In a new study, researchers found that a fasting-mimicking diet combined with hormone therapy has the potential to help treat breast cancer.
The research was conducted by a team at USC and elsewhere.
In studies on mice and in two small breast cancer clinical trials, researchers found that the fasting-mimicking diet reduces blood insulin, insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1), and leptin.
In mice, these effects appear to increase the power of the cancer hormone drugs tamoxifen and fulvestrant and delay any resistance to them.
The results from 36 women treated with hormone therapy and fasting-mimicking diet are promising, but researchers say it is still too early to determine whether the effects will be confirmed in large-scale clinical trials.
The new study suggests that a fasting-mimicking diet together with endocrine therapy for breast cancer has the potential to not only shrink tumors but also could reverse resistant tumors.
The researchers say the two small clinical trials are feasibility studies that showed promising results, but they are in no way conclusive.
They believe the results support further clinical studies of a fasting-mimicking diet used in combination with endocrine therapy in hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer.
The scientists also contributed to a recent clinical study of 129 breast cancer patients conducted with the University of Leiden.
The results appeared to show increased efficacy of chemotherapy in patients receiving a combination of chemotherapy and a fasting-mimicking diet.
The team says some patients followed monthly cycles of the fasting-mimicking diet for almost two years without any problems, suggesting that it is a well-tolerated intervention.
They hope this means that this nutritional program that mimics fasting could one day represent a weapon to better fight cancer in patients receiving hormone therapy without serious side effects.
Approximately 80% of all breast cancers express estrogen and/or progesterone receptors.
The most common forms of hormone therapy for these breast cancers work by blocking hormones from attaching to receptors on cancer cells or by decreasing the body’s hormone production.
Endocrine therapy is frequently effective in these hormone-receptor-positive tumors, but the long-term benefits are often hindered by treatment resistance.
Several clinical trials, including one at USC on breast cancer and prostate patients, are now investigating the effects of the fasting-mimicking diets in combination with different cancer-fighting drugs.
One author of the study is Valter Longo.
The study is published in Nature.
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