by Mila McManus, MD
Several cancer institutions and early national data are showing a glaring uptick in unusual, aggressive, late-stage, and multiple cancers since the COVID-19 pandemic began. While some experts have mostly dismissed the trend, many oncology specialists have refused to stop trying to understand if the coronavirus could somehow be igniting cancer. This topic has been circulating around for a while now in the functional medicine world, and since this information recently appeared in my inbox from mainstream media (Washington Post), I thought it would be a good time to share it.
The exact biological mechanism of action is not clear. Although, as the science on the COVID virus has evolved, studies show widespread inflammation following infection. As a result, there is marked impact on the vascular system and infection in multiple organs that are vulnerable to cancer stem cell development. For Afshin Beheshti, president of the COVID-19 International Research Team and a cancer biology specialist, this has been a nagging paradigm igniting his passion to work with other interested oncology researchers to launch more studies to piece together the puzzle of coronavirus infection, long covid, and cancer. Striking findings point to the importance of the immune system in activating dormant cells, making sense to the idea that influenza or COVID could trigger inflammation, changing the immune microenvironment, and reawakening cancer cells.
Dr. Elroy Vojdani, a functional medicine physician and founder of Immunosciences Lab, has a different hypothesis. He conservatively estimates that since 1999, autoimmune disease in the US has been increasing by 8-10% every year. Vojdani attributes increased cases of cancer and auto-immunity to a massive dysregulation of our immune function. He proposed that, over time, immune insults have dramatically increased: increased rates of C-sections, less breastfeeding, early use of antibiotics, gut-busting drugs such as acid blockers, anti-inflammatories, and steroids, increased consumption of ultra-processed foods, and the depletion of our microbiome from glyphosate and other toxic exposure. As a result, when the COVID pandemic arrived, many Americans had lost the immune resilience to cope with the virus, leading to long-term increases in unusual cancers and autoimmune diseases.
The T-regulatory cell is an important immune cell in the human body. The largest population of them is in the intestinal gut lining. If your gut is compromised, so is your immune system. Treatment of all diseases by focusing on gut health, diet, and lifestyle is fundamental to restoring immune resiliency [the ability to bounce back from inflammatory attacks]. Specifically, a healthy gut is protective against the cascade of inflammation that leads to cancer, autoimmunity, long-covid, and chronic infections from parasites, molds, viruses, and harmful bacteria.
Whether or not the coronavirus is directly responsible for an increase in unusual cancers is unclear. It is clear that a resilient immune system is your best defense against disease, and this begins in the gut.
Restore the gut. Restore immunity. Be well.
Resources:
www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/06/06/covid-cancer-increase-link/
The Root Causes of Inflammation & What You Can Do To Stop it. August 19, 2024, Episode 937, drhyman.com, The Doctor’s Farmacy podcast.