We have a lot of choices to make about our diet.
Add to that, doing the right thing
when it comes to preventing
and treating a chronic disease,
fighting a virus, or losing weight,
and suddenly our nutrition choices
can seem almost overwhelming.
Well, I’m here to help.
Welcome to the Nutrition Facts Podcast.
I’m your host, Dr. Michael Greger.
Today we conclude our two-part series on fasting and cancer.
And we start with a story
about how the benefits of short term fasting
translate in the clinical setting.
The first randomized prospective clinical evaluation
of the effects of fasting on chemotherapy,
the incidence of chemotherapy-induced nausea
and vomiting in cancer patients was published in 2014,
but the patients were dogs.
Cancer-bearing dogs presenting at a veterinary hospital were
randomized to be fasted for 24 hours before chemotherapy,
and those that were, were significantly less likely
to suffer from vomiting
only 1 in 10 compared to 2 out of 3 in the non-fasted group,
which is great, but what can that tell us about human medicine?
Evidently, not much.
It is nearly impossible to rely on most animal data
to predict whether or not an intervention will have
a favorable clinical benefit-risk ratio in human subjects.
For example, mice have a metabolic rate approximately
seven times higher than humans,
so a single day of fasting can cut lean body mass about 15%.
That would take over a month of fasting in people.
So that dramatic study on mice showing 100% alive versus
100% dead on high dose chemo depending on whether
they were fasted for 60 hours, what can that really tell us?
And when it comes to cancer, rodents can bear
massive tumor loads, whereas people generally
waste away and die when tumor masses
reach just a thousandth of our body weight.
You can't even necessarily extrapolate from one rat to another
even within the same strain bought from different dealers.
The only way to see what happens in humans,
the only way to guarantee findings are relevant is to study people.
The theory is that combining fasting cycles with chemotherapy
could extend the survival of advanced-stage cancer patients
by both retarding tumor progression and reducing side effects,
or even providing an alternative to chemotherapy altogether
in early-stage cancer patients,
but that's all contingent on it being confirmed in human clinical trials.
First there were case series:
several patients diagnosed with a variety of cancers
elected to undertake fasting prior to chemotherapy
and shared their experiences.
Those who underwent chemo both with and without fasting
reported a reduction of fatigue, weakness, and
gastrointestinal side effects while fasting; in fact felt better
across the board with zero vomiting in the fasting group.
The weight lost during the few days of fasting was rapidly recovered
in most of the patients and did not lead to any detectable harm,
so overall was looking feasible, safe,
with the potential to ameliorate side effects.
But only randomized clinical studies could tell for sure,
and so here we go.
Breast and ovarian cancer patients fasting, starting 36 hours
before and ending 24 hours after chemotherapy,
and it did appear to improve the quality of life and fatigue,
but another study found no such beneficial effects.
There did appear to perhaps be less bone marrow toxicity
given the higher counts of red blood cells and platelet-making cells,
but no benefit when it came to killing off white blood cells --
the immune system cells -- so that was a disappointment.
Perhaps they didn't fast long enough?
They only fasted 24 hours before and after.
To find out the optimal duration, 20 cancer patients were split up
into three groups, fasting for 24, 48, or a total of 72 hours.
All those in the 24-hour group suffered nausea after chemo,
but less than half in the 72-hour group.
And most were vomiting in the 24-hour group,
but none in the longest fasting group.
Longer fasting groups also tended to suffer less nerve damage
and less serious bone marrow suppression.
Even after 24 hours of fasting, two cycles of chemo can
knock people's white blood cells down to sub-optimal levels, but
with 72 hours, chemo knocked their immune system down but not out.
OK, so short-term fasting may reduce chemotherapy-induced toxicity,
but what I want to know is if it makes it work better?
A systematic review of 22 studies found that overall fasting
was found to not only reduce chemotherapy side effects, like
organ damage, immune suppression, and chemotherapy-induced death,
but also to suppress tumor progression, including
tumor growth and metastasis, resulting in improved survival, but...
nearly all of the studies were done on lab animals.
The studies on humans are limited to evaluating safety
and side effects.
The tumor- suppression effects of fasting --
for example, its influence on tumor growth, metastasis and prognosis --
have not been evaluated until now.
To be continued.
In our final story we ask,
how might we replicate the protective effects of fasting with food?
Short-term food withdrawal during chemotherapy may begin to solve
the long-standing problem with most cancer treatments:
how to kill the tumor without killing the patient?
Short-term fasting -- for example,
for 48 hours before chemo and 24 hours afterwards --
may reduce side effects, reduce chemotherapy-induced toxicity.
However, the potential tumor- suppressing effects of fasting --
for example, its influence on tumor growth, metastasis and prognosis --
have not been evaluated until now.
No, actually, sadly, they mean "have not been evaluated until now,"
meaning they have not been evaluated yet, period.
So in answering the question to fast or not to fast before chemotherapy,
it should be emphasized that the evidence provided
by human studies is still very limited.
Some argue that reducing the side effects alone
could improve efficacy,
since patients could withstand higher doses.
For example, the heart and kidney damage associated
with the widely prescribed anti-cancer drugs limit
their full therapeutic potential.
It's not clear, though, that
maximizing the tolerated chemo dose would achieve
longer survival or better quality of life.
For now, I think we should just be satisfied with
the fewer side effects for fewer side effects' sake.
Some cancer docs urge caution, concerned about malnutrition.
That concern is echoed in official guidelines
on nutrition in cancer patients.
Because of the risks of malnutrition and,
yeah, maybe a day or two might not hurt,
but because patients might be tempted to prolong fasting
episodes without firm evidence of a benefit, they feel
fasting during chemotherapy cannot be recommended.
Fasting proponents agree that patients with severe weight loss,
muscle wasting or malnutrition -- probably not good candidates
for even short-term fasting.
But out of the hundreds of patients that have been tracked,
there's no evidence of severe adverse events in terms of malnutrition
or weight loss with short-term fasting or fasting-mimicking diets.
And those patients who did experience a weight loss
during fasting typically recovered their weight
before the subsequent cycle of chemo without detectable harm.
But look, even if there is a risk, we're talking about cancer here.
Accepting trade-offs is kind of the name of the game.
People are willing to put up with the risk of severe,
even life-threatening side effects all the time.
And even if it just helped alleviate some of the side effects,
it might be worth a try.
Of course, meanwhile Big Pharma is busy trying to come up with drugs
aimed at reproducing the beneficial effects of fasting.
Although fasting mimicking drugs may be preferred by patients
who would rather pop a pill than go without eating,
it will be years before they'll ever be on the market,
and it's hard to imagine drugs will be developed that are
both as effective and as safe as fasting.
So is there anything we can tweak in our diet
to get similar benefits without having to fast?
The way fasting works is by reducing levels
of a cancer-promoting growth hormone known as
insulin-like growth factor 1.
It's the reduced levels of IGF-1 that mediate
the differential protection of normal and cancer cells
in response to fasting
and improves chemo's ability to kill cancer
but spare normal cells.
How do we know this?
Because restoration of IGF-1 was sufficient to reverse
the protective effect of fasting.
Check it out.
Here's the growth of two cancer cell lines, breast cancer and melanoma,
in a petri dish after being exposed to chemotherapy.
Survival rates dropped down into the 60s or even 20s.
But the same dose in starved cells works even better.
Same dose, same starvation, but drip back a little IGF-1
and the starvation benefit vanishes.
So reducing IGF-1 signaling may provide the dual benefits
by protecting normal cells while reducing tumor progression
and may even help prevent the cancer in the first place.
As I explained before in my "How Not To Die from Cancer" video,
and an important video about animal protein --
which kind of gives away the punch line --
but fasting isn't the only way to drop IGF-1 levels.
Yes, a few days of fasting can cut levels in half,
but that's largely because you're cutting your protein intake.
Protein is a key determinant of circulating IGF-1 levels in humans,
suggesting that reduced protein intake may become
an important component of anticancer and anti-aging
dietary interventions, particularly a reduction in animal protein.
If you compare those eating strictly plant-based diets, getting about the
recommended daily intake of protein, 0.8 grams per kg of body weight,
and compare them to people just as slender but eating more typical
American protein intake, going on a calorie-restricted diet
may lower IGF-1 a little, but eating a plant-based diet can lower it more.
So not only may a diet centered around whole plant foods
down-regulate IGF-1 activity, potentially slowing the aging process,
but may be a way of turning anti-aging genes against cancer.
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