It is so seductively simple. If you want to avoid cancer, just make sure your body is “alkaline!” Here is the rationale. When a cell becomes cancerous it reduces its use of oxygen and cranks up its production of acids. These conditions then allow such cells to multiply quickly. To counter this, you have to ensure that cells get an adequate supply of oxygen and that the acids produced are neutralized. How? By introducing sources of oxygen such as hydrogen peroxide or ozone into the body and consuming “alkaline” foods. If cancer has already taken a foothold, then it may be necessary to dose up on cesium, the “most alkaline nutritional mineral.” So simple, and so wrong!
As so often happens, promoters of nonsensical therapies seize a few filaments of scientific fact and weave these into a tangled web that ensnares the desperate and the scientifically confused. In this case, it all starts with the work of German physician Otto Warburg who received the 1931 Nobel Prize in medicine for his work on cellular metabolism. Warburg showed that that the growth of malignant cells requires markedly smaller amounts of oxygen than that of normal cells and that their metabolism follows an “anaerobic” pathway leading to the production of lactic acid. This notion lay dormant until the 1980’s when Dr. Keith Brewer, a physicist with no medical training, used it to support his perplexing theory of how potassium and calcium control the transport of glucose and oxygen into cells, and how irritation of the cell’s membrane interferes with this transport system. The result, Brewer maintained, is the “Warburg effect,” which lowers the cell’s pH, reduces its oxygen supply, and causes changes in DNA characteristic of cancer. He then went on to claim that cesium’s chemically similarity to potassium allows it to be readily taken up by cells, but that unlike potassium, it does not transport glucose into cells while allowing oxygen to enter. As a result, cancer cells are enriched in oxygen, deprived of glucose, form less lactic acid, become more alkaline, and as a consequence, die. Sounds good, but Brewer got the “Warburg effect” all wrong. Cancer cells do shift to a mode of metabolism that doesn’t use oxygen, but this happens even in the presence of oxygen!
Brewer went on to buttress his argument by claiming that cancer is almost unknown among the Hopi Indians of Arizona, the highland Indians of Peru and the Hunza of North Pakistan. Why? Because due to the cesium in the soil, they have a “high pH” diet. Whether these people actually do have a lower cancer rate is questionable, and even if this were the case, it could not be ascribed to cesium in the diet without further investigation. But then to take the cake (undoubtedly cesium enriched) Brewer in 1984 published a paper with the following claim: “Tests have been carried out on over 30 humans and in each case the tumour masses disappeared. Also, all pains and effects associated with cancer disappeared within 12 to 36 hours; the more chemotherapy and morphine the patient had taken, the longer the withdrawal period.” Not only had he discovered the cancer cure that had eluded the thousands of PhDs and MDs working in cancer research around the world, but he also showed that chemotherapy was actually harmful. Quite a claim!
And just where were these miraculously cured patients, and who had treated them? Brewer refers to Dr. Hellfried Sartori (aka Prof. Abdul-Haqq Sartori) who had accomplished this incredible feat in the Washington D.C. area. This is the same Dr. Sartori who in July of 2006 was arrested in Thailand for fraud and practicing medicine without a license. He was charging desperate patients were up $50,000 for “cancer cures” which included cesium chloride injections. The good doctor, who routinely promised that he could cure his patients of any disease, has a rather illustrious history. Known as the notorious “Dr. Ozone” in the U.S. , he served five years in prison in Virginia and nine months in New York for defrauding patients with unapproved therapies such as cesium chloride injections, coffee enemas and ozone flushes. Needless to say, there are no records of the patients whom, according to Brewer, Sartori cured of cancer. Australian police are now looking into the deaths of six people who died after intravenous injections of cesium chloride at clinics following Sartori’s protocol.
Introducing ozone or hydrogen peroxide to raise cellular oxygen levels is a scientifically bankrupt idea, as is raising a cell’s pH with cesium chloride. Of course, it is not the absurdity of the theory that rules out its effectiveness, it is the lack of evidence! There are no controlled trials showing cancer being cured with ozone or cesium. But there is evidence that cesium chloride can cause cardiac arrhythmia and death. Granted, it is unlikely that this can happen from the oral doses being promoted by numerous alternative practitioners aimed at raising the body’s pH, but the idea that cesium chloride can neutralize acids in cells is sheer nonsense.
Yes, cesium is an “alkali” metal. Dropping a piece of cesium metal into water does indeed produce an alkaline solution (and an explosion). But cesium chloride is not the same as cesium metal, it is a neutral salt. In any case, the blood’s pH cannot be altered by cesium chloride ingestion, or indeed with the ingestion of any food. It is a marvelously buffered system, meaning that it resists any change in acidity. It doesn’t matter what we eat or drink, our blood contains substances that can act as acids or bases to maintain our blood pH at 7.4. The only body fluid that responds to diet in terms of pH is the urine. Breads, cereals, eggs, fish, meat and poultry can make the urine more acidic while most, but not all, fruits and vegetables make the urine more alkaline. A diet high in fruits and vegetables and low in meat can indeed reduce the risk of cancer, but this has absolutely nothing to do with changing the pH of cancer cells. The idea of an “alkaline” diet to prevent or treat cancer may sound seductively simple, but in reality it is just simple minded.
