KETONIC DIET AND CANCER

 Carcinogenesis is a complex process involving multiple sequential mutations, which occur randomly in the DNA of normal cells over many years, even decades, until finally specific genes are mutated and cell growth becomes out of control resulting in the full neoplastic phenotype and often metastasis. 

There is evidence that hyperinsulinaemia, hyperglycaemia and chronic inflammation may affect the neoplastic process through various pathways, including the insulin/IGF-1 pathway, and most cancer cells express insulin and IGF-1 receptors. Insulin has been shown to stimulate mitogenesis and it may also contribute by stimulating multiple cancer mechanisms, including proliferation, protection from apoptotic stimuli, invasion and metastasis.  Considering the obvious relationship between carbohydrates and insulin (and IGF-1) a connection between carbohydrate and cancer is a possible consequence, and some links have been recognized since the 1920s when the RussoGerman physician Dr A Braunstein observed that glycosuria falls off notably in diabetic patients who developed cancer. Later Warburg et al. of the Kaiser Wilheim Institute fur biologie described what was later known as the Warburg effect—where energy is predominantly generated by a high rate of glycolysis followed by lactic acid fermentation in the cytosol, even in the presence of plentiful oxygen. The Warburg effect has been confirmed in many studies and today is a well-established hallmark of many types of cancers, and rapidly growing tumour cells typically have glycolytic rates up to 200 times higher than those of their normal tissues of origin. As stated above, the stimulus of the insulin/IGF-1 pathway is involved in cancer development, but also mitochondrial damage or dysfunction may have a role. 
 Hence, it seems a reasonable possibility that a very-lowcarbohydrate diet could help to reduce the progression of some types of cancer, although at present the evidence is preliminary.
. Therapeutic uses of ketogenic diets A Paoli et al  European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2013)  & 2013 Macmillan Publishers Limited In the 1980s, seminal animal studies by Tisdale and colleagues demonstrated that a ketogenic diet was capable to reduce tumour size in mice, whereas more recent research has provided evidence that ketogenic diets may reduce tumour progression in humans, at least as far as gastric and brain cancers are concerned. Although no randomized controlled trials with VLCKD have yet been conducted on patients and the bulk of evidence in relation to the influence of VLCKD on patient survival is still anecdotal, a very recent paper by Fine et al. suggests that the insulin inhibition caused by a ketogenic diet could be a feasible adjunctive treatment for patients with cancer. In summary, perhaps through glucose ‘starvation’ of tumour cells and by reducing the effect of direct insulin-related actions on cell growth, ketogenic diets show promise as an aid in at least some kind of cancer therapy and is deserving of further and deeper investigation—certainly the evidence justifies setting up clinical trials. 

SOURCE
A Rubini, JS Volek and KA Grimaldi, 2013 Beyond weight loss: a review of the therapeutic uses of very-low-carbohydrate (ketogenic) diets A Paoli1 , European Journal of Clinical Nutrition A Rubini, JS Volek and KA Grimaldi, 2013