• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Short fasting cycles work as well as chemotherapy in mice

Analog

Analog

Lifer
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.


http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-short-fasting-chemotherapy-mice.html
 
It makes me think about how some genes are activated periodically by a biological clock. Perhaps different chemicals all in a sequence. To create a sort of biochemical synchronous state machine. Some other genes are only activated when a certain biological molecule (Maybe a specific hormone, specific protein, steroid or just a specific molecule) is present. It is very likely that the body does not activate certain genes depending on blood sugar but also on activity of for example the liver.

The article reminds me of another article, how fasting can have the effect on some women to lose their fertility temporarily. As if the menstruation cycle is affected by the amount of food. These women stopped menstruating when using fasting cycles.

Correct ways of fasting also seems to slow down the aging process.

It also reminds me on how (stress hormone) glucocorticoids can influence critical systems such as the immune system but also systems for reproduction and influence or even shutdown tissue repair.

Perhaps it is the case that even consuming food can be stressful for the body. We know that over consuming is stressful just as malnutrition.
 
Last edited:
William Gaatjes said:
It makes me think about how some genes are activated periodically by a biological clock. Perhaps different chemicals all in a sequence. To create a sort of biochemical synchronous state machine. Some other genes are only activated when a certain biological molecule (Maybe a specific hormone, specific protein, steroid or just a specific molecule) is present. It is very likely that the body does not activate certain genes depending on blood sugar but also on activity of for example the liver.

The article reminds me of another article, how fasting can have the effect on some women to lose their fertility temporarily. As if the menstruation cycle is affected by the amount of food. These women stopped menstruating when using fasting cycles.

Correct ways of fasting also seems to slow down the aging process.

It also reminds me on how (stress hormone) glucocorticoids can influence critical systems such as the immune system but also systems for reproduction and influence and even shutdown tissue repair.

Perhaps it is the case that even consuming food can be stressful for the body. We know that over consuming is stress full just as malnutrition.
Click to expand...

Right - I heard of a study that constant fasting (depriving calories) can actually extend lifespan.
 
"A way to beat cancer cells may not be to try to find drugs that kill them specifically but to confuse them by generating extreme environments, such as fasting that only normal cells can quickly respond to," Longo said.
Click to expand...

That's awesome new knowledge!
 
Tumor also needs nutrition to grow, no food will slow down everything in a mouse's body, you know what will stop the growth all together?? death!!! stupid researchers. 🙄
 
In various places I've read that cancer cells can only feed on on "sugar" (I assume that means glucose or other simple sugars), whereas normal cells can use all normal energy vectors. Whether that's really true or not or the extent to which it's true I can't say, although that's the basis for PET scans, they inject you with sugars that have been seeded with radioactive tracer isotopes,the cancer cells devour them and then as the isotopes decay, the places in the body with the highest concentrations of them may be the cancer. So if that's true, fasting, of course, lowers blood sugar...

What I'm wondering is, couldn't we do some kind of treatment where maybe you go in and do a kind of dialysis thing where your blood is filtered of all sugars(but perhaps with a minor reintroduction of sugars for your brain only), or of most sugars with an appropriate usable amount of lipids that the body can metabolize for energy but the cancer cells can't? Wouldn't that starve all the cancer cells in your body? SOL if a brain tumor I guess.
 
maniacalpha1-1 said:
In various places I've read that cancer cells can only feed on on "sugar" (I assume that means glucose or other simple sugars), whereas normal cells can use all normal energy vectors. Whether that's really true or not or the extent to which it's true I can't say, although that's the basis for PET scans, they inject you with sugars that have been seeded with radioactive tracer isotopes,the cancer cells devour them and then as the isotopes decay, the places in the body with the highest concentrations of them may be the cancer. So if that's true, fasting, of course, lowers blood sugar...

What I'm wondering is, couldn't we do some kind of treatment where maybe you go in and do a kind of dialysis thing where your blood is filtered of all sugars(but perhaps with a minor reintroduction of sugars for your brain only), or of most sugars with an appropriate usable amount of lipids that the body can metabolize for energy but the cancer cells can't? Wouldn't that starve all the cancer cells in your body? SOL if a brain tumor I guess.
Click to expand...




So just do the Atkins diet and cure cancer. No carbs, no sugar etc. and you should radically reduce your sugar levels in your blood.
 
Nintendesert said:
So just do the Atkins diet and cure cancer. No carbs, no sugar etc. and you should radically reduce your sugar levels in your blood.
Click to expand...

Well, there may be some promise in that but would it alone keep blood sugar levels rock bottom? As an example, even if you aren't taking in sugar, there is stored glycogen in the liver that will get released isn't there? That would probably be enough to help the cancer survive any "treatment" session without mechanical removal of sugar from the blood.

Oh, also I've read that Vitamin C is very chemically similar to glucose, and cancer cells take it in, but can't use it, which kills them. No idea whether that's true but it's possible that it IS true, but that because in normal situations if you simply administer megadoses of Vitamin C, there is still blood sugar available and so they don't take in the C. So...siphon out the sugar, pump in C, and inject some sugar back into the body near the brain because it must have sugar.

Of course, this wild theory is all based on it being completely true that cancer cells can only use sugar for energy.
 
Last edited:
You have 24hours of glycogen before your body produces it from fat and protein stores.

Your neurons REQUIRE glucose to function at ALL times or else you die. That is why people who are diabetics pass out if they give themselves too much insulin.

I gained a decent bit of weight just from general IRL stress like moving where I live and just eating out alot because I was busy and lost all my regular places I liked to go eat and knew the menu etc etc.

I can honestly say gaining weight makes you feel terrible physically and one of the things that really helped was fasting to give your metabolism a wake-up call and switch to fat metabolism. It is definitely a good idea once a week or so.
 
epidemis said:
How can they find a thousand cures for cancer in mouses, but zero for humans?
Click to expand...

If researchers could:
  1. Make thousands or millions of women have kids, potentially with intentional, fatal genetic defects
  2. Make the women give up the kids to the researchers
  3. Grow those kids to maturity in less than a year
  4. Do medical tests on those kids
  5. And finally kill the kids to determine their conditions
Then we'd have a thousand cures for cancer in humans.

But I don't want to do that, even if it becomes possible. D:
 
OverVolt said:
You have 24hours of glycogen before your body produces it from fat and protein stores.

Your neurons REQUIRE glucose to function at ALL times or else you die. That is why people who are diabetics pass out if they give themselves too much insulin.
Click to expand...

False. Neurons can use either glucose or ketones. In order to use ketones they would need a sufficient amount of time to switch.

Your cardiac cells DO require Glucose all the time or else they die.
 
Pray To Jesus said:
False. Neurons can use either glucose or ketones. In order to use ketones they would need a sufficient amount of time to switch.

Your cardiac cells DO require Glucose all the time or else they die.
Click to expand...

Well, damn, OK, so both the heart and brain need to receive glucose...so that complicates getting glucose to them but denying it everywhere else.

What about the neurons of nerve cells OTHER than the brain? Can they survive without glucose for a while?

Maybe instead of denying the entire body but the brain and heart glucose, the idea should be to somehow deny glucose only to the organs in the area of the tumors, assuming those organs still use ketones or whatever...for example, if you had a liver cancer tumor, route the blood coming thru arteries going to liver through a glucose filtering system that filters it and sends it back in with ketones or whatever else that the healthy liver cells can use but that cancer cells can't.
 
Last edited:
What type of fasting are we talking here? Water but no food at all? Are nutritional supplements involved (vitamins, minerals)?
 
maniacalpha1-1 said:
Well, damn, OK, so both the heart and brain need to receive glucose...so that complicates getting glucose to them but denying it everywhere else.

What about the neurons of nerve cells OTHER than the brain? Can they survive without glucose for a while?

Maybe instead of denying the entire body but the brain and heart glucose, the idea should be to somehow deny glucose only to the organs in the area of the tumors, assuming those organs still use ketones or whatever...for example, if you had a liver cancer tumor, route the blood coming thru arteries going to liver through a glucose filtering system that filters it and sends it back in with ketones or whatever else that the healthy liver cells can use but that cancer cells can't.
Click to expand...

That's how we have been trying to cure some cancer. It gets a lot more complicated as it's very hard to deliver stuff to some body parts but not others. Hopefully advances in molecular science and targetting will allow us to target specific receptors that cancer cells express but normal cells don't.

For example, if you have HCC (hepatocellular carcinoma) you go to IR and they embolize your hepatic artery: reason is that HCC has a preference for hepatic artery (uses it for 90% of its needs) whereas the liver uses mostly the portal vein for its blood supply (80-90%).

(Liver is a dual blood supply organ and uses blood from the hepatic artery as well as the portal vein.)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top