Abstract
“When the solution of a scientific problem is neither possible at the present time nor can be foreseen in the future this may mean that the answer that we are so desperately looking for can be waiting for us hiding in the past”. L. Arranz
In its diverse forms in nature (H+, H1, H2, H3O+), it is becoming increasingly evident that hydrogen plays a fundamental role in many areas of both human life and the entire planetary ecosystem. It has been postulated that hydrogen was the first molecule detected just after the Big Bang, a simple product that can be easily transformed into different energy compounds. There are many aspects of pH-mediated damage, from acid rain and the acidification of the seas to cellular apoptosis. On the contrary, the good news is that modern hydrogen technologies hold the promise of obtaining limitless amounts of clean energy. Also, the hydrogen obtained by the decomposition of water through renewable energies, like solar or wind, is transformed into energy as a clean fuel. Since this methodology uses the most abundant raw material, water, it can accumulate great quantities of energy with a very low environmental impact.
In the world of medicine, the dynamics of the hydrogen ion (protons or H+) is a more realistic manner of expressing changes in pH and/or acid-base homeostasis and pathophysiology. Recently, the pH-centered anticancer perspective has been extended to include the etiology, pathogenesis, and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases (HNDDs), all under the same integral and unitary H+-perspective.
From the classical genetic perspective, the nature of cancer is thought to include a multiplicity of diseases that require a large variety and combination of generally toxic drugs created to kill every neoplasm. However, from a phenotypic standpoint, cancer is a highly organized and uniform disease having selective hallmarks in all malignant tumors irrespective of their genetic and tissue differences. This is logical since all solid tumors, and even leukemias, share most molecular, metabolic, biochemical, and pathophysiological characteristics that are independent of their genetic makeup.
It is well known that there is a general mechanism that supports any single transformation, growth, progression, invasion, and metastasis of any malignant tumor. Such an integral and hierarchically organized progressive and destructive process is also in full accord with what Otto Warburg once said: "The causes of cancer are countless, but they all work through the same mechanism". Recently, the new paradigm on cancer has been associated to the etiopathogenesis of HNDDs in a comprehensive article in this same journal. No matter that from the point of view of metabolism, a massive number of intermediary causes of cancer have been discovered and well-identified, it can be demonstrated that they act through a final and integral mechanism represented by an increase in cellular pH mainly mediated by the upregulation of the Na+/H+ (NHE1) (Table 1).