Hello,


One of my family members is going to start chemo soon and I was wondering if a low carb diet would be the proper diet for someone going through chemo? I already have some foods that are good for the immune system in mind but I was just wondering how a low carb diet would go with chemo.

I did a Google search on "low carb diet for cancer patients" and the first hit was an article in Time magazine:

Can a High-Fat Diet Beat Cancer?

I don't disagree with cutting out sugar on chemotherapy but this article has some strange science.
-they cut out all carbohydrates including sugar
-they keep talking about fermentation in glycolysis, glycolysis oxidizes glucose to pyruvate, fermentation reduces pyruvate to lactate in the absence of oxygen, to regenerate NAD+.
-are the cancer cells so picky they refuse to use the ATP from the citric acid cycle and oxidative phosphorylation?

Sorry I got interrupted, but I hope your family member has a smooth recovery and does well on chemo. My great grandfather, grandmother and dad died of colon cancer and now my cousin has it.

I'm interested to hear from others, I'm sure there is someone who understands the chemistry of cancer that can recommend. It would be interesting to see what Dr Eades (protein power) recommends. He is very current with research.

How sad...loss of weight is what Im worried about.Id def check with a cancer Dr.

I just know as Ca survior I was told sugar is what tumors thrive after. So that mean anything that turns to glucose, Starches.
I just know eating as healthy as you can, and keeping a good focus on your life can make a big difference.

A low carb diet is fine. But... sometimes you have to take what you can get! When my son was ill from chemo he drank loads of orange soda pop. Ordinarily I don't allow drinks like that in our family. But, I wanted him hydrated, and I wanted calories in him! And for some reason his body craved that, and he could keep it down. So I gave him as much as he wanted. It is all relative...

You might want to check out the Barry Groves Website, "Second Opinions". He had colon cancer a few years back, but I think he had just surgery and no chemo.

I'm pretty sure that he writes that of the three people who were operated on at the same time as he was, he is the only one who is still alive. He has eaten low carb since 1964. He describes how he thinks he got cancer very openly. Read it!

I'll try and find the link, OK? Later: no luck on finding it so far... I really have to get some phone calls made, but it's in there somewhere. There is a link in a thread on this site, too, but goodness knows where that is!

amanda

I highly recommend the book "Beating Cancer with Nutrition".

It talks of the importance of a high alkali diet.

Very sorry to hear about your friend and wish him the best on his journey through this very trying time

Thanks for all your replies, my mother is the one that has cancer and she wants to do chemo even though it only works for 2 percent of people I recall reading, I made a diet for her a low carb one that will help her immune system. I will be back tomorrow to tell you what it is. I knew sugar fed cancer and to much protein can turn into sugar also. Thanks for the websites and book titles I will look them up.

the two main immune system vitamins i know are A and D. they are depleted rapidly by cancer. some say that C is important. i don't know. maybe. Certainly can't hurt.

when she is in the hospital she will have to eat the dreaded hospital food. all the more reason to put her on quality food while at home.

and i recommend visiting her every day. When my Dad was on chemo we discovered that the longer we left the staff unsupervised the more drugs they put him on.

I have noticed that they are pretty carefu at the hospital to get the medications right. But they tend not to worry abut the nutrition or sleep. Those are two things we need to recover! And that is where you as a family member can really help. Because the sick person just hasn't the strength to argue or demand things.

http://www.apjohncancerinstitute.org/physician-2.htm





I've read other places that mitochondria are important signallers of cell death, which is important in avoiding the formation of cancer cells in the first place. So knock out the mitochondria by disrupting the citric acid cycle, and 1 the cell has to depend disproportionately on glycolysis for energy and 2 if it mutates into a cancer cell, there's nobody there to blow the whistle.

I don't know if low carb would help with chemotherapy, I don't know if they've really don't enough of those kind of studies on humans. I think that's the way I'd go personally, if I could. I hope everything turns out okay.

I will look for this too. If you find it, could you please post. I am a 9 year survivor of colon cancer. I had surgery, chemo and radiation. Would love to read his story.

I personally don't think a low-carb diet inhibits cancer growth. I was on a strict induction level Atkins diet for 1&1/2 years from May of 2007 until Oct. 2008 before being diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. I had a softball sized tumor in my chest! I had dropped from 274 to 185.
I did six cycles of R-CHOP 21 chemo and radiation over a seven month period and ate low carb for two week periods on and off to keep from gaining too much from the high dose of prednisone. No ill effects. I am in remission now. The doctor said I shouldn't low carb, just eat a balanced diet. I'm back on Atkins now as my weight had gone back up to 220. I would like to stay 190-200. I just feel better doing low carb.