Tag Archive for: high-fat diet

Research Update: Cancer and Diet

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A recent paper used an interesting approach to treat pancreatic cancer using a high-fat diet. That flies in the face of the typical approach: “If it was ever alive, don’t eat it.” In other words, a vegan diet. I’ve reviewed fasting prior to cancer treatment, which demonstrated improved outcomes for those who fasted, but this diet is radically different.

The Study

This study was all about finding the weakness in a defensive mechanism and attacking it.

Researchers were studying the mechanism that cancers use to get energy. The thought is that cancers use sugars and carbs, but cancer’s need for fuel to grow isn’t that limited. Researchers were studying how cancers switch to using fat as a fuel when there are no carbs available. Just like with the keto diets, the liver, and subsequently cancer cells if present, switch to using fat as a fuel in the form of ketone bodies. The protein that stimulates this switch is called eIF4E.

Researchers were able to find a current chemotherapy drug called eFT508 that blocked the ability of eIF4E to turn on the fat metabolism pathway. However, that didn’t stop the cancers from growing—they used other fuels such as carbs. But when they first treated the cancers with the chemotherapy drug that prevented the cancer from using fat as a fuel, then put them on a high-fat diet, the tumors all shrank.

In this study, the type of cancer was pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest. This was a rodent study, but the chemotherapy drug is already approved for use in humans. Clinical trials are surely to follow in humans.

The Bottom Line

The authors speculate that cancers have more than one weakness that can be exploited with a combination of dietary and pharmaceutical interventions. Their breakthrough came almost 15 years after discovering what blocked the fat metabolism pathway. To me, this is one of the most exciting studies I’ve read in a long time. Just remember that this was one potential treatment for one type of cancer, but it represents hope.

I’ll be back in a week with a new Memo. If you’re here in the U.S., enjoy the final holiday of the summer—but don’t forget to eat your fruits and vegetables.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

References:
1. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-08-fasting-ketogenic-diet-reveals-vulnerability.html
2. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07781-7

What We Don’t Know

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This past weekend, Paula and I along with our good friend Sharon went to the 100th Homecoming game of Michigan State University as they played Purdue; Sharon and I went to grad school together at MSU and Paula graduated from Purdue. Those pesky Boilermakers showed up in the second half and almost beat the Spartans. As you may suspect, that’s not the reason for this message.

When you sit in a single seat in a stadium as large as Spartan Stadium which holds just over 75,000 people, you can feel insignificant. In Dr. Chet World, it has a . . .

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The Battle of Fat vs. Carb

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Sometimes I just can’t let go. Such is the case with this diet debate of fat versus carbohydrate. I’m going to address both of these questions this week. It won’t end the debate, but at least you’ll have the facts.

The debate comes down to two separate but related questions:

  • Does a diet high in saturated fat contribute to heart disease?
  • Is the high-carbohydrate and low-fat diet recommended by the USDA the cause of the obesity epidemic?

Let’s begin with scientific evidence that a high-fat diet . . .

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