Science has just found a way to eat to shrink cancer tumors.

The Keto diet may help fight cancer by starving tumors. US scientists have found that the Keto diet cuts off the sugar supply that tumors need to grow, according to the research journal Study Finds.

Applying the Keto diet combined with corticosteroid drugs caused cancer tumors to shrink and they lived longer

The Keto diet involves cutting out starchy foods like rice, bread, pasta and replacing them with more meat and dairy. The team found that combining the diet with corticosteroid drugs produced anti-cancer benefits, without the deadly side effects.

The study was conducted on mice by Associate Professor, Dr. Tobias Janowitz, from the Cold Spring Harbor Cancer Research Laboratory in New York (USA) and his team.

Results showed that in mice with cancer, applying the Keto diet combined with corticosteroids caused cancer tumors to shrink and they lived longer. The Keto diet can reduce body weight by up to 10%, according to Study Finds .

Healthy mice on the ketogenic diet also lost weight, but their metabolism adapted and they stabilized, Dr. Janowitz explained in a press release.

However, the cancer-infected mice failed to adapt because they were unable to produce enough of the hormone corticosterone, which helps regulate the effects of the Keto diet, so they continued to lose weight.

To remedy this, the authors tackled this problem by giving these cancer-stricken mice a ketogenic diet along with anti-inflammatory corticosteroids to replenish their corticosterone deficiency. The results were stunning: The tumors shrank without causing any wasting, according to Study Finds.

The Keto diet involves cutting out starchy foods like rice, bread, pasta and replacing them with more meat and dairy.

What is cachexia in cancer patients?

Cachexia is characterized by severe weight loss, leading to anorexia, fatigue, and impaired immunity.

This condition is very common in patients with advanced cancer. They become so weak that they can no longer undergo anti-cancer treatment, nor are they able to do everyday tasks.

Cancer is a systemic disease that reprograms normal biological processes to allow tumors to grow, said co-lead author Dr. Miriam Ferrer.

Because of this reprogramming, the mice couldn’t use the nutrients from the keto diet and were left with cachexia. But when they were given corticosteroids, they did much better. “The cancer mice lived longer than any other treatment we tried,” Ferrer explained, according to Study Finds.

This study is part of the international Cancer Grand Challenges project targeting cachexia.

Researchers are currently working to refine the timing and dosage of corticosteroids to effectively apply Keto therapy.

What is the Keto Diet?

The ketogenic diet is a high-fat, adequate-protein, very-low-carbohydrate diet that forces the body to burn fat instead of carbohydrates.

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