Causes of Cancer

The Fungal/Mycotoxin Causation of Human Illness (particularly CANCER)

Fungi and their mycotoxins can cause cancer and other diseases

Originally authored with the subtitle "Fungalbionics — The Fungal Etiology of Disease" by Dr. A., a naturopathic physician. Annotated & republished by Copyright © 2006 Healing Cancer Naturally with special permission.

Foreword by Healing Cancer Naturally

While this article may appear overly technical and complicated it contains a most essential take-home message:

Be aware that mold is dangerous to your health and that it is hidden (in the form of fungi and the toxins produced by them, the so-called "mycotoxins") not only in the ambient air but also in many common food items. Make sure to learn about them in this article since fungi and their mycotoxins can cause or contribute to cancer and other serious diseases.

The subject of "Fungalbionics" vindicates and supports most the Hulda Clark paradigm of a parasitic contributing cause of cancer. Fungalbionics are in intimate harmony with naturopathic healing methods and cannot even conflict in any way with orthodox medicine. In essence, I consider this approach [of Fungalbionics] to be essential if anyone is to harbor hope of recovery.

Therefore, it behooves anyone who is conducting other than tangential research into this subject to become thoroughly familiar with this extremely interesting and valuable subject.

Note: On 6 October 1997, we have written to the contact address of the three originators of Fungalbionics (all medical doctors) of the World Health Organization (WHO) to obtain permission to synthesize and summarize their research concerning Fungalbionics but to this date we have had no reply.

The dedication of their books reads: "The Fungalbionic series of books is dedicated to all humans in search of good health" and this web site is most certainly dedicated to alleviating the suffering of humankind, with no profit motivation, surely the authors won't object to us making this important information (basically only the introduction for now) available to the public. Thank you, doctors!

Content

(Topics with links have been detailed here — those without are in the book)

Preface: FUNGALBIONICS DEFINED — An informative introduction — essential reading
Conclusion: the bare essence of these findings
THE FUNGAL/MYCOTOXIN ETIOLOGY OF CANCER — INTRODUCTION
WHAT IS VARIABLY PRESENT IN FOOD WHICH CAUSES CANCERS
WHAT NATURALLY OCCURRING CARCINOGENS CAUSE CANCERS
FUNGI AND MYCOTOXINS ARE THE NATURALLY OCCURRING CARCINOGENS WHICH ARE VARIABLY PRESENT IN FOOD
Dietary changes Do prevent cancer
Unitarian explanation (or lack thereof) For Dietary Prevention Of Cancer
NITROASAMINE ETIOLOGY OF CANCER — THE FUNGAL-DERIVED NITROSAMINES
THE VIRAL ETIOLOGY OF CANCER IN HUMANS — AN UNPROVED POSTULATE
CYCLOSPORINE-INDUCED CANCERS IN HUMANS
FUNGAL-DERIVED ANTIBIOTICS (MYCOTOXINS) CAUSING CANCER: ACTINOMYCIN, AZASERINE, DAUNOMYCIN, ELAIMYCIN, MITOMYCIN C, STREPTOZOTOCIN, PENICILLIN G, GRISEOFULVIN
PENICILLIN AND OTHER ANTIBIOTICS — LYMPHOMA IN HUMANS
AFLATOXIN CAUSES CANCER IN HUMANS
THE GREAT DEBATE: AFLATOXIN VERSUS VIRAL ETIOLOGY OF HEPATOCELLULAR CARCINOMA
AFLATOXIN-INDUCED NEOPLASMS IN ANIMALS
FUSARIUM MYCOTOXINS CAUSE CANCER IN HUMANS
FUSARIUM MYCOTOXINS INDUCE NEOPLASMS IN ANIMALS
OCHRATOXIN CAUSES CANCERS IN HUMANS
OCHRATOXIN INDUCED NEOPLASM IN ANIMALS
OTHER MYCOTOXIN-INDUCED NEOPLASMS IN ANIMALS
FUNGAL-INDUCED NEOPLASMS
FUNGAL-CAUSED NEOPLASMS IN HUMANS
FUNGAL-INDUCED NEOPLASMS IN ANIMALS: EDIBLE MUSHROOMS
FUNGAL COLONIZATION OF HOUSES-HUMAN CANCER CLUSTERS
TOBACCO, MYCOTOXINS AND CANCER
ALL OF THE TOBACCO-RELATED CANCERS HAVE BEEN INDUCED BY MYCOTOXINS IN ANIMALS
HUMAN ESOPHAGEAL CANCER CAUSED BY TOBACCO
PANCREATIC CANCER CAUSED BY TOBACCO
DIET, MYCOTOXINS AND CANCER-ADVERSE INTERACTION OF DIET AND FUNGI/MYCOTOXINS
DIETARY FATS ENHANCE THE FUNGAL/MYCOTOXIN PROBLEM
MEAT, MEAT PRODUCTS AND FUNGI/MYCOTOXINS
BREAST CANCER CAUSED BY MEAT, CHEESE & BUTTER
OVARIAN CANCER CAUSED BY MEAT AND MILK
ESOPHAGEAL CANCER CAUSED BY MEAT
GASTRIC CANCER CAUSED BY MEAT, CHEESE & DRIED FISH
POLYPS OF THE COLON CAUSED BY MEAT
CANCER OF THE COLON CAUSED BY EGGS AND CHEESE
SMALL INTESTINAL CANCER CAUSED BY MEAT, CHEESE AND EGGS
PROSTATE CANCER CAUSED BY RED MEAT, ANIMAL
UTERINE CANCER CAUSED BY FUNGI MEAT AND FAT
BRAIN TUMORS CAUSED BY MEAT AND CHEESE
CANCERS CAUSED BY STORED GRAINS
ESOPHAGEAL CARCINOMA CAUSED BY STORED GRAINS & POTATOES
STOMACH CANCER CAUSED BY CEREALS
CONCLUSION
THE AUTHORS — Three medical doctors from the World Health Organization

DEFINITION OF FUNGALBIONICS

The term FUNGALBIONICS was created in an attempt to describe one of the most dynamic microbial chemical factories ever encountered in the history of scientific exploration.

Fungi are masters at producing a wide array of biologically active substances which serve the producing fungus extremely well.

These biological metabolites are anti-predatory and pro-territorial-protective and insure the fungus will have a perpetual existence in a quite hostile world.

These metabolites are anti-viral, anti-bacterial, anti-protozoan, anti-insect, anti-animal and, of course, anti-human.

These metabolites are referred to as the mycotoxins. The term is derived from the Greek words "mykes" meaning fungus, and "toxicum", meaning toxin or poison.

Mycotoxins Are Poisons

One could test the validity of this most biologically potent fungal reality by eating a cupful of poison mushrooms, a species of fungus. However, it would be less fatal to simply read about their deadly effect upon humans and all other animals.

The name of the game is food for that mushroom because in nature the animal which nibbles on them dies and is consumed by the mycelium (root-like) under the ground which grow up into the hapless and now dead creature.

The term FUNGALBIONICS attempts to convey this remarkable degree of biological activity which these simple single-celled fungi demonstrate. All fungi are so empowered, some less to humans, some more so. While fungi are potentially our enemies, some of their mycotoxins, such as penicillin, are beneficial to humans with bacterial infections and other diseases.

The "bionic" nature of fungi is seen by the magnificent power of penicillin to save human lives from bacterial infection. That is indeed a bionic miracle. Other fungal-derived drugs are just as miraculous, as will be later described.

This series of FUNGALBIONICS books [two were available in 1994 and we are following up on possible remaining ones] provide documentary evidence that fungi and their biological metabolites, the mycotoxins, are the silent and relentless attackers of human health by causing the major "degenerative" and "cancerous" diseases which plague mankind.

FUNGALBIONICS appears to be a most appropriate term to describe the fungal/mycotoxin findings which will be presented in these pages. It is a term which the three physician authors have found acceptable. We hope that the reader will agree with us.

WHAT ARE FUNGI?

Fungi are single cell living forms of life which inhabit the land, air and waters of the earth. They are everywhere.

They are more highly developed than [the] bacteria and viruses and there are many more species than are found in the microbes. It is estimated that there are over 500,000 different species.

Fungi have been on earth several billion years and, quite remarkably, have had little genetic change over that period of time. They are survivalists. They can change their form from rapidly growing to no growth for thousands of years, such as seen in their living spores which have been found in Egyptian tombs. They make poisons called mycotoxins.

Fungal cells can only be seen under the microscope but a colony of these cells makes a visible presence in the form of mushrooms, toad stools and molds on food and habitations.

While plants, animals and humans are alive and well, the fungi around us are unable to overcome the natural defense mechanisms which higher forms of life possess. But once death overtakes the living, the fungi are the principal undertakers and managers: they reduce all that have ever lived into the molecules from which they were assembled. Biologists call this the carbon cycle while philosophers call it "from dust to dust".

However, there is one exception to this simple balanced equation of life and death and that is that the fungi can attack the living while they are alive.

At its most simplistic perspective, one has many fungi entering the intestinal tract, the nose and lungs, and organs exposed to the world at large. We generally do not develop an infection from these intruders. However, a person might contract a fungal infection such as "athlete's foot" or a "ring worm" on the skin.

At the opposite extreme is the patient with AIDS who faces death-threatening major fungal infections because that person's immune system has lost its effectiveness against fungi. In between the extremes are fungal infections associated with diseases such as diabetes, cancer and other conditions including cross infections amongst humans.

Fortunately, the average person does not succumb to a serious fungal infection [such as Candida albicans] and average life expectancy is into the 70s.

All humans are colonized by Candida albicans and normal healthy persons do not die from this organism. This organism plays a very small role in causing human diseases.

(The concept that Candida causes many diseases is NOT a part of Fungalbionics nor is it supported by the extensive medical literature relative to Candida.)

WHAT ARE MYCOTOXINS?

All physicians are familiar with fungal infections and the drugs used to treat them. With the exception of poison mushrooms, which are deadly to those foolish enough to eat them, few physicians are aware that fungi make toxins.

MYCOTOXINS-FRIENDS?... OR ENEMIES?... THEY ARE BOTH...

AS ENEMIES

As many as 1,000 compounds, classifiable as mycotoxins, were studied by the pharmacology industry as potential antibiotics in the 1930s and 1940s only to be discarded as being too toxic for higher life forms to be of value in treating bacterial diseases in humans.

Little, if any of the discarded data was published. Yet what these toxicity studies actually documented was the existence of a large number of fungal-derived toxins which caused serious target organ injury in various animal models.

Note by Healing Cancer Naturally: Research results derived from animal models do not furnish reliable indicators of drug or substance toxicity for humans. See the extensive documentation provided at the animal experimentation section.

Obviously, in retrospect, what was being seen was the pathology produced by the mycotoxins. In order to understand this toxicity, one only has to look at what some of these mycotoxins, used as medications, causes in humans:

The mycotoxin cyclosporin used for transplantation causes cancer and atherosclerosis, complete with hyperlipidemia in ALL humans who have received it. Many others develop gout and other diseases.

AS FRIENDS

However, to place the matter in proper perspective, the study of such fungal metabolites gave us penicillin at the beginning, quite later on cyclosporin, the most potent immunosuppressant transplantation drug, lovastatin, and the other ‘statins’ which have revolutionized the treatment of hyperlipidemia and atherosclerosis.

The latter group is quite interesting in that they were initially developed as anti-fungal agents which just happened to have an effect in lowering blood levels of low density lipoproteins (commonly referred to as "bad cholesterol").

Compare these important observations on the “cholesterol myth” and On the link between cholesterol and cancer incidence: high cholesterol levels associated with lower cancer risk. Also statins have most serious side effects including memory loss. See Alzheimer's & Dementia (scroll to "Statins’ side effect [one of several serious ones]: memory loss and amnesia).

The members of this group of drugs are joined by another anti-fungal antibiotic, griseofulvin, which is also a remarkably efficient anti-atherosclerosis drug. All of this goes a long way to confirm the fungal etiology of atherosclerosis. This appears to be a quite valid conclusion since all of the other effective anti-cholesterol and/or anti-atherosclerotic therapeutic modalities share nothing in common except that they possess anti-fungal and/or anti-mycotoxin activity.

DISEASES RESPONDING TO ANTI-FUNGAL DRUGS

The Fungalbionic Series of Books present data documenting the fungal/mycotoxin cause of a number of diseases. Equally important, the series also documents that each and every dietary measure or drug found to be effective in treating these diseases share nothing in common except that they are all anti-fungal and/or antimycotoxic.

The importance of this therapeutic responsiveness should not be underestimated. If a cause of a disease is a microbe, it must respond to an appropriately selected antimicrobial agent.

In addition, diseases of unknown etiology which respond to anti-fungal-effective drugs suggest the probability that they have a fungal origin, particularly when there is no other proven explanation as to how the drug is working. Table 1 provides a number of human diseases which so respond and suggest a fungal/mycotoxin origin.

Table 1

THE TROJAN HORSE: AND MYCOTOXINS IN THE FOOD CHAIN

Most of us know that food itself cannot be considered poisonous. Very few of us know that the toxicogenic [poison-producing] fungi and their mycotoxins, which are characteristically present in stored and fermented food, are using our food chain as a Trojan Horse.

JUST HOW FUNGAL-COLONIZED IS OUR STORED FOOD?

The first question which must be answered in order to support a fungal/mycotoxin approach is just how much fungal colonization of our food chain has been actually documented. Could our food be the source of that much toxic fungi and their multitude of mycotoxins?

If food is loaded with fungi, then the mycotoxin concept is fully operative and the disease-producing potential is more than obvious.

This Important question of how much fungal colonization of food exists is answered by a most recent reported mycological study of some quite representative foods; corn kernels, peanuts, cashew nuts and copra (dried coconut). Table 2 demonstrates the remarkable degree of fungal colonization of the INTERIOR of corn kernels and peanuts.

Humans who eat these foods are ingesting both the toxicogenic fungi and their mycotoxins. These fungi are capable of surviving in the intestinal stream where they may continue to produce their toxins.

Similarly, animals fed fungal-colonized/mycotoxic feed are not only at risk for developing mycotoxicoses [poisoning caused by exposure to mycotoxins], their meat and their fat constitute another vehicle for human exposure to excessive mycotoxin intake. Animal fat is increasingly being documented to be a major risk factor for a number of human cancers and atherosclerosis.

Table 2

Food from farmers, middlemen, and retail outlets in Bangkok.
Note: Surface was sterilized prior to fungal study.

Source: Pilt JL, Hocking AD, Bhudhasamai K, Miscamble BF, Wheeler Ek P: The normal mycoflora of commodities from Thailand 1. Nuts and oilseeds. International J Food Microbil 20:211-226, 1993

Mycotoxins have been documented to cause a number of specific types of diseases and very specific organ lesions both in animals and in humans.

Table 3 provides a summary of some of this documentation.

Table 3

MYCOTOXICOSES IN WHICH EXPERIMENTAL AND EPIDEMIOLOGICAL DATA SUGGEST HUMAN INVOLVES

Table 4 provides a listing of many mycotoxins and the food containing them.

Table 4

NATURAL OCCURRENCE OF MYCOTOXINS IN FOODS

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