This page describes an area of active research. It is not treatment advice, and nothing on it should replace an oncologist. It is here because the metabolic literature on cancer is real, published and largely unknown to people who would want to know it exists.
The Warburg effect
Otto Warburg observed in the 1920s that tumour cells ferment glucose to lactate even when oxygen is plentiful — an inefficient way to make energy that healthy cells avoid. The observation is not disputed; it is the basis of the PET scan, which finds tumours by their glucose uptake.
What is disputed is what it means. The standard view is that it follows from the genetic damage that drives the cancer. The metabolic view holds that mitochondrial dysfunction comes first and the genetic instability follows. The truth is likely to involve both, and the direction matters, because it changes what you would try.
What follows from taking metabolism seriously
- Insulin and IGF-1 are growth signals. Chronically elevated levels are associated with several cancers, and obesity is now among the clearest modifiable risk factors
- A ketogenic diet lowers glucose availability and raises ketones, which many tumour cells use poorly. As an adjunct — never as a replacement for treatment — this is being tested in glioblastoma and elsewhere
- Fasting before and around chemotherapy shows a consistent signal for reduced side effects, on the differential stress resistance argument: healthy cells downshift, tumour cells cannot
- Metformin, which lowers insulin, has been studied repeatedly as an adjunct on the same logic
The metabolic approach in serious research is always an adjunct. Nobody credible is proposing diet in place of oncology, and any source that does should be closed.
The repurposed drug question
There is a body of preclinical and early clinical work on existing off-patent drugs with apparent anti-cancer activity — including antiparasitic compounds. This research exists and is published; it is also mostly preclinical, and the human evidence is far thinner than online discussion suggests.
It is worth stating plainly why such compounds are under-studied: a drug with no remaining patent has no commercial sponsor, and trials cost tens of millions. That is a genuine structural problem in how evidence gets made, and it is not the same thing as evidence that the drug works. Both statements are true at once, and holding both is the honest position.
What is solidly established
- Not smoking, and avoiding excess alcohol
- Maintaining metabolic health — the insulin resistance link is not fringe
- Physical activity, with a consistent effect across several cancer types
- Vitamin D sufficiency, associated with better outcomes though causation is not settled
- Screening, which finds things early enough to matter. This is the single highest-value item on the list
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