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---
  layout: post
  title: Alkaline Nonsense
  author: Joe Schwarcz
  source: McGill Blogs
---
  HYPERLINK "http://blogs.mcgill.ca/oss/2016/09/19/alkaline-nonsense/" 
Alkaline Nonsense 

  It is so seductively simple.  If you want to avoid cancer, just make
sure your body is “alkaline!”  Here is the rationale.  When a cell
becomes cancerous it reduces its use of oxygen and cranks up its
production of acids.  These conditions then allow such cells to
multiply quickly.  To counter this, you have to ensure that cells get
an adequate supply of oxygen and that the acids produced are
neutralized.  How?  By introducing sources of oxygen such as hydrogen
peroxide or ozone into the body and consuming “alkaline” foods.  If
cancer has already taken a foothold, then it may be necessary to dose up
on cesium, the “most alkaline nutritional mineral.”  So simple, and
so wrong!

As so often happens, promoters of nonsensical therapies seize a few
filaments of scientific fact and weave these into a tangled web that
ensnares the desperate and the scientifically confused.  In this case,
it all starts with the work of German physician Otto Warburg who
received the 1931 Nobel Prize in medicine for his work on cellular
metabolism.  Warburg showed that that the growth of malignant cells
requires markedly smaller amounts of oxygen than that of normal cells
and that their metabolism follows an “anaerobic” pathway leading to
the production of lactic acid.  This notion lay dormant until the
1980’s when Dr. Keith Brewer, a physicist with no medical training,
used it to support his perplexing theory of how potassium and calcium
control the transport of glucose and oxygen into cells, and how
irritation of the cell’s membrane interferes with this transport
system.  The result, Brewer maintained, is the “Warburg effect,”
which lowers the cell’s pH, reduces its oxygen supply, and causes
changes in DNA characteristic of cancer.  He then went on to claim that
cesium’s chemically similarity to potassium allows it to be readily
taken up by cells, but that unlike potassium, it does not transport
glucose into cells while allowing oxygen to enter.  As a result, cancer
cells are enriched in oxygen, deprived of glucose, form less lactic
acid, become more alkaline, and as a consequence, die.  Sounds good,
but Brewer got the “Warburg effect” all wrong.  Cancer cells do
shift to a mode of metabolism that doesn’t use oxygen, but this
happens even in the presence of oxygen!

Brewer went on to buttress his argument by claiming that cancer is
almost unknown among the Hopi Indians of Arizona, the highland Indians
of Peru and the Hunza of North Pakistan.  Why?  Because due to the
cesium in the soil, they have a “high pH” diet.  Whether these
people actually do have a lower cancer rate is questionable, and even if
this were the case, it could not be ascribed to caesium in the diet
without further investigation.  But then to take the cake (undoubtedly
cesium enriched) Brewer in 1984 published a paper with the following
claim: “Tests have been carried out on over 30 humans and in each case
the tumour masses disappeared.  Also, all pains and effects associated
with cancer disappeared within 12 to 36 hours; the more chemotherapy and
morphine the patient had taken, the longer the withdrawal period.” 
Not only had he discovered the cancer cure that had eluded the thousands
of PhDs and MDs working in cancer research around the world, but he also
showed that chemotherapy was actually harmful.  Quite a claim!

And just where were these miraculously cured patients, and who had
treated them?  Brewer refers to Dr. Hellfried Sartori (aka Prof.
Abdul-Haqq Sartori) who had accomplished this incredible feat in the
Washington D.C. area.  This is the same Dr. Sartori who in July of 2006
was arrested in Thailand for fraud and practicing medicine without a
license.  He was charging desperate patients were up $50,000 for
“cancer cures” which included cesium chloride injections.  The good
doctor, who routinely promised that he could cure his patients of any
disease, has a rather illustrious history.  Known as the notorious
“Dr. Ozone” in the U.S. , he served five years in prison in Virginia
and nine months in New York for defrauding patients with unapproved
therapies such as cesium chloride injections, coffee enemas and ozone
flushes.  Needless to say, there are no records of the patients whom,
according to Brewer, Sartori cured of cancer.  Australian police are
now looking into the deaths of six people who died after intravenous
injections of cesium chloride at clinics following Sartori’s protocol.

Introducing ozone or hydrogen peroxide to raise cellular oxygen levels
is a scientifically bankrupt idea, as is raising a cell’s pH with
cesium chloride.  Of course, it is not the absurdity of the theory that
rules out its effectiveness, it is the lack of evidence!  There are no
controlled trials showing cancer being cured with ozone or cesium.  But
there is evidence that cesium chloride can cause cardiac arrhythmia and
death.  Granted, it is unlikely that this can happen from the oral
doses being promoted by numerous alternative practitioners aimed at
raising the body’s pH, but the idea that cesium chloride can
neutralize acids in cells is sheer nonsense.

Yes, cesium is an “alkali” metal.  Dropping a piece of cesium metal
into water does indeed produce an alkaline solution (and an
explosion).  But cesium chloride is not the same as cesium metal, it is
a neutral salt.  In any case, the blood’s pH cannot be altered by
cesium chloride ingestion, or indeed with the ingestion of any food. 
It is a marvelously buffered system, meaning that it resists any change
in acidity.  It doesn’t matter what we eat or drink, our blood
contains substances that can act as acids or bases to maintain our blood
pH at 7.4.  The only body fluid that responds to diet in terms of pH is
the urine.  Breads, cereals, eggs, fish, meat and poultry can make the
urine more acidic while most, but not all, fruits and vegetables make
the urine more alkaline.  A diet high in fruits and vegetables and low
in meat can indeed reduce the risk of cancer, but this has absolutely
nothing to do with changing the pH of cancer cells.  The idea of an
“alkaline” diet to prevent or treat cancer may sound seductively
simple, but in reality it is just simple minded.

Joe Schwarcz PhD – Sept 19th/2016