A new study suggest that cancer is a preservation technique that is activated by the body by allowing its cells to run on "safe mode." Cosmologist researchers from the Arizona State University, led by Paul Davies, have released a controversial theory in attempt to explain the origins of cancer based on previous information from years of research regarding the disease's evolutionary model. If this theory could somehow be proven to have significant bearing, then it could become the basis for alternative therapy options for treating cancer, including the use of oxygen for treatment as well as immunotherapy.
Coming from a physics point of view rather than the traditional biomedical science that has been used to study the disease, Davies and his team has been studying cancer in cooperation with the National Cancer Institute for a significant amount of time now, bringing oncologists and physical scientists together in an attempt to look at the disease from a different perspective. According to Davies, "We were asked to rethink cancer from the bottom up." He has been working with astrobiologist Charlie Lineweaver from the Australian national University in Canberra, and oncologist Dr. Mark Vincent from the London Health capsizes Center in Ontario.
Together, they have formulated the "atavistic" model of cancer, which bases its argument on the speculation that the disease is a re-expression of intrinsically mapped out cellular traits that remain inactive in the absence of a possible threat. Their theory suggests that cancer has evolved with plant and animal life, but assumed dormancy when their function was no longer needed when evolution resulted to the development of complex multicellular organisms. The hypothesis is that when cells become the target of an external threat, they revert to this "preprogrammed safe mode," activating the cells from dormancy and allowing them to multiply as they go into survival mode. Davies says that, essentially, "Cancer is a failsafe. Once the subroutine is triggered, it implements its program ruthlessly."
Based on this assumption, the team suggests that treating cancers by lowering the body's acidity combined with high levels of oxygen may put enough strain on the cancer cells and result in the shrinking of tumors. A suggestion that was modeled after the fact that cancer cells could have thrived in an acidic and significantly less oxygenated environment during its evolutionary stages.