THE FAST WAY TO STARVE CANCER CELLS

Hi Folks !

Under Shanti's post - "Melatonin", some of us got talking about di-urnal fasting as an approach to cancer treatment/prevention. I'd mentioned some members of my integrative cancer support group have successfully applied this approach for upwards of 24+ years ( after 6-12 month prognosis').

For those of you who were interested, I've finally tracked down the original article printed in the Sydney Morning Herald, at:http://members.optusnet.com.au/~maurice.m/herald%20article.html

"THE FAST WAY TO STARVE CANCER CELLS"

Researchers at the University of Sydney believe that limiting your food intake to a six-hour period each day will help prevent and treat disease.

Busy lives, work and family commitments often mean we don't get to sit down to regular main meals but have to eat when we can, at all hours of the day and night, often relying on unhealthy snacks and fast food to keep the hunger pains at bay.

Also better farming methods, refrigeration, canning and preservatives mean food is abundant and we can eat whenever we want.

But could this age of convenience and abundance be killing us? Two Sydney researchers, building on information gathered over the past 50 years, believe "grazing" throughtout the day and night may be also a factor in other diseases such as heart disease, arthritis and asthma.

They have shown in experiments with mice - and preliminary experiments with people - that eating within only six hours a day can boost the body's natural corticosteroid levels, which they say can prevent cancer.

The head of the Department of Infectious Diseases at the University of Sydney, Associate Professor Ray Kearney, said: "What we would suggest here is that a simple cost-free measure of restricted frequency of eating - and the evidence is that it does elevate corticosteroids - can be a health-promoting measure".

Corticosteroids are hormones of the chemical class steroids, and we make them naturally with our adrenal glands in response to day and night, darkness and light, and eating habits.

The hormones have powerful anti-inflammatory effects, and synthetic versions are used to treat diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, emphysema, some allergies, blood disorders and kidney disorders.

The association between chronic inflammation and development of cancer has been recognised for many years.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer estimates that 15 to 20 per cent of human tumours may be related in some way to chronic infection.

For instance, chronic infection with hepatitis B or C is associated with a high risk of liver cancer, and chronic infection with the human papilloma virus is believed to be involved in cervical cancer.

In experiments, Professor Kearney found that mice which had been placed on the restricted-eating regime for six hours and fasted for the next 18 hours resisted a powerful inflammatory agent called 'platelet activating factor' or PAF. The mice not on the regime which were given PAF died quickly.

Taking artificial corticosteroids quickly increases levels in the blood, but prolonged use can suppress the immune system, increase a person's risk of infection, or even be fatal.

Professor Kearney and a PHD student, Gavin Greenoak, who has done experiments based on Professor Kearney's work, say boosting our natural levels of corticosteroids is risk-free and highly desirable.

Professor Kearney said: "Taking synthetic corticosteroids is out of the body's natural balance. This is about optimising the body's natural steroid levels, making the peaks higher and the troughs not as low.

"We would argue that in most people the levels are sub-optimal."

Gavin Greenoak found that allowing mice to feed for only six hours a day, compared with "grazing" whenever they liked over 24 hours, reduced the incidence of skin cancer - a classic model for understanding mechanismsof cancer development - by 93 per cent.

The two groups of mice were exposed to simulated natural sunlight for certain periods, known to give them cancer 100 per cent of the time.

Both groups could eat as much as they wanted, and in fact the ones that could eat for only six hours a day managed to eat as much as the ones that were allowed to eat all the time.

The mice that could eat at will developed 259 tumours, compared with the mice that could eat only within the restricted period, which developed 19 tumours.

Gavin Greenoak's experiment found, as did professor Kearney's earlier ones, that the control-fed animals had an increase in corticosteroid levels.

Not only do these hormones help protect against cancer by reducing inflammation, they slso stop a process needed for cancer to gain a foothold. They interfere with the creation of blood vessles called angiogenesis.

Studies show that all agents or conditions interfering with this process also interefere with tumour growth, because tumours need to form blood vessels to grow.

The process is also needed for parts of the tumour to break off and form elsewhere (metastasis).

It is needed for the development of other disease states, including atherosclerotic plaque in heart arteries, arthritis, a number of eye diseases and delayed wound healing.

So eating within only six hours a day and fasting for the other 18 may not only increase your resistance to cancer but also protect you against certain heart diseases, damage caused by artthritis and other problems.

In preliminary experiments with humans, which have yet to be published, professor Kearney and GavinjGreenoak found "to our astonishment" that eating within six hours a day caused "significant" rises in corticosteroid levels.

The women responded better than the men, which Professor kearney said mirrors nature where females are more sensitive to changes in their environment for biological reasons

In the experiments, the people - who were first-year medical students at Sydney University - could eat whatever they liked within six hours, but outside that they could only eat high-fibre, low calorie foods such as bran or muesli, fruit an salads (but not high-fat fruit such as avocadoes or nuts).

Drinks were not restricted, although they were warned that alcohol was high-calorie, so several drinks would affect corticosteroid levels.

Their corsticosteroid levels were measured using a saliva test which was independently analysed by Associate Professor Jack Bassett at Macquarie University.

Eating whenever we want seems to be the norm these days, made possible by the development of the refrigeration, cans and preservatives.

Fasting has fallen into disregard in the eyes of orthodox practitioners for healing and preventative purposes with the advent of modern drug-oriented medicine.

People who fast or recommend it are often seen as health-freaks or quacks. But periodic fasts make sense in terms of what we would have been adapted to "in the wild" - primitive man would have had to contend with temporary or seasonal food shortages. It's also known that animals fast when sick.

In fact, fasting has been used throughout history for healing, purification and rejuvination purposes. The benefits are well documented by clinical experience in Europe, particularly in Sweden and Germany and also the United States.

Most Eastern philosophers and super-yogis fast regularly to prolong life and increase spiritual awareness

Eating within certain hours also comes natuarally to some. Mediterranean people eat the majority of their food within six hours, stopping work for a siesta between about midday and 5 or 6 pm to eat their main meal of the day and rest.

Greenoak said a farming community in Europe read of his experimentsand wrote to tell him that they ate only two main meals a day and enjoyed extraordinary good health. There are also times of forced fasting sauch as during wars.

Several studies show cancer rates fell considerably during World War1, when there were food shortages and general under-nutrition.

A study looking at cancer deaths in Germany from 1905 to 1930 found significantly fewer deaths from cancer from 1915 to 1920.

After World War 1 the upward trend of increasing cancer deaths continued. In the town of Graz in Austria, there was a 25-year low in cancer deaths in 1918 and the rate tended to remain low until 1924, when it showed a definite upward trend. The food shortage developed later and lasted longer in Graz than other parts of Austria and in Germany.
• Exercise may also be a factor in the mice and the humans - resisting cancer.
• Age may also be a factor.
In these experiments the animals were fairly young and responded quickly to the change in eating patterns, and animals that had been on an unrestricted diet for a long time took longer to respond.

The findings of Professor Keaney and Greenoak will be presented at the World Cancer Congress on alternative cancer treatments and prevention in Sydney from April 16-18, and at a congress on breast cancer in Brugge, Belgium, on April 21-22, organised by the British medical journal The Lancet.

Publication: Sydney Morning Herald
Publication Date: 12-4-94
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Interesting concept, and I must admit the two 'elderly' men I know who practice this (religiously!), along with other CAM therapies, have defied their doctor's "death guesses" by many years.

Cheers, xxxGGC