Active Low-Carber Forums - View Single Post - Cancer and sugar: Does changing your diet starve cancerous cells?

We're supposed to know, through the blunt instrument of epidemiology, that 3 percent of cancers are caused by obesity.

I don't know what percentage of cancers would respond well to a ketogenic diet. The studies haven't been done. By the current evidence it's likely to be at least "some." A ketogenic diet won't be effective for all cancers, there are even some where the evidence points at ketones making things worse--a minority, but they're out there. It's a promising area of research, just not something anybody can really make any promises about at this point. Assuring somebody that it absolutely won't help, at this point, is as much of a lie as assuring that a ketogenic diet will help. Notice that in his criticism of avoiding sugar to fight cancer, Dr. Saunders actually cites what should be evidence that it could be helpful in some cases.

Quote:

Eliminating sugar from your diet won't help you, because you'll be depriving other cells of a valuable fuel source too.

But what if cancer cells could selectively be starved of glucose? This is a growing focus of research for oncologists.

In 2015, research published in the journal Nature Communications found the over-production of a particular protein, PARP14, let cancer cells accelerate their growth via glucose consumption. Reducing levels of that protein in cells starved and killed them.

"There's a few different ways of approaching it, but they're all usually based on either blocking the ways that cells can access the fuel, or the way they can use the fuel and convert it into other things that they need to grow," Dr Saunders says.

I mean, how do you say this and not even consider a strict ketogenic diet, at least in some cases?

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/843630

Saunders commented on this case, where an Australian blogger faked her own remission of a cancer she never had, claiming Ayurvedic medicine and a sugar-free diet cured her. So maybe he came by his attitude about this whole thing honestly.