Cancer: Carcinoma of the Oropharynx, Esophagus, and Small Bowel - The Cancer Connection, By Ronald Hoggan

The following piece was written by Ronald Hoggan who is a teacher at Queen Elizabeth High School in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

M. Stanislas Tanchou, a truly visionary physician, and campaigned with Napoleon Bonaparte, presented a paper to the Paris Science Society in 1843, which was a complex statistical examination of malignancy, offering evidence of increased malignancy with increased civilization (2). One of the prime indicators of a civilizing trend was a diet that included cereal grains. The greater the consumption of these foods, the greater the incidence of malignancy (3).

Dr. Chris Reading, an orthomolecular psychiatrist, in Australia, has documented the treatment of five cancer patients for depression (4). His testing for food allergies, and subsequent treatment of depression with dietary exclusion of cereal grains resulted in total remission of the cancers (which were also given conventional treatments) in all five patients he reports treating. One of these patients did die, but that was from the cancer treatment.

There are also two reports in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology (5) Lancet (6) that I cite in my Medical Hypotheses article. These reveal a total remission of malignancy in each patient. One report then recants the original diagnosis, and identifies the correct diagnosis as lymphadenopathy. In the other report, which spurs a heated debate, the original diagnosis is supported by a resected section of malignant bowel, and there can be no doubt as to the correct diagnosis.

Further, in a 1977 report, in Nutrition and Cancer (8), from Stanford University, all the children suffering from radiation and chemotherapy damage to the small bowel recovered fully from their chronic enteritis, and suffered no relapse of either the bowel obstruction or the disease. The treatment they were given was a gluten-free, dairy-free, low fat, low residue diet.

In an obscure Czech journal, a report has recently indicated that one or more of the gliadins, a sub-set of proteins in gluten, may also interfere with natural killer cell activation in peripheral blood (9). They tested the levels of natural killer cell activation in normal, and in treated celiacs, and found no significant difference. BUT, after 30 minutes exposure of the celiacs blood to gliadin, there was a reduced activation of natural killer cells.

For the last hundred years, billions of dollars have been spent identifying carcinogens. Most of what we encounter in our environment appears to have some measure of carcinogenic potential. Unfortunately, we have failed to reconcile that Humanity has been exposed to most of these carcinogens throughout its evolution. Conventional wisdom has pointed to the increasing levels of chemical pollution and environmental damage. And I do not doubt that these factors are contributing to the current epidemic of malignancy. What I do doubt is that segment of the population, variously reported at 20% to 30%, which has the HLA factors which predispose to celiac disease and many other autoimmune diseases, can mount an adequate immune response, with natural killer cells, against malignancy.

• Hoggan R, Considering Wheat, Rye, and Barley Proteins as Aids to Carcinogens in press Medical Hypotheses, 1997.
• Tanchou S, Statistics of Cancer London Lancet 1843; Aug 5, 593.
• Audette R, personal communication.
• Reading C, Meillon R, Your Family Tree Connection, Keats; New Canaan, Conn.: 1988.
• Wink A, et. al. Disappearance of Mesenteric Lymphadenopathy with Gluten-Free Deit in Celiac Sprue, J. Clin. Gastroenterol, 1993; 16(4): 317-319.
• Wright DH, et. al. Celiac disease and Lymphoma, Lancet 1991; 337:1373.
• Wright DH, et. al. letter Lancet 1991; 338: 318-319.
• Donaldson SS, Effect of Nutrition as Related to Radiation and Chemotherapy, Nutrition and Cancer, Winick ed. 1977; Wiley & Sons, NewYork, 137153.
• Castany M, Nguyen H, Pospisil M, Fric P, Tlaskalova-Hogenova H, Natural Killer Cell Activity in Celiac Disease: Effect of in Vitro Treatment on Effector Lymphocytes and/or Target Lymphoblastoid, Myeloid and Epithelial Cell Lines with Gliadin, Folia Microbial, 1995 (Praha) 40; 6: 615-620.