Can a keto diet help your body to fight cancer?
The answer, as usual, is not black-and-white…
Our cancer expert and research scientist, Alex Rolland, made a video to help you understand:
First, let’s get on the same page…
What’s a keto diet anyway?
Basically, it’s when you greatly reduce your intake of carbs (both simple and complex) and increase your intake of high-fat foods.
What happens is that your body runs out of simple carbs to produce glucose…so instead, your body ends up using fats to produce glucose. In this process, the byproduct is a ketone. (Hence the nickname, ‘keto’.)
One of the main benefits of a keto diet is that it causes you to burn fat, so people often lose weight on it. Or, at least for a short period of time…
Important to note: because the keto diet is relatively extreme, it’s not good to do it on a long-term basis unless prescribed by your doctor for something specific. Plus, removing complex carbs from your diet isn’t great for your body either…
Okay, so now that you have the gist of what it is…
What does the keto diet have to do with cancer?
Well, it turns out that…
Pre-clinical data has shown that, in animal models, the keto diet can potentially be effective for cancer.
As in, data showed that certain cells living in certain types of cancers were inhibited by the ketogenic process.
However…
Depending on the specific type of genes driving the cancer, a keto diet can also potentially cause cancer to grow faster.
So it can go both ways.
It just depends on the specific genetics of your cancer. 🧬
That’s why Alex says it’s never a good idea to jump into a keto diet without knowing the genetics of your cancer first.
What’s the final takeaway of all this?
When it comes to diet and nutrition for cancer, if you really want to be doing the best thing possible to beat cancer…
Then you need to have your genetics tested and, based on your results, get a professional genomics expert (like CTOAM’s Alex Rolland) to recommend a specific science-based diet plan tailored to your exact genes and cancer.
This is what we call a nutraceutical diet – aka a list of foods and supplements that have been proven by medical science to assist your body in fighting your specific cancer.
Unique to YOU.
If you’d like to find out more about a nutraceutical diet, just contact me and my team and we’ll be happy to answer any of your questions.
Otherwise, the best rule of thumb for nutrition for cancer is:
Try to increase and vary your fruit and veggie intake as much as possible, and reduce the amount of meat, saturated fats, artificial sugars, and alcohol you consume. (You can also read more nutrition tips here.)
And don’t jump into a diet without getting the facts about your genetics first…or you don’t know how, exactly, it might affect your cancer…
Just do your best to feed your body mindfully – you deserve it.
on May 12, 2021