An article in the orthodox journal, Cancer, has established that a natural
hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin, or "hCG," is an accurate
marker for the presence of cancer. This finding could have profound
implications for understanding the cause of cancer, as wel las suggesting
how to detect and prevent it.
The association between hCG and cancer has been suggested in unconventional
research circles for decades, but this is the strongest suggestion to date
found in the standard medical literature.
HCG formed the basis of the H.H. Beard "Anthrone" test and the Novarro diagnostic
test for cancer. Both of these were roundly condemned by the American Cancer
Society which, ironically, is the publisher of Cancer.
For decades the link between this particular hormone and cancer was championed
by Ernst T. Krebs, Jr., the co-discoverer of laetrile, who passed away in
late 1996.
Given its "disreputable" past, it was somewhat startling to find ideas about
the role of hCG given such vigorous support in Cancer.
The finding that hCG is present in most cancers raises again the age-old
question, "Where does cancer actually come from?" The first great theory
of cancer's origin was proposed by Julius Cohnheim (1839-1884) and was called
the theory of embryonal rests. Cohnheim was a great cancer scientist, and
the first to scientifically classify tumors the way we still do today (i.e,
carcinomas, fibroma, sarcoma, etc.).
Cohnheim thought he had discovered the core of the problem of the origin
of cancer in embryonal factors. In the course of development of an embryo,
he said, more cells than are produced than are necessary for the formation
of any given part. This left an excess of germ cells behind. In cancer's
development, he said, the principal fact is this excess material.
In 1902, a Scottish professor of embryology named John Beard published a
variant on this interesting theory. He called this the trophoblastic theory
of cancer's origins. It was not so much refuted as ignored by the medical
establishment. Over time, the focus of research shifted to the study of the
individual cell, and especially its genes.
Beard's 1911 book, The Enzyme Treatment of Cancer, received little attention
and most scientists have never heard of it. But the theory did not disappear,
but went underground. It has formed the basis of an enormous number of
alternative explanations and treatments.
In 1946, Dr. C. Oberling predicted:
"Someday perhaps it will turn out to be one of the ironies of nature that
cancer, responsible for so many deaths, should be so indissolubly connected
with life."
Well, "someday" is here. Never has the link between the process of birth
and of death been more closely linked.
GLYCOPROTEINS
Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is defined as a negative charged glycoprotein
hormone (a "sialoglycoprotein") that is produced by the trophoblastic cells
of the human placenta as well as by certain cancer cells.
This hormone is well known in conventional clinical medicine as the basis
of the urinary diagnostic test for pregnancy. Every time a worried teenager
buys a pregnancy kit at Rite Aid she is engaged in a search for hCG.
In 1994, Dr. A. Krichevsky and colleagues showed that cancer cells express
hCG in all its forms, including the related human luteinizing hormone
(Endocrinology 1994;135:1034-1039).
Then in mid-1995 Dr. Hernan F. Acevedo, PhD and his colleagues at the
Allegheny-Singer Research Institute in Pittsburgh published a landmark article
on the topic in the ultra-orthodox journal Cancer (1995;76:1467-1475).
Acevedo is well-known for his prior work confirming some of the assertions
of Virginia Livingston-Wheeler, another doctor whose treatment was enriched
by the Beardian thesis. Using conventional and accepted methods, this time
Acevedo rigorously showed that the "synthesis and expression of hCG...is
a common biochemical denominator of cancer."
This finding provided the scientific basis, he explained, "for studies of
prevention and/or control by active and/or passive immunization against"
hCG and related compounds. In other words, if hCG is always present in cancer,
you can then `turn your guns' on it as a target in therapy.
Ask a conventional oncologist and she will tell you that hCG is known to
be the defining marker in choriocarcinoma and some other rare tumors, but
is not found with any consistency in more common cancers. This is the crux
of the controversy.
By using more sophisticated techniques, such as quantitative analytical flow
cytometry, Dr. Acevedo has now seemingly demonstrated the presence of hCG,
its subunits, and/or fragments in cells from 85 different cancer cell lines
(Cancer 1992;69:1818-1828; Cancer 1992;69:1829-1842; and Cancer Detect Prevent
1995;19:37).
He also found hCG in cells isolated from human malignant tumor tissues (Proc
Am Ass Cancer Res 1994;34:27).Acevedo's summary is that "hCG, the hormone
of pregnancy and development that also has chemical and physiological properties
of growth factors, is a common phenotypic characteristic of cancer."
A clinical trial has in fact begun using a vaccine directed against hCG.
It utilizes a combination of a synthetic form of hCG bound to diphtheria
toxoid. A similar product was used in another clinical trial and "proved
an almost incredible degree of efficacy and safety." This new product was
originally developed for fertility control by the World Health Organization.
Phase I trials of this vaccine have now been completed (Triozzi, PL, et al.
Int J Onc 1994;5:1447-1453) and Phase II trials are underway.
UNIVERSALITY
What is amazing in all this is the near universality of the hormone in cases
of cancer. The activation of a particular gene and gene cluster "always
occur," says Acevedo.
Through the presence of hCG, cancer cells are able to independently regulate
their own growth. Acevedo confirms that hCG makes a tumor "invisible" to
the immune system, which is loathe to attack anything in the body that looks
like a developing fetus. "These characteristics make cancer cells immunologically
inert."
Dr. Acevedo summarizes: "cancer is development and differentiation gone awry.
"After 93 years," Acevedo continues, " Beard has been proven to be conceptually
correct...."
Needless to say, this is a statement few of us ever expected to see in a
publication of the ACS!
And, we read, it was Dr. Beard's observations that "gave rise to the
trophoblastic theory of cancer." Here is certainly one of the most amazing
turnarounds in the history of medicine--how a theory can lay dormant (like
an embryonal rest) for almost a century before being finally accepted by
at least part of the scientific establishment.
REGELSON SUPPORTS WORK
William Regelson, MD, whom we quoted elsewhere as co-author of the popular
book, The Melatonin Miracle, has become a vocal supporter of Dr.
Acevedo's work as well.
Dr. Regelson is a member of the Department of Medicine of the Medical College
of Virginia. In an accompanying editorial in Cancer, Regelson points out
that not only is hCG found in most cancers studied, but "its expression in
cancer defines the metastatic aggressiveness of the tumors in which it is
found."
He repeats that it "defines malignancy," again, an astonishing statement
to see in an "orthodox" journal.
Normal (non-embryonic) cells do not express hCG. Nor do benign tumor cells.
Instead, "hCG-beta becomes a defining phenotypic expression of malignant
transformation," i.e. it defines cancer. If you find hCG present, and the
patient is not pregnant, she probably has cancer. The more hCG, in fact,
the more serious the case.
In the past, studies have shown hCG is present in between 14 to 79 percent
of cancers studied, including breast, bladder, GI, ovarian, lung and melanoma.
These new-old findings on hCG open up prospects for treating cancer as well.
They lend support to a number of unconventional treatments across the spectrum.
To the scientists involved we say: It's a good idea to quickly exploit this
key characteristic of cancer. But it is equally important is to understand
the history of trophoblstic-type theories of cancer. Go back and seriously
study the works of Cohnheim, Beard, Gurchot, H.H. Beard, Kelley and Ernst
T. Krebs, Jr. They held onto an essential truth, when more established scientists
abandoned it.
Dr. Krebs especially deserves more credit than he has has ever received. Remember
that he founded the John Beard Memorial Foundation to keep this idea alive
at a time when very few believed in it. We now realize that an essential
key to the cancer puzzle was explained--and then systematically ignored--almost
100 years ago.
