Will a Change of Diet Prevent Cancer?

Cancer researchers have found that a diet low in carbohydrates and high in protein reduced the risk of developing some types of cancer in a mouse model.

Investigators at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada) postulated that fast growing cancer cells should require significantly more glucose to grow and thrive than normal cells. Furthermore, they reasoned that restricting glucose intake might slow or prevent tumor growth.

To examine this concept they implanted human tumor cells into various strains of mice, some of which were also growing mouse tumors. The mice were separated into two groups. One group was fed a typical Western diet, containing about 55% carbohydrate, 23% protein, and 22% fat. The second group received a highly modified diet (low CHO diet) that contained 15% carbohydrate, 58% protein, and 26% fat.

Results published in the June 14, 2011, online edition of the journal Cancer Research revealed that both mouse and human tumors grew more slowly in the mice that received the low CHO diet. While there was no significant weight difference between the tumor-bearing mice on the low CHO or Western diets, the low CHO-fed mice exhibited lower blood glucose, insulin, and lactate.

Combining a low CHO diet with chemotherapy increased the effect of the mTOR inhibitor CCI-779 and especially that of the potent anti-inflammatory COX-2 inhibitor Celebrex. In a genetically engineered mouse model of HER-2/neu–induced mammary cancer, tumor penetrance in mice on a Western diet was nearly 50% by the age of one year whereas no tumors were detected in mice on the low CHO diet.

Only one mouse on the Western diet achieved a normal life span, due to cancer-associated deaths, while more than 50% of the mice on the low CHO diet reached or exceeded the normal life span. "This shows that something as simple as a change in diet can have an impact on cancer risk," said senior author Dr. Gerald Krystal, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of British Columbia.

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