IPT (continued)

[Guest guest]

List,

When I posted on IPT, it was meant as a response to a subscriber who

had a bad experience, named the clinic, and then advised against

IPT. As I did not know the full story I left out all references to

that post; I wanted to make it clear though that IPT is just another

tool. It can be useful in the hands of the skilled and I have

advised on its use many times over many years. I learned it in 2002

from Dr. Donato - (the grandson of the inventor) who was

treating one of our program participants. Over the years I have

shared my observations with Dr. Donato. I think he is a skilled

practitioner who does a simple form of it that has proven very

successful with early stage cancers. I interviewed him extensively

on the technique so I could better understand its strengths and

weaknesses before recommending it (or any modifications) with any

clinic I advise. I thought that Dr. Donato was very honest. Any

time he did not know an answer he would say so. He claimed success

in about 25% of stage 3 cancers and 0% of stage 4 cancers.

This does not mean that it should not be used on late stage

cancers. It is all the more useful with late stage cancers if you

respect its limitations. It is a technique that requires

understanding and patience. Unfortunately I have seen its use

aggressively marketed by certain clinics. They use it on patients

who should not be candidates for the therapy and they use it in ways

that I consider so flawed that it tarnishes the good reputation that

IPT should have. The flaws that I listed in the earlier post are

very common and I can perhaps even say usual. That listing should

serve as a caveat to help potential users assess the skills of a

practitioner and to help the candidate frame his/her questions. For

example, " Doctor, how can IPT possibly work if I have a low SUV on my

PET-CT? " If a physician makes his/her living from IPT they want to

stay a thousand miles away from that question.

A patient would be foolish to ignore the fact that cancer treatment

is a business that is highly competitive and in which much money

changes hands. Every clinic and every physician puts on a show of

professionalism, authority, and caring. All too often their only

real skills are in displaying this pageantry. IPT has a special

attractiveness as a marketing tool: there is no governing body to set

standards, no mechanism to stop renegade physicians, no way to

attempt redress for misadventures, no transparency in procedures, no

certification process other than being listed on a website that a

weekend course was attended. Of course there are efforts to band

together to improve the product and its marketing and to protect

themselves from outside review or oversight.

All too often a physician has a struggling practice as a general

practitioner and now, with a few hours of training from a road-show

seminar, they are ready to go out and make the real money. This same

model is now being used by Dr. Simoncini to train physicians to cure

every cancer with injections of baking soda.

There are of course experienced, responsible non-oncologist

clinicians and researchers who have wide experience with cancer,

pathophysiology, pharmacology, and immunology who use the basic

understanding of the relationship of insulin, glucose, and high-grade

cancers to achieve better results. For them it is just another tool

or understanding that can be integrated into their practice. It isn't

even necessary to give the strategy its own name, i.e., " Insulin

Potentiation Therapy. " Unfortunately there are not that many of

these practitioners and these few are not well known because it is

not their nature to do a lot of grandstanding.

Conventional oncologists, their guilds, and official governing bodies

almost universally decry IPT with their dour rants that it is unsafe,

unproven, and it is being performed by skallywags and novices. You

would think it is one step short of criminal. At the opposite end of

the spectrum are those who make their living from it and their

Pollyanna supporters with their hosannas. A rational person would

step back and observe that IPT, if properly done, is just another way

to selectively increase chemo uptake into cancer cells -- in this

case any cells with a penchant for glucose. It is one among many

cancer-cell selective therapies. Others include the addition of

various functional groups on chemo molecules to better target

specific receptors, selective particle size to take advantage of

enhanced permeability of aberrant tumor microvasculature,

nanoparticle/liposome incasement, modification of cancer cell stains,

ion trapping, and perhaps a dozen more. These other strategies

usually require a certain comfort level with technical issues or the

meds are hard to obtain. IPT is available to anyone who can get

their hands on insulin.

On the fringes of allopathic medicine are a number of therapies that

do seem to have their merits but don't have an official imprimatur

because they can potentially undermine the profits and the paradigms

of the greater industry. Developers and practitioners of such

therapies can include the cutting-edge types, but just as often are

favored by the rascals and wannabes. A frantic patient has virtually

no chance to sort it all out. I try to use some of the educational

elements of our own program to help a wider audience become wiser consumers.

I am writing a book on rational ways to expand your options and take

charge of your own cancer treatment, and list members are helping me

by questioning and prompting clarifications. I am very appreciative.