Extensive preclinical evidence suggests that short-term fasting and fasting mimicking diets (FMDs) can protect healthy cells against the perils of a wide variety of stressors, including chemotherapy, simultaneously rendering cancer cells more vulnerable to chemotherapy and other therapies. At Vitawell, we promote and support a fasting mimicking diet in particular days during the cancer treatments. The FMDs are not aimed at reducing the patient's body weight, but at sarving cancer cells.Experimentally, short-term fasting (STF) protects healthy cells against the adverse effects of chemotherapy while making tumor cells more vulnerable to it.
Fasting promotes pronounced changes in metabolic pathways and cellular processes such as stress response (hormesis), autophagy and decreases IGF-1 thataffects other factors as Akt, Ras and mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) to downregulate cell growth and proliferation. Chemotherapy is a mainstay in the treatment of malignant tumors, but frequently limited by its toxicity. Recently it has been shown, that the effects of fasting on susceptibility to chemotherapy differ between normal cells and cancer cells, a phenomenon described as differential stress resistance (DSR).
Experimental data indicate that fasting states may promote the protection of normal cells, but not cancer cells during chemotherapy, as oncogenic pathways inhibit the stress resistance. In healthy cells pronounced metabolic and gene expression changes are induced by fasting, including upregulation of DNA repair
Do you want to know more? Watch this vide by Dr valter Longo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIwCiqNdGsI
References:
1. Lee C, Raffaghello L, Brandhorst S, Safdie FM, Bianchi G, Martin-Montalvo A, Pistoia V, Wei M, Hwang S, Merlino A, et al. Fasting cycles retard growth of tumors and sensitize a range of cancer cell types to chemotherapy. Sci Transl Med. 2012;4(124):124ra127.
2. Longo VD, Mattson MP. Fasting: molecular mechanisms and clinical applications. Cell Metab. 2014;19(2):18192.
3. Tannenbaum A, Silverstone H. The influence of the degree of caloric restriction on the formation of skin tumors and hepatomas in mice. Cancer Res. 1949;9(12):7247.
