Miracle diet: Starve cancer tumors like soldiers

In the ancient French army, "to encroach into a piece of wages" is a very effective plan. Instead of risking a direct attack, the citadel was besieged, cutting off the supply of food, and soon falling. L inspired by this idea, many doctors today are also dreaming of being able to "make a salary" with cancer tumors.

In essence, cancerous tumors are abnormal malignant tissues. The rapid growth of these cells requires more food supply than healthy cells. Therefore, cutting nutrient supply seems like a great way to kill them.

However, while very logical in theory, this method faces many challenges when it comes to practical application. Ignoring the tumor, is synonymous with starvation of patients themselves.

How to just starve the tumor without starving the patient?

Most damaging, starving the tumor also destroys invasive lymphocytes (TIL) . As the name suggests, TIL is "spy" white cells that the immune system sends into the tumor. They contribute to the task of killing cancer tumors from within.

The presence of TIL in tumors often goes hand in hand with more effective treatment. It is one of the primary weapons that the immune system uses to fight cancer. So how to "encircle the wage segment" without falling into the state of "our troops harm our troops" ? Professor Valter Longo from the University of Southern California, the United States believes he is holding the correct answer.

Recently, he and his colleagues published a scientific article in Cancer Cell magazine. In it, they offer a diet that can weaken cancer tumors . At the same time, it still "sneaky" provides essential nutrients for healthy tissue. Among these tissues include TIL "spies" , living in the enemy's heart.

Professor Longo first used the method of tumor starvation in 2012.

Professor Longo first used the method of "grafting into wages" with cancer tumors in 2012. At that time, he did experiments on mice. Longo selected two groups of cancer mice and treated them in parallel, identical with doxorubicin. There is only one difference: a group of mice is starved and the other group does not.

The results he received were quite unexpected. The group of starved mice reduced the tumor size to 4 to 5 times. Meanwhile, mice receiving normal treatment with doxorubicin reduced only half of the tumor.

It seems very positive, but Professor Longo said he was not ready to do the same thing on cancer patients. This experiment is evaluated by scientists as too risky. Therefore, during the last 4 years of research, Professor Longo had to find ways to not starve the patient and still get treatment benefits.

The result is a diet rich in vitamin D, zinc and fatty acids, essential nutrients for TIL cells have been established. Meanwhile, providing low protein levels and simple sugars is considered to only starve the tumors. Because it is the food supply for cancer.

Testing on mice gives very good results.

To test the effectiveness of this diet, Professor Longo and colleagues once again used the experiment on mice. They used 30 mice containing breast cancer cells.

In the first two days all rats were fed with a standard diet: 25% protein, 17% fat and 58% single sugar and complex carbohydrates from fruits and vegetables. This diet contains an average of 3.75 calories per gram of food.

Then came the second stage, 30 mice were divided into 3 groups. The first group of 10 keeps the standard diet constant. The second group of mice consisted of 9 animals (1 died) every 10 days after the standard feeding period would be starved for 60 hours. This is the maximum calculated time to keep them alive.

The last group of 10 mice was separated to eat a diet of only 1.88 calories per gram in a day. After that, they were transferred into an almost starved diet.

Nutritional composition is maintained at a rate of 0.5% protein, 0.5% fat and up to 99% complex carbohydrates, things are almost meaningless to cancer tumors. The mice maintained a modest diet for 3 days, before they were fed the standard regimen for 10 days and then repeated the procedure again.

The results showed that mice in groups 2 and 3 only developed cancer tumors of 2 in 5 compared to group 1. This indicates that a refined diet can help to inhibit cancer growth. letter.

To further test the therapeutic effect, Professor Longo injected doxorubicin for all mice while repeating the diet again. At this time, the third group of mice, which underwent a refined diet, reduced tumor size by four times. The results are almost identical to the report Longo made in 2012.

Longo's diet helps TIL cells accumulate inside cancer tumors.

So what really happened? The team collected breast cancer tissue samples from mice to observe the process on a cellular level. They found that mice fed the standard diet contained a certain amount of TIL cells inside tumors.

However, if they are treated with doxorubicin, TIL cells may increase to 70%. Without treatment, if you only need to eat an adjusted diet like Group 3, your TIL cell count will increase to 80%. Most effectively, when combined with both treatment and diet, TIL cell levels are surprisingly high: 240%.

Later experiments were set up to further dig the problem further. Scientists discovered an enzyme called haeme oxygenase-1 , which serves as an immune response, which is "treason". They are protecting tumors by covering the eyes of TIL cells.

Professor Longo's special diet prevents the production of haeme oxygenase-1. Therefore, TIL has been more effective and more invasive in tumors. In addition, the drug doxorubicin will cause tumor walls to face two attacks. That is no different from "external content".

Now, Professor Longo said his team will continue to prove this method works with skin cancer tumors. At the same time, he is also working with hospitals to study how the diet of cancer patients will affect the effectiveness of treatment.

Although many oncologists have not fully supported Longo's diet, they have allowed patients to take this measure. Professor Longo said there are thousands of people around the world currently applying this minimum diet. Many of them reap significant benefits.