Hunger Gains: A new study in mice suggests that fasting might not only protect human cells against damage from chemotherapy--but that it could also make the treatment more deadly for cancer cells.
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Cancer treatment can be brutal for patients. Many of the tools we have—chemotherapy, radiation—are big, blunt weapons that deal punishing blows to healthy tissues along with cancerous ones. So the hunt has been on for more and more finely targeted therapies that will attack malignant cells yet minimize damage to patients' bodies.
But a new study shows that we might be able to catch cancer cells off guard by using an ancient and body-wide tactic: fasting.
Fasting has long been practiced as part of various cultural traditions and has, more recently, gained favor in alternative and complementary medicine practices. But researchers are still figuring out whether nutritional deprivation can prevent or cure some diseases—and if so, how.
The new study found that in mice with cancer, fasting prior to chemotherapy often led to more tumor shrinkage than chemo alone. And in some cases, the combination apparently eliminated certain kinds of cancer. This fasting–chemo combo, the researchers suggest, "could extend the survival of advanced stage cancer patients by both retarding tumor progression and reducing side effects," they noted in their study, published online Wednesday in Science Translational Medicine. It might be able to help early-stage patients, too, they say.
One–two punch?
The new work builds on a 2008 mouse study that found fasting helped to protect healthy cells against chemotherapy's toxic effects. That finding raised flags in the cancer field. "The concern was we were also protecting the cancer cells," says Valter Longo, a professor of biology and gerontology at the University of Southern California Davis School of Gerontology and co-author of the new paper. So he and his colleagues embarked on five years of research to see whether that was the case, testing different fasting and chemotherapy regimens on a variety of cancers—glioma, melanoma, neuroblastoma, breast and ovarian—in mice. "We not only saw that the cancer was not protected but that it was sensitized" to the chemo, he says.
In the new work, fasting mice were allowed to drink water but were not given food for at least two days. When mice with breast cancer, glioma or melanoma were subjected to two rounds of 48-hour fasting before their chemo, their tumors shrunk more than those in mice that received chemotherapy alone.
Mice that had metastasized cancer and were put on the fasting-chemo plan showed a 40 percent greater reduction in their metastases than those that had been fed before receiving chemotherapy. They also seemed to live longer after getting this treatment. With two cycles of fasting and a high dose of chemo, 42 percent of mice with one of two types of metastatic neuroblastoma lived for more than 180 days, whereas all of their well-fed, chemo-treated mice had already died by then. Fasting and chemo together had an even more dramatic effect in a third type of metastatic neuroblastoma: about a quarter of mice lived for more than 300 days, at which point they still seemed to be cancer free.
Fasting appears to protect normal cells from chemotherapy's toxic effects by rerouting energy from growing and reproducing to internal maintenance. But cancer cells do not undergo this switch to self-repair and so continue to be susceptible to drug-induced damage—making for what the researchers call a differential stress resistance. Fasting, then, the authors wrote, should enhance the power of chemotherapies without having to resort to "the more typical strategy of increasing the toxicity of drugs."
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11 Comments
Add CommentDo you suppose it took FIVE YEARS of "studies" to come up with this--because they cannot CHARGE people not to be fed?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the meantime, how many people have been burned, cut apart and chemically poisoned to an unnecessary degree by their primitive medical methods--when some SIMPLE procedure would have greatly mitigated so much suffering, with so little effort?
*boosts chemo's cancer-busting properties*, not *cures cancer on it's own*. C'mon it's right in the headline!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am not advocating no treatment except fasting.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut it should be obvious that implementing this SIMPLE procedure early on would certainly have been a logical and low risk method of enhancing treatment.
Dear Katherine Harmon thanks for a thoughtful report. It is odd to me that this area of research seems so undeveloped given how seemingly basic it appears. True, "promising cures" come and go; but, the depth of type & magnitude of effect seen, even given mouse cancer, would seem highly likely to portend effective fasting-chemotherapy protocols.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRichard Carlson.
It's not obvious at all. As was pointed out in the article, there are potential downsides (including dangerous ones) to fasting, and it is unclear if the POSSIBLE benefits of fasting during chemo will outweigh the downsides.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn important principle to follow in science and medicine is not to jump to conclusions based on preliminary data. Having said that, in the case of patients undergoing chemo, a supplementary treatment that may have positive effects (which have not yet been proven) couldn't hurt and may be a good thing, ASSUMING THERE WERE NO RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH THE SUPPLEMENTAL TREATMENT. But in this case, there are. Aside from the obvious side effects, for all anyone knows, in humans, fasting may give cancer cells a foothold and WORSEN patient outcome.
So I'm not sure what the point is of jumping to the implied conclusion that some grand conspiracy has resulted in the idea of fasting to help cancer patients being suppressed for years.
As the article says--fasting has been a historical part of human society for ages.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDetermining that there are/or are not complications that are WORSE than the VERY SUBSTANCIAL unmitigated side effects of Chemo, X-rays, or surgery--should not take over FIVE YEARS (as the article says).
Have you, or any of your family actually been through any of the modern medical horrors that are side effects of cancer treatment?
All effort should be made to lessen these effects--
I cannot say that these facts have been "suppressed for years"--But it has been commonly available information that has not been acted of for years-- note this from 2008:
http://www.physorg.com/news126202490.html
The snail's pace of progress is inexcusable.
As a matter of fact, my mother is currently undergoing chemo; so yes, I am familiar with the fact that chemo is not a particularly pleasant experience. But that isn't the issue here. It's not chemo vs. something else; it's chemo alone or chemo in conjunction with something else.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI work day in and day out researching the new and cutting edge ways to treat and diagnose cancer and other diseases. This involves working with university researchers. I have also been a researcher myself. So I can assure you that researchers are trying to move their work forward as quickly as they possibly can. There are a number of factors which contribute to slowing down work. Some examples include: (1) the nature of proper scientific research -namely it being a painfully slow process; (2) a serious lack of funding, and the fact that researchers have to spend inordinate amounts of time trying to get funding; (3) obstacles around clinical trials, including strict ethical guidelines which must be carefully navigated, and which lead to it taking a long time to get enough data to convincingly support a particular conclusion.
You say that the snail's pace of progress is inexcusable. But who are you not excusing? The scientists? Scientists are not perfect - trust me - I used to be one; but they do a pretty darned good job overall. Doctors? GOOD doctors can only go off what they have to work with: proper evidence from scientists that a particular treatment works safely and effectively. Industry? Industry is far from perfect, but I don't think it's reasonable to think they have control over Joe Blow scientist doing research on the effects of fasting on chemo. I personally think that politicians and the general public need to educate themselves more on all these matters, and contribute more by facilitating increased rates of innovation by the innovators (scientists).
My experience is that if research is submitted from unexpected areas or from areas outside the usual domain or field of speciality--a great deal of time is wasted in petty arguments by academics,(largely over "turf").
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is what I should blame for a large portion of the "snails pace".
I did not have any kind of cancer till now.I will do anything to get it completely cured permanently,if i would have it.Unwillingly i am ready to take any kind of pain.Ultimately curse of diseases must get cured.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm a breast cancer survivor Her2+++ and I confirm that fasting is a good thing to do. Thanks to fasting, I survived my Chemotherapy. I had no side effects during my chimo, and I felt pretty good! I do thank Dr Valter Longo so much. I was about to start my chemotherapy when I read his research and I decided to fast. I also cut out definitely sugar, coffee and all dairy products.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have read quite a bit on fasting prior to chemo. I start my chemo Friday. So, I am going to start my fast at 10 a.m. today. My question...I start chemo at 10 a.m. Friday, and they send me home w/a pump for 48 hours. Should I fast during that time and a bit after when they unplug the pump? I have colon cancer w/mets to the liver and I wanna do anything to help the good cells, anything to kill the bad.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks,
Judy