Anyone got papers/info about keto for cancer?

jumanajane

A friend of mine has just been diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer and has asked me if I know of any natural remedies that can help. She is starting 6 months of chemo tomorrow. I cant tell her not to have the chemo much as I would like to but I need some info and papers about how a ketogenic diet can be used to treat cancer. Knowing how well informed a lot of you are and have good access to papers etc I thought I would enlist your help. Thanks guys.

wabmester

Sorry to hear about your friend. Try this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Cancer-Metabolic-Disease-Management-Prevention/dp/0470584920

I've heard that ketosis doesn't work well for breast cancer, and may make it worse, but hopefully the book will cover that topic.

Edit:
PDF here:
http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/pdf/1743-7075-7-7.pdf

Also, check the work of Valter Longo. He's done some studies on metabolic therapy in conjunction with chemo, but he doesn't take a keto approach -- more of a low-protein diet.

http://michelsonmedical.org/2014/12/26/igf-1-fasting-discussion-valter-longo/

Dragonwolf

Ping Andrew Scarborough on Facebook. He's used a ketogenic diet to aid the healing of his brain cancer (which was inoperable, I think, and arguably terminal). He's got a bunch of resources, as well as personal experience and contact with cancer researchers.

jumanajane

Thanks so much. Will pass it on to her.

DittoDan

jumanajane wrote: »

A friend of mine has just been diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer and has asked me if I know of any natural remedies that can help. She is starting 6 months of chemo tomorrow. I cant tell her not to have the chemo much as I would like to but I need some info and papers about how a ketogenic diet can be used to treat cancer. Knowing how well informed a lot of you are and have good access to papers etc I thought I would enlist your help. Thanks guys.

Do google & youtube for:

Ketogenic cancer

And you'll find a lot of info. Basically, the thought is that many cancers are metabolic in nature. The carbs are converted to sugar, the sugar fuels the cancer. Its one reason why diabetics have a higher incidence of cancer. So to fight cancer, you eliminate the carbs/sugar from your diet and starve the cancer.

There is also some great results from ketogenic and combining with conventional cancer treatments.

Google/YouTube: hyperbaric & cancer ketogenic.

The best part about the Ketogenic diet is that it doesn't cost anything, you can start immediately, and if it doesn't help, at least it won't hurt you (unlike many other types of treatments).

I hope this helps,

Dan the Man from Michigan
Keto / IF / Sedentary

DittoDan

Here is an excellent Ted Med Talk on YouTube, Ketogenic and Hyperbaric:

Starving cancer: Dominic D'Agostino

I hope this helps,

Dan the Man from Michigan
Keto / IF / Sedentary

It's Ketogenic or Bariatric Surgery! How I Found the Ketogenic Diet

DittoDan

Do a search for "Otto Warburg"

I hope this helps,

Dan the Man from Michigan
Keto / IF / Sedentary

DittoDan

This lady will help for free, she beat cancer with a ketogenic diet: Patricia Daly

http://patriciadaly.com/

I hope this helps,

Dan the Man from Michigan
Keto / IF / Sedentary
Previous Discussions on the LCD & Keto Groups

wabmester

DittoDan wrote: »

The best part about the Ketogenic diet is that it doesn't cost anything, you can start immediately, and if it doesn't help, at least it won't hurt you (unlike many other types of treatments).

Unless you believe this study:
Ketones and lactate increase cancer cell “stemness”, driving recurrence, metastasis and poor clinical outcome in breast cancer

DittoDan

http://www.ketogenic-diet-resource.com/cancer-diet.html

I hope this helps,

Dan the Man from Michigan
Keto / IF / Sedentary
Blog #11 Really Good Keto Websites

Sunny_Bunny_

I wish I could get my dad with lung cancer to eat anything besides canned fruit and boost drinks! I hate all that sugar! But since everything tastes awful to him now, that's about all he will willingly eat except chicken nuggets occasionally.

wabmester

Yeah, I think that's one of the main problems with metabolic therapy. Chemo kills the appetite, so just getting enough food is a problem.

I'm reading this research on breast cancer:
Metabolic Signatures of Human Breast Cancer

... there is evidence that dietary fat intake is linked to cell proliferation in breast cancer

Hypoxia induces glycolysis and reductive carboxylation of glutamine that retains mitochondrial citrate synthesis under oxygen deficiency. While glycolysis is needed to maintain ATP synthesis in absence of mitochondrial respiration, some of the endproducts of glycolysis, like lactate and ketones, are now known to promote metastasis in breast cancer.

So breast cancer cells apparently metabolize fat, sugar, lactate, and ketones. Nasty cells!

SlimBride2Be

In the UK the Royal Marsden Hispital which is the leading cancer hospital has published a nutrition and cook book. I flicked through it in a bookshop and it looked good although would need to be adapted for true keto.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Royal-Marsden-Cancer-Cookbook/dp/0857832328

jumanajane

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Sooo much information to read and digest! There is one question that popped into my mind overnight.....have i read somewhere that fat cells release estrogen when they are releasing the fat....or something like that???? In which case a keto diet wont help as breast cancer cells are usually estrogen sensitive.
But, on a more positive note one of hubbys uncles is having chemo at the moment for stomach cancer with matastatic growths in the liver....not a good prognosis I know but they are trying anything....except keto diet. The Dr's just told him to eat what he can and apparently hes just living on fruit juice...can tolerate anything else....they told him to ignore 'quack' things and chemo is the only choice!! Arrgghhhhh. All these papers etc will give us some firepower! Thanks again.

Dragonwolf

jumanajane wrote: »

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Sooo much information to read and digest! There is one question that popped into my mind overnight.....have i read somewhere that fat cells release estrogen when they are releasing the fat....or something like that???? In which case a keto diet wont help as breast cancer cells are usually estrogen sensitive.
But, on a more positive note one of hubbys uncles is having chemo at the moment for stomach cancer with matastatic growths in the liver....not a good prognosis I know but they are trying anything....except keto diet. The Dr's just told him to eat what he can and apparently hes just living on fruit juice...can tolerate anything else....they told him to ignore 'quack' things and chemo is the only choice!! Arrgghhhhh. All these papers etc will give us some firepower! Thanks again.

First, you can be keto without losing weight. Second, it's the stored fat cells themselves that release estrogen (contrary to common belief, fat is actually metabolically active). They might release some when they're burned if the body had to store it when gaining the fat, but the act of burning fat doesn't release estrogen. Losing weight should actually prompt a net reduction in excess estrogen levels.

annalisbeth74

I'm a radiation therapist, but I'm still relatively new to keto so I can't say much to the keto- breast cancer connection. But, your friend's pathology report should say whether her tumor is estrogen receptor positive or negative, so maybe if it's negative then keto would be okay? IDK, but it's something to look into.

As for cancer in general, tumors are definitely highly metabolic, and eat up sugar like crazy. It's how PET scans work- they give you glucose that's tagged with a radioactive isotope, and the glucose is taken up by the most metabolically active places in the body, i.e. tumors (& brain & kidneys too). Makes sense to me that if you cut out the sugar, the tumor starves. However, this is just my own intuition and not based on any research.

I also happened to read an article on Facebook not 10 minutes ago about how baking soda may work in acid-alkaline therapy. Something else she could check into.

KETOGENICGURL

Dt Sircus* has a book I was looking at on Sodium Bicarb- as in getting the blood to a base during chemo, vs acid..read some of there MANY book reviews on Amazon ( 112 , some good comments in several)
Sodium Bicarbonate: Nature's Unique First Aid Remedy Kindle Editionby Mark Sircus

as someone who had kidney cancer I did a lot of reading on adjunct/complementary medicine (natural, etc) to support TX, and diet/nutrition can certainly help someone get thru the rigors of chemo. there is a lot of info on the web, desperation causes people to try all sorts of things, but nutrition trumps them all

* i was reading his book on Transdermal Magnesium therapy ( which I am doing) and also jumped to the Bicarb one on Amazon too.

nvmomketo

Suzanne Somers had an interesting book out a few years ago about her cancer story. There's a lot of really good alternative treatments in there, some of which are going mainstream. I can't remember if it was called Breakthrough or Knockout.

jumanajane

Thanks again all. Everything much appreciated....now if you can tell me how to knock some sense into uncles Dr's......???

KeithF6250

Glucose deprivation or ketosis as a cancer treatment has produced mixed results. There are a lot of studies like these:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120110101824.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100723112715.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120626131854.htm
but other studies have produced mixed or negative results. I had to search a bit for this dimly remembered study.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130131144427.htm
which found that glucose deprivation works except when random selection produces cancer cells which thrive on common proteins giving them an all you can eat buffet.