Digest №14: The Strengths and Limits of a Ketogenic Diet in Cancer Treatment

Bless!

Today, I want to take a brief look at ketogenic diets as metabolic interventions against cancer. Specifically, I want to highlight what makes ketogenic diets so powerful against cancer, but also why a ketogenic diet alone can never be expected to be a standalone treatment.

In an observational study of 37 patients with various cancer, a longer adherence to a ketogenic diet was associated with significantly longer survival, higher 8-year survival rate, and higher cancer regression rate.¹

The group of patients, who adhered to a ketogenic diet for less than 12 months, had a median survival duration of 23.5 months after diagnosis, an 8-year survival rate of 3.125%, and a cancer regression rate of 0%. The group of patients, who adhered to a ketogenic diet for 12 months or more, had a median survival duration of 56 months, an 8-year survival rate of 47.62%, and a cancer regression rate of 42.86%.

It goes without saying, that that is an enormous difference. Nonetheless, these are purely associative data. Longer adherence to a ketogenic diet is associated with better survival and higher regression rates, but that does not mean, that longer adherence to a ketogenic diet caused better survival and higher regression rates.

Whilst we mayn't be able to ascertain causality, we can at least get a sense of the feasibility of such a causality by looking at mechanistic data.

A ketogenic diet does primarily two things: it shifts body metabolism away from relying mainly on glucose (a sugar) for fuel to using ketones and fatty acids instead – which stabilises blood glucose levels –, and it drastically increases serum beta-hydroxybutyrate.

Firstly, it's known, that beta-hydroxybutyrate sensitises some cancer cells to other treatments.² Secondly, it's known, that fermentation of glucose contributes to maintaining sufficient energy generation in some cancer cells, and that the inhibition of such glucose fermentation can contribute to effectively combating cancer.^3–4

Lastly, it's also known, that the response of cancer cells to a ketogenic diet depends on the precise intracellular enzymatic makeup of the cancer in question.⁵ In essence, if the cancer cell has the enzymes to generate energy from ketones, a ketogenic diet will be less effective, than if it can't generate energy from ketones. This nuance also explains why a ketogenic diet whilst impressively helpful is no silver bullet.

Even in these cases of cancer cells being able to metabolise ketones, the cells grow slower, when deprived of glucose. This means, that whilst a ketogenic diet is expected to be less effective against such cancers, its minimisation of blood sugars spikes may very well still have an effect.

We sadly can't say this for certain, but given the fact, that an improvement of 8-year survival in patients from 3.125% to 47.56% has been seen, a ketogenic diet is expected to help patients live longer.¹

Nonetheless, diet alone is unlikely to heal anyone. This is why our Mosaic Method uses so many mutually supportive interventions to help you heal – simply because one single intervention can't be expected to heal you with a likelihood even approaching 100%.

To wrap this digest up, it means, that a ketogenic diet is highly recommendable for cancer patients to follow, as whilst not being a silver bullet it acts to the detriment of the cancer in multiple ways.

I hope this has been interesting to you and perhaps inspiring to try such a diet yourself.

Swift healing and lasting health,
Merlin L. Marquard