Cancer Comment

Marc Moffett (super sharp guy if you do not know him) posted a comment in the cancer and ketosis thread that I want to highlight and expand on a bit. Here is Marc’s comment:

“Hi Robb,

Good stuff. However, I wanted to add a note of caution. Unlike adult cancers, chemotherapeutic agents have proven remarkably effective against most childhood cancers–many of which now have cure rates upwards of 90%. As I understand it (simplifying), the reason for this is that standard chemo agents interfere with quickly reproducing cells. The assumption is that cancer cells reproduce more quickly than normal cells. It turns out that this assumption is not so good when it comes to adult cancers, but does accurately characterize most childhood cancers.”

 

I really appreciate Marc’s comment and I want to emphasize that my intention is/was not to sensationalize the topic of cancer treatment or present things in a bleak light. SOME cancers have responded very well to various interventions. I’m not familiar with the differences between child vs adult cancer survivability but I suspect Marc is right on with his assessment. Here is the interesting thing however: IF children respond to chemotherapeutics better than adults they should respond even more favorably to a ketogenic diet. The ketogenic diet potentiates apoptosis and slows tumor growth. Good stuff as a stand alone intervention but it has been suggested by Seyfried, Veech and others that the combination of intermittent fasting/CRAN/ketogenic diet and conventional chemotherapy might be very effective in two ways. The first is simply killing the cancer. The second is ameliorating the side effects of many chemotherapeutics which include convulsions and nausea.

 

My main point is that a potentially safe and effective treatment is not being investigated or utilized and for no good reason. Perhaps the ketogenic diet/fasting approach is not effective but it would be nice to know that and considering the danger of conventional treatment it seems a safe route of investigation.

Robb Wolf

Robb Wolf, author of The Paleo Solution and Wired to Eat, is a former research biochemist and one of the world’s leading experts in Paleolithic nutrition. Wolf has transformed the lives of tens of thousands of people around the world via his top ranked iTunes podcast and wildly popular seminar series.