Could Fasting Help Cure Cancer?
A new study has found that fasting could improve the effectiveness of cancer treatment.
Researchers at the University of Southern California said in the Science Translational Medicine journal that fasting for small stretches of time actually decreased tumour growth.
The study’s lead researcher Professor Valter Londo said: “A way to beat cancer cells may not be to try to find drugs that kill them specifically but to confuse them by generating extreme environments, such as fasting, that only normal cells can quickly respond to.”
The team found tumour cells reacted in a different way when deprived of food to other cells.
The team tested how fasting affected breast, ovarian and skin cancer in mice. When mice with breast cancer tumours were made to fast but not given chemotherapy, the researchers observed that tumour growth slowed.
Professor Longo explained: “The cell is, in fact, committing cellular suicide.”
“What we’re seeing is that the cancer cell tries to compensate for the lack of all these things missing in the blood after fasting. It may be trying to replace them, but it can’t.”
The researchers added that combining chemotherapy with fasting increased the effectiveness of cancer treatment.
They said 20% of mice with an aggressive type of cancer were cured after a group of chemo/fast cycles and 40% with less aggressive cancer were cured.
All the mice who were given chemotherapy but were allowed to eat died.
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