Starving cancer by cutting off its favorite foods

https://www.acsh.org/news/2019/10/02/starving-cancer-cutting-its-favorite-foods-glucose-and-glutamine-14314

by EndXA • 7 years ago

208 146 7 years ago

acsh.org

tick_tock_tick• 7 years ago

I wonder if occasional long term fasts can reduce your cancer risk.

Florin_Andrei• 7 years ago

I came here to say this. Seems like an intuitive conclusion.

OTOH, intuition is sometimes wrong.

It should be a pretty simple study to do. Just make sure to get enough people involved. Then correlate amount of fasting with the incidence of cancer over some period of time. I guess the duration of the study would be the only impediment.

anon1m0us5• 7 years ago

From my research, yes it can. I read a study that said patients who fast during chemotherapy treatments fare better too.

The mechanism seems to be that during periods of fasting, normal cells "hunker down" and restrict the consumption of nutrients and other materials. Cancer cells don't do this though and continue to consume the nutrients, which are actually chemotherapy drugs in the patients.

Fasting therfore increases the absorption of chemo by the cancer cells and reduces the consumption by normal cells keeping the patient healthier.

Fasting also enables the body to more completely rid itself of cancerous cells by consuming them in the absence of alternative sources of nutrition.

Lots of reasons why fasting is a good thing.

DoreenMichele2• 7 years ago

About 75-80% of the immune cells in your body can be found in the gut.

I suspect that one thing fasting does is frees up those cells to do other stuff.

newen• 7 years ago

Got any links to the research? Would be helpful to me and other readers. Thanks.

snowwrestler4• 7 years ago

This information is dangerously wrong. I have asked several oncologists specifically about fasting during chemotherapy and they all recommended strongly against it.

Your understanding of how chemotherapy works with cancer and healthy cells seems flawed. Chemo harms all fast-growing cells, healthy or not. That’s why people have terrible tastes, stomach problems, hair and skin problems during chemo; those are all fast-growing cells. They grow fast whether you are fasting or not; but killing them in large numbers (what the chemo does) raises the body’s demand for energy and nutrients just to maintain health. That demand must be met with healthy food and drink.

Edit to add: Fasting by a healthy person may reduce their chances of developing cancer; that seems plausible to me. My point is that people undergoing chemotherapy should follow the directions of the doctors. In my experience, those directions are to eat well while receiving treatment.

DrScump2• 7 years ago

  more completely rid itself of cancerous cells by consuming them

I don't think that's the mechanism of action.

randaouser• 7 years ago

To reach a ketogenic state, the term fast from a clinical sense required 24-36 hour period without any caloric intake; strictly water. I have done 3 day water fasts, the hunger waves need to be controlled the first 2 days, but the feeling is gone after that point.

There are many things to consider, including refeeding syndrome, it is highly advised to seek MD advice prior to undertaking such a diet.

Lastly, there is a ton of research highlighting fasting and its effects on stem cell regenerative properties.

lukifer2• 7 years ago

One thing that surprised me when water fasting was that while the hunger went away on the second day (starting in ketosis helps), I found myself still craving the reward and ritual of meals. Lunchtime arrived, and I missed the excuse to take a break from life/obligations and indulge in the enjoyable process of eating, independently from satiating hunger. I think when I do it again, I'll find some non-consuming activities to fill that void.

justsomeone884• 7 years ago

Prolonged fasts (dry and water fasts) are the key to getting well and curing a long list of diseases.

Edit: I don't want to provide sources. Me not providing a source on demand for the HN crowd does not mean this is not true. Do your own research, or don't.

Zelphyr4• 7 years ago

Please provide sources. You've made multiple statements like this on this thread with either specious sources or none at all.

surge2• 7 years ago

Supposedly it can, because your body when lacking nutrition for several days (I think like 5 at least) will break down weak/damaged cells for protein, which usually are the ones most likely to turn cancerous at some point.

This is what I've read on the topic and longetivity studies on people who go on long term fasts seem to support it.

That's what I've been told/read on the topic, but I'm not an expert by any means.

abledon• 7 years ago

Yes. Do a fast at the start of Spring & Fall.

I always respected the religions that observed some sort of fast, as it was a cool way they encoded health & longevity into their population.

lukifer2• 7 years ago

Perhaps a good rule of thumb: any time a significant number of worldwide religions independently converge on a single practice/idea, there may be something of value there worth porting to the secular world (see also: the sabbath, and the "golden rule").

DiabloD3• 7 years ago

The use of carb and glutamine restriction (see the work of Dr Thomas Seyfried) to boost the effectiveness of cancer treatments was modeled after fasting-mimicking diets. Essentially, Seyfried's work is basically that diet, but in a pill.

Actual long term fasting (ie, 3-5 day hardcore mode shit) allows the body to maximize autophagy to kill off damaged cells. The western diet of 3 square meals a day and keeping insulin levels alarmingly high (which both frequent and carb-laden diets promote) stops autophagy (for safety reasons; you don't want to accidentally attack cells doing their tasks to absorb and utilize nutrients).

So yeah, given what is known about cancer today, I personally eat keto omad (one meal a day intermittent fasting) within a 4 hour window every day, and periodically fast on top of that.

bob1029• 7 years ago

I do feel there is something very substantial regarding the various human metabolic states as they relate to these seemingly "everywhere" diseases that have no definitive causes.

Ketogenesis is arguably the most ideal state for our bodies to operate in, but it is also arguably the hardest one to maintain in our society. It is difficult for most to consistently ignore that big-ass box of krispy kreme donuts your asshole coworker brings in every day. Just one of those per day is probably enough to keep you stuck in glycogenesis for the rest of the morning and into part of the afternoon.

If you look at the push of HFCS and other crappy food options with incidence rates of cancer over the last 3 decades, I am pretty sure you will see some correlation there. Obviously, it is hard to draw a causal link between these, but at a certain point I am going to give up on the academic explanation in favor of a series of practical observations and whatever inferences I can draw from those. I am also acutely aware of the influence of profit seeking in the medical & academic communities. When I see a study come out that says something along the lines of "sugar isn't actually that bad for you" I immediately think big sugar or corn financed this research piece for their own benefit.

I have personally fasted for stretches as long as 5 days, been on one-meal-a-day, and have been on ketogenic diets for months at a time. I have also been a complete waste of a human, eating and binging on all manner of sugary, carb-loaded foods and other unspeakable horrors. I can tell you that 100% of the time, I felt better in the ketogenic state. Sure, you can argue for that very brief feel-good you get from slamming that donut, or the mental fortitude required to force yourself into keto. But, at the end of the day, once you are keto it's easy. It's just the transition phase that sucks. As with most things.

toast0• 7 years ago

It is difficult for most to consistently ignore that big-ass box of krispy kreme donuts

Krispy Kreme donuts are easy to avoid ... Donuts from your local hole in the wall donut shop on the other hand.

dev_dull5• 7 years ago

your body closely regulates the level of glucose in your blood. Your brain would literally starve without it.

Is this actually true? Having done the ketogenic diet and bringing carbohydrates down to almost nothing, my brain definitely didn't starve. In fact, running on ketones was amazing.

justsomeone884• 7 years ago

No. All the excess protein you likely consumed has actually increased your risk of cancer significantly.

dplgk• 7 years ago

Source?

frisco3• 7 years ago

This statement isn't supported by any real evidence. In fact, a lot of actual research supports the idea of keto for improving outcomes in some types of cancer.

surge2• 7 years ago

Ketogenic diets limit protein too, since your body can process protein and turn it into glucose. I don't know what you're talking about when you say excess given its a high fat, low protein, and very low carbohydrate diet.

dev_dull5• 7 years ago

Maybe other people did keto differently than me, but my protein stayed exactly the same. I just switched carbs with fat.

emptybits• 7 years ago

The very next sentence in the article answers your question, doesn't it?

"If you do not consume enough carbohydrates in your diet, your body will synthesize the glucose you need."

molmalo• 7 years ago

It's addressed here:

If you do not consume enough carbohydrates in your diet, your body will synthesize the glucose you need.

ilyaeck• 7 years ago

We are down to anecdotal evidences here. So as another anecdote, a guy I know went on a carb-free diet and developed diabetes as a result. His body lost the ability to process sugar. Bottom line, most people needs a balanced diet - including carbs that are one of the pillars of nutrition. A given individual's body may be able to compensate for the imbalance on its own, but let's not generalize that to the entire population.

markdown• 7 years ago

How do we know he wouldn't have developed diabetes anyway?

maximente2• 7 years ago

this makes no sense biochemically.

your hypothesis seems to be that a lack of carbohydrates (read: sugar) caused an individual to develop diabetes, but "diabetes" generalizes down to:

- the body (pancreas) does not produced insulin at all (type I)

- the body's cells are resistant to the produced insulin (type II)

we should be able to basically rule out type II because there should have largely been no insulin produced by this individual (glucagon would take priority due to low blood sugar), so insulin resistance seems super unlikely. and type I has a mix of factors but they are largely all autoimmune, where various pancreatic cells are destroyed by the body itself, causes generally unknown.

"losing the ability to process sugar" seems really sketchy, because those are all critical cellular processes that don't just go away. i realize you're probably not biologically trained but that statement doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

so which form of diabetes did this individual get diagnosed with?

rhinoceraptor• 7 years ago

carbs that are one of the pillars of nutrition

They're simply not, the body can manufacture all the glucose it needs.

The ketogenic diet is glucose sparing, that is your insulin levels are dramatically lowered since the very small amount of glucose you're eating should go to the tissues that require it, not into your fat cells.

So if you're on a ketogenic diet and then eat a lot of glucose, your body takes a little while to ramp back up insulin. That's not the same thing as insulin resistance or impaired insulin production in diabetics.

TimSchumann10• 7 years ago

The amount of carbohydrates you need in your diet to survive is exactly zero. They’re a non-essential macronutrient.

The amount of glucose you need in your blood stream to keep everything running smoothly is a very small amount easily produced by your body through a process called gluconeogenesis.

I went 60 days sans any calories and my body self regulated glucose just fine.

omarchowdhury• 7 years ago

You went 60 days without eating?

rorykoehler2• 7 years ago

What was fasting for 60 days like? Any negative experiences?

GiorgioG2• 7 years ago

I went 21 days with just water and electrolytes. My son is a type 1 diabetic so I had access to a glucose meter to test myself with. My blood glucose level at about the halfway mark was 59mg/dL (for reference, most non-diabetics should be between 70-130.)

I won't say fasting for 21 days was the most pleasant experience, but it is entirely doable by the average healthy person. Nice job going 60 days. The hardest part for me was the social aspect, family/friends' repeated concerns because I'm 'starving myself', sitting at the dinner table while everyone else eats, etc.

baked_ziti4• 7 years ago

Eliminating carbohydrates from your diet means eliminating vegetables from your diet. I'm highly skeptical of the claim that any such diet can ever be healthy in the medium to long term. I fail to see how malnourishment isn't a certainty under such circumstances.

The fact that humans can fast for weeks or months isn't evidence in favor of:

The amount of carbohydrates you need in your diet to survive is exactly zero.

fouc2• 7 years ago

How did you kickstart the fast? I find the first 4-5 days are pretty tough. At what point did it become easy?

Were you working during this period or off work? Sometimes starting the fast is troublesome when one knows there's going to be energy level issues.

I like the idea of avoiding coffee/tea, that's something I think could help in the long run.

sov• 7 years ago

Is this actually true?

It kinda depends on what exactly they mean. Is it true that if you had zero glucose available in your bloodstream at all your brain would be unable to function? Yes. Is it true that if nothing you ate contained any glucose your brain would starve? No. There's a process called gluconeogenesis which produces more than enough glucose for your brain to function no matter how few carbs you eat.

kingkawn2• 7 years ago

In the diet you describe the body would preferentially reserve all glucose for the brain and run the rest on ketones. The body can manufacture glucose when needed from other energy sources but it’s an energy intensive biochemical process and not ideal for efficient use of available nutrients.

DrScump2• 7 years ago

  the body would preferentially reserve all glucose for the brain

No, because the brain can use ketone bodies as fuel. Some other organs (such as the heart) cannot.

atwebb• 7 years ago

It was in the next line:

Your brain would literally starve without it. If you do not consume enough carbohydrates in your diet, your body will synthesize the glucose you need.

dev_dull5• 7 years ago

So then you don’t need to eat any carbohydrates at all? I’m really confused by the statement. You’ll never starve your brain by not eating carbs.

zadokshi2• 7 years ago

Your brain needs glucose. When you are on keto, your body produces glucose for your brain.

spacephysics• 7 years ago

A carnivorous diet (meat only, zero carbs) would accomplish the same without the pharmacological drawback. Been on the diet for over a year and have never felt better in my life.

toomuchtodo• 7 years ago

Keto diet is very similar.

justsomeone884• 7 years ago

Keto/carnivore is incredibly dangerous to the human body in the long run (5+ years out).

Excess protein (in fact, even in the amounts society recognizes as "normal") is bad for you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R07FL1wVo4

Mountain_Skies• 7 years ago

The Vegetarian Society of Hawaii isn't exactly an unbiased source. Maybe for balance we should post a video from the Texas Cattlemen's Association.

koboll2• 7 years ago

That video has a lot of pseudoscience ("leaky gut" syndrome, paleo humans never ate meat, etc.) so I'm inclined to distrust it entirely

Zelphyr4• 7 years ago

I've been on Keto for almost two years and recently had someone adamantly scold me about how bad it is for my brain. My n=1 suggests otherwise. Things like focus and mood are all significantly better than they were before. Physical and mental stamina have both increased. I went from an "Obese" body fat percentage to "Athletic" in six months.

But still, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and sincerely asked him, and ask others here, "Please provide me with studies that show that it's 'horrible for the brain'." I don't mean that to be snarky. I've looked and haven't been able to find the studies. Maybe I've been looking in the wrong places and I would love to read the studies* that show how bad it is.

Towards the end of the conversation with this guy I found it amusing that he stopped chiding me long enough to ask, "So... wait, what is Keto?"

* Peer-reviewed, scientifically rigorous studies only please.

i_am_nomad• 7 years ago

I’m sorry, YouTube is too academic and dense. Could you post a TikTok or a meme with the same info?

topmonk3• 7 years ago

No, it wouldn't. Your brain needs glucose to survive and your body will manufacture it if it's not present. If you actually were able to accomplish what you're saying, you'd be braindead.

frisco3• 7 years ago

You need ATP. The Krebs cycle can manufacture it from either ketone bodies or from glucose.

PenguinCoder• 7 years ago

I'd like to comment that you are wrong, but in the spirit of discussion; can you cite or link to sources for your claim, from within the past decade?

itchyouch• 7 years ago

with protein only, the protein goes through gluconeogensis and the protein is converted into glucose, whereas in keto, the fat is used as fat...

arcticbull2• 7 years ago

The glycerol backbones in triglycerides also undergo gluconeogenesis.

koboll2• 7 years ago

Wouldn't this drug basically enable you to get the same benefits as someone on a low/no-carb diet even if you aren't?

travisp• 7 years ago

Have you ever checked your blood sugar on a zero carb diet? It’s far from zero.

This medication is intended to block glucose transport to cancer cells while not blocking to non-cancer cells. Even if a zero carb diet would be a good idea for a cancer patient in general, there is absolutely no chance that a zero carb diet would be equivalent to the intended mechanism of this medication because people with a zero carb diet still have plenty of glucose.

fortran77• 7 years ago

In general, people who overeat are more susceptible to many forms of cancer, and cancers are more virulent among overeaters.

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/o...

It would make sense that by limiting food intake, cancers would progress slower.

pcarolan• 7 years ago

The article is about what cancer eats, not what you eat. The world’s leading neuro-oncologists I’ve talked to don’t believe diet matters.

bahrd2• 7 years ago

Yep, bodies filled with glucose unless you're starving to death. Eat fat; glycogenolysis turns it into glucose for your cells; eat protein, the amino acids are used in gluconeogenesis to synthesize glucose. Pretty crucial for cellular respiration.

entee2• 7 years ago

Cancer favoring glucose has been known for a very long time, this is called the Warburg Effect:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warburg_effect_(oncology)

Interesting new pharmacology for sure, but the end of the article is critical here:

"Additionally, an accompanying commentary by William Katt and colleagues indicated that there are no FDA-approved drugs that target glucose and glutamine metabolism. This is because previous drug candidates proved to be too toxic for use in humans."

It's really hard to go after glucose because it's kind of everywhere. If there's a way to target this compound more specifically, maybe it could be useful. As it stands now, it's very very far from being a viable drug (and it doesn't sound like the authors claim otherwise). Cool science though.

tyingq• 7 years ago

This is how they detect cancer with a PET scan. They pump some radioactive glucose into your veins first. Tumors absorb it quicker than normal tissue, so they glow brighter on the PET scan.

drwasho• 7 years ago

I worked on this for multiple myeloma. DCA is nice but the concentrations you need for treating people gives them peripheral neuropathy, which isn’t trivial. But fwiw combining DCA with other drugs looks promising.

The issue is that cancer is polyclonal so there is a sub-population that predominantly relies of aerobic glycolysis, but the sub-populations that mostly metabolise glutamine or fatty acids will escape treatment... so you need a bit of a shotgun approach, in combination with traditional anti-cancer agents.

entee2• 7 years ago

That makes sense. I think most people underappreciate how polyclonal cancer is. Every tumor isn't one cell, it's dozens or hundreds of different types of cell, which makes it extremely hard to cover all the possible escape paths for the cancer overall. As you mention, going with a shotgun approach of different drugs can help, but that's when toxicity becomes a real problem. It's not always possible to just give 2 drugs because one is so toxic on its own so you might kill the patient. One of the theories I've heard about why we've made relatively more progress on cancers in children is that they "heal" better, which means they can actually tolerate higher doses for some of these drugs.

ycalu4• 7 years ago

That sounds like fascinating research. Besides chemotoxic agents, do you know what other compounds are being experimented with, in combination with DCA?

mindviews2• 7 years ago

A couple of interesting publications on Glioblastoma treatment that might be pointing in the right direction for targeting glucose and glutamine starting with mouse models: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-019-0455-x and progressing to human case study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29651419

kd3• 7 years ago

Starve cancer with cannabis oil with 95% THC concentration. Don't suffer, the cure has existed for thousands of years.

ajessup• 7 years ago

This is great science writing. Straightforward, factual, and with context to help folks put the findings into perspective. It's a refreshing change from the hyperbolic coverage of scientific topics one often finds in more mainstream media.

collyw• 7 years ago

Shit, a lot of things that I had considered healthy are high in glutamine.

ycalu4• 7 years ago

It's worth clarifying that glutamine isn't unhealthy in moderate amounts.

It's just that when treating cancer, there may be opportunity to modify its intake and see benefits.

Madmallard2• 7 years ago

I have endogenous hyperinsulinemia (mostly proinsulin). That means I really can't go without consuming sugar or I will get neuroglycopenic. What's interesting is (they don't know yet) this could be caused by a type of pancreatic cancer. Seems really bad then if the cancer itself wants more sugar. Maybe this is why Steve Jobs tended toward fruits for 9 months and ended up with metastasis...

Starving cancer by cutting off its favorite foods

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