A study published this week in the journal Science Translational Medicine, suggests that fasting for a short periods at a time may help fighting cancer and enable patients to tolerate the effects of chemotherapy better, according to scientists.

Water: a new diet for cancer sufferers? Photo: Jorge Barrios

Going without food was found to slow the growth and spread of tumours in mice and in some cases even cure cancers when it was combined with chemotherapy.

In research which is clearly not “mainstream science”, a professor of gerontology at the University of Southern California, Valter Longo, has shed new light on the age old process of fasting which has long been advocated by religious traditions the world over as an important process.

Fasting requires will-power and self discipline and its proponents say that there are multiple benefits on offer.

Animals in the wild, of course, retreat and stay away from food while they are recovering from illnesses, so why wouldn’t humans do the same?

40% of mice who fasted were “cured”

The results are highly provisional, but nevertheless the results are impressive. Up to 40% of the mice who were allowed no food or drink except for water before and after chemotherapy, were actually “cured” of their limited spread of cancer. Where the cancer was a highly aggressive form, the figure was 20%. None of the mice were cured from chemotherapy alone.

What appears to happen is that tumour cells respond differently to the stress of fasting compared to normal cells which tend to become dormant, as though they are in hibernation. Tumour cells in the mice however kept growing and dividing, in the end destroying themselves.

Cellular suicide

‘The cell is, in fact, committing cellular suicide’ said Longo.

‘What we’re seeing is that the cancer cell tries to compensate for the lack of all these things missing in the blood after fasting. It may be trying to replace them, but it can’t.’

When we fast our normal cells are deprived of energy and learn to adapt. On the other hand the fast-growing cancer cells simply are not used to this kind of deprivation and are therefore more likely to be weakened in this new environment than regular healthy cells. They are therefore more vulnerable to chemotherapy, according to Longo, and also quite possibly susceptible to the body’s normal internal cleansing process during fasting.

Many people swear by the benefits of routine periodic fasting, for physical reasons – Longo himself is an advocate and fast himself from time to time and believes that this can help us all stay healthy longer. Longo plans to publish a paper on the subject in about six months’ time.

A study published last May shows that a 24 hour water fast not only lowers one’s risk of coronary artery disease and diabetes, but also causes significant changes in a person’s blood cholesterol levels.

Remarkably, that study also showed that a 24 hour fast increased the production of Human Growth Hormone (a metabolic protein which protects lean muscle and metabolic balance) on average by 1,300 % in women, and nearly 2,000 % in men.

But fasting must be approached with caution by people with certain illnesses, and medical advice should in certain cases be sought, according to Longo.

Further study on humans to be published later this year

The results of the study are preliminary, but sufficiently interesting to continue the research. Results of a preliminary clinical trial held in California assessing the impact of fasting for two days before and one day after chemotherapy for patients with certain types of cancer, are due to be presented at an annual meeting of the American Society of Cancer Oncologists (ASCO) in Chicago in June.

This work is continuing on from a paper published by Longo and colleagues two years ago in the journal Aging which showed that ten cancer patients who had fasted on their own, had all reported fewer side effects from chemotherapy.

The study offers an entirely new perspective on cancer treatment.

“A way to beat cancer cells may not be to try to find drugs that kill them specifically but to confuse them by generating extreme environments, such as fasting that only normal cells can quickly respond to,” says Longo.

It is quite possible that there is some innate medical wisdom within the religious traditions of the world which encourage periodic fasting.

Cancer, chemotherapy, fasting, nutrition, reduced calorie intake, Valter Longo, water Health