Add to that, doing the right thing

when it comes to preventing

and treating a chronic disease,

fighting a virus, or losing weight,

and suddenly our nutrition choices

can seem almost overwhelming.

Well, I’m here to help.

Welcome to the Nutrition Facts Podcast.

I’m your host, Dr. Michael Greger.

Today we conclude our two-part series on fasting and cancer.

And we start with a story

about how the benefits of short term fasting

translate in the clinical setting.

The first randomized prospective clinical evaluation

of the effects of fasting on chemotherapy,

the incidence of chemotherapy-induced nausea

and vomiting in cancer patients was published in 2014,

but the patients were dogs.

Cancer-bearing dogs presenting at a veterinary hospital were

randomized to be fasted for 24 hours before chemotherapy,

and those that were, were significantly less likely

to suffer from vomiting

only 1 in 10 compared to 2 out of 3 in the non-fasted group,

which is great, but what can that tell us about human medicine?

Evidently, not much.

It is nearly impossible to rely on most animal data

to predict whether or not an intervention will have

a favorable clinical benefit-risk ratio in human subjects.

For example, mice have a metabolic rate approximately

seven times higher than humans,

so a single day of fasting can cut lean body mass about 15%.

That would take over a month of fasting in people.

So that dramatic study on mice showing 100% alive versus

100% dead on high dose chemo depending on whether

they were fasted for 60 hours, what can that really tell us?

And when it comes to cancer, rodents can bear

massive tumor loads, whereas people generally

waste away and die when tumor masses

reach just a thousandth of our body weight.

You can't even necessarily extrapolate from one rat to another

even within the same strain bought from different dealers.

The only way to see what happens in humans,

the only way to guarantee findings are relevant is to study people.

The theory is that combining fasting cycles with chemotherapy

could extend the survival of advanced-stage cancer patients

by both retarding tumor progression and reducing side effects,

or even providing an alternative to chemotherapy altogether

in early-stage cancer patients,

but that's all contingent on it being confirmed in human clinical trials.

First there were case series:

several patients diagnosed with a variety of cancers

elected to undertake fasting prior to chemotherapy

and shared their experiences.

Those who underwent chemo both with and without fasting

reported a reduction of fatigue, weakness, and

gastrointestinal side effects while fasting; in fact felt better

across the board with zero vomiting in the fasting group.

The weight lost during the few days of fasting was rapidly recovered

in most of the patients and did not lead to any detectable harm,

so overall was looking feasible, safe,

with the potential to ameliorate side effects.

But only randomized clinical studies could tell for sure,

and so here we go.

Breast and ovarian cancer patients fasting, starting 36 hours

before and ending 24 hours after chemotherapy,

and it did appear to improve the quality of life and fatigue,

but another study found no such beneficial effects.

There did appear to perhaps be less bone marrow toxicity

given the higher counts of red blood cells and platelet-making cells,

but no benefit when it came to killing off white blood cells --

the immune system cells -- so that was a disappointment.

Perhaps they didn't fast long enough?

They only fasted 24 hours before and after.

To find out the optimal duration, 20 cancer patients were split up

into three groups, fasting for 24, 48, or a total of 72 hours.

All those in the 24-hour group suffered nausea after chemo,

but less than half in the 72-hour group.

And most were vomiting in the 24-hour group,

but none in the longest fasting group.

Longer fasting groups also tended to suffer less nerve damage

and less serious bone marrow suppression.

Even after 24 hours of fasting, two cycles of chemo can

knock people's white blood cells down to sub-optimal levels, but

with 72 hours, chemo knocked their immune system down but not out.

OK, so short-term fasting may reduce chemotherapy-induced toxicity,

but what I want to know is if it makes it work better?

A systematic review of 22 studies found that overall fasting

was found to not only reduce chemotherapy side effects, like

organ damage, immune suppression, and chemotherapy-induced death,

but also to suppress tumor progression, including

tumor growth and metastasis, resulting in improved survival, but...

nearly all of the studies were done on lab animals.

The studies on humans are limited to evaluating safety

and side effects.

The tumor- suppression effects of fasting --

for example, its influence on tumor growth, metastasis and prognosis --

have not been evaluated until now.

To be continued.

In our final story we ask,

how might we replicate the protective effects of fasting with food?

Short-term food withdrawal during chemotherapy may begin to solve

the long-standing problem with most cancer treatments:

how to kill the tumor without killing the patient?

Short-term fasting -- for example,

for 48 hours before chemo and 24 hours afterwards --

may reduce side effects, reduce chemotherapy-induced toxicity.

However, the potential tumor- suppressing effects of fasting --

for example, its influence on tumor growth, metastasis and prognosis --

have not been evaluated until now.

No, actually, sadly, they mean "have not been evaluated until now,"

meaning they have not been evaluated yet, period.

So in answering the question to fast or not to fast before chemotherapy,

it should be emphasized that the evidence provided

by human studies is still very limited.

Some argue that reducing the side effects alone

could improve efficacy,

since patients could withstand higher doses.

For example, the heart and kidney damage associated

with the widely prescribed anti-cancer drugs limit

their full therapeutic potential.

It's not clear, though, that

maximizing the tolerated chemo dose would achieve

longer survival or better quality of life.

For now, I think we should just be satisfied with

the fewer side effects for fewer side effects' sake.

Some cancer docs urge caution, concerned about malnutrition.

That concern is echoed in official guidelines

on nutrition in cancer patients.

Because of the risks of malnutrition and,

yeah, maybe a day or two might not hurt,

but because patients might be tempted to prolong fasting

episodes without firm evidence of a benefit, they feel

fasting during chemotherapy cannot be recommended.

Fasting proponents agree that patients with severe weight loss,

muscle wasting or malnutrition -- probably not good candidates

for even short-term fasting.

But out of the hundreds of patients that have been tracked,

there's no evidence of severe adverse events in terms of malnutrition

or weight loss with short-term fasting or fasting-mimicking diets.

And those patients who did experience a weight loss

during fasting typically recovered their weight

before the subsequent cycle of chemo without detectable harm.

But look, even if there is a risk, we're talking about cancer here.

Accepting trade-offs is kind of the name of the game.

People are willing to put up with the risk of severe,

even life-threatening side effects all the time.

And even if it just helped alleviate some of the side effects,

it might be worth a try.

Of course, meanwhile Big Pharma is busy trying to come up with drugs

aimed at reproducing the beneficial effects of fasting.

Although fasting mimicking drugs may be preferred by patients

who would rather pop a pill than go without eating,

it will be years before they'll ever be on the market,

and it's hard to imagine drugs will be developed that are

both as effective and as safe as fasting.

So is there anything we can tweak in our diet

to get similar benefits without having to fast?

The way fasting works is by reducing levels

of a cancer-promoting growth hormone known as

insulin-like growth factor 1.

It's the reduced levels of IGF-1 that mediate

the differential protection of normal and cancer cells

in response to fasting

and improves chemo's ability to kill cancer

but spare normal cells.

How do we know this?

Because restoration of IGF-1 was sufficient to reverse

the protective effect of fasting.

Check it out.

Here's the growth of two cancer cell lines, breast cancer and melanoma,

in a petri dish after being exposed to chemotherapy.

Survival rates dropped down into the 60s or even 20s.

But the same dose in starved cells works even better.