48 hr Fasting before Chemo - #2

This post is a followup to a post by Gabrielle (loveandhope). posting new so as not to get buried...

There is quite a lot more research than I expected on the issue of fasting and cancer/chemo and, in my layman's opinion,, some of it looks promissing. For those who are interested, a good review of the topic was written by V. Longo and C Lee in 2011. Here is title and abstract

Title: Fasting vs dietary restriction in cellular protection and cancer treatment:
from model organisms to patients


Abstract: The dietary recommendation for cancer patients receiving
chemotherapy, as described by the American Cancer
Society, is to increase calorie and protein intake. Yet, in
simple organisms, mice, and humans, fasting—no calorie
intake—induces a wide range of changes associated with
cellular protection, which would be difficult to achieve
even with a cocktail of potent drugs. In mammals, the
protective effect of fasting is mediated, in part, by an over
50% reduction in glucose and insulin-like growth factor 1
(IGF-I) levels. Because proto-oncogenes function as key
negative regulators of the protective changes induced by
fasting, cells expressing oncogenes, and therefore the
great majority of cancer cells, should not respond to
the protective signals generated by fasting, promoting the
differential protection (differential stress resistance) of
normal and cancer cells. Preliminary reports indicate that
fasting for up to 5 days followed by a normal diet, may
also protect patients against chemotherapy without
causing chronic weight loss. By contrast, the long-term
20 to 40% restriction in calorie intake (dietary restriction,
DR), whose effects on cancer progression have been
studied extensively for decades, requires weeks–months to
be effective, causes much more modest changes in glucose
and/or IGF-I levels, and promotes chronic weight loss in
both rodents and humans. In this study, we review the basic
as well as clinical studies on fasting, cellular protection and
chemotherapy resistance, and compare them to those on DR
and cancer treatment. Although additional pre-clinical and
clinical studies are necessary, fasting has the potential to be
translated into effective clinical interventions for the
protection of patients and the improvement of therapeutic
index.

Another researcher relevant to this is L. Fontana. He has shown that normal calorie restriction does not reduce IGF-1, the reduction of which appear essesntial for cancer protection, but that protein restriction does. I am speculating here, but there has been a correlation drawn between high protein consumption in our society and elevated IGF-1 and hence increased cancer incidence, so it seems to make sense that one, especially a cancer patient, would not want over-eat protein, but eat in modest quantities and shift the diet to plants instead of so much reliance on animal products. Plants contain many chemicals (e.g. polyphenols) which also appear to help regulate signalling that inhibits cancer cell growth

In any case, for those interested Google Scholar is your friend...

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