Ravenous: Otto Warburg, the Nazis, and the Search for the Cancer-Diet Connection (English Edition)

 The extraordinary story of the Nazi-era scientific genius who discovered how cancer cells eat—and what it means for how we should.

The Nobel laureate Otto Warburg—a cousin of the famous finance Warburgs—was widely regarded in his day as one of the most important biochemists of the twentieth century, a man whose research was integral to humanity’s understanding of cancer. He was also among the most despised figures in Nazi Germany. As a Jewish homosexual living openly with his male partner, Warburg represented all that the Third Reich abhorred. Yet Hitler and his top advisors dreaded cancer, and protected Warburg in the hope that he could cure it.

In Ravenous, Sam Apple reclaims Otto Warburg as a forgotten, morally compromised genius who pursued cancer single-mindedly even as Europe disintegrated around him. While the vast majority of Jewish scientists fled Germany in the anxious years leading up to World War II, Warburg remained in Berlin, working under the watchful eye of the dictatorship. With the Nazis goose-stepping their way across Europe, systematically rounding up and murdering millions of Jews, Warburg awoke each morning in an elegant, antiques-filled home and rode horses with his partner, Jacob Heiss, before delving into his research at the Kaiser Wilhelm Society.

Hitler and other Nazi leaders, Apple shows, were deeply troubled by skyrocketing cancer rates across the Western world, viewing cancer as an existential threat akin to Judaism or homosexuality. Ironically, they viewed Warburg as Germany’s best chance of survival. Setting Warburg’s work against an absorbing history of cancer science, Apple follows him as he arrives at his central belief that cancer is a problem of metabolism. Though Warburg’s metabolic approach to cancer was considered groundbreaking, his work was soon eclipsed in the early postwar era, after the discovery of the structure of DNA set off a search for the genetic origins of cancer.

Remarkably, Warburg’s theory has undergone a resurgence in our own time, as scientists have begun to investigate the dangers of sugar and the link between obesity and cancer, finding that the way we eat can influence how cancer cells take up nutrients and grow. Rooting his revelations in extensive archival research as well as dozens of interviews with today’s leading cancer authorities, Apple demonstrates how Warburg’s midcentury work may well hold the secret to why cancer became so common in the modern world and how we can reverse the trend. A tale of scientific discovery, personal peril, and the race to end a disastrous disease, Ravenous would be the stuff of the most inventive fiction were it not, in fact, true.

作为在纳粹统治下的天才科学家，瓦尔堡发现了癌细胞的惊天秘密，这意味着我们可以采取针对性的手段来对付癌细胞，或者用于癌症的预防！ 

诺贝尔生理及医学奖得主奥托·瓦尔堡( Otto Warburg )是美国银行家瓦尔堡的表兄弟，人们普遍认为他是20世纪最重要的生物化学家之一，他的研究成果为人类对抗癌症提供了最为重要的参考依据。他也是纳粹德国最受鄙视的人物之一。作为一个公开和他的男性伴侣一起生活的犹太同性恋者，瓦尔堡代表了第三帝国所憎恶的一切。然而，希特勒和他的顾问们由于惧怕癌症，因而有意为瓦尔堡提供了保护，并给予研究上的支持，希望他在治愈癌症方面取得突破。

在“贪婪的背后”一书中，山姆·埃坡( Sam Apple )将奥托·瓦尔堡( Otto Warburg )重新定义为一个被世人几乎遗忘的道德败坏的天才，在整个欧洲惨遭纳粹铁蹄蹂躏之际，仍在一心一意地追求对癌症的研究。尽管绝大多数犹太科学家在二战前焦虑的岁月里逃离了德国，但瓦尔堡却选择留在了柏林、在独裁的监视下工作。纳粹在欧洲各地，有系统地围捕并杀害了数百万犹太人，而瓦尔堡每天却依然穿着考究的衣着，居住在满是古董而精美的别墅里，和他的伴侣雅各布·海斯骑马溜达，然后投入到他在凯撒威廉协会的实验室，醉心于光合作用及癌细胞偏好的研究之中。

埃坡( Apple )表示，希特勒和其他纳粹领导人深陷西方国家癌症发病率飙升的困扰，认为癌症是一种与犹太教或同性恋类似的生存威胁。具有讽刺意味的是，他们认为瓦尔堡可能是德国走出癌症阴影的最佳人选。将瓦尔堡的科研工作置于癌症科学研究的发展史中，埃坡（Apple）紧随他的足迹，因为他确信癌症的本质就是新陈代谢问题。虽然瓦尔堡有关癌症的代谢方法被认为是开创性的，但随着战后DNA结构的发现并引发了癌症起源于基因的探索，这也让瓦尔堡的研究成果一度失去了其华丽的光泽。

不过，值得注意的是，瓦尔堡的理论在我们这个时代不经意地却经历了一次复兴，因为科学家们已经着手了对葡萄糖的危害以及肥胖、糖尿病和癌症之间的关系等方面的研究，并发现我们的饮食方式会影响到癌细胞的营养吸收及生长方式。

埃坡（Apple）的素材来源于大量的档案研究，以及对当今领先的癌症权威机构的数十次采访。在本书中，作者全面展示了瓦尔堡在上世纪中叶的研究成果，并揭示了为什么癌症在现代世界如此普遍，以及我们如何能够扭转这一趋势。

一个关于科学发现、即使身处险境也千方百计并争分夺秒来结束一种灾难性疾病的故事，如果不是活生生的现实题材的话，那应该会成为最具创造性的小说素材。

译者前言：

作为国内读者而言，如果想对“瓦尔堡效应”有一定的了解，往往苦于能找到的参考的资料少的可怜，因而每每步履艰难。基于这一情况，本人将美国作家山姆·埃坡（Sam Apple）的作品（2021年5月出版）引入到国内读者的视野之中，希望能为各位读者对肿瘤、糖尿病、肥胖症之间的关系有所了解，特别是如何结合李其斌教授的“独一方断糖法”，尽早采用药膳食疗方走出糖尿病、肥胖症及肿瘤等疾病的阴影。

限于时间关系，考虑到时代的发展，以及读者们迫切希望了解基因时代如何看待“瓦尔堡效应”，因而本人先将该书的第四部分内容译出，以解饥渴。不足之处，希望各位读者提出宝贵意见。