The Fungal Theory

Husband11

Barry, I am so sorry to hear this.  You are in our prayers.  You beat it once, you can beat it again.

impositive

I am currently reading "The Germ that Causes Cancer" by Doug Kaufmann and Beverly Thornhill Hunt, Ph.D.  The version currently in print is just a short "handbook".  The full version is no longer in print but  I got my hands on a used copy.  It has loads more information and references supporting their statements.  Of course the book is copy righted but there is a chapter in which they encourage you to copy and take to your doctor.  This chapter explains the theory in words we can understand. I thought it was enlightening so I wanted to post some of it here.  There are 9 points they make and this is the first one.  The next one is how they can lay dormant.  I'll post the others later.

The "germ" (referred to in this book) is an infectious fungus believed to form a hybrid cell after it cleaves fungal and human DNA.  This hybrid cell is mistakenly referred to as cancer.  This, due to errors in staining techniques and in the difficulty in identification of the components of this hybrid cell.

Fungi are unbiquitous and can cause infection.  These two facts are common knowledge.  Biologists and mycologists know this.  Ascomycete  conidia are involved in the cause of cancer in this stage of their lifecycle.  The adult form of this fungus is incapable of causing cancer but may play a roll in the inflammatory process seen in so many tumors and pre-cancerous conditions.  We are familiar with fungal infections of the skin: dandruff, ringworm, toe nail fungus, etc.  These fungi are not dimorphic.  The ones in these superficial tissues occur within the lesions as mycelia(the vegetative part of a fungus, consisting of a mass of branching, thread-like hyphae.) 

It is the dimorphic fungi that are able to cause systemic infection such as the spore form of the Ascomycete  fungi.  Pathogenic dimorphic fungi usually produce a mycelium in soil but convert to a unicellular form for parasitism.  Environmental factors which case the conversion include temperature (37 degrees C, body temperature) low oxygen level and nutrition, all consistent of conditions inside the human body.  The unicellular, yeast like form facilitates the spread of the fungus through the host body.  This form is able to move through the blood and lymph to form systemic infection.  The fungal spores shed their protective cell wall inside the body in order to use human cells as "sacs".  Now referred to as a "deficient form",  it can invade human cells.  Despite the loss of the outside cell walls, these fungal spores (condidia) are genetically sufficient to survive within a cell or "sac" within a closed environment.  These asexual spores retain viability so as to resume reproduction with the advent of the proper supply of nutrients within the proper flow of blood.  These spores can survive even without oxygen, within their tight environments.  In lieu of being destroyed by immune cells, they actually become part of the human cell. 

Fungi, like humans, have cells with nuclei. They both have egg-like forms in the reproductive process.  The human organism stores eggs internally, periodically shedding a small number that reproduce by fertilization.  Fungi shed "eggs" in the form of spores externally which in vivo  seek out their own protection (sac), and reproduce other "eggs" in response to "dormancy breakers" instead of fertilization.

Hindsfeet

digger and Timothy....I am so encouraged that no matter what our differences are we are here to support one another. Thank you. This is good.

Actually, this is my third dx. The first two beast cancers were in my right breast. Most likely the first year, Dec 2007, they did not find it all. The second lumpectomy was in 2008.

The good news is that after two years the right breast that was infected with high grade, multifocal, como type DCIS cells has not reared up it's ugly head. The new dx is in the left beast. It is a new cancer.

Hindsfeet

Interesting article impositive...this answers one of my many questions and raises new ones.

You wrote:

The fungal spores shed their protective cell wall inside the body in order to use human cells as "sacs". Now referred to as a "deficient form", it can invade human cells. Despite the loss of the outside cell walls, these fungal spores (condidia) are genetically sufficient to survive within a cell or "sac" within a closed environment. These asexual spores retain viability so as to resume reproduction with the advent of the proper supply of nutrients within the proper flow of blood. These spores can survive even without oxygen, within their tight environments.

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In lieu of being destroyed by immune cells, they actually become part of the human cell.



This is perhaps why it is so confusing. It no longer looks like fungi. It has a human host. Once the fungi mutate or breaks into our DNA our human cell becomes cancerous.

Here comes the problem. Our immune system does not see the fungi because it is hiding safely in our human cells? yes/no?

Since our immune system isn't killing the cancer due to seeing it as a friend rather than a foe it ignores it? yes/no?

Perhaps this is why they use chemo. They use a drug designed to kill all fast growing cells.

I am thinking out loud right now.

.

I do know that our immune system is equipped to kill cancer cells. There is a missing link here to why cancer cells aren't so easily destroyed. Perhaps the fungi are very difficult to destroy? Or our immune system is vulnerable due to poor diet or infections.



If the fungi are in the human cell then how does fungus meds help? Is the fungi safely hiding in the human cell where anti-fungal meds or supplements can't touch them?

impositive

barry, that is how I understand it as well.  Fungi is difficult to kill and once it has taken over and suppresses our immune system with it's mycotoxins, it's almost impossible.  That's why, as with cancer, we need to catch it early.  Just think, if we had known about fungus when it first presented itself to us....in my case fatigue, in your case DCIS, maybe we could have "nipped it in the bud"...(no pun intended) before it reached the tumor stage.

I dont really understand the drug's functions.  Some antifungals work on the ergosterol.  See the Wilipedia definition for ergosterol:

Ergosterol is a component of fungal cell membranes, serving the same function that cholesterol serves in animal cells. Because ergosterol is present in fungal cell membranes yet absent in animal cell membranes, it is a useful target for antifungal drugs.

Maybe there are other drugs that work in other ways as well.  They work on the things that are unique to the fungi. 

Kauffman says the most important thing to do with fungi is to starve them.  Their food is glucose.  So a diet low in carbohydrates is essential.  His book says that they need 3 things; temperature, low oxygen environment and nutrition.  If we choke off their food supply, we are knocking out one of those components.  Perhaps that is why the hyperbaric oxygen therapy works in some patients or the hyperthermia treatments in which the body is subjected to high temperatures.  I wonder if anyone has done all three at once? 

In addition to diet, I am getting an infrared sauna. I am hoping that not only will it help me to sweat out their toxins but it will raise my body temperature (somewhat) everyday. I am always cold!   

althea

barry, I am so sorry to hear about your dx.  That sucks big time.  Keep us posted on your progress. 

impositive, the kaufmann article you found is very interesting, esp the part where it talks about the fungi shedding their protective wall and using a human cell as a sac.  I recall many authors speak about cancer cells escaping the notice of our immune system, and to my mind, these fungi hanging out inside the sac of a human cell would explain how they manage to masquerade as one of the good guys.  

Do you know what dimorphic means?  I know I could look it up, but I barely keep up with this thread at all.  I don't think my attention span could handle a google right now.  

AnneW

Barry, AIs=aromatase inhibitors (femara, arimidex, aromasin.)

Anne

MariannaLaFrance

Barry-

So sorry to hear that. I am sending you wishes for wide margins and good results from another surgery.

Peace to you,

Marianna

impositive

Althea, dimorphic basically means "two forms".  The wikipedia description says this of dimorphic fungi:

Dimorphic fungi are fungi which can exist as mold/hyphal/filamentous formor as yeast. 

• At room temperature, it grows as a mold.
• At body temperature, it grows as a yeast.

impositive

This is 2 through 9 of the points (see above for #1) taken from Kaufman's book "The Germ That Causes Cancer."

2) Fungal Spores can lay dormant.

They can lay dormant for many years.  Medical information reminds us that viruses lay dormant, too.  Dormancy can be broken by either the availability of the proper nutrients (sugar), or the presence of antibiotics, certain hormones, or host immunosuppression, which leads to spore reproduction.  Recall that some of these dormancy breakers are some of the well known risk factors for invasion of fungi in humans.

3) Fungal spores are not identified from the tumorous mass with routine surgical, pathological, and microscopic isolation techniques.

To the pathologist, under a microscope these spores resemble inclusion bodies (fat cells, red blood cells and cellular debris) inside of the host cell.This makes it difficult to identify their origin and reflects the common difficulty medical personnel experience when they try to identify cancerous tissue.

4) Routine surgical , pathological and microscopic techniques do not allow for the survival of the fungal spores in their deficient form.

Use of a specified technique to process the surgically resected cancer specimen insures the spores will not burst and are therefore preserved for microscopic evaluation; granted they are not discarded as inclusion bodies once viewed under the microscope.

Hindsfeet

Impositve, I was invited to a health party tonight and they spoke about a product called JUC that is suppose to alkaline your body? Have you heard of it? If it works, it may help in preventing cancer. I might add it to my daily regiment. Cancerous fungi can't live in an alkaline environment.



I've been thinking about the question how to kill the cancerous fungi once it has mutated in the human cell DNA. I understand the mind behind chemo in that it does it by killing all fast diving cells. But, chemo doesn't kill all the cancerous cells. And as for one friend, her tumor grew twice the size while on chemo. Anti-fungal medicine kills cells that have a fungal appearance as in yeast infections. The question is can it penetrate through human cells that infested with fungi or turned cancerous?

You mentioned starving cancerous fungi by not eating sugar. But, one of my surgeons said that all our cells need sugar and if needs to it will turn meat into sugar. Cancerous cells steal sugar from anywhere it can get it in the body. However, I agree...sugar feeds cancer.


There is our immune system killer cells that recognize cancerous cells and kills them. Right now for me that's the key to eradicating cancer. Our immune systems is compromised by what we eat, toxic emotions, chemicals and of course the fungi element in fermentation. I've got to work on my immune support thread



Thanks Marrianna and everyone else for your supportive comments.

mathteacher

The anti fungus information has been around a while but I'm just now getting it. I remember seeing Dr. Thierry Hertoghe even pick a mushroom out of his salad. He avoids fungus in all forms.

Hindsfeet

As you know I just had a biopsy. It's a must if you are to have your cancer surgically removed. I' think I may have a breast infection from the biopsy. Have any ideas of how to get rid of an infection outside of taking antibiotics?

Since learning that my dx is invasive, I've begun to think more about seeding. I wondered if there is another way to detect cancerous fungi in your body without a biopsy. I read a way we can harmlessly detect cancer in our body. However, the only way for the doctor to know for sure is with a biopsy.


stunning proof of this claim is readily available. All trophoblast cells produce a unique hormone called the chorionic gonadotrophic (CGH) which is easily detected in urine. Thus if a person is either pregnant or has cancer, a simple CGH pregnancy test should confirm either or both. It does, with an accuracy of better than 92% in all cases. If the urine sample shows positive it means either normal pregnancy or abnormal malignant cancer. Griffin notes: "If the patient is a woman, she either is pregnant or has cancer. If he is a man, cancer can be the only cause." So why all of the expensive, dangerous biopsies carried to 'detect' cancerous growths? One can only assume that medicare pays doctors a larger fee for biopsies than pregnancy tests. [Source]"....http://www.whale.to/a/biopsy.html

so...i guess we could all do a pregnacy test

LJ13-2

Barry, I don't know how many chances you think you are going to have to beat cancer, but I encourage you to put aside the magical thinking, listen to your doctors, and get ALL the treatment you need to get rid of the cancer.

God put chemotherapy and radiation on earth for doctors to use to fight cancer. 

wendy57

If you have trophoblast cells in your body and hCG in your urine - you are either pregnant or have choriocarcinoma.  Simply put, trophoblast cells form the human placenta, and while there is some interest in how they "invade" into the endometrium of the uterus and how cancer cells invade into surrounding tissues, the ONLY cancer that is associated with trophoblast cells is choirocarcinoma. 

luv_gardening

 From Wikipedia, Humn Chronic Gonadotropin

Main article: Tumor marker

The β subunit of human chorionic gonadotropin is secreted also by some cancers including seminoma, choriocarcinoma, germ cell tumors, hydatidiform mole formation, teratoma with elements of choriocarcinoma (this is rare), and islet cell tumor. For this reason a positive result in males can be a test for testicular cancer. The normal range for men is between 0-5 IU/ml.

  From the NCI dictionary beta-human chorionic gonadotropin (BAY-tuh-HYOO-mun KOR-ee-AH-nik goh-NA-doh-TROH-pin)

A hormone normally found in the blood and urine during pregnancy. It may also be produced by some tumor cells. An increased level of beta-human chorionic gonadotropin may be a sign of cancer of the testis, uterus, ovary, liver, stomach, pancreas, or lung. Beta-human chorionic gonadotropin may also be produced in response to certain conditions that are not cancer. Beta-human chorionic gonadotropin is being studied in the treatment of Kaposi sarcoma. Also called ß-hCG.

Shame, I was hoping for a nice easy test.  I do hate the way some web sites distort facts to suit their own theories and give others with real knowledge a bad name.   I always double check Internet sourced information.

impositive

Barry, a health party...sounds interesting. Is it kind of like Tupperware or Pampered Chef where they show you their companies products or is it more like people getting together to share their ideas?  I have never heard of JUC.

It's true about glucose, your body needs a little of it to perform certain functions. If you are not consuming some carbs (in the form of veggies), your body will indeed manufacture what it needs from proteins but only  what it needs so there wont be any (or very little) left over for the fungi to feed on. 

I do think antifungal medications can penetrate cells but the problem with them is that the fungi are so proficient at becoming resistant in a short amount of time.  The book I'm reading (The Germ that Causes Cancer) says that if systemic antifungals are used they have been given on a rotating basis. Example: Diflucan, 200 mg daily or every other day for 2-4 weeks, then Lamisil, 250 mg daily or every other day, then Spranox, etc. 

Some antifungals are fungicidal (kills fungus) and others are fungistatic (inhibits their growth).  In studying the two, it doesn't appear there are conclusive results on which is best. (You can type 'fungistatic and fungicidal' in your search engine and find some of these studies).  Of the systemic orally available antifungals, Lamisil (terbinafine) is the only fungicidal.  The 'azoles' (ex: Diflucan's generic name is fluconazole) are fungistatic.  The book says that without the diet to starve them, one can not expect even the strongest antifungal to work.

How I wish there was more money and effort going into the study of fungus and the drugs to eradicate them.

Hindsfeet

SheliaEnchidna, it's always good to cross reference. I just looked it up as well on Wekipedia...it is used as a tumor marker for some tumors. There is a lot more information on chorionic gonadotropin tumor markers on the Internet. However this is not the emphasis of this thread. But does relate somewhat in that injuries are a prime target for fungi growth, and biopsies is an injury to our flesh.



Tumor marker

Main article: Tumor marker



The β subunit of human chorionic gonadotropin is secreted also by some cancers including seminoma, choriocarcinoma, germ cell tumors, hydatidiform mole formation, teratoma with elements of choriocarcinoma (this is rare), and islet cell tumor. For this reason a positive result in males can be a test for testicular cancer.


Impositive...notice mole formation!





Even if we could detect tumors... it may not tell us where the tumor is. We still need a biopsy. Although it would be nice if there was a simple home test to check for possible cancer. I hope that one day there is a less invasive way to find tumors.

Anonymous

All fungi theorists please check out this website:

http://www.123hjemmeside.dk/cancer_is_not_a_fungus

impositive

Barry, the link you posted has a paragraph in it that describes how pathologists view cancer cells.  There have been so many questions regarding why they dont see fungi when looking at cancer. This is a very apt way of putting it.

  Typically the doctor who does the actual biopsy will place a color stain on the sample tissue -- a stain that makes the cells easy to see. Then he treats the sample with paraffin so that the individual cells won't be moving around, or changed. By this time, of course, the cells are no longer alive. He then SLICES the paraffin into thin slices -- about the thickness of a few cells.

THIS is what he looks at. When it is done this way several people can look at the same sample and come to an agreed conclusion.

Different parts of your body will have different rates of cell division. For instance, brain cells never divide. You got what you got! Other cells might divide every three weeks. Different rates. The biopsy examination looks at the cells of the sample and can detect how many of them are in the process of cell division. If the sample shows that 10% of the cells are in the process of cell division, and that type of cell ought not to show more than 1% of them going through cell division, then that sample shows abnormal growth -- cancer.

Hindsfeet

Impositive...yeah the party was sort of like a Tubblewear part without selling you anything. Mostly informative. I've got to check into it more because if there claims are true then it is incredible. It's pretty risk free which makes it attractive, but I have to be sold on something before moving forward with it. I've got to see that it works for myself.



Good information on fungal medication, although I'm not sure taking fungal medicine for such a length of time is good for your liver. I had hoped to hear back from my N.P. about ordering Diflucan. Hope to get a prescription.

Hindsfeet

http://www.uci.edu/features/2009/10/feature_fungicancer_091021.php A toxin produced by mold on nuts and grains can cause liver cancer if consumed in large quantities. UC Irvine researchers for the first time have discovered what triggers the toxin to form,… "It's shocking how profoundly these molds can affect public health," says Sheryl Tsai, UCI molecular biology & biochemistry, chemistry, and pharmaceutical sciences associate professor and lead author of a study appearing Thursday, Oct. 22, in the journal Nature that reports the finding……The toxin wreaks havoc on a cancer-preventing gene in humans called p53. Without p53 protecting the body, aflatoxin can compromise immunity, interfere with metabolism, and cause severe malnutrition and cancer.. Tsai, graduate student Tyler Korman and undergraduate Oliver Kamari-Bidkorpeh, along with Johns Hopkins University researchers, found that a protein called PT is critical for aflatoxin to form in fungi. Previously, scientists didn't know what prompted the toxin's growth "This finding will lead to an increased understanding of how aflatoxin causes liver cancer in humans," says Dr. Frank Meyskens, Daniel G. Aldrich Jr. Endowed Chair and director of UCI's Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. "It should allow for the development of inhibitors and, hopefully, a new chemoprevention approach to this deadly cancer."

Aflatoxin belongs to a class of organic compounds called polyketides. "Because polyketides provide the building blocks for both carcinogens and some of our most significant drugs, the importance of this study cannot be overemphasized," says Christopher Hughes, molecular biology & biochemistry professor and chair.



http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/Antifungal_Drug_Stops_Blood_Vessel_Growth

Hindsfeet

Antifungal Drug Stops Blood Vessel Growth



Release Date: 04/26/2007

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered to their surprise that a drug commonly used to treat toenail fungus can also block angiogenesis, the growth of new blood vessels commonly seen in cancers. The drug, itraconazole, already is FDA approved for human use, which may fast-track its availability as an antiangiogenesis drug.

In mice induced to have excess blood vessel growth, treatment with itraconazole reduced blood vessel growth by 67 percent compared to placebo. “We were surprised, to say the least, that itraconazole popped up as a potential blocker of angiogenesis,” says Jun O. Liu, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology. “We couldn’t have predicted that an antifungal drug would have such a role.”

In their search for antiangiogenesis drugs, the researchers worked with cells from human umbilical cords, a rich source of blood vessels, and exposed them to 2,400 existing drugs - including FDA- and foreign-approved drugs, as well as nonapproved drugs that had passed safety trials - to see which ones could stop the cells from dividing.

“The best outcome was to find an already approved drug that worked, and the fact that we did was very satisfying,” says Liu, whose study appears online in ACS Chemical Biology.



As an antifungal drug, itraconazole blocks a key enzyme for making fungal cholesterol, causing these primitive life forms to become fragile and break apart. It turns out that itraconazole can block the same enzyme in blood vessels, but the researchers aren’t positive if that’s the reason blood vessels stop growing, because related antifungal drugs had much lower inhibitory effect.

“Our screening test did show that cholesterol-lowering statins also appear to stop blood vessel growth,” Liu says, “so there is likely some important connection between cholesterol and angiogenesis.”



While the researchers still must tease out exactly how itraconazole works to stop vessel growth, and test it in animals with cancer, they have high hopes for its use. “Itraconazole can be taken orally for fungal infection, and therefore oral delivery may work for angiogenesis as well,” Liu notes.

The research was funded by the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the Johns Hopkins Fund for Medical Discovery, the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute, the Keck Foundation, and the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute Fund.

Authors on the paper are Curtis Chong, Jing Xu, Jun Lu, Shridhar Bhat, David Sullivan Jr. and Jun O. Liu, all of Johns Hopkins.

impositive

Speaking of hCG....I had an interesting conversation with my biological dentist.  We were discussing cancer and fungus. He doesn't believe cancer to be fungus but he said he has been attending some seminars on cancer.  In one of them, he learned an interesting analogy.  He said they referred to cancer as embryo-like.  Embryonic cells are 1/2 of the father's DNA so it is "foreign" to the mother so why doesn't our immune cells destroy it?

An embryo "hides" itself from the body.  The fertilized egg divides to form the blastocyst (a ball of cells with an inner cell mass (which later becomes the fetus) and an outer layer called the trophoblast (which later becomes the placenta).   The trophoblast is what produces hCG which suppresses the maternal immunologic response so that placenta is not rejected. Then it begins to set up it's blood supply (angiogenisis).

Some cancer/fungi theorists say that the body does the same sort of thing to fungi....the immune system builds a "wall" around it to protect us from it or maybe the fungi itself builds the wall to protect itself....and there you have a tumor. 

Here's just a thought....we know that fungi can produce the hormone estrogen as we found earlier in a pubmed study.  I wonder if fungi could also produce a type of Chorionic Gonadotropin.(non-human, of course)

impositive

Barry, that's a really interesting article from John Hopkins about itraconazole and angiogenisis.  What's funny to me is that "statin" drugs were initially antifungals!  Nystatin is a broad-spectrum intestinal antifungal.  It's both fungicidal and fungistatic.

The researchers said: "Our screening test did show that cholesterol-lowering statins also appear to stop blood vessel growth," Liu says, "so there is likely some important connection between cholesterol and angiogenesis."

NO, the connection is NOT between cholesterol and angiogenisis!!!  The connection is FUNGUS and ANGIOGENISIS!!

Btw, mycologists also believe fungi causes high cholesterol.

Anonymous

Allow me to add 2 paragraphs that are in the original UC Irvine article but seemed to have been lost in cyberspace for some unknown reason. They have been replaced by......  

Because of lax or nonexistent regulation, 4.5 billion people in developing countries are chronically exposed to vast amounts of this toxin, called aflatoxin - often hundreds of times higher than safe levels. In places such as China, Vietnam and South Africa, the combination of aflatoxin and hepatitis B virus exposure increases the likelihood of liver cancer occurrence by 60 times, and toxin-related cancer causes up to 10 percent of all deaths in those nations.

Aflatoxin can colonize and contaminate nuts and grains before harvest or during storage. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration considers it an unavoidable food contaminant but sets maximum allowable limits.

impositive

barry, here is what the book says about antifungal (AF) drugs...

"Treatment of fungal infections with prescriptive AF medications are, in general, not highly favored among many physicians.  Fear of older more toxic prescriptive AFs impedes widespread use of newer cleaner drugs.  Even so, older more toxic systemic AFs are still used as a first line therapy in some conditions.  Most of the systemic AFs have at least some drug interactions which need to be acknowledged briefly and those at high risk for liver toxicity from either concomitant use of hepatically-metabolized drugs, long term use of AFs, or alcohol ingestion need to be periodically screened for signs of liver toxicity.

Nevertheless, none of the systemic prescriptive AFs, fall beyond a category C classification for pregnancy and hepatoxicity is an exception rather that the rule.   

impositive

Black-cat, 10% of all deaths? That's huge.  The interesting thing is that Aflatoxin is the only mycotoxin that is regulated in the US. Others, such as zearalenone are not.  This toxin is well known amongst farmers and agriculturalists because if their cows, pigs, horses, etc. eat moldy feed that contain these toxins they are very likely to be infertile.  There are others not regulated such as trichothecenes, fumonisins, ochratoxin A, and vomitoxin.  So we could be avoiding the biggie, aflatoxin, but loading up on the others. 

Anonymous

Yes, 10% is huge.   The study concluded that copious amounts of aflatoxin and untreataed hepatits B combined caused liver cancer in developing countries. Not one case was found in the US.  Untreated hepatitas B can lead to liver death.

   It makes me thankful that I am not living in a 3rd world country. With stage 3 C inflammatory breast cancer I would have died a very ugly and painful death without the intervention of chemo, surgery and radiation. I am now taking Femara every day and I am not having any side effects.  If I went without treatment, I would be in very bad shape today.

You can't look at this one study and come to the conclusion that aflatoxin is the cause of breast cancer. This would not be rational thinking.

I am not familiar with trichothecenes, fumonisins, ochratoxin A, and vomitoxin.  If you can cite some valid resources linking them to breast cancer, I will be happy to read them.

CrunchyPoodleMama

We were discussing cancer and fungus. He doesn't believe cancer to be fungus but he said he has been attending some seminars on cancer.  In one of them, he learned an interesting analogy.  He said they referred to cancer as embryo-like.  Embryonic cells are 1/2 of the father's DNA so it is "foreign" to the mother so why doesn't our immune cells destroy it?

An embryo "hides" itself from the body.  The fertilized egg divides to form the blastocyst (a ball of cells with an inner cell mass (which later becomes the fetus) and an outer layer called the trophoblast (which later becomes the placenta).   The trophoblast is what produces hCG which suppresses the maternal immunologic response so that placenta is not rejected. Then it begins to set up it's blood supply (angiogenisis).

I remember reading about that when I was researching laetrile... I also took several pregnancy tests in 2009 (at times that I knew I couldn't be pregnant) and they came back negative, but I only had DCIS which wouldn't release hCG or other markers into the bloodstream since it's in situ. Would be interesting to see if the hCG theory works for those with IDC.