If you or someone dear to you are interested in exploring a safe and effective alternative cancer treatment, insulin potentiation therapy (IPT) might be for you. So, what is IPT? In essence, the treatment makes it easier for certain chemotherapy drugs to target various types of cancer while minimizing some of the most common side effects of standard chemotherapy.
IPT cancer treatment has two main benefits for cancer patients. First, IPT reduces a person’s potential to experience long-lasting adverse chemotherapy side effects because it calls for lower doses of chemotherapy drugs. Second, the IPT therapy naturally increases the effectiveness of conventional chemo. Ultimately, insulin potentiation therapy for cancer allows patients to retain all the benefits of standard cancer treatment while reducing the most uncomfortable effects.
Read on to learn more about how IPT works, who can benefit from it, what to expect, and what the current science is telling us about its effectiveness.
How Does IPT for Cancer Work?
IPT uses insulin (a hormone produced naturally by the pancreas to regulate blood sugar) to improve the effectiveness of conventional chemotherapy. The treatment calls on the natural properties of insulin to help chemotherapy medicines enter cancer cells more efficiently.
Insulin potentiation therapy works by highlighting cancer cells with insulin, which essentially tricks them into accepting chemotherapy. This creates a higher intracellular concentration of chemotherapy medicine, which then leads to increased drug effectiveness.
One of the major appeals of IPT is that it requires a much lower dose of chemotherapy drugs than standard cancer treatment plans. A typical course of treatment requires only up to 25% of the usual dose, and often even lower.
This results in not only fewer but also less severe negative than conventional chemotherapy side effects. In the end, patients report an overall greater quality of life with IPT cancer treatment than with standard chemotherapy treatments.
How Does Insulin Potentiation Therapy Kill Cancer Cells?
Insulin potentiation therapy works because cancerous cells use more blood glucose than healthy cells. For this reason, sugar-hungry cancer cells are much more receptive to insulin than normal cells, which allows doctors to target and kill them more effectively.
The insulin administered to the patient essentially primes, pumps, and prepares cancer cells by making them more permeable for the upcoming dose of chemotherapy drugs. This increased permeability makes cancerous cells more likely to accept the chemotherapy drugs. The final piece of the puzzle is a dose of glucose, which the sugar-starved cancer cells readily consume, thereby giving the chemotherapy medicine a final push inside.
What to Expect from Insulin Potentiation Therapy
Insulin potentiation therapy begins with a consultation and medical evaluation to determine the dose of chemotherapy drugs and insulin that will work best for the patient. IPT is administered in a safe and controlled environment by experienced nurses and doctors.
Like the traditional chemotherapy treatment, IPTis administered through an IV while the patient relaxes in a comfortable setting. Patients are first administered a small dose of insulin near their tumor sites, followed shortly by low dose chemotherapy medicine. Lastly, the patient is given a dose of glucose (sugar).
Once the insulin highlights the cancerous cells, the glucose helps push the chemotherapy drugs into the cells. After all three doses are administered, the treatment is complete for the day. Each treatment session is roughly one to two hours long. Patients can expect to feel nauseous for a few hours following treatment, but many experience few other side effects.
Bear in mind that while IPT treatment uses an overall lower dose of chemotherapy drugs, it’s usually repeated more frequently than traditional chemotherapy. In the early stages of treatment, IPT might be administered as often as twice per week. However, schedules are determined at the patient’s initial evaluation and adjusted later on if needed.
Is IPT Effective for Treating Cancer?
Medical studies have shown IPT treatment to be effective in treating certain types of cancers, including colon cancer, prostate cancer, and breast cancer. In one promising case, a breast cancer patient’s tumor was no longer visible on a mammogram after 90 days of insulin potentiation therapy.
Who Can Benefit from Insulin Potentiation Therapy?
Every patient is unique, and no chronic illness is the same. Insulin potentiation therapy can be an excellent option in cases where effective traditional chemotherapy treatment options exist. However, certain cancers may only be reliably treated with conventional therapies.
Additionally, some patients suffering from metastatic cancer, colon cancer, and prostate cancer choose insulin potentiation therapy when other treatments have proven ineffective. IPT can also be an effective option for end-stage cancer patients who wish to prolong their lives without experiencing the severe side effects of traditional chemo.
Why Choose Insulin Potentiation Therapy?
Chemotherapy is a medical treatment that uses powerful chemicals to kill fast-growing cells in the body, and it’s generally not very good at discriminating between healthy cells and unhealthy cells. But since cancerous cells often grow and divide faster than normal cells, chemotherapy has a better shot at killing cancer cells than healthy cells.
For many patients, the effects of chemotherapy can feel much worse than the symptoms of cancer. IPT treatment retains the benefits of chemotherapy while reducing the negative side effects.
Chemotherapy is well-established to be effective at treating cancers of all types. And yet, since the systemic treatment affects a patient’s entire body, adverse side effects can be widespread.
Some of the most common side effects of chemotherapy include (but aren’t limited to):
- Hair loss
- Fatigue
- Frequent bruising and bleeding
- Anemia
- Infections
- Vomiting and general nausea
- Appetite and weight changes
- Constipation and diarrhea
- Mood changes
The otherwise healthy cells most likely to be damaged by chemotherapy include blood-forming cells in bone marrow, as well as cells found in a person’s hair follicles, mouth, digestive tract, and reproductive system. Some chemotherapy medicines can also affect cells in the heart, kidney, bladder, lungs, and nervous system.
Drugs exist to help protect your body’s normal cells, and there are many treatments available to help relieve the side effects. That being said, the best way to minimize the adverse effects of chemotherapy is to reduce the amount administered to the patient.
Is IPT Treatment Safe?
IPT treatment is considered safe. At Immunity Therapy Center, cancer patients are in the hands of experienced and compassionate medical experts dedicated to their wellness and better treatment outcomes.
The most common side effect of insulin potentiation therapy is hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). This temporary condition can be relieved by closely monitoring a patient’s blood sugar levels and administering more glucose as needed.
IPT patients may still experience some negative side effects of chemo drugs. However, those who undergo insulin potentiation therapy report far fewer symptoms overall than patients who receive traditional chemo.
Medical Studies on IPT Therapy
Insulin potentiation therapy is still in the early stages of medical discovery and exploration. Numerous small-scale studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of IPT for colon cancer, prostate cancer, and breast cancer. That said, large-scale trials have yet to be completed on the treatment.
Some traditional medical providers criticize insulin potentiation therapy for using lowe dose chemotherapy medicine. The concern among these practitioners is that a low dose chemo treatment may not be as effective at killing cancerous cells as a standard chemotherapy dose.
But even though a single IPT session may only involve 10% of a typical chemo dose, the drugs are administered more frequently.
Additionally, critics of IPT don’t account for the increased effectiveness of chemotherapy when used in conjunction with insulin. The simple truth is that traditional cancer treatment is designed with overkill in mind, the notion being that damaging a patient’s body is a necessary price to pay. Medical practitioners who provide IPT know it’s possible to destroy serious cancers in a more targeted, accurate manner.
And while large-scale medical studies of insulin potentiation therapy have yet to confirm its effectiveness, small-scale studies have shown promising results in terms of both patient survival and quality of life.
Learn More About IPT Therapy for Cancer
Immunity Therapy Center’s ultimate goal is to provide cancer patients with an alternative to traditional chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Our non-invasive therapies have given individuals suffering from even the most advanced stages of cancer hope in healing.
We’re here to help you or your loved one through this trying time. Chemotherapy treatments can be destructive and painful, but an alternative cancer treatment like IPT allows patients to retain the benefits without the side effects.
Call Immunity Therapy Center to learn more about insulin potentiation therapy.
Written By: Dr. Adolfo Carrillo
Dr. Adolfo Carrillo is a Board Certified Medical Doctor from Universidad Autónoma de Baja California.
Dr. Carrillo has been collaborating with Dr. Bautista for over 5 years as a treating physician at the Immunity the Immunity Therapy Center. Dr. Carrillo is a charismatic Doctor whose knowledge and commitment to patient care and bringing healing to patients is a valuable asset to our center.
External sources:
- https://www.healthline.com/health/type-2-diabetes/insulin
- https://cam-cancer.org/en/insulin-potentiation-therapy
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22649741/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20148468/
- https://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatments-and-side-effects/treatment-types/chemotherapy/chemotherapy-side-effects.html
At Immunity Therapy Center, our goal is to provide objective, updated, and research-based information on all health-related topics. This article is based on scientific research and/or other scientific articles. All information has been fact-checked and reviewed by Dr. Carlos Bautista, a Board Certified Medical Doctor at Immunity Therapy Center. All information published on the site must undergo an extensive review process to ensure accuracy. This article contains trusted sources with all references hyperlinked for the reader's visibility.