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FASTING BEFORE CHEMO

sr2603
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Read some interesting articles on fasting for 2 days before chemo. Recent experiment on mice showed promising results in saving good cells and chemo possibly being more effective on cancer cells. I am thinking of trying it from my second treatment onwards. need to get organised with juices and things. My only concern is not eating solid food for a whole day or two! here's the link for reading

http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20080331/fasting_may_improve_cancer_chemot herapy

Explore topics in this discussion:

Cancer Chemotherapy Avastin

14 replies

chloemom

Other Research on this can be found by googling Valtar Longo, Ph.D. at U of California-Davis. It's related to fasting and timing of chemo. I found one of the articles and will paste it here. Anyone interested in following it further can just google the author for more up to date info

Lab Report
New Way to Fight Cancer
USC biologists discover a way to protect non-cancer cells from destructive force of chemotherapy.
By Carl Marziali
Autumn 2008

Valter Longo, Ph.D., associate professor at the USC Davis School of Gerontology.
In the fight against cancer, calling in the heavy artillery of high dose-chemotherapy can be deadly to rogue cancer cells—and to law-abiding normal cells too. If only some Star Trek-type force field could protect the normal cells from toxic effects of chemotherapy, higher doses or more frequent treatment could be used.

A USC research study suggests a simpler alternative. The study, which appeared online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition, found that fasting for two days protects healthy cells against chemotherapy.

Mice given a high dose of chemotherapy after fasting continued to thrive. The same dose killed half the normally fed mice and caused lasting weight and energy loss in the survivors.

The chemotherapy worked as intended on the cancer, extending the lifespan of mice injected with aggressive human tumors, reported the group led by Valter Longo, Ph.D., associate professor at the USC Davis School of Gerontology. He has joint appointments as associate professor of biological sciences at USC College and in the USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center of the Keck School of Medicine.

Longo says that the idea of protecting healthy cells from chemotherapy “had to come from the anti-aging field because that’s what we focus on: protecting all cells at once.”

About five years ago, Longo was thinking about the genetic pathways involved both in the starvation response and in mammalian tumors. When the pathways are silenced, starved cells go into what Longo calls a maintenance mode characterized by extreme resistance to stresses.

But tumors by definition disobey orders to stop growing because the same genetic pathways are stuck in an “on” mode.

During the study, conducted both at USC and in the laboratory of Lizzia Raffaghello, Ph.D., at Gaslini Children’s Hospital in Genoa, Italy, the researchers found that current chemotherapy drugs kill as many healthy mammalian cells as cancer cells.

But after subjecting the cells to fasting, the research team “reached a two- to five-fold difference between normal and cancer cells, including human cells in culture. More importantly, we consistently showed that (normal cells in) mice were highly protected while cancer cells remained sensitive,” Longo says.

Looking ahead, Longo says they need to spend a lot of time talking to clinical oncologists to decide how best to proceed in human studies. Fasting before chemotherapy has unknown risks for humans, he cautions. Only clinical trials can establish the effectiveness and safety of fasting before chemotherapy.

Heather has also posted about this topic this month under a heading that I will put in another post (I can't recall the title of the discussion ... chemo brain at its finest!)

chloemom

Groovygirl's post is titled:
The Fast Way to Starve Cancer Cells
and is dated October 19th.

LaGata

I intend to talk to my doctor about this as he has always told me to eat a high protein meal before chemo.

The article states that there may be unknown risks in this for humans and a clinical study has not been done. Dare we try something like this on our own? I think I would first tell my doctor before trying it, at least.

crazygracie

I agree with LaGata. Isn't it sad that WE all have to try to constantly figure out on our own the good versus the bad??? I go back and forth on stuff like this and usually just end up trying to have faith in my Onc. I don't know that this is the best decision! However, God Bless you warriors that keep trying to find new and better ways to help us all!!!

JillAline

Interesting. I'll talk to my naturopath about this. She keeps up better with this kind of thing than my oncologist. For what it's worth, my naturopath recommends eating something sugary with/before chemo. The assumption is that the glucose speeds up the cancer cells so they absorb the chemo more readily.

sr2603

Thanks for the info girls. Very informative. I mentioned to my chemo nurse who had never heard of this and said to mention to my oncologist who I probably wont see until January. She also said that as a cancer patient I should be eating high protein to keep weight on so that I can fight the disease. Dont know what to do here. JillAline, I have always been nervous eating anything with sugar because anything I previously read said sugar feeds cancer. It seems that for every publication we read promoting something, there is something out there to prove it wrong. I drive myself nuts over this as I want to give myself every possible chance of fighting the alligator.

gpawelski

Interesting about the fasting before chemo. In a company-sponsored study, it showed that Tykerb's blood levels increased by 167% when taken with a low-fat meal, compared with taking the drug on an empty stomach, and by 325% after a high-fat meal.

In an editorial in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, researchers ruffled some industry feathers by arguing that taking Tykerb with food (THE LABEL SAYS NOT TO) might allow patients to take lower doses, leading to a potential cost savings of 60% off the drug's $2,900-a-month price tag.

Savings could be about 80% if Tykerb were taken with grapefruit juice, since the drug interacts with an enzyme in the gut (CYP3A4) that breaks down drugs before they enter the bloodstream. Patients with lots of CYP3A4 may have less medicine enter their bloodstream than patients who don't have so much.

Grapefruit juice has a compound that temporarily gets rid of CYP3A4, which allows more of a drug to enter the bloodstream. For patients who take statins with grapefruit juice, the drug can build up to unhealthy levels in the body.

Some researchers feel that the grapefruit effect could ultimately allow patients to take lower doses of drugs like Tykerb. With oral oncology therapies being very expensive, this may lower the costs by as much as 50%, saving hundreds of millions of dollars.

sr2603

I suppose it could all depend on the tumor type perhaps and drug you are taking! Nothing is ever straight forward in this game!

Saraj

Presently, consuming grapefruit juice is not recommended when taking Tykerb. I am sure that we all need to be very, very cautious about taking our chemotherapy drugs counter to current, evidence based pharmacological recommendations.

gpawelski

That's why University of Chicago researchers Ezra Cohen and Mark Ratain ruffled some INDUSTRY feathers by arguing that taking Tykerb with food might allow patients to take lower doses (60% with food, 80% with grapefruit juice). One way to address the concern with grapefruit juice is to standardize the grapefruit compounds into a pill with a defined dose. That would take away patient variability (the degree of variation in how people absorb drugs).

In the meantime, cancer patients may be taking doses of expensive and potentially toxic treatments that are possibly well in excess of what they need. Dr. Ian Haines reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, emerging evidence shows that many of the highly expensive targeted cancer drugs may be just as effective and produce fewer side effects if taken over shorter periods and in lower doses.

He gave as an example, Avastin, the dose being tested was 15 milligrams per kilogram of body weight, despite other research showing it may work with 3 milligrams per kilogram. He stated in the Journal that it would seem that pharmaceutical companies are attracted to studies looking at the maximum tolerated dose of any treatments. He suggested that we make the search for minimum effective doses of these treatments one of the key goals of cancer research.

chloemom

In a previous discussion titled,
Effect of Fatty Foods on Tykerb Dosing,
there are several journal links about the effects of fatty foods and grapefruit juice on Tykerb.

The info is shared there, as Gpawelski does here, to make more people aware of this so they can advocate for more research into non-toxic doses of chemo drugs that are just as effective as current more toxic doses, not to encourage people to self medicate.

The info used initially for these articles comes directly from the Pharmaceutical Company's own research submitted to the FDA as part of the drug approval process. There are links to scientific journals that published articles on this topic by credible scientists. The University of Chicago for example, has some research now in this area. If you are interested in this topic, in addition to what Gpawelski has here, see that previous discussion and use the links there to start research.

JillAline

SR2603,

The naturopath says NO sugar except on the day of chemo. The assumption is that the "speeded up" cancer cells on that day will absorb the chemo faster. We shall see!

sr2603

I will try and cut down on my sugar intake which is relatively nil at the moment. Once a week I need a candy bar or cake of some sort LOL. I will have try and have this on my chemo day.

sr2603

Chloemom, researchers need to keep working as they do to get the dosage correct and as low as possible with maximum impact. I long for the day they have chemo drugs which dont affect normal cells. I really do. I also look forward to the day they dont use chemo and perhaps use our own antibodies and vaccines. That would be a great breakthrough.

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