> Currently, the most plausible theory emerging from her team’s research points to metabolism: Healthy and cancerous cells may process reactive oxygen species—unstable oxygen-containing molecules generated during radiation—in very different ways.
There was also a study that showed that chemotherapy efficacy was enhanced by fasting before treatment.
It seems that when calories are scarce, healthy cells turtle up while cancer cells keep consuming, so fasting reduces absorption rates in healthy tissues and thus collateral damage.
Healthy cells CAN turtle-up, whereas cancer cells engage in unregulated reproduction. Also, some cancer cells can only consume glucose. Which, in a fasted state, would mean that the majority of energy would be in ketones(if the individual were metabolically healthy), starving the cancer cells to death.
Because the cancers cells adapt! (fast reproduction and high mutation rate of the cancerous cells make that process quicker than antibiotics resistance)
Please don't throw around random "a study that showed" about cancer treatments and chemotherapy. If you really think it needs to be shared, share the study and while you're at it, check in with a good oncologist or knowledgeable friend too. In my ~10 years of enduring chemo and other treatments, the amount of garbage you have to wade through from "well meaning" anecdata like "wheat grass" or "smoke huge bongloads" or "don't eat sugar" makes an already horrible process worse.
And yes I checked this with my onc at MSK. Dietary glucose in particular -- if you cut out enough sugar to starve cancer cells you would be doing lots of damage elsewhere as well.
There is this review that havent found any effects:
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/15/12/2666
Note that they excluded 274 out of 283 studies, considering only 9. It's in mdpi which is not great.So, the jury is still out I guess
The jury is not out -- it's an unconfirmed hunch that, as the study you link notes, risks harming patients who are having trouble keeping down food as it is.
This is just keto and fasting fans pushing their obsession on cancer patients. Same for marijuanauts -- anti-nausea drugs have long outperformed cannibinoids but you still have stoner friends offering you spliffs (ok, save them for later)
I'm saying that cancer treatments are some of the most scientifically-validated procedures out there, because there's essentially unlimited money to pay for them. They have eliminated or modulated any negative side effect they can, via improved anti-nausea drugs, careful dosing+timing, etc.
Still, you can experience all sorts of discomforts during the tmt. I nearly fainted and got horrible chills when getting oxaliplatin for the first time. You're saying I should have _fasted_ for this?
Reminds me of this which I (think) was linked here a while ago: https://www.nature.com/articles/s12276-020-0384-2
It really does feel like all these piecemeal cancer treatments are converging on something resembling a cure.