Posted on 01/15/2021 12:49:54 PM PST by BenLurkin
Thanks for that clear summary. I’ve been on and off Keto for a couple years. Sounds like a good reason to stick with it.
My wife recently died from cancer. I did a lot of reading about it over the last three years.
Very low carb diets can help slow the growth.
On a zero carb diet, the body makes enough glucose to keep blood sugar levels normal, making it impossible to starve cancer through diet alone.
An experimental treatment has been proposed, based on Dr. George Cahill’s research in the late ‘60’s. He showed that sufficient levels of ketones in the blood can protect the brain from artificially low levels of glucose in the blood.
He fasted a group of volunteers for forty days. After about ten days, blood ketones reach a maximum. He showed the brain was running on about 70% ketones, 30% glucose. He then injected 20IU insulin, and blood sugar dropped to about 18. Normally this would be fatal, but the patients felt no ill effects, since the brain was being supplied with adequate ketones.
Dr. Dominic D’Agostino had conversations with Dr. Cahill before he died, and has said these experiments would never be allowed today. Dr. D’Agostino says he has done the experiment on himself. He said his blood glucose was so low, his meter didn’t even register.
Most cells in the body can run on either glucose or ketones, but some can only use glucose. Blood cells, and some brain cells require glucose.
Adam Kapelner, a PhD math professor, has proposed an experimental cancer treatment, based on Cahill’s research.
His paper is here:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1407.7622.pdf
He is on the Keto Savage podcast, it’s about an hour and ten minutes:
https://ketosavage.com/adam-kapelner-killing-cancer-via-ketogenesis-extreme-hypoglycemia/
Cancer also feeds on glutamine, so Kapelner’s trick may not work. As far as I know, no one has tried it, or if they have, they have not published any results.
Thankfully I do not have young children and I can continue to keep antifreeze in the refrigerator!
The 2014 article is VERY informative. It explains the Keto Diet 4:1 protein:sugar ratio and as you mentioned, that you can’t really eliminate glucose from the blood. The article mentioned electrolytes aren’t affected by KD, but from personal experience and other sources that’s probably not the case.
Re: “Even though the idea of cancer starvation is commonplace, there have been no well- designed studies evaluating this premise. Why do they not exist? Simone et al. (2013) argues that the absence of clinical trials is due to unclear diet implementation protocols. Financial concerns are also a likely explanation. With the time and resources needed to produce a high-quality clinical trial, it is unlikely that therapeutic hypoglycemia would produce an adequate return-on-investment for a pharmaceutical company.” With all the people now on keto diets, perhaps this could now be studied.
One of the fascinating reports in “Anti-cancer” is that the prevalence of cancer has increased in succeeding generations. It’s as if the gametes themselves decrease in quality so that one’s ability to eliminate the possibility of cancer is thwarted.
At least we can try strengthening our immune systems and try not to weaken them. If I grasped the technical article, it indicates that cancer cells can’t be “starved” through eliminating carbs (without insulin) but perhaps may be slowed down.
My wife’s PET/CT scans at diagnosis showed SUV readings of 15 in some places. A follow up scan three months later they had decreased to less than 10. I had her on a VERY strict low carb diet. I wouldn’t even let her have a bite of a cracker the first three months.
The only anti-cancer drug she was able to tolerate was letrozole. After seeing positive results with low carb, we both dropped our guard a bit, and I allowed her up to 20g per day. Subsequent scans every six months showed progression. We even did five months of hyperbaric oxygen treatments, 90 minutes a day, three days a week, with zero improvement in her scans, though she felt better. That was $4k out of pocket.
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