Tumors, because low-calorie diet cycles help

How important is lowering blood sugar

Filippo de Braud, Director of the Department of Oncology and Hematology at INT and Full Professor at the University of Milan, who promoted the research, explains that “the results of this clinical study are particularly encouraging for the future development of this experimental strategy because demonstrate that the hypoglycemic diet is safe, feasible and associated with weight regain in the majority of treated cancer patients. Furthermore, the fact that the hypoglycemic diet is able to reduce blood levels of glucose and growth factors in a similar way to that observed in experiments with laboratory animals constitutes the biological prerequisite for the experimentation of this therapeutic approach in patients suffering from different forms of cancer”.

“The most relevant result of this study – explains Claudio Vernieri, Medical Oncologist at the IRCCS National Cancer Institute Foundation and director of the experimental program of” Metabolic Reprogramming of Solid Tumors “at IFOM – consists in the discovery that a specific 5-day hypoglycemic diet scheme, followed cyclically (every 3-4 weeks), it was well tolerated by 101 cancer patients. Furthermore, following this diet, some cells of the immune system were activated in the patients, which play an important role in recognizing and killing cancer cells “.

Calorie restriction is obtained with foods of vegetable origin, such as vegetables, wholemeal bread, extra virgin olive oil, fresh and dried fruit in limited and pre-established quantities. The patients involved were suffering from different types of neoplasms including breast, colon and lung cancers.

The effect of cyclic fasting on the immune system

This research adds a piece to the knowledge on the subject, which is growing progressively. Studies conducted in recent years, at the IFOM and other institutes laboratories, have shown how cyclic fasting, or different schemes of hypoglycemic diets, are able to potentiate the anticancer effects of chemotherapy and immunotherapy.

These effects are attributable to the reduction of blood concentration of glucose and growth factors that stimulate the multiplication of cancer cells, such as insulin and insulin-like growth factor. The results of the experiments conducted in the laboratory were very promising and now, with the study conducted by the National Cancer Institute (INT), the real applicability of fasting and hypoglycemic diets in clinical oncological practice has been preliminarily demonstrated, without side effects even in subjects. fragile like cancer patients.

With a positive aspect that should not be underestimated: this dietary approach would have an action on the immune system. Indeed, it emerges that the hypoglycemic diet increases the presence in the blood of ‘good’ immune cells such as cytotoxic T lymphocytes and Natural Killer cells, which are potentially able to recognize and kill cancer cells. At the same time, the diet appears to reduce ‘bad’ immune cells which increase systemic inflammation and prevent ‘good’ ones from functioning properly. In short, the way seems the right one.