Fighting cancer with a combination of corticosteroids and the keto diet (Keto works with added steroid)

Medical Xpress / Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory / Cell Metabolism ^ | June 12, 2023 | Tobias Janowitz et al

[ConservativeMind]

Dietitians say a keto diet could help you lose up to 10% of your body weight. These high-fat, low-carb meal plans trick the body into burning its own fat. They could also help fight a variety of cancers by starving tumors of the glucose they need to grow. On the surface, this seems ideal. But research suggests these diets may have a deadly, unintended side effect for cancer patients.

In mice with pancreatic and colorectal cancer, keto accelerates a lethal wasting disease called cachexia. Patients and mice with cachexia experience loss of appetite, extreme weight loss, fatigue, and immune suppression. The disease has no effective treatment and contributes to about 2 million deaths per year.

"Cachexia results from a wound that doesn't heal," Professor Tobias Janowitz says. "It's very common in patients with progressive cancer. They become so weak they can no longer handle anti-cancer treatment."

Janowitz found pairing keto with common drugs called corticosteroids prevented cachexia in mice with cancer. Their tumors shrank and the mice lived longer.

"Healthy mice also lose weight on keto, but their metabolism adapts and they plateau," Janowitz explains. "Mice with cancer can't adapt, because they can't make enough of a hormone called corticosterone that helps regulate keto's effects. They don't stop losing weight."

Keto causes toxic lipid byproducts to accumulate in and kill cancer cells by a process called ferroptosis. This slows tumor growth but also causes early-onset cachexia. When researchers replaced the depleted hormone with a corticosteroid, keto still shrank tumors but didn't kickstart cachexia.

"Cancer reprograms normal biological processes to help it grow," Ferrer says. "Because of this reprogramming, mice can't use the nutrients from a keto diet, and waste away. But with the steroid, they did much better. They lived longer than with any other treatment we tried."

[ConservativeMind]

Keto initially helps, then hurts, patients with some cancers. However, it succeeds when common corticosteroids are added.

[ConservativeMind]

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[Bob434]

[[They could also help fight a variety of cancers by starving tumors of the glucose they need to grow. ]]

There is controversy about whether sugar helps cancer grow or not- here is a blurb from mayo clinic on the issue

“sugar does not cause cancer on its own. Giving sugar to cancer cells does not make them grow faster and depriving cancer cells of sugar does not make them grow more slowly”

https://connect.mayoclinic.org/blog/cancer-education-center/newsfeed-post/sugars-role-in-cancer/

I’ve seen articles both for and agaisnt sugar causing or Increasing cancers.

[Bob434]

I’ve even read articles fro science sites that state that the body needs sugars in order to battle cancers, a d depriving it of sugar might infsct weaken the body during the critical stages of the battle.

I dunno which is true at this point, just stating that there is some controversy about the issue.

[Reily]

It may depend on the type of cancerous cell.

[Bob434]

Perhaps- I haven’t looked to intensely into the issue. Just a bit when I had to go through it.

[DCBryan1]

body needs sugars in order to battle cancers,

Small teaspoon of honey, an apple at lunch....bang....natural sugars...about all a diabetic can take.

[Bob434]

yeah i shoulda clarified that healthy bodies need sugar to help fight the cancer- but of course in moderation- I way over do it though- I’m a hopeless sugar-head-

[ckilmer]

If I’ve gone a couple days of keto and my body is pretty well keto adapted—if I eat an apple—I can feel the clouds of sugar in my brain—coming from the apple.

[Bob434]

my brain is always clouded (Might be from the sugar), but i think it’s from fibro- called fibro-fog- i did go sugar free years ago for 5 months- but the brain fog never really lifted-

[Magic Fingers]

I agree. Excess sugar isn’t good for any condition of course, but the widely-touted position on sugar and cancer seems a bit simplistic given all the roles that glucose plays in metabolism.