The Warburg Effect and Cancer

So this blog is planned to be a home for scientific explanations about information that is being released on social media.  A little background: Yes, I am a PhD trained scientist.  I study things that people don't understand and they give me these horrible "wtf" looking faces when I try to explain it.  But that's me.  I am a caring loving individual who gets entirely stepped upon and walked over because I am too polite to push the subject.  Not anymore.

So what's the first thing I want to give my whole response to?  This image:

Now, why is this an issue?  It was presented as a way to tell people that they need to adjust their acidic pH (though I doubt these people even know what pH is) with essential oils.  But let's just take it at face value.  It has a quote, apparently attributed to Dr. Otto Warburg, a fairly famous cancer researcher.  However it does not include a citation to what document this is on page 77 of.  Without citation, why would anyone believe first that this quote is 100% one from Dr. Warburg?  I mean seriously.

Dave Sommers, a self employed entrepreneur (as his facebook lists him) with a Bachelors of the Arts in Communications is attributed in the bottom of the photo.  Now, here is the second issue with this image.  Why on earth would we trust a self employed entrepreneur with no science degree to analyze the data of Dr. Warburg and give us up to date information?

So what DID Dr. Warburg study?  Dr. Warburg studied metabolism of cancer cells.  Specifically, he has been noted for something called The Warburg Effect.  From the Wiki about this effect " the Warburg effect is the observation that most cancer cells predominantly produce energy by a high rate of glycolysis followed by lactic acid fermentation in the cytosol, rather than by a comparatively low rate of glycolysis followed by oxidation of pyruvate in mitochondria as in most normal cells.^[1][2] "  Those references at the end there are 15516961 and 16982728. For those that don't know, those are pubmed ID numbers and can be looked up on http://www.pubmed.com.  These are in reputable journals as well.  But what does this mean?  This means that instead of regular metabolism, cancer cells seem to have higher levels of glutamine metabolism.  Does this make them more acidic, possibly (though there are mechanisms within the cells that are upregulated to deal with this, because if it became too acidic the cells would eat themselves).  Interestingly, this is the complete opposite of the statement Mister Sommers postulates.  Why?  Because cancer cells survive JUST FINE in oxygen rich compartments.  Normal metabolism is NOT turned off in cancer cells and that's been shown numerous times.  Also, if this was a cause for cancer, than inhibitors of glycolytic pathways would be effective in cancer treatment and completely kill cancer cells.  While such inhibitors do exist and are undergoing investigation, there has been no clear evidence that these can work ALONE to kill cancers.


It was, in fact, Dr. Warburg's hypothesis that this shift of metabolism was the SOLE cause of cancer.  However, Dr. Warburg's hypothesis has been proved to be not true.  There are many oncogenes (genes/proteins that cause cancer) that have nothing to do directly with glycolytic metabolism.


For more information about the Warburg Effect, do check wikipedia.  They are well cited on THIS specific scientific effect.  Also, please learn to question anything someone presents to you, because as I put forth here, not everything is worthwhile and can be in fact quite misleading.  


I'll add some more posts later.  I hope this cleared this one up at least.