Fasting weakens cancer in mice

Even fasting on its own effectively treated a majority of cancers tested in animals, including cancers from human cells.

The study in Science Translational Medicine, part of the Science family of journals, found that five out of eight cancer types in mice responded to fasting alone: Just as with chemotherapy, fasting slowed the growth and spread of tumors.

And without exception, "the combination of fasting cycles plus chemotherapy was either more or much more effective than chemo alone," said senior author Valter Longo, professor of gerontology and biological sciences at the University of Southern California.

For example, multiple cycles of fasting combined with chemotherapy cured 20 percent of mice with a highly aggressive type of children's cancer that had spread throughout the organism and 40 percent of mice with a more limited spread of the same cancer.

No mice survived in either case if treated only with chemotherapy.

Only a clinical trial lasting several years can demonstrate whether humans would benefit from the same treatment, Longo cautioned.

Results from the first phase of a clinical trial with breast, urinary tract and ovarian cancer patients, conducted at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and led by oncologists Tanya Dorff and David Quinn, in collaboration with Longo, have been submitted for presentation at the annual meeting of the American Society of Cancer Oncologists.

The first phase tests only the safety of a therapy, in this case whether patients can tolerate short-term fasts of two days before and one day after chemotherapy.

"We don't know whether in humans it's effective," Longo said of fasting as a cancer therapy. "It should be off limits to patients, but a patient should be able to go to their oncologist and say, 'What about fasting with chemotherapy or without if chemotherapy was not recommended or considered?"

In a case report study with self-reported data published in the journal Aging in 2010, 10 cancer patients who tried fasting cycles perceived fewer side effects from chemotherapy.

eddie wrote:Chemo patients don’t always have an appetite anyway but perhaps just having raw fruit and vegetable juices which give vital vitamins, and quickly, can help with fasting.

It certainly helps human bodies to fast. Lots of information out there.

Ben Reilly wrote:

eddie wrote:Chemo patients don’t always have an appetite anyway but perhaps just having raw fruit and vegetable juices which give vital vitamins, and quickly, can help with fasting.

It certainly helps human bodies to fast. Lots of information out there.

At the risk of making this thread a conversation we could have had across the table, I used to fast quite a bit. I remember waking up the day I allowed myself to go back to eating and not really caring whether I did or not ... until I made some food, then I was ravenous. But I never overate after a fast, either.

eddie wrote:

Ben Reilly wrote:

eddie wrote:Chemo patients don’t always have an appetite anyway but perhaps just having raw fruit and vegetable juices which give vital vitamins, and quickly, can help with fasting.

It certainly helps human bodies to fast. Lots of information out there.

At the risk of making this thread a conversation we could have had across the table, I used to fast quite a bit. I remember waking up the day I allowed myself to go back to eating and not really caring whether I did or not ... until I made some food, then I was ravenous. But I never overate after a fast, either.

Well, you know me, eat loads one day and hardly eat other days.  Never did me any harm. I only eat if I’m hungry. As you know.  

eddie wrote:Big meals make people lurgy and tired. We eat far more than we need to.

If we eat blindfolded then we’d eat far less. We tend to eat with our eyes.