From the article
“Here’s where the myth that sugar fuels cancer was born: if cancer cells need lots of glucose, then cutting sugar out of our diet must help stop cancer growing, and could even stop it developing in the first place, right?
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. All of our healthy cells need glucose too, and there’s no way of telling our bodies to let healthy cells have the glucose they need without also giving it to cancer cells. And cancer cells also need lots of other nutrients too, like amino acids and fats; it’s not just sugar they crave...
This is particularly important for cancer patients, because some treatments can result in weight loss and put the body under a lot of stress. So poor nutrition from restrictive diets could also hamper recovery, or even be life-threatening. “
When we get cancer, it is a major hit to our bodies- and our bodies need energy to help combat the cancer- the body is often in a very weakened state during cancer and the resulting treatments-
“So poor nutrition from restrictive diets”
A Low Carb diet is NOT “poor nutrition”. Nor does it, in any way, restrict or reduce energy. FAT is a great source of energy, but cancer cells seem adverse to using it.
...Studies evaluating low carbohydrate diets and cancer start to show benefits when carbohydrates are restricted to less than 20% of total daily calories. As mentioned above, this is equal to 100 grams or less, based on a 2,000 calories-per-day diet. However, the majority of the research is looking at the benefits of a ketogenic diet, meaning less than 10% of total calories, which is less than 50 grams of carbohydrates for most people.” - University of California San Francisco
“Many cancer therapies are designed to target the biological differences between cancer cells and normal cells.
Nearly all cancer cells share one common trait: They feed off carbs or blood sugar in order to grow and multiply (2, 3Trusted Source, 7Trusted Source).
When you follow a ketogenic diet, some of the standard metabolic processes are altered, and your blood sugar levels go way down (2, 3Trusted Source).
Basically, this is claimed to “starve” the cancer cells of fuel.
As in all living cells, the long-term effect of this “starvation” may be that the cancer cells will grow more slowly, decrease in size, or possibly even die....
...A large number of these animal studies have shown a ketogenic diet can reduce tumor growth and improve survival rates (11Trusted Source, 12, 13Trusted Source).
One study of mice with metastatic cancer tested a ketogenic diet with or without oxygen therapy. When compared with a standard diet, the ketogenic diet resulted in a significant decrease in tumor growth (11Trusted Source).
The ketogenic diet also increased mean survival time by 56.7% (the equivalent of around 17 days). This number increased to 77.9% (or around 24 days) when combined with oxygen therapy (11Trusted Source).
Another study found that using a very low carb diet to restrict glucose levels prevented the growth of squamous cell carcinoma tumors in mice with lung cancer or esophageal cancer. Study subjects received only 0.1% of their calories from carbs (12)....
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/ketogenic-diet-to-fight-cancer#possible-disadvantages
BTW, Healthline has never been a very Keto-friendly website.
It looks like the best approach is to combine a low carb (10% or less) diet WITH standard cancer treatments. The idea is to weaken cancer cells by reducing the fuel they rely on more than normal cells do, then finish them off with the standard treatment.
It also looks like some cancers are harmed more by starving them of sugar than others, which makes sense because some cancers may be less dependent on glucose as their primary food.
But the idea that a Low Carb diet weakens our bodies and reduces muscle mass is just DUMB! There is an enormous amount of evidence it doesn’t happen - and my own body demonstrates the same thing. We do NOT need carbs to live, and we do not need sugar to maintain weight or build muscle.