The 2014 Ancestral Health Symposium at the University of California at Berkeley (August 8, 2014) included an important discussion on the emerging cancer treatment, the ketogenic diet.
The discussion panel included radiation oncologist Dr. Colin Champ, University of South Florida cancer researcher Dr. Dominic D’Agostino, author Ellen Davis, nutrition expert and cancer educator Miriam Kalamian, Sloan Kettering oncologist Dr. Dawn Lemanne and was chaired by Jimmy Moore, author of KetoClarity.
A ketogenic diet, already proven effective for promoting weight loss and managing epilepsy, is rapidly emerging as a promising metabolic diet therapy for advanced metastatic cancer.
Dr. D’Agostino has already worked with cancer patients who have managed their cancer using a ketogenic diet – none more so than Dr. Fred Hatfield, a former power-lifting champion and founder of the International Sports Sciences Association, who had metastatic bone cancer. Four years on he is completely in remission.
A ketogenic diet starves cancer because cancer cells thrive on sugar and cannot survive on ketones. D’Agostino’s work is covered
HERE.
The panel discussed other cases – like that of Joe Mancaruso, a 56-year-old Texas man, who is managing his advanced metastatic lung cancer successfully.
Dr. Elaine Cantin actually managed her own aggressive breast cancer and has written a book: ‘The Cantin Ketogenic Diet’.
In 2012, urologist Dr. Eugene Fine conducted a 10-patient pilot study at Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, N.Y. The patients all had advanced cancers and agreed to follow a ketogenic diet (which for limited daily carb intake to less than 50 grams) for 28 days.
The results indicated that six of the 10 patients responded well to the ketogenic diet, meaning their cancers stabilized or showed partial remission, Dr. Fine told me. Today, there are about a dozen studies that are investigating the use of the ketogenic diet to manage all kinds of cancer. Those results will determine whether the medical community will adopt metabolic therapy to treat cancer in the future.
Another expert on the Ketogenic diet is Professor Dr. Thomas Seyfried of Boston, who cautioned that the ketogenic diet is a medical therapy and should be administered by trained professionals.
Seyfried’s extensive research as a biologist have convinced him cancer is not so much a genetic disease as a metabolic one; and the best way to treat it is through diet. His book, ‘Cancer as a Metabolic Disease’ reflects this.
Seyfried goes further. “The problem with the traditional treatment of cancer is that the cancer community has approached it as a genetic disease, so much of the research efforts have gone into gene-focused studies, and this does not address the root of the problem”.
“The standard of care has been an abysmal failure for cancer,” added Seyfried. “The ketogenic diet may one day replace the standard of care for most cancers. To those who doubt me, I say: ’Prove me wrong’.”