Calorie restriction seems to improve radiotherapy success

Calorie Restriction can improve treatment and cancer survival
Research in 2012 and covered in The Oncologist magazine, and in its Editorial by Andrew Turrisi an expert oncologist in the USA, concludes that Calorie Restriction can improve the successful outcomes of both chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Madness in UK Hospital Cancer Treatments
We told you as long ago as 2006 to beware those NHS booklets  that tell you to fill up on sugary buns, milky sugary tea and cheeseburgers when having chemotherapy.
As CANCERactive has told you in the past, a fundamental truth of the cancer cell is its need to ferment - thus it needs glucose and/or glutamine to do this.
Cows’ dairy contains IGF-1 growth hormone, just the hormone tumours need to flourish. Growth hormone encourages their cellular growth and that of their essential blood supplies.
So diets with sugar, salt, saturated fats and cows’ dairy help feed your cancer at the very moment your oncologist is struggling to kill it off.
And there is clear research evidence for this.
   1) For example, researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle reported in November 2012 from the VITAL study that saturated fats could drive breast cancer, while fish oils could reduce it.
   2) For example, in the Journal of Clinical Investigation in Jan 2014, researchers showed that glucose actually caused cancer (Click Here). And there have been at least six studies in the last few years showing glucose drives cancers. People with the highest levels of blood glucose develop more cancers and survive least.
The problem seems to be that NHS dieticians are soooo busy they only have time to see the 7 per cent of cancer patients for whom cachexia (where the drug actually causes severe weight loss) puts lives at risk. And we can’t have a patient dying because of the drug can we? (Actually there is research that shows fish oils greatly reduce the risk of cachexia so you certainly don’t have to fatten yourself up with Junk Food!
So why hand out the booklet to everybody, when it could be doing more harm than good?

Eat a sugar-free nutritious diet
 

We have long maintained that cancer patients on chemo- and radiotherapy need a NOURISHING and NUTRITIOUS diet with all the colours of the rainbow on their plates. You can obtain calories from a good supply of whole foods even though you restrict carbohydrates and empty sugars. And now we are not alone in this thinking as recently American cancer centres like Memorial Sloan-Kettering and the MD Anderson Cancer Centre in Texas are saying exactly the same thing. 

Now comes research that suggests stacking up the high fat and empty calorie meals may be completely the wrong route to go:

According to Dr Andrew T Turrisi, section Editor for The Oncologist, (and an expert radiation oncologist in Detroit), research in alternative cancer treatments is full of promise and potential and there has been much recent interest in the role of calorie restriction (CR) with orthodox treatments. CR is diet modification that reduces caloric intake by 20-40%, without restricting essential vitamins and nutrients and can be achieved through dietary reduction or fasting 

As we have told you at CANCERactive for some years, CR seems to affect a variety of molecular pathways, increasing longevity and reducing cancer risk. Now it seems it can make cells more responsive to radiation, chemotherapies, and even targeted molecules; and it can increase the percentage of healthy cells over tumour cells* (Nutrition Restriction and Radiation for cancer treatment – When less is more). 

Researchers studied CR with breast cancer showing that both CR and radiation therapy down-regulate several signalling pathways that cancer progression up-regulates, and suggested combining these two therapies was likely to produce better results. Next stop clinical trials, they suggest.

Interestingly the piece states: ’This also provides a scientific rationale for "diets" and "nutrition management" often questioned by patients fearful of the pharmaceutical industrial complex, yet gravitationally inclined toward "natural methods" and diets’. 

Readers, at this point, might like to read about
1 The Rainbow Diet - CLICK HERE
2 The Ketogenic Diet - CLICK HERE
* Reference:

Nutrient restriction and radiation therapy for cancer treatment: when less is more.

Champ CE, Baserga R, Mishra MV, Jin L, Sotgia F, Lisanti MP, Pestell RG, Dicker AP, Simone NL.

Oncologist. 2013;18(1):97-103. doi: 10.1634/theoncologist.2012-0164. Epub 2013 Jan 8.

PMID:  23299773