From the first moment my wife discovered
she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even
ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have
received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than
mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started
this blog…
Every month, I’ll be highlighting breast
cancer research that is going on RIGHT NOW! Harvested from different websites,
journals and podcasts, I’ll translate them into understandable English and
share them with you. Today: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160711150926.htm
The idea that
chemotherapy and fasting together enhance the “power” of the chemo has been
around for some time:
“Gene expression
assays and molecular analyses suggested that, in cancer cells but not healthy
cells, fasting and chemo together induce a 20-fold increase in DNA damage, an
increase in oxidative stress, and higher incidence of cleaved caspase 3, a
protein that induces cell death.
“Longo
hypothesizes that, while normal cells are well-equipped to deal with starvation
by slowing their metabolism to just essential activities, cancer cells ‘became
better at growing and growing and worse at adapting to new conditions.’ When
cancerous cells are faced with a hostile environment, such as starvation, they
become weak and shut down. ‘And, when they become weak, chemotherapy has an
easier time,” he added. However, he emphasized, this is still a hypothesis.’”
(2012)
There has been
clear evidence of the positive effects of fasting during chemotherapy at least
since 2009 (see second link below). Though we never heard a peep about this when
my wife was undergoing chemo, it makes perfectly good sense.
In fact, fasting
for health and spiritual development has an extremely long and documented
history. In the Old Testament of the Bible, it appears as early as the book of
Exodus, and specific to an individual in Second Samuel. A commentary on fasting
notes, “…the OT uses fasting and abstinence from food to point to something
even more necessary for life—communion with and dependence on God.”
Outside of
religion: “Herbert Shelton…wrote ‘Fasting must be recognized as a fundamental
and radical process that is older than any other mode of caring for the sick
organism, for it is employed on the plane of instinct...’”
So, where was
fasting when my wife went through chemo? The same place as everything else: in
the literature but applied entirely according to the whims and knowledge of the
doctor.
So, where is
fasting today? It’s finally entered the realm of SPECIFICS: “Fasting is known
to increase positive outcomes during cancer treatment, and now two independent
studies in mice show that fasting, either through diet or drugs, during
chemotherapy helps increase the presence of cancer-killing T cells.”
While the study
doesn’t prove it, the lead doctor speculates: “…fasting, which would have been
very common for our ancestors, was a tool to reboot the immune system and
prevent the circulation of cancer cells. ‘This coordinated multifaceted effect
seems too good to be true," he says. "It may not be a coincidence,
but a very precisely evolved process that is meant to get rid of bad cells.’”
While I hesitate
to draw any conclusions this early in the appearance of the research, I might
also speculate that as Westerners, we have made an art of satisfying every whim
and fancy, from having a never-ending supply of food available to us either to
go get or, increasingly, to have delivered to us with no more effort on our
part than the exercise of our finger muscles to pretty much having anything
else we want. Obesity is now public enemy number one and it is obvious that one
of the causes is our constant eating. Whether we were created to fast or evolved
to fast, is it any surprise that cancers are eating us up? Denying ourselves
MAY just be a survival imperative, and if you link to and read this article,
you might also notice that doctors are QUICKLY finding ways around the actual “denial
of whims” by creating something they call, “caloric restriction mimetics--drugs
that selectively trigger some of the biochemical cascades that result from
starvation but without the weight loss--”. All of this so we can trick our
bodies into thinking they’re fasting while we continue to eat whatever and
whenever we want.
What if doctors
actually promoted, you know, fasting? I would add a snarky comment here, but I
won’t. You can imagine it yourselves.
Resources: http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/31708/title/Fasting-Heightens-Chemotherapy-Benefits/,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2815756/,
https://bible.org/seriespage/chapter-1-fasting-old-testament-and-ancient-judaism-mourning-repentance-and-prayer-hope-g,
http://www.allaboutfasting.com/history-of-fasting.html
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