Fasting may reduce chemotherapy side effects

A study, published online in the Procedings of the National Academy of Sciences, have found in experiments with mice, that fasting strengthens healthy cells, but not cancer cells. Chemotherapy targets both healthy cells and cancer cells - the source of most of the serious side effects of this treatment. The study found that short term fasting deprived healthy cells of oxygen, making them highly resistant to stress as they used emergency mechanisms to deal with the lack. The same was not seen in cancer cells, which led researchers to think that fasting could spare healthy cells the damaging effects of chemotherapy over a short period. Cancer cells also become more vulnerable to drugs during a fast.

However, this approach has still to be tried in humans, and researchers stress that cancer patients should not fast. A future trial will look at a 48 hour starvation period to see if this is beneficial, or if it would weaken patients, making them more susceptible to adverse effects.