Endometrial adenocarcinoma and peritoneal NEC

@naturegirl5 treatment starts next monday and will be done locally. The oncologist knows my local oncologist and called her for the recommendations and she agreed. i will be back at MDA for follow up appointment after 3 cycles

I just saw a new Italian study that suggested fasting (350 calories a day) 36 hours before and 24 hours after greatly improved chemo outcomes. The study was small, but found 3 of 5 had a complete or almost complete response to chemo with fasting and only 1 in 5 had a similar response without fasting. The study involved carboplatin and paxlitaxol. I did not fast and there are obviously dangers in fasting when our bodies are so depleted, but if you are doing chemo every three weeks it might be worth the effort. Apparently these aren’t the only studies showing a benefit.

Someone also mentioned this to me.. I will be on cisplatin and etoposide on my next treatment. I havent tried fasting during chemo but I also really dont have great appetite a few days prior and after chemo

@juliea55 Do you recall or can you find the source where you read about this study?

Hi, Helen. I did not read the original study, which is out of Rome, but it is being widely reported in the news right now. Because of the good response, it has been chosen for presentation at the American Society for Clinical Oncology at the end of this month. Go to Google News and type in chemotherapy, fasting, and ovarian cancer, and the reports will pop up.

Dr Valter Longo has led the fasting mimicking diet research. He works in Italy and out of USC in California. Here is a link to his website: https://valterlongo.com/cancer/
His book "Fasting Cancer" is worth a read and there are a lot of interviews with him on YouTube. He sells a diet pack called Prolon so people do not have to try and figure out the diet themselves.
The profits from his diet pack are funneled back into cancer research. Dr. Longo is a gem, someone who is not trying to just enrich himself but is trying to help find solutions for those in the cancer battle.

The one caution with the diet is you need to have a BMI of at least 20, if you do not weigh enough you can go into cachexia and loose muscle mass.

@juliea55 interesting…though most people i know eat before chemo—lighter food that provides nutrition…fasting can make one nauseous during and soon after infusion.

Some of the research I saw indicated fasting actually seemed to help with nausea. It looks like quite a bit has been written on the topic. If I was starting over and undergoing chemo in anticipation of debulking surgery, I would certainly consider it.

@nycmusic it is very individual !

@five people hardly constitutes a study!