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Dr. Block discusses oxidation and the relationship between cancer and oxidative stress.
Dr. Block:
Oxidation is what we all unfortunately need and yet suffer from. This is the free radicals which are lose electrons on a molecule that can fly around and hit other tissue and actually cause more free radicals. So it kind of has a chain reaction effect.
The easiest analogy for people to understand is driving down the freeway and having a blow out. And that blow out is like a lose electron and it sends your car careening into another car that then might careen into another, a third car and you get the chain, right?
When we eat foods if we have a rich fido chemical antioxidant diet filled with all different kinds of colors of fruits and vegetables, you actually lay a foundation of protection where these free radicals are stabilized. And so there’s not blowouts. There’s not lose electrons around.
Now the problem with oxidative stress, as we know, that cancers require it to grow. And in fact, mutation occurs from free radicals crashing into DNA and actually causing a defect. And those mutations can take an otherwise quiet cancer cell and turn up the heat making them more aggressive.
And as that starts to happen, you can get actually a much more aggressive disease even going through conventional treatment that’s successful. Without addressing the oxidative stress, way down the road those leftover cells, the residual cells could rear their heads up again and they have the risk of actually becoming a more aggressive cancer in the future.
And so putting patients on regimens to correct oxidative stress, which is measurable through a number of laboratory testing, that allows for one factor, the biochemical environment, to be more optimized as opposed to some of the disruptions that occur.
Now, also understand that even something as simple as psychological stress or physical stress or chemical stress from a drug can cause oxidation to go up, which can trigger inflammation to go up, which can drive growth factors and angiogenesis: new vascular supply to cancers.
So these chain reactions are really critical to correct and from my real focus over the last three decades of work, we are really interested in changing the biochemical environment of our patients as much as we are correcting the molecular environment in targeting any defects that exist.
About Dr. Block, M.D.:
Dr. Keith I. Block, M.D., along with his wife Penny Block, M.A., Ph.D., founded the Block Center for Integrative Cancer Treatment in 1980, with a focus on treating the patient as a whole person rather than simply treating the diagnosis. They developed a unique and truly integrative approach to cancer treatment which encompasses traditional and complementary medicine delivered in a caring environment.
Visit Dr. Block at The Block Center for Integrative Cancer Treatment