The Claim: Cancer Is a Fungus and Baking Soda Cures It

The baking soda cancer claim is usually presented as a simple story: cancer is actually a fungal infection, Candida is the hidden cause, and sodium bicarbonate can kill the fungus by changing pH. The simplicity is the appeal. It turns a frightening diagnosis into a household-chemical problem.

The problem is that the story is not how cancer works. Cancer is not a fungal colony wearing a different name. It is a group of diseases in which abnormal human cells grow without normal control and may invade nearby tissue or spread to distant sites. The National Cancer Institute gives that definition directly, and its genetics overview explains that cancers arise from changes in genes that regulate cell growth and division.

What the Simoncini theory says

Tullio Simoncini popularized the claim that cancer is caused by Candida and can be treated with sodium bicarbonate. Quackwatch summarized the theory as a claim that cancer is caused by a fungus and can be cured by administering sodium bicarbonate. Promotional versions of the claim often add several steps: Candida supposedly invades tissue, the body supposedly walls it off as a tumor, and bicarbonate supposedly destroys the fungal mass.

That chain of reasoning fails at the first biological step. Candida exists; it can cause real infections, especially in people with weakened immune systems. But the existence of Candida does not mean tumors are Candida. Cancer cells are human cells with abnormal growth behavior, not fungi. Cancer Research UK addresses this exact myth and notes that there is no evidence that Candida infection is the cause of cancer or that baking soda is a cancer cure.

Why the claim can sound plausible

The claim borrows credibility from three true observations. First, some tumors have acidic extracellular environments. Second, sodium bicarbonate is a buffer used in medicine for specific acid-base problems. Third, fungi and other microbes can be studied in relation to cancer biology. None of those statements proves that cancer is a fungus or that sodium bicarbonate treats cancer.

This is a common misinformation pattern: start with a real mechanism, remove the clinical limits, and present a shortcut as if it were medicine. A study in mice, a drug label for metabolic acidosis, or a laboratory observation about pH does not become a patient treatment unless the whole clinical chain is tested: dose, route, cancer type, stage, interaction with standard care, benefit, harms, and survival outcomes.

What is documented about Simoncini

The concept page for this site requires that Simoncini's background be handled factually rather than sensationally. The clearest sourced statement is from ANSA, which reported in January 2018 that Simoncini had been disbarred and was sentenced to five and a half years after being convicted of culpable manslaughter for treating a 27-year-old patient's brain tumor with bicarbonate of soda in a Tirana clinic. ANSA also reported that an assistant received a two-year sentence.

The relevance is not character attack. The relevance is patient safety. A cancer-cure claim attached to a criminal manslaughter conviction and the loss of medical standing deserves unusually high evidentiary scrutiny. In cancer care, evidence is not optional decoration; it is how patients avoid preventable harm.

What would evidence need to show?

For the claim to be medically credible, it would need more than testimonials or a mechanistic story. It would need reproducible clinical evidence showing that sodium bicarbonate, used in a defined way for a defined cancer, improves meaningful outcomes compared with appropriate standard care, without unacceptable harms. It would also need to show that the fungal theory matches pathology, molecular biology, imaging, treatment response, and disease progression across cancers.

That evidence is not there. What exists instead is a legitimate but narrower research lane about tumor acidity and bicarbonate as a possible adjunct under controlled conditions. That lane is covered in Legitimate Research. A focused review of Simoncini therapy evidence explains the clinical evidence that would be needed and why the broader claim still fails.