Metabolic Drugs for Cancer
By Dr Amanda King and Dr Hari Kuhan - A Book Review
Dr. Amanda King’s “Metabolic Drugs for Cancer” arrives at a moment when patients are actively seeking alternatives to the standard oncology playbook. The book delivers exactly what its title promises: a systematic examination of seventeen repurposed pharmaceutical drugs and numerous supplements that target cancer through metabolic pathways rather than conventional cytotoxic approaches. King, a UK-trained naturopathic practitioner specializing in integrative metabolic oncology, has compiled dosing protocols, contraindications, drug interactions, and mechanisms of action for medications ranging from metformin and statins to ivermectin and fenbendazole. This isn’t speculative medicine wrapped in hopeful language. Each drug profile includes referenced research, specific patient populations where caution is warranted, and practical guidance on monitoring. The book functions as both reference manual and treatment roadmap for patients, practitioners, and family members navigating cancer diagnoses outside the narrow confines of slash-burn-poison orthodoxy.
The book’s structure reflects King’s clinical background. Each drug gets its own detailed profile: what it does, how it works, which cancers show response, dosing ranges, and what can go wrong. Metformin suppresses gluconeogenesis and activates AMPK, making cancer cells struggle for fuel. Statins block the mevalonate pathway and inhibit RAS/KRAS proteins that drive tumor growth in pancreatic, lung, and colorectal cancers. Mebendazole and fenbendazole disrupt microtubule formation in cancer cells while leaving normal cells largely untouched. Ivermectin targets multiple pathways including PAK1, WNT/β-catenin, and mitochondrial function. Doxycycline hits cancer stem cells, those treatment-resistant populations that chemotherapy and radiation routinely miss. King doesn’t oversell any single intervention. She presents the evidence, notes the gaps, and provides enough detail that readers can make informed decisions with their medical teams. The drug profiles include specific warnings about liver enzyme elevation, kidney function monitoring, and populations where these medications require extra caution.
Beyond repurposed drugs, King dedicates substantial attention to supplements and metabolic interventions that address cancer’s fundamental vulnerabilities. Berberine blocks both glucose and glutamine uptake, the two fuels cancer cells switch between interchangeably. High-dose vitamin D3 modulates immune function and inhibits cancer cell proliferation. Curcumin interferes with multiple signaling pathways including NF-κB and STAT3. Omega-3 fatty acids alter cell membrane composition and reduce inflammatory signaling. The supplement section doesn’t read like a health food store catalog. King provides specific dosing based on patient weight and cancer type, discusses bioavailability issues, and flags potential interactions with conventional treatments. She addresses the quality problem plaguing the supplement industry, noting that many products contain little of what’s listed on the label. The emphasis throughout is on therapeutic dosing, not maintenance supplementation—these are interventions designed to create measurable metabolic shifts.
The ketogenic diet forms the metabolic foundation underlying King’s entire approach. Cancer cells depend heavily on glucose because their mitochondria are damaged or dysfunctional, forcing them into fermentative metabolism regardless of oxygen availability. Restricting carbohydrates while increasing fat intake starves cancer cells of their preferred fuel while normal cells adapt by using ketones and fatty acids. King dismantles the “healthy whole grains” mythology systematically. Whole wheat bread, brown rice, oatmeal—all break down into glucose, all feed cancer growth. The economic interests behind grain subsidies get mentioned but not dwelt upon. What matters is the biochemistry: cancer cells have upregulated glucose transporters, thrive in high-insulin environments, and struggle when forced to compete for limited glucose. The diet protocols King outlines aren’t gentle lifestyle adjustments. They require hitting specific macronutrient ratios, monitoring ketone levels, and adjusting based on monthly blood work tracking glucose, insulin, IGF-1, and inflammatory markers.
King’s treatment framework extends into interventions that conventional oncology either ignores or actively discourages. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy increases oxygen pressure in tumors, making radiation more effective and creating oxidative stress that cancer cells struggle to handle. Red light therapy with photosensitizers like methylene blue generates reactive oxygen species selectively in cancer tissue. Intravenous vitamin C at high doses acts as a pro-oxidant, creating hydrogen peroxide that overwhelms cancer cells’ antioxidant defenses. These aren’t alternative therapies positioned against conventional treatment—King discusses how they work synergistically with chemotherapy and radiation while potentially reducing side effects. The book includes case examples: Dale Atkinson going from 11.5-month prognosis to no detectable tumors, Emma Rafferty’s son Jacob living ten years beyond his prognosis using hyperbaric oxygen. These aren’t miracle stories wrapped in vague testimonials. They’re detailed protocols with specific interventions, dosing schedules, and monitoring parameters.
The book’s practical utility comes through in details that matter when actually implementing these protocols. King addresses the reality that most oncologists won’t support or even tolerate metabolic approaches, requiring patients to build teams across conventional and integrative practitioners. She provides guidance on finding Terrain Certified Practitioners, ordering private lab work when physicians won’t cooperate, and sourcing quality supplements internationally when local options fail. The monthly monitoring protocols she recommends go beyond standard oncology panels—tracking vitamin D levels, homocysteine for methylation status, mold testing for mycotoxin exposure, comprehensive metabolic panels watching for trends before they become problems. There’s acknowledgment throughout that this approach requires resources, both financial and cognitive, that not everyone has access to. King subsidizes consultations for patients in financial need and has built partnerships for discounted labs and supplements, but the baseline reality remains: metabolic oncology demands active participation, regular testing, and willingness to operate outside conventional medical structures.
“Metabolic Drugs for Cancer” fills a gap that mainstream oncology refuses to acknowledge exists. Patients are already using these drugs, often guided by internet forums and Facebook groups where dosing information ranges from dangerously high to uselessly low. King has created a reference that brings rigor to repurposed drug protocols while remaining accessible to people without medical training. The book won’t satisfy readers looking for a single magic bullet or those committed to conventional treatment as the only legitimate option. It’s written for patients who understand that cancer is a metabolic disease, that standard treatments often fail, and that evidence exists for interventions outside the chemo-radiation-surgery triad. King has taken complex biochemistry, contradictory research, and scattered case reports and assembled them into actionable protocols. For patients newly diagnosed and searching for options, for family members trying to support someone through treatment, for practitioners willing to work outside conventional boundaries, this book provides what’s been missing: a comprehensive, referenced, practical guide to metabolic interventions that actually exist in the peer-reviewed literature but remain conspicuously absent from oncology clinic conversations.
The Metabolic Nutritionist | Amanda King ND | Substack
Interview with Dr. Amanda King
Dr. Amanda King didn’t arrive at metabolic oncology through decades of gradual interest. She found it in a single moment at the 2023 IPM conference in London, listening to Dr. Nasha Winters and Patricia Peat speak. After twenty years of working in naturopathic medicine and nutrition, she’d been searching for an area to specialize in, and when she heard …
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I'm not down with the promotion of statins for anything.
It's a toxic drug that messes with the liver. That's how it reduces cholesterol by blocking the atp to cholesterol pathway.
Metformin is another iffy subject. Take enough of that and you'll screw up your body's insulin response.
Ask yourself why people use it to lose weight... It causes diarrhea which means the body isn't able to digest the food.
I don't understand why would someone use these medicines when there's much safer and more effective things like fenbenzadole and ivermectin.
Funny that she promotes terrain doctors but has a non terrain view of cancer as the thing to be attacked. This war like view of cancer is total bullshit and not terrain theory.
TERRAIN WOULD SAY FIX THE BODY SO THE CONDITIONS ARE NOT RIPE FOR THE NEED OF CANCER.
When metabolism is slow, debris and toxins build up in the body because elimination pathways are slow. Cancer is the way the body holds onto these things without harming the body.
Again, I think she's half assed in her ideas and approaches but then most MDs are.
Before you listen to your doctor, just remember; we are the sickest nation on earth