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Surviving Glioblastoma: McCain's Brain Tumor Is an Aggressive Type of Cancer

  • July 21, 2017

Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate, was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme. This is a famously aggressive form of brain cancer and generally returns quickly after the completion of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Despite a decades-long war on cancer, and the "most advanced" treatments known to 21st century oncologists, people who develop this fast-growing cancer are generally given a prognosis of about 15 months to live — if they're lucky.

Hopefully, Sen. McCain is able to overcome this challenge. In situations like this, most people turn to their oncologists or neurosurgeons with requests for possible experimental or outside-the-box treatments. The problem is that the oncologist can't, or won't, prescribe them. To do so would risk his or her reputation and even medical license, should you decide to sue.

The outlook may be grim but there are examples of patients beating the odds. You can hear such stories first-hand in the film "Surviving Terminal Cancer," above. Professor Emeritus Ben Williams, at University of California, San Diego, shouldn't be here today. He should be one of the statistics — 1 of the more than 15,000 people who die from glioblastoma multiforme in the U.S. every year. Yet, he's alive — 19 years after his initial glioblastoma multiforme diagnosis. His survival was brushed off as a rare fluke by his doctors, but Williams believes otherwise. 

Some abandoned drugs have shown promise for glioblastoma multiforme, but they're not offered to U.S. patients. While I'm not in favor of over-prescribing medications, if you're facing a deadly prognosis you're probably willing to risk the side effects if it gives you a chance for survival. 

High-dose tamoxifen, a breast cancer drug, is one medication that has shown some promise in treating glioblastoma multiforme. The antimalaria drug chloroquine is another. There's even a good chance your neuro-oncologist may be aware of the promising studies done with these drugs, but he or she won't offer them as a potential treatment because they're considered experimental.

My newest book, “Fat for Fuel,” incorporates cutting edge science and is based on the philosophy that treating the root cause of illness is far more effective than merely addressing the symptoms as they appear. This simple principle stands in stark contrast to a conventional medical industry that has comprehensively failed to meet the needs of patients.

I believe, along with many of the experts I interviewed in “Fat for Fuel,” that more than 90 percent of cancer cases are either preventable or treatable. Too many people fail to understand that their odds of developing cancer are greatly reduced if their mitochondria are healthy and functional. “Fat for Fuel” provides a potentially life-saving game plan that can repair and improve the health of your mitochondria: Mitochondrial Metabolic Therapy (MMT).