Fasting Weakens Cancer in Mice

[TECH NEWS]

Man may not live by bread alone, but cancer in animals appears less resilient, judging by a study that found chemotherapy drugs work better when combined with cycles of short, severe fasting. Even fasting on its own effectively treated a majority of cancers tested in animals, including cancers from human cells. The study in Science Translational Medicine, part of the Science family of journals, found that five out of eight cancer types in mice responded to fasting alone: Just as with chemotherapy, fasting slowed the growth and spread of tumors. And without exception, “the combination of fasting cycles plus chemotherapy was either more or much more effective than chemo alone,” said senior author Valter Longo, professor of gerontology and biological sciences at the USC Davis School of Gerontology and the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. For example, multiple cycles of fasting combined with chemotherapy cured 20 percent of mice with a highly aggressive type of children’s neuroendocrine cancer that had spread throughout the organism and 40 percent of mice with a more limited spread of the same cancer. No mice survived in either case if treated only with chemotherapy.

Feb. 8, 2012, Carl Marziali / USC News