Let's understand some terms first. Metabolism is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. The primary purpose of metabolism is to convert incoming food into cellular energy. Cancer cells have a high rate of metabolism, meaning they convert food into energy much faster than normal cells. This high rate of metabolism produces a lot of acid in the body.
Otto Heinrich Warburg was a German biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1931. He discovered that cancer cells have a high rate of metabolism, which produces a lot of acid in the body.
Biochemist Otto Heinrich Warburg, one of the twentieth century's leading cell biologists, discovered that the root cause of cancer is too much acidity in the body, meaning that the pH, potential hydrogen, in the body is below the normal level of 7.365, which constitutes an “acidic” state. Warburg investigated the metabolism of tumors and the respiration of cells and discovered that cancer cells maintain and thrive in a lower pH, as low as 6.0, due to
lactic acid production and elevated CO2.
He firmly believed that there was a direct relationship between pH and oxygen. Higher pH, which is Alkaline, means higher concentration of oxygen molecules, while lower pH, which is acidic, means lower concentrations of oxygen...the same oxygen that is needed to maintain healthy cells.
In 1931 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for this important discovery. Dr. Warburg was director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (now Max Planck Institute) for cell physiology at Berlin. He investigated the metabolism of tumors and the respiration of cells, particularly cancer cells. Below are some direct quotes by Dr. Warburg during medical lectures where he was the keynote speaker: