In a study from the University of Michigan, scientists found a dietary change could be a key to enhancing colon cancer treatment.
They found in cells and in mice that a low-protein diet blocked the nutrient signaling pathway that fires up a master regulator of cancer growth.
The regulator, mTORC1, controls how cells use nutritional signals to grow and multiply. It’s highly active in cancers with certain mutations and is known to cause cancer to become resistant to standard treatments.
A low-protein diet, and specifically a reduction in two key amino acids, changed the nutritional signals through a complex called GATOR.
Previous effects to block mTORC have focused on inhibiting its cancer-causing signals. But these inhibitors cause significant side effects – and when patients stop taking it, the cancer comes back.
The study suggests that blocking the nutrient pathway by limiting amino acids through a low-protein diet offers an alternative way to shut down mTORC.
The researchers confirmed their findings in cells and mice, where they saw that limiting amino acids stopped cancer from growing and led to increased cell death.
They also looked at tissue biopsies from patients with colon cancer, which confirmed high markers of mTORC correlated with more resistance to chemotherapy and worse outcomes.
The team says this could provide an opportunity to direct treatment for patients with this marker.
A low-protein diet won’t be a standalone treatment. It has to be combined with something else, such as chemotherapy.
The risk with a low-protein diet is that people with cancer often experience muscle weakness and weight loss, which limiting protein could exasperate.
Further research will refine this concept of a therapeutic window to limit amino acids.
Researchers will also seek to understand how these pathways are creating resistance to treatment.
If you care about cancer, please read studies that low-carb diet could increase overall cancer risk, and vitamin D supplements strongly reduces cancer death.
For more information about cancer, please see recent studies about the cause of most common pancreatic cancer, and results showing how to reduce pancreatic cancer spread by nearly 90%.
The study was conducted by Yatrik M. Shah et al and published in Gastroenterology.
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