Low-carbohydrate diets slow tumor development and substantially boost survival rates in the most common brain cancer in adults, according to a new study.
Researchers from the University of Florida studied mice models of human glioblastoma and found that a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet helps stall the development of tumor cells and lengthened lifespan by 50 percent.
Lead researcher Brent Reynolds, a professor in the Lillian S. Wells Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Florida, said that the latest findings show that the ketogenic diet, which has been used for more than a century to decrease epileptic seizures, can also help stall cancer development. Reynolds explained that the diet works by decreasing the energy tumors need to develop. Previous studies revealed that glioblastoma tumors need large amounts of energy to grow and thrive - and the ketogenic diet stalls their growth by limiting the cancer's supply of glucose.
"While this is an effective treatment in our preclinical animal models, it is not a cure. However, our results are promising enough that the next step is to test this in humans," Reynolds added.
Researchers said that the ketogenic diet can also be modified using a coconut oil derivative that replaces some carbohydrates as an energy source so that it can potentially be more palatable because patients get to eat more carbohydrates and protein.
"When you're sick, you need as many comforts in your life as you can get and food is a huge comfort. That's the idea: Could we develop a beneficial diet but make it much easier for patients?" Reynolds said.
Study findings revealed that modified high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet increased life expectancy by 50 percent and slowed tumor progression by nearly half in mice glioblastoma models. Researchers noted that 10 percent of the modified diet and 55 percent of the control diet was from carbohydrates.
Reynolds and his team also found evidence that the modified ketogenic diet seemed to make radiation and chemotherapy therapy more effective against glioblastoma tumors. Researchers believe that the modified diet could be used as a supplementary therapy to boost chemotherapy and radiation effectiveness.
"This simple dietary approach may be able to reduce tumor progression and enhance standard of care treatments in cancers that are highly metabolically active," Reynolds concluded.
The findings are published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.
