Moonshot: ketogenic diets for cancer

We have been exploring the potential of a relatively unconventional approach to treating and possibly preventing cancer. We, and several other laboratories, have focused on the unique metabolic characteristics of the cancer cell (rather than the more traditional emphasis on genetic mutation and pharmacologic targeting of particular gene products). Many cancers cells depend on glucose as their major fuel and glycolysis even in the presence of environmental oxygen. This points to the value of finding an alternative fuel that will give the host an advantage over the cancer. The promise of ketogenic diets has become clear despite the small amount of data. Our lab has shown that acetoacetate (one of the ketone bodies) to inhibit growth of cancer cells in culture and Dr. Eugene J. Fine has brought this to the clinical level in a study which, while small in scope — ten advanced cancer patients — has been seen as a major step forward. A planned focus on the effect of the diet in breast cancer patients is the current plan held up by great lack of funds. You can help. Buy a T-shirt to support research.

One of the barriers to acceptance of thE ketogenic approach is the long-standing resistance of the medical and nutritional profession to very low-carhydrate diets. One objection has been the incorrect notion that you have to eat carbohydrate to supply the needs of those human tissues that require it. — doctors and dietitiandon’t always remember everything that they learned in school. Your T-shirt has thmessage that you can get the carbohydrate at you need from the process known as gluconeogenesis (GNG) and the graphic showthe process that you may know so well or that you can expect to learn well by hanging around with us and otr low-carb researchers and teachers. And our research will bear on where GNG fits in elsewhere as in diabetes. You can help. Buy a T-shirt for yourself and significant others. You can also donate directly at http://bit.ly/2aNfUuK.