Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Low carb diet slows tumour growth

I've had posts up here before about how low carb / ketogenic diet can limit or even reverse cancer growth.

unlike healthy cells, which generate energy by metabolizing sugar in their mitochondria, cancer cells appeared to fuel themselves exclusively through glycolysis, a less-efficient means of creating energy through the fermentation of sugar in the cytoplasm. The theory is simple: If most aggressive cancers rely on the fermentation of sugar for growing and dividing, then take away the sugar and they should stop spreading. Meanwhile, normal body and brain cells should be able to handle the sugar starvation; they can switch to generating energy from fatty molecules called ketone bodies — the body's main source of energy on a fat-rich diet — an ability that some or most fast-growing and invasive cancers seem to lack.

Here is another one

Carbohydrate restriction may slow prostate tumor growth

"The mice that were fed a no-carbohydrate diet experienced a 40 to 50 percent prolonged survival over the other mice," Freedland said.

Mice on the no-carbohydrate diet consumed more calories in order to keep body weights consistent with mice on the other study arms.

"We found that carbohydrate restriction without energy restriction – or weight loss – does indeed result in tumor growth delay," he said.

The researchers plan to begin recruiting patients at two sites – Duke and the University of California – Los Angeles – for a clinical trial to determine if restricting carbohydrate intake in patients with prostate cancer can similarly slow tumor growth. The trial should begin within a few weeks.

"It's very exciting – this is a potential new mechanism to fight prostate cancer growth and help patients live longer with their disease," Freedland said.

2 comments:

Jeff said...

Hey Chris,

I am counting on this. I am a cancer survivor and am hoping my Paleo low carb diet along with intermittent fasting will be protective. Thanks for sharing.

jeff

Anonymous said...

The latest issue of the journal Science (Science. 2009 May 22;324(5930):1029-33) has a rather detailed review on possible reasons for why cancer cells prefer glycolysis. The direct link is http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/324/5930/1029 though I don't think it is open access, unfortunately.