Does fasting heal some cancers?

halbert said...
Insulin resistance and cancer--well, I've told this before in here, and I'll keep telling it as a cautionary tale:

I had a co-worker who was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer about 2005/2006. He had a resection, and a year of chemo. about 2010, his liver enzymes spiked and they diagnosed him with secondary liver cancer, and gave him a year or less.

At that point, his wife put him on a high-veggie diet, supplements, all the rest. And then she convinced him to go to some doctor in Nevada who was doing this treatment where they give the patient enough insulin to throw them into insulin shock, then give a massive chemo dose of some kind--the theory being that starving the cancer cells of glucose makes them more susceptible to the chemo. He came back from that trip, worked about another month, and went home and died.

Halbert, thanks for the cautionary tale against extreme and unapproved medical treatments. Certainly such is to be avoided.

However, I'm sure you realize this has nothing to do with the concept of the OP, or of my points re: long term lowering of insulin levels by way of either intermittent fasting, reduction of carbohydrates, or even just plain old calorie restriction, right? As a matter of fact, isn't that rather the opposite of reducing insulin by diet? Instead, increasing blood insulin by injecting a massive dose of insulin in order to throw him into insulin shock, along with a massive dose of chemo, a traumatic combo that could have even killed him on the spot?

The main point I have been trying to make here is the benefit of reduction of blood insulin levels related to a large # of diseases, quite possibly even including cancer. Due to the harm caused by chronically high high blood levels of insulin that so many people- probably most of the population- have due to diet. Injecting a massive dose of insulin is the exact opposite of that, and not surprisingly did not help( he wasn't given long to live anyway, right? ) and might even have killed him. In fact, it could have been damage from the massive insulin injection that led to his quicker death rather than the cancer per se. When diabetics ( with or without cancer), who must inject insulin, inject too much, they can die. It actually happens.

Post Edited (BillyBob@388) : 1/5/2019 8:30:13 AM (GMT-7)

My wife and I have a 2005 mustang GT that is our weekend "fun getaway" car

Part of my theropy is driving "fast" (no not stupid fast) in said mustang. Didnt cure my PC but makes me feel a lot better...........

BillyBob@388 said...

Pratoman said...
Herophilius took the words right out of my mouth.

And Jack/JNF articulated the same thought very well, with more detail.

Prato, do you feel that elevated blood sugars and blood insulin levels are not a negative for many health issues, possibly including cancers?

Of course I do feel that elevated blood glucose is a cause of many illnesses and reducing A1C/BG is a huge positive for overall health. But it’s an issue that can be resolved without fasting. And I don’t believe fasting can cure cancer.
Two entirely different issues.

Yeah...hard for me to believe that a one-time-posting-troll yielded two pages of member comments.

Anyway, I try to fast every night between 11 PM and 7 AM the next morning. My cancer has not returned so I'm assuming this is why....

Jim

halbert said...
IMO, there is a difference between saying something like, "Taking supplement X, or doing dietary change Y (going vegan, periodic fasting, going Paleo or Keto or whatever" to improve your overall health is a good thing--and may make your cancer fight less traumatic, and saying "Doing these things will CURE your cancer--or even prevent it from happening in the first place".

The first is sensible, even intelligent and responsible. The second is not. We have frequently conflated the two statements, and the arguments which ensue are really about nothing except generating hot air. The person who claims the second should be laughed at and ignored. The person who says the first should generally get agreement--and deserves a hearing.

........................................................................................................................................................................

I agree. Not that we know that it won't prevent or heal. I've not seen it put to the test. I've not seen it put to the test period, either showing it will cure or won't cure, prevent or won't prevent- cancer X. But maybe I've missed the study? I have not looked very hard.

But really, I have not even seen much supporting " may make your cancer fight less traumatic", except maybe for what I quoted from above from DDYSS' link. So we probably just do not know, not in the sense of RCT style proof.

But one thing we do know from quite a number of studies. Some of which I have copied here in the past. And a few items from that link that DDYSS copied here, and I quoted a bit from(there was lots more than what I quoted). What we do know - based on studies- in addition to a multitude of other health related things- is that insulin is a growth factor for cancer, or at least whenever it is high(diabetics), outcomes are worse. In addition to that, it appears that excess blood sugar may be implicated in most cancers(but is it the sugar or the insulin that always goes with the sugar?), though maybe not PC(but insulin is still on the hook with PC). We know that the guys with the highest insulin have the worst outcomes with PC and many other cancers.

Before we really understood all of that about insulin and insulin resistance, there was another thing we have known for many, many decades: diabetics have worse outcomes in almost every malady we can mention. Alzheimer's(now being called type 3 diabetes by some), peripheral nephropathy, heart disease, wound healing and many others. Oh, and of course, every cancer.

We know, without question, another thing. What is it all type 2 diabetics(who do worse with all cancers) and pre diabetics have in common? High
levels of insulin in their blood, and insulin resistance. The pre diabetics may not yet have very high levels of blood sugar, because their pancreas is still able to, by working overtime pumping out insulin, keep their blood sugar under reasonable control. So high sugar maybe, kind of high probably, high insulin and insulin resistance, for sure, this is the common factor.

So what is a summary of what we know from medical science?
1: pre diabetics and T2 diabetics and those with metabolic syndrome, all have high blood insulin, and many have high blood sugars even after treatment.
2: diabetics- especially those who have to inject insulin, have much worse health outcomes with a multitude of diseases. (is any one even going to bother arguing against that statement?)
3: high blood insulin is strongly associated with a multitude of diseases.
4: high blood insulin is strongly associated with worse outcomes with many cancers, including PC.
5: blood insulin levels can be dramatically dropped with intermittent fasting, low carb eating, or some combo of both. Easy Peasy, no drugs required
6: need for anti diabetes medications like injected insulin, can be greatly reduced and even done away with by low carb diets and/or fasting. Easy Peasy.

I guess all can draw their own conclusions from that list of facts we do know. I am not a person who refuses to take what logically seem to be prudent actions, just because no RCT from on high ever gets done. I readily admit that neither fasting no low carb eating have been proven by gold standard RCTs to either help or hurt in the area of cancer(though with diabetes different story), just like I have also not seen high quality RCTs for smoking or a base ball bat to the head, and thus neither has ever been proven. But I don't need RCTs about smoking or base ball bats to the head to know to avoid such, do Y'all? Particularly when there is no cost involved, no apparent down side, and an apparent improvement in my over all health, things like a shrinking gut and lowered blood pressure to much improved lab values(pure science). There is no way I can know if it has a beneficial effect on my battle with cancer, but danged if I am going to ignore the known facts and the reasonable conclusions to be made from them. But that's just me. Others will differ and take an opposite approach. No RCTs re: cancer, you say? Pass the sugar! ;)


https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/95/1/67/2520195

Somebody said...

Relative to men in the lowest tertiles, men in the highest tertile of insulin sensitivity had a reduced risk of prostate cancer (odds ratio [OR] = 0.35, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.21 to 0.60), but men in the highest tertile of insulin resistance had an increased risk of prostate cancer (OR = 2.78, 95% CI = 1.63 to 4.72). Considering insulin resistance and WHR together, the effect of insulin resistance was apparent in all tertiles of WHR, with men in the highest tertile of insulin resistance and WHR having the highest risk (OR = 8.21, 95% CI = 2.84 to 23.70). The associations between prostate cancer risk and insulin sensitivity or resistance were independent of total caloric intake and serum levels of insulin-like growth factors, sex hormones, and sex hormone-binding globulin. Because of the retrospective design of this study, the role of insulin resistance in prostate cancer needs to be confirmed in prospective studies.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30605491

Somebody said...
The influence of obesity-related factors in the etiology of renal cell carcinoma-A mendelian randomization study................
[Abstract
BACKGROUND:

Several obesity-related factors have been associated with renal cell carcinoma (RCC), but it is unclear which individual factors directly influence risk..............................
The MR analysis indicated that higher body mass index increases the risk of RCC (ORSD: 1.56, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.44-1.70), with comparable results for waist-to-hip ratio (ORSD: 1.63, 95% CI 1.40-1.90) and body fat percentage (ORSD: 1.66, 95% CI 1.44-1.90). This analysis further indicated that higher fasting insulin (ORSD: 1.82, 95% CI 1.30-2.55) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP; ORSD: 1.28, 95% CI 1.11-1.47), but not systolic blood pressure (ORSD: 0.98, 95% CI 0.84-1.14), increase the risk for RCC. No association with RCC risk was seen for lipids, overall type 2 diabetes, or fasting glucose.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28594918

Somebody said...
fasting insulin was positively associated (OR [95%CI] = 1.63 [1.25-2.13] per SD of 44.4 pmol/l............CONCLUSIONS:

Our results are consistent with a causal role of fasting insulin and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol in lung cancer etiology, as well as for BMI in squamous cell and small cell carcinoma.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28954281

Somebody said...
Conclusions:

Our results suggest a causal role of BMI and fasting insulin in pancreatic cancer etiology.

Of course, I could go on and on, but I think there is enough evidence for me to consider that there may well be an association(even causal) between blood insulin, waist to hip ratio(WHR), BMI(all 3 things related to each other) and most cancers, including prostate, as well as a plethora of other illnesses. So for any one who thinks, from evidence such as this, that there might be a good- and even cancer related reason - to lower blood insulin, BMI and WHR, the most effective way I know to do that is by intermittent fasting, followed low carb diets. Here is one where it was done ( RCT! ) by using a low carb diet. Keep in mind, reducing the need for diabetic medications is equivalent to lowering blood insulin.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc3981696/

Somebody said...
74% were taking oral diabetes medications.......................At 3 months, mean HbA1c level was unchanged from baseline in the MCCR(medium carb, low fat-- wonder how high carb would have done? ;) diet group, while it decreased 0.6% in the LCK(very low carb/high fat) group....there was a significant between group difference in HbA1c change favoring the LCK group...........Forty-four percent of the LCK group discontinued one or more diabetes medications, compared to 11% of the MCCR group (p = 0.03); 31% discontinued sulfonylureas in the LCK group, compared to 5% in the MCCR group..............................
Fasting Insulin (µIU/mL) 12.2 (10.0) 9.3 (4.8) −2.9, −0.4 (a 24% drop in blood insulin in the low carb group) vs 10.1 to 11.1/10% INCREASE in the medium carb, low fat group, fasting glucose decrease 9% in low LCK vs 1% decrease in the MCCR group

There is really no debate about what works to lower blood insulin. Lowering carb via low carb diets and/or fasting is byfar the most effective method, and LC resulted in almost 1/2 discontinuing their diabetes meds in 3 months. The only question is: is something as healthy as very significantly reducing diabetes and the need for diabetes meds and blood insulin also good for the various diseases that diabetes and high blood insulin are well known to make worse? I will leave that for you guys to figure out for yourselves. But I know what I am going to keep on doing, to the best of my ability to do it. But to each his own.

Post Edited (BillyBob@388) : 1/5/2019 6:56:36 PM (GMT-7)

Where is Compiler (Mel) with his favorite saying.....???

Jim

OK, looks like I supplied too much data. I guess I strangled it. I will stop now.

I think this was started by Mel with a new alias. He is surely laughing he rear off.

An effective bait post is thought-provoking enough to get a reaction. A good bait post will go right to the heart of a serious issue. This one does just that, and with laudable style.

We are trying to deal with something that we do not control. As traditional medicine has failed to get us control, it seems reasonable to try herbs, oils, vitamins, to pursue physical fitness and lifestyle choices, like fasting.

Many (not all) folks with high insulin/diabetes/metabolic syndrome earned those with their choices of diet, exercise, stress management and rest. It is a fact that the top 20% healthiest individuals in a given age group are 40% less likely to die of ALL causes at a given time. That includes cancer or being hit by a truck.

Intermittent fasting is indeed good for you and can be an effective means to long - term weight loss. It won't cure cancer, though. Nor will running 50 miles a week, lifting weights, eating a top - notch responsible healthy diet, getting plenty of rest and meditation.

However, I guarantee that - if you can do that stuff - you will sure feel like you can lick your cancer.