A recent study suggests that the ketogenic diet, or keto diet, which is high in fat and low in carbohydrates, may help fight various types of cancer. This diet tricks the body into burning its own fat, thus, according to research, depriving tumors of the sugar they need to grow.
In experiments with mice suffering from colorectal and pancreatic cancer, the keto diet accelerated a fatal disease known as cachexia. This disease causes loss of appetite, extreme weight loss, fatigue, and a weakened immune system, and so far there is no effective treatment.
“Cachexia is the result of a wound that does not heal. It is very common in patients with progressive cancer. They become so weak that they can no longer withstand cancer treatment. Everyday tasks become Herculean labors,” explains Tobias Janowitz, Professor at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), in the United States.
Janowitz and fellow CSHL postdoc Miriam Ferrer are investigating how to maximize the cancer-fighting benefits of the keto diet while minimizing its dangerous side effect. They found that combining the keto diet with common drugs called corticosteroids prevented cachexia in mice with cancer.. Also, their tumors shrank in size and the mice lived longer.
“Healthy mice also lose weight on the keto diet, but their metabolism adjusts and stabilizes,” Janowitz explains. “Cancer mice can’t adapt, because they can’t make enough of a hormone called corticosterone that helps regulate the effects of keto. They don’t stop losing weight.”
This diet causes toxic lipid byproducts to accumulate in cancer cells and kill them through a process called ferroptosis, which slows tumor growth but also causes early-onset cachexia. When the researchers replaced the depleted hormone with a corticosteroid, ketotherapy continued to shrink the tumors but did not trigger cachexia.
Janowitz and Ferrer are part of an international effort to combat cachexia in cancer. They are currently working on adjusting the timing and dose of corticosteroids to broaden the range of effective cancer therapies in combination with the keto diet.
“We want to push cancer back even further, so it grows even slower,” Janowitz emphasizes. “If we can amplify this effect, make treatment more effective, we can ultimately benefit patients and improve cancer treatment.”
