New Cancer Treatment Less Toxic: Could It One Day Replace Chemotherapy?

New findings published in the journal Oncotarget examine how a less-toxic class of drugs combined with fasting may help kill breast, colorectal and lung cancer than a combination treatment of chemotherapy and fasting, alone.

Human clinical trials in both the United States and Europe are currently studying the effectiveness and safety of cyclic fasting during cancer treatment, according to senior study author Valter Longo of USC. The drug works by mimicking the effects of fasting and as a potential alternative to chemotherapy.

"Like every other cell, cancer cells need energy to survive and keep growing. But cancer cells are fairly inflexible about how they produce that energy, which gives us a way to target them," added Longo, in a news release. 

Known as the Warburg effect, cancer cells rely heavily on glucose from food for energy--burning excessive amounts of the regular cell to fuel rapid growth. This makes them much more vulnerable to any interruption in supply. Because of this, they must rely on emergency backup and use a type of enzyme known as kinase to fuel future growth-related activities.

The researchers discovered that this metabolic shift by cancer cells helps them generate toxic-free radicals that can ultimately kill them. Furthermore, the kinase pathway for generating energy can be blocked by kinase inhibitors and choke off the cancer cells' ability to generate new energy.

"However, kinase inhibitors, though much less toxic than chemotherapy, can still be toxic to many cell types. Fasting makes them more effective, meaning that patients would have to use them for less time to achieve the same results," Longo concluded. "Although we have not yet tested this, we anticipate that fasting will also reduce the toxicity of kinase inhibitors as it reduces that of chemotherapy to normal cells."

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