Metabolic therapy for cancer

i’m stage IV pancreatic cancer because it was at bay for 2 years and came back in my lungs. Are there any studies on this type?

@me1949, you may wish to speak with a research coordinator at Mayo Clinic to see if there are study trials available to you:
Cancer-related clinical studies questions
Phone: 855-776-0015 (toll-free)
https://www.mayo.edu/research/forms/cancer-clinical-trials
There are several discussions about clinical trials in the Pancreatic Cancer Support Group, for example this one:
- Is anyone participating in a clinical trial for pancreatic cancer?
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/clinical-trials-1/
See all here: https://connect.mayoclinic.org/group/pancreatic-cancer/?search=clinical%20trial&index=discussions

This post is mostly for @birdman (if still paying attention to this thread) and @colleenyoung

Background first: My wife has been diagnosed recently with metastatic triple positive breast cancer (MBC). A large unilateral pleural effusion is what prompted seeking care. She had Stage III breast cancer in 2014 (ER+, PR+, HER-), age 47, with some cancer also found in right arm lymph nodes. Mastectomy and chemo. NED for 9+ years. The cancer and treatment kicked in her Type II diabetes (first started as gestational in 1998 then 2002) and early menopause. She's had—and hates!—hot flashes ever since. In 2015 she started Metformin but went off of it in late 2019 or early 2020, because in spring of 2019 she learned enough about diabetes to know she needed to radically alter her diet. Initially very low carb and high healthy fat. Her labs eventually showed her to be non-diabetic (though we understand once there, always there). All other labs have been beautiful. Non-smoker; no alcohol. Over the last year or so she moved more into true Keto and also carnivore, and has also been doing intermittent fasting and 2-4 day fasts for longer than that. She has been that rare exception who has had the discipline to not indulge in sugars, carbs, processed foods (read "poison"). And yet here we are with MBC.

She will not be doing chemo this go-round. We have seen the survival curves and she's just not interested in using her remaining time going through that kind of treatment. But...

She won't be giving up on the diet and we are considering the research and protocols suggested by Dr. Seyfried. Seeing as how you, @birdman, did what I am or was about to do, i.e. research it, will you be able to point me in the right direction to go directly to some understanding about the combination of diet and the drug DON(sp)? As you said:

"As for me, the deeper I dove into it, the *less* likely I think this to be a practical 'cure' for cancer. There are still many good reasons to utilize a Keto diet for health reasons, and that is what I do it for. Any benefit for my melanoma is 'extra'."

It seems we are on the same page, not looking for a "cure" and outright rejecting the obviously kooky stuff, and yet if there is enough to Seyfried's work and trying something along those lines, then living a bit longer without chemo, slowing the progression, it seems my wife is halfway there because of her dietary discipline.

Also, now more for @colleenyoung (or maybe others following this): my wife also has zero interest in leaving her home to chase down treatments. She is comfortable enough with her mortality that we won't be traveling to find a treatment. If she's going to be sick she'd rather be sick at home with her family and friends nearby. As such, how might one go about finding a legit (integrative?) doc in our area (SW Virginia) who would be willing to explore this with us? Does Mayo connect with docs away from their hospitals in such a fashion? My wife's oncologist is clearly standard-of-care oriented, pushing the chemo and other drugs.

Thanks.

First of all, I wish your wife the best. She has already gone through a lot. I am not a doctor, so won't give any specific advice. But I think her aggressive keto can only help her, and skipping more chemo as well. I have opted not to take ANY standard-of-care treatments, e.g. chemo, radiation, or immuno-therapy, for the reason you mentioned (side effects and quality of life). I must confess that I do NOT do a strict keto, but I do utilize other supplements, most importantly Vitamin D3, Curcumin, and a few others (message me and I will share what I do and where to find out more).

@birdman518: Thank you for starting this thread!

I normally post/comment in the PCa group, but recently added this group to my "watchlist". I'm a retired chemical engineer, who spent most of my career in research, and was diagnosed with PCa in October 2023. I'm currently on Active Surveillance (AS), you can see my profile for details.

I began my PCa journey by implementing a whole plant food diet (virtually the opposite of Keto); but more importantly (at least in my mind) I upped my aerobic running regiment (by ~3x) to three 5K runs per week.

After three months on a whole plant food diet, my PSA dropped 25% from its prebiopsy level, I lost 25 lbs and experienced a lot of beneficial health side effects. However, I began to notice some negative effects regarding slowed healing of superficial skin wounds. Because of that, and the fact that I didn't want to lose any more weight, I introduced (grass fed beef, chicken and/or wild caught salmon) into my diet...one serving per day. Three months after that change, at my 6 month PSA check, my weight had remained the same and my PSA was still the same...25% lower than prebiopsy.

I note @gisellef's comment regarding Dr. Peter Attia's book "Outlive". My urologist recommended his book 3 months ago. Dr. Attia's findings/recommendations, regarding VO2 Max, confirmed my "aggressive" AS plan, and my VO2 Max has increased from 40 to 49, since my PCa diagnosis. According to Dr. Attia, a VO2 Max of 46 is considered at the "elite" level (top 2.3%) for a man in the 60-69 age group. See attached chart...somewhat busy...I like numbers 🙂

So a couple weeks ago I came upon Dr. Thomas Seyfried...he's a biochemist on steroids! I listened to a lot of what he had to say, via YouTube videos, and decided to purchase his original book "Cancer as a Metabolic Disease". I'll get my copy this week and I'm looking forward to reading his original work...mathematics and chemistry have always been my favorite subjects.

I understand his premise is that without glucose and glutamine cancer cells die. The bad news is that normal, health cells also need these compounds to function and thrive. I suppose his argument is that cancer cells die without glucose and glutamine; while our normal cells just go into a sort of "paralytic" (hibernation like??) state...therefore his "Press Pulse" treatment methodology is meant to progressively kill and weaken the cancer cells and then bring back the "fuel" to "reawaken" the normal cells to clean up the "dead bodies"...of course that also nurses any leftover of cancer cells back to health...so it's on to another round...etc. I'm sure there is much more to it...I'm looking forward to reading his book to better understand what he found and is recommending.

Not sure if any Mayo researchers are currently studying DON (6-diazo-5-oxo-L-norleucine)... or DON prodrugs, but Hopkins was doing so about 5 years ago.
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/2019/11/glutamine-blocking-drug-slows-tumor-growth-and-strengthens-anti-tumor-response
It seems to me that one has a "minor" practical issue as to where you would even get the appropriate dosage and scheduling of DON (or these "prodrugs") even if you wanted to try that approach. I'd want to know how one attacks the glutamine issue (without being able to get DON) before embracing a keto diet to reduce glucose....just some musings..........

Thank you so much for your very informative and well researched contribution. The excerpt that you included was very interesting and hopefully will yield some positive outcomes for those with cancer. For me, the question provoked by this theory is this: If we can accept the proposition that cancer may be the outcome of metabolic overload, can it be treated as you would a metabolic problem once cancer is present. In other words, can the strategies that you so very effectively employed to lower your risk be tweaked to address the conditions present in cases where the threshold of producing cancer has been reached.
That idea is less clear to me, especially as Dr Attia points to a host of other diseases and conditions, including diabetes, autoimmune and alzheimers are connected to metabolic processes gone awry. It seems as though by continually stressing our bodies we can reach a point of no return in terms of disease progression where pure metabolic-based correction strategies can make us healthier but will not be sufficient to deal with the additional disease, eg. diabetes, cancer or other....I suppose this gives us more to study in the future.
Thank you for stimulating more thought about these important ideas. All the best....

Thanks for your comment!

I watched a few more videos from Thomas Seyfried, PhD. yesterday and just started his book, which I also received yesterday.

Seyfried’s Metabolic Therapy is outside of SoC practice, so he’s focusing his efforts on areas where mainstream medicine has had the absolute worst results…for example, multicentric glioblastoma.

In other words, where patients have no hope of any SoC protocol that has been demonstrated to provide a significant benefit towards the prevention of certain, short term death.
https://glioblastomafoundation.org/news/glioblastoma-multiforme
“The average life expectancy for glioblastoma patients who undergo treatment is 12-15 months and only four months for those who do not receive treatment.”

According to Seyfried, no significant life extension results have been seen in treating these poor folks, via SoC practices, although much has been attempted.

I suppose if he can demonstrate his Press-Pulse methodology with medical doctors willing to try something that improves on the “total failure” of current SoC practice for this horrible class of cancer, then those in control of mainstream medicine may begin to listen to what he is advocating for other classes of cancer…an interesting strategy to say the least!

I did find a short video where Seyfried explains how they currently target glutamine in his Press Pulse methodology.

Please know that I am not a doctor AND I have not tried keto (much less water fasting) AND I’m not advocating for this approach.

At this point, I’m still in “research mode” regarding ALL treatment options that are backed by science and have demonstrated measurable positive results; while demonstrating minimal or, hopefully, NO negative side effects.

I’m treating at Mayo in Phoenix/Scottsdale AZ
I’ll check out the article.
Thank you.

As far as finding oncologists who are knowledgeable & willing to at least ‘consider’ the research results Dr Seyfried & others are seeing, I would look for Functional Medicine Oncologist or a Functional Medicine trained Naturopath that might know of a referral in your area. Hope this helps.

OK, thank you, bmb.