Nutrition is one thing, curing cancer or "starving cancer" is quite another. Since the OCF forum deals with oral cancer, I think it's important to stress that since so far this diet has worked primarily on brain cancer patients, and some studies found that ovarian and esophageal cancer simply did not respond. Some blogs attribute this to an HPV connection but I've seen no studies on that, just comments so there is Zero correlation with the facebook posting implying that this diet somehow could starve an oral cancer.
In some cases,when there is plausible evidence, scientific diet studies are being done. Why? Because there is in fact money to be made by diet gurus - see Atkins, South Beach, etc. At the least, there are books to be sold touting the diet. Paul B's link to the ketogenic clinical trial shows that serious studies are being done on diet approaches, but as I noted, that trial excludes oral cancer patients which I find very significant.
I wanted to be clear that whatever the merits of ketogenic diet, there is zero evidence that it starves oral cancer.
Although I also confess that a diet which has bacon as a major health food can't be all bad IMO despite what the groups I belong to (PETA and PRM) all say. (that meat causes cancer).
Charm

I'm not sure on the rules of a thread resurrection, and I am not making an opinion either way about the diet.

But I just found that they are starting a clinical trial for both HPV+/- Stage II-IVa HNSCC involving chemo/radiation and a Ketogenic diet. Some may be interested.

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01975766?term=ketogenic+cancer&rank=2

Brian,

Resurrecting older threads here can be painful to some of the old timers, as is the case on this thread, some of those participating in the discussion are no longer alive.

Nutrition is a subject that Charm and I discussed often, swapped recipes and blender techniques etc, and gratefully I was blessed to be able to break bread with him before he passed. It is with this in mind that I'll weigh in on this subject.

This is not the first clinical trial on Ketogenics, and in the other trials I've read it will generally come down to how the patients tolerate the diet as Keto's can be difficult. Those that do tolerate them and stick to them have had good results, those that didn't..well, didn't.

There are several benefits to a ketogenic nutritional plan during treatment due to the positive effects they have on balancing blood insulin levels and the emphasis on high protein.

Malnutrition accounts for between 25-40% of deaths for cancer patients, not cancer or the treatment of. When our bodies immune system is activated, it has the unfortunate side effect of reducing digestion and absorption, yet the need for amino acids rises dramatically as they are used in the production of macrophages (specifically the amino acid lucien).

As the body is constantly having to rebuild itself, without an ample supply of amino acids (protein), it will begin to rob Peter to pay Paul, by breaking down skeletal muscle to keep vital organs functioning and throw at the immune response.

In the case of advanced disease, the metabolic imbalance is too much and eventually causes organ failure or the immune system can no longer fight off infection (which accounts for another 40% of deaths).

This explains the studies that have shown those with higher percentage of lean body mass have higher survival rates, they have more muscle to break down to fuel the immune system and generally have higher protein diets.

Short term, say typically the six to seven weeks of treatment, Ketogenic Diets would work well, but they are tough to stick to. It's hard on digestion, and will often cause indigestion and heartburn, and will lower appetite. That's the thing about KD's eventually you're not taking in a lot of calories so you're going to burn a ton of both adipose and lean tissue causing massive drops in weight.

Ketogenic Diets are often used by athletes to cut weight before competition, and they suck, but you'll shed the pounds so it's a fine line there in my opinion when you are wanting to keep as much weight as possible.

Where I favor a high protein, high fat diet, I also know that to keep muscle long term you need complex carbs.

Anyway, those are my thoughts for what they are worth

E

Eric I appreciate your response. Im truly sorry if seeing Charm as the last comment was painful.

After posting I did watch a 1 hour lecture by Dr Seyfried in his theory about how the mutations to mitochondria are the true drivers to cancer metastases rather than the code altered DNA/RNA in the nucleus.

He had one slide that was so simple:
State of Mitochondria | State of Nucleus | State of cell produced
Healthy Mitocondria + Healthy nucleus = Healthy Cell
Mutated mitochondia + Mutated nuclues = Metastible Cancer
Healthy Mitochondria + Mutated nucleus = never created tumors.
Mutated Mitochondria + Healthy Nucleus = Cell that may turn to cancer or die.

He is positing that nuclear genes and gene suppressions are not the drivers of tumors, rather only cells that have compromised respiratory(mitochondria) damage that can become cancer.

I do a lot of root cause analysis in my job, so often people jump straight from identifying the problem into the solution space. Sometimes these leaps and the near correct/partially flawed solution can be so readily accepted that they seem cannon due to how close they fit the model space. When they are dis-proven especially after considerable time and research has been spent bolstering them, a lot of very influential egos are harmed.

I have read that Seyfrieds a work mainly involves brain tumors that tissue HNSCC may even be able to overcome lack of simple sugars So I am definitley not on some sort of diet change craze...

I get just discouraged when we are told that there is no "cure" there is only treatment that can kill the issue.

It would be nice if for 70 years that we haven't found a cure, its due to a very clever problem that has been masked due to the complexity of a problem yet has a very elegant solution.

If a simple supplement that keeps the mitochondria from being altered or bolsters it's ability to fight mutation from disease is what finally wipes cancer off the map. HPV 16 actually affects the mitochondria.

Its really Occam's Razor for me. Either we have to address every single way a RNA/DNA chain can be mutated, or bolster Mitochondria health which would then essentially just eat the cancer no matter what of the thousands of mutations possible in the nucleus.


I am not suggesting a holistic healing approach or anyone to shift diets, I am simply extremely intrigued when a basic theory which has been overlooked or has been obfuscated in the past seems to have promise.

The unfortunate flip-side is that too many may get the wrong impression think they can cure cancer with a diet change and we get into pseudoscience very fast. I hope my tone and what I am saying here is not construed in that fashion.

Brian,

No need to apologize, it was good to read Charm's thoughts again, and review my own. At the time I wrote my original responses, I was actually on a Ketogenic Diet, cutting weight with a few of the fighters I train leading up to their fights.

Having used Keto for about 6 weeks, while putting my body through extreme conditioning, I can attest to how difficult it can be to stick with and the stress it puts on the body. I don't think I'd want to do that to myself through treatment.

I believe that nutrition holds the answers to many of the questions we have about cancer and certainly is one of the keys to a successful outcome, but I don't believe a diet will be the cure for cancer.

I didn't read that in your tone either, and appreciated reading your post.

While mitochondria are super cells and responsible for a lot of activity, there is no single route in rooting out cancer in the body. Even without the cancer aspect, little is known or used clinically in studying the importance of managing outputs of cellular membrane transfer to is ion channels. Cancer increases production of calcium always and part is due to cellular destruction. Improper management of the calcium is a root cause to muscles not gliding and eventual weakness, cramping and atrophy. Potassium consumption during the destruction is quickly treated. Calcium is a suspected problem only if PTH is elevated and only from the parathyroid function perspective which is totally independent of metabolism.

In addition other hormones are not often looked at during cachexia. ACTH and cortisol have to be monitored regularly and imbalances between sodium and potassium is important as sodium-potassium pump issues are not only fatal but cause you to feel horrible, neuromuscularly. All the above issues can eventually progress to ATP kicking in to high gear and metabolism spiraling out of control.

For the chemical aspects of this, Martin Paul from The University of Washigton focuses on the oxidative stress reaction from things like radiation fibrosis and PTSD. Most of us get some form of the latter from treatment, especially rads.