Ketogenic Diet

**NOTE:  Since I published this post, I have read more about the Ketogenic diet, and there may be some questions as to its efficacy in treating cancer.  Apparently there isn't a lot of data regarding its success in actual cancer patients, and there is some evidence that it is effective in the short term, but not necessarily in the long term.  The premise still has merit, but there are other natural, nutritional treatments for cancer that may be more effective.

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I regularly research cancer topics, and the "Ketogenic" diet has come up several times, so I started looking into it more in depth.  A Ketogenic diet is a high fat, low-to-moderate protein, low carb diet, basically eliminating all carbs except those from non-starchy vegetables.  This diet is very effective in treating cancer, epileptic seizures, Alzheimer's, autism, diabetes, and very effective for weight loss.  Many professional athletes are also exchanging their typical carb-loading diets with a Ketogenic diet, because it provides better and more sustained energy, not to mention better overall health.

It is common knowledge that cancer cells feed on sugar, so, simply put, a Ketogenic diet starves cancer cells of their energy source, annihilating them.  Additionally, low-protein consumption minimizes the mTor pathway--a pathway which is known to accelerate cell proliferation.  (Most people consume too much protein.  Half a gram of protein per pound of lean body mass--or 40-70g per day for most people--is the goal.)  Cancer cells, specifically, have insufficient respiration, so they must obtain an alternate source of energy, which is fermentation--and the primary fuel for fermentation is glucose.  Normal cells burn sugar, too, but when the sugar supply is inadequate, normal cells will switch to burning ketones, which are a product of fat metabolization.  Cancer cells do not have this ability to adapt to using ketone bodies due to their respiration insufficiency, so they are placed under metabolic stress and starved.  A Ketogenic diet lowers glucose levels and, when combined with intermittent fasting, changes the body's metabolic state from carb-burning mode to fat-burning mode.

Intermittent fasting can be worked up to gradually, starting by not eating within three hours of bedtime, then gradually extending the length of time before breakfast is eaten until the first meal isn't until lunch.  The goal is to contain eating within a six- to eight-hour period.  Intermittent fasting basically breaks the body's addiction to glucose.

One of the best sources of knowledge about the Ketogenic diet is Dr. Thomas Seyfried, who has published a groundbreaking book, Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management, and Prevention of Cancer.  Dr. Seyfried has been teaching at Yale University and Boston College for the past 25 years about neurogenetics and neurochemistry as they are  related to cancer treatment, and he has written a significant amount of peer-reviewed scientific literature. 

The anti-inflammatory, cancer-fighting diet I have been following is very similar to the Ketogenic diet in that I have mostly eliminate refined/added sugars, but I still consume fruit and vegetables containing naturally-occurring sugars.  I believe that the anti-oxidants and other nutrients in fruits and vegetables outweigh the negative effects of the sugars.



Here is a link to one of Dr. Seyfried's papers:
http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1743-7075-7-7.pdf

Here are links to two other sources explaining the Ketogenic diet:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/06/16/ketogenic-diet-benefits.aspx

http://www.seasonjohnson.blogspot.com/2014/08/what-is-ketogenic-diet-where-do-i-begin.html  (This blogger is using the Ketogenic diet to counteract the harmful effects of chemo and to fight cancer for her toddler who is fighting leukemia and must undergo chemo--or risk being taken away from his family if they refused chemo.)