2 ms·

Can you tl;dr , please. Does adjuvant therapy in the form of fasting affect survival in clinical trials in cancer patients? Is this proven and accepted?

reasonattlm 11y ago
Sure. It's a thing. See this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2815756/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2815756/ "Proven" is of course a continuum rather than a binary state. There's plenty of evidence to suggest that calorie restriction and fasting are beneficial across the board, and in cancer, and specifically as adjuvants. Getting that past the FDA as an official approved treatment is still ongoing, I believe. Most likely because "eating less" is not attached to "we can make a huge amount of money charging for this" so who is going to pay for all the studies and data that the FDA wants? One of Longo's innovations is to have found a way to make that happen within the system, I think. More: https://www.google.com/webhp?#q=cancer%20%22dietary%20restriction%22 https://www.google.com/webhp?#q=cancer%20%22dietary%20restri...
- tosseraccount 11y ago
  The evidence is weak. In those patients whose cancer progression could be assessed, fasting did not prevent the chemotherapy-induced reduction of tumor volume or tumor markers. Although the 10 cases presented here suggest that fasting in combination with chemotherapy is feasible, safe, and has the potential to ameliorate side effects caused by chemotherapies, they are not meant to establish practice guidelines for patients undergoing chemotherapy. Only controlled-randomized clinical trials will determine the effect of fasting on clinical outcomes including quality of life and therapeutic index.
jhartmann 11y ago
There was a paper published last year by this group where they did a study of Cancer patients (and a bigger study in mice) receiving a particular kind of Chemo, and their immune systems post therapy were basically 'rebooted'. The protocol in that work was a periodic 2 day water fast in 6 cycles timed with the Chemotherapy adminstration. They then did a very small pilot study and saw the reversal of immunosenescence in people who did the cyclic fasting without Chemotherapy. It was a reasonable effect, but the human studies were smallish and probably could use more reproduction.

reasonattlm 11y ago

Sure. It's a thing. See this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2815756/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2815756/ "Proven" is of course a continuum rather than a binary state. There's plenty of evidence to suggest that calorie restriction and fasting are beneficial across the board, and in cancer, and specifically as adjuvants. Getting that past the FDA as an official approved treatment is still ongoing, I believe. Most likely because "eating less" is not attached to "we can make a huge amount of money charging for this" so who is going to pay for all the studies and data that the FDA wants? One of Longo's innovations is to have found a way to make that happen within the system, I think. More: https://www.google.com/webhp?#q=cancer%20%22dietary%20restriction%22 https://www.google.com/webhp?#q=cancer%20%22dietary%20restri...

tosseraccount 11y ago
The evidence is weak. In those patients whose cancer progression could be assessed, fasting did not prevent the chemotherapy-induced reduction of tumor volume or tumor markers. Although the 10 cases presented here suggest that fasting in combination with chemotherapy is feasible, safe, and has the potential to ameliorate side effects caused by chemotherapies, they are not meant to establish practice guidelines for patients undergoing chemotherapy. Only controlled-randomized clinical trials will determine the effect of fasting on clinical outcomes including quality of life and therapeutic index.

jhartmann 11y ago

There was a paper published last year by this group where they did a study of Cancer patients (and a bigger study in mice) receiving a particular kind of Chemo, and their immune systems post therapy were basically 'rebooted'. The protocol in that work was a periodic 2 day water fast in 6 cycles timed with the Chemotherapy adminstration. They then did a very small pilot study and saw the reversal of immunosenescence in people who did the cyclic fasting without Chemotherapy. It was a reasonable effect, but the human studies were smallish and probably could use more reproduction.