Fasting Helps Cancer Patients Survive Chemotherapy — And It Could Help Us All Live Longer

The article presents Valter Longo’s work on how two- to four-day fasts affect healthy cells and cancer cells. It says fasting before chemotherapy was linked to a more bearable experience of side effects, lower white blood cell counts during the fast, higher preservation of hematopoietic stem cells, and in mice, renewed stem-cell production.

Reading notes

#

• Longo’s studies examine how two- to four-day fasts affect healthy cells and cancer cells in mice and humans.
• Patients who fasted before chemotherapy had a more bearable experience of its side effects.
• During fasting, the immune system removes cells that are not fully functioning.
• Longer fasting was linked to almost 30 percent lower white blood cell counts and higher preservation rates of hematopoietic stem cells.
• In mice, fasting also jump-started the manufacture of new hematopoietic stem cells.
• Longo says the body saves energy by recycling immune cells that may be damaged.
• Fasting shifts body chemistry from burning carbohydrates to burning stored fat and ketone bodies produced by the liver.
• Fasting lowered IGF-1, a growth-factor hormone linked to aging, tumor progression, and cancer risk.
• It also reduced PKA, which Longo links to the regulation of adult stem cell caches.
• The article notes that the immune system reboot was not documented in the human patients in the Phase I trial.
• People who fasted for 72 hours before treatment experienced lower toxicity and less effect on bone marrow from chemotherapy.
• Longo and Tanya Dorff say fasting may mitigate some harmful effects of chemotherapy.
• The article says fasting may make chemotherapy more effective and more manageable because healthy cells fare better than cancer cells under fasting conditions.
• Longo says the lab is investigating whether these effects apply to other systems and organs, not just the immune system.
• Restricted-calorie diets and 24-hour fasts did not produce the same results as 72-hour fasts.
• Longo is looking for ways to stimulate these pathways through nutrition or drugs that simulate fasting chemistry.