Hormones In Cancer Treatment

Dr. Nathan Goodyear addresses the topic of hormones in cancer treatment as part of a weekly in-house Insights from An Oasis of Healing.

In these sessions, Dr. Goodyear leads the discussion on pertinent cancer-related topics and how it relates to An Oasis of Healing’s comprehensive cancer care program and their patients’ healing journeys. Today we talk about hormones in cancer treatment and the complex communication process that is involved with it.

I have covered a lot of information on receptors as well as hormone metabolites. The wrong environment in the body does take years to develop. Hypoxia which represents an acid-base imbalance takes time to develop.

Currently, we have an epidemic in the US with kids between the ages of six to fourteen years old who are considered obese. The characteristics these children share are poor nutrition, high levels of stress and a  lack of physical activity will facilitate creating the wrong environment in the body.

This will develop a pattern that can possibly activate the production of a lot of estrogen triggering the wrong receptor which promotes growth. This just doesn’t happen of all a sudden.

It is not like someone taking progesterone for 6 months and then boom. In reality, this environment has been evolving at a slow pace, growing and progressing to a point where the body takes good things and does the wrong things with them.

The focus of what we are talking about here is a hormone pathway. For example, testosterone to estrogen as well as two metabolites; 3α-androstanediol and 3β-androstanediol.

Hormones in Cancer Treatment is a Highly Complex Communication Process Where Clarity is Needed for a Cell’s Proper Functioning

When it comes to testosterone, people tend to focus on male hormones. It becomes all about testosterone, however, what is forgotten is testosterone can be converted to estradiol.

And beyond menopause, it is the same thing. The rest of the story tends to be overlooked when it comes to dihydrotestosterone, through the enzyme 5α-reductase and ultimately the conversion to 3α-androstanediol and 3β by way of the Aldo-Keto reductase enzyme.

This is important to note because in reviewing testosterone, no study has shown that testosterone causes prostate cancer. What it comes down to is what the metabolism in the body ends up doing with these hormones when in the wrong environment!

What really stands out when discussing this topic is the fact that for the most part, it can take decades for this to happen. The hormones and metabolites interact with each other as well as the various respective receptors.

The hormone testosterone is not the only hormone to talk about and review. It is also about estrogen, it’s about progesterone and it’s about testosterone.

This communication process is highly complex between what happens with hormones, hormone metabolites and everything else involved. This process is ongoing but when it becomes dysfunctional it is a bunch of noise and that noise is unfortunately what is called cancer.

It is our job to work our way through that noise and provide clarity with a cell’s functioning. This is how to use hormones in cancer treatment. We are attempting to take that noise and provide clear communication, so the cells know exactly what to do. You can view all of our weekly Insights videos here on this page.