and more sugar just to take in other forms of nourishment.

"Fast food" becomes the only kind of food the cell can use. The continual burning of sugar combined with the absorption of sodium makes a healthy cell sick. Moreover, the sodium in the sick cell has to be diluted with water. By the time a cell becomes so run down that it "catches" cancer, it is deluged with salty fluid.

There is a mythology that evil cancer cells lurk in hidden places in the body, stealthily surviving in low-oxygen conditions while they organize their attack on other tissues. This is not at all what Dr. Warburg meant.

Cancer cells bloat because they absorb sodium, which the diet provides mostly in the form of sodium chloride, or table salt. The more sodium they contain, the more water they absorb to dilute it. As Nobel Laureate Otto Warburg discovered, the way cancer cells get their sodium is by burning glucose without oxygen. Every time they burn one molecule of glucose this way, they have to take in two sodium ions and expel three potassium ions.

But the anaerobic process requires 19 times as much glucose to make the same amount of energy. This means the cell takes in 38 times as much sodium as a cell operating in an oxygen-rich environment, and it loses 57 times as much potassium. The cell can expend even more energy to get its electrolytes back in balance, but in cancer, the deficiency of potassium and the toxic surplus of sodium distort the shape and architecture of the cell.

Just how out of balance can a cell become? In any healthy cell, there is more potassium inside and more sodium outside. In a sick cell, there is more sodium inside and more potassium outside. When a cell is healthy, it contains seventeen times as much potassium as sodium. When it becomes cancerous, it accumulates four times as much sodium as potassium. When sodium content increases, water pours into the cell.

And as more and more sodium accumulates in the cell, all its microstructures substances lose their normal shape. They stop functioning normally. Although there are many more processes at work, as the cell bloats with sodium and water, it becomes cancerous. The longer the newly cancerous cell operates in low-oxygen conditions, the more sodium it accumulates, the more water it absorbs, and the easier it is for it to metastasize and form new tumors.

by Robert Rister

Get Good Grades - The Voice Inside Your Head

I don't know about you, I don't think it is just Australians but I never seem to be alone - even when I am I have someone with me - do you know who I am talking about? It is the voice inside my head, it follows me everywhere and it is very rarely quiet. Yak Yak Yak on it goes. It is like some of those kids that you meet that never shut up. It is not so much that it continually talks to us, but moreso what it is saying that is the issue.

Does the voice inside your head say stuff like" "You should have gone and talked to her, your pathetic", "That test result was awful, you will never be able to do math" or "Dream on you will never get into that college that is only for smart kids"? If it does then you have a real problem. What do you think a robot would do if you give it an instruction to move forward and at the same time you give it an instruction to move backwards? Well it may lurch, back and forth but it never make any real progress. Sadly, that is probably the story of how you are going in high school if these are comments being made by the voice inside your head.

You see you have two parts to your mind: the subconscious and the conscious. What is happening for you is that you are goign into a test saying that you have learnt all of the work and you will do really well. On the other hand your subconscious mind (that voice inside your head) is saying no it is going to be too hard you are going to fail just like last time. Both minds are fighting each other and you are making no progress.

You need to start being aware of what thoughts are going on inside your head and turn them around to your advantage. Next time that voice says 'this work is too hard' say something ubbish you don't know what you are talking about 'I can do this work easily and effortlessly'. Don't focus on the negative comment, just dismiss it and restate the comment with a positive feel.

This is something that will take time because you probably don't remember what you were thinking when you got up this morning, when you had a shower, when you were having lunch etc. It is time to become more aware of that voice inside your head and begin to reprogram it for success.

John D Edwards is a teen success coach and the author of the best selling book for all teens attending school - no matter the year - called Student Mind Power: The High School Students Guide To Great Grades. by John D. Edwards

5 Easy Ways to Help Kids Go Green

It is hard to read the newspaper or listen to the radio without hearing about the importance of recycling, conserving energy, and employing measures to save fuel. From Presidential debates to the nightly newscast, everyone is talking about the need to "go green." Although many parents struggle with the proper way to teach children about the environment, experts agree that a good mixture of creative and concrete methods for exposing children to environmental awareness is most effective.

Consider these 5 Easy Ways to Help Children Go Green:

1. Talk about Conservation: The first step to any good plan is a solid explanation of why conservation helps people and the planet. Many parents skip this step because they don't think that kids will understand. Some parents are concerned of the effects of their children not feeling secure about their environment; however, there are some very good children's books and coloring books about helping the environment that will give simple, non-threatening details.

2. Hide and Seek Saving: Your home, car, and surroundings are full of places and ways to save the environment. Once you have explained the reasons for saving the environment and the methods, engage your children in an environmental game of hide-n-seek. From energy saving light bulbs to recycling old newspapers, children get both a sense of pride from finding ways to help and a sense of investment in the results.

3. Group Planning: By involving your children in your plans to recycle, reuse, and "go green," everything from planting a garden to turning off electricity can become a family activity. With input from every member of the family, children get buy in for the method and ownership of the results. As an extra step, assigning children to certain tasks as part of their chores or their responsibilities to the earth might help to elevate participation in "going green."

4. Give a Cause: In the cases where conservation equals savings in money, let children pick out a charity of their choice to donate the money. From saving the whales or polar bears to giving the savings to the local humane society, donation gives children a real way to become involved in saving the planet or serving a living cause.

5. Creative Gifts: For holidays to birthdays and every season in between, teach children fun and creative ways to make their own gifts. Ideas for useful gifts include making soaps, candles, stationary, and picture frames. With recycled grocery bags colored, painted, and decorated for the event, gifts can teach children to value personalized and practical items instead of store bought presents.

By taking the opportunity to give children an understanding of the importance of the environment and steps that they can take to help save energy, recycle, and create a green environment, parents get the chance to build consciousness and awareness of surroundings in children of all ages.

About Kidz-Planet: As a foremost, private provider of preschool education and day care for children, Kidz-Planet offers a unique program that combines academic excellence with individual nurturing and an extensive extracurricular program that addresses health, the arts, foreign languages, and social activities for young children, 6 weeks to 5 years old. Kidz-Planet is the only California preschool that offers more than babysitting services. From entertaining adventures for children to learn about cultural diversity to educational after school programs aimed at helping children succeed in school, Kidz-Planet creates opportunities for children to learn and grow every day. With free newsletters full of information to help parents guide children through growing pains and special community speaking events offered to area PTAs, Kidz-Planet support parents in promoting superior academic achievement, extraordinary intellectual growth, and physical activities to encourage healthy bodies. by Irina Grinshpan