Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hungry Fat Cells Could Someday Starve Cancer

ucsf.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 57 posts

Re: Hungry Fat Cells Could Someday Starve Cancer

#41

Post by gametorch »

hyperman1 wrote: post #37
gametorch wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another thing is one meal days are far easier after you do it couple of times. It's mind-boggling to me that multiple "one meal" days don't incidentally happen to everyone over the course of a year. I would think most people have those days where they skip breakfast and lunch due to some or other exigency and only get to eat dinner.

You scare me. After life dishing out one of its lessens, I decided to get some fundamentals in order, and for me that includes 3 meals a day, with the family. Things have to get really disastrous to not get breakfast, and I don't think my kid skipped breakfast ever. Each his own, of course, but I wonder what happens in your life that this is semi normal?

I have a morning routine. Usually I go for a walk and read for an hour before doing anything else. But I almost never eat breakfast. I'm just not hungry in the morning.

By midday I'm on an adventure. Some days, it takes me in a direction where it makes more sense to skip lunch than to stop and have it.

When I'm hungry and it's convenient, I eat. When I'm not, I don't.

It's almost never the case that I'm hungry for a meal three times a day.

Re: Hungry Fat Cells Could Someday Starve Cancer

#42

Post by robocat »

ricardonunez wrote: post #15
brandall10 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hunger, like cold exposure, is an uncomfortable but transient signal. In many cases it peaks and subsides without requiring immediate action, especially once the body adapts. Anecdotally, my first 72-hour fast was revealing. Around the 48-hour mark my body aggressively signaled hunger, esp. for sugary foods. By the third day, however, hunger largely subsided, and at break I wasn’t hungry at all. For the following wee…

I have similar findings. I fast regularly and take cold showers. Another thing is one meal days are far easier after you do it couple of times. You don’t even think about food which is harder if you have two to three meals per day. Edit: for those wanting to try this lifestyle, everybody is different. do your own research before jumping into regular fasting or even cold showers. Max time without food I did was 6 days…

> if you drink coffee be aware that caffeine withdraws are painful.

I've successfully used caffeine pills (e.g. some NoDoz brand products) for coffee replacement to avoid withdrawal symptoms.

Specifically I used caffeine pills to give up coffee. I found it easy to taper down caffeine usage to zero by using a standardised dose size.

Additionally pills are a habit change which helps me stick with a plan. I have tapered down using instant coffee but I found that was a little harder to police myself.

Re: Hungry Fat Cells Could Someday Starve Cancer

#43

Post by adrian_b »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #18
sejje wrote: post #2

> Nguyen moved to UT Austin to start his own lab in January 2024 but passed away suddenly in November before he could finish the final experiments. The paper, of which he is the first author, is dedicated to him. That's sad. I hope someone picks up the torch. The research sounds very promising.

The thing is, this is not really new. People have been pushing this metabolic theory of cancer for a long time now and even used it to propose things like cold therapy or ketogenic diets as a treatment option, despite the fact that we have very little evidence that any of this stuff really works. It is still refreshing to see people target cancer from a theory-first standpoint instead of the usual empirical tactics,…

I do not remember "evidence that any of this stuff really works" about curing an existing cancer, but there was rather strong evidence in large-scale studies with various lab animals, in which a mutagen agent created tumors when they were fed normally, but no tumors appeared when they were malnourished, either by eating a reduced amount of protein, or by eating the normal amount of protein, but with a bad amino-acid profile.

Both forms of malnutrition would diminish the capacity of synthesizing proteins, which would affect mainly a fast-growing organ, like the tumors. Presumably this slowed down the growth of the tumors, allowing time for the immune system to react and suppress them in their incipient form.

Unfortunately, malnutrition as a prophylactic measure does not really work, as it enhances the risk of other diseases, even if it might lower the risk of cancer.

The method described in the parent article might have better chances, but it seems likely to work only with a cancer that has been discovered very early.

Re: Hungry Fat Cells Could Someday Starve Cancer

#44

Post by adrian_b »

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #31
ricardonunez wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have similar findings. I fast regularly and take cold showers. Another thing is one meal days are far easier after you do it couple of times. You don’t even think about food which is harder if you have two to three meals per day. Edit: for those wanting to try this lifestyle, everybody is different. do your own research before jumping into regular fasting or even cold showers. Max time without food I did was 6 days…

I cannot work when I don't eat, I'm unable to think properly. I'm not sure how people manage fasting

When you do not eat, you are not permanently hungry, at least not when you are accustomed to this. This is similarly like when you feel that you must immediately use the restroom, but when that not happens the sensation disappears and it may come back only one hour or two later.

What is funny is that, at least for me, the sensation of hunger is strongly conditioned by whether there really exists a possibility to satisfy it.

I eat 2 meals per day and during the time between them I am not hungry, and if I were hungry that would be futile, because I intentionally do not keep in my home any kind of food that can be eaten instantly, but only raw ingredients that I must cook before eating.

After I cook my next meal, I have to be patient and wait some time for the food to cool down. During that time, I become suddenly very hungry and like you say, I find it difficult to continue to work at the computer or at whatever I was doing, as my thought shifts to the food I am waiting to eat.

In the past, when I kept food that could be eaten at any time, without preparation, I became frequently hungry and it was hard to resist to the temptation of having a snack.

Re: Hungry Fat Cells Could Someday Starve Cancer

#45

Post by _yb2s »

dustbunny wrote: post #29
_yb2s wrote: post #3

This is fascinating and sounds really promising. However, this article also seems to imply that frequent cold exposure that converts your own white fat cells into beige fat cells could be effective at both treating and preventing cancer. They state without explanation that cold therapy cannot be done by cancer patients, but I don’t see why not. I take an ice bath every morning as it helps with my mental health, and i…

How do you create/store the ice?

I have an inflatable ice tub from costco, and a large aquarium chiller. There is no literal ice involved, just a tub of water that is just above freezing temps. You can buy regular bags of ice and put them in a bathtub full of water, but that is a hassle and expensive to do frequently.

Re: Hungry Fat Cells Could Someday Starve Cancer

#46

Post by _yb2s »

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #31
ricardonunez wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have similar findings. I fast regularly and take cold showers. Another thing is one meal days are far easier after you do it couple of times. You don’t even think about food which is harder if you have two to three meals per day. Edit: for those wanting to try this lifestyle, everybody is different. do your own research before jumping into regular fasting or even cold showers. Max time without food I did was 6 days…

I cannot work when I don't eat, I'm unable to think properly. I'm not sure how people manage fasting

People respond differently to fasting, some are never able to do focused knowledge work during a fast, others can’t at first but can once their bodies get used to fasting. Others can immediately focus better right from the beginning. There is a lot of individual variation.

Re: Hungry Fat Cells Could Someday Starve Cancer

#47

Post by _yb2s »

adrian_b wrote: post #44
Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot work when I don't eat, I'm unable to think properly. I'm not sure how people manage fasting

When you do not eat, you are not permanently hungry, at least not when you are accustomed to this. This is similarly like when you feel that you must immediately use the restroom, but when that not happens the sensation disappears and it may come back only one hour or two later. What is funny is that, at least for me, the sensation of hunger is strongly conditioned by whether there really exists a possibility to sati…

Some people never seem to be able to think clearly or focus while fasting, independently of any feelings of hunger. There is likely some biological variability here, but it could also be due to metabolic problems that are making it hard to provide the brain with energy during a fast. In some cases the fasting itself can help treat that, and it may get better over time.

Re: Hungry Fat Cells Could Someday Starve Cancer

#48

Post by ricardonunez »

SoftTalker wrote: post #28
gametorch wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another thing is one meal days are far easier after you do it couple of times. It's mind-boggling to me that multiple "one meal" days don't incidentally happen to everyone over the course of a year. I would think most people have those days where they skip breakfast and lunch due to some or other exigency and only get to eat dinner.

I only eat breakfast intentionally, as I am not really hungry in the mornings. But as I understand it, it's better to get your calories earlier in the day than late, so I make myself eat in the morning.

I am testing it at the moment. I read that cortisol levels raise after 14 hours or so of no food. So I decided to eat breakfast about 13 hours to see if there's any changes on my mood. I do find it that I get less cranky. Another thing, this year during mother's day I had a huge brunch, so I didn't eat anything else that day, and it worked fine for 24 hours, the problem is that I felt in comma after eating that much which is one of the reason I stopped eating lunch, I don't like to crash; what to eat solves that partially, but I still fine some slow down after eating breakfast.

Re: Hungry Fat Cells Could Someday Starve Cancer

#49

Post by _yb2s »

sowbug wrote: post #36
Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did that before, my breath becomes horrible when that happens, but it's way more manageable. Is there a way to activate ketosis before starting the fasting? That seems like it could solve my problem

Ketosis is your body using fat as an energy source when glucose isn't readily available. So if you deprive yourself of dietary glucose (carbs, simple sugars, etc), but keep eating fat and protein, you'll enter ketosis while eating as much sustenance as you want. Use ketone strips to tell when it happens. The breath thing is unavoidable as far as I know.

Apologies in advance for the pedantic response, but the human body can generally make enough glucose from protein to keep you out of ketosis. You usually have to restrict both protein and fat to reliably induce ketosis. You can confirm this for yourself with ketone test strips. Most dieters on so called ketogenic diets are not actually in ketosis.

Even more surprising is that fermentable fibers get converted into short chain fats by bacteria in the gut that are ultimately metabolized as ketones, so a diet high in those can induce ketosis even with a high carb diet. Some herbivore animals are always in ketosis, and some carnivores are almost never in ketosis unless they are starving and can’t find protein.

Re: Hungry Fat Cells Could Someday Starve Cancer

#50

Post by sigmoid10 »

adrian_b wrote: post #43
sigmoid10 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, this is not really new. People have been pushing this metabolic theory of cancer for a long time now and even used it to propose things like cold therapy or ketogenic diets as a treatment option, despite the fact that we have very little evidence that any of this stuff really works. It is still refreshing to see people target cancer from a theory-first standpoint instead of the usual empirical tactics,…

I do not remember "evidence that any of this stuff really works" about curing an existing cancer, but there was rather strong evidence in large-scale studies with various lab animals, in which a mutagen agent created tumors when they were fed normally, but no tumors appeared when they were malnourished, either by eating a reduced amount of protein, or by eating the normal amount of protein, but with a bad amino-acid…

Yes, this is exactly what theory-first approaches look like. And no, there is no data that any of this really works in humans. If it was about curing cancer in mice that were genetically engineered to have cancer in the first place, of course we'd already be there. But it isn't and we aren't.
Post reply on HN