A human being can live for about 3 weeks without food, about 3 days without water, and about 10 minutes without oxygen. It goes without saying that oxygen is vital for all of us. But did you know that oxygen may also help heal breast cancer?

Oxygen levels determine whether cancer cells grow or die.

To understand how oxygen can play a part in healing and preventing breast cancer, let’s take a look at what happens when low levels of oxygen occur in the body. In the 1930’s, Dr. Otto Warburg won the Nobel Prize for his discovery that cancer is caused by a lack of oxygen at the cellular level. In his book The Prime Cause and Prevention of Cancer, he states:

“…the prime cause of cancer is the replacement of the respiration of oxygen in normal body cells by a fermentation of sugar. All normal body cells meet their energy needs by respiration of oxygen, whereas cancer cells meet their energy needs in great part by fermentation.”

But what causes a lack of oxygen in the first place? As has been discussed in other blogs on this site, poor oxygenation develops as a result of toxins in the body: carcinogens, heavy metals, sugar residues, pollutants from processed foods, and toxins caused by stress─ basically, all the leftovers of an unhealthy lifestyle. On the cellular level, low levels of oxygen lead to clumping of red blood cells, which causes the bloodstream to become sluggish.

It is important to remember that all of life has survival as its ultimate goal, even your cells. In other words, your cells are going to use “any means necessary” to stay alive! In an environment where there is little or no oxygen, the enzymes that normally convert oxygen to energy become permanently damaged and they switch to the fermentation of sugar as a means of cellular survival. This is exactly why cancer cells have twice as many receptor sites receptor sites for sugar than healthy cells do!

The fermentation process allows cancer cells to survive, but they can no longer communicate with the body nor perform any functions other than to grow and multiply. Decades after Warburg made his discovery, researchers Dean Burn and Mark Woods of the National Cancer Institute discovered that the cancers with the highest rates of sugar fermentation were also the cancers that grew the fastest. And in 2013, research biologists at Johns Hopkins University  found that low oxygen levels caused breast cancer cells to spread by triggering increased amounts of specific  proteins, which stimulate metastasis.

The importance of increasing oxygen for slowing cancer growth cannot be overestimated.

You can see how vital oxygen is for healthy cell growth. Without it, cells turn cancerous. In fact, cancer cells share a common weakness with viruses and harmful forms of bacteria and fungi. When exposed to high levels of oxygen, they grow weak.

Conventional thinking once believed that infusions of oxygen would cause new blood vessels to grow in tumors and this would lead to metastasis and “genetic instability” in the cancer. That thinking is changing, however, as more studies are proving that oxygen actually has the opposite effect. A study done at UT Southwestern Medical Center discovered that when animal models with aggressive tumors and “hypoxic” (low oxygen) internal environments inhaled oxygen, there was a “greater delay in tumor growth” overall.

Studies are now confirming that the presence of oxygen weakens cancer cells, making them less resistant to various kinds of treatment, both conventional and natural.

A study conducted on ovarian cancer cells and published in a 2014 issue of Scientific American reported that high doses of intravenous vitamin C can be effective in weakening cancer cells. Vitamin C promotes the formation of hydrogen peroxide, an oxygen-containing compound.

Another study conducted by the University of Washington and Washington State University found that combining high levels of oxygen with the substance artemisinin (at 3.5 times the normal air pressure) reduced human leukemia cancer cell growth by 38%, a 50% increase when compared to artemisinin alone.

“We only measured up to 48 hours,” said UW research professor of bioengineering Henry Lai, the author of the report. “Over longer time periods we expect the synergistic effects to be even more dramatic.”

Including oxygen-enriching modalities, such as the Live02 machine, to your breast cancer healing protocol can only enhance the effects of any other healing modality you may be using. This is how you can super-oxygenate your body:

• While exercising on a bike or treadmill, you wear a mask that limits your oxygen content while you are raising your heart beat. This creates a temporary low-oxygen environment which causes your arteries and capillaries to dilate. 
• You then flip a switch that is attached to a pure oxygen bag which creates a maximum plasma oxygen level. This basically super-saturates your body with lots of additional oxygen. 
• You repeat this cycle about 3-4 times for about 15 minutes. 
• This process creates an anti-inflammatory effect and floods your body with lots of fresh oxygen. Oxygen promotes healing and can weaken pathogens that are in the blood. 

Studies indicate that this process of “Exercise Without Oxygen Therapy – EWOT – may be 20 times more powerful that hyperbaric chambers. To learn more about this process, visit the LIVE02 website.  I really enjoy using this oxygen therapy several times per week. I feel like it gives my body a real rush of energy in a short 15 minute session. 

And for cancer prevention and overall breast health, include techniques that infuse your body with oxygen organically, such as daily exercise and wheatgrass supplementation. Also, make sure you are getting enough essential minerals, like magnesium and selenium, which help to carry that all-important oxygen where it needs to go.