Cancer is the hardest hit area where all kinds of medical scams are rampant. With the popularization of medical science knowledge, the living space of scams is getting smaller and smaller, but it is also getting better and better. One of the characteristics is scams that are covered with science and based on some feasible principles, of which hunger therapy/ketogenic therapy is an example.
What is ketogenic therapy?
Ketogenic therapy, also known as [hunger therapy], is a therapy that uses a special diet to attempt to [starve] cancer cells.
Is what a [special] diet?
It is a high-fat, medium or low-protein, low or sugar-free diet.
A commonly seen ketogenic therapy includes 90% lipid intake, 8% protein intake and 2% sugar intake.
Compared with the normal diet of Americans, lipid accounts for only 35%, protein accounts for 15%, and sugar accounts for 50%.
Does this therapy have a magical effect on cancer?
The video circulated on Weibo mentioned that ketogenic therapy is actually [better than chemotherapy].
In order to make the publicity more convincing, the video also found a cancer patient to speak out, saying that his cancer cells had spread to the bone. The doctor told him [only three months to live], and finally, the cancer was completely cured by ketogenic therapy!
With [patients], there are also [researchers].
Several researchers who call themselves [University of South Florida] claim that their research has been successful and they want to tell the truth to patients.
They hinted that cancer was [a business] and that their research harmed vested interest groups, which did not allow them to publish their research results.
Is ketogenic therapy really scientific?
To be honest, [ketogenic therapy] really has some basis. It comes from the theory put forward by German scientist Otto Heinrich Warburg more than 80 years ago.
Speaking of Warburg, it is well-known. He won the 1931 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of respiratory enzymes. He is one of the top biologists in the 20th century. It can be said that he is the [originator] of studying biological energy metabolism at the molecular level.
What really made Warburg famous for later generations was that he discovered the special glucose energy metabolism mode of cancer cells.
Glucose is the main energy substance of human body. Normal human cells finally produce carbon dioxide, water and ATP, an energy substance, for use by cells by oxidizing glucose molecules one after another.
Normal cells need oxygen to consume glucose. One glucose molecule completely decomposes and releases energy, requiring six oxygen molecules.
Oxygen needs to be transported through blood. As cancer cells grow too fast, human blood vessels do not have time to grow and oxygen cannot be supplied, forcing cancer cells to find ways to consume glucose without oxygen.
As a result, tumor cells have undergone great variation. Using glucose for energy does not require oxygen, but only stays in the initial stage of glucose metabolism. Therefore, tumor cells use the same amount of glucose to produce much less energy than normal cells.
This allows cancer cells to grab human energy under the condition of lack of oxygen and need more glucose to produce energy than normal cells.
This theory is proved by experiments. The most important experiment and the greatest thing about this theory is the application of PET-CT technology in clinical examination.
Its Chinese name is positron emission computed tomography, Taking advantage of the fact that cancer cells require more glucose than normal cells, The glucose molecules are labeled with machines that can identify them, Then the glucose is injected into the patient’s blood, and the glucose with radionuclides will be absorbed by cancer cells in large quantities and concentrated in the cancer cells. Doctors can see through special instruments that some tissues and parts in the human body [light], and these shiny tissues and parts are often cancer lesions.
Does ketogenic therapy have [anticancer effect]?
Whenever a therapy claims to be anti-cancer and better than chemotherapy, Dr. Clove hopes that readers’ first reaction will be: Please produce evidence!
1. [Anticancer] Needs Evidence
To truly prove that a certain therapy or drug can resist cancer, it is necessary to strictly abide by the corresponding specifications [randomized controlled clinical trials], and it is not enough for only one institution to do it, it is necessary for multiple institutions to do it.
Next, at least [non-randomized controlled studies] are needed, such as [case-control trials] or [cohort studies].
So, is there ketogenic therapy?
No, not at all. At present, there are only animal tests and case reports [1].
2. Insufficient evidence from animal tests
Animal experiments did find that ketogenic therapy can reduce the tumor of experimental mice and prolong the survival time of experimental mice, but the difference between mice and human beings is huge, and the results of animal experiments cannot be directly deduced to human beings.
3. The evidence reported in individual cases is also not effective enough.
Case reports are the treatment process of one or two patients and found [effective]. In fact, these case reports do not explain anything at all, let alone prove that ketogenic therapy [can resist cancer] [is better than chemotherapy].
Case reports mostly focus on a special brain tumor, glioblastoma multiforme.
This is a very dangerous malignant tumor with very rapid growth and poor prognosis. Patients will die within 1-2 years.
The most representative of these was a 1995 case report [2], which reported that two girls who unfortunately suffered from the brain tumor had taken ketogenic therapy. The report said that one of the girls’ tumor’s ability to absorb glucose decreased by 21.8% and the disease did not progress for 12 months.
However, the report did not say that the other girl had no curative effect.
Moreover, even the girl [with effective treatment] can only show that ketogenic therapy can reduce glucose intake of tumor, and does not rule out that her tumor type belongs to the relatively less malignant type.
Therefore, the probative force of case reports is very small.
However, in any case, there is still some evidence for ketogenic therapy, which is much better than the [autologous blood activation therapy] in China. However, the evidence for ketogenic therapy is still too weak, far from proving that anticancer and curative effect are better than chemotherapy.
Even if ketogenic therapy can really resist cancer, the current case reports are only aimed at a relatively rare cancer, while there are hundreds of human cancers. Social media propaganda says [can resist various cancers], which is too outrageous.
4. The clinical trial purposes of staging are different.
At present, there are some small-scale Phase 1 clinical trials in progress. The main purpose of clinical trials at this stage is to prove the safety of ketogenic therapy, but whether it can resist cancer or not is the purpose of Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trials.
However, in order to enter Phase 2 and Phase 3 tests, only Phase 1 tests can be successful first. Only when Phase 3 clinical trials are completed can they be approved as standard [anticancer therapy].
Generally, the failure rate of Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials is very high, which can be said to be a single wooden bridge. It is rare, difficult and difficult to really pass Phase 3 clinical trials.
Is ketogenic therapy worth [the last attempt]?
Some people ask, my relatives have advanced cancer, dead horse as a living horse doctor, can I use ketogenic therapy?
It is the patient’s right to use what therapy. Doctors can only fully inform patients of all information and let patients make their own choices.
Ketogenic therapy is also risky. The biggest risk is to cause hypoglycemia, dizziness, fatigue and even syncope.
In addition, there are digestive tract reactions caused by high fat intake, such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
Not all advanced cancers have no treatment. You can see the < < advanced cancers really have no treatment “sent by Dr. Clove before? > >.
The therapeutic purpose of advanced cancer patients is to improve the quality of life.
There are also non-advanced cancer patients who hope to be treated. Special attention should be paid to the fact that routine therapies (surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy) must not be delayed by trying these non-mainstream therapies with insufficient evidence to prove them. This does more harm than good.