Cancer Archives | DonnieYance.com

November 3, 2025November 4, 2025

Lipids and Cancer: Targeting Fatty Acid Synthase and Lipid Mobilization with Botanical Medicine

By Donnie Yance

Cancer isn’t merely uncontrolled cell growth, it’s a profound disruption of the body’s metabolic pathways. At its core, cancer represents a reprogramming of how cells generate, use, and store energy. This metabolic reprogramming is now recognized as a defining hallmark of cancer initiation, progression, and metastasis. Unlike healthy cells, which follow tightly regulated biochemical pathways to sustain balanced growth and repair, cancer cells hijack these pathways to fuel relentless proliferation. They shift their energy production away from normal mitochondrial respiration toward glycolysis, even in the presence of oxygen, a phenomenon known as the Warburg effect. Beyond this, cancer cells profoundly alter their metabolism of fatty acids, amino acids, and minerals to create a biochemical environment that supports survival, invasion, and immune evasion. Understanding these metabolic adaptations is essential not only for decoding the behavior of cancer but also for discovering new therapeutic strategies, especially those that can be found in nature’s medicinal treasure chest.

Metabolic reprogramming is a hallmark of cancer initiation, progression, and metastasis. The metabolic signature of cancer cells includes alterations in glycolysis, mitochondrial respiration, fatty acid, amino acid ¹, and mineral (ion) metabolism.²

October 27, 2025October 27, 2025

Green Tea and Prostate Cancer: Promising Connections for Health

By Donnie Yance

Green tea is produced from fresh leaves of Camellia sinensis by steaming or drying without fermentation. In recent years, green tea has emerged as a particularly promising candidate against prostate cancer. Evidence from epidemiologic studies indicate that frequent consumption of green tea is inversely associated with the risk of several types of human cancer,^{1,2, 3}including prostate cancer.⁴

October 13, 2025October 14, 2025

Natural Compounds for Beating Dormant Breast Cancer Stem Cells

By Donnie Yance

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This review examines one of breast cancer’s most challenging aspects: dormant disseminated tumor cells (DTCs) that fuel cancer recurrence. Despite initial treatment success, 25-45% of breast cancer patients relapse months or years later with fatal secondary or metastatic disease, with dormancy being the key culprit behind both early and late recurrence.

September 15, 2025September 15, 2025

Modified Citrus Pectin: One Of Nature’s Answers To Cancer Cells’ Spread

By Donnie Yance

Cancer becomes most dangerous when it spreads from its original location to other parts of the body—a process called metastasis. This spreading relies on certain proteins called lectins, which act like molecular “velcro” helping cancer cells stick together and communicate with each other. ¹ Using modified citrus pectin for cancer is one strategy that can block or slow down the metastasis process.

One particular type of lectin—called galectin-3 (Gal-3)—has captured researchers’ attention because it plays a key role in how several types of cancers spread, including breast, prostate, and colon cancer.²^,³ Blood levels of galectin-3 closely track with cancer progression, making it a valuable marker for doctors to monitor how well treatments are working.

September 8, 2025September 5, 2025

Parmigiano Reggiano: The King of Cheeses

by Donnie Yance

Parmigiano Reggiano, a cheese to which I am somewhat addicted, offers a delicious sharp, nutty, and slightly salty flavor that has earned it the nickname “King of Cheeses” among culinary enthusiasts worldwide.

The Health Paradox of Cheese

Cheese is a nutrient-dense fermented dairy product consumed worldwide, though its health effects remain controversial. It provides high-quality protein (mainly casein), essential minerals (calcium, phosphorus, magnesium), vitamins (A, K2, B2, B12, folate), and beneficial bioactive compounds including probiotics. However, cheese also contains significant amounts of saturated fat and sodium, which are generally considered unfavorable for cardiovascular health.

The molecular structure and nutritional profile of cheese varies substantially by type. While many varieties contain potentially problematic levels of fat and sodium with limited nutritional value, others like Parmigiano Reggiano offer exceptional health benefits despite being cheese.

Multiple meta-analysis studies provide comprehensive perspectives on cheese consumption research, identifying uncertainties, biases, and knowledge gaps in existing evidence.¹ Parmigiano Reggiano is characterized by exceptional nutritional qualities, containing substances with specific biological actions. According to the definition established by the European Union, it can be fully classified as a ‘functional’ food.²

September 3, 2025September 3, 2025

The Benefits of Baking Soda For Cancer?

By Donnie Yance

Is baking soda for cancer a valid idea? Cancer (The Cancer Energy/Intelligence) alters the tumor microenvironment in several ways, and one of them is by creating an acidic zone around the tumor that promotes cancer progression and treatment resistance. Recent research suggests that sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) or potassium bicarbonate supplementation can offer significant benefits for prostate and other cancer patients by neutralizing this tumor acidity.

Sodium bicarbonate, commonly known as baking soda, serves multiple clinical purposes beyond its well-established role as an antacid for treating gastric hyperacidity. Recent research by Chao et al.¹ has demonstrated promising applications in oncology through a novel approach targeting intratumor lactic acidosis during chemoembolization procedures. Chemoembolization is a treatment where chemotherapy drugs are delivered directly to a tumor, while simultaneously blocking the tumor’s blood supply to reduce side effects and maximize drug concentration at the tumor site. In their clinical trial, the researchers modified conventional chemoembolization by incorporating a 5% sodium bicarbonate solution alongside standard cytotoxic drugs, achieving remarkably high local tumor control rates. This use of baking soda for cancer by injecting it directly into the tumor has profound implications. The underlying mechanism for sodium bicarbonate’s antitumor efficacy appears to be its ability to neutralize the acidic tumor microenvironment, which typically promotes cancer cell proliferation and therapeutic resistance.²