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An Old Idea, Revived: Starve Cancer to Death

nytimes.com

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Re: An Old Idea, Revived: Starve Cancer to Death

#71

Post by dualogy »

commandar wrote: post #66
nonbel wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give an example of a disease that responds equally to the same treatment in all people?

I'm not talking about across different people; I'm talking about different types of cancer. The causes and treatments for lymphatic cancers are different from lung cancers are different from breast cancers are different from prostate cancers are different from brain cancers are different from liver cancers, ad infinitum.

Well there must be some things they all have in common. Anaerobic environment I thought, is that still the case? No transport of oxygen via iron possible, in my layman's memory?

Re: An Old Idea, Revived: Starve Cancer to Death

#73

Post by dualogy »

mrob wrote: post #24
NotSammyHagar wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sure you mean well, but you need to be better informed about biology. Table sugar is not the greatest thing in the world for our bodies, but your body needs certain kinds of sugars to function. Glucose is how your brain is powered. Sadly there is no evidence that restricting sugar would retard cancerous growth. Yes, there are toxins in our environment. Going past that to things that affect cancer is a huge step.…

The brain does need some glucose to function, but the bulk of its energy need can be met by ketones. After adapting to this energy source the need for glucose is low enough that it can be met entirely by gluconeogenesis (making glucose from proteins and fats). Humans can survive on a zero carbohydrate diet with no cognitive impairment.

> making glucose from proteins and fats

plus recycling of pyruvate/lactate/some-such

Re: An Old Idea, Revived: Starve Cancer to Death

#74

Post by dualogy »

known wrote: post #72

Cancer cells need to be isolated to starve them; That's the difficult part;

I think for many/most of them the key thing is that they need some 20x the amount of glucose than normally oxygenated cells. So they're actually supremely inefficient in terms of energy. What's the problem then? They just won't die off normally via programmed-cell-death (apoptosis) or autophagy or immune system attack, but keep replicating. Blood sugar levels may modulate rate of growth and metastasis, but since blood sugar can never go too low, that's only part of the picture.

Re: An Old Idea, Revived: Starve Cancer to Death

#76

Post by danieltillett »

Spooky23 wrote: post #37
numair wrote: post #17

I was recently shocked and practically offended to read guidelines on what to eat while undergoing chemo[1]. It was a high-sugar diet, basically (milkshakes were encouraged !). I couldn't imagine anything worse than shocking your body with radiation, and then providing cancer cells with all the sugar they need for growth. Hopefully the ideas in this article start to affect public health policy and guidelines. 1: http…

They recommend that because in many cases you can't hold down solid food for periods of time. Good luck eating your veg and protein when you immediately vomit it back up.

Not only that but it is very easy to create a very strong food aversion to whatever you have recently eaten. Your brain connects the very bad nausea that results from the chemo with whatever you last ate. This effect can be so strong that people can never eat that food ever again.

Re: An Old Idea, Revived: Starve Cancer to Death

#77

Post by danieltillett »

It is not only glucose that cancer cells can become addidicted to, but also amino acids. Often the cancer cells can overcome a lack of glucose by using an amino acid. An idea that was explored too soon (i.e. before we knew which cancers this would work on) was starving the cancer cells with multiple nutrient withdraws.

Re: An Old Idea, Revived: Starve Cancer to Death

#78

Post by biokoda »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #59
biokoda wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ketogenic diets have been tested and have proven to be significantly beneficial to cancer patients.

Have their been any decent-sized rigorous human studies on this? I see a few small ones but I may be looking in the wrong place.

Not that I know of unfortunately.

Re: An Old Idea, Revived: Starve Cancer to Death

#79

Post by tluyben2 »

danieltillett wrote: post #76
Spooky23 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They recommend that because in many cases you can't hold down solid food for periods of time. Good luck eating your veg and protein when you immediately vomit it back up.

Not only that but it is very easy to create a very strong food aversion to whatever you have recently eaten. Your brain connects the very bad nausea that results from the chemo with whatever you last ate. This effect can be so strong that people can never eat that food ever again.

Yes, that is important to note! All the 'experience' including the nausea, but also the smells of the hospital and the changes in that smell get connected to food you eat at that time. I did not touch my favorite foods during that because of that reason. The stuff I did eat I couldn't stomach for many months after (like croissants); luckily I went to work in China for months after so I got completely different food than in Europe which gave me the time for my body to unstress from the ordeal.

Re: An Old Idea, Revived: Starve Cancer to Death

#80

Post by tluyben2 »

jstsch wrote: post #21
numair wrote: post #17

I was recently shocked and practically offended to read guidelines on what to eat while undergoing chemo[1]. It was a high-sugar diet, basically (milkshakes were encouraged !). I couldn't imagine anything worse than shocking your body with radiation, and then providing cancer cells with all the sugar they need for growth. Hopefully the ideas in this article start to affect public health policy and guidelines. 1: http…

Many people hospitalized in any way, including when undergoing chemotherapy, don't eat enough. Loss of appetite. That's why this guideline document gives hints to increase kcal uptake.

Hospitals, no matter what they make of them, are not very nice because of their function. You are there for a reason. That's why, at least in NL/ES (luckily haven't been anywhere else) they try to get you out as fast as possible. Even unable to hardly walk because of the surgery I was out in 24 hours and that really helped recovery. In the 80s when they kept you 2 weeks even after trivial surgery it took far longer to recover (and I was younger so it should've been faster for multiple reasons).
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