Adrienne C Scheck and Eric C Woolf
Barrow Neurological Institute, USA
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Cancer Sci Ther
Patients with malignant gliomas have a dismal prognosis, regardless of currently available treatments including surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Improvement in the survival of these patients requires the design of new therapeutic modalities. While there have been advances in the development of novel targeted treatments, the tumor heterogeneity that is a hallmark of this disease often lessons their efficacy since not all cells contain specific targets. One phenotypic trait shared by virtually all cancer cells is metabolic dysregulation. Thus, this presents a unique therapeutic opportunity for these patients. We have shown that altering cellular metabolism through the use of a therapeutic ketogenic diet (KD), high fat, low carbohydrate and adequate protein is very effective in prolonging the survival of mice implanted with brain tumors. The KD increases circulating ketones and lowers blood glucose, effectively starving the tumor of nutrients. While, its antitumor effects were first thought to be due to primarily reducing blood glucose, newer studies are now showing that ketones themselves also play a role in the antitumor effects of this diet. The KD has a multitude of effects: It potentiates the effects of radiation and chemotherapy and increases the anti-tumor immune response in vivo. In addition, it causes a decrease in peri-tumoral edema, hypoxia and angiogenesis in the tumors of mice maintained on a KD. In light of these positive results and the long-established safety record for the use of this diet, investigation of metabolic alteration as an adjuvant therapy for brain tumors and other cancers is beginning.
Cancer Science & Therapy received 5332 citations as per Google Scholar report
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