How cancer cells fuel their growth | Hacker News Reader

How cancer cells fuel their growth

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Dom D’Agostino on various things about Ketosis and Cancer fighting.

http://fourhourworkweek.com/2015/11/03/dominic-dagostino/

Ted Talk here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fM9o72ykww

I'm going to try the Bullet Proof Coffee recipe I think!

Make sure you blend it. If you don't blend it, it will not taste good. No amount of hand stirring will cause the oil and water to mix well.

I use one of these gadgets [1] for this task.

1: http://www.amazon.com/Ikea-Milk-Frother-303-011-67-Black/dp/...

It can scarcely be described as coffee. To my taste it is an unspeakably vile tasting concoction.

To me, Bulletproof coffee tastes like a double double from Tim Hortons. So I agree, it's definitely an unspeakably vile tasting concoction. :)

I didn't mind it... but MCT oil has the same effect on my digestive system as eating a pound of sugar free haribo gummy bears.

I found it a good offset against keto-constipation.

Depends on ingredients - Bulletproof branded coffee is OK but to mild and bland for my taste - not as bad as American hotel coffee but nothing like Italian. In UK Tesco finest Costa Rica coffee , filtered water , thermos drip machine (hot plate ruins coffee) Rachels Organic grass fed butter (like cream) then must be blended actually tastes amazing I sometimes add a little expensive GMC organic forest honey or Xylitol if I want zero carbs.

For much more information on this argument about sugar and cancer, see the book Cancer as a Metabolic Disease. http://www.amazon.com/Cancer-Metabolic-Disease-Management-Pr...

Here is a good article on the fermentation aspect of cancer that seems to have not appeared on HN: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-fermentation-g...

Dispite what the title could sound like, the article is not linking any food with cancer, but talking about how cancer cells use fermentation for energy.

A low carb diet has been proven to inhibit the development of most cancers, because of their huge requirement for glucose. The obvious conclusion from this research is that low carb AND low protein diet is the best option to inhibit cancer. Kind of also supports leading bio hackers such as Dave Asprey creator of Bulletproof coffee. His podcasts are brilliant, they have made a big impression on me - as a result I've switched to a higher fat less protein less carbs diet and feel much better for it and i have far more energy.

This guy advocates for keto by cutting sugar http://quantifiedself.com/2015/12/effects-year-ketosis-jim-m...

He measures a lot of molecules in his blood streams and noticed reduced inflammation amongts other benefits.

I find his short talk nice and detailed although I'm a total newcomer.

I would be very careful in making such judgment. If you have a cancer which is stealing the available protein from other cells, reducing the total amount of protein might reduce the cancer growth or it might just reduce the already declining supply for the healthy cells.

Bulletproof coffee is a scam.

Better described as Bulletbroof buttery strange drink that bears little resemblance to coffee.

It's a modern take on Tibetan butter tea. Sure, the Bulletproof-branded stuff is high-priced snake oil, but there does seem to be a historically recognized synergy with the primary constituents of the beverage.

>historically recognized synergy with the primary constituents

hot coffee or tea with bagel with thick layer of good quality, ie. high fat, butter on it. In poor student times - replace bagel with black rye bread and butter with piece of salted pork fat. The same synergy hits the same spot :)

This does not explain how people in rural China that eat mostly carbs with very little fat and consume 25% calories more per body mass than westerners have noticeably less rates of most cancers. Only their rate for stomach cancer is significantly elevated compared with Western levels.

What are their exposures to toxins? Are they genetically more or less prone to certain cancers?

Do you have a citation for this?

See http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/food-in-china-vari...

- it discuss results of studies in China from 1980-1990 that showed that regions in China where people consumed pretty much all calories from rice or vegetables or those where people do eat a lot of meat have similar cancer rates making highly problematic any claim that excessive carbo is associated with increased cancer risk.

The China Study by T. Colin Campbell PhD.

Lots of other factors that are different between urban and rural living. Better air quality, getting more sun, more sleep, less stress, more exercise.

And as for the stomach cancer, there is some research about this; I read an article ( can't find the link now, sorry ), but lack of glucose means the stomach is starved for mucous and thus leads to higher incidences of stomach cancers.

"A low carb diet has been proven to inhibit the development of most cancers"

I am curious. Do you have a link to this proof?

to all the people wasting comments' space and people's attention with pointless [even more so when they are trying to make a point by making such a request] requests for links - there is Google for that.

For example : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21673053 and NIH has a lot of other similar stuff if you're really curious.

"Although our work strongly suggests that cancer can be treated and/or prevented by limiting BG, some caution must be exercised in extrapolating our results to humans."

"potential of being both a novel cancer prophylactic and treatment, warranting further investigation of its applicability"

This is solid work, but the authors are shying away from claiming a proof. Indeed, simple Xenograft experiments in genetically modified mouse models, as the researchers conducted, do not always prove a concept.

There are at least two reasons that cancer prefer energy from fermenting glucose and using glutamine. First, both molecules provide readily available energy that is easy to import quickly. Second, fermentation avoids using the mitochondria, which, in addition to being the cell's powerhouse, is also its executioner by way of apoptosis.

>The obvious conclusion from this research is that low carb AND low protein diet is the best option to inhibit cancer.

another obvious related conclusion is to couple it with good oxygenation (ie. physical workout, etc..) as low carb/glucose with good oxygenation would provide enough energy for healthy cells where is cancer cells would be starving.

And yet in this week's nature is an article linking high dietary fat to intestinal and colorectal cancers. Don't base your diet on someone's podcast, especially if they're trying to sell you something.

Exactly this. Check out http://nutritionfacts.org/ on this topic - there is a load of peer reviewed research for your purveying pleasure.

Citation, please. Not from someone who sells products, either. A low-carb diet makes no sense, because cancer-fighting fruits and vegetables, for example, are mostly carbs, whereas foods typically associated with high-fat eating (namely: meat, dairy) are proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be a major catalyst of various cancers.

Bottom line: the healthiest diets are those that revolve around whole plant foods.

Very interesting. What does this mean for low carb, high protein diets heavily promoted these days (Keto)?

Reminds me of this talk on TED - William Li, Anti-Angiogenesis therapy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjkzfeJz66o

Does this research mean these diets and therapies are less effective than previously thought?

The effect is probably small

The body is very efficient at turning protein and fat into energy

However the issue with proteins/amino-acids is that the body actually needs them and can't convert carbs or fats into them (you actually need some of the amino-acids).

Maybe the cure is to limit your protein intake but that poses other problems

Methionine may be a key player: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22342103

Interesting!

"In humans, vegan diets, which can be low in methionine, may prove to be a useful nutritional strategy in cancer growth control."

For example, soy protein is limited by methionine https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7666787

This is not my area of expertise by any means, but wouldn't this assume that cancer would grow proportional to the amount of fuel available? Normal cells certainly don't operate this way.

The Warburg effect is a metabolic pathway involving anaerobic burning of glucose. When cells consume fats instead of sugar it must be aerobically. Burning glucose aerobically is much more efficient than doing so without O2.

The belief is that this means that low carb diets should be a good preventative for cancers as they remove the metabolic pathway needed by the cancer cells as there isn't enough glucose for them.

EDIT: Here is an article that goes into this in a bit more depth: http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/way-exploit-metabolic-qui...

A med student told me his team found that starving cancer cells wouldn't work because they were better at sipping glucose than normal cells, meaning healthy tissue would suffer first.

Healthy tissue will metabolize ketone bodies instead of glucose, so a ketogenic diet shouldn't be affected by their observation.

Obviously, I shouldn't have posted that comment. Thanks.

Not much - they use amino acids as building blocks. Still ferment glucose for energy.

I believe most of these diets promote low carb, high fat, moderate protein. In general consuming more protein than needed for cellular maintenance does little good and gets converted to energy through additional steps; since it's easier to get energy from carbs or fat it makes sense to consume only enough protein, not less, not more.

Keto is not low carb, high protein. It's high fat, low carb, moderate protein. On keto you eat the standard recommended amount of protein (depending on your athleticism, it'll be around .69-1.2g per lb of LBM). Most of your calories come from fat.

My breakfast this morning was coffee with butter and MCT oil

Aren't you just trading cancer for heart disease though?

Last time I went on a low card diet my cholesterol and triglycerides went from marginal to optimal. In 3 months. Notice that the AHA now says cholesterol is no longer a nutrient of concern.

When it comes to fats, the leading recommendation is to limit saturated fats, not total fat intake. And the AHA even (reluctantly) recommends an Atkins style diet, to get started for weight loss, but to discontinue after a few months.

http://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015-scientific-report/0...

Cholesterol and triglycerides will always drop in the short-term when weight is lost. 3 months is not a long enough time to make a sound judgement about your diet.

With regards to an Atkins-style diet, you need to read the facts on http://atkinsexposed.org/ and not get your information from an organization with a financial incentive to promote unhealthy foods.

So you're saying "atkinsexposed.org" is good, but the American Medical Association is "an organization with a financial incentive to promote unhealthy foods."

Yeah, good luck convincing people with that argument.

It isn't the American Medical Association which I'm referring to, but rather the American Heart Association. From the parent's source:

> The DGAC used the 2013 American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology (AHA/ACC) report on lifestyle management to reduce CVD risk for its evaluation of saturated fat intake. The DGAC concurred with the AHA/ACC report that saturated fat intake exceeds current recommendations in the United States and that lower levels of consumption would further reduce the population level risk of CVD.

The cited work is http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/129/25_suppl_2/S76.long

This page explains it well - http://www.pcrm.org/nbBlog/index.php/new-dietary-guidelines-...

> The report suggested that cholesterol in foods is not a major danger, contrasting with the Institute of Medicine, which found that cholesterol in foods does indeed raise blood cholesterol levels, especially in people whose diets are modest in cholesterol to start with. On this topic, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee did no original research and instead deferred to a 2014 report by the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology. However, the American Heart Association receives substantial cash payments for certifying food products, including cholesterol-containing food products as “heart healthy,” creating a financial incentive for discounting the relationship between dietary cholesterol and serum cholesterol. The Physicians Committee is concerned that exonerating dietary cholesterol will only confuse an already bewildered public. Most people do not differentiate fat from cholesterol, or dietary cholesterol from blood cholesterol. To suggest that cholesterol in foods is not a problem will lead many to imagine that fatty foods or an elevated blood cholesterol level carry no risk—two potentially disastrous notions.

> Accordingly, the Physicians Committee has petitioned the USDA and DHHS to disregard the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee’s findings on dietary cholesterol. The reliance on the American Heart Association document does not comply with the spirit of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which sets standards for bias among federal advisory committees.

They have filed a lawsuit against the USDA and Department of Health and Human Services:

http://www.foodpolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/Physicians-Co...

I highly recommend reading it to understand the sad, corrupted state of affairs I had alluded to.

The PCRM hardly seems like an unbiased group solely focused on human medicine. They are a political advocacy group and who's points are just as tainted as you claim the AHA's are. Only the AHA is much more widely respected. I mean my doctor is a fan of one and not the other. And I trust him with my life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicians_Committee_for_Respo...

Please read the court document and evaluate PCRM's position on its own merit. Frankly, I find AHA and others' behavior outlined there to be morally abhorrent and worthy of discussion.

I definitely understand your skepticism, but in this case, your doctor may also be poorly informed - see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2430660/

https://examine.com/faq/is-saturated-fat-bad-for-me/ "Saturated fat, as an all-inclusive category, has not yet been shown to beneficially or adversely affect heart health. That being said, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated have been shown to improve heart health. So saturated fats are worse relative to the unsaturated fats, but they are not bad at all."

I eat high fat, medium protein, low carb, and my sugar, cholesterol, and triglyceride levels have gone from bad to normal. I also exercise regularly. Your mileage may vary.

A ketogenic diet can't be high protein. A ketogenic diet is one where the body enters nutritional ketosis, and to do that it has to be somewhere around 60% fat, or more.

No to high protein. Too much protein gets converted into glucose, kinda defeating the purpose.

Two words. Clinical Trials.

Link to real paper is here : http://www.cell.com/developmental-cell/fulltext/S1534-5807%2...

("please login")

Here it is: http://sci-hub.bz/10.1016/j.devcel.2016.02.012

Pay walls are pretty annoying, but quite easy to get around these days due to several community efforts:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Scholar

https://www.researchgate.net (you can "Request full text" from a researcher)

I'm sure there are others.

I became really interested in this a while back after watching a fascinating BBC documentary about fasting. It stated that cancer could not grow in the absence of IGF-1 (a growth hormone secreted in response to protein ingestion). I did a bunch of research and found barely anything out there about it, but the little I found did seem to back it up.

I recommend anyone interested in this topic watch this film, it's great: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xvdbtt_eat-fast-live-longer...

kind of tangential to the topic, but, if someone is interested in knowing about the history of the disease etc. the book "the emperor of all maladies" is an excellent introduction.

I wonder how effective the following strategy would be:

As soon as you are diagnosed with any type of cancer, begin an immediate fast (duration TBD). The reasoning is that it hurts the cancer more than you, plus it provides a temporary boost in your immune system.

It probably wouldn't provide a huge advantage, but heck, even if it only improves overall survival 1-3%? It'd be worth it.

I like the idea. An immediate fast, though for how long I'm not sure.

Follow that with a raw vegan diet, with lots of avocados and cilantro.

Add traditional cancer treatment methods.

Does it mean that protein intake should be lowered to reduce cancer risk?

Not cancer risk, cancer growth. i.e. angiogenesis. And that does not say that at all since amino acids are the building blocks of every cell in your body anyway.

Anti-angiogenesis diets increase amino acid intakes, What does it say about those?

> Does it mean that protein intake should be lowered to reduce cancer risk?

without having any clue about the topic, i just googled around, and apparently, this paper from NIH : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3988204/ seem to suggest that it (Low Protein Intake) does help, up to some degree.

The article does not suggest low protein intake, it states that results indicate "high levels of animal proteins promote mortality". I.e. high intake of protein from plants is not associated with increase in mortality.

No.

Please elaborate / substantiate?

Your immune system is more direct and effective at countering cancer development than any diet, unless you are consuming cancirogens.

Cancer development itself is a sign that cancer cells developed at pace great enough to "overpower" your immune system or you have genetic mutation that causes your body develop cancer on its own because its de-facto wired to do so.

Once cancer develops, it becomes race with time. It will eventually kill you, unless you destroy it first. Diet change may slow sickness progression, but it is there and it competes for nutrients with rest of your body. Many cancer victims succumb to severe anemia before their vital organs cease to function.

When sickness tool on body becomes serious, even your social mammal brain turns on you, putting interests of group above your own and making you stop eating, become apathetic and withdrawm from others as it seeks to reduce burden on the group and its resources pool.

Both of those effects make reducing diets value in cancer combat discussable.

There is enough evidence to suggest diet can play a role in defeating cancer. Some foods contain compounds that can interfere or even induce apoptosis in mutant cells.

Whether they reach these cells from point of entry (mouth) intact is a different matter, some research suggests some compounds can.

There needs to be more research in establishing which foods are able to perform roles in prevention and also fighting.

I would like to think William Li's research is at least a start at making information easily accessible to the wider public from studies and research journals. There are also issues of funding for these types of studies, as they are seen controversial and almost a form of pseudo-science. Not to mention the whole "big pharma" arguments which I don't necessarily subscribe to.

> as they are seen controversial and almost a form of pseudo-science

Yes, the "cure cancer with our special juices combo (and coffe enema just to be sure)" crowd is not doing this field of research any favors in the public.

Yes, of course. The World Health Organization and pretty much every other respectable, not-for-profit medical authority in the world recommends fewer than 10% of calories from protein in a healthy diet. Especially limiting animal protein, and preferring plant-based protein, is important for avoiding cancers.

It's a good study from high quality researchers, but to be fair there is a study almost every week for the last 50 years saying something like this.

References please?

Pubmed amino acids and cancer.

thought the answer to the headline was going to be -- "with venture capitalist dollar"

thought the answer to the headline was going to be -- "with venture capitalist dollars"

This is rather ironic. Anyone in a developing world would tell you that malnutrition is exactly what happen due to lack of proteins. But there is no life outside biology departments of top US universities.

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