Animal Study Found High-fat, Low-carbo Diet Slows Growth of Brain Tumors
February 23, 2007 by Gloria Gamat
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
Biologists from Boston College have identified KetoCal (a commercially available high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet designed to treat epilepsy in children) as a diet-based alternative method of treating brain cancer.
Ketocal has been found to significantly decrease the growth of brain tumors in laboratory mice.
According to Tom Seyfried, Boston College Biology Professor:
“KetoCal represents a novel alternative therapy for malignant brain cancer.
While the tumors did not vanish in the mice who received the strict KetoCal diet, they got significantly smaller and the animals lived significantly longer.
And compared to radiation, chemotherapy and surgery, KetoCal is a relatively inexpensive treatment option.”
KetoCal is manufactured by Nutricia North America and seemed to work by depriving the brain tumor cells of the glucose that they need for survival and growth.
Study results have been described in a recent issue of the online journal Nutrition & Metabolism.
Take note, this was just tested on laboratory rats and is a long way from human study.
Find more details from the press release.
