Fasting and fasting mimicking diets in cancer prevention and therapy.
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Narrative review synthesizing preclinical mechanisms and conceptual frameworks without new human trial data.
PubMed 36646607 · doi:10.1016/j.trecan.2022.12.006
What was done
This paper reviews the mechanistic rationale and experimental literature concerning fasting and fasting-mimicking diets (FMDs) in cancer prevention and treatment, specifically evaluating differential stress resistance, differential stress sensitization, and antitumor immune responses.
What was found
The abstract reports no quantitative data or numerical outcomes. It describes mechanisms whereby FMD cycles promote differential stress resistance in healthy cells and differential stress sensitization in malignant cells, while noting that FMD cycles enhance drug efficacy in mouse cancer models by stimulating antitumor immunity.
Why it matters
FMDs provide a structured, potentially safer alternative to chronic caloric restriction or water-only fasting for cancer prevention and adjunct therapy.
Limits
The review is narrative rather than systematic, relies heavily on preclinical mouse models, and provides no quantitative clinical outcome data in the abstract.
Cited by
- context Fasting selectively kills cancer cells because normal cells adapt to resource deprivation while cancer cells cannot.