Recent findings suggest beneficial effects of a ketogenic diet — featuring high fat and high protein content, along with low carbohydrates — on cancer cell growth. One of the most impressive cases was reported in the journal “Nutrition & Metabolism.”

The case involved a 65-year-old woman who had one of the most malignant primary brain tumors known to medicine (glioblastoma multiforme). The survival rate for this terrible tumor has not changed since I was a resident in neurosurgery 30 years ago, despite a host of new conventional treatments.

The tumor was incompletely excised, which invariably leads to a recurrence within months.

The patient placed herself on a water-only fasting diet for three days, which raised he levels of r ketone, which are acids that are created when the body starts using fats instead of carbohydrates for energy.

Then she was placed on a standard, low-calorie, high-fat, 4-to-1 ketogenic diet before standard radiation/chemotherapy was begun.

Within 2½ months, her MRI scan and a more accurate PET scan demonstrated no evidence of any tumor or brain edema.

Remember, she had an incomplete removal of the tumor, meaning that the combined diet and traditional treatment completely eliminated it.

After this period — despite the fact that she was neurologically normal and in good general health — the patient decided to no longer follow her strict caloric restriction (her daily intake was 600 calories), and the tumor recurred.

While this was the first report of the elimination of a highly malignant brain tumor in an adult due to ketogenic diet, several reports described similar success in children with malignant brain tumors.

In most of these childhood cases, doctors prescribed a medium-chain ketogenic diet — that is, diets high in medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) oils.

Evidence suggests that the reason ketogenic diets have such a dramatic effect on cancer growth, even for other types of cancer, is that by limiting proteins and carbohydrates you can actually “starve” the cancer cells.

Glucose is the main fuel used by cancers for growth.

Patients with high blood glucose levels experience rapid growth and invasion of their tumors. High glucose levels also increase angiogenesis — the growth of new blood vessels from existing vessels — which is essential for tumor growth and invasion.

Pharmaceutical companies are always searching for drugs that inhibit angiogenesis, because such inhibition would powerfully inhibit cancer growth.

Yet, ironically, many cancer clinics tell their patients to eat lots of sweets to prevent weight loss during therapy.

Instead of sweets, cancer patients should be eating a low-calorie, high-fat ketogenic diet, because cancer cells cannot use ketones the way they use glucose, due to absence of certain enzymes.

In addition, ketones are a powerful anti-inflammatory. And as I have stated in previous newsletters, inflammation is not only a major cause of cancer development, it also drives the cancer, making it grow faster and be more likely to metastasize.

When a cancer metastasizes — that is, spreads throughout the body — it becomes less likely to be cured by any conventional treatment.

By drastically reducing the intake of sugars and simple carbohydrates, caloric restriction not only reduces inflammation, it also improves macrophage immune function.

Macrophages are the main immune cells directing the body’s attack against cancers.

It has also been shown that allowing animals or humans to consume a high carbohydrate diet negates much of the anti-cancer effects of the ketones. This means that if you want to inhibit
cancer, then no more:

• Sugars

• Cakes

• Pies

• Candies

• Pastries

• Breads

As you can see, there are a number of benefits from following a ketogenic diet: reduction in tumor cell nutrition (starving the cancer), reduction in angiogenesis, reduction in inflammation, and improved anti-tumor immunity.

The effectiveness of the diet in producing ketones can be measured by a simple blood test. Urine ketone tests are less accurate.