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Thomas N. Seyfried (born 1946 [1] ) is an American professor of biology, genetics, and biochemistry at Boston College.
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Thomas N. Seyfried (born 1946 [1] ) is an American professor of biology, genetics, and biochemistry at Boston College.
His father, William E. Seyfried, Sr., served in the United States Merchant Marine during World War II and was president and founder of Capeway Paints in Brockton, Massachusetts. [2] His brother William E. Seyfried, Jr. is a University of Minnesota professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. [3] Seyfried served in the United States Army during the Vietnam War, receiving the Bronze Star, the Air Medal, and the Army Commendation Medal. [4]
Seyfried received his PhD from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1976. His postdoctoral fellowship studies were in the Department of Neurology at the Yale University School of Medicine where he served as an assistant professor in neurology. He did undergraduate work at the University of New England, formerly St. Francis College, and received a master's degree in genetics from Illinois State University, Normal.
His research focuses on mechanisms of chronic diseases such as cancer, epilepsy, neurodegenerative lipid storage diseases, and caloric restriction diets. [5] He previously served as chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee for the National Tay-Sachs and Allied Diseases Association. His 2012 book is Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management, and Prevention of Cancer. Seyfried is a popular interview guest regarding the metabolic theory of cancer.
In podcast interviews Seyfried has claimed that radiation therapy and chemotherapy, which he compares to "medieval cures", can only marginally improve life expectancy by 1-2 months for cancer patients, with Seyfried advocating that cancer patients adopt a ketogenic diet. Seyfried's claims about the effectiveness of conventional cancer treatments are not supported by scientific evidence, and other medical professionals have said there is insufficient evidence that ketogenic diets are effective treatments for cancer. [6] [7] [8] In his peer-reviewed scientific publications, Seyfried has argued that dose-adjusted chemotherapy and radiation should be integrated into ketogenic metabolic therapy. [9] [10]
isoleucine is an α-amino acid that is used in the biosynthesis of proteins. It contains an α-amino group, an α-carboxylic acid group, and a hydrocarbon side chain with a branch. It is classified as a non-polar, uncharged, branched-chain, aliphatic amino acid. It is essential in humans, meaning the body cannot synthesize it. Essential amino acids are necessary in the human diet. In plants isoleucine can be synthesized from threonine and methionine. In plants and bacteria, isoleucine is synthesized from a pyruvate employing leucine biosynthesis enzymes. It is encoded by the codons AUU, AUC, and AUA.
The Atkins diet is a low-carbohydrate fad diet devised by Robert Atkins in the 1970s, marketed with claims that carbohydrate restriction is crucial to weight loss and that the diet offered "a high calorie way to stay thin forever".
Ketosis is a metabolic state characterized by elevated levels of ketone bodies in the blood or urine. Physiological ketosis is a normal response to low glucose availability. In physiological ketosis, ketones in the blood are elevated above baseline levels, but the body's acid–base homeostasis is maintained. This contrasts with ketoacidosis, an uncontrolled production of ketones that occurs in pathologic states and causes a metabolic acidosis, which is a medical emergency. Ketoacidosis is most commonly the result of complete insulin deficiency in type 1 diabetes or late-stage type 2 diabetes. Ketone levels can be measured in blood, urine or breath and are generally between 0.5 and 3.0 millimolar (mM) in physiological ketosis, while ketoacidosis may cause blood concentrations greater than 10 mM.
Orthomolecular medicine is a form of alternative medicine that claims to maintain human health through nutritional supplementation. It is rejected by evidence-based medicine. The concept builds on the idea of an optimal nutritional environment in the body and suggests that diseases reflect deficiencies in this environment. Treatment for disease, according to this view, involves attempts to correct "imbalances or deficiencies based on individual biochemistry" by use of substances such as vitamins, minerals, amino acids, trace elements and fatty acids. The notions behind orthomolecular medicine are not supported by sound medical evidence, and the therapy is not effective for chronic disease prevention; even the validity of calling the orthomolecular approach a form of medicine has been questioned since the 1970s.
Low-carbohydrate diets restrict carbohydrate consumption relative to the average diet. Foods high in carbohydrates are limited, and replaced with foods containing a higher percentage of fat and protein, as well as low carbohydrate foods.
Craniosacral therapy (CST) or cranial osteopathy is a form of alternative medicine that uses gentle touch to feel non-existent rhythmic movements of the skull's bones and supposedly adjust the immovable joints of the skull to achieve a therapeutic result. CST is a pseudoscience and its practice has been characterized as quackery. It is based on fundamental misconceptions about the anatomy and physiology of the human skull and is promoted as a cure-all for a variety of health conditions.
The ketogenic diet is a high-fat, adequate-protein, low-carbohydrate dietary therapy that in conventional medicine is used mainly to treat hard-to-control (refractory) epilepsy in children. The diet forces the body to burn fats rather than carbohydrates.
Max Gerson was a German-born American physician who developed the Gerson therapy, a dietary-based alternative cancer treatment that he claimed could cure cancer and most chronic, degenerative diseases. Gerson therapy involves a plant-based diet with coffee enemas, ozone enemas, dietary supplements and raw calf liver extract, the latter was discontinued in the 1980s after patients were hospitalized for bacterial infections.
William Donald Kelley was an American orthodontist who developed "non-specific metabolic therapy," an alternative cancer treatment, now known to be ineffective, which he based on his personal belief that "wrong foods [cause] malignancy to grow, while proper foods [allow] natural body defenses to work."
Pyruvate dehydrogenase deficiency is a rare neurodegenerative disorder associated with abnormal mitochondrial metabolism. PDCD is a genetic disease resulting from mutations in one of the components of the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex (PDC). The PDC is a multi-enzyme complex that plays a vital role as a key regulatory step in the central pathways of energy metabolism in the mitochondria. The disorder shows heterogeneous characteristics in both clinical presentation and biochemical abnormality.
A medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) is a triglyceride with two or three fatty acids having an aliphatic tail of 6–12 carbon atoms, i.e. a medium-chain fatty acid (MCFA). Rich food sources for commercial extraction of MCTs include palm kernel oil and coconut oil.
Eva Lucille Feldman is an American physician-scientist known for her work in the field of neurodegenerative diseases. She serves as the Russell N. DeJong Professor of Neurology at the University of Michigan, as well as the director of the NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies and ALS Center of Excellence at Michigan Medicine. She was also named the James W. Albers Distinguished University Professor of Neurology.
GLUT1 deficiency syndrome, also known as GLUT1-DS, De Vivo disease or Glucose transporter type 1 deficiency syndrome, is an autosomal dominant genetic metabolic disorder associated with a deficiency of GLUT1, the protein that transports glucose across the blood brain barrier. Glucose Transporter Type 1 Deficiency Syndrome has an estimated birth incidence of 1 in 90,000 to 1 in 24,300. This birth incidence translates to an estimated prevalence of 3,000 to 7,000 in the U.S.
Nicholas James Gonzalez was a New York–based physician known for developing the Gonzalez regimen, an alternative cancer treatment. Gonzalez's treatments were based on his belief that pancreatic enzymes were the body's main defense against cancer and could be used as a cancer treatment. His methods have been generally rejected by the medical community, and he has been characterized as a quack and fraud by other doctors and health fraud watchdog groups. In 1994 Gonzalez was reprimanded and placed on two years' probation by the New York State Medical Board for "departing from accepted practice".
John Mark Freeman was an American pediatric neurologist specializing in epilepsy. He is known for bringing two long-abandoned treatments for pediatric epilepsy back into popular use. One, the ketogenic diet, is a carefully managed, low-carbohydrate high-fat diet plan that reduces the incidence of seizures in children during and after its use, and the other, the hemispherectomy, is a drastic surgical procedure in which part or all of one highly seizure-prone hemisphere of the brain is removed to alleviate severe epilepsy.
Grape therapy or grape diet, also known as ampelotherapy, is a diet that involves heavy consumption of grapes, including seeds, and parts of the vine, including leaves, that is a form of alternative medicine. The concept was developed in 19th-century Germany in spas such as Bad Duerkheim and Merano. The concept has no scientific basis and is regarded as quackery by scientific institutions like the American Cancer Society.
Joseph Maroon is an American neurosurgeon, author, and triathlon athlete. He is a professor of and the vice chairman of the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and is the medical director of WWE. He is particularly known for his work studying concussions and concussion prevention as well as his hypothesis on the development of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
Steven R. Gundry is an American physician, low-carbohydrate diet author and former cardiothoracic surgeon. Gundry is the author of The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in "Healthy" Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain, which promotes the controversial lectin-free diet. He runs an experimental clinic investigating the impact of a lectin-free diet on health.
The metabolic theory of cancer is the hypothesis that the primary cause of cancer is changes in cellular metabolism. The theory is strongly linked to the idea that diet can be used to prevent or treat many or most types of cancer. It is widely accepted that changes in cellular metabolism—specifically, an increased reliance on glucose for energy, and up-regulation of anabolic processes—do occur in many types of cancer cells. However, the idea that cancer can be controlled mostly or entirely by diet does not have broad acceptance in the medical field.
One especially common variant is the ketogenic diet for cancer, pivoting on the assumption that forced physiological ketosis (a normal response to low glucose availability brought on by fasting or low carbohydrate diets) avoids fuelling cancer. This concept has been taken to extremes by some advocates, who assert that ketogenic diets eliminate the need for chemotherapy and radiotherapy. However, there is insufficient evidence to support the efficacy of ketogenic diets in cancer, with only a few, somewhat biased, clinical investigations, with findings that are distinctly at odds with the more sweeping claims made.
Christofferson, Travis (2017). Tripping over the Truth: How the Metabolic Theory of Cancer Is Overturning One of Medicine's Most Entrenched Paradigms. Chelsea Green Publishing.
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