A Combo of Fasting Plus Vitamin C is Effective for Hard-to-Treat Cancers, Study Shows
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A combo of fasting plus vitamin C is effective for hard-to-treat cancers, study shows:
Scientists from USC and the IFOM Cancer Institute in Milan have found that a fasting-mimicking diet could be more effective at treating some types of cancer when combined with vitamin C.
In studies on mice, researchers found that the combination delayed tumor progression in multiple mouse models of colorectal cancer; in some mice, it caused disease regression. The results were published in the journal Nature Communications.
"For the first time, we have demonstrated how a completely non-toxic intervention can effectively treat an aggressive cancer," said Valter Longo, the study senior author and the director of the USC Longevity Institute at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology and professor of biological sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. "We have taken two treatments that are studied extensively as interventions to delay aging -- a fasting-mimicking diet and vitamin C -- and combined them as a powerful treatment for cancer."
The researchers said that while fasting remains a challenging option for cancer patients, a safer, more feasible option is a low-calorie, plant-based diet that causes cells to respond as if the body were fasting. Their findings suggest that a low-toxicity treatment of fasting-mimicking diet plus vitamin C has the potential to replace more toxic treatments.
Journal Reference
Maira Di Tano, Franca Raucci, Claudio Vernieri, et al. Synergistic effect of fasting-mimicking diet and vitamin C against KRAS mutated cancers [open], Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16243-3)
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