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Fasting improves chemotherapy results and protects from side effects: study

nature.com

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Re: Fasting improves chemotherapy results and protects from side effects: study

#121
EDIT: I had a misled belief. Here's a better source: https://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatments-and-side-effects...

Ignore below...

Wasn't the whole impetus for getting "medicinal" marijuana for the snacking? Seems like someone is talking out both sides of their mouth.

Nonetheless glad to see additional evidence for fasting's multiple benefits.

Re: Fasting improves chemotherapy results and protects from side effects: study

#122
post #60

I'm not doubting the results (yet), but I just can't understand how is this possible. Chemotherapy basically damages host cells, with a lot of collateral damage. It already can cause all sorts of digestive tract problems and weight loss among other things. And now they propose to cut energy intake even more. How is this beneficial I can't understand.

Chemotherapy is tuned to kill cells that divide. Cancer cells happen to divide a lot, but sometimes normal healthy cells do too. (Not all of them.) Thus they become collateral damage along the cancerous ones. Hence nausea and other unpleasant effects.

If you can persuade the normal healthy cells to hunker down and stop dividing for a while, the killing effect of the drugs will concentrate on the cancerous cells alone. This is what fasting is expected to achieve. It is not alone in this regard, anything that inhibits mTOR (e.g. rapamycin) should in theory have similar effect.

Re: Fasting improves chemotherapy results and protects from side effects: study

#123

Interesting study with, as always, a lot of caveats. The most we can take from this is that it's worth to study more, the effect is existing but not extreme. I don't get the submitted title here claiming that it protects from side effects. The study does not mention this at all, just that the side effects are similar despite omission of dexamethason in the fasting arm of the trial - it increases appetite, so makes se…

You may be right, but the reason I put that in the title was because it begins by siting a bunch of other research evidencing that “short-term fasting ...can protect healthy cells against a wide variety of stressors, including chemotherapy”, because in the trial they were able to omit dexamethasone with no negative effects, and because “chemotherapy-induced DNA damage in T-lymphocytes“ was “significantly curtailed”

Re: Fasting improves chemotherapy results and protects from side effects: study

#124
post #94
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long do you need to fast for benefits? Is water the only supplement allowed? Curious

woow, other comment recommending fifteen day fast is a) dangerous and b) doesn't answer your question?? i fast twice per week for ~30 hours and drink copious amounts of tea and coffee. but intermittent fasting also works, the really important information is that ketosis can begin after as little as 12 hours, so basically fast for a minimum 14 hours if you want any effect at all, and everything after that is bonus. no…

Where is the evidence that a 15 day fast is dangerous?

Re: Fasting improves chemotherapy results and protects from side effects: study

#125
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any info as to which fasting schedule is most effective?

This is what they mean by fasting mimicking diet, and includes the schedule: https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(15)...

Why make people search instead of quoting the relevant section?

"The human fasting mimicking diet (FMD) program is a plant-based diet program designed to attain fasting-like effects while providing micronutrient nourishment (vitamins, minerals, etc.) and minimize the burden of fasting. It comprises proprietary vegetable-based soups, energy bars, energy drinks, chip snacks, chamomile flower tea, and a vegetable supplement formula tablet (Table S4). The human FMD diet consists of a 5 day regimen: day 1 of the diet supplies ∼1,090 kcal (10% protein, 56% fat, 34% carbohydrate), days 2–5 are identical in formulation and provide 725 kcal (9% protein, 44% fat, 47% carbohydrate)."

"Subjects in the FMD cohort consumed the provided experimental diet consisting of 3 cycles of 5 continuous days of FMD followed by 25 days of normal food intake."

Re: Fasting improves chemotherapy results and protects from side effects: study

#126

Interesting study with, as always, a lot of caveats. The most we can take from this is that it's worth to study more, the effect is existing but not extreme. I don't get the submitted title here claiming that it protects from side effects. The study does not mention this at all, just that the side effects are similar despite omission of dexamethason in the fasting arm of the trial - it increases appetite, so makes se…

I started fasting every Monday for multiple reasons: reduce caloric intake, the recent studies on reduction of cancer growth (family history cancer and heart issues), and optimizing brain functions.

What are some of the downsides to doing this?

Re: Fasting improves chemotherapy results and protects from side effects: study

#127

Since this is likely to attract a lot of fasting practicioners to the comments I want to ask - I've occasionally tried out fasting or severe calorie restriction in the past but I always seem to get dizzy, weak and shaky in the first 24 hours and have to give up. This seems like a normal physiological response to be honest, how are people either avoiding or coping with this?

Everyone has a differing body chemistry. I can only speak for myself. I do have some mild symptoms when starting a fast, but they go away quite quickly. It could be related to the fact that I'm not usually hungry in the mornings (excluding having done heavy exercise) and can quite easily go most the day without eating and from there it is not much of a stretch to go another day and another...

Re: Fasting improves chemotherapy results and protects from side effects: study

#128
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always find it funny that fasting comes up so often, but a ctrl-f almost never turns up someone mentioning Ramadan. Nearly 25% of the world population fasts for an entire month, but it's almost invisible to the western world. While I don't agree with all of the details of the fast (I drink water), I think it is an admirable holiday, it's way healthier for the world than Christmas or Thanksgiving.

But they eat each day in Ramadan (at certain times), don't they? How is it even "fasting" and why should it be mentioned?

those who "fast" also eats right? like other living being?

Re: Fasting improves chemotherapy results and protects from side effects: study

#129

Interesting study with, as always, a lot of caveats. The most we can take from this is that it's worth to study more, the effect is existing but not extreme. I don't get the submitted title here claiming that it protects from side effects. The study does not mention this at all, just that the side effects are similar despite omission of dexamethason in the fasting arm of the trial - it increases appetite, so makes se…

My wife is Stage 3, ++- (43 yo) and half way through the taxol phase of an ACT regimen; she is progressing well but I know she has the discipline to do a fasting diet if we thought it would help. Any thoughts on starting this mid-way through the treatment?

I'm not a doctor, but after reading Tripping Over the Truth: The Metabolic Theory of Cancer [0] I'd strongly suggest she start fasting, or, far better, order yourself a copy of the book (epubs available for purchase/torrent) and read it, decide for yourself. There are a lot of resources listed in the book for people who have cancer.

I'm trying to get people to read the book. Average people, for sure, but also people on boards of research institutions. I wrote this to one of them: https://josh.works/mike-clayville-can-have-a-huge-impact-on-...

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23496164-tripping-over-t...

The ideas contained in the book are explosive, with profound implications. It's a riveting read.

Re: Fasting improves chemotherapy results and protects from side effects: study

#130
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need different words, really. You're describing a starvation or calorie reduction fast. More common, and what I practice, is more like a time-shift fast. For example, I exercise in the morning before eating breakfast. This is a fasted state. It trains your body to use fat as fuel. The eventual result of doing this is greater stability in your mood & mind. Your body doesn't crave carbs so much anymore, and you feel…

Not OP, but I agree with you that we need different words. Because what OP is doing is not starvation (till their body is actually wasting away). Having done a few 3 days fasts myself, I can attest to feeling a euphoric energy around day 2 where I felt lighter, and sharper. I have been told it isn't universal, but from the content I have been consuming it has something to do with brain switching to consuming ketones.…

Not eating for few days - is not (yet) starvation, its not 'body wasting away'.

Its a state where your body and mind need to be the sharpest in order to catch food. Or else due to lack of fuel you will enter actual starvation (no fat reserves).

When you have reduced calories intake ~~500kcal a day you are signaling to your body that you can find/catch food but there is not a lot of it. Your metabolism will slow down in order to adjust to reduce calories. You loose muscle mass much faster than when not eating at all.

I have done multiple >3 days fasts and I havent experienced this sharpness feeling though. It seems some people do and some don't.

Also worth mentioning keto is natural diet of Eskimo people, they survived generations eating seal's meat and fat. So keto is not some crazy nutjob diet invention of 21st cent.

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