Cancer News, Treatment and Research

The institutional review board at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina has approved for the first time ever a randomized trial that will perhaps demonstrate how diet – specifically, calorie restriction – can effect cancer treatment and prevention. An article in Medscape Medical News reports that while a few studies have been conducted on calorie restriction previous to the upcoming Duke study, none of them were randomized. Some single-group studies on calorie restriction are currently underway at Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia (breast cancer) and at University of Iowa (lung and pancreatic cancer). Nonetheless, the Duke study has the potential to be groundbreaking and researchers and oncologists will no doubt watch with interest for the results. “During the past 10 years or so, interest in the metabolism of cancer cells has seen a dramatic increase, which is surely why interest in dietary interventions…has increased,” said Rainer Klement, MD, a radiation oncologist at the University Hospital of Würzburg in Germany. “The time is definitely ripe to test the various ways of altering cancer patients’ metabolism — be it through physical exercise, ketogenic diets, fasting, or calorie restriction. The combination of these lifestyle interventions with the standards of care seems very promising to me.” Klement and colleagues published a paper two years ago about carbohydrate restriction and its role in cancer treatment and prevention. They hypothesized that such restriction could inhibit the growth of cancer cells. Laboratory science supported their theories. The Duke University study, similarly, will specifically focus on men with prostate cancer and the role carbohydrate restriction may have on those patients who have failed to respond to conventional therapy for their disease. About 60 men will be “randomized” to receive either a low-carb diet or the usual daily diet. In the Jefferson University study, breast cancer patients will undergo calorie restriction in tandem with radiation therapy. “In this case, the calorie restriction, which includes fasting, is expected to have a synergistic effect with an established treatment,” explained Dr. Nicole Simone, a radiation oncologist. At the University of Iowa in Ames, the caloric reduction is being administered along with standard chemotherapy for pancreatic and lung cancer . This particular phase I trial aims to “determine the safety and early efficacy of dietary manipulation during traditional therapy.” “Preclinical data from mouse studies indicates a ketogenic diet increases tumor cell killing,” the University of Iowa researchers stated in their project descriptions.