A review of Cancer Care - The Role of Repurposed Drugs and Metabolic Interventions in Treating Cancer

20241002

Reviewer’s Introduction

Paul Marik came to prominence in the early days of Covid as one of the founders of the Frontline Critical Care Coalition – FLCCC.  They resisted the Covid vaccine mandates – lockdowns, masking, distancing, and most of all, the vaccines.

For so resisting the establishment, Marik lost his license to practice medicine. Here is how Steve Kirsch introduced him to a Vaccine Safety Research Foundation (VSRF) meeting:

We all know Dr. Marik, but you may also remember him speaking on stage at the Defeat The Mandates DC and LA rallies. To summarize his groundbreaking work, Dr. Marik is the co-founder of the FLCCC and earlier gained prominence for developing a breakthrough sepsis protocol that saves lives. With expertise in various medical fields, including Internal Medicine, Critical Care, and Pharmacology, he served as a tenured Professor at Eastern Virginia Medical School.

Renowned as the second most published critical care physician globally, he retired in January 2022 to focus on leading the FLCCC and has authored numerous papers on COVID-19 treatment. In fact, Dr. Marik has written over 500 peer-reviewed journal articles, 80 book chapters and authored four critical care books and the Cancer Care Monograph. His contributions earned him accolades, including a commendation from the Virginia House of Delegates for treating critically ill COVID-19 patients and sharing effective protocols globally.

This book was available on Amazon until earlier in 2024, when they not only stopped selling it but canceled Dr. Marik’s account totally. This was undoubtedly done at the behest of the Covid cabal. I am not a disinterested party – Amazon deleted all 550 of my book reviews because I expressed my dissenting opinion about Covid through the books I reviewed.

Somebody must have persuaded Jeff Bezos of the absurdity of canceling the second most published critical care physician in the world, writing on an unrelated topic, over his stance on Covid. They reversed the decision on September 29, 2024 and even made the book available in Kindle format. Too late – Dr. Marik had allowed it to be distributed free in PDF format.

Dr. Marik makes the point that the medical establishment, in rescinding his license, made it impossible for him to make a living as a doctor. This review is my payment. I encourage readers to bypass Amazon, reading the free PDF and donating directly to the FLCCC.

Though he mentions “turbo cancers” in the book, his topic is treating and preventing cancer, not Covid.  He does not point the finger of blame with regard to either.

The book addresses both conventional and integrative approaches to treating cancer in an evenhanded manner. While the conventional treatments have their place, other therapies can be effective. Marik’s objective throughout the book is not to persuade the reader to avoid conventional treatments so much as to open his eyes to a world of alternatives with which establishment doctors are largely unfamiliar. Such alternatives are usually less expensive, often more effective, and more humane in their administration.

This review follows the chapter outline in an attempt to give the reader an idea of the substance of the book.

Chapter 1: Introduction.

His brief introduction presents the concept of integrative oncology and other models of patient care. He goes on to assess the societal impact of cancer.

Chapter 2: What is cancer – understanding its pathogenic causes.

This chapter is daunting. Despite the fact that he presents a long list of abbreviations and specialized terms in his preface, even an educated reader will find himself doing Internet searches to learn about many of the unfamiliar medical terms. It is written for others in the medical community.

This reviewer’s advice would be to skim through it to appreciate the quality of the science, but don’t be put off. The rest of the book is much easier to read.

Chapter 3: Preventing cancer

Preventing cancer is a matter of common sense, most of which we have heard. It is worth repeating. The opening sentence is “at least 42% of newly diagnosed cancers in the US could be avoided. The most important interventions to reduce the risk of cancer include: quitting smoking, limiting (or stopping) alcohol consumption, improving nutrition, [fasting], [treating insulin resistance], exercise and taking vitamin D3.” The balance of the chapter provides more detail and additional measures, one of which is avoiding sweets.

Chapter 4: The metabolic approach to treating cancer.

The theory is that cancer is a metabolic disease and that the treatment should starve the cancer cells. Properly starved cells are more vulnerable to treatment by chemotherapy and radiation as well as integrative treatments.

Starving the cancer cells requires above all things a proper diet. The Keto diet – fats, vegetables, and very little in the way of sugar, is recommended. Intermittent fasting can be part of it.

Dr. Marik stresses the need for "real food", not stuff out of a box.  Your body needs food that you can recognize as meat or vegetables.

Chapter 5: Metabolic and lifestyle interventions for cancer treatment.

Following on the theme from the previous chapter, Marik says that a continuous glucose monitor is essential to track your blood glucose levels to make sure that you're not feeding the cancer too much.

In addition to diet, stress management, healthy sleep and sunshine are important. Sunshine has a great curative effect, and people with any disease are likely to stay shut in, keeping themselves away from this very healthy exposure. The effects are far more widespread than just the synthesis of Vitamin D3.

Chapter 6: Repurposed drugs.

Dr. Marik makes the point that the drugs used in chemotherapy mostly act through a single biological pathway. On the other hand, most repurposed drugs used as adjunct treatments for cancer work in multiple ways. Some of them directly act on the cancer cell, promoting cell death, and others affect the tumor microenvironment, restoring the body's immune function.

Chapter 7 - Tier 1 Repurposed Drugs

Chapters 7 through 10 all address repurposed drugs. The first chapter is on tier 1 – those with a strong recommendation. Then, weak recommendations, equivocal evidence, and lastly those that are recommended against.

At the top of the list for the tier 1 repurposed drugs comes vitamin D3. This is recommended as a treatment for all sorts of diseases besides cancer. It seems that everybody should be taking it on a daily basis and, moreover, that there is no effective upper limit on how much you can take.

The second is melatonin, which is often taken for sleep, and once again there is no upper limit on the safe dose. Then come green tea and metformin, curcumin – that's turmeric, and then some drugs. The first drugs mentioned are mebendazole and ivermectin, followed by nine other herbs and drugs.

There is no sense going through the remaining chapters on repurposed drugs, numbers 8 through 10. These are primarily for people who have cancer and may want to may want to try different approaches. It is sufficient for the purposes of review to simply say that there are a lot of things you can try, most of which don’t have serious side effects, and, most of which a doctor would not normally recommend.  There are a few things, such as laetrile, that Marik would have you avoid. You have to take charge of your own health.

Chapter 11: Potential adjunctive therapies. 

Tumor treating fields are a noninvasive therapy that involves alternating electric fields. Photodynamic therapy involves the destruction of tissue using visible light.  Hyperbaric therapy involves increasing the amount of oxygen to the body which leads to elevated levels of reactive oxygen species which overwhelm the cancer cells’ antioxidant defense and lead to cell death.

Chapter 12: Chemotherapy, a basic primer

There are five families of chemicals used in chemotherapy. Marik categorizes three kinds of cancer by their responses to chemotherapy. There are those that are curable with chemotherapy such as ovarian and testicular, Hodgkin's, and leukemia. Chemo improves survival for others such as breast and ovarian cancer. For some types of cancer chemo offers only palliative relief.  It may make you feel better, but doesn't cure anything. These would include colorectal, pancreatic and stomach cancer among others.

Reviewer’s Conclusion

We already know that the American system of allopathic medicine is run by corporate interests that prioritize profits. There is more money to be made by keeping a patient alive but unwell than by curing him. There is more money to be made from proprietary than repurposed drugs. There is little money to be made by advising lifestyle changes that will keep you from getting sick in the first place.

The situation differs from country to country, but there is no place in the world in which a patient is better off simply leaving medical decisions in the hands of the doctors. A well-informed patient will do better, if only because he will command the attention of the doctors.

Cancer is second to heart disease as a cause of death in the United States. As we grow older, we will all know people who succumb.  It behooves us all to know something about it. This book is the work of a mature doctor who has spent a lifetime healing patients. The fact that he made it available for free when Amazon cancelled him testifies to his goodwill – he just wants to get the message out.