The Science

The COC Protocol was developed by Care Oncology Clinic (COC) in 2013 and is based upon the work of German scientist Otto Warburg, who received a Nobel prize for his research into cancer’s unique cellular biology.

Scientists unveil the secret of cancer-associated Warburg effect

Di Zhang, Zhanyun Tang, He Huang, Guolin Zhou, Chang Cui, Yejing Weng, Wenchao Liu, Sunjoo Kim, Sangkyu Lee, Mathew Perez-Neut, Jun Ding, Daniel Czyz, Rong Hu, Zhen Ye, Maomao He, Y. George Zheng, Howard A. Shuman, Lunzhi Dai, Bing Ren, Robert G. Roeder, Lev Becker & Yingming Zhao. Metabolic Regulation of Gene Expression by Histone Lactylation. Nature, 2019 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1678-1

As tumors develop and cancer cells quickly multiply, this can subject them to a lack of oxygen and key nutrients. To support continued growth in such a challenging environment, cancer cells adapt and alter their metabolism (the ways in which they access and use energy). Cancer cells depend more heavily on alternative metabolic pathways to survive and multiply under the metabolically compromised conditions provided by the tumor microenvironment.

The COC Protocol is an individualized therapeutic approach which seeks to target multiple cancer pathways through pharmaceutical management, nutrition and other interventions that address altered cancer metabolism. The pharmaceutical agents that comprise the COC Protocol have been shown to disrupt several proteins or signalling pathways, which can impact upon cancer cells’ energy supply, with the effect of killing these cells, restricting multiplication, or reprogramming them to behave like healthy cells. In addition, there is evidence that the medicines used may increase cancer cells’ sensitivity to chemotherapy, radiotherapy, hormone therapy and immunotherapy. By using the medicines in combination, we may be able to target multiple biological pathways, thus creating a synergistic effect and potentially delivering greater benefit than via the addition of one adjunctive therapeutic agent on its own.

Inflammation and Metabolic Dysfunction in Cancer

While conventional cancer treatments (including surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, immunotherapy) are intended to target cancer cells in the here and now, at Care Oncology, we aim to address root causes which facilitated the development of cancer. Two of these root causes are chronic inflammation and metabolic dysfunction, and some of the standard-of-care therapies used to treat cancer may in fact make these issues worse, with increasing numbers of patients reporting cancer treatment-related toxicities.

Care Oncology’s COC Protocol seeks to measure and track fundamental parameters, which if optimized, may improve cancer outcomes, and mitigate risks from treatment related toxicities. We evaluate these specific parameters via specialist blood tests and questionnaires, enabling provision of actionable insights to our patients based on their personalized scores.

COC doctors carefully review patient data and make personalised, evidence-based recommendations to help drive improvements. This can include advice around diet and nutrition, stress, sleep, exercise, as well as the recommendation or prescription of a specific set of supplements with an excellent evidence-base in the cancer setting.

In addition, the COC Plus blood test data enables our clinical team to objectively assess the degree of metabolic control which may be being exercised by COC Protocol pharmaceuticals and to further refine the dosing of these over time.