Dr. Hamer, Emotions and Brain Effect!

The New Medicine of Dr Hamer

by Walter Last

Dr Hamer had an exceptionally high success rate with his cancer therapy, by far the highest I have seen of any therapy.  During one of several trials of the persecuted Dr Hamer the public prosecutor (Wiener-Neustadt in Austria) had to admit that after 4 to 5 years 6,000 out of 6,500 patients with mostly advanced cancer were still alive. That is over 90%, almost a reversal of the results to be expected after conventional treatment of advanced conditions.

Dr Hamer started his cancer research when he developed testicle cancer after his son was shot dead. He wondered if his son’s death was the cause of his cancer. Subsequently he investigated and documented over 15,000 cases of cancer and always found the following characteristics to be present, which he termed the Iron Rules of Cancer. 

The Iron Rules of Cancer

1. Every cancer and related disease starts as a DHS that is a Dirk Hamer Syndrome, which is a serious, acute-dramatic and isolating conflict-shock-experience. It manifests simultaneously on three levels, psyche, brain and organ.

2. The theme of the psychic conflict determines the location of the focus or HAMER Herd in the brain, and the location of the cancer in the organ.

3. The course of the psychic conflict correlates with the development of the HAMER Herd in the brain, and the course of the cancer in the organ.

At the moment of the conflict-shock a short circuit occurs in a pre-determined place of the brain. This can be photographed with computed-tomography (CT) and looks like concentric rings on a shooting target or like the surface of water after a stone has been dropped into it. Later on, if the conflict becomes resolved, the CT image changes, an edema develop, and finally scar tissue.

How specific and precisely located these brain lesions are may be seen from the following.  After a professional lecture a doctor handed him the brain CT of a patient and asked to explain it. From this Dr Hamer diagnosed the patient to have a fresh bleeding bladder carcinoma in the healing phase, an old prostate carcinoma, diabetes, an old lung carcinoma and sensory paralysis in a specific area, in addition to the corresponding emotional conflicts.

Amazingly, Dr Hamer was able to show that at the same time as the concentric brain lesion appears also the target organ CT may show such a concentric lesion. According to Dr Hamer this happens instantly when the psychic shock hits the subconscious level and this same second is the start of cancer. However, also other diseases can be caused by the same mechanism. How severe a disease becomes may depend on other psychological, energetic and nutritional factors but its nature and location are determined by the content of the conflict shock.

Hamer believes that the correlation between key emotional shock events, the target brain areas and the related organs has developed as an adaptation of our human evolution from similar programs in the animal world. When we unexpectedly experience emotional distress, an emergency repair program is set in motion, a biological conflict program with the aim of returning the individual to normal. Such programs can even apply to families or other groups.

Hamer gives the following example. A mother sees her child in a bad accident. In evolutionary terms small children recover faster when they receive extra milk. Therefore, the biological conflict program tries to stimulate milk production by increasing the number of breast cells. If the mother is right-handed, that will instantly cause the appearance of a Hamer Herd in a specific part of her right brain, which in turn relates to the left breast. When the child is well again, conflict resolution begins and extra milk is no longer needed. The mother gets a benign form of tuberculosis in that breast which breaks up the excess breast cells. However, if the mycobacteria required for this are lacking, then the area may just calcify and remain as a dormant tumor.

The same process applies also to animals. A sheep that loses its lamb to a wolf is prone to develop teat cancer; the side depends on whether it is right or left footed. However, commonly the sheep resolves this conflict by bearing another lamb.

The following example may illustrate the original survival value of this mechanism. Lets assume a lion chases an antelope. The antelope must immediately mobilize all its resources to survive. The sympathetic nervous system takes over and in addition a specific brain center becomes active that stimulates lung activity. After the successful escape the animal rests and the parasympathetic nervous system becomes dominant for a while to normalize body functions.

If instead a human gets a cancer diagnosis, even if the diagnosis is wrong, the same biological program is set in motion by the same fear of death that helped the animal to escape. The stress level jumps and the brain-lung connection is activated but now there is nowhere to run. Until the conflict is resolved, which may take years, there will be constant stress as well as brain-induced stimulation of lung activity, which now takes the form of increasing lung capacity by the incessant division of cells.

This process can only be stopped by switching off the trigger in the brain through defusing the original conflict shock. This happens when the patient subsequently has surgery or natural therapy, which he or she fully believes will lead to a cure. However, the same procedure in a patient who has doubts about its effectiveness will leave the conflict unresolved and the disease to progress. Thanks to Dr Hamer’s work, this is no longer just an unsubstantiated assumption but rather scientific fact that can be verified anytime with a CT brain scan.       

The selection of the conflict focus occurs by subconscious association. For instance biological conflicts involving water but also other fluids, such as milk or oil, lead to kidney cancer, fear of death to lung cancer and psychologically swallowing a bigger chunk then we can digest to stomach or intestinal cancer.

Originally, in the animal world, it really was a big chunk of food, but for us it may be a financial over-commitment or any other obligation that we have taken on and cannot fulfill. However, the target focus is not determined by the event itself, but rather by the psychological significance that it has for us at the time of the event.

Hamer illustrates this with another example, a woman who finds her husband in bed with another female. As a sexual frustration conflict it causes uterus cancer. If she instead experiences it as a partner conflict, then in a right-handed woman it leads to cancer of the right breast. If the conflict feeling is fear and revulsion then it causes hypoglycemia and with lack of self-worth cancer may develop in the pubic bone.

If the lack of self-worth had been due to a failure in sportsmanship rather than being sexually related, then the problem would have arisen in an arm or leg instead or possibly in the fingers or shoulder.

Other typical situations that may lead to biological conflicts are loss situations, loss of a loved one, of a job, a valued possession or a territory.

Dr Hamer believes that most metastases or secondary tumors are caused by the cancer-fear or death-fear resulting from the patient given the cancer diagnosis or a negative prognosis. However, also in this case the resulting conflict shock may not be fear of death but rather anger, resentment or a separation conflict from partner or children and then tumors would appear in different places. Also a diagnosis of colon cancer commonly leads to liver cancer because of a subconscious fear of starvation.

Generally hopelessness, despair and meaninglessness create chronic stress, which prevent the healing from cancer and other diseases but they are not the cause. According to Hamer the real cause of cancer and other diseases is an unexpected traumatic shock for which we are emotionally unprepared. The following list shows some of the relationships between conflict emotions and target organs.

Adrenal cortex - Wrong direction, gone astray

Bladder - Ugly conflict, dirty tricks

Bone – Lack of self-worth, inferiority feeling

Breast milk gland – Involving care or disharmony

Breast milk duct - Separation conflict

Breast, left (right-handed) – Conflict concerning child, home, mother

Breast, right (right-handed) – Conflict with partner or others

Bronchials – Territorial conflict

Cervix – Severe frustration

Colon – Ugly indigestible conflict

Esophagus  – Cannot have it or swallow it

Gall Bladder - Rivalry conflict

Heart  – Perpetual conflict

Intestines - Indigestible chunk of anger

Kidneys – Not wanting to live, water or fluid conflict

Larynx - Conflict of fear and fright

Liver – Fear of starvation

Lung – Fear of dying or suffocation, including fear for someone else

Lymph glands – Loss of self-worth associated with the location

Melanoma – feeling dirty, soiled, defiled

Middle ear – Not being able to get some vital information

Mouth - Cannot chew or hold it

Pancreas – Anxiety-anger conflict with family members, inheritance

Prostate – Ugly conflict with sexual connections or connotations

Rectum – Fear of being useless

Skin – Loss of integrity

Spleen – Shock of being physically or emotionally wounded

Stomach – Indigestible anger, swallowed too much

Testes and Ovaries – Loss conflict

Thyroid – Feeling powerless

Uterus – Sexual conflict

The conflicts for some other diseases are as follows:

Diabetes and hypoglycemia: A right-handed female develops hypoglycemia from anxiety and revulsion, if left-handed she develops insulin-dependent diabetes. A right-handed male develops insulin-diabetes from a conflict of resisting or struggling against something, if left-handed he develops hypoglycemia.

Heart infarct: fight for territory or its content.

Hemorrhoids: both, a right-handed woman with an identity conflict and also a left-handed man with territorial anger in the healing phase will get hemorrhoids.

Multiple sclerosis and Paralysis: inability to escape or continue on or to hold on to or not knowing what to do.

Facial paralysis: fear of losing face, having been made a laughing stock.

Psoriasis involves separation conflict concerning mother, father, family, home, friends or pets.

Psychoses of all kinds have one or more active Hamer Herds in each of the two parts of the brain.

Vitiligo, Leukoderma: ugly or brutal separation conflict.  

In regard to AIDS Dr Hamer observes that no one ever died of AIDS without having previously been told that they are HIV positive or believe that they are. The implication is that just as with cancer, it is the negative perception associated with AIDS that causes its devastating effect.

Left-handed individuals develop problems on opposite sides to genuine right-handed individuals. Handedness can be tested by observing which hand is on top when clapping; this is the leading hand. With right-handedness all muscles at the right side of the body are involved with partners and possibly other individuals and all left-sided muscles with children or the own mother. These conditions may change with hormonal changes as with the birth control pill or menopause.

The Healing Phase

The start of a DHS or conflict-shock experience is different from other conflicts that we experience in our daily lives. It causes a continuous stress resulting in a tendency to develop cold hands and feet, lack of appetite and weight loss, sleeplessness and dwelling all the time on the conflict content. If the conflict does not become resolved soon, the long-lasting stress will lead to specific symptoms and the development of cancer or another disease.

When the conflict resolves, the patient is no longer occupied with the conflict content, the appetite returns, hands are warm again and also normal sleep returns, but there may also be weakness, fatigue and a need to rest. These effects show that the parasympathetic nervous system is now in control. This is the beginning of the healing phase, which can be long and difficult.

During the first part of the healing phase we see water retention and inflammations but the tumor stops growing. This eventually leads to a healing crisis, which Hamer calls an epileptic or epileptoid crisis because it is caused by an edema in the Hamer Herd brain lesion. It shows unique symptoms for each illness.

After this the body starts to expel the accumulated water, the patient gradually regains strength and body functions become normal. Now the connective tissue in the brain, the glia, starts repairing the Hamer Herd. This may be interpreted by conventional radiologists as a fast-growing brain tumor and treated accordingly. Hamer writes that real brain tumors do not exist, as nerve cells in the brain cannot divide.

Hamer estimates that 99% of brain events, such as strokes, bleeding into the brain, cysts and tumors are due to healing events of Hamer Herds and with this temporary and self-limiting unless there is inappropriate medical intervention. The most important support in these situations is the reduction of any brain edema.

During the healing crisis the patient may for a short time re-experience the original psychological conflict with cold hands and cold sweat. This serves to suppress and eliminate the edema in the brain lesion, which then allows other body conditions to normalize. The main danger point is just before the end of the healing crisis when it will become apparent if the body is strong enough to eliminate the disease. In difficult cases with long or strong conflict duration massive brain edema may develop for which Hamer uses cortisone injections. In natural therapy we use an assortment of urea and anti-inflammatory therapies instead.

Urea has strong diuretic properties and an excellent effect in cases of dangerously high fluid pressure in the brain. Generally 20 g of urea are used 2 to 5 times daily. One life-threatening case has been described of a massive “brain tumor” re-growth that completely disappeared within 2 hours after receiving 256 ml of 30% urea (described in Your Own Perfect Medicine by Martha Christy, Future Med). This report clearly shows that the presumed brain tumor in fact was a massive edema as postulated in the New Medicine.       

What Hamer calls the epilepsy crisis may be experienced by the patient as a heart attack, lung embolism, hepatitis or a lung infection. Generally, during the healing phase, the patient will have more discomfort than when the tumor was actively growing. In the first part of the healing phase most problems are due to water retention, inflammations and swelling of tissues that can cause a lot of pain. Hamer regards edema, whether found in the brain or in an organ, as positive, a sign of healing.

Tissue Repair

After the healing crisis adeno-carcinomas are removed by fungi and mycobacteria while hepatitis virus may in addition help to regenerate the liver. At this stage, bacteria, viruses and fungi that help to break down the tumors and repair damaged tissues also cause inflammation, pain and fever.

If you find it odd that Hamer regards microbes as essential friends and helpers in the healing of cancer, he has made an even more surprising discovery. In his ontogenetic system of tumors and cancer equivalent diseases he distinguishes between two opposite processes during the active conflict phase. Depending on the location of the Hamer Herd in the brain, there may be either cell proliferation or cell destruction.

The first group has cell proliferation and tumor growth during the conflict phase and then removes excess cells with the help of microbes during the healing phase. The other group causes cell destruction during the conflict phase resulting in ulcers, necroses and tissue holes affecting for instance bones (osteoporosis), kidneys, spleen or ovaries.

During the healing phase, this second group tries to fill in the created holes through cell proliferation. Tissue necroses and osteolyses (dissolved bone) are now repaired by bacteria that first form abscesses, which are then filled in with scar tissue and later with granulating tissue to form osteosarcoma, lymphoma, fibroma and healing cysts. Also leukemia commonly occurs during the healing phase, as after bone marrow damage from radiation, chemicals or bone cancer.

According to Hamer these conditions are generally self-limiting and only get out of control when additional conflict shocks occur or the body is too old or weak or through the methods of conventional medicine. In contrast, natural healing methods aim to support body and mind during this trying time. Most healings proceed without major problems, but about 10% need the full support of an experienced therapist, especially at the time of the healing crisis.

Healing the Psychic Conflict

The main task in every case of cancer is to find the original emotional shock experience and make sure that it has been healed or is being healed. In many case it will have corrected itself and the patient suffers from an effect of the healing phase.

For instance, someone may have lost a farm or business but has now started another satisfying venture or hobby. As after-effect there may now be a tumor that gradually becomes dormant or eventually disintegrates.  About 40% of tumors discovered during routine medical investigations are said to be old and harmless, that is dormant and calcified. However, complications may still arise if medical intervention now instills a fear of death conflict shock that induces the same or another tumor to grow.

Nevertheless, in other cases the original conflict may still be active or there may be a second active conflict. As we do not know, we have to probe in every case to find the original and any other conflicts. We need to think back, especially one to two years before our problem started and analyze our emotional history during this time as well as before and after. Also meditation and regression therapy may be useful to discover conflict shocks.

If we still have a strong emotional response when we discover the content of the conflict, then we can be sure that it is still unresolved. If at all possible it is best to solve it in a natural way. For instance if it was caused by losing a partner, then find someone new; if you lost a child, become pregnant again or adopt a child or buy a pet. Cancer does not continue to grow after the third month as pregnancy has priority. 

If a natural solution is not possible, then use guided imagery either on your own or with the help of a partner or a suitable therapist. In a relaxed and meditative state re-create and re-experience the conflict as intensely as you can but then substitute a desirable or acceptable outcome. Create and experience this new outcome as vividly and detailed as possible, see it, feel it and possibly even hear and smell it. The original experience may also have imprinted you with the memories of unrelated details of your ordeal (tracks) to which you may now react with allergies. You may try to overcome these in the same way with guided imagery.

If neither of these methods is possible because you feel that you have to continue your present duties or ordeal for whatever reason, then only increased spiritual understanding and acceptance may be able to help. In either case, be aware of your vulnerabilities and avoid any further conflict shocks but if one does happen, get it out of your system is soon as possible.   

In addition, I firmly believe that all active conflicts will be terminated and the healing phase begin when we are able to strongly feel love and forgiveness within ourselves and then radiate it to all others but especially to anyone who we feel might have wronged us. We can further ease the healing phase by expecting it to be short and mild and lead to full recovery.

It is my perception that full recovery requires a two step program to heal this conflict. The first step involves appropriately expressing the emotional shock experience. When losing a loved one, this means feeling and expressing the inner grief or sadness; when losing a job, asset, or business, this means feeling and expressing the anger, frustration, or disappointment felt at the time. The second step involves repairing the external damage, such as finding another partner, pet, job, business or hobby. 

According to Hamer, animals in the wild get cancer from the same shock programs as we do. However, 80 to 90% survive and do not notice much because the healing phase can take its natural course. Those that die are mainly old animals that cannot resolve a conflict, such as regaining their territory from a rival or replacing a lost cub.

It is different in our society as the natural healing process is routinely interfered with. It starts with getting tranquilizers or antidepressants during the active conflict phase, which prevent us from fighting back and regaining our territory. This may then lead to a cancer diagnosis that causes an additional active conflict and ends with morphine, which totally disables our healing responses. 

While Hamer does not believe that health foods, remedies, cleansing or healthy living in general can cure cancer, these certainly can be important in order to survive the ordeals of the healing phase. Actually, Hamer regards all diseases as consisting of two phases, initially with active conflict followed (if possible) by a healing phase that reverses the conflict program. He does not call them diseases anymore but rather special biological programs. In all he is stated to have worked with over 31,000 patients and found his theories confirmed in every single case without exception. Hamer claims that overall the New Medicine has a 95% success rate with cancer.

Persecution

Siemens, the manufacturers of the CT equipment have independently verified the existence of the Hamer Herds in the brain. Furthermore, their diagnostic significance was confirmed in 1998 at The University of TRNAVA in Slovakia. Nevertheless, Dr Hamer faced exceptional persecution.

Under German law the right to practice medicine can be withdrawn if the doctor has diminished mental abilities. This law was used in 1986 by a German district court to withdraw his right to practice. As proof of Hamer’s inadequate mental condition the court stated that he was not wiling to retract his theories and swear allegiance to the principles of orthodox medicine. Even worse, the court had discovered evidence that he was incapable of converting back to the principles of orthodox medicine: he tried to convince a group of prominent professors of the correctness of his theories only one month before the court case!  One year later the same court requested a psychiatric assessment of his mental abilities, which Hamer refused. A court-appointed psychiatrist, without ever seeing him, diagnosed him anyway as being a psychopath.

In 1997 Dr Hamer was arrested and jailed for 18 months under an obscure natural therapy law introduced under Adolf Hitler to suppress Gypsies. His crime was that he had given free health advice to some individuals who had asked him for his opinion. The public prosecutor had openly stated that all means must be used to remove Hamer from society. Compare this to a delay of the court case for 13 years and then a sentence of only 6 months on probation for the killer of his son. This mild sentence may have something to do with the accused being the Prince of Savoy, the son of the last King of Italy.

Since 1999 Dr Hamer lives in Spain because courts in Germany, Austria, France and Switzerland now want to try him for any cancer patient who died following his advice. According to this reasoning he is a mass murderer because he denied cancer patients the supposedly safe and effective treatment offered by orthodox medicine. There is also a private court case pending against him for a large sum of money because he advised a patient against having chemotherapy. This means that every medical practitioner is now on notice to offer chemotherapy or face financial ruin. This witch-hunt has been compared to the fate of Dr Semmelweis who at the age of 47 died in a mental asylum for suggesting that surgeons wash their hands before operations. 

Dr Hamer survived 8 assassination attempts, and the mass media in Germany treat him as a deranged criminal. While many individual doctors, including professors of medicine, have verified the principles of the New Medicine, so far no German university has agreed to test them, despite a court order that the University of Tubingen conduct such tests.

Also doctors and natural therapists in Europe who practice according to the principles of the New Medicine face persecution. In Austria, Belgium, France, Germanyand Spain authorities had started proceedings against such doctors to take away their right to practice. Court cases have been going on for years.  Only courts inSpain adopted the enlightened position that it was not their role to decide between conflicting medical theories and therapies. This vicious response of the establishment is understandable because widespread knowledge and application of the New Medicine would mean the end of the medical-pharmaceutical complex.

However, in 2001 a prominent neurologist openly defended Dr Hamer by publishing a book about the New Medicine and demanding that his theories be officially tested. Because Dr Therese von Schwarzenberg also belongs to the high nobility, the mass media are in a bind on what position to take on this. Until now they have only reported about Dr Hamer in the most derogative ways and here is now that high profile personality who claims that Hamer is right and deserves a Nobel Price! Nevertheless, the official response of prominent oncologists still remains that it is totally absurd to assume emotions could be important in the cause and cure of cancer and, therefore, Dr Hamer’s claims must not be tested.

Comment

My own understanding and experience leave no doubt about the primary importance of our emotions and beliefs in the cause and cure of our diseases. Furthermore, the writings of Dr Hamer give the impression of a serious and meticulous researcher whose findings have been confirmed by various scientific institutions and medical practitioners, including professors of medicine. Only those continue to denounce him who refuse to look at his evidence.

Therefore I have no doubt about the validity of his basic premise, namely that specific diseases and in particular cancers are associated with visible lesions in specific locations of the brain as well as specific psychological experiences. His postulated two-part disease process in which the healing phase is a reversal of the original disease conditions is a basic concept of natural therapies.

However, Dr Hamer appears reluctant to consider extending or modifying his theory to take other possibilities into account. Basically Dr Hamer postulates a one-way communication from psyche to organ via the brain. I suggest instead a two-way communication from psyche to organ as well as from organ back to brain and psyche. 

I like to explain this on an example. I understand that the rate of death from breast cancer in China is one in 10,000 compared to about one in 10 in most Western countries. Professor Jane Plant realized that unlike western and westernised women, the Chinese do not use animal milk or related products. At this stage she had the fifth occurrence of her breast cancer and had been given up to die. As soon as she avoided all milk products her tumour disappeared and for 13 years she is now free of cancer (Your Life in Your Hands by Jane Plant, published Virgin, UK 2000).

As the Chinese have normal rates of some other cancers, there needs to be a special factor that causes these low breast cancer rates. Assuming that it really is milk, I would apply the following reasoning.

Milk is high in insulin growth factor, IGF-1, which stimulates breast tissue to grow during puberty and pregnancy. IGF-1 is also present in the meat of dairy cows and apparently also stimulates other hormone-related cancers, including prostate cancer. Assuming that this causes constant low-level stimulation of breast tissue and the related brain area in milk-drinking or dairy-consuming women, there are now 2 possibilities.

1.                                The sensitized brain areas will cause the woman to have a much stronger emotional response than normal to any child or partner conflict, and this causes milk-drinking women to develop more frequent breast cancers.

2.                              The second possibility is an existing sub-acute conflict situation or past event that is still subconsciously active. The persistent combined stimulation by a sub-acute conflict in addition to IGF-1 may cause the gradual development of a Hamer Herd or alternatively its sudden appearance when a certain threshold is reached.

In this way any environmental factors can be taken into consideration for creating Hamer Herds in combination with psychological conflicts. Most people presently have a very unhealthy lifestyle in addition to a poor quality of inherited genes. It may well be that really healthy individuals will not develop a Hamer Herd in response to an unexpected emotional shock or that it will be a mild and self-healing event.

In a similar way may appropriate natural therapy directed to a diseased organ give a message to the associated brain area that helps healing the Hamer Herd, and in time also leads to a resolution of the emotional conflict.

A confirmation of the suggested interconnectedness between emotions, nutrients, brain and organs can be found in kinesiology. Research in muscle testing has revealed a relationship between different nutrients and emotions with specific muscles and organs transmitted through the system of acupuncture meridians. However, a surprising finding was the direct involvement of the brain. When an isotopically labeled nutrient was placed in the back of the mouth within seconds the isotope was also detected in the brain.

I suggest that conflict resolution may also happen in unspecific ways. Assuming a patient receives a conflict shock due to a diagnosis of cancer, then this conflict but possibly also the original conflict shock may possibly be resolved if the patient fully believes and expects that the subsequent treatment will be curable. Other possibilities have been suggested under the heading Healing the Psychic Conflict 

Can vitamin D halt growth of triple-negative breast cancer? (Article by Natural News)

Can vitamin D halt growth of triple-negative breast cancer?

by David Gutierrez, staff writer

Vitamin D supplementation may be able to slow or even halt the progression of the most dangerous variety of breast cancer, according to a study conducted by researchers from Saint Louis University and IRBLleida, Spain, and published in The Journal of Cell Biology. In addition, the researcher’s isolated biomarkers that could help physicians identify women that could benefit from vitamin D treatment.

The researchers came to this discovery by identifying, for the first time, one of the molecular pathways that leads to the variety of breast cancer known as triple-negative. This cancer is more likely to affect younger women, and is most resistant to treatment.

Scientists have known for some time that a malfunction of a tumor-suppressing gene known as BRCA1 can lead to the development of breast cancer. This gene is part of the cellular defense system by which the body ensures that any damaged DNA is not passed on to new cells, using mechanisms such as screening DNA for errors and sending cells carrying damaged DNA into hibernation or even programmed cell death. This is an important cancer-preventive role, because an accumulation of DNA damage can lead a cell to the out-of-control replication associated with cancerous tumors.

BRCA1 plays a role in screening DNA and repairing double-strand breaks, a particularly dangerous form of damage. It also plays a role in verifying that DNA has been replicated and transferred properly to new cells. When BRCA1 fails, it may lead to the development of breast cancer, and often the particular variety that is negative for receptors of two hormones and a protein: estrogen, progesterone and HER2. Because such tumors are not dependent on these external factors for growth, they are harder to "starve" and kill.

The vitamin D link

Yet not all BRCA1-mutated cells turn into breast tumors. In a recent study, researchers determined that in the presence of another DNA repair factor known as 53BP1, BRCA1-deficient cells can still survive and reproduce in health. As 53BP1 levels decrease, the development of triple-negative tumors becomes more likely.

In the new study, the researchers found that the loss of BRCA1 begins a chain of events in which a protein-degrading chemical is produced that starts to break down 53BP1.

"It's a new pathway that explains how breast cancer cells lose 53BP1," lead researcher Susana Gonzalo said.

Significantly, prior research has shown that in the presence of vitamin D, this chemical is less effective at degrading 53BP1. In the new study, they found that when BRCA1-deficient tumor cells were exposed to vitamin D, 53BP1 levels rose and proliferation slowed.

This is a particularly important discovery because triple-negative breast cancers tend to be resistant to many of the most advanced cancer drugs, while the therapy that they are more likely to respond to - chemotherapy - carries potentially severe side effects.

The researchers now believe that even in people who have already developed a drug-resistant, triple-negative cancer, vitamin D supplementation may actually render the tumors sensitive to drugs.

Sources:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130122142911.htm
http://phys.org

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Bacterial and fungal microflora in surgically removed lung cancer samples

Panagiotis Apostolou¹, Aggeliki Tsantsaridou², Ioannis Papasotiriou¹, Maria Toloudi¹,Marina Chatziioannou¹ and Gregory Giamouzis^3*

• *Corresponding author: Gregory Giamouzis ggiamou@emory.edu

Author Affiliations

¹Research Genetic Cancer Centre Ltd (R.G.C.C. Ltd), Filotas, Florina, Greece

²Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery, Larissa University Hospital, Larissa, Greece

³Cardiology Department, Larissa University Hospital, Larissa, Greece

For all author emails, please log on.

Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery 2011, 6:137  doi:10.1186/1749-8090-6-137

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at:http://www.cardiothoracicsurgery.org/content/6/1/137

Received:	8 August 2011
Accepted:	14 October 2011
Published:	14 October 2011

© 2011 Apostolou et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Background

Clinical and experimental data suggest an association between the presence of bacterial and/or fungal infection and the development of different types of cancer, independently of chemotherapy-induced leukopenia. This has also been postulated for the development of lung cancer, however the prevalence and the exact species of the bacteria and fungi implicated, have not yet been described.

Aim

To determine the presence of bacterial and fungal microflora in surgically extracted samples of patients with lung cancer.

Materials and methods

In this single-center prospective, observational study, tissue samples were surgically extracted from 32 consecutive patients with lung cancer, and reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to identify the presence of bacteria and fungi strains.

Results

The analysis of the electrophoresis data pointed out diversity between the samples and the strains that were identified. Mycoplasma strains were identified in all samples. Strains that appeared more often were Staphylococcus epidermidis, Streptococcus mitis and Bacillus strains, followed in descending frequency by Chlamydia, Candida, Listeria, and Haemophilus influenza. In individual patients Legionella pneumophila and Candida tropicalis were detected.

Conclusions

A diversity of pathogens could be identified in surgically extracted tissue samples of patients with lung cancer, with mycoplasma strains being present in all samples. These results point to an etiologic role for chronic infection in lung carcinogenesis. Confirmation of these observations and additional studies are needed to further characterize the etiologic role of inflammation in lung carcinogenesis.

Keywords: 

lung cancer; bacteria; fungi; reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction

Introduction

Lung cancer is the most common cancer worldwide, with 1.35 million incident cases annually, and consists one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide [1]. In addition to cigarette smoking, the major lung cancer risk factor [1], recent studies underscore an etiologic role for chronic pulmonary infection in lung carcinogenesis, acting either independently or as a cofactor to tobacco smoke in increasing lung cancer risk [2-5]. Experimental and clinical data correlate cancer development with the presence of certain pathogens, independently of chemotherapy-induced leucopenia [6-8]. Indeed, mycoplasma is one of the most often observed pathogen in lung carcinomas [9], and it has been postulated that mycoplasma-infected cells have a higher ability to metastasize in vivo than non-mycoplasma-infected cells [10]. Very similarly, the bacterium Chlamydia pneumoniae, a common cause of community-acquired pneumonia, has been implicated in lung carcinogenesis[11-16]. Staphylococcus strains likewise have been observed in many cases of patients with lung cancer [6,7,17-19]. Other studies have demonstrated the presence of colonies in respiratory tract in patients with cancer [19]; Haemophilus influenza [6,7,19-21] and Candida albicans [7,20-22] have been found in patients with lower respiratory tract malignancies. Legionella pneymophila has been diagnosed in patients with cancer [23], as well as strains of Bacillus [7], Listeria [24], and Streptococcus [6,7,17,19,25].

Importantly, previous retrospective and prospective studies have relied on serologic characterization of chronic bacterial and fungal infections [14]. To the best of our knowledge, the prevalence of bacterial and/or fungal infection in surgically extracted samples of patients with lung cancer has not been previously reported. The aim of the present study, therefore, was to determine the presence of bacterial and fungal microflora in surgically removed tissue samples of patients with lung cancer, by using PCR methods and special primers.

Materials and methods

In this single-center prospective, observational study, tissue samples were surgically removed from 32 consecutive patients with lung cancer. The samples were maintained in RPMI culture medium (Sigma, R0883, Germany). The tissue was dissociated and 2 ml Trypsin - 0,25% EDTA (Invitrogen, 25200-072, California) was added in order to detach the cells. The trypsin has been inactivated by using FBS (Invitrogen, 10106-169, California) and cells were centrifuged at 1,200 rpm for 10 min. Then cells were incubated in 25 cm² flasks (Orange Scientific, 5520200, Belgium) at 37°C, in a 5% CO2 atmosphere, until well developed. RNA was extracted using TRIZOL (Invitrogen, 15596-026, California) and was used as a template to generate cDNA using the First strand cDNA synthesis kit (Fermentas, K1612, Canada). The First strand cDNA was used as a template for the Gradient-PCR reaction, which was performed using GoTaq Flexi polymerase (Promega, M8305, USA). Primers have been designed with Gene Expression 1.1 software. The PCR conditions were set as follows: initial denaturation at 95°C for 10 min to activate the polymerase, 35 cycles of denaturation at 94°C for 45 sec, followed by annealing at 52-58°C for 45 sec and an extension step at 72°C for 60 sec. A final extension step was performed at 72°C for 10 min. The PCR products were then separated on 1.5% agarose gel (Merck, 1012360500, USA) stained with GelGreen (Gentaur, 41005, Belgium), and finally observed under UV-light. A 100-bp ladder (Promega, G2101, USA) was used as marker.

This study was in compliance with the Helsinki Declaration. All participants gave informed consent and the study was approved by the institutional board review.

Results

Table 1 shows the primer pairs that were used in PCR to identify the specific pathogen strains. Table 2 presents the frequency of different species and strains in the samples that were examined. The analysis of the electrophoresis data pointed out diversity between the samples and the strains that were identified in them. Mycoplasma strains were identified in all samples (Figure 1demonstrates electrophoresis results for Mycoplasma strains). Strains that appeared more often were Staphylococcus epidermidis, Streptococcus mitis and Bacillus strains, followed in descending frequency by Chlamydia, Candida, Listeria, and Haemophilus influenza. In individual patients Legionella pneumophila and Candida tropicalis were detected.

Table 1. Primer pairs that have been used in PCR

Table 2. Prevalence by different species and strains

Figure 1. Electrophoresis results for Mycoplasma strains.

Discussion

Lung cancer is the most common cancer worldwide and is a leading causes of mortality worldwide[1]. Many recent studies have underscored the etiologic role of chronic pulmonary infection in lung carcinogenesis, concluding that inflammation increases the risk for incident lung cancer [2-5]. Numerous studies on lung cancer have pointed out the appearance of Mycoplasma strains in patients and suggest association of infection with tumorigenesis; it has been postulated that mycoplasma-infected cells have a higher ability to metastasize in vivo than non-mycoplasma-infected cells [10]. Candida species have been isolated from patients with lower respiratory tract infection [7,20-22]. Haemophilus influenza [6,7,19-21], Staphylococcus epidermidis [6,7,17-19], Streptococcus species [6,7,17,19,25], Legionella pneymophila [23], as well as strains of Bacillus[7], Listeria [24] and Streptococcus [6,7,17,19,25] have been also identified in patients with different pulmonary diseases. Very similarly, the bacterium Chlamydia pneumoniae, a common cause of community-acquired pneumonia, has been implicated in lung carcinogenesis [11-16]. A recent meta-analysis by Zhan et al. [16] of 12 studies involving 2595 lung cancer cases and 2585 controls from four prospective studies and eight retrospective studies, was conducted to analyze the association between C. pneumoniae infection and risk of lung cancer. Overall, people exposed to C. pneumoniae infection had an odds ratio (OR) of 1.48 (95% confidence interval (CI), 1.32-1.67) for lung cancer risk, relative to those not exposed. Of interest, a higher titre was an even better risk prognosticator (OR for IgA ≥64 cutoff group, 2.35; 95% CI, 1.88-2.93; OR for IgA ≥16 cutoff group, 1.22; 95% CI, 1.06-1.41).

These data strongly support the idea that lung cancer is a biofilm associated chronic infection. Biofilms are microorganism populations organized in a form of colonies using self-produced extracellular matrix that works as infrastructure material. The vast majority of the micro-"colonists" establish biofilms on any inert or diseased biological surface. They adhere to each other, divide, cooperate, and, progressively, their bio-mass grows, matures and finally disperses. It resembles malignant behavior (tumors composed by cancer cells and by stroma cells-monocytes, lymphocytes, microvessels, can metastasize). Therefore, many researchers imply that lung malignancies are communities of diverse pathogens resistant to antibiotics.

One of the major limitations in most of the previous studies was the use of serologic characterization to identify chronic bacterial or fungal infections [14]. This has resulted in conflicting results and great variability in relative risk estimations among seropositive individuals[14,15,26-29]. This wide variability could also reflect the retrospective nature of most of the studies, the small sample sizes, or inadequate adjustment for confounding factors [14]. New techniques, such as PCR-RFLPs, Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) and microcolony methods allow examination and analysis of microbial communities [30,31]. Analyzing the constituents of microbial biofilms responsible for lung disease may help us discover novel strategies to control malignancies.

To the best of our knowledge, the prevalence of bacterial and/or fungal infection in surgically extracted samples of patients with lung cancer has not been previously reported. Therefore, the main purpose of the present study was to determine the presence of bacterial and fungal microflora in surgically removed tissue samples of patients with lung cancer, by using PCR methods and special primers. In this study, specific primers were designed in order to amplify as many different strains of microorganisms. Pairs of primers that were designed were capable of amplifying Treponema, Neisseria, Legionella, Borrelia, Listeria, Helicobacter, Staphylococcys, Haemophilus, Bacillus, Leptospira, Streptococcus, Mycoplasma, Candida and Brachyspira species. It is worth noting that Mycoplasma species were observed in all samples. Staphylococcus epidermidis and Streptococcus mitis were almost seen in one quarter of patients. Neither Treponema strains nor Leptospira, Helicobacter, and Staphylococcus aureus strains were observed in this study.

Conclusion

A diversity of pathogens could be identified in surgically extracted tissue samples of patients with lung cancer, with mycoplasma strains being present in all samples. These results point to an etiologic role for chronic infection in lung carcinogenesis. Confirmation of these observations and additional studies are needed to further characterize the etiologic role of inflammation in lung carcinogenesis, thus making it possible to apply new therapeutic modalities.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Authors' contributions

PA carried out the molecular studies and drafted the manuscript. AT participated in the design of the study and collected all tissue samples. IP participated in the design of the study and coordination. MT carried out the molecular studies and drafted the manuscript. MC carried out the molecular studies and drafted the manuscript. GG performed the statistical analysis and drafted the manuscript.

All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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