The Biochemical Terrain: What Every Cancer Patient Needs To Know

Early on during my medical training I was carrying cancer cells in a petri dish from one lab to another, just a 5-minute walk down the hall. The graduate student in the second lab was quite agitated with me, yelling for me to move faster, because the cells died during this short walk, preventing him from doing his lab work.

While racing back to get yet another batch of malignant cells, I found myself struck by the disconnect between the fearsome reputation of these cells and their astonishing vulnerability. How had these cancer cells, that could not survive a simple quick walk, wreak such havoc in the human body, and be so destructive that they would end up killing my uncle, grandfather and grandmother by the time I turned sixteen?

The contrast was instructive: I instinctively understood that malignant cells can survive and can cause hellish destruction only when they are coddled, nourished, and protected by the biochemical environment in which they reside. Detached from their surroundings – separated from the body and their microenvironment – these cells are actually quite fragile and vulnerable! I realized that our bodies have the ability to “coddle or combat” cancer, depending on the state or condition of our biochemical environment. It was an experience that would galvanize what has become 4+ decades of investigating and researching the clinical relevance and influence that the extracellular and intracellular environments have on cancer cells.

ASSESSING AND CORRECTING THE TERRAIN

Since the inception of the Block Center for Integrative Cancer Treatment, my research staff and I have spent a great deal of time developing and evolving diagnostic laboratory testing and treatment options that can transform the biochemical environment from one that is cancer-promoting – commonly found in cancer patients – to one that is cancer-inhibiting. A patient’s terrain plays an integral role in:

• Determining whether a tumor will respond to treatment.
• How well a patient will tolerate care.
• Whether or not a tumor will later regain its foothold.
• How likely cancer cells will disseminate and metastasize to distant sites or whether or not a tumor will lie dormant, without posing further threat.

Laboratory testing at the Block Center includes our advanced, proprietary “terrain panel,” along with additional analyses to uncover the individualized pathways of progression; cancer drivers and promoters unique to each patient’s disease and pathology. Included in this terrain panel: routine blood counts, hormonal markers, comprehensive metabolic chemistries, cancer biomarkers, and an additional set of advanced terrain labs that look at inflammation, glycemia and insulin, immune function, coagulopathy, and stress and sleep chemistry.
Why is this level of detailed testing important? Our testing provides an “objective fingerprint,” which allows us to then favorably modify a patient’s terrain through the use of:
• IV Nutrition, which can help counter adverse effects from treatment as well as counter treatment resistance, allowing mainstream drugs to maintain efficacy far longer.
• IV Nutrition coupled with chemotherapy drugs, to improve treatment response and outcome and block multiple pathways that can drive cancer.
• Nutraceuticals
• Off-label medications, and
• Dietary and lifestyle changes.
Additional information about the terrain is available in Life Over Cancer. Telehealth consultations are available by appointment: 1-877-412-5625.

-Keith I. Block, MD