The findings give a new boost to an old approach to medical research: generalized medicine. Personalized medicine will come around eventually, Longo says. But in the meantime, he is focused on finding treatments that can work across diseases. "Especially with cancer, we have an opportunity to look at what is common," he says. "What is it that, by definition, all cancer cells will have difficulty doing?" he asks. The fasting research suggests that the answer is adaptation.
As a cancer grows and its cells mutate, they become more specifically adapted to the environment—a tactic that often spell success for the malignancy. But, Longo says, "if you start changing the environment" by fasting, it has more trouble surviving chemo assaults than healthy tissue cells. Cancer cells, at least in breast cancer experiments, seemed to be fighting to stay alive in the starvation–chemo environment by eating up even more energy, which stresses the malignant cells and causes more damage in them.
Mary Helen Barcellos-Hoff, a professor at the New York University Langone Medical Center who was not involved in the new research, wonders if fasting is also having other effects in the body that is making it less hospitable to cancer, say by increasing immune system sensitivity to the cancer or helping to squelch vascularization of tumors. "I really think modifying the microenvironment to make it less permissive is really one of the untapped potentials for future cancer therapies, she says."
But as Longo notes, fasting—for two to three days in mice, which would be the equivalent of four to five days in humans—alters the body in myriad ways. "You look at their blood, everything changes," from the factors that control blood vessel growth to acids, he says. So now he and his team are going back to look for different signs of what is changing the fasting and chemo in hopes of further optimizing the timing and treatments.
From mice to people
The medical research field is strewn with promising cures-turned-casualties that had to be scrapped after showing promise in mice and failing to work in humans. The cancer battleground is one of the most littered. "Unfortunately we can cure cancer in mice, and we have a much harder time in humans," Barcellos-Hoff says.
The new study might help to quell some of the common reservations about promise in people. "One of the thing that's impressive about it is they used so many models of mouse cancer," Barcellos-Hoff says. The researchers tested more than a dozen different types of cancer lines in mice.
The other concern in translating this research to humans is that people with cancer—and especially those already undergoing treatment—have often already lost a substantial amount of weight. So prescribing days without food could be dangerous, especially for those who already have low blood pressure, diabetes or other metabolic conditions.
Most mice in the fasting groups were able to gain their weight back in five days or so. But humans, of course, are very different animals. Small fasting studies in cancer patients—some involving as long as 62 hours without food before treatment and 24 hours without food afterward—so far have produced only small side effects, Longo says, such as fatigue and headaches. And as Barcellos-Hoff notes, "I think humans would be much grouchier after two days without food." But so far the method seems to be relatively well tolerated in small, carefully controlled studies. And "chemotherapy does make you feel really bad," Barcellos-Hoff says. So fasting "is a lot less unpleasant than many of the things cancer patients are subjected to."
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12 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
We also fasted through chemo (6 sessions of Taxotere/Carboplatin on 3 week intervals) and happily experienced minimal adverse side effects. I wrote about it here:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://keepingabreast.lrng.org/index.php/36-chemo-fast-experimental-edge