So this one has come out of left field for sure.  It could be summed up (admittedly not very well) by saying stop doing most of the things you might already be doing on an alternate cancer protocol.  It is going to be controversial as a cancer treatment, and should definitely not be taken on lightly.  I have decided to give it a go as I have exhausted many other options, and it is possible that the responses I have seen so far support it working in my case.  But I will blog about that later.   I do no recommend this to anyone as I am not knowledgable enough in the area to do so.  I also have not yet had direct experience with it.  However in the spirit of giving power to the people I will try to briefly describe some of the ideas behind what is a very complex protocol.  In order to avid my poor writing skills getting in the way of my explanation I will use that most wonderful of inventions (I believe it truly was an invention, like the internal combustion engine) the bullet point.  Hey, I might even use more than one 😛

• The Marshall Protocol is an alternate treatment plan for chronic inflammation diseases.  This includes many thing but the main ones are things like Arthritis, MS, Asthma and possibly cancer.  More and more diseases are being discovered to have inflammation involved in them somehow and so this protocol may turn out to be wide-reaching.  Then again it might now, who can know.
• There is a lot of theory behind this one but it revolves around stimulating the body to deploy its innate inter and intra cellular immune defences more affectively.
• Much of the knowledge that has been used to construct this protocol is very new.  It utilises a lot of information gained from very detailed explorations of the total genomic material present in man human cells using very powerful gene sequences.  This information can be used to build up a picture of what biota are living in our cells.  This biota can not be detected, as far as I understand, by simply looking at the cells.
• Gene sequencing has shown that far from being devoid of biota our cells are teaming with it.  Thousands of species are living within our cells and interacting with our DNA all the time.  It seems that the biota we pick up as children stays with us and is probably constantly added to.  The human microbiome project estimates that there are 25,000 human genes and 10,000,000 bacterial genes within our body.
• These micro biota within our cells have incredibly complex interactions.  It is not possible for us to fully understand them.  From memory, and don’t quote me on this, HIV has 17 genes and we have spent billions of dollars on research to discover the something like 3000 interactions with the human genome (which are still not fully understood.)
• Study of diseased tissue seems to indicate that when the micro biota get “out of whack” it can lead to disease.
• The Marshal Protocol suggests (through published research) that the mechanism through which the body maintains homeostasis is via the vitamin D receptor (VDR) protein (my molecular biology is noticeably poor but I think protein is the correct nomenclature.  Basically it is the protein that floats around in the cells that contains the VDR that then does “stuff”.  This stuff is very complex and extensive.)
• Now I must explain about vitamin D and the VDR protein (see previous point about poor molecular bio and nomenclature).  Dr Marshall proposes that the traditional model of vitamin D creation and use is incorrect. Each cell regulates and creates its own vitamin D (this point seems very complex and I will not go into it here but it is explained extensively in his writings and in the videos available online.  See the links at the bottom.)  The VDR, contrary to what you might suspect considering its name, does not just perform tasks to do with vitamin D. It is also important in innate immunity.  This is both the intercellular and intracellular immunity.
• So if the VDR is not working properly then the innate immune system does not function properly.  This could explain many observations about low vitamin D levels in disease.  Low levels are often associated with higher risk of death in cancer and are associated with many autoimmune diseases.  I will put in no link for this, a quick google will confirm it.
• So what happens when disease takes hold for whatever reason or in other words the inter cellular biota gets out of kilter.  Well the diseases (which are fought by the compounds made by the VDR) block the VDR activity.  So suddenly the immunity within that cell and the immunity used to attack that cell is compromised.  If this process goes on too long then it can become a chronic disease.  As previously mentioned my molecular bio, and lets face it, medicine in general, are not great, but from what I can tell this is a very different model from previously proposed because the body is becoming confused and bogged down by the biota to the point where it starts malfunctioning.  This malfunctioning is regarded as the disease and the underlying biota problem is ignored.  As any serious alternate health nut will tell you modern medicine is about treating the symptom, not the disease, and this model would seem to be agreeing with this.
• OK, so that is a very simplistic view of the complex process described by Dr Marshall.  I myself have not looked into it as much as I would like (I am the kind of person who likes to have guaranteed the win before I commit myself to anything.) I will put in lots of references down the bottom for further research for any of you keen beans out there.  But lets look at what the Marshal Protocol suggests for correcting any imbalance caused by VDR dysfunction. And be ready, it is both controversial, simple and dramatic, three aspects I like in an anti cancer idea (because lets be honest, if it is not controversial it probably won’t work, if it is not simple it is too hard to do and if it is not dramatic then, well it is just boring :P)
• OK so, firstly vitamin D supplementation is BAD.  You heard me right folks.  This came as a shock to a man who has been told again and again to supplement with vitamin D until I can’t bear the thought of swallowing another pill.  But before you turn away in disgust and disregard this Protocol as another crack pot idea let us look at the reasons, and they are good if we are prepared to accept much of the theory above.
• The VDR is blocked by the biota that have infected the cell.  In order to get things working again we don’t need to flood our system with vitamin D we need to get the VDRs working again. Supplementing vitamin D actually blocks a lot of the remaining VDR function which is precisely what we don’t want (this is something I got out of the video’s I will list below.  It is probably on the website and when I find it I will put in a link.) Dr Marshall emphasises that according to his research low vitamin D is an INDICATOR of poor underlying health not the CAUSE of it.  As any good scientist knows correlation is not causation.
• Dr Marshall claims that the exact disease being expressed in the patient is less important.  What is important is that the immune system within the cells is unable to control the biota.  This fits nicely (and is one of the few areas of this protocol that does) with “conventional” alternate cancer treatments (OMG I just used the words conventional alternate cancer treatment, a-mazing) in that it says that it is the degradation of the body that results in the disease
  (didn’t understand that sentence because I put too many bracketed sections in, its ok, neither did I.  Just go back and read it again ignoring my poorly worded “humorous” observations.)
• Indeed it is seen in breast cancer that as the cancer progresses VDR function decreases.
• So let us assume for a moment that we accept this (and it certainly seems plausible), how do we get things going again. Well the Marshall Protocol thankfully has a reasonably simple way of stimulating VDR function.  Olmesartan.
• Olmesartan is a drug commonly used for blood pressure reduction.  In Australia it is available on the PBS, it certainly doesn’t seem to be that expensive in other countries.
• Olmesartan reactivates or stimulates the VDR function.  From what I can gather the protocol used to involve low-level antibiotics in combination with the Olmesartan to try to knock out the biota that have clogged the VDRs.  Now I believe that, although the antibiotics may still be used it is the reactivation of the VDRs that is killing most of the nasties that have started clogging the cells.  I will not give full details here as if you are serious about this protocol to the extent of needing dosages you should really be using more resources than just this blog.
• So the protocol is basically this, the restriction of vitamin D supplementation and ingestion from certain foods (temporary) and the reactivation of the VDRs with Olmesartan (temporary).
• There are some specifications about vitamin D levels in the body.  Specifically the level of vitamin D 25 should be blow around 50 nmol/L to start the protocol and to indicate that it could be useful in your disease.  This seems to be due to the VDR needing to be freed up in order to get the benefit and the vit D25 levels being low indicating that your problem is to do with the VDRs being blocked.  There is also a range of values of vitamin D 1,25.  Look at the links below for more info.
• This process is apparently a curative treatment of many chronic diseases that were previously only palliated (is that even a word? You know what I mean.)
• This process often leads to immunopathology.  That is reactions to the large number of dying biota.  From what I can gather this is basically the healing reaction one hears about all the time in alternate health circles.
• There are a number of other provisos for this protocol.  You have to stop all immunoregulation.  This is things such as immune boosting herbs or drugs such as MGN oriscadore and imune surpressing supplements (vitamin D is apparently one of these but there are many more).  You must also stop anything that could interfere with the VDR function.  This includes soy products (due to the phyto-oestrogens) and many other things. I will not give an exhaustive list as I do not wish to make the mistake of confusing good bloging with list making.

So I think that is pretty much it for the moment.  It is certainly not a perfect summary, however I am just one man with only so much time to spend bloging and not meditating so cut me some slack.  Like I said I am not recommending this to anyone, as yet I have no reason other than theory to think this is a good idea at all.  I was very intrigued by the ideas so I share them in case you are too.

I started this today.  I will blog about my reasons separately as that is not the purpose of this post, but feel free to read them should you be interested.

Alright, links. 

A great source of data is a website made by the autoimmunity research foundation on the Marshal Protocol

http://mpkb.org/

By the same people the following is a online forum for health profesionals and patients

http://marshallprotocol.com/

The foundations Youtube channel.  This is well worth a look as the ideas come over a lot better when explained in a talk.

http://www.youtube.com/user/DrTrevorMarshall

Or for those hipsters out there there is also a Vimeo profile with the same videos.

http://www.vimeo.com/user450718/videos

Papers and stuff, a bit dry, probably start with the videos and the sights above but these are worth a look for sure.

http://autoimmunityResearch.org/preprints/BlaneyAnnals2009Preprint.pdf
http://autoimmunityResearch.org/preprints/ProalAnnals2009Preprint.pdf
http://autoimmunityResearch.org/preprints/WaterhouseAnnals2009Preprint.pdf

http://AutoimmunityResearch.org/transcripts/AR-Proal-Metagenome.pdf
http://AutoimmunityResearch.org/transcripts/AR-Albert-VitD.pdf

For anyone not satisfied with all that (and if you aren’t you are either a sucker for punishment or you have not gone through them all fully) I have more links, just send me a message.

Peace