Nitrogen in the form of ammonia is an essential byproduct of photosynthesis.

Oncologists know that all cancer patient patients (if they live long enough) reach a stage of negative nitrogen balance.

Much of the nitrogen is lost from the attrition of visceral protein.

Some aggressive cancers cause a daily urinary loss of up to 24 grams of urea nitrogen, equivalent to a pound and a half of muscle tissue.

Researchers, such as Giovanni Costa, M.D., have proven that nitrogen metabolism doesn’t stop at uric acid and urea as is conventionally believed – indeed, nitrogen metabolism goes the entire distance, all the way to elemental nitrogen gas being released through the pores of the skin.

And there’s the case of the multifaceted neurotransmitter nitric oxide – it’s found throughout the body, including significant amounts in the medulla oblongata and kidneys.

Nitric oxide modulates salivary amylase and fluid levels, and plays a role in the detoxification of oral carcinogens.

Viagra is used for functional impotency because of its capacity to release nitric oxide from nerve endings.

Viagra also uses nitric oxide for the relaxation and dilation of the esophageal sphincter, which is why Viagra is also prescribed for achalasia (esophageal motility disorder, including difficulty swallowing and regurgitation).

(Cardiac deaths have occurred when Viagra is combined with nitrates.)

Glutamate is crucial to nitrogen metabolism because it is both a nitrogen donator and a nitrogen acceptor.

Unlike lipids and carbohydrates, nitrogen has NO STORAGE DEPOTS in the body.

The half-life of many proteins in measured in hours, and the reduction of even one of the essential amino acids can quickly limits the synthesis of many proteins.

Carbohydrates can interfere with nitrogen metabolism (in both plants and animals).

In the words of Harry Katznelson & R.E. Kallio (“Nitrogen cycle,” McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Food, Agriculture & Nutrition (edited by Daniel N. Lapedes), 1977), “… if an excessive amount of nonnitrogenous carbonaceous material, for example, carbohydrate, is added to a soil, much available nitrogen, such as nitrate or ammonia, will be used by a rapidly developing microbial population, thus decreasing the available supply for higher plants.”

Beta-carotene can’t be created without nitrogen.

An agricultural scientist, my friend Robert Ernst of Blaine, Washington, will tell you that the amount of beta-carotene available in a plant is an index of the plant’s nitrogen accumulation.

Nitrogen, not beta-carotene, is the actual anticarcinogenic factor.

Conversely, nitrogen is useless without certain anticarcinogenic minerals, e.g. molybdenum.

According to “Radioactive Molybdenum Shows Need of It in Plants,” Science News Letter, Nov. 13, 1948, “Molybdenum-starved plants show two outstanding symptoms: they lose the green color in their leaves, and they become unable to make use of nitrates taken up by their roots, piling these necessary salts up in their leaves to as much as 12 times normal concentration.”

Adano Ley (Swami Nitty-Gritty) regarded cancer as a type of runaway embryonic and/or placental overgrowth.

The “theory of embryonic rest” was a mainstream theory of carcinogenesis in the mid-nineteenth century, but was almost entirely forgotten by the 1930s.

John Beard (1858-1924) was a Scottish embryologist who wrote about it in the medical journals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (“On Certain Problems of Vertebrate Embryology,” 1896; “The Span of Gestation and the Cause of Birth,” 1897; “The Action of Trypsin,” 1906; “The Enzyme Treatment of Cancer,” 1911; etc.).

Dr. Beard’s book, The Enzyme Treatment of Cancer and Its Scientific Basis, 1911, is long out of print.